On January 1, Congress approves the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude.
On April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The Civil War ends a few months later. On April 14, John Wilkes Booth assassinates President Lincoln.
On December 6, the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified by the required number of states.
1866
On April 9, the U.S. Congress passes the Civil Rights Bill of 1866.
1867
On March 1, Nebraska is admitted as the thirty-seventh state.
On March 30, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward signs a treaty with Russia to purchase the land that forms the state of Alaska. It is called “Seward’s Folly.”
1868
On February 24, President Andrew Johnson is impeached.
On May 16, the Senate fails to have enough votes to convict President Johnson of impeachment charges.
On May 22, the Great Train Robbery takes place in Reno, Nevada. The perpetrators steal nearly $100,000.
1869
On May 15, the National Woman Suffrage Association is formed in New York City.
1875
On June 2, Alexander Graham Bell successfully makes the first electronic transmission of sound.
1876
On August 1, Colorado becomes the thirty-eighth state.
1881
On July 2, President James A. Garfield is assassinated by Charles Guiteau. Vice President Chester A. Arthur succeeds him.
1882
On April 3, notorious outlaw Jesse James is shot and killed by Robert Ford.
On May 6, Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, ending Chinese immigration.
1885
On February 28, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published by author Mark Twain.
1888
On May 7, inventor George Eastman patents his Kodak box camera.
1889
On May 31, the Johnstown Flood leads to death of more than 2,000 in Pennsylvania.
On November 2, North and South Dakota are admitted as the thirty-ninth and fortieth states.
On November 8, Montana is admitted as the forty-first state.
On November 11, Washington is admitted as the forty-second state.
1890
On May 12, Louisiana legalizes the sport of boxing, or prizefighting, as it was commonly called.
On July 3, Idaho becomes the forty-third state.
1893
The Panic of 1893 begins, highlighted by a severe drop in the New York Stock Exchange.
1894
On May 16, a devastating fire in Boston destroys nearly 200 buildings.
1896
On January 4, Utah is admitted as the forty-fifth state.
On May 18, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Louisiana law mandating racial segregation on railways. The Court justifies the law by the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine.
1899
On April 10, the U.S. and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish–American War. As a result of this treaty, Puerto Rico comes under U.S. control.
1900
On April 30, the United States annexes Hawaii.
1901
On September 6, President William McKinley is shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. President McKinley dies several days later.
1902
On May 20, the U.S. ends its military occupation in Cuba.
1903
On December 17, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright complete the first successful airplane flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1905
On May 15, the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded.
1906
A horrific earthquake in San Francisco kills more than 450 people.
1907
On November 16, Oklahoma is admitted as the forty-sixth state.
1909
On February 12, the National Association for the Advanced of Colored People (NAACP) forms.
On April 6, American explorers Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole.
1912
On January 6, New Mexico is admitted as the forty-seventh state.
On February 4, Arizona is admitted as the forty-eighth state.
1913
On May 31, the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for the direct election of U.S. Senators, is ratified.
1915
On June 9, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns his cabinet position.
1916
On June 15, the Boy Scouts of America is formed.
1917
The United States enters World War I.
On April 2, Jeannette Rankin (R, MT) serves her first day in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1918
President Woodrow Wilson outlines his “Fourteen Points” for peace.
1919
On June 4, the Senate passes a women’s suffrage measure.
1920
The Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition amendment) is ratified.
On August 18, the Nineteenth Amendment is ratified, giving women the right to vote.
1924
On May 10, J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1925
On May 5, teacher John Scopes is arrested in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching evolution.
1929
On February 14, the Valentine’s Day Massacre occurs as a result of a gangland war between gangsters Al Capone and Bugs Moran. Capone orders a hit on Moran’s headquarters.
On May 16, the first Academy Awards ceremony is held.
On October 24, the New York Stock exchange collapses in a day known as “Black Thursday.”
1931
On March 19, the Nevada legislature votes to legalize gambling as a way to combat the Great Depression.
1933
On March 12, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcasts his first fireside chat to the American public.
On May 18, President Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, authorizing the building of damns.
1934
On June 6, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is established.
1937
On May 3, Margaret Mitchell wins the Pulitzer Prize for her book Gone with the Wind.
On May 30, Chicago police fire on striking steel workers in what came to be known as the “Memorial Day Massacre.”
1939
On May 16, the U.S. government first issues food stamps.
1940
On May 15, the first McDonald’s restaurant is opened in San Bernardino, California.
1941
On June 18, heavyweight champion Joe Louis rallies and knocks out Billy Conn to retain his world heavyweight title.
On December 7, Japanese aircraft bomb U.S. ships docked in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This attack led the U.S. to enter into World War II.
1945
On February 23, 1945, U.S. troops display the American flag at Iwo Jima after a brutal battle with Japanese forces.
On August 6, the U.S. drops an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japanese. More than 140,000 people died from this attack.
On August 9, the U.S. drops an atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan.
1947
On March 12, President Harry Truman announces the so-called “Truman Doctrine” in a message before Congress.
On April 15, Los Angeles Dodger Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to break the color barrier in major league baseball.
On June 5, Secretary of State George Marshall introduces the so-called “Marshall Plan” to assist West Berlin, which had become surrounded by the USSR occupation of East Germany.
1950
On April 25, Chuck Cooper becomes the first African American to play in an NBA game.
1952
On April 8, President Truman seizes the nation’s steel mills to avoid a strike.
1954
On May 17, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in secondary public schools in unconstitutional and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On June 9, Joseph Welch, head counsel for the U.S. Army, famously asks U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy “Have you no decency, sir?” during Senate hearings.
1955
On April 10, Dr. Jonas Salk successfully tests a vaccine for the deadly disease polio.
1956
On April 27, Rocky Marciano retires from boxing. The heavyweight champion ended his career with an undefeated record of 49-0.
1959
On January 3, Alaska becomes the forty-ninth state admitted into the United States.
On May 4, the first Grammy Awards are held.
On Aug. 21, Hawaii becomes the fiftieth state.
1961
On March 1, President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
On May 1, Harper Lee wins the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her book To Kill a Mockingbird.
On May 14, a bus carrying the Freedom Riders is attacked and burned in Alabama.
1962
On March 2, Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a professional basketball game.
