Timeline of United States history (1860–1899)

1860s

Presidency of James Buchanan

• April 3, 1860 – Pony Express begins.
• November 6 – 1860 United States presidential election: Abraham Lincoln elected president and Hannibal Hamlin vice president with only 39% of the vote in a four man race.
• December 18 – Crittenden Compromise fails.
• December 20 – President Buchanan fires his cabinet.
• December 30 – South Carolina secedes from the Union
• January 9, 1861 – Secessionist forces in South Carolina fire at the USS Star of the West, forcing it to withdraw.
• January 9 – Mississippi secedes from the Union
• January 10 – Florida secedes from the Union
• January 11 – Alabama secedes from the Union
• January 19 – Georgia, secedes from the Union
• January 26 – Louisiana secedes from the Union
• February 1 – Texas secedes from the Union
• February 4 – Secessionist states establish the Confederate States of America
• February 18 – Jefferson Davis elected Provisional President of the Confederacy
• March 2 – The Corwin Amendment enshrining slavery forever, is passed by congress. It is not ratified.

  Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

• 1861 – Lincoln becomes the 16th President; and Hamlin, Vice President
• 1861 – American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter
• 1861 – First Battle of Bull Run
• 1861 – Davis unanimously elected to full term as Confederate president.
• 1862 – Battle of Hampton Roads
• 1862 – Homestead Act
• 1862 – Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
• 1862 – Gen. Robert E. Lee placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia
• 1862 – Second Battle of Bull Run
• 1862 – Battle of Antietam
• 1862 – Dakota War of 1862 begins
• 1862–1863 – Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
• 1863 – Battle of Gettysburg
• 1863 – The Siege of Vicksburg ends
• 1863 – New York City draft riots
• 1863 – Pro-Union Virginia counties become separate state of West Virginia
• 1864 – Gen. Ulysses S. Grant put in command of all Union forces
• 1864 – Wade–Davis Bill
• 1864 – Sand Creek massacre
• 1864 – Nevada becomes a state
• 1864 – U.S. presidential election, 1864; Lincoln is reelected president and Andrew Johnson elected vice president on the "fusion" Union Party ticket.
• 1864 – Sherman's March to the Sea
• 1865 – Robert E. Lee made commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces
• 1865 – President Lincoln begins second term; Andrew Johnson becomes Vice President
• 1865 – Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, captured by a corps of black Union troops
• 1865 – Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House
• 1865 – Freedmen's Bureau

  Presidency of Andrew Johnson

• January 1865 – 13th Amendment passes, permanently outlawing slavery
• April 15, 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln assassinated; Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President
• April–June 1865 – American Civil War ends as the last elements of the Confederacy surrender
• 1866 – Civil Rights Act of 1866
• 1866 – Ku Klux Klan founded
• 1867 – Tenure of Office Act enacted
• 1867 – Territory of Alaska purchased from the Russian Empire
• 1867 – Nebraska becomes a state
• 1868 – Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, acquitted by the Senate by one vote.
• 1868 – Fourteenth Amendment is ratified; second of Reconstruction Amendments
• 1868 – Ulysses S. Grant is elected president and Schuyler Colfax Vice President of USA

  Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant

• 1869 – Grant becomes the 18th President and Colfax Vice President
• 1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory

  1870s

• 1870 – 15th Amendment
• 1870 – First graduate programs
• 1870 – Enforcement Acts
• 1871 – Great Chicago Fire
• 1871 – Treaty of Washington with the British Empire regarding Canada
• 1872 – Yellowstone National Park created
• 1872 – Crédit Mobilier scandal
• 1872 – Amnesty Act
• 1872 – Alabama Claims
• 1872 – U.S. presidential election, 1872: Ulysses S. Grant reelected president; Henry Wilson elected vice president
• 1873 – Panic of 1873
• 1873 – President Grant begins second term; Henry Wilson becomes Vice President
• 1873 – Virginius Affair
• 1874 – Red River Indian War
• 1875 – Aristides wins first Kentucky Derby
• 1875 – Resumption Act
• 1875 – Civil Rights Act of 1875
• 1875 – The Art Students League of New York is founded
• 1875 – Vice President Wilson dies
• 1876 – National League of baseball founded
• 1876 – Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
• 1876 – Munn v. Illinois establishes public regulation of utilities
• 1876 – Colorado becomes a state
• 1876 – Battle of Little Bighorn
• 1876 – Wild Bill Hickok is killed by a shot to the back of his head by Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota. He held aces and eights, now known as the Dead man's hand.
• 1876 – U.S. presidential election, 1876 seemingly elects Samuel J. Tilden President and Thomas A. Hendricks vice president, but results are disputed with 20 Electoral College votes allegedly in doubt.
• 1877 – The Electoral Commission awards Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency and William A. Wheeler the vice presidency in return for ending the military occupation of the South.
• 1877 – Great Railroad Strike of 1877

  The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes

• 1877 – After only two days as president-elect, Hayes becomes the 19th President and Wheeler Vice President
• 1877 – Reconstruction ends
• 1877 – Nez Perce War
• 1878 – Bland–Allison Act
• 1878 – Morgan silver dollars first minted
• 1879 – Thomas Edison creates first commercially viable light bulb
• 1879 – Knights of Labor go public

  1880s

• 1880 – University of Southern California founded
• 1880 – U.S. population exceeds 50 million
• 1880 – U.S. presidential election, 1880: James A. Garfield elected president and Chester A. Arthur vice president. Their popular margin is less than 2,000 votes.

  Presidency of James A. Garfield

• 1881 – Garfield becomes the 20th President
• 1881 – President Garfield is shot by a deranged gunman.

  Presidency of Chester A. Arthur

• 1881 – President Garfield dies after 99 days, Vice President Arthur becomes the 21st President
• 1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory
• 1881 – Clara Barton creates the American Red Cross
• 1881 – Tuskegee Institute founded
• 1881 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett
• 1881 – A Century of Dishonor written by Helen Hunt Jackson
• 1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act
• 1882 – Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert and Charlie Ford
• 1883 - The Southern section of the second transcontinental railroad line is completed.
• 1883 – Buffalo Bill's Wild West show founded. participants include: Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley.
• 1883 – Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 1883 legalizes doctrine of segregation
• 1883 – Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
• 1883 – Brooklyn Bridge opens
• 1884 – U.S. presidential election, 1884: Grover Cleveland elected president and Thomas A. Hendricks elected vice president

  First presidency of S.Grover Cleveland

• 1885 – Grover Cleveland becomes the 22nd President; Thomas A. Hendricks Vice President
• 1885 – Washington Monument completed
• 1885 – Vice President Hendricks dies
• 1886 – Haymarket Riot
• 1886 – American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus, Ohio
• 1886 – Statue of Liberty dedicated
• 1887 – The United States Congress creates Interstate Commerce Commission
• 1887 – Dawes Act
• 1887 – Hatch Act
• 1888 – Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
• 1888 – National Geographic Society founded
• 1888 - Washington Monument completed
• 1888 – U.S. presidential election, 1888: Benjamin Harrison elected president and Levi P. Morton vice president despite coming in second in the popular vote.

  Presidency of Benjamin Harrison

• 1889 – Harrison becomes the 23rd President and Morton becomes Vice President
• 1889 – Oklahoma Land Rush
• 1889 – Centennial of the Constitution celebrated.
• 1889 – North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington become states
• 1889 – Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania
• 1889 – Jane Addams founds Hull House
• December 6, 1889 – Former confederate president Jefferson Davis dies.
• 1889 - During a speech given by Benjamin Harrison, he becomes the first U.S. president in history to have a voice recording.

  1890s

• 1890 – Sherman Antitrust Act
• 1890 – Jacob Riis published "How the Other Half Lives"
• 1890 – Sherman Silver Purchase Act
• 1890 – McKinley Tariff
• 1890 – Yosemite National Park created
• 1890 – Idaho and Wyoming become states
• 1890 – Wounded Knee Massacre
• 1890 – National American Woman Suffrage Association founded
• 1891 – Baltimore crisis
• 1891 – James Naismith invents basketball
• 1892 – Homestead Strike
• 1892 – General Electric Company founded
• 1892 – Sierra Club founded by John Muir
• 1892 – U.S. presidential election, 1892: Grover Cleveland elected president and Adlai E. Stevenson, vice president

  Second presidency of S. Grover Cleveland

• 1893 – Grover Cleveland becomes the 24th President; Adlai E. Stevenson becomes Vice President
• 1893 – Panic of 1893
• 1893 – Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed
• 1894 – Coxey's Army
• 1894 – Pullman Strike
• 1894 – Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act, including income tax
• 1894 – Sunset Limited service opened on the second transcontinental route by Southern Pacific Railroad
• 1895 – Lee Shelton shoots Billy Lyons, spawning countless ballads.
• 1895 – Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. strikes down part of Wilson-Gorman Tariff
• 1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 1896 affirms the idea of "separate but equal"
• 1896 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech
• 1896 – Gold discovered in the Yukon's Klondike
• 1896 – Utah becomes a state
• 1896 – U.S. presidential election, 1896: William McKinley elected president and Garret A. Hobart vice president

  Presidency of William McKinley

• 1897 – McKinley becomes the 25th President; and Hobart becomes Vice President
• 1897 – Boston subway completed
• 1897 – Dingley tariff
• 1898 – USS Maine explodes in Havana, Cuba harbor, precipitating the Spanish–American War
• 1898 – De Lôme Letter
• 1898 – Treaty of Paris ends Spanish–American War; Philippine–American War begins
• 1898 – Hawaii annexed
• 1898 – Newlands Resolution
• 1898 – American Anti-Imperialist League organized
• 1899 – Teller Amendment
• 1899 – Newsboys' strike of 1899
• 1899 – American Samoa occupied
• 1899 – Open Door Notes
• 1899 – Vice President Hobart dies