text:
This is a timeline of United States history, comprising important legal and territorial changes as well as political, social, and economic events in the United States and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of the United States.
Some dates before September 14, 1752, when the British government adopted the Gregorian calendar, may be given in the Old Style.
|Cahokia was settled.
|The Acoma Pueblo and Taos Pueblo in New Mexico are the oldest continuously occupied communities in the USA.
|The Oraibi village was founded in Arizona.
|November 19
|Christopher Columbus lands on Puerto Rico naming it San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist.
|Juan Ponce de León was involved in the Higuey massacre on Puerto Rico.
|Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was named commander-in-chief and corregidor of the city of Puerto Rico, now called "San Juan". However, he did not fulfill this commission.[1]
|Juan Ponce de León surveyed the island that today is named Puerto Rico.
|Juan Ponce de León surveyed the Puerto Rico a second time.[2]
|August 8
|Juan Ponce de León founded Caparra on Puerto Rico island.
|Miguel Diaz settles San Germán, Puerto Rico.
|Alonso Álvarez de Pineda sailed along the northern coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.[3]
|The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano landed in the neighborhood of Chesapeake Bay[4][5] and explored the Atlantic coast of North America from Florida to New Brunswick including New York Bay and Narrangansett Bay.
|Estêvão Gomes landed in the neighborhood of Chesapeake Bay and took formal possession on behalf of the King of Spain. The massacre was revenged by Mendez some time afterward.[4][5]
|September 29
|Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón landed in Winyah Bay.
|October 8
|Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established the short-lived San Miguel de Gualdape colony near present-day Sapelo Sound in Georgia.
|Pánfilo de Narváez landed with 300 men near Tampa Bay at what is currently known as the Jungle Prada Site among hostile natives in the context of what is known as the Narváez expedition.[6]
|Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca shipwrecked on Galveston Island where him and his last three men struggled to survive.[7]
|In the 1530s, Hernán Cortés quarreled with Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán and disputed the right to explore the territory that is today California with Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy.
|Hernando de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men[8] and 220 horses in the area identified as south Tampa Bay.
|Esteban entered Zuni territory and made contact with the Zuni people in the ancient village of Hawikku near nowaday's Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.[9]
|Hernando de Soto rested in Childersburg in the fall of 1540.[10] Childersburg calls itself the oldest continually inhabited city in the USA.[11]
|In the 1540s, André Thévet mentions a conversation during which Jean Alfonse allegedly looted Puerto Rico as a corsair.
|The Spanish explorer Melchor Díaz crossed the Colorado River.
|September 26
|Hernando de Alarcón entered the Colorado River which he named Buena Guia.
|May 8
|Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi river.[12]
|May 21
|Hernando de Soto dies and gives command of his expedition to Luis de Moscoso Alvarado.[13]
|September 28
|Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo landed in what is now San Diego Bay and named it "San Miguel".[14]
|Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led the Coronado expedition.
|Tristán de Luna y Arellano founded a short-lived settlement in what today is Pensacola Bay.[15]
|Gaspard II de Coligny establishes the short-lived Charlesfort-Santa Elena colony.
|June 22
|René Goulaine de Laudonnière built Fort Caroline as a safe haven for the Huguenots.
|September 8
|Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded San Agustín which is one of the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement within the borders of the continental United States.[16]
|The short-lived Santa Elena colony was established on top of the Charlesfort-Santa Elena one after the latter was abandoned.
|The short-lived Fort San Felipe was built on top of the Santa Elena colony.
|The Spanish Jesuit father Segura, along with seven other priests and a number of lay companions, established a mission, which, after a brief period of existence, was destroyed by the natives, the whole company being massacred excepting one Indian boy.[4][5]
|San Germán, Puerto Rico is mentioned in a letter sent to king Phillip II of Spain.
|The Spanish built the short-lived San Marcos fort.
|June 17
|Francis Drake landed on the coast of California in Drakes Bay.
|Sir Walter Raleigh unsuccessfully attempted to settle Roanoke Island.[4][5]
|John White arrived on Roanoke Island instead of Chesapeake Bay as governor.
|João da Gama arrives in Acapulco and claims to have explored North America as far as Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Francis Drake.
|Juan de Fuca claimed to have found what was later named the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
|Juan de Oñate acted as the first colonial governor of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México
|Juan de Oñate orders the Acoma Massacre.[17]
|Juan de Oñate undertook a large expedition east of the Great Plains region of central North America.[18]
|November 24
|Juan de Oñate returned to Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico.[19]
|Juan de Oñate sets out for his last major expedition went to the west, from New Mexico to the lower valley of the Colorado River.[20]
|Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons settles Saint Croix Island in Maine.
|May 14
|Captain John Smith founded the Jamestown settlement on behalf of England.[21]
|The short-lived Popham Colony was founded.
|Fort Algernon was established.
|At first, the natives were glad to trade provisions to the colonists for metal tools, but by 1609 John Smith began sending raiding parties to demand food. Native Americans were isolated, their houses burnt down, and their food supplies were stolen.[22] This earned the colonists a bad reputation among the natives and precipitated conflict.[23][24]
|English violence alienated natives and these laid siege to the Jamestown fort for several months. Unable to secure more food supplies, many colonists died during the "starving time" of 1609–10.[25]
|July 9
|Fort Charles was established.
|Santa Fe, New Mexico was founded by Spanish colonists.
|Hampton, Virginia was settled.
|July 9
|Kecoughtan, Virginia was settled by the English by luring them out of their village with a tambourine player, then attacking them.
|The London Company instructed Thomas Gates, the newly appointed colonial governor, to Christianize the natives and absorb them into the colony.[26]
|Lord de la Warre sent governor Thomas Gates against the Kecoughtan. "Gates lured the Indians into the open by means of a music-and-dance act by his drummer, and then slaughtered them".[27]
|The First Anglo–Powhatan War, between the Powhatan and the English colonists, lasted from 1610 to 1614.[28]
|Sir Thomas Dale founded Henricus.
|October 11
|The Dutch laid claim to the territories of New Netherland.
|Slavery was introduced to the Colony of Virginia.[29]
|November 11
|The Mayflower, bearing some one hundred Brownist religious refugees, the Pilgrim Fathers, dropped anchor at Provincetown Harbor, north of the territory around the mouth of the Hudson River for which they had been granted a land patent. Its male passengers drafted the Mayflower Compact, a contract establishing democratic government for the Plymouth Colony and appointing John Carver (Plymouth Colony governor) its first governor.[30]
|March 22
|The Indian massacre of 1622 happened.
|New Amsterdam was founded.[31]
|March 4
|The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded.[32]
|July 6
|The Winthrop Fleet arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[33]
|September 30
|Peace was agreed between the English and the Powhatans as a conclusion of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
|June 20
|The Province of Maryland was founded.[34]
|Theologian Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
|The Connecticut Colony was founded by Thomas Hooker.[35]
|Williams founded the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.[36]
|Harvard College was founded.[37]
|Pequot War: The war, in New England, ended.[38]
|The Delaware Colony was founded.
|The New Haven Colony was founded.[39]
|New Sweden was created.[40]
|January 14
|The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were adopted.[39][41]
|June 4
|The Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony was signed.[42]
|French and Iroquois Wars: The wars escalated to full warfare.[43]
|February 25
|Kieft's War: The war, in New Netherland, began.[44]
|The New England Confederation was created.[45]
|The Third Anglo–Powhatan War began.[46]
|14 May
|Thomas Dudley succeeded John Endecott as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
|June 4
|William Bradford (Plymouth Colony governor) succeeded Edward Winslow as governor of the Plymouth Colony.
|Third Anglo-Powhatan War: The war ended.[46]
|The Maryland Toleration Act was passed.[47]
|January 30
|The execution of the English King Charles I of England caused the establishment of the Commonwealth of England.[48]
|Nicholas Easton was elected president of Rhode Island.
|22 May
|Dudley was elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
|September 19
|The Treaty of Hartford, under which New Netherland ceded its claims in the valley of the Connecticut River and fixed its border with Connecticut on Long Island, was signed.
|Peach Tree War: The war took place.[49]
|Esopus Wars: The first war took place.[50]
|The Commonwealth of England came to an end with the restoration of King Charles II of England.[51]
|The Halfway Covenant was adopted.[52]
|March 24
|Charles granted a charter for a new colony, the Province of Carolina.[53]
|Esopus Wars: The second war took place.[54]
|Second Anglo-Dutch War: The war began with the English conquest of New Amsterdam.[51]
|July 31
|New Netherland was ceded to England under the Treaty of Breda.[55]
|John Lederer of Virginia began to explore the Appalachian Mountains.[56]
|12 May
|Simsbury, Connecticut was incorporated.
|The Batts-Fallam expedition sponsored by Abraham Wood reached the New River.[57]
|The Blue Laws were enacted in Connecticut.
|Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began to explore the Illinois Country.[58]
|Jolliet and Marquette's expedition ended.[58]
|New Netherland was permanently relinquished to England under the Treaty of Westminster.[59]
|January 29
|Massachusett John Sassamon, a Christian convert, was murdered and dumped in Assawompset Pond.
|June 8
|Three Wampanoag were executed by Plymouth Colony authorities for Sassamon's murder.
|June 20
|King Philip's War: A band of Pokanoket raided the outskirts of Swansea, Massachusetts.[38]
|August 2
|Wheeler's Surprise: An expedition of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mohegan and Massachusett forces was ambushed by Nipmuc in a swamp near Brookfield, Massachusetts.
|September 5
|Northeast Coast Campaign: Wabanaki Confederacy forces raided an English settlement in modern Topsham, Maine.
|September 18
|Battle of Bloody Brook: Nipmuc forces ambushed a wagon train of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing sixty people including twenty civilians.
|Attack on Springfield: Local Pocomtuc burned Springfield, Massachusetts to the ground at the urging of the Wampanoag sachem Metacomet.
|November 30
|Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, the proprietor and proprietary governor of Maryland, died. He was succeeded by his son Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore.
|December 19
|Great Swamp Fight: The combined forces of the New England Confederation, the Pequot and the Mohegan killed as many as one thousand Narragansett, including many civilians, in modern South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
|Bacon's Rebellion: The rebellion, in Virginia, took place.[60]
|King Philip's War: The war took place.[38]
|The Province of Maine was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
|War between Carolina and the Westo resulted in the destruction of the Westo.[61]
|Pueblo Revolt: A revolt took place in Spanish New Mexico.[62]
|The Province of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn.[63]
|April 7
|René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle travelled down the Mississippi River to its mouth.[64]
|February 6
|Charles died. He was succeeded as King of Kingdom of England by James II of England.[65]
|The Dominion of New England was established.[51]
|Yamasee Indians from Spanish Florida moved to Carolina.
|December 11
|Glorious Revolution: James was deposed in favor of William and Mary.[51]
|April 18
|The Governor of the Dominion of New England was deposed, ending the rule of the Dominion.[66]
|King William's War: The war began.[67]
|February 9
|Schenectady massacre: A massacre took place.[68]
|Salem witch trials: Witch trials took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.[69]
|March 1
|Greenwich Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey was formed.
|Caleb Carr (governor) was elected governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
|June 1
|Gloucester Township and Waterford Township, New Jersey and the town of Bethlehem, now Deptford Township, New Jersey, were formed.
|December 17
|Carr died.
|Walter Clarke (governor) was elected governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
|War of the Grand Alliance: The war was ended by the Treaty of Ryswick.[70]
|Pensacola, Florida was established by the Spanish.
|Biloxi was founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.[71]
|July 17
|Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont resigned his commission as governor of New York, leaving his lieutenant John Nanfan in office as acting governor.
|October 10
|Lebanon, Connecticut was incorporated.
|March 8
|William III died and was succeeded by Anne, Queen of Great Britain.
|Queen Anne's War: The war began.
|East Jersey and West Jersey became Crown colonies.
|August 1
|Anne, Queen of Great Britain died and was succeeded by George I of Great Britain.
|Yamasee War: The war, in Carolina, took place.
|December 7
|Hanover Township, New Jersey was formed.
|7 May
|Governor Francis Nicholson of South Carolina left for Great Britain to respond to false criminal accusations. Arthur Middleton (1681–1737) succeeded him as acting governor.
|9 May
|Battle of Pequawket: An ambush of British colonists by a numerically superior Abenaki force in modern Fryeburg, Maine was repelled. The Abenaki chief Chief Paugus was killed.
|December 15
|Dummer's War: A treaty was signed, ending the war between the New England Colonies and most of its Native American adversaries. The natives were allowed to retain Jesuit priests among them and did not accept British sovereignty.
|December 17
|Stoneham, Massachusetts was established.
|June 11
|George I of Great Britain died and was succeeded by George II of Great Britain.
|July 25
|The proprietors of the Province of Carolina sold out to the British crown.
|First Great Awakening: The First Great Awakening took place.
|February 12
|The English settlement of Savannah and the Province of Georgia were founded by James Oglethorpe.
|July 19
|Northeast Coast Campaign: Wabanaki Confederacy forces raided towns in northeastern New England, killing one and taking two hostages.
|September 5
|Northeast Coast Campaign (1745): Wabanaki Confederacy forces killed and scalped two people in what is now Thomaston, Maine in their last raid of the campaign.
|November 28
|Raid on Saratoga: French and indigenous forces burned Saratoga, New York, killing thirty and capturing as many as one hundred British colonists.
|The Province of Georgia overturned its ban on slavery
|January 22
|Hardwick Township, New Jersey was chartered.
|January 27
|Cumberland County, Pennsylvania was created from the partition of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
|March 3
|Stafford Township, New Jersey was chartered.
|June 11
|Kent County, Rhode Island was established from the partition of Providence County, Rhode Island.
|June 24
|The Iron Act, which eliminated tariffs on iron imported into Great Britain from America and limited American manufacturing capacity, came into force.
|November 6
|Governor Jonathan Law of Connecticut died. His deputy Roger Wolcott (Connecticut) succeeded him as acting governor.
|June 15
|Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment took place.
|After September 2 (O.S.), the British government adopted the Gregorian calendar. All dates hereafter are given in the New Style.
|May 28
|French and Indian War: The war began.
|June 19
|Albany Congress: A "Union of Colonies" was proposed.
|The Treaty of Easton was signed.
|September 8
|French and Indian War: Pierre de Rigaud, Governor of New France, signed the Articles of Capitulation of Montreal, ceding the Ohio Country and Illinois Country, and the territory of modern-day Canada, to British Field Marshal Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, ending major hostilities.
|October 25
|George II of Great Britain died and was succeeded by his grandson George III of the United Kingdom.
|Pontiac's Rebellion: The rebellion began.
|February 10
|French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris, under which France ceded much of its North American territory to Great Britain but surrendered Louisiana to Spain, formally ended the war.
|October 7
|George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, establishing royal administration over the British colonies won under the Treaty of Paris and demarcating their western boundary.
|April 5
|The Sugar Act, intended to raise revenues, was passed by the British Parliament.
|September 1
|The British Parliament passed the Currency Act, which prohibited the colonies from issuing paper money.
|March 22
|To help defray the cost of keeping troops in America, the British Parliament enacted the Stamp Act 1765, imposing a tax on many types of printed materials used in the colonies.
|March 24
|The British Parliament enacted the Quartering Act, requiring the Thirteen Colonies to provide housing, food, and other provisions to British troops.
|May 29
|Virginia's House of Burgesses adopted the Virginia Resolves, which claimed that under British law Virginians could be taxed only by an assembly to which they had elected representatives.
|October 19
|Stamp Act Congress: A congress of delegates from nine colonies adopted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, which petitioned Parliament and the King to repeal the Stamp Act.
|Pontiac's Rebellion: The rebellion ended.
|March 18
|The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and issued the Declaratory Act, which asserted its "full power and authority to make laws and statutes... to bind the colonies and people of America... in all cases whatsoever."
|May 21
|The Liberty Pole was erected in New York City in celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act.
|June 29
|The Townshend Acts, named for Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, were passed by the British Parliament, placing duties on many items imported into America.
|The British Parliament suspended the Governor and assembly of the Province of New York for failure to enforce the Quartering Act.
|The broadside To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York was published by the local Sons of Liberty.
|January 19
|Battle of Golden Hill: Several civilians were injured following a confrontation with British troops in New York City.
|March 5
|Boston massacre: British soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors in Boston, killing five and injuring six.
|March 16
|Gloucester County, New York was established by the partition of Albany County, New York.
|April 12
|George III granted the royal assent to an act repealing the Townshend Acts with the exception of the tax on tea.
|October 15
|Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt, the governor of Virginia, died.
|October 18
|Great Britain and the Cherokee signed the Treaty of Lochaber, under which the Cherokee ceded some land in modern West Virginia.
|May 16
|Battle of Alamance: A battle took place in North Carolina ending the Regulator Movement.
|The Watauga Association, in modern-day Tennessee, declared itself independent.
|June 9
|Gaspee Affair: The British schooner Gaspee was burned.
|November 2
|Samuel Adams organized the Committees of Correspondence.
|May 10
|The British Parliament passed the Tea Act.
|December 15
|The local Sons of Liberty published Association of the Sons of Liberty in New York.
|December 16
|Boston Tea Party: The Boston Tea Party took place.
|Franklin, then Massachusetts's agent in London, was questioned before the British Parliament.
|Dunmore's War: The war took place.
|Britain passed the Quebec Act, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
|March 31
|Great Britain enacted the Boston Port Act, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
|May 20
|Great Britain passed the Administration of Justice Act 1774, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
|Great Britain passed the Massachusetts Government Act, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
|June 2
|Great Britain passed a second Quartering Act, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
|July 18
|The Fairfax County Resolves - George Washington and George Mason plus others state position of Virginia Colony vis a Vis King George.www.constitution.org/bcp/fairfax_res.htm
|September 1
|Powder Alarm: British General Thomas Gage secretly raided a powder magazine in Cambridge.
|September 5
|First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia, PA. Twelve colonies attended.
|October 19
|The HMS Peggy Stewart was burned.
|December 22
|Greenwich Tea Party: The Greenwich Tea Party took place.
|January 20
|American Revolution: The government of Fincastle County, Virginia issued the Fincastle Resolutions, promising resistance to the Intolerable Acts.
|February 27
|Parliament passed the Conciliatory Resolution, addressed individually to each of Great Britain's colonies in North America, which promised that any colony which raised taxes for the common defense and for its own civil government would be relieved of additional taxation.
|March 13
|Westminster massacre: One person was shot and killed by British colonial officials during a riot in Westminster, Vermont.
|March 21
|Thomas Penn, the chief proprietor of Pennsylvania, died. His son John Penn inherited his stake in the colony.
|March 22
|American Revolution: The government of Harford County, Maryland adopted the Bush Declaration, calling for armed revolt against Great Britain.
|March 23
|Second Virginia Convention: In Richmond, Patriot Patrick Henry urged the provisional legislature of Virginia to begin arming militias in the speech Give me liberty, or give me death!
|April 18
|American Revolution: Paul Revere of the Sons of Liberty rode from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn the local Patriot militia of the approach of British forces. See §"Midnight Ride"
|April 19
|Battles of Lexington and Concord: After attacking militias loyal to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, British forces were made to withdraw to Boston.
|Siege of Boston: Patriot militia of Massachusetts established a siege line around Boston from Chelsea, Massachusetts to Roxbury, Boston.
|April 20
|Gunpowder Incident: Royal Navy sailors removed gunpowder from the Williamsburg, Virginia magazine.
|Woodbridge's Regiment of Militia was established.
|April 23
|The 7th, 12th, 13th, 21st and 25th Continental Regiments and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 12th Massachusetts Regiments were raised by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
|April 27
|The 1st, 4th and 5th Connecticut Regiments were raised.
|May 1
|The 6th Connecticut Regiment was raised at New Haven, Connecticut.
|May 6
|The revolutionary government of Rhode Island authorized the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.
|May 9
|Patriot forces captured Skenesboro in modern Whitehall, New York.
|Thompson's War: Patriot militia captured Royal Navy lieutenant Henry Mowat in Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, while his ship the HMS Canceaux sat at anchor in Casco Bay.
|May 10
|Capture of Fort Ticonderoga: The Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga in modern Ticonderoga, New York from a British garrison.
|Second Continental Congress: A convention of delegates from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island convened in Philadelphia to coordinate American resistance to the Intolerable Acts. The convention elected Peyton Randolph president.
|The Continental Artillery Regiment was authorized.
|May 14
|Battle off Fairhaven: Patriot militia retrieved two captured vessels along with thirteen Royal Navy sailors off modern Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
|Second Continental Congress: Randolph left Philadelphia due to poor health.
|May 16
|American Revolution: The residents of Hanna's Town, now Hannastown, Pennsylvania, signed the Hanna's town resolves, pledging to resist what they considered illegal acts of Parliament.
|May 22
|American Revolution: The New York Provincial Congress declared itself the government of New York.
|The 1st and 3rd New Hampshire Regiments were authorized..
|May 23
|American Revolution: The Provincial Congress of New Jersey, composed of delegates of the thirteen counties, met at Trenton.
|May 24
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress elected John Hancock president.
|May 27
|Battle of Chelsea Creek: British forces came into conflict with colonial militia attempting to remove livestock from Noddle's Island.
|May 28
|Battle of Chelsea Creek: The British schooner HMS Diana was stripped of its cannon and burned by colonial forces off Chelsea, Massachusetts.
|31 May
|The committee of safety of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina adopted the Mecklenburg Resolves, annulling all laws established under the authority of the monarch or parliament of Great Britain and investing the Second Continental Congress with all legislative and executive power.
|June 12
|Battle of Machias: Patriot militia captured a British schooner in the port of Machias, Maine.
|June 14
|Second Continental Congress: A resolution of the Congress established the Continental Army, which assumed control of the provincial troops of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut and established .
|June 15
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress unanimously chose to appoint George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.
|June 16
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress established the offices of the Paymaster-General and Quartermaster General of the United States Army.
|June 17
|Battle of Bunker Hill: The British army captured the hills surrounding Boston from colonial forces at a disproportionate cost in casualties.
|June 20
|American Revolution: Residents of Cumberland County, North Carolina drafted the Liberty Point Resolves, pledging to join one another in resistance against British force.
|June 27
|Harrington Township, New Jersey was established out of the northern portions of New Barbadoes Township and Hackensack Township.
|July 5
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress drafted the Olive Branch Petition, expressing the desire of the Thirteen Colonies to remain British subjects and calling on George III to grant the colonies trade rights equal to those of Britain proper, or relieve them of taxation.
|July 6
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, rejecting the authority of the Parliament over the Thirteen Colonies.
|July 17
|Third Virginia Convention: A meeting of the Patriot legislature of Virginia opened in Richmond which would appoint a committee of safety to govern the colony between sessions. The Culpeper Minutemen and the 1st and 2nd Virginia Regiments were organized.
|July 20
|Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina fled Fort Johnston in the face of a Patriot advance.
|July 27
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress established the Army Hospital, now the Army Medical Department.
|August 8
|Battle of Gloucester (1775): Colonial militia captured some twenty British sailors sent to seize a schooner run aground in the harbor at Gloucester, Massachusetts.
|August 14
|American Revolution: The citizens of Tryon County, North Carolina signed the Tryon Resolves promising armed resistance to Parliamentary authority.
|August 23
|George III issued the Proclamation of Rebellion, declaring that the Thirteen Colonies were in open rebellion against Great Britain and would be subdued by force.
|Governor Sir John Wentworth, 1st Baronet of New Hampshire fled the colony.
|August 29
|1775 Newfoundland hurricane: A hurricane made landfall in North Carolina which would kill some two hundred people in North Carolina and Virginia.
|September 1
|The 1st and 2nd North Carolina Regiments were authorized.
|September 11
|Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec: Continental Army colonel Benedict Arnold departed Cambridge, Massachusetts for Quebec City.
|September 15
|American Revolutionary War: Patriot forces captured the fort overlooking the South Carolinian capital Charleston. Governor Lord William Campbell dissolved the provincial assembly and fled.
|September 18
|Siege of Fort St. Jean: Continental Army forces began setting up entrenched positions around Fort Saint-Jean in modern Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
|September 25
|Battle of Longue-Pointe: A Patriot expedition sent to capture Montreal was intercepted. Its leader, Ethan Allen, was taken prisoner.
|October 11
|Gage departed Massachusetts for Great Britain.
|October 12
|The 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment was raised.
|October 13
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress authorized the establishment of a Continental Navy.
|October 18
|Burning of Falmouth: A Royal Navy fleet bombarded the city of Falmouth in modern Portland, Maine with incendiaries.
|November 3
|Siege of Fort St. Jean: The defenders of Fort Saint-Jean surrendered to the Continental Army.
|November 7
|The British governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore of Virginia issued Dunmore's Proclamation, declaring martial law in Virginia and promising freedom to any slave of a colonial revolutionary to join the British Armed Forces.
|November 10
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress established the Continental Marines.
|November 14
|Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec: Arnold's Continental Army forces reached the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City.
|November 15
|Battle of Kemp's Landing: A Continental Army force suffered casualties in a failed ambush of British forces in modern Virginia Beach, Virginia.
|November 17
|Noble train of artillery: Colonel Henry Knox of the Continental Army led an expedition out of Fort Ticonderoga to transport the artillery captured there to Boston.
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress established the Field Artillery Branch of the Continental Army effective 1 January 1776.
|November 19
|Siege of Savage's Old Fields: Patriot major Andrew Williamson set up camp on a plantation in Ninety Six, South Carolina.
|November 20
|Siege of Savage's Old Fields: Williamson's militia was surrounded by a larger loyalist force.
|November 22
|Siege of Savage's Old Fields: The Patriot and loyalist militia exchanged prisoners and abandoned their positions.
|December 9
|Battle of Great Bridge: An attempt by the Dunmore to cross the Elizabeth River and destroy the Patriot encampment at modern Great Bridge, Virginia was decisively repelled.
|The 1st Delaware Regiment, now the 198th Signal Battalion, was raised.
|The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Pennsylvania Regiments were raised.
|December 13
|The 5th Connecticut Regiment was disbanded.
|December 20
|The 4th Connecticut Regiment was disbanded.
|December 22
|Battle of Great Cane Brake: A Patriot expedition captured over a hundred loyalists in modern Greenville County, South Carolina.
|December 28
|The 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th and 15th Virginia Regiments were raised.
|December 31
|Battle of Quebec (1775): A Continental Army force suffered high casualties in a failed attack on Quebec City. Brigadier general Richard Montgomery was killed and Arnold was wounded.
|New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution.
|Prisoners began to be taken in Wallabout Bay. see Prisoners in the American Revolutionary War.
|January 10
|Thomas Paine published Common Sense.
|January 24
|Knox reached Boston.
|March 3
|Battle of Nassau: The battle began.
|March 4
|Battle of Nassau: The battle ended.
|July 2
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress enacted the Lee Resolution declaring independence from the British Empire.
|July 4
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress approved the written United States Declaration of Independence.
|August 27
|Battle of Long Island: The battle took place.
|September 11
|Staten Island Peace Conference: The peace conference took place.
|September 15
|Landing at Kip's Bay: The landing took place.
|September 16
|Battle of Harlem Heights: The battle took place.
|September 21
|Great Fire of New York: The fire began.
|September 22
|Nathan Hale was captured and executed for espionage.
|Great Fire of New York (1776): The fire ended.
|October 11
|Battle of Valcour Island: The battle took place.
|October 29
|Battle of White Plains: The battle took place.
|November 16
|Battle of Fort Washington: The battle took place.
|November 20
|Battle of Fort Lee: The battle took place.
|December 23
|Battle of Iron Works Hill: The battle began.
|December 26
|Battle of Trenton: The battle took place.
|Battle of Iron Works Hill: The battle ended.
|Forage War: The war took place.
|January 2
|Second Battle of Trenton: The battle took place.
|January 3
|Battle of Princeton: The battle took place.
|April 13
|Battle of Bound Brook: The battle took place.
|May 28
|The Continental Army made camp at the Middlebrook encampment.
|June 26
|Battle of Short Hills: The battle took place.
|July 2
|The Continental Army left the Middlebrook encampment.
|July 5
|Fort Ticonderoga was abandoned by the Continental Army due to advancing British troops placing cannon on Mount Defiance.
|July 6
|The British retook Fort Ticonderoga.
|July 7
|Battle of Hubbardton: The battle took place.
|July 8
|Delegates in Vermont established the Vermont Republic and adopted the Constitution of Vermont, which abolished slavery.
|August 6
|Battle of Oriskany: The battle took place.
|August 16
|Battle of Bennington: The battle took place.
|September 11
|Battle of Brandywine: The battle took place.
|September 19
|Battles of Saratoga: The first Battle of Saratoga took place.
|September 20
|Battle of Paoli: The battle took place.
|September 26
|The British occupied Philadelphia.
|October 4
|Battle of Germantown: The battle took place.
|October 7
|Battles of Saratoga: The second battle concluded with the surrender of the British army under General John Burgoyne.
|October 22
|Battle of Red Bank: The battle took place.
|November 15
|Second Continental Congress: The Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
|December 5
|Battle of White Marsh: The battle began.
|December 8
|Battle of White Marsh: The battle ended.
|December 11
|Battle of Matson's Ford: The battle took place.
|December 19
|The Continental Army entered its winter quarters at Valley Forge
|February 6
|The Treaty of Alliance was signed with France.
|May 20
|Battle of Barren Hill: The battle took place.
|British occupation of Philadelphia ended.
|June 19
|The Continental Army left its winter quarters at Valley Forge.
|June 28
|Battle of Monmouth: The battle took place.
|November 30
|The Continental Army entered winter quarters at the Middlebrook encampment.
|June 3
|The Continental Army left the Middlebrook encampment.
|July 16
|Battle of Stony Point: The battle took place.
|August 19
|Battle of Paulus Hook: The battle took place.
|The Continental Army entered winter quarters at Morristown.
|January 28
|A stockade known as Fort Nashborough was founded on the banks of the Cumberland River.
|February 1
|Some eight thousand British forces under General Henry Clinton arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, from New York.
|Second Continental Congress: New York ceded its western claims, including territory west of Lake Ontario, to the Congress.
|March 14
|Bombardment of Fort Charlotte: After a two-week siege, Spanish General Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez captured Fort Charlotte, in Mobile, from the British.
|April 8
|Siege of Charleston: British troops under General Clinton and naval forces under Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot besiege Charleston, South Carolina.
|The Continental Army left Morristown.
|May 6
|Siege of Charleston: Fort Moultrie fell to the British.
|May 12
|Siege of Charleston: American General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston to the British. The British lost two hundred and fifty-five men while capturing a large American garrison.
|May 29
|Battle of Waxhaws: A clash between Continental Army forces under Abraham Buford and a mainly Loyalist force led by Banastre Tarleton near Lancaster, South Carolina resulted in the destruction of the American forces.
|June 6
|Battle of Connecticut Farms: The battle took place.
|June 23
|Battle of Springfield: An attempted British invasion of New Jersey was stopped at Connecticut Farms and Springfield, ending major fighting in the North.
|September 23
|John André was captured, exposing the treason of Arnold.
|October 7
|Battle of Kings Mountain: The battle took place.
|January 17
|Battle of Cowpens: The battle took place.
|March 1
|The Articles of Confederation were ratified.
|March 15
|Battle of Guilford Court House: The battle took place.
|October 19
|Siege of Yorktown: The British surrendered at Yorktown.
|December 31
|The Bank of North America was chartered.
|The British government officially, yet informally, recognized American independence.
|September 3
|American Revolutionary War: The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the war.
|November 25
|The British withdraw from ports in New York and the Carolinas.
|The State of Frankland, later Franklin, seceded from North Carolina.
|Congress refused Franklin admission to the Union.
|November 28
|The Treaty of Hopewell was signed.
|August 29
|Shays' Rebellion: The rebellion took place.
|September 11–14
|Annapolis Convention: The convention failed.
|July 13
|The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was passed.
|May 25 – September 17
|Philadelphia Convention: A Constitutional convention took place in Philadelphia.
|December 7–18
|Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratified the Constitution.
|North Carolina reconquered and dissolved the State of Franklin.
|United States presidential election, 1789: The election took place.
|March 4
|The United States Constitution came into effect.
|April 30
|First inauguration of George Washington: George Washington was inaugurated as President in New York City.
|1st United States Congress: The Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the Hamilton tariff.
|The Jay-Gardoqui Treaty was signed.
|November 21
|North Carolina, by a margin of 43%, became the twelfth state to ratify the Constitution.
|May 26
|The Southwest Territory (a/k/a Territory South of the River Ohio) is created from North Carolina's Western frontier lands.
|May 29
|Rhode Island, by a margin of 3%, became the thirteenth state to ratify the Constitution.
|The United States Bill of Rights was ratified.
|The First Bank of the United States was chartered.
|The independent Vermont Republic was admitted to the Union as Vermont, becoming the fourteenth state.
|Kentucky County, Virginia became the fifteenth state of Kentucky.
|November 2 – December 5
|U.S. presidential election, 1792: Washington was reelected President. John Adams was chosen as Vice President.
|Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.
|A yellow fever outbreak occurred in Philadelphia.
|The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 was passed.
|February 18
|Chisholm v. Georgia was decided.
|Whiskey Rebellion: The rebellion took place.
|The Nickajack Expedition brings a close to the Cherokee–American wars.
|August 20
|Battle of Fallen Timbers: The battle took place ending the Northwest Indian War with the Western Confederacy.
|The first of the "Civilized" Indian Nations, the Cherokee Nation, is founded.
|January 11
|New Jersey's at-large congressional district special election, 1795: An election was held to New Jersey's at-large congressional district to fill the vacancy left by the death of Abraham Clark. Aaron Kitchell won with ninety-seven percent of the vote.
|January 19
|South Carolina's 2nd congressional district special election, 1795: A special election began to South Carolina's 2nd congressional district to fill the vacancy left by John Barnwell's refusal to serve.
|January 20
|South Carolina's 2nd congressional district special election, 1795: The election ended. Democratic-Republican Wade Hampton I was elected with twenty-nine percent of the vote.
|January 27
|United States Senate election in New York, 1795: Federalist Rufus King was reelected to the Senate from New York.
|January 29
|The Naturalization Act of 1795 was signed into law, extending the residence requirement for persons seeking naturalization and reserving the right of naturalization to white people.
|February 7
|The Eleventh Amendment, which bars the federal government from hearing suits brought against a state by a citizen of another state or of a foreign country, was ratified.
|Federalist Henry Latimer (senator) of Delaware was elected to the Senate to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of fellow Federalist George Read. He resigned his seat representing Delaware's at-large congressional district.
|February 20
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in United States v. Hamilton that a defendant jailed for a capital offense can be released on bail.
|February 24
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Penhallow v. Doane's Administrators that the district courts have the same authority in prize cases that the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture held under the Articles of Confederation.
|February 26
|United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, 1795: William Bingham was elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania.
|March 3
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in United States v. Lawrence that it cannot issue a writ of mandamus compelling a district court judge to proceed in a case when that judge feels he has insufficient evidence to do so.
|April 13
|Connecticut's at-large congressional district special election, 1795: A special election was held to Connecticut's at-large congressional district to fill the vacancy left following Federalist Jonathan Trumbull Jr.'s election to the Senate. Federalist Nathaniel Smith won with forty percent of the vote.
|August 3
|Northwest Indian War: The Western Confederacy signed the Treaty of Greenville, ceding much territory in modern Ohio to the United States in exchange for an annual subsidy and ending the war.
|August 4
|North Carolina's 4th congressional district special election, 1795: A special election was held to North Carolina's 4th congressional district to fill the vacancy left following the death of Alexander Mebane. Democratic-Republican Absalom Tatom won with twenty-eight percent of the vote.
|August 24
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in United States v. Peters that it can compel a district court to cease proceedings in a case where it has no jurisdiction .
|October 27
|Spain and the United States signed Pinckney's Treaty, fixing the boundary between the United States and the Spanish colonies and guaranteeing freedom of navigation on the Mississippi River.
|November 16
|Federalist George Walton was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the resignation of Democratic-Republican James Jackson.
|December 14
|The Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, now the Committee on Energy and Commerce, a standing committee of the House, was established.
|June 1
|Tennessee, formerly Southwest Territory, was admitted as the sixteenth state.
|Pinckney's Treaty was signed.
|The Treaty of Tripoli was signed.
|November 4 – December 7
|U.S. presidential election, 1796: Adams was elected President. Thomas Jefferson was elected Vice President.
|Adams was inaugurated.
|XYZ Affair: The affair took place.
|The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed.
|The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were issued.
|The Charles Brockden Brown novel Edgar Huntly was published.
|Fries's Rebellion: The rebellion took place.
|The Logan Act was passed.
|December 14
|Washington died.
|1 January
|Action of 1 January 1800: A pirate squadron loyal to the pro-French Haitian general André Rigaud attacked a convoy of American merchant ships in the Gulf of Gonâve. The Haitian squadron captured two American ships at great cost in casualties.
|7 January
|The Virginia General Assembly adopted the Report of 1800, arguing that the Alien and Sedition Acts violated the Constitution and for the compact theory that the United States is a free association of states.
|10 January
|Federalist congressman Samuel Sewall resigned his seat representing Massachusetts's 10th congressional district following his appointment to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
|19 March
|Federalist senator James Watson of New York resigned following his appointment as Naval Officer of the Port of New York.
|3 April
|United States Senate special election in New York, April 1800: Federalist Gouverneur Morris was elected to fill the Senate seat representing New York, vacant after Watson's resignation.
|24 April
|Adams signed into law an act establishing the Library of Congress and moving the national capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
|29 April
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1800: The first regular elections to the House of Representatives for the 7th Congress began, in New York.
|10 May
|The Slave Trade Act of 1800, which forbade residents and citizens of the United States from investing in or serving aboard a ship engaged in the business of transporting slaves into the United States, was signed into law.
|11 May
|Battle of Puerto Plata Harbor: American forces captured a French ship and Spanish fort in the harbor of what is now Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
|21 May
|Fries's Rebellion: Adams issued a general amnesty to all participants in the rebellion.
|30 May
|Federalist senator Samuel Dexter of Massachusetts resigned his seat.
|6 June
|Federalist congressman Dwight Foster of Massachusetts's 4th congressional district was selected to fill Dexter's vacancy in the Senate, representing Massachusetts.
|7 June
|Federalist congressman John Marshall of Virginia's 13th congressional district resigned following his appointment as Secretary of State.
|12 June
|Federalist representative William Gordon of New Hampshire resigned following his appointment as New Hampshire Attorney General.
|17 June
|Revival of 1800: Several congregants of the Red River Meeting House in Logan County, Kentucky fell into ecstasy during a sermon.
|4 July
|The Indiana Territory was partitioned from the Northwest Territory.
|10 July
|Connecticut ceded the Connecticut Western Reserve to the federal government, which in turn annexed it to the Northwest Territory.
|31 July
|Virginia's 13th congressional district special election, 1800: Democratic-Republican Littleton Waller Tazewell was elected to the House seat representing Virginia's 13th congressional district left vacant by Marshall's resignation with sixty-five percent of the vote.
|11 August
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Mossman v. Higginson that the parties to a suit must be so described as to show on the record that the court has jurisdiction.
|15 August
|In a decision in Bas v. Tingy, the Supreme Court held that France was an enemy of the United States under a 1799 salvage law because, although Congress had not declared war, it had taken actions concomitant with a state of war.
|25 August
|Massachusetts's 4th congressional district special election, 1800: Democratic-Republican Levi Lincoln Sr. and Federalist Jabez Upham were sent to a runoff in a special election to fill the House seat representing Massachusetts's 4th congressional district, vacant since Foster resigned to serve in the Senate.
|Massachusetts's 10th congressional district special election, 1800: Federalist Nathan Read and Democratic-Republican Jacob Crowninshield were sent to a runoff in a special election to fill Sewall's vacant House seat representing Massachusetts's 10th congressional district.
|New Hampshire's at-large congressional district special election, 1800: Federalists Samuel Tenney and George B. Upham were sent to a runoff in a special election to fill the House seat representing New Hampshire left vacant by Gordon's resignation.
|15 September
|Connecticut's at-large congressional district special election, 1800: John Cotton Smith was elected to fill the House seat representing Connecticut left vacant by the resignation of fellow Federalist Jonathan Brace with forty-five percent of the vote.
|22 September
|Invasion of Curaçao (1800): American forces arrived to expel French forces from Curaçao.
|25 September
|Invasion of Curaçao (1800): The French occupiers fled Curaçao. British forces took possession of the island and seized local merchant ships, including American ships.
|30 September
|Quasi-War: France and the United States signed the Convention of 1800, ending the war. The Convention terminated the Treaty of Alliance and guaranteed that each nation would grant the other most favoured nation status.
|20 October
|Massachusetts's 4th congressional district special election, 1800: Lincoln won the runoff election with fifty percent of the vote.
|Massachusetts's 10th congressional district special election, 1800: Read won the runoff with fifty-three percent of the vote.
|27 October
|New Hampshire's at-large congressional district special election, 1800: Tenney won the runoff election with seventy-one percent of the vote.
|31 October
|United States presidential election, 1800: The last delegates to the Electoral College were selected, by the General Assembly of South Carolina, giving the Democratic-Republican Party a majority.
|6 November
|Federalist congressman Samuel Lyman of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district resigned.
|United States Senate special election in New York, November 1800: Democratic-Republican John Armstrong Jr. was elected nearly unanimously to fill the Senate seat representing New York left vacant by the resignation of Federalist John Laurance.
|8 November
|Federalist senator Benjamin Goodhue of Massachusetts resigned his seat and retired from politics.
|11 November
|1800 State of the Union Address: Adams delivered a speech to a joint session of the Congress in which he celebrated the capital's move to its permanent home in Washington, D.C.
|14 November
|Federalist Jonathan Mason was elected to the Senate seat representing Massachusetts left vacant by Goodhue's resignation.
|20 November
|United States Senate elections, 1800 and 1801: The first regular election to the Senate for the 7th Congress began, in Kentucky.
|1 December
|Federalist senator James Lloyd of Maryland resigned his seat.
|3 December
|United States presidential election, 1800: The Electoral College cast an equal number of votes for Democratic-Republicans Jefferson and Aaron Burr, sending them to a runoff election in the House.
|12 December
|Federalist William Hindman was elected to the Senate seat representing Maryland left vacant by Lloyd's resignation.
|15 December
|Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district special election, 1800: Federalist Ebenezer Mattoon was unanimously elected in a special election to fill Lyman's seat representing Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district.
|21 December
|Federalist congressman Thomas Hartley of Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district died.
|Thomas Jefferson was elected President by the House of Representatives. Aaron Burr became Vice President.
|Adams appointed John Marshall Chief Justice.
|The Supreme Court issued a decision in Marbury v. Madison which overturned a portion of Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789.
|Louisiana Purchase: The purchase was made.
|March 1
|Ohio, formerly the Northwest Territory, became the 17th state.
|The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.
|New Jersey abolished slavery.
|July 11
|Burr–Hamilton duel: Alexander Hamilton was fatally wounded.
|Lewis and Clark began their journey west.
|November 2 – December 5
|U.S. presidential election: Jefferson was reelected President; George Clinton was elected Vice President.
|The Embargo Act of 1807 was passed.
|Robert Fulton invented the steamboat.
|The international slave trade was outlawed.
|November 4 – December 7
|U.S. presidential election: James Madison was elected president; Clinton was reelected as Vice President.
|Madison was inaugurated.
|March 1
|The Non-Intercourse Act was passed.
|The Supreme Court issues a decision in Fletcher v. Peck which overturns a state law.
|The charter of the First Bank of the United States expires.
|War of 1812: The war begins.
|Daniel Webster was elected to the United States Congress.
|April 30
|Louisiana became the 18th state.
|December 2
|U.S. presidential election, 1812: Madison was reelected President; Elbridge Gerry was elected Vice President.
|August 24
|Burning of Washington: British troops burned Washington, D.C. but were forced back at Baltimore.
|December 14
|War of 1812: The Treaty of Ghent ended the war.
|January 8
|War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans: The battle took place before notification of the Treaty of Ghent made it to the frontier.
|December 4
|U.S. presidential election, 1816: James Monroe was elected President; Daniel D. Tompkins was elected Vice President.
|The Second Bank of the United States was chartered.
|December 11
|Indiana became the 19th state.
|March 4
|Monroe was inaugurated.
|The Rush–Bagot Treaty was signed.
|Harvard Law School was founded.
|December 10
|Mississippi became the 20th state.
|The Cumberland Road opened.
|December 3
|Illinois became the 21st state.
|The Jackson Purchase in Kentucky was obtained.
|Panic of 1819: The panic took place.
|The Adams–Onís Treaty, which provided for the acquisition of Florida, was signed.
|The decision in McCulloch v. Maryland prohibited state laws from infringing upon federal Constitutional authority.
|The decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward protected the principle of honoring contracts and charters.
|December 14
|Alabama became the 22nd state.
|January 18
|Federalist William S. Archer was seated in the House representing Virginia's 17th congressional district following a special election the fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Democratic-Republican James Pleasants.
|February 1
|Democratic-Republican congressman James Johnson (Virginia congressman) of Virginia's 20th congressional district resigned following his appointment to become collector of customs at Norfolk, Virginia.
|February 10
|Democratic-Republican representative George Strother of Virginia's 10th congressional district resigned.
|February 16
|Charles Kinsey was seated in the House representing New Jersey's at-large congressional district following a special election to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of fellow Democratic-Republican John Condit.
|March 1
|Democratic-Republican congressman David Walker (Kentucky politician) of Kentucky's 6th congressional district died.
|March 6
|The Missouri Compromise was signed into law, providing for the admission of the District of Maine into the Union as a free state and of the southeastern portion of the Missouri Territory into the Union as the slave state of Missouri. It further provided that any additional states admitted from part of the Missouri Territory would be slave or free depending on whether they fell south or north, respectively, of the parallel 36°30′ north.
|March 14
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Handly's Lessee v. Anthony that where a river is said to be the boundary between two states, the boundary is determined by the course of the river at its lowest point.
|March 15
|The state of Maine was admitted to the Union. Massachusetts's 14th congressional district was abolished.
|Joseph Smith claimed to have had his first vision of God in Manchester, New York. See First Vision.
|New York gubernatorial election, 1820: Incumbent Democratic-Republican governor DeWitt Clinton of New York was reelected with fifty-one percent of the vote.
|April 24
|The Land Act of 1820 was signed into law, ending the provision of credit to individual buyers of federal land and simultaneously reducing the minimum price and size of tracts that could be sold.
|3 May
|The seven-member United States House Committee on Agriculture, a standing committee of the House, was established.
|12 May
|The border between Kentucky and Tennessee was extended south between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers to the parallel 36°30′ north.
|15 May
|The Tenure of Office Act (1820) was passed by the Congress, limiting the term in office of civil servants to four years.
|Federalist senator Prentiss Mellen of Massachusetts resigned to become Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
|Democratic-Republican senator Walter Leake of Mississippi resigned following his appointment to the Marshals Service.
|Federalist congressman Jonathan Mason (Massachusetts politician) of Massachusetts's 1st congressional district resigned to build his law practice.
|Democratic-Republican representative David Fullerton of Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district resigned.
|26 May
|Democratic-Republican congressman Edward Dowse of Massachusetts's 13th congressional district resigned.
|28 May
|Democratic-Republican senator William Logan (Kentuckian) of Kentucky resigned to run for governor.
|June 12
|Federalist Elijah H. Mills was elected to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Mellen's resignation.
|June 13
|Democratic-Republican John Holmes (Maine politician) of Maine was elected to the Senate.
|June 14
|Democratic-Republican John Chandler of Maine was elected to the Senate.
|June 15
|Democratic Republican congressman Tunstall Quarles of Kentucky's 9th congressional district resigned.
|July 3
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1820: The first elections to the House for the 17th Congress opened, in Louisiana.
|July 5
|Louisiana gubernatorial election, 1820: Democratic-Republicans Thomas B. Robertson and Pierre Derbigny were sent to a runoff election for the governorship of Louisiana.
|July 19
|A southern border between Alabama and Mississippi was demarked, resolving some confusion over a sliver of land in Mississippi's favor.
|July 26
|Federalist congressman James Pindall of Virginia's 1st congressional district resigned.
|Democratic-Republican representative Zabdiel Sampson of Massachusetts's 8th congressional district resigned following his appointment of collector of customs in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
|August 28
|Democratic-Republican John C. Gray was elected to fill Johnson's House seat.
|Missouri gubernatorial election, 1820: Democratic-Republican Alexander McNair was elected governor of Missouri with seventy-two percent of the vote.
|August 30
|Democratic-Republican David Holmes (politician) was elected to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Leake's resignation.
|October 10
|Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district special election, 1820: A special election was held to fill the seat representing Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district following Fullerton's resignation. Federalist Thomas Grubb McCullough won with fifty-one percent of the vote.
|October 18
|The Choctaw and the United States concluded the Treaty of Doak's Stand, under which the former ceded roughly half their territory to Mississippi and agreed to be moved west into modern Arkansas.
|October 19
|Democratic-Republican Isham Talbot was elected to fill the seat left vacant by the Logan's resignation.
|November 1
|United States presidential election, 1820: Voting began for election to the presidency.
|November 6
|Massachusetts's 1st congressional district special election, 1820: Democratic-Republican Benjamin Gorham was elected with fifty-eight percent of the vote to fill the seat left vacant by Mason's resignation.
|November 7
|Maine's 1st congressional district special election, 1820: Federalist Joseph Dane was elected with fifty-four percent of the vote to fill the House seat left vacant by Holmes, previously of Massachusetts's 14th congressional district.
|Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1820: Federalist Joseph Hiester defeated incumbent governor William Findlay (governor) of Pennsylvania with fifty-one percent of the vote.
|November 13
|Democratic-Republicans Thomas Love Moore, Francis Johnson, William Eustis, Thomas Montgomery (American politician) and Edward B. Jackson were seated following their elections to fill the House seats left vacant by Strother, Walker, Dowse, Quarles and Pindall, respectively.
|November 24
|Massachusetts's 8th congressional district special election, 1820: Democratic-Republican Aaron Hobart was elected with sixty-nine percent of the vote to fill the House seat left vacant by Sampson's resignation.
|December 6
|United States presidential election, 1820: Voting ended. Monroe was reelected with eighty-one percent of the vote.
|Hiester resigned his House seat representing Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district.
|December 17
|Democratic-Republican representative Nathaniel Hazard of Rhode Island's at-large congressional district died.
|December 20
|Federalist congressman Jesse Slocumb of North Carolina's 4th congressional district died.
|December 25
|Federalist senator James Burrill Jr. died.
|August 10
|Missouri becomes the 24th state.
|The Monroe Doctrine is proclaimed.
|The decision in Gibbons v. Ogden affirms federal over state authority in interstate commerce.
|U.S. presidential election: An election is held with inconclusive results.
|6 January
|North Carolina's 2nd congressional district special election, 1825: Democratic-Republican George Outlaw was elected to the House from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, filling a seat left vacant by the resignation of Hutchins Gordon Burton.
|20 January
|The United States and the Choctaw signed the Treaty of Washington City, under which the former ceded some land in modern Arkansas in exchange for a permanent annuity, in Washington, D.C.
|7 February
|Democratic-Republican Richard Henry Wilde of Georgia was seated in the House following a special election to the seat left vacant by the resignation of Thomas W. Cobb.
|9 February
|United States presidential election, 1824: John Quincy Adams was elected president by the House, winning thirteen of twenty-four states.
|12 February
|The United States and several unauthorized representatives of the Muscogee signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, under which the latter ceded their territory east of the Mississippi River to Georgia and Alabama.
|14 February
|United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, 1824–25: National Republican William Marks was elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania with fifty-five percent of the vote after thirty-two ballots.
|2 March
|Capture of the Anne: American, Danish West Indian and Colombian ships captured the flagship of the pirate Roberto Cofresí in the Caribbean Sea.
|3 March
|Congressman James Allison, Jr. of Pennsylvania's 16th congressional district resigned his seat.
|The Crimes Act of 1825, which extended the authority of the federal government to prosecute a number of crimes and which included the first Assimilative Crimes Act, extending the laws of the surrounding states into federal enclaves, was signed into law.
|4 March
|Inauguration of John Quincy Adams: John Quincy Adams was inaugurated president in the House chamber of the Capitol.
|Henry Clay resigned his House seat representing Kentucky's 3rd congressional district following his appointment as Secretary of State.
|7 March
|Congressman Joel Roberts Poinsett of South Carolina's 1st congressional district resigned following his appointment as ambassador to Mexico.
|Senator James Barbour of Virginia resigned following his appointment as Secretary of War.
|8 March
|New Hampshire's at-large congressional district special election, 1825: Titus Brown was unanimously elected to the House from New Hampshire in a special election caused by representative-elect James Miller's declining to serve.
|16 March
|Levi Woodbury was installed as senator from New Hampshire.
|17 May
|South Carolina's 1st congressional district special election, 1825: William Drayton was elected to the House from South Carolina's 1st congressional district with seventy-five percent of the vote, filling the seat left vacant by Poinsett's resignation.
|26 May
|The American Unitarian Association was established.
|3 June
|The Kaw ceded much of their territory in Missouri and modern Kansas to the United States.
|1 August
|Kentucky's 3rd congressional district special election, 1825: James Clark was elected with fifty-nine percent of the vote to fill the House seat representing Kentucky's 3rd congressional district, vacant since Clay's resignation.
|4 August
|Missouri governor Frederick Bates died, probably of pneumonia.
|19 August
|The United States negotiated and signed the First Treaty of Prairie du Chien, under which the Sioux agreed to borders with the Sac and Fox, Menominee, Iowa, Ho-Chunk and the Council of Three Fires and pledged to remain at peace with them.
|26 August
|Pennsylvania's 16th congressional district special election, 1825: Robert Orr, Jr. was elected to the House from Pennsylvania's 16th congressional district in a special election to fill the vacancy left by Allison's resignation.
|25 September
|Senator David Holmes of Mississippi resigned following his election as governor.
|28 September
|Powhatan Ellis was appointed senator from Mississippi.
|14 October
|Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee resigned his seat.
|28 October
|Hugh Lawson White was elected to the Senate from Tennessee, filling the seat left vacant by Jackson's resignation.
|31 October
|Senator James DeWolf of Rhode Island resigned. The Rhode Island General Assembly elected Asher Robbins his successor.
|7 November
|Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy: Lawyer Jereboam O. Beauchamp murdered attorney general Solomon P. Sharp of Kentucky at his home in Frankfort, Kentucky over an affair Sharp had with Beauchamp's wife before their marriage.
|The United States and the Shawnee signed the Treaty of St. Louis, under which the latter sold the territory around Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
|5 December
|The United States and Central America signed the United States–Central America Treaty, under which each granted the other most favoured nation status with respect to trade.
|8 December
|Missouri gubernatorial special election, 1825: Democrat John Miller was elected governor of Missouri to complete Bates's term, with forty-eight percent of the vote.
|9 December
|The Committee on Agriculture, now the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, a standing committee of the Senate, was established.
|15 December
|Daniel Hugunin, Jr. replaced Egbert Ten Eyck in the House seat representing New York's 20th congressional district following his successful challenge of the election in which Eyck prevailed.
|26 December
|Congressman John Randolph of Virginia's 5th congressional district resigned his seat following his appointment to fill Barbour's vacant Senate seat representing Virginia.
|July 4
|Former presidents Jefferson and John Adams die within hours of each other; ironically on Independence Day.
|Nullification Crisis: The South Carolina Exposition and Protest is published.
|Construction begins on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
|December 2
|U.S. presidential election, 1828: Andrew Jackson is elected President; Calhoun continues as Vice President.
|March 4
|Jackson is inaugurated.
|Second Great Awakening: A Christian revival takes place.
|The Oregon Trail comes into use by settlers migrating to the Pacific Northwest.
|May 28
|The Indian Removal Act is passed.
|A revolt led by Nat Turner occurs.
|Publication of The Liberator begins.
|Cyrus McCormick invents the reaper.
|Petticoat Affair: The affair took place.
|The Supreme Court rules in favor of the Cherokee Nation in Worcester v. State of Georgia.
|Black Hawk War: The war takes place.
|The Tariff of 1832 is passed.
|The Ordinance of Nullification is passed by South Carolina.
|The Department of Indian Affairs is established.
|United States presidential election, 1832: Jackson is reelected President; Martin Van Buren is elected Vice President of the United States.
|Bank War: Jackson vetoes the charter renewal of the Second Bank of the United States.
|Calhoun resigns the Vice Presidency.
|The Force Bill, expanding Presidential powers, is passed.
|Jackson's second inauguration is held.
|Slavery debates takes place at Lane Theological Seminary.
|Texas Revolution: The revolution begins.
|Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America is published.
|Second Seminole War: A war begins in Florida with Seminole resistance to relocation.
|Battle of the Alamo: The battle takes place.
|Battle of San Jacinto: The battle takes place.
|Creek War of 1836: The war takes place.
|Samuel Colt invents the revolver.
|The original "Gag Rule", a bar on discussion of antislavery petitions passed by the House, is imposed.
|The Specie Circular is issued.
|June 15
|Arkansas becomes the 25th state.
|U.S. presidential election, 1836: Van Buren is elected President, Richard Mentor Johnson Vice President.
|Van Buren is inaugurated.
|The United States recognizes the Republic of Texas.
|Caroline Affair: The affair takes place.
|January 26
|Michigan becomes the 26th state.
|Oberlin College begins enrolling female students.
|Panic of 1837: The panic takes place.
|A decision in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge reverses a decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward and affirms that property rights can be overridden by public need.
|The forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from the Southeastern United States along the Trail of Tears led to the deaths of more than 4,000 Native American Indians.
|Aroostook War: The war takes place.
|United States presidential election, 1840: An election is held.
|William Henry Harrison becomes President.
|John Quincy Adams argues the case United States v. The Amistad before the Supreme Court.
|United States v. The Amistad is decided.
|President Harrison dies after only a month in office.
|John Tyler becomes President.
|August 9
|The Webster–Ashburton Treaty is signed.
|Dorr Rebellion: A civil war takes place in Rhode Island.
|An attempt to impeach Tyler fails.
|U.S. presidential election, 1844: An election is held.
|January 14
|United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, 1845: Democrat Daniel Sturgeon of Pennsylvania was reelected to the Senate with fifty-four percent of the vote.
|January 18
|United States Senate elections in New York, 1845: Democrats Daniel S. Dickinson and John Adams Dix of New York were elected by strong majorities to fill the Senate seats left vacant by the resignations of Nathaniel P. Tallmadge and Democrat Silas Wright.
|January 23
|Congress passed the Presidential Election Day Act, establishing the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day on which electors of the Electoral College are elected in all states.
|Israel Dammon trial: Israel Dammon was tried in Atkinson, Maine for disturbing the peace after leading a congregation of Millerites in worship.
|March 3
|The Florida Territory was admitted to the union as the state of Florida.
|March 4
|Inauguration of James K. Polk: Democrat James K. Polk was sworn in as president in Washington, D.C..
|Democratic senator Daniel Elliott Huger of South Carolina resigned.
|March 5
|Democratic senators James Buchanan of Pennsylvania and Robert J. Walker of Mississippi resigned following appointments as secretary of state and secretary of the Treasury, respectively.
|March 13
|United States Senate special election in Pennsylvania, 1845: Democrat Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania was elected to the Senate after five ballots in a special election to fill the vacancy left by Buchanan's resignation.
|March 16
|Whig senator Isaac C. Bates of Massachusetts died.
|March 24
|Whig John Davis (Massachusetts governor) was elected senator from Massachusetts to fill the vacancy left by Bates's death.
|April 10
|Great Fire of Pittsburgh: A fire in Pittsburgh burned roughly a third of the city and killed two.
|8 May
|A gathering of Triennial Convention Baptists met in Augusta, Georgia to establish a new church, the Southern Baptist Convention, following disputes over slavery.
|Whig John M. Berrien resigned his Senate seat representing Georgia following his appointment to the Supreme Court of Georgia.
|26 May
|United States House of Representatives election in Florida, 1845: Democrat David Levy Yulee was elected with sixty percent of the vote to the House seat representing Florida.
|28 May
|Milwaukee Bridge War: Residents of the east side of what is now Milwaukee destroyed two bridges leading to the west side over the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers.
|July 1
|Democrats David Levy Yulee and James Westcott were elected to the Senate from Florida.
|July 19
|Great New York City Fire of 1845: A fire in New York City killed thirty, including four firefighters.
|July 30
|Whig congressman Samuel G. Wright of New Jersey's 2nd congressional district died.
|October 10
|The United States Naval Academy was founded.
|November 3
|Democrat Joseph W. Chalmers was appointed to fill the Mississippi Senate seat left vacant by Walker's resignation.
|November 4
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1844: The last elections to the House for the 29th Congress, in Mississippi, were held. The Democratic Party retained a significant majority. The nativist Know Nothing party won six seats.
|Democrat George Sykes (New Jersey politician) was seated following a special election to fill the House seat representing New Jersey's 2nd congressional district, vacant since Wright's death.
|November 10
|Democratic representative John Slidell of Louisiana's 1st congressional district resigned following his appointment as minister to Mexico.
|November 11
|Whig congressman Joseph Hopkins Peyton of Tennessee's 8th congressional district died.
|November 13
|Berrien was reelected to his Senate seat representing Georgia.
|November 20
|Democratic senator Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire following his appointment to the Supreme Court.
|November 26
|Calhoun was elected to the Senate from South Carolina to fill the vacancy left by Huger's resignation.
|December 1
|Democrat Benning W. Jenness was appointed to fill the Senate seat from New Hampshire left vacant by Woodbury's resignation.
|December 3
|Democrat Isaac S. Pennybacker was elected to the Senate from Virginia.
|December 29
|Texas annexation: Polk signed into law a bill admitting the Republic of Texas into the union as the state of Texas.
|Mexican–American War: The war begins.
|December 28
|Iowa becomes the 29th state.
|The Wilmot Proviso is introduced.
|U.S. presidential election, 1848: An election is held.
|Seneca Falls Convention for women rights. They wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which they added women to the Declaration of Independence.
|May 29
|Wisconsin becomes the 30th state.
|February 2
|Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the war.
|Zachary Taylor becomes President.
|California Gold Rush: The gold rush begins.
|12 January
|Thomas Pratt was elected to the Senate from Maryland, replacing fellow Whig who had until then held it by appointment to fill a vacancy.
|21 February
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Sheldon v. Sill that the Congress, which has the power under the Constitution to institute lower courts of the judiciary, also has the power to limit their jurisdiction.
|3 March
|Whig congressman Thomas Butler King of Georgia's 1st congressional district resigned.
|4 March
|Democrat Joseph Webber Jackson was seated following a special election to fill the vacant House seat representing Georgia's 1st congressional district.
|31 March
|Calhoun died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C.
|11 April
|Democrat Franklin H. Elmore was appointed from South Carolina to fill Calhoun's Senate seat.
|16 April
|Gila Expedition: Californian volunteers launched a punitive expedition against the Quechan.
|19 April
|The United States and the United Kingdom signed the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, under which each promised to maintain the neutrality of a proposed canal through Nicaragua and not to occupy or colonize any territory in Central America.
|Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850: A women's rights meeting convened at Salem, Ohio.
|20 April
|Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850: The Convention drafted a petition to the upcoming Ohio state constitutional convention asking that women be granted the franchise as well as civil and political rights equal to those of men.
|15 May
|Bloody Island massacre: An American punitive expedition killed as many as one hundred Pomo civilians on an island in Clear Lake.
|22 May
|First Grinnell Expedition: An expedition to determine the fate of John Franklin, a British officer disappeared in the Arctic Ocean, departed New York.
|29 May
|Elmore died in Washington, D.C.
|3 June
|Nashville Convention: A convention of delegates from nine slave states met in Nashville, Tennessee.
|Cayuse War: Five Cayuse were hanged for the 1847 murder of fourteen missionaries near modern Walla Walla, Washington.
|4 June
|Democrat Robert Woodward Barnwell was appointed to fill the vacant Senate seat from South Carolina.
|10 June
|Nashville Convention: The Convention resolved to propose the extension of the Missouri Compromise line west to the Pacific Ocean.
|29 June
|The House unseated congressman William Thompson of Iowa's 1st congressional district due to the contested nature of his election and demanded a special election be held to fill the seat.
|9 July
|Taylor died after a gastrointestinal illness.
|10 July
|Inauguration of Millard Fillmore: Vice president Millard Fillmore was sworn in as president at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
|20 July
|Senator Thomas Corwin of Ohio resigned his seat following his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. Fellow Whig Thomas Ewing was appointed to fill his seat.
|22 July
|Whig senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts resigned his seat following his appointment as Secretary of State.
|30 July
|Whig congressman Robert Charles Winthrop of Massachusetts's 1st congressional district was appointed to fill Webster's vacant seat in the Senate representing Massachusetts.
|5 August
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1850: The first regular elections to the House for the 32nd Congress were held, in Iowa and Missouri.
|14 August
|Squatters' riot: A riot broke out between settlers in New Helvetia and supporters of John Sutter's claim to the land in which five people were killed.
|17 August
|Whig congressman Charles Magill Conrad of Louisiana's 2nd congressional district resigned following his appointment as Secretary of War.
|22 August
|Whig Samuel Atkins Eliot was seated in the House following a special election in Massachusetts's 1st congressional district.
|1 September
|Jenny Lind tour of America, 1850–52: Swedish singer Jenny Lind arrived in New York.
|9 September
|California was admitted to the union as a free state. The Utah and New Mexico Territories were organized. Whether slavery was to be permitted or forbidden in each territory was left to its residents. See Compromise of 1850.
|Whig congressman James Wilson II of New Hampshire's 3rd congressional district resigned.
|10 September
|California elected Democrats John C. Frémont and William M. Gwin to the Senate.
|Whig congressman Henry Nes of Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district died.
|11 September
|The House seated George Washington Wright and Democrat Edward Gilbert of California.
|18 September
|The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, eliminating the last civil and political rights of escaped slaves and imposing serious penalties for harboring or failing to arrest fugitives.
|20 September
|The slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C.
|27 September
|The Donation Land Claim Act was signed into law, granting free plots of land to white and half-blooded Native American settlers of the Oregon Territory.
|28 September
|Congress passed the Swamp Land Act of 1850, providing a mechanism for the transfer of swamp land from the federal government to the states for drainage and improvement.
|5 October
|Whig congressman Chester Pierce Butler of Pennsylvania's 11th congressional district died.
|8 October
|Democrat George W. Morrison was seated in the House following a special election in New Hampshire's 3rd congressional district, filling Wilson's vacancy.
|14 October
|Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850: A state constitutional convention convened in Virginia to address the disenfranchisement of the state's west.
|24 October
|Democratic congressman John H. Harmanson of Louisiana's 3rd congressional district died.
|5 November
|New Jersey gubernatorial election, 1850: Democrat George Franklin Fort defeated Whig John Runk with fifty-four percent of the vote to become governor of New Jersey.
|New York state election, 1850: Elections were held to statewide office in New York. Whig candidate Washington Hunt was narrowly elected governor.
|13 November
|Democrat John Brisbin was seated following a special election to fill Butler's vacant House seat representing Pennsylvania's 11th congressional district.
|19 November
|Democratic congressman Amos E. Wood of Ohio's 6th congressional district died.
|2 December
|Democrat Joel Buchanan Danner was seated in the House following a special election in Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district to fill Nes's vacancy.
|5 December
|Whig Henry Adams Bullard was seated in the House following a special election from Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, filling Conrad's vacancy.
|9 December
|The United Kingdom ceded one acre of underwater rock in Lake Erie to the United States.
|10 December
|A specially elected convention in Georgia adopted the Georgia Platform accepting the Compromise of 1850 but warning against infringement of the rights of states in the South.
|13 December
|The federal government assumed Texas's debt. In exchange, Texas officially renounced its territorial claims in the New Mexico Territory.
|18 December
|Democrat Robert Rhett was elected to the Senate from South Carolina, replacing Barnwell.
|20 December
|Democrat Daniel F. Miller was seated in the House following a special election in Iowa's 1st congressional district.
|30 December
|Democrat Alexander G. Penn was seated following a special election in Louisiana's 3rd congressional district to Harmanson's vacant House seat.
|U.S. presidential election, 1852: An election is held.
|Uncle Tom's Cabin: Uncle Tom's Cabin is published
|Franklin Pierce becomes President.
|Commodore Matthew Perry opens Japan.
|The Kansas–Nebraska Act is passed, nullifying the Missouri Compromise.
|June 8
|The Gadsden Purchase is finalized.
|The Ostend Manifesto is issued.
|The Convention of Kanagawa is signed.
|William Walker leads an expedition.
|The Farmers' High School, later Penn State University, is founded.
|Sacking of Lawrence: The sacking of Lawrence takes place.
|May 24–25
|Pottawatomie massacre: The massacre, led by John Brown, takes place.
|Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with his walking stick in the Senate chamber.
|U.S. presidential election, 1856: An election is held.
|James Buchanan becomes President.
|A decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford declares blacks are not citizens of the United States and, therefore, do not have the right to file lawsuits.
|Utah War: The war starts.
|The LeCompton Constitution is rejected in the Kansas Territory.
|Panic of 1857: The panic takes place.
|The first transatlantic cable is laid.
|May 11
|Minnesota becomes the 32nd state.
|Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The debates are held.
|The United States becomes a party to the Treaty of Tientsin.
|John Brown leads a raid on Harper's Ferry.
|February 14
|Oregon becomes the 33rd state.
|The Comstock Lode is discovered.
|The Pony Express is founded.
|The Crittenden Compromise is reached.
|November 6
|United States presidential election, 1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States.
|December 20
|South Carolina seceded from the Union.
|Ten more states secede from the Union and established the Confederate States of America.
|January 29
|Kansas becomes the 34th state.
|Jefferson Davis is elected President of the Confederacy.
|American Civil War: The war begins at Fort Sumter.
|First Battle of Bull Run: The battle takes place.
|Battle of Hampton Roads: A naval battle between the Monitor and Merrimack takes place.
|The Homestead Act is passed.
|The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act is passed.
|General Robert E. Lee is placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
|Second Battle of Bull Run: The battle takes place.
|Battle of Antietam: The battle takes place.
|August 17 – December 26
|Dakota War of 1862: The war is fought.
|Battle of Gettysburg: The battle takes place.
|January 1
|Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in those states that had seceded.
|Siege of Vicksburg: The siege takes place.
|New York City draft riots: Draft riots take place.
|June 20
|Pro-Union counties which had seceded from Virginia become the 35th state West Virginia.
|General Ulysses S. Grant is put in command of all Union forces.
|The Wade–Davis Bill is passed.
|Sand Creek massacre: The massacre takes place.
|October 31
|Nevada becomes the 36th state.
|U.S. presidential election, 1864: An election is held.
|Sherman's March to the Sea: The march takes place.
|Lee is named commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces.
|Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, is captured by a corps of black Union troops.
|Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House.
|April 15
|Abraham Lincoln assassination: Lincoln is assassinated; Andrew Johnson became President.
|American Civil War: The war ends with the surrender of the last elements of the Confederacy.
|The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed, permanently outlawing slavery.
|The Freedmen's Bureau is established.
|The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is passed.
|The Ku Klux Klan is founded.
|The Tenure of Office Act (1867) is enacted.
|March 1
|Nebraska becomes the 37th state.
|The Alaska Purchase referred to as "Seward's Folly" by critics: The Alaska territory is purchased from Russia.
|Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Johnson is impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate.
|The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, second of the Reconstruction Amendments, is ratified.
|Grant is elected President.
|The First Transcontinental Railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory.[72]
|May 15
|Women's suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found the National Woman Suffrage Association.
|January 1
|Republican congressman Benjamin F. Hopkins died.
|January 15
|Murder of John R. Bitzer: Chinese national Ah Chow fatally shot miner John R. Bitzer in Montana.
|January 18
|James B. Howell was seated following a special election to the seat left vacant by the resignation of fellow Republican James W. Grimes.
|January 26
|Virginia was readmitted to representation in Congress. It sent one Republican and one Democrat to the Senate and three Republicans and five Democrats, some of whom were seated over the following five days, to the House.
|February 3
|The Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits federal and state governments from denying the right to vote to any citizen on the basis of "race, color or previous condition of servitude," was ratified.
|February 5
|Democratic representative Truman H. Hoag died.
|February 17
|Democrat George Woodward Greene was removed from the House after Republican Charles Van Wyck, who succeeded him, challenged his credentials as a duly elected member.
|February 23
|Mississippi was readmitted to representation in Congress. The Fourth Military District was dissolved. Mississippi sent four Republicans to the House and two, including the first black congressman, to the Senate.
|Republican David Atwood was seated following a special election to the seat left vacant by Hopkins's death.
|February 28
|Republican congressman John T. Deweese resigned under investigation for appointments he had made to the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy.
|March 30
|Texas was readmitted to representation in Congress. It sent two Republicans to the Senate and three Republicans and one Democrat to the House, some of whom were seated the following day.
|17 May
|New York special judicial election, 1870: The Democratic Party won four seats to the Republicans' two, in addition to the chief justiceship, in a special election to the New York Court of Appeals.
|31 May
|The Enforcement Act of 1870, which empowered the Marshals Service and the federal courts to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, was signed into law.
|April 13
|Democrat John Roberts Reading was removed from the House after Republican Caleb Newbold Taylor, who succeeded him, challenged his credentials as a duly elected member.
|April 23
|Republican Erasmus D. Peck was seated following a special election to the seat left vacant by Hoag's death.
|June 6
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1870: The first elections to the House for the 42nd Congress were held, in Oregon.
|Oregon gubernatorial election, 1870: Democrat La Fayette Grover was elected Governor of Oregon with fifty-one percent of the vote.
|June 22
|A bill establishing the Department of Justice was signed into law. The law brought all United States Attorneys under the authority of the Attorney General, granted the new department exclusive authority to prosecute federal crimes, and created the office of the Solicitor General, responsible for representing the federal government before the Supreme Court.
|June 23
|Republican congressman David Heaton died.
|July 1
|A group of conservative members of the Virginia General Assembly organized as the Conservative Party of Virginia.
|July 12
|The Currency Act of 1870 was signed into law, maintaining the supply of Demand Notes and replacing 45 million dollars in temporary loan certificates with banknotes.
|July 13
|Republican senator Daniel Sheldon Norton of Minnesota died.
|July 14
|Congress passed the Funding Act of 1870, authorizing the refinancing of the national debt through the issuance of long-term debt instruments.
|The Naturalization Act of 1870, which created a system of controls for the naturalization process and extended the process to persons of African origin and descent, was signed into law.
|July 15
|Georgia was readmitted to representation in Congress. Its representatives were held ineligible and not seated.
|Republican William Windom was appointed to fill Norton's vacant Senate seat.
|Republican congressman Noah Davis resigned to accept an appointment as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
|September 6
|Vermont gubernatorial election, 1870: Republican John Wolcott Stewart was elected Governor of Vermont with seventy-three percent of the vote.
|September 18
|Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition: Explorer Henry D. Washburn observed and named Old Faithful.
|September 30
|Republican representative William Smyth (congressman) died.
|October 10
|South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1870: Incumbent Republican governor Robert Kingston Scott of South Carolina was reelected with sixty-two percent of the vote.
|October 16
|Conservative representative Robert Ridgway (congressman) died.
|October 27
|West Virginia gubernatorial election, 1870: Democrat John J. Jacob (West Virginia) defeated incumbent governor William E. Stevenson of West Virginia with fifty-two percent of the vote.
|November 8
|Conservative Richard Thomas Walker Duke was seated following a special election to fill the vacancy left by Ridgway's death.
|Missouri gubernatorial election, 1870: Liberal Republican Benjamin Gratz Brown was elected governor of Missouri with sixty-two percent of the vote.
|New York state election, 1870: Elections to statewide office in New York resulted in a Democratic sweep.
|December 5
|Republican Joseph Dixon (North Carolina) was seated following a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Heaton's death.
|December 6
|Republicans Charles H. Holmes and William P. Wolf were seated following special elections to fill the vacancies of Davis and Smyth, respectively.
|December 19
|Republican senator Charles D. Drake of Missouri resigned following his appointment as Chief Justice of the Court of Claims. Fellow Republican Daniel T. Jewett was appointed to succeed him.
|Great Chicago Fire: The fire occurs.
|The Treaty of Washington, 1871 is signed with the British Empire regarding the Dominion of Canada.
|Yellowstone National Park is created.
|Crédit Mobilier scandal: The scandal takes place.
|The Amnesty Act is passed.
|The Alabama Claims is settled.
|U.S. presidential election, 1872: An election is held.
|Panic of 1873: The panic takes place.
|Virginius Affair: The affair takes place.
|Red River Indian War
|14 January
|The Specie Payment Resumption Act, which called for the Treasury to back United States Notes with gold, was signed into law.
|25 January
|Republican congressman William J. Purman of Florida resigned.
|30 January
|Hawaii and the United States signed the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, under which the United States was opened to Hawaiian sugar and Hawaii ceded territory in the area of Pearl Harbor.
|3 February
|Republican congressman Samuel F. Hersey of Maine's 4th congressional district died.
|5 February
|Republican senator William Alfred Buckingham of Connecticut died. His elected successor Democrat Joseph Roswell Hawley was appointed to complete his term.
|18 February
|Mason County War: A group of German American cowboys attempted to break into the jail in Mason County, Texas to take its prisoners, cattle rustlers, to be lynched.
|1 March
|The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was signed into law, guaranteeing blacks equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and making them equally eligible for jury duty.
|3 March
|The Page Act of 1875, which banned the entry into the United States of prostitutes and unfree labour from Asia, came into force.
|Democrat Effingham Lawrence was seated in the House seat representing Louisiana's 1st congressional district following his successful challenge of the election of Republican J. Hale Sypher.
|7 March
|Republican congressman James Buffington of Massachusetts's 1st congressional district died.
|19 March
|March 1875 Southeast tornado outbreak: A two-day tornado outbreak began in which some one hundred people would be killed in the Southeast.
|29 March
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Minor v. Happersett that the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant women the right to vote.
|25 April
|Rutgers–Princeton Cannon War: Rutgers College students stole a cannon from the campus of the College of New Jersey in Princeton, New Jersey.
|1 May
|Democratic congressman George Augustus La Dow of Oregon died.
|5 May
|Democrat Benjamin Harvey Hill was seated in the House following a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of representative-elect Garnett McMillan.
|17 May
|1875 Kentucky Derby: Aristides won the first running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.
|31 July
|Johnson, then representing Tennessee in the Senate, died
|18 August
|Democrat David M. Key was appointed to Johnson's vacant Senate seat.
|7 September
|California gubernatorial election, 1875: Democrat William Irwin was elected governor of California with fifty percent of the vote.
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1874: The last regular elections to the House for the 44th Congress were held, in California. The Democrats gained ninety seats, transforming their caucus from a small minority to a dominant majority.
|13 September
|Republican Harris M. Plaisted was seated in the House following a special election in Maine's 4th congressional district to fill Hersey's vacancy.
|14 September
|Colfax County War: A reverend allied with settlers on the Maxwell Land Grant was found murdered in the canyon of the Cimarron River.
|12 October
|Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1875: Pennsylvania governor John F. Hartranft, a Republican, won reelection with fifty percent of the vote.
|23 October
|Democratic congressman Samuel McClary Fite of Tennessee's 4th congressional district died.
|25 October
|Democrat Lafayette Lane was seated in the House following a special election in Oregon to fill La Dow's vacancy.
|2 November
|Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1875: Republican John S. Pillsbury was elected governor of Minnesota with fifty-six percent of the vote.
|New York state election, 1875: Elections were held to statewide office and to the State Assembly and State Senate in New York.
|Republican William W. Crapo was seated in the House following a special election in Massachusetts's 1st congressional district to fill Buffington's vacancy.
|20 November
|Las Cuevas War: A forces of Texas Rangers crossed into Tamaulipas in pursuit of stolen cattle and came into armed conflict with Mexican militia in which at least eighty were killed.
|21 November
|Las Cuevas War: The Texas Rangers took a Mexican customs officer hostage. The cattle were returned to the United States.
|Republican senator Orris S. Ferry of Connecticut died.
|27 November
|Democrat James E. English was appointed to fill Ferry's vacant Senate seat.
|6 December
|Republican Nelson I. Norton was seated in the House following a special election in New York's 33rd congressional district to fill the vacancy left by the death of representative-elect Augustus F. Allen, also a Republican.
|14 December
|Democrat Haywood Yancey Riddle was seated in the House following a special election in Tennessee's 4th congressional district to fill Fite's vacancy.
|The National League of baseball is founded.
|Centennial Exposition: The Exposition, in Philadelphia, is held.
|A decision in Munn v. Illinois establishes the public regulation of utilities.
|Colorado becomes the 38th state.
|Battle of Little Bighorn: The battle takes place.
|Wild Bill Hickok is killed by a shot to the back of the head by Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota.
|Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.
|U.S. presidential election, 1876: The election produced an unclear result with 20 Electoral College votes disputed.
|The Electoral Commission awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the Presidency.
|Reconstruction era of the United States: The era ends.
|Nez Perce War: The war takes place.
|The Bland-Allison Act is passed.
|The first Morgan silver dollar is minted.
|Thomas Edison invents the light bulb.
|The Knights of Labor goes public.
|The University of Southern California is founded.
|The Population of the United States passes 50 million.
|Gunfight at the O.K. Corral: A gunfight takes place in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
|James Garfield is inaugurated President of the United States.
|Garfield is assassinated.
|Chester A. Arthur is inaugurated President of the United States.
|Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross.
|The Tuskegee Institute is founded
|Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
|A Century of Dishonor is written by Helen Hunt Jackson.
|The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed.
|Jesse James is shot and killed by Robert Ford and Charlie Ford.
|Buffalo Bill Cody debuts his Wild West Show.
|A decision in the Civil Rights Cases legalizes the doctrine of racial segregation.
|The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is passed.
|The Brooklyn Bridge opens.
|Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as President.
|The Washington monument is completed.
|Haymarket riot: The riot takes place.
|The American Federation of Labor is founded in Columbus, Ohio.
|The United States Congress creates the Interstate Commerce Commission.
|The Dawes Act is passed.
|The Hatch Act is passed.
|Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy, is published.
|The National Geographic Society is founded.
|Benjamin Harrison becomes President
|November 2
|North Dakota, South Dakota becomes the 39th and 40th states.
|November 8
|Montana becomes the 41st state
|November 11
|Washington becomes the 42nd state.
|Johnstown flood: A flood occurs in Pennsylvania.
|Jane Addams founds Hull House.
|April 22
|Land Run of 1889: The land run begins.
|The Sherman Antitrust Act is passed.
|Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives.
|The Sherman Silver Purchase Act is passed.
|The McKinley tariff is passed.
|Yosemite National Park is created.
|July 3
|Idaho becomes the 43rd state.
|July 10
|Wyoming becomes the 44th state.
|Wounded Knee massacre: The massacre takes place.
|The National American Woman Suffrage Association is founded.
|Baltimore Crisis: The crisis takes place.
|James Naismith invents basketball.
|Homestead Strike: The strike takes place.
|General Electric is founded.
|The Sierra Club is founded
|Cleveland is inaugurated President for a second term.
|Panic of 1893: The panic takes place.
|The Sherman Silver Purchase Act is repealed.
|Coxey's Army march on Washington, D.C.
|Pullman strike: The strike takes place.
|The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, including an income tax, is passed.
|January 5
|Democratic congressman Thomas H. Paynter of Kentucky's 9th congressional district resigned following his appointment to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
|January 6
|Republican representative Philip S. Post of Illinois's 10th congressional district died.
|January 12
|Democratic congressman John C. Black of Illinois's at-large congressional district resigned.
|January 14
|Congressman Julius C. Burrows of Michigan's 3rd congressional district was elected to fill the Senate seat representing Michigan fellow Republican John Patton Jr. held by appointment following the death of Republican Francis B. Stockbridge.
|January 16
|Republican Lee Mantle was elected to the Senate from Montana.
|January 21
|The Supreme Court reached a decision in Sparf v. United States. It established some standards for acceptable confessions and held that federal judges are not required to instruct juries of their right of jury nullification.
|In a decision in United States v. E. C. Knight Co., the Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause does not grant the government the power to regulate manufacturers under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
|January 23
|Republican Clarence D. Clark was elected to the Senate from New York.
|Jeter Connelly Pritchard was elected to fill the Senate seat representing North Carolina fellow Democrat Thomas Jordan Jarvis held by appointment following the death of Democrat Zebulon Baird Vance.
|February 18
|The Maguire Act of 1895, which ended imprisonment for sailor deserters in certain cases, came into force.
|February 19
|Republican John L. Wilson was elected to the Senate from Washington.
|February 23
|Edwin J. Jorden was seated in the House after a special election to the seat representing Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district to fill the vacancy left by the death of fellow Republican Myron Benjamin Wright.
|February 24
|Cuban War of Independence: Uprisings against Spanish rule began across Cuba.
|March 4
|Jorden resigned.
|In a decision in Coffin v. United States, the Supreme Court held that criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that judges presiding over juries must advise them of that fact.
|Democratic congressman James C. C. Black of Georgia's 10th congressional district resigned.
|March 12
|1895 New Orleans dockworkers riot: A mob of white union dockworkers killed six blacks in New Orleans following an announcement that many of them would be laid off and replaced with cheaper black labor.
|April 8
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. that a law imposing taxes on individual interest, dividends and rents violated the Constitution because the taxes were not appropriately apportioned.
|April 27
|Nicaragua Crisis of 1895: Great Britain occupied Corinto, Nicaragua following Nicaragua's annexation of the Mosquito Coast.
|May 6
|1895 Kentucky Derby: Halma won a running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.
|May 15
|Nicaragua Crisis of 1895: British forces were forced to withdraw from Corinto, Nicaragua under the terms of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty.
|May 22
|Republican congressman William Cogswell of Massachusetts's 6th congressional district died.
|May 23
|Land Run of 1895: A run took place on former Kickapoo land in the Oklahoma Territory.
|May 27
|In a decision in In re Debs, the Supreme Court held that a federal injunction ordering participants in the Pullman Strike back to work was authorized under the Commerce Clause.
|June 3
|The Supreme Court reached a decision in Hilton v. Guyot in which it described the application of the principle of comity to the enforcement of foreign judgments in the United States.
|Venezuelan crisis of 1895: Secretary of state Richard Olney issued the Olney Proclamation, declaring that under the Monroe Doctrine the United States must intervene in a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana.
|July 14
|Republican congressman Frederick Remann of Illinois's 18th congressional district died.
|July 25
|A network of exchanges, now the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, was established by a general order of the Department of War.
|September 18
|The Cotton States and International Exposition opened in Atlanta.
|Atlanta Exposition Speech: Leading black intellectual Booker T. Washington delivered a speech in Atlanta advocating for the Atlanta Compromise, which would preserve segregation and white political supremacy but allow blacks due process and basic education.
|October 2
|Black was reelected to his own House seat.
|October 4
|1895 U.S. Open: Horace Rawlins won the inaugural U.S. Open in Newport, Rhode Island.
|October 26
|1895 Georgia vs. North Carolina football game: The North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Georgia Bulldogs in a college football game in Atlanta.
|November 5
|United States House of Representatives election in Utah, 1895: Republican Clarence Emir Allen was elected to the House from Utah's at-large congressional district with fifty percent of the vote.
|Republicans James Hodge Codding and William Henry Moody were seated in the House seats left vacant by Jorden and Cogswell, respectively.
|New York state election, 1895: Republicans were elected to several statewide offices in New York.
|November 28
|Chicago Times-Herald race: Engineer Charles Duryea won an automobile race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois.
|December 2
|Republicans George W. Prince, Alfred Milnes and William F. L. Hadley were seated in the House seats left vacant by Post, Burrows and Remann, respectively.
|December 27
|Democratic congressman Lawrence E. McGann was removed from the House following a successful challenge of his credentials by his election opponent, Republican Hugh R. Belknap.
|A decision in Plessy v. Ferguson affirms the legality of "separate but equal" public facilities.
|July 9
|William Jennings Bryan delivered his Cross of Gold speech.
|Gold was discovered in the Yukon's Klondike region.
|January 4
|Utah became the 45th state.
|March 4
|William McKinley became President.
|The Boston subway was completed.
|The Dingley Act was passed.
|February 15
|The USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor.
|The De Lôme Letter was published.
|Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris (1898) ended the war.
|July 7
|The Republic of Hawaii was annexed.
|The Newlands Resolution was passed.
|The American Anti-Imperialist League was organized.
|The Teller Amendment was passed.
|American Samoa was occupied.
|The Open Door Policy was announced.
|January 2
|Secretary of State John Hay called for an Open Door Policy among the major powers dividing China into spheres of influence and permitting its free trade with all of them.
|January 8
|McKinley annexed some of the Arizona Territory to the Navajo Nation, extending its boundaries west to the Colorado River.
|McKinley placed Alaska under martial law.
|January 15
|Democrat June Ward Gayle was seated in the House following a special election in Kentucky's 7th congressional district to fill the vacancy left by the death in November of Democrat Evan E. Settle.
|January 25
|Democratic congressman-elect B. H. Roberts of Utah was expelled from the House for practicing polygamy.
|January 30
|Sibley Quarry explosion: A dynamite explosion at a quarry north of Trenton, Michigan killed one worker.
|February 7
|Republican Thomas R. Bard was elected to the Senate from California.
|San Francisco plague of 1900–1904: The first victim of plague in San Francisco fell ill in Chinatown.
|February 13
|Republican congressman Charles A. Chickering of New York's 24th congressional district died after falling from a fourth-story window in New York.
|February 15
|Fairbank Train Robbery: An attempted robbery of a Wells Fargo express car was thwarted in Fairbank, Arizona. One would-be robber was killed.
|February 19
|McKinley placed Tutuila under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Navy.
|March 3
|Democratic congressman Sidney Parham Epes of Virginia's 4th congressional district died in Washington, D.C. following an appendectomy.
|March 6
|Republican representative Alfred C. Harmer of Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district died.
|March 8
|Democratic congressman Gaston A. Robbins of Alabama's 4th congressional district was unseated after it was determined that Republican William F. Aldrich had beaten him in his election.
|March 12
|Democratic representative William Albin Young of Virginia's 2nd congressional district was removed from office following a contest of his 1898 election by his opponent, Republican Richard Alsop Wise.
|March 13
|Aldrich was seated in the House seat representing Alabama's 4th congressional district.
|March 14
|The Gold Standard Act, which established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, ending the use of silver, was signed into law.
|March 16
|William McKinley appointed the Taft Commission, a five-member commission headed by William Howard Taft, to act as a civilian government for the Philippines.
|March 17
|Military governor Richard P. Leary of Guam abolished slavery on the island.
|Philippine–American War: American forces captured Bohol.
|April 7
|Austin Dam failure: A dam near Austin, Texas burst, killing some one hundred people.
|Battle of Cagayan de Misamis: American forces repelled a Philippine surprise attack at Cagayan de Oro.
|April 12
|The Foraker Act establishing a civilian government for Puerto Rico was signed into law.
|April 15
|Siege of Catubig: Philippine forces attacked and besieged an American force at Catubig, Northern Samar.
|April 17
|The United States and indigenous chiefs on Tutuila signed the Treaty of Cession of Tutuila recognizing American sovereignty over the island.
|Louisiana gubernatorial election, 1900: Democrat William Wright Heard was elected governor of Louisiana with seventy-eight percent of the vote.
|April 19
|Siege of Catubig: The American forces at Catubig, Northern Samar were rescued. The town fell to Philippine forces.
|April 20
|Democratic congressman Joseph Wheeler, serving in the Regular Army in the Philippines, resigned his seat representing Alabama's 8th congressional district.
|April 24
|The Senate declined to seat Republican Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania due to a controversy over his misappropriation of state funds.
|April 25
|Democrat William H. King of Utah was seated in the House.
|April 26
|Wise was seated in the House seat representing Virginia's 2nd congressional district.
|April 30
|The Hawaiian Organic Act organizing the Territory of Hawaii and granting citizenship of the United States to its residents was signed into law.
|May 1
|Charles Herbert Allen took office as governor of Puerto Rico.
|Scofield Mine disaster: A dust explosion at a mine near Scofield, Utah killed over two hundred miners.
|May 3
|1900 Kentucky Derby: Lieut. Gibson won a running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.
|May 5
|Arthur MacArthur Jr. took office as Governor-General of the Philippines.
|May 9
|St. Louis streetcar strike of 1900: A riot developed in St. Louis amid the first day of a strike by the members of the local Amalgamated Street Railway Employees of America, now the Amalgamated Transit Union.
|May 12
|The United States District Court for the Western District of New York was established.
|May 14
|Battle of Agusan Hill: An American regiment dislodged Philippine forces from a hill in Cagayan de Oro.
|May 15
|Senator William A. Clark of Montana resigned under pressure from the Senate due to revelations that he had bribed members of the Montana Legislature for his election.
|May 18
|Democrat Martin Maginnis was appointed to the Senate from Montana.
|May 21
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Taylor v. Beckham that state elected office is not property for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment and that it had no jurisdiction in the case, which pertained to a disputed gubernatorial election in Kentucky.
|May 25
|The Lacey Act of 1900, which criminalizes the taking of illegally captured wildlife across state lines, was signed into law.
|June 1
|1900 United States Census: A census began to be taken which would count some eighty million in the United States and whose subsequent congressional apportionment would grant the greatest increases in representation to Illinois, New York and Texas.
|June 4
|Battle of Makahambus Hill: A Philippine force ambushed and pinned down an American battalion in modern Cagayan de Oro, dealing some twenty casualties before withdrawing.
|June 10
|Seymour Expedition: An expedition of the Eight-Nation Alliance led by the British vice admiral Edward Seymour departed Tianjin to protect foreign diplomats in Beijing.
|June 16
|Cuban local elections, 1900: The pro-independence Cuban National Party did better than expected in Cuban local elections.
|June 18
|Battle of Langfang: Boxers surrounded and ambushed an Eight-Nation Alliance force at Langfang, killing seven and forcing their retreat to Tianjin.
|June 20
|Siege of the International Legations: German diplomat Clemens von Ketteler was murdered on his way to request the protection of the Chinese government against Boxer rebels approaching the Beijing Legation Quarter in Beijing.
|June 21
|Boxer Rebellion: China declared war on the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan.
|1900 Republican National Convention: McKinley was unanimously nominated the candidate of the Republican Party for the presidency at a convention in Philadelphia. Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York was unanimously nominated the Republican candidate for the vice presidency minus his own abstention.
|June 30
|1900 Hoboken Docks fire: A fire at the Hoboken, New Jersey docks of New York Harbor killed some three hundred people.
|July 4
|Tacoma Streetcar Disaster: A streetcar left the tracks at a sharp curve in Tacoma, Washington, plunging into a ravine and killing forty passengers.
|1900 Democratic National Convention: At a convention in Kansas City, Missouri, the Democratic Party adopted a platform deploring the occupation of Cuba and the Philippines and calling for bimetallism and the regulation of monopolies.
|July 5
|1900 Democratic National Convention: The Democratic Party nominated Bryan its nominee for the presidency and former vice president Adlai Stevenson I its nominee for the vice presidency.
|July 13
|Battle of Tientsin: The Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Tianjin, where Boxers and Chinese forces had their nationals under siege.
|July 14
|Battle of Tientsin: The Eight-Nation Alliance took Tianjin.
|July 24
|Robert Charles riots: An angry crowd of whites gathered in New Orleans after a white police officer was shot and killed by black laborer Robert Charles.
|August 4
|Gaselee Expedition: An Eight-Nation Alliance army departed Tianjin for Beijing.
|August 5
|Battle of Beicang: An Eight-Nation Alliance army on the march from Tianjin to Beijing dispatched the first Chinese army sent to stop them, at Beicang, six miles from Tianjin.
|August 6
|Battle of Yangcun: The Eight-Nation Alliance defeated a Chinese force at Yangcun, some twenty miles from Tianjin.
|August 7
|1900 Westchester County tornado: A tornado caused some fifteen thousand dollars in damage near New Rochelle, New York
|August 8
|1900 International Lawn Tennis Challenge: A lawn tennis tournament began in Boston in which the American team would beat the British.
|August 14
|Battle of Peking (1900): An army of the Eight-Nation Alliance arrived at Beijing and came into conflict with Boxers and Chinese government troops.
|August 15
|Battle of Peking (1900): Eight-Nation Alliance forces expelled the last Boxer and Chinese government forces from Beijing. The Chinese empress dowager Empress Dowager Cixi fled.
|September 4
|Vermont gubernatorial election, 1900: William W. Stickney won seventy-two percent of the vote to succeed fellow Republican Edward Curtis Smith as governor of Vermont.
|September 8
|1900 Galveston hurricane: A hurricane made landfall at Galveston, Texas which would kill as many as twelve thousand people in a single day.
|September 13
|Battle of Pulang Lupa: A Philippine force ambushed and decisively defeated an American one at Marinduque.
|September 15
|Cuban Constitutional Assembly election, 1900: An election was held to an upcoming constitutional convention in Cuba. A coalition of the conservative Republican and Democratic Union Parties won a majority of seats.
|September 17
|Battle of Mabitac: A Philippine force dealt heavy casualties to an American one at Mabitac, Laguna.
|October 8
|Murder of George E. Bailey: Farmer George E. Bailey was shot and killed by his alcoholic employee John C. Best at his farm in Saugus, Massachusetts.
|October 15
|Burt Lake burn-out: A sheriff in northern Michigan permitted a local land speculator to burn the homes of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians on the strength of his purchase of the tax title to their land.
|October 18
|Chronicle-Telegraph Cup: The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Pittsburg Pirates in the fourth baseball game of a best-of-five series in Pittsburgh.
|November 2
|Alabama gubernatorial election, 1900: Democrat William J. Samford was elected governor of Alabama with seventy-one percent of the vote.
|November 5
|A constitutional convention for Cuba opened in Havana.
|November 6
|United States presidential election, 1900: McKinley was reelected president with fifty-two percent of the vote.
|United States House of Representatives elections, 1900: The Republican Party gained seats in the House, increasing its majority at the expense of the Democratic and People's Parties.
|Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1900: Republican candidate Samuel Rinnah Van Sant defeated Democratic incumbent John Lind with forty-nine percent of the vote to become governor of Minnesota.
|Missouri gubernatorial election, 1900: Democrat Alexander Monroe Dockery was elected governor of Missouri with fifty-one percent of the vote.
|New York state election, 1900: An election was held to statewide office in New York which produced victories for the entire Republican ticket.
|South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1900: Democrat Miles Benjamin McSweeney was elected governor of South Carolina, running unopposed.
|South Dakota gubernatorial election, 1900: Republican Charles N. Herreid was elected governor of South Dakota with fifty-six percent of the vote.
|West Virginia gubernatorial election, 1900: Republican Albert B. White was elected governor of West Virginia with fifty-four percent of the vote.
|November 7
|Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Washington, clarifying in exchange for one hundred thousand dollars the Treaty of Paris to indicate that Spain ceded to the United States the islands of Mapun and Sibutu.
|The working class People's Party was founded in Cuba.
|November 27
|Republican senator Cushman Kellogg Davis of Minnesota died.
|December 3
|Los Angeles mayoral election, 1900: Democrat Meredith P. Snyder was elected mayor of Los Angeles with fifty-eight percent of the vote.
|September 14
|President William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York.[73]
|September 14
|Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president, after the assassination of President McKinley.[74]
|November 18
|The Hay–Pauncefote Treaty was signed.[75]
|January 1
|The first Rose Bowl Game was played between the University of Michigan and Stanford University.[76]
|February 19
|The Elkins Act was signed into law.[77]
|The Drago Doctrine was announced.[78]
|June 17
|The Newlands Reclamation Act was signed into law.[79]
|January 22
|The Hay–Herrán Treaty was passed.[80]
|June 16
|The Ford Motor Company was formed.[81]
|February 14
|The Department of Commerce and Labor was created.[82]
|October 1
|The first World Series was played between the Boston Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates.[83]
|November 18
|The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed.[84]
|December 1
|The movie The Great Train Robbery premieres.[85]
|December 17
|The Wright brothers made their first powered flight in the Wright Flyer.[86]
|The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was issued.[87]
|May 4
|The Panama Canal Zone was acquired by the United States from France for $40 million.[88]
|November 8
|United States presidential election, 1904: President Theodore Roosevelt was reelected to a second term, defeating New York Appeals Court Judge Alton B. Parker.[89]
|July 11–14
|The Niagara Falls conference was held.[90]
|September 5
|The Treaty of Portsmouth, negotiated by President Theodore Roosevelt, was signed, ending the Russo-Japanese War.[91]
|March 13
|Women's suffrage and civil rights activist Susan B. Anthony died.[92]
|April 18
|The 1906 San Francisco earthquake killed over 3,400 people and destroyed over 80% of San Francisco; being the deadliest earthquake in American history.[93][94][95]
|June 29
|The Hepburn Act was signed into law.[96]
|June 30
|The Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act were signed; establishing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[97][98]
|December 10
|President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese war; becoming the first statesman to win a Nobel Prize.[99]
|January 26
|The Tillman Act was signed into law.[100]
|February 26
|The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 was signed.[101]
|November 17
|Oklahoma was admitted to the Union, becoming the 46th state.[102]
|December 6
|Monongah Mining Disaster: A coal mine exploded in Monongah, West Virginia, killing at least 361.[103]
|May 30
|The Aldrich–Vreeland Act was signed into law.[104]
|July 26
|The Bureau of Investigation (later the FBI) was established.[105]
|October 1
|The Ford Model T appeared on the market.[81]
|November 3
|United States presidential election, 1908: U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft was elected President, defeating former Nebraska Representative William Jennings Bryan.[106]
|November 30
|The Root–Takahira Agreement was reached.[107]
|William Howard Taft implemented Dollar Diplomacy.[108]
|February 12
|The NAACP was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois.[109]
|April 7
|Robert Peary became the first person to reach the North Pole.[110]
|August 2
|The first redesigned Lincoln Penny was released to the public.[111]
|February 8
|The Boy Scouts of America was created.[112]
|June 18
|The Mann–Elkins Act was signed into law.[113]
|The Mann Act was signed into law.[114]
|August 6
|The Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act was signed into law.[115]
|May 15
|Standard Oil Company v. United States: The Supreme Court found Standard Oil guilty of monopolizing the petroleum industry; subsequently dividing Standard Oil into several geographically separate firms.[116]
|May 30
|The first Indianapolis 500 was held; being won by Ray Harroun.[117]
|January 6
|New Mexico was admitted to the Union, becoming the 47th.[118]
|February 14
|Arizona was admitted to the Union, becoming the 48th state.[118]
|March 12
|Girl Scouts of the USA was created by Juliette Gordon Low.[119]
|April 14–15
|The RMS Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the northern Atlantic Ocean, sinking the ship entirely less than three hours the initial collision, killing over 1,500 of the 2,224 passengers aboard.[120][121][122]
|October 14
|Former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot, but not killed, while campaigning for President as the candidate for the progressive Bull Moose Party.[123]
|November 5
|United States presidential election, 1912: New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson defeated incumbent President William Howard Taft, former President Theodore Roosevelt and union leader Eugene V. Debs.[124]
|February 3
|The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing an income tax, was ratified.[125]
|February 17
|The Armory Show opened in New York City, introducing American and European modern art to the American public.[126]
|May 31
|The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing direct election of Senators, was ratified.[127]
|June 15
|After mass civilian casualties in the Battle of Bud Bagsak, the Moro's surrendered their rebellion, ending the Philippine–American War.[128]
|October 4
|The Underwood Tariff was signed into law.[129]
|December 1
|Henry Ford developed the modern assembly line.[130]
|December 23
|The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law; establishing the Federal Reserve System.[131]
|April 20
|Ludlow massacre: The camps of striking coal miners were attacked by the Colorado National Guard; killing 25, including 11 children.[132]
|July 28
|World War I: Austria-Hungary invaded the Kingdom of Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; triggering the start of World War I.[133]
|May 9
|The first Mother's Day was observed.[134]
|September 26
|The Federal Trade Commission was established.[135]
|October 15
|The Clayton Antitrust Act was signed into law.[136]
|February 8
|The controversial movie The Birth of a Nation opened in Los Angeles, becoming the largest-grossing movie at the time.[137]
|May 7
|The RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo, killing 1,198 passengers; partially contributing to the U.S.'s later involvement in World War I.[138]
|November 7
|Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to the United States Congress.[139]
|The Adamson Railway Labor Act was signed into law.
|July 17
|The Federal Farm Loan Act was signed into law.[140]
|August 29
|The Jones Act was signed into law.[141]
|November 7
|United States presidential election, 1916: President Woodrow Wilson was reelected to a second term, defeating Associate Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes of New York.[142]
|March 31
|The United States acquired the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25,000,000.[143]
|March 1
|The Zimmermann telegram was published, helping shift public opinion in favor of U.S. involvement in World War I.[144]
|March 2
|Puerto Rico becomes part of the United States of America.
|April 6
|The United States declared war on Germany, beginning the U.S.'s involvement in World War I.[145]
|June 15
|The Espionage Act was signed into law.[146]
|November 2
|The Lansing–Ishii Agreement was signed.[147]
|First Red Scare: The scare, marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism, began.[148][149][150]
|January 8
|World War I: President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which assured citizens that the war was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe, was issued.[151]
|May 16
|The Sedition Act of 1918 was signed into law; forbidding the "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" against the United States government during a time of war.[146][152]
|Red Summer: Heightened racial scrutinization of African-Americans during the Red Scare prompted mass racial riots among Whites in Bisbee, Arizona, Longview, Texas, Washington D.C., Chicago, Knoxville, Omaha, and Elaine, Arkansas.[153]
|Inflation from the Post–World War I recession lead to the strike of 4 million workers; prompting the Boston Police Strike, Seattle General Strike, Steel Strike of 1919 and Coal Strike of 1919.[148]
|June 28
|World War I: The Treaty of Versailles ended the war.[154]
|October 2
|The Black Sox Scandal, involving the fixing of the 1919 World Series, occurred.[155]
|October 28
|President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the Volstead Act was overridden by the Senate, establishing the Eighteenth Amendment.[156]
|November 19
|The United States Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, becoming the first time in U.S. history the Senate rejected a peace treaty.[157]
|Depression of 1920–21: A deflationary recession began in the United States.
|January 2
|Palmer Raids: Authorities arrested some three thousand suspected communists and anarchists in raids across the country.
|January 4
|Republican congressman J. Hampton Moore resigned his seat following his election to become mayor of Philadelphia.
|January 17
|The Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act came into force, forbidding the production, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages. See Prohibition in the United States.[158]
|January 20
|Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920: Filipino American sugar plantation workers in Hawaii went on strike for higher wages.
|January 26
|The Supreme Court held in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States that copies of illegally obtained evidence are also inadmissible as evidence.
|February 2
|Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass, a Democrat, was appointed to the Virginia Senate seat left vacant by the death of Thomas S. Martin.
|February 25
|The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, which allowed for the leasing of public lands for the extraction of natural resources, was passed by the Congress.
|February 27
|Ruby murders: Two store owners in Ruby, Arizona were murdered by Mexicans, probably followers of the revolutionary general Pancho Villa.
|February 29
|Democratic representative Edward W. Saunders resigned following his election to the Virginia Supreme Court.
|March 1
|The United States Railroad Administration returned control of the railroads to its constituent companies under the terms of the Esch–Cummins Act, which also officially encouraged consolidation of private railroads.
|Democratic senator John H. Bankhead of Alabama died.
|March 5
|Democrat B. B. Comer was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Bankhead until a special election could be held.
|March 8
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Eisner v. Macomber that a pro rata stock dividend that does not increase one's ownership in a company cannot be considered taxable income under the Constitution.
|March 15
|1920 North Dakota blizzard: A blizzard began in North Dakota which would kill some thirty people.
|March 18
|1920 North Dakota blizzard: The blizzard ended.
|March 19
|The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles.
|March 24
|Republican representative William J. Browning of New Jersey's 1st congressional district died.
|March 28
|1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak: An outbreak of tornadoes in the Midwest and South killed nearly four hundred people.
|March 30
|The Death on the High Seas Act was signed into law, permitting damages to be collected by survivors in the event of the wrongful death in international waters of a member of the Merchant Marine.
|April 13
|Congress passed the Phelan Act of 1920, authorizing the Federal Reserve Banks to offer discounts to member banks taking large loans.
|April 19
|In a decision in Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court held that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which implemented the Migratory Bird Treaty forbidding the hunting of migratory birds in the United States and Canada, was constitutional under the Supremacy Clause.
|April 1920 tornado outbreak: An outbreak of tornadoes in the Southeast began which would claim over two hundred lives and injure over a thousand.
|April 20
|Louisiana gubernatorial election, 1920: Democrat John M. Parker was elected governor of Louisiana with ninety-eight percent of the vote.
|April 21
|April 1920 tornado outbreak: The outbreak ended.
|Anaconda Road massacre: Anaconda Copper security fired on striking mine workers in Butte, Montana, killing one and injuring twenty.
|April 25
|Republican congressman Charles Archibald Nichols died.
|April 26
|Great Debate: A debate was held in Washington, D.C. between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis concerning the existence of other galaxies outside the Milky Way.
|8 May
|1920 Kentucky Derby: Paul Jones won a running of the Kentucky Derby.
|19 May
|Battle of Matewan: Ten people including the mayor were killed in Matewan, West Virginia following tensions between the Stone Mountain Coal Company and the United Mine Workers (UMW).
|23 May
|Secret Court of 1920: Harvard dean Chester Noyes Greenough convened a special tribunal to investigate homosexual activity at the college.
|31 May
|1920 Indianapolis 500: Gaston Chevrolet won a running of the Indianapolis 500 in Speedway, Indiana.
|June 1
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Hawke v. Smith that a referendum in Ohio nullifying the Ohio General Assembly's ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment was unconstitutional and void.
|June 4
|The National Defense Act of 1920, which established the Organized Reserve, now the Army Reserve, and elevated the National Guard and the Reserve alongside the Regular Army to comprise the Army of the United States, was passed by the Congress.
|June 5
|Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, prohibiting foreign vessels from transporting goods by sea between American ports.
|The Federal Power Act, which created the Federal Power Commission and transferred to it, from the states, the authority to issue licenses to construct dams, was passed by the Congress.
|June 7
|Republican congressman Edmund Platt resigned his seat representing New York's 26th congressional district following his appointment to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
|June 8
|1920 Republican National Convention: A national convention of the Republican Party convened in Chicago which would select dark horse compromise candidate Warren G. Harding, senator from Ohio, as its nominee for the presidency.
|June 15
|1920 Duluth lynchings: Three black circus workers were lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota following a false rape accusation.
|June 16
|Fifteen hectares on Taboga Island were annexed to the Panama Canal Zone.
|June 28
|1920 Democratic National Convention: A national convention of the Democratic Party convened in San Francisco which would select Ohio governor James M. Cox as its presidential nominee after forty-four ballots.
|July 4
|Republican representative Dick Thompson Morgan died.
|August 1
|Denver streetcar strike of 1920: The Denver local of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America, now the Amalgamated Transit Union, went on strike following a refusal of the Denver Tramway to raise their wages in compliance with an order of the National War Labor Board.
|August 5
|Denver streetcar strike of 1920: The strike descended into violence following confrontations between the union and strikebreakers. Two people were killed and thirty wounded.
|August 7
|Denver streetcar strike of 1920: Federal troops placed Denver under martial law, ending the violence and the strike.
|August 13
|1920 U.S. Open: Ted Ray won the U.S. Open in Toledo, Ohio.
|August 18
|The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote.[159]
|August 21
|1920 PGA Championship: Jock Hutchinson won the final of the golf tournament, held in Flossmoor, Illinois.
|August 30
|1920 U.S. National Championships: A tennis tournament opened in Forest Hills, Queens.
|September 7
|1920 Alabama coal strike: Some fifteen thousand UMW miners went on strike in Alabama.
|September 16
|Wall Street bombing: A horse-drawn carriage bomb probably planted by followers of the anarchist Luigi Galleani in the financial district of New York City killed some forty people and injured over a hundred.[160]
|September 23
|1920 Louisiana hurricane: A hurricane dissipated over eastern Kansas after causing one death and over a million dollars in damage in Louisiana.
|October 12
|1920 World Series: The Cleveland Indians defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games.
|November 1
|Democratic congressman James Thomas Heflin resigned his seat representing Alabama's 5th congressional district following his victory in a special election to replace Comer as senator from Alabama.
|November 2
|United States elections, 1920: Harding decisively defeated Cox for the presidency, with sixty percent of the vote. The Republican Party strengthened its majorities in the House and Senate.[161]
|Arizona gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican governor Thomas Edward Campbell of Arizona was reelected with fifty-four percent of the vote.
|Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican J. A. O. Preus was elected Governor of Minnesota with fifty-three percent of the vote.
|Missouri gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican Arthur M. Hyde was elected governor of Missouri with fifty-four percent of the vote.
|Montana gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican Joseph M. Dixon was elected governor of Montana with sixty percent of the vote.
|South Carolina gubernatorial election, 1920: Incumbent Democratic governor Robert Archer Cooper of South Carolina was reelected without opposition.
|Vermont gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican James Hartness was elected Governor of Vermont with seventy-eight percent of the vote.
|West Virginia gubernatorial election, 1920: Republican Ephraim F. Morgan was elected governor of West Virginia with forty-seven percent of the vote.
|November 19
|Republican congressman Mahlon Morris Garland died.
|December 7
|1920 State of the Union Address: Wilson addressed a joint session of the Congress.
|December 13
|In a decision in United States v. Wheeler (1920), the Supreme Court held that the Constitution did not grant the federal government the power to punish a private citizen's violation of another's freedom of movement.
|December 30
|Republican John MacCrate resigned his seat representing New York's 3rd congressional district in the House following his election to the New York Supreme Court.
|May 19
|The Emergency Quota Act was signed into law.[162]
|May 31 – June 1
|The Tulsa Race riot occurred; resulting in the deaths of up to 300 African-Americans and leaving more than 8,000 homeless.[163]
|November 12
|The first meeting of the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921 was held.[164]
|September 21
|The Fordney–McCumber Tariff was signed into law.[165]
|August 2
|President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.[166]
|August 3
|Vice President Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as President, the day following the death of President Harding.[167]
|November 22
|Teapot Dome scandal: Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall resigned as a result of the scandal.[168]
|December 10
|The Equal Rights Amendment, written by women's suffragist leader Alice Paul, was first introduced in the Senate.[169]
|May 10
|J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation.[170]
|May 26
|The Immigration Act Basic Law was signed into law.[171]
|November 4
|United States presidential election, 1924: President Calvin Coolidge defeated former Solicitor General John W. Davis and Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette.[172]
|July 21
|Scopes Trial: High school teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, for teaching human evolution in the classroom.[173]
|November 4
|Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected Governor of Wyoming, becoming the first woman elected governor of a U.S. State.[174]
|November 28
|WSM first broadcast the Grand Ole Opry.[175]
|November 15
|The broadcast network NBC was founded.[176]
|January 27
|The radio network Columbia Broadcasting System (later CBS) was founded.[177]
|May 18
|Bath School disaster: Andrew Kehoe detonated over 500 pounds of dynamite and incendiary pyrotol which he planted in an elementary school in Bath Township, Michigan, where he later detonated the first ever car bomb in the U.S. in a suicide attack at the scene of the bombing; killing a total of 44 people and being the deadliest mass murder at a school in U.S. history.[178][179]
|May 21
|Charles Lindbergh made the first trans-Atlantic flight.[180]
|August 23
|Sacco and Vanzetti were executed.[181]
|October 6
|The Jazz Singer, the first motion picture with sound, was released.[182]
|August 27
|The Kellogg–Briand Pact was signed.[183]
|November 6
|United States presidential election, 1928: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was elected President, defeating New York Governor Al Smith.[184]
|November 18
|Disney's animated feature Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse, opened.[185]
|February 14
|The St. Valentine's Day Massacre became one of the most infamous slaying between rival gangs of the Prohibition era; resulting in the deaths of 7.[186]
|October 29
|Wall Street Crash of 1929: The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted a record 68 points.[187]
|November 7
|The Museum of Modern Art opened to the public in New York City.[188]
|February 20
|American Samoa officially became a United States territory.[189]
|June 17
|The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was signed into law.[190]
|May 1
|The Empire State Building opened in New York City.[191]
|January 7
|The Stimson Doctrine was published.[192]
|January 22
|The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was established.[193]
|March 23
|The Norris–La Guardia Act was signed into law.[194]
|The Bonus Army protests began in Washington, D.C.[195]
|May 20
|Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean.[196]
|November 8
|United States presidential election, 1932: New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected President, defeating incumbent Herbert Hoover.[197]
|January 23
|The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution, moving the beginning and end of the terms of elected federal officials to January 20, was ratified.[198]
|February 15
|Giuseppe Zangara assassinated Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in an attempt on President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt's life.[199]
|March 4
|President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins United States Secretary of Labor, becoming the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position.[200]
|New Deal: The Agricultural Adjustment Act, Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, Farm Credit Administration, Home Owners Loan Corporation, Tennessee Valley Authority, Public Works Administration, National Industrial Recovery Act were all established or brought into force.[201]
|December 5
|The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, ending prohibition, was ratified.[202]
|Dust Bowl: The Dust Bowl, characterized by severe drought and heat waves in the Great Plains, began.[203]
|March 24
|The Tydings–McDuffie Act was signed into law, establishing the Philippine Commonwealth.[204]
|June 6
|The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was established.[205]
|June 12
|The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act was signed into law.[206]
|June 16
|The Glass–Steagall Act was signed into law.[207]
|June 18
|The Indian Reorganization Act was signed into law.[208]
|June 22
|John Dillinger was killed.[209]
|June 28
|The Federal Housing Administration was established.[210]
|March 22
|The FBI was established, with J. Edgar Hoover as its first director.[211]
|April 8
|The Works Progress Administration was established.[212]
|May 14
|The Social Security Act was signed into law; establishing the Social Security Administration.[213]
|May 27
|Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States: The Supreme Court ruled that the National Industrial Recovery Act, a central piece of President Roosevelt's New Deal program, was unconstitutional.[214]
|July 5
|The National Labor Relations Act was signed into law.[215]
|August 9
|The Motor Carrier Act was signed into law.[216]
|August 30
|The Revenue Act of 1935 was signed into law.[217]
|August 31
|The Neutrality Act of 1935 was signed into law.[218]
|September 10
|Louisiana Senator Huey Long was assassinated.[219]
|November 9
|The Congress of Industrial Organizations was founded.[220]
|January 6
|United States v. Butler: The Supreme Court ruled that the processing taxes instituted under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional.[221]
|March 25
|The Second London Naval Treaty was signed.[222]
|June 19
|The Robinson-Patman Act was signed into law.[223]
|November 3
|United States presidential election, 1936: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a second term, defeating Kansas Governor Alf Landon.[224]
|December 30
|The Flint Sit-Down Strike began.[225]
|May 1
|The Neutrality Act of 1937 was signed into law.[226]
|May 6
|Hindenburg disaster: The LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire, crashing at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey after departing from Frankfurt, Germany; killing thirty-five passengers and one ground crewman.[227]
|May 27
|The Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco.[228]
|December 12
|Panay incident: A Japanese attack was made on the United States Navy gunboat USS Panay while it was anchored in the Yangtze River outside of Nanjing; killing three Americans.[229]
|June 25
|The Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law; establishing a federal minimum wage.[230]
|October 30
|Orson Welles performed a broadcast of The War of the Worlds.[231]
|February 4
|Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first full-length animated film.[232]
|August 2
|The Hatch Act, aimed at corrupt political practices, was signed into law, preventing federal civil servants from campaigning.[233]
|September 1
|Invasion of Poland: Nazi Germany invaded Poland.[234]
|September 21
|In response to the Poland Campaign, President Roosevelt requested a cash and carry policy to replace the Neutrality Acts.[235]
|June 29
|The Smith Act was signed into law.[236]
|The cartoon characters Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry debuted.[237][238]
|July 20
|Billboard publishes its first music popularity chart.[239]
|September 16
|The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, reinstating the U.S. military draft, was signed into law.[240]
|November 5
|U.S. presidential election, 1940: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a third term, defeating corporate lawyer Wendell Willkie of Indiana.[241]
|February 23
|American Nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, with fellow U.C. Berkeley researchers, discovered the chemical element plutonium.[242][243][244]
|March 11
|World War II: Lend-Lease, which supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material, began.[245]
|June 25
|President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, prohibiting racial discrimination in the defense industry.[246]
|August 14
|World War II: The Atlantic Charter was drafted by Britain and the United States to serve as a blueprint for the postwar world.[247]
|December 7
|Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Empire of Japan deliberately attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Sinking six U.S. ships, including the USS Arizona, and destroying 188 aircraft, the attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in the deaths of 2,402 American citizens and leaving 1,178 wounded.[248]
|December 8
|The United States declares war on the Empire of Japan, beginning the U.S. entry into World War II.[249]
|December 11
|The United States declares war on Germany and Italy, after both nations declared war with United States.[250]
|The Congress of Racial Equality was established.[251]
|January 20
|The Office of Price Administration was established.[252]
|February 9
|Automobile production in the United States for private consumers is halted by the War Production Board.[253]
|February 19
|Japanese American internment: Internment and seizure of property began, per Executive Order 9066 issued by President Roosevelt.[254]
|April 9
|The U.S. surrenders to Japan in the Battle of Bataan, beginning the three-year occupation of the Commonwealth of the Philippines by Japanese forces.[255]
|April 11
|President Roosevelt signed Executive order 8734; establishing the Office of Price Administration.[256]
|April 18
|Pacific Theater of Operations: The Doolittle Raid begins the first U.S. bombing of Japanese archipelago.[257]
|June 3
|The Aleutian Islands Campaign begins the Japanese occupation of Alaska Territory.[258]
|June 4–7
|The Battle of Midway was fought.[259]
|August 7
|The Guadalcanal Campaign begins in the Solomon Islands.[260]
|August 13
|The Manhattan Project, leading to the development of the first atomic bomb, began.[261]
|October 21
|The Revenue Act of 1942 was signed into law.[262]
|November 28
|The Cocoanut Grove fire, the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, killed 492 people in Boston.[263]
|January 14–24
|The Casablanca Conference was held.[264]
|March 31
|The Broadway musical Oklahoma! opened.[265]
|June 20–22
|The Detroit Race Riot occurred; resulting in the deaths of 34 Whites and African-Americans and leaving 670 injured.[266][267]
|September 8
|Armistice of Cassibile: General Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allied Powers; with Italy later declaring war on Germany one month later.[268][269][270]
|November 22–26
|The Cairo Conference was held.[271]
|November 28
|The Tehran Conference was held between the "Big Three" Allied leaders of World War II.[272]
|June 6
|Normandy Landings (D-Day): The Invasion of Normandy, one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history, began in the Allied Powers broader Operation Overlord; leading to the Liberation of Paris.[273][274][275]
|June 22
|The G.I. Bill was signed into law.[276]
|July 1–22
|United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference: Delegates from 44 nations met to discuss a new post-WWII monetary policy.[277]
|August 21
|The Dumbarton Oaks Conference began, starting the first talks between world leaders on the establishment of the United Nations.[278]
|November 7
|U.S. presidential election, 1944: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a fourth term, defeating New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey.[279]
|December 16
|The Battle of the Bulge, Germany's final major offensive of World War II, began; being the deadliest military battle for the United States during World War II.[280][281]
|January 1
|Operation Bodenplatte: The German Luftwaffe destroyed a number of Allied aircraft across the Low Countries, at a cost of some two hundred pilots killed or captured.
|Chenogne massacre: American troops killed some sixty soldiers of the German Wehrmacht held as prisoners of war near Chenogne, Belgium.
|1945 Rose Bowl: The USC Trojans defeated the Tennessee Volunteers in a college football bowl game in Pasadena, California.
|1945 Cotton Bowl Classic: The Oklahoma A&M Cowboys defeated the TCU Horned Frogs in a college football bowl game in Dallas.
|The 6th Photographic Squadron was inactivated.
|1945 Orange Bowl: The Tulsa Golden Hurricane defeated the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in a college football bowl game in Miami.
|1945 Sugar Bowl: The Duke Blue Devils defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide in a college football bowl game in New Orleans.
|1945 Sun Bowl: The Southwestern Pirates decisively defeated the Mexico Pumas in a college football bowl game held in El Paso, Texas.
|January 2
|Republican congressman William I. Troutman of Pennsylvania's at-large congressional district resigned.
|January 6
|Invasion of Lingayen Gulf: American and Australian warships began bombarding Japanese positions in the Lingayen Gulf.
|January 9
|Battle of Luzon: The Sixth Army landed at the Lingayen Gulf.
|Democratic senator Monrad Wallgren of Washington resigned following his election as governor.
|January 15
|Democratic congressman James F. O'Connor of Montana's 2nd congressional district died.
|January 16
|Democratic senator Francis T. Maloney of Connecticut died.
|January 17
|Vice president-elect Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, resigned his Senate seat representing Missouri.
|January 18
|Democrat Frank P. Briggs was appointed to fill Truman's vacant Senate seat from Missouri.
|January 20
|Fourth inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn into his fourth term as president in Washington, D.C.
|Colmar Pocket: French forces attacked the south flank of the German 19th Army, then in possession of territory around Colmar in Alsace.
|January 21
|Operation Nordwind: American forces withdrew to the south bank of the Moder in the face of a German advance.
|January 30
|Raid at Cabanatuan: American and Philippine forces liberated some six hundred civilians and Allied prisoners of war from a Japanese camp near Cabanatuan.
|Battle of Kesternich: American forces entered the German-held village of Kesternich, in modern Simmerath.
|January 31
|Battle of Bataan: American forces advanced on a Japanese regiment in a pass of the Zambales Mountains.
|February 1
|Battle of Kesternich: The last German defenders were expelled from Kesternich.
|February 3
|Battle of Manila: The 1st Cavalry Division entered the northern outskirts of Manila.
|February 4
|Yalta Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union met near Yalta to discuss the reorganization of Europe after the war.[282]
|February 6
|The Curecanti National Recreation Area was established.
|February 9
|Colmar Pocket: The German army retreated across the Rhine.
|February 10
|Operation Kita: Six Japanese ships left Singapore for Japan under British and American harassment.
|February 11
|Yalta Conference: The conference ended. The three parties agreed to the demilitarization of Germany and its division into American, British, Soviet and French occupation zones, and the establishment of a Polish government with the pro-Soviet Polish Committee of National Liberation at its core.
|February 13
|Bombing of Dresden in World War II: British bombers launched the first of four firebombing raids on Dresden.
|February 15
|Republican Thomas C. Hart was appointed to the Senate seat representing Connecticut left vacant by Maloney's death.
|Democrat Dave E. Satterfield, Jr., representative from Virginia's 3rd congressional district, resigned.
|February 16
|Battle of Corregidor: American paratroopers landed on the Japanese-held island of Corregidor.
|February 19
|Battle of Iwo Jima: The V Amphibious Corps landed on Japanese-occupied Iwo Jima.[283]
|February 20
|Operation Kita: The Japanese ships arrived safely in Kure, Hiroshima.
|February 21
|Battle of Bataan (1945): Bataan was fully conquered by American and Philippine forces.
|Battle of Baguio: American and Philippine forces began an advance on Baguio.
|Battle of Monte Castello: American and Brazilian forces captured a German stronghold in the northern Apennine Mountains.
|February 23
|Raid at Los Baños: American and Philippine forces raided a Japanese prison camp at Los Baños, Laguna, rescuing some two thousand Allied and civilian prisoners.
|February 24
|1945 Southern Conference Men's Basketball Tournament: The University of North Carolina defeated Duke University in the final of the Southern Conference men's basketball tournament.
|February 26
|Battle of Corregidor (1945): Corregidor was declared secured
|March 1
|Operation Lumberjack: American forces attacked German positions in an advance on the Rhine.
|March 3
|Battle of Manila (1945): The last of Manila fell to American and Philippine forces.
|Senator John Moses, Democrat of North Dakota, died during open heart surgery.
|March 6
|Democrat J. Vaughan Gary was seated in the House following a special election to fill the seat representing Virginia's 3rd congressional district, vacant due to Satterfield's resignation.
|March 7
|Battle of Remagen: American forces entered Remagen and captured the Ludendorff Bridge.
|March 9
|Granville raid: German forces damaged several Allied ships, killed twenty sailors, and stole a coal collier in Granville, Manche.
|Congress passed the McCarran–Ferguson Act. The act declares that federal laws should not be taken to regulate the insurance industry, unless specifically so stated, if a state law already exists.
|March 10
|Battle of Mindanao: The Eighth Army began preparations for the invasion of Mindanao.
|March 12
|Santa Fe riot: Some three hundred Japanese nationals interned at a camp near Santa Fe, New Mexico rioted following the removal of three of their number to another camp.
|Republican Milton Young was appointed to fill the Senate seat representing North Dakota left vacant by Moses's death.
|March 15
|17th Academy Awards: An awards ceremony for American cinema was held in Los Angeles.
|Operation Undertone: French and American forces launched an assault against the German army across a front stretching from Saarbrücken to Haguenau.
|March 16
|Bombing of Kobe in World War II: American forces firebombed Kobe, killing some nine thousand civilians.
|March 18
|Battle of the Visayas: The 185th Infantry Regiment landed at Tigbauan, Iloilo in the Japanese-occupied Visayas.
|March 22
|Western Allied invasion of Germany: The 5th Infantry Division crossed the Rhine at Nierstein.
|Republican congressman James V. Heidinger of Illinois's 24th congressional district died.
|March 23
|Operation Plunder: British and American forces crossed the Rhine near the confluence with the Lippe.
|March 24
|Operation Varsity: The United States and United Kingdom dropped some twenty thousand paratroopers on the east side of the Rhine.
|Operation Undertone: The bulk of German forces retreated across the Rhine and destroyed the last remaining bridge, at Germersheim.
|March 26
|Battle of Iwo Jima: Iwo Jima was declared secure.
|Battle for Cebu City: American and Philippine forces landed on Cebu.
|Battle of Frankfurt: American forces reached the outskirts of Frankfurt.
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in United States v. Willow River Power Co. that the Fifth Amendment only requires just compensation when private property is taken for public use, and not more generally when government action causes an economic loss.
|March 27
|1945 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament: Oklahoma A&M beat New York University in the final of a college basketball tournament.
|March 28
|Battle for Cebu City: Allied forces captured Cebu City.
|March 29
|Battle of Frankfurt: American forces conquered Frankfurt.
|April 1
|Battle of Okinawa: American forces landed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.[284]
|Battle of Kassel: The 80th Division advanced on the German-held city of Kassel from the south.
|April 3
|Los Angeles mayoral election, 1945: Republican Fletcher Bowron was reelected mayor of Los Angeles with fifty-four percent of the vote.
|April 4
|Battle of Buchhof and Stein am Kocher: German and American forces met in battle between the Neckar and the Kocher.
|Battle of Kassel (1945): The defenders of the city surrendered.
|April 5
|Freeman Field Mutiny: Some forty black airmen were arrested after entering the white officers' club at Freeman Army Airfield.
|April 6
|Spring 1945 offensive in Italy: An Allied artillery bombardment began against German positions across the Senio.
|Battle of West Hunan: Japanese forces invaded western Hunan.
|April 7
|Operation Ten-Go: A naval battle took place south of Kyushu in which eight Japanese ships were destroyed or severely damaged and some four thousand sailors killed, largely due to the complete air superiority of the United States.
|April 8
|1945 NFL Draft: An NFL draft was held in New York City.
|April 9
|Battle of Bologna: Allied forces advanced on the German-held city of Bologna.
|April 11
|Operation Copper: Seven of eight commandos of the Allied Z Special Unit were captured and executed following a failed reconnaissance of an island in New Guinea.
|April 12
|Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia.[285][286]
|First inauguration of Harry S. Truman: Truman was sworn in as president in Washington, D.C.
|April 15
|Operation Teardrop: An American surface ship made radar contact in the northern Atlantic Ocean with a German U-boat bound for North America
|April 16
|Battle of Nuremberg: The Seventh Army began an assault on Nuremberg.
|April 19
|Operation Herring: The Army Air Forces dropped some two hundred Italian resistance paratroopers into German-held areas in the valley of the Po.
|April 20
|Battle of Nuremberg (1945): The last German resistance in Nuremberg surrendered to American forces.
|April 21
|Battle of Bologna: Allied forces captured Bologna.
|April 22
|1945 Stanley Cup Finals: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals, in Detroit.
|April 23
|Operation Herring: The operation ended with some two thousand Germans captured or killed.
|Action of 23 April 1945: An American submarine sank a German submarine in the Java Sea.
|The Supreme Court in a decision in Cramer v. United States overturned the treason conviction of the plaintiff, holding that the prosecution had not proved that he had committed actions meeting the constitutional definition of the crime.
|April 24
|Battle of Baguio (1945): American and Philippine forces entered Baguio.
|April 25
|United Nations Conference on International Organization: A convention attended by delegates from fifty countries opened in San Francisco.
|April 26
|Battle of Collecchio: Brazilian forces encountered German and Italian forces attempting to flee north across the Po at Fornovo di Taro.
|April 27
|Battle of Davao: American forces landed at Davao Gulf.
|April 28
|Death of Benito Mussolini: Duce Benito Mussolini of the Italian Social Republic was executed in Giulino by Walter Audisio of the Italian resistance movement.
|April 29
|Battle of Collecchio: Some ten thousand German and Italian troops surrendered to Brazil.
|April 30
|Death of Adolf Hitler: German Führer Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot in Berlin.[287]
|2 May
|Battle of Berlin: Soviet and Polish forces captured the German capital Berlin.
|5 May
|1945 Kentucky Derby: Hoop Jr. won a running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.
|Battle for Castle Itter: American troops and soldiers of the German Army defended a castle from the Waffen-SS in Itter.
|Battle of Point Judith: American surface ships sank a German U-boat off Point Judith, Rhode Island.
|7 May
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. United Mine Workers of America that the underground travel time of coal miners was compensable work time under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
|The Supreme Court in Screws v. United States held a conviction under the civil rights sections of Title 18 of the United States Code requires proof of the defendant's specific intent to deprive the victim of a federal right.
|8 May
|End of World War II in Europe: Alfred Jodl of the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht signed the German Instrument of Surrender in Berlin.
|11 May
|Battle of Slivice: German forces led by gruppenführer Carl Friedrich von Pückler-Burghauss were placed under bombardment by American and Soviet forces in Slivice, near Čimelice.
|21 May
|The Supreme Court in a decision in Sinclair & Carroll Co. v. Interchemical Corp. held a patent invalid for lack of inventiveness.
|28 May
|Battle of the Visayas: Major combat operations were declared finished. Philippine forces were tasked with eliminating the last Japanese resistance in the Visayas.
|Project Hula: A convoy of American ships given over to the Soviet Union departed Cold Bay, Alaska.
|June 4
|The Office of Civilian Defense, responsible for coordinating state and federal emergency response, was dissolved by executive order.
|June 5
|Republican Wesley A. D'Ewart was seated in the House following a special election to O'Connor's vacant seat representing Montana's 2nd congressional district.
|June 7
|Battle of West Hunan: Chinese forces with American air support forced the retreat of Japanese forces from western Hunan.
|June 10
|Battle of Davao: Japanese forces withdrew from Davao City.
|Battle of Labuan: The Australian 24th Brigade landed on Labuan.
|Battle of North Borneo: The Australian 2/15th and 2/17th battalions landed on the mainland of North Borneo.
|June 11
|1945 Florida State Road renumbering: Florida's state roads were renumbered.
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in In re Summers that the Illinois state bar association, in denying the admission of the petitioner, a conscientious objector, had not violated his First or Fourteenth Amendment rights.
|June 14
|Battle of Bessang Pass: The United States Army Forces in the Philippines - Northern Luzon captured Cervantes, Ilocos Sur
|June 18
|The Supreme Court held in a decision in Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona that Arizona's Train Limit Law of 1912 placed an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce.
|The Supreme Court reached a decision in Associated Press v. United States in which it held that the Associated Press, an association of news media organizations, had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by forbidding its member organizations from selling stories to nonmembers, and that it was not exempt from the Act under the First Amendment.
|In a decision in Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, the Supreme Court held that a state law, specifically a state statute of limitations, must be followed by a federal court where it substantially affects the outcome of the case.
|June 21
|Battle of Okinawa: The last Japanese resistance on Okinawa was defeated. The battle left some twenty thousand American soldiers and as many as one hundred thousand Japanese soldiers and another hundred thousand civilians dead.
|Battle of Labuan: Australian and American forces wiped out the last Japanese resistance on Labuan.
|June 23
|Democratic senator James G. Scrugham of Nevada died.
|June 26
|United Nations Conference on International Organization: The delegates to the conference signed the United Nations Charter. The charter establishes the United Nations (UN), an intergovernmental organization with a General Assembly of all member states and a Security Council responsible for authorizing sanctions and military action.[288]
|June 29
|The War Food Administration, responsible for the production and distribution of food during wartime, was abolished by executive order.
|June 30
|The 78th Flying Training Wing was disbanded.
|Democratic congressman Clinton Presba Anderson of New Mexico's at-large congressional district resigned his seat following his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture.
|July 1
|Battle of Balikpapan: The Australian 7th Division landed a few miles north of Balikpapan.
|July 8
|Utah prisoner of war massacre: An American soldier murdered nine German prisoners of war at a camp in Salina, Utah.
|July 9
|Tillamook Burn: A fire started in the Northern Oregon Coast Range near the Salmonberry River.
|July 10
|Allied naval bombardments of Japan during World War II: Bombers of the Fast Carrier Task Force began bombing military targets around Tokyo.
|July 12
|Eastern Air Lines Flight 45: A commercial flight collided with a bomber over Lamar, South Carolina, resulting in the crash of both aircraft and one civilian and two military fatalities.
|July 15
|1945 PGA Championship: Byron Nelson won a golf tournament held in Kettering, Ohio.
|July 16
|Trinity: The Army conducted a test detonation of a nuclear weapon in the Jornada del Muerto.
|July 17
|Potsdam Conference: A conference opened in Potsdam with Truman, Churchill and Stalin as attendees.[289]
|July 18
|Attack on Yokosuka: American and British forces bombed Yokosuka, Kanagawa, destroying several Japanese ships.
|July 22
|Battle of Sagami Bay: An American destroyer squadron sank a Japanese freighter off the tip of the Bōsō Peninsula.
|July 24
|Action of 24 July 1945: A Japanese kaiten sank an American destroyer escort off Luzon, killing over a hundred sailors.
|Bombing of Kure: The Third Fleet bombed the harbor at Kure, Hiroshima, destroying seven Japanese ships including an aircraft carrier.
|July 25
|Democrat Edward P. Carville of Nevada was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Scrugham's death.
|July 26
|Potsdam Conference: Truman, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek of China issued the Potsdam Declaration outlining the terms of Japan's surrender.
|July 28
|Bombing of Aomori in World War II: United States forces firebombed the city of Aomori, Aomori, killing some two thousand civilians.
|B-25 Empire State Building crash: A bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in New York City, killing three crewmembers and eleven in the building.
|July 31
|Congress passed a law chartering the Export–Import Bank, which provides credit to foreign purchasers of American goods, as an independent agency.
|August 1
|Potsdam Conference: Truman, Stalin and British prime minister Clement Attlee signed the Potsdam Agreement, dissolving the European Advisory Commission and establishing the Allied Control Council to govern Germany with a view to establishing a single, disarmed, democratic German state.
|August 6
|Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some ten thousand soldiers and thirty thousand civilians. More would die in the following months from burns and radiation sickness.[290]
|Republican Senator Hiram Johnson of California died.
|August 9
|Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing some twenty thousand civilians.[291]
|Michigan train wreck: A train collision in Michigan City, North Dakota killed some thirty people.
|August 15
|Jewel Voice Broadcast: Emperor Hirohito of Japan read a broadcast announcing that Japan would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.[292]
|Battle of Mindanao: The last Japanese resistance on Mindanao was wiped out.
|August 16
|The Soviet Union accepted an American proposal to divide Korea into two zones of occupation divided at the 38th parallel north.
|August 17
|President José P. Laurel of the Second Philippine Republic in exile in Tokyo declared the dissolution of his government.
|August 26
|Republican William F. Knowland of California was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Hiram Johnson's death.
|August 27
|1945 Texas hurricane: A hurricane made landfall over Port Aransas, Texas which would kill three people before dissipating two days later.
|August 30
|Republican congressman D. Lane Powers resigned his seat representing New Jersey's 4th congressional district.
|September 1
|USA vs. USSR radio chess match 1945: A chess tournament between the United States and the Soviet Union began which would see the latter win by a margin of eleven games.
|September 2
|Surrender of Japan: Japan and nine other states signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay, calling for the return of all Allied prisoners of war and subordinating the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.[293]
|September 4
|The Japanese garrison on Wake Island surrendered to the United States.
|September 8
|Miss America 1945: Bess Myerson won a Miss America pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
|The 855th Bombardment Squadron was inactivated.
|September 15
|1945 Homestead hurricane: A hurricane made landfall at Key Largo, Florida which would kill four people in the United States.
|September 17
|The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Wanfried agreement, transferring territory between the American and Soviet occupation zones so that the Bebra–Göttingen railway did not cut through Soviet occupied territory.
|September 18
|1945 Japan–Washington flight: Three specially modified aircraft left Hokkaido for Washington, D.C.
|September 20
|Truman issued an executive order dissolving the Office of Strategic Services effective October 1.
|1945 Negro World Series: The Cleveland Buckeyes defeated the Washington Homestead Grays in four games, the fourth held in Philadelphia.
|September 30
|Republican senator Harold Hitz Burton of Ohio resigned his seat following his appointment as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
|October 5
|Hollywood Black Friday: Forty people were injured in a violent confrontation between striking set directors and strikebreakers in Burbank, California.
|National Airlines Flight 16: A commercial flight from Miami to Lakeland, Florida crashed, killing two passengers.
|October 8
|Democrat James W. Huffman was appointed to represent Ohio in the Senate, filling Burton's vacancy.
|October 10
|1945 World Series: The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago Cubs in seven games, the last in Chicago.
|October 16
|A conference in Quebec City of forty-four states including the United States established the Food and Agriculture Organization, dedicated to addressing hunger.
|November 1
|Democratic senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky resigned his seat.
|November 5
|The Supreme Court reached a decision in United States v. Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. in which it held that the Interstate Commerce Commission had the authority to grant licenses to common carriers according to its own judgment of what constitutes sufficient carrying capacity.
|November 6
|Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1945: Democrat David L. Lawrence was elected mayor of Pittsburgh with fifty-three percent of the vote.
|Virginia gubernatorial election, 1945: Democratic lieutenant governor William M. Tuck of Virginia was elected governor with sixty-seven percent of the vote.
|Republicans Roy Clippinger and Frank A. Mathews, Jr. were seated in the House following special elections to the seats left vacant by Heidinger and Powers, respectively.
|November 7
|The 306th Fighter Wing was inactivated.
|November 10
|Republican senator John W. Thomas of Idaho died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Washington, D.C.
|November 12
|Republican congressman James W. Mott of Oregon's 1st congressional district died.
|November 17
|Democrat Charles C. Gossett was appointed to the Senate seat representing Idaho left vacant by Thomas's death.
|November 19
|Republican William A. Stanfill was appointed to represent Kentucky in the Senate, filling Chandler's vacancy.
|November 21
|United Auto Workers (UAW) strike of 1945-46: General Motors employees represented by the United Automobile Workers went on strike.
|November 24
|1945 NCAA Cross Country Championships: Fred Feiler of Drake University and the Drake University team won the individual and team portions of a cross country event held in East Lansing, Michigan.
|December 3
|The Supreme Court reached a decision in International Shoe Co. v. Washington which substantially increased the authority of states to regulate and tax businesses conducting interstate commerce.
|December 5
|Flight 19: Five torpedo bombers disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle.
|December 16
|1945 NFL Championship Game: The Cleveland Rams defeated the Washington Redskins in a football championship game in Cleveland.
|December 20
|The United Nations Participation Act was signed into law, establishing processes for United States participation in the UN.
|December 24
|Sodder children disappearance: A fire destroyed the home of George Sodder in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Four of the nine children living in the home were rescued; the bodies of the other five were not found.
|December 25
|Democratic congressman Joseph Wilson Ervin of North Carolina's 10th congressional district committed suicide by inhaling gas from a kitchen stove.
|December 28
|The War Brides Act was signed into law, allowing spouses and natural and adoptive children of members of the Armed Forces to enter the United States as non-quota immigrants not subject to health standards.
|December 30
|The 74th Flying Training Wing was disbanded.
|Democratic congressman Samuel Dickstein (congressman) resigned his seat representing New York's 19th congressional district.
|December 31
|The National War Labor Board, established to mediate disputes between workers and employers, was dissolved by executive order.
|Democratic congressmen Clifton A. Woodrum, of Virginia's 6th congressional district, and Robert Ramspeck, of Georgia's 5th, resigned their seats.
|Automobile production in the United States for private consumers resumed.[294]
|February 20
|The Employment Act was signed into law; establishing the Council of Economic Advisers.[295]
|July 4
|The Philippines regained independence from the United States.[296]
|July 14
|Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care was published.[297]
|August 1
|The United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was signed into law; establishing the United States Atomic Energy Commission.[298]
|December 5
|President Truman signed Executive Order 9808; establishing the President's Committee on Civil Rights.[299]
|March 12
|The Truman Doctrine was declared, establishing "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[300]
|March 21
|President Truman signed executive order 9835; establishing the Federal Employee Loyalty Program to search out the "infiltration of disloyal persons" in the U.S. Government.[301]
|April 15
|Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers broke the color line in Major League Baseball.[302]
|June 5
|The Marshall Plan was announced by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall.[303]
|June 23
|The Taft Hartley Act was enacted, with the House and Senate overriding President Truman's veto of the bill.[304]
|July 7
|The Roswell UFO incident occurred near Roswell, New Mexico.[305]
|July 18
|The Presidential Succession Act was signed into law.[306]
|July 26
|The National Security Act of 1947 was signed into law, establishing the Central Intelligence Agency.[307]
|October 30
|The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in Geneva.[308]
|April 30
|The Charter of the Organization of American States was adopted.[309]
|June 8
|Texaco Star Theater, the first top-rated United States network television show, debuted on television.[310]
|June 24
|The Berlin Blockade, the first major crisis of the Cold War, took place.[311]
|The Selective Service Act of 1948 was signed into law.[312]
|July 26
|President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, leading to the desegregation of the United States Armed Forces.[313]
|November 2
|U.S. presidential election, 1948: President Harry S. Truman was reelected to a second term, defeating New York Governor and 1944 Presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, and South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, in what is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in American political history.[314][315][316]
|November 26
|The Polaroid camera was first offered for sale.[317]
|January 5
|In the 1949 State of the Union Address, President Truman proposed the unsuccessful Fair Deal; his administration's agenda for economic and domestic policy.[318]
|Allied-occupied Germany was divided into East and West Germany.
|April 4
|North Atlantic Treaty: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded.[319]
|April 13
|The Nuremberg Trials ended, with the convictions of 24 major Nazi political and military leaders, among others.[320][321]
|August 10
|The National Security Amendments of 1949 was signed into law by President Truman, renaming the Department of War the Department of Defense.[322]
|August 29
|First Lightning: The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb.[323]
|Second Red Scare: McCarthyism, the term to describe "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially of pro-Communist activity" of Senator Joseph McCarthy,[324] began after heightened fears of Communist influence in America.
|January 21
|A grand jury found former State Department official and President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Alger Hiss guilty on two counts of perjury in connection with charges that he was a Soviet spy.[325][326]
|February 9
|Senator McCarthy came to national prominence after claiming to have a list of 205 State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party and "helping to shape [the U.S.'s] foreign policy."[327]
|June 25
|Korean War: The North Korean military began the Communist lead invasion of South Korea.[328]
|June 27
|President Truman ordered U.S. air and naval support to aid South Korea against the Northern lead invasion; prompting the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Korean War.[329]
|September 22
|The McCarran Internal Security Act was enacted, with the House and Senate overriding President Truman's veto of the bill.[330]
|October 2
|The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, was first published.[331]
|November 1
|Truman assassination attempt: Two Puerto Rican nationals attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman while he stayed at Blair House.[332]
|February 27
|The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing term limits for President, was ratified.[333]
|April 11
|President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his commands after criticizing the limited war efforts of the Truman administration, and starting unauthorized talks with China in the Korean war.[334]
|September 1
|The ANZUS Treaty was signed.[335]
|September 8
|The Japanese Peace Treaty Conference was held San Francisco.[336]
|October 10
|The Mutual Security Act was signed into law.[337]
|June 27
|The McCarran–Walter Act was enacted, with the House and Senate overriding President Truman's veto of the bill.[338]
|November 4
|United States presidential election, 1952: Five-Star General and former Chief of Staff of the United States Army Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President, defeating Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II.[339]
|April 25
|Molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick published their paper on the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA.[340][341]
|June 19
|Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on conspiracy to commit espionage after they were found guilty of giving U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.[342][343]
|July 19
|The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, ending the Korean War.[344]
|August 15
|Operation Ajax: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returned to power after the CIA conducted a coup d'état in Iran.[345]
|January 1
|Tournament of Roses Parade: The parade was the first national color television broadcast.[346]
|April 26 –
July 20
|Geneva Conference: A conference was held where the United States attempted to find a way to unify Korea and restore peace in Indochina.[347]
|May 17
|Brown v. Board of Education: The Supreme Court declared that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students, and denying black children equal educational opportunities, were unconstitutional.[348]
|June 9
|Army-McCarthy hearings: Senator McCarthy was nationally discredited after failing to provide credible evidence supporting accusations of communist activity in the U.S. government amid the two months of televised hearings.[349][350][351]
|June 18–27
|Operation PBSUCCESS: The CIA organized the overthrow of Guatemala's democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.[352][353][354]
|September 8
|The United States became a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).[355]
|November 23
|The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at an all-time high of 382.74, the first time it closed above its peak set before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[356]
|December 2
|The United States and the Republic of China signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, amid the First Taiwan Strait Crisis.[357]
|December 23
|The first successful kidney transplant on a human was performed in Boston.[358]
|The Civil Rights Movement began.
|April 12
|The announcement that the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was found to be "safe, effective and potent" was made by the University of Michigan.[359]
|April 15
|Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's fast food restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.[360]
|May 14
|The Warsaw Pact was signed, establishing a mutual defense arrangement subscribed to by eight Communist states in Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union.[361]
|July 17
|Disneyland opened at Anaheim, California.[362]
|August 28
|Emmett Till was kidnapped, beaten and murdered in Money, Mississippi after reportedly flirting with a white woman; with the pictures of his open casket funeral, and the acquittal of his captors, the public reaction of Till's death serves as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.[363]
|September 30
|Actor James Dean was killed in a highway collision in Salinas, California.[364]
|November 1
|Vietnam War: President Eisenhower deploys the first American personnel from the Military Assistance Advisory Group to South Vietnam after the First Indochina War.[365]
|December 1
|Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, inciting the 386-day Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.[366]
|December 5
|The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations merged into the AFL-CIO, becoming the largest labor union in the United States.[367]
|June 29
|The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, authorizing the construction of 41,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System over a 20-year period, was signed into law.[368]
|Hungarian Revolution of 1956: The United States refused to support the revolution.[369]
|November 6
|United States presidential election, 1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower was reelected to a second term, defeating 1952 Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II in the rematch election.[370]
|January 5
|The Eisenhower Doctrine, wherein a country could request American economic assistance or military aid if threatened by outside armed aggression, was proclaimed.[371]
|January 10
|Dr. King, Rustin, Lowrey, Shuttlesworth and Abernathy founded the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC).[372]
|September 4
|Little Rock Integration Crisis: Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African-American students from integrating in the Little Rock Central High School.[373]
|September 9
|The Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was signed into law.[374]
|September 23
|President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent members of the 101st Airborne Division to escort the Little Rock Nine to their classrooms in response to Governor Faubus' efforts preventing school desegregation.[375]
|October 4
|Space race: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik.[376]
|December 2
|Atoms for Peace: The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial nuclear power plant, went into service.[377]
|January 31
|Explorer 1: The first U.S. satellite was launched into space.[378]
|July 29
|The National Aeronautics and Space Act was signed into law; establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.[379]
|Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit.[380]
|September 2
|The National Defense Education Act was signed into law.[381]
|January 3
|Alaska was admitted to the Union, becoming the 49th state.[382]
|February 4
|The Day the Music Died: Musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and pilot, Roger Peterson, were killed in a plane accident.[383]
|May 4
|The First Grammy Awards was held.[384]
|July 8
|U.S. Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale M. Buis were killed in South Vietnam, being the first two official American casualties of the Vietnam War.[385][386]
|August 21
|Hawaii was admitted to the Union, becoming the 50th state.[387]
|February 1
|The Greensboro sit-ins, sparked by the refusal of four African American college students to move from a segregated lunch counter, began similar widespread acts of civil disobedience to protest Jim Crow laws.[388]
|The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was founded.[389]
|May 1
|U-2 incident: A CIA U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet airspace.[390]
|May 6
|The Civil Rights Act of 1960, establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls and penalties for those attempting to obstruct the right to vote, was signed into law.[391]
|July 4
|The 50-star flag is adopted.
|September 26
|The first ever general election debate between presidential candidates was held between Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon.[392]
|November 8
|United States presidential election, 1960: Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was elected President, defeating Vice President Richard M. Nixon and becoming the youngest person to be elected to the office of the Presidency.[393][394]
|December 5
|Boynton v. Virginia: In a 7–2 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans were protected from racial segregation on buses by the Interstate Commerce Act.[395]
|December 20
|The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam was formed.[396]
|January 3
|The United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba.[397]
|January 17
|President Eisenhower gave his farewell address which warned of the "military–industrial complex".[398][399]
|February 7
|The United States embargo against Cuba came into force.[400]
|March 1
|President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, establishing the Peace Corps.[401]
|March 29
|The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted electors to the District of Columbia, was ratified.[402]
|April 17 –
|Bay of Pigs Invasion: The failed U.S. led invasion and attempted coup d'état of Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro took place.[403][404]
|May 4
|The Freedom Rides began in Washington D.C. after the failure to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia.[405][406]
|May 5
|Alan Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 capsule to become the first American in space.[407]
|May 25
|President Kennedy proposed the Apollo program, with the goal of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."[408]
|June 16
|Vietnam War: President Kennedy deployed an additional 400 U.S. military advisors (900 total) to South Vietnam; totaling 3,200 American troops by 1963, and more than 11,000 by mid-1964.[409][410][411]
|February 20
|John Glenn orbited the Earth.[412]
|March 26
|A decision was reached in Baker v. Carr which enabled federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases.[413]
|June 11
|Three inmates go missing on an escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on June 11, 1962.[414]
|June 25
|A decision in Engel v. Vitale determined that it was unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools.[415]
|August 5
|Marilyn Monroe died of an apparent overdose from acute barbiturate poisoning at age thirty-six.[416]
|October 14–27
|Cuban missile crisis: A nuclear confrontation took place between the United States and the Soviet Union.[417]
|February 19
|Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, attributed to sparking Second-wave feminism, was published.[418]
|March 18
|Gideon v. Wainwright: In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to counsel is protected under the Sixth Amendment.[419]
|April 3
|Birmingham campaign: The nonviolent led protests against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama was launched by the SCLC.[420]
|April 16
|Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Dr. King was arrested amid the Birmingham campaign, writing an open letter defending the strategy nonviolent protest.[421]
|June 10
|The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law.[422]
|June 12
|NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated at his home in Mississippi by white supremacists, hours after President Kennedy gave his Civil Rights Address.[423]
|August 28
|March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among other notable civil rights leaders, spoke on the Lincoln Memorial, giving his historic "I Have a Dream" speech at the march that drew over 200,000 demonstrators.[424][425][426]
|September 15
|The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, carried out by a KKK splinter group, killed four African-American girls in what was seen as a turning point for the Civil Rights Movement.[427]
|October 7
|The Atomic Test Ban Treaty was signed.[428]
|November 22
|President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper in Dallas, Texas while traveling in an open presidential motorcade with Texas Governor John Connally, who was injured in the incident.[429]
|Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President, hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.[430]
|November 24
|Lee Harvey Oswald, the sniper who assassinated President Kennedy, was killed after being fatally shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.[431]
|November 29
|The Warren Commission was established by President Johnson to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.[432]
|December 17
|The Clean Air Act was signed into law.[433]
|January 23
|The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax, was ratified.[434]
|February 7
|British Invasion: The Beatles arrived in the United States.[435]
|May 22
|President Johnson proposed the Great Society, a set of social reforms aimed at the elimination of poverty and racial injustice.[436][437]
|The Freedom Summer began, aimed to increase voter registration for African Americans.[438]
|July 2
|The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing both segregation and major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, was signed into law.[439]
|August 2
|Tonkin Gulf incident, a false flag operation with 'deliberately skewed' intelligence to expand U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, occurred.[440][441][442]
|August 4
|Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner: The bodies of three missing civil rights activists, working to register voters as a part of Freedom Summer, were found near Philadelphia, Mississippi.[443]
|August 10
|The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, not a formal declaration of war in Vietnam, was signed by President Johnson[444]
|August 20
|The Economic Opportunity Act was signed into law.[445]
|November 3
|United States presidential election, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.[446]
|December 10
|Dr. King became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for his 'nonviolent campaign against racism'.[447]
|Vietnam War: Johnson escalates United States military involvement in the war, with the number of U.S. troops totaling more than 184,000.[411]
|February 21
|African American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York.[448]
|March 2
|Operation Rolling Thunder began in the Vietnam War.[449]
|March 7
|The Selma to Montgomery marches, known as "Bloody Sunday", drew national outrage after Alabama State Troopers severely beat and used tear gas against the nonviolent demonstrators.[450]
|March 25
|In a third attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, 3,200 civil rights demonstrators reached the Alabama State Capitol, where they were joined with a crowd of 25,000, after four days of marching.[451]
|April 17
|March Against the Vietnam War: The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the SNCC led the first major anti-war demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., with over 25,000 protesters.[452]
|July 30
|The Social Security Amendments of 1965 was signed into law, establishing Medicaid and Medicare in the United States.[453]
|August 6
|The Voting Rights Act was signed into law.[454]
|August 11 -
|The Watts riots began in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, resulting in the deaths of 34 people.[455]
|September 9
|The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was established, after the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Johnson.[456]
|October 3
|The Immigration Act of 1965 was signed into law, abolishing the National Origins Formula.[457]
|November 8
|The Higher Education Act of 1965 was passed.[458]
|January 18
|Robert C. Weaver was sworn in as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, becoming the first African American to hold a cabinet-level position.[459]
|June 13
|Miranda v. Arizona: The Supreme Court ruled that not informing suspects held in custody on their right to counsel and silence violated protection against self incrimination, establishing what later became known as "Miranda Rights".[460]
|June 30
|The feminist group the National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed.[461]
|July 4
|The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law.[462]
|September 9
|The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was passed.[463]
|January 3
|Jack Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism at Parkland Hospital, where Oswald had died and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.[464]
|January 8
|Operation Cedar Falls, the largest ground operation of the Vietnam War, began; with over 500,000 with the number of U.S. troops totaling more than 500,000 by the end of 1967.[465][466]
|January 15
|Super Bowl I: In the first Super Bowl took place between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs.[467]
|February 23
|The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing succession to the Presidency and procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, was ratified.[468]
|April 1
|The United States Department of Transportation was established.[469]
|April 15
|National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam: 400,000 demonstrators march in New York City from Central Park to the United Nations Headquarters against the Vietnam War; with 100,000 protesting the war in San Francisco, being one of the largest demonstrations against the Vietnam War.[470]
|The Summer of Love took place, marking a defining period for the counterculture movement in the U.S.[471][472]
|June 12
|Loving v. Virginia: The Supreme Court overruled the prohibition of interracial marriage.[473]
|July 1
|American Samoa became self-governing under a new Constitution.[474]
|October 2
|Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; becoming the first African-American Justice to serve on the court.[475]
|January 30
|The Tet Offensive, a campaign of surprise attacks by the Viet Cong, began.[476]
|April 4
|Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a sniper at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.[477]
|April 4 -
May 29
|King assassination riots: The assassination of Dr. King prompted mass riots in Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Kansas City and Louisville; leaving 36 people dead.[478]
|April 11
|The Civil Rights Act of 1968, providing equal housing protection, was signed into law.[479]
|June 5
|Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan, after winning the California primary while campaigning for President.[480]
|July 1
|The United States signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[481]
|August 25–29
|Chicago City Police clashed with anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.[482]
|October 22
|The Gun Control Act of 1968 was signed into law.[483]
|November 5
|United States presidential election, 1968: Former Vice President Richard Nixon was elected President, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Alabama Governor George Wallace.[484]
|Shirley Chisholm of New York became the first African-American woman elected to Congress.[485]
|December 21
|Apollo 8: The first manned spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit occurred.[486]
|March 18
|Operation Menu: The United States began its covert bombings of North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia and Laos.[487]
|June 29
|The Stonewall riots took place, beginning after police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City, which would mark the start of the modern gay liberation movement in the United States.[488]
|July 18
|Chappaquiddick incident: Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.[489]
|July 20
|Apollo 11: Americans astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins became the first men to land on the moon, with Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the moon's surface.[490]
|August 15–19
|The Woodstock Festival took place in White Lake, New York, proclaimed as "three days of peace and music", it became one of the defining events representing counterculture movement.[491]
|November 3
|Vietnamization: President Nixon outlaid his administration's Vietnam policy in response to the Tet Offensive.[492]
|November 10
|Sesame Street premiered on National Educational Television.[493]
|November 15
|Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam: Over 500,000 peaceful demonstrators protested the Vietnam War in Washington D.C., being the largest anti-war protest in U.S. history.[494]
|December 15
|President Nixon announces the withdrawal of 50,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam; reaching the peak level of U.S. troops in Vietnam at 541,000.[495][496]
|January 25
|Charles Manson is sentenced to death (with his sentence later commuted to life in prison) for his involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders.[497]
|April 1
|The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act was signed into law, banning cigarette advertisements on radio and television and issuing a Surgeon General's warning on tobacco products.[498]
|June 13
|Pentagon Papers: The New York Times publishes its first story on the classified 7,000-page Department of Defense study, leaked by study participant Daniel Ellsberg, on the U.S.'s political-military involvement in Vietnam since 1945.[499][500]
|June 17
|President Nixon declares a "War on Drugs", stating that drug use in the U.S. is "public enemy number one."[501]
|June 30
|New York Times Co. v. United States: The Supreme Court ruled that the Pentagon Papers may be published, rejecting government injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint.[502]
|July 1
|The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, was ratified.[503]
|August 15
|Nixon Shock: Nixon ended the gold standard in the United States.[504]
|September 13
|Attica Prison riot: After four days of holding 39 prison staff members hostage, a raid that led to a riot at the Attica Correctional Facility was launched by New York State Police; leaving 43 staff and prisoners dead and being the deadliest prison riot in U.S. history.[505]
|February 21–28
|1972 Nixon visit to China: President Nixon became the first U.S. President to visit the People's Republic of China, marking the end of 25 years of isolation between the U.S. and China.[506][507]
|May 26
|SALT I Treaty: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed between the Soviet Union and United States at the Moscow Summit.[508]
|June 9–10
|Black Hills flood: Flooding in the Black Hills region of Western South Dakota killed 238 people.[509]
|June 17
|Watergate burglaries: Five men were arrested for the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.[510]
|June 23
|The Education Amendments of 1972, enacting Title IX and prohibiting gender based discrimination of educational institutions, was signed into law.[511]
|June 29
|Furman v. Georgia: The Supreme Court ruled that application of the death penalty outside of cases of homicide violated protection against cruel and unusual punishment.[512]
|October 17
|The Clean Water Act is enacted, was overridden by the Senate.[513]
|November 7
|U.S. presidential election, 1972: President Nixon was reelected to a second term, defeating South Dakota Senator George McGovern.[514]
|December 14
|Apollo 17 became the final mission of the Apollo program and last human spaceflight to the moon.[515]
|December 18
|Operation Linebacker II: The final major U.S. bombing campaign in North Vietnam began.[516]
|January 22
|Roe v. Wade: The Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning abortion before 24 weeks as unconstitutional.[517]
|January 23
|The Paris Peace Accords was signed, ending the United States' direct involvement in the Vietnam War.[518]
|May 3
|The Sears Towers opened in Chicago, becoming the World's tallest building.[519]
|May 14
|The space station Skylab was launched by NASA.[520]
|May 17
|The United States Senate Watergate Committee held its first hearing.[521]
|October 10
|Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in disgrace as part of a plea bargain after being charged with tax evasion, extortion and conspiracy.[522]
|October 20
|Saturday Night massacre: President Nixon fired three top legal advisers over the disposition of secret tapes and the actions of the Special Prosecutor in regard to the Watergate scandal.[523]
|1973 oil crisis: Gasoline prices in the U.S. quadrupled over a three-month period in response to reduced supply of gasoline and heating oil.[524]
|December 6
|House Minority Leader Gerald Ford of Michigan was sworn in as Vice President after the resignation of Spiro Agnew; becoming the first Vice President to be appointed under the Twenty-fifth Amendment.[525]
|April 3–4
|1974 Super Outbreak: An outbreak of 148 tornadoes hit thirteen states, killing 330 people.[526]
|April 8
|Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves broke Babe Ruth's home run record by hitting his 715th career home run.[527]
|June 30
|The House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Nixon over his actions in the Watergate Scandal.[528]
|August 9
|President Richard Nixon becomes the first and only President to resign from office. After submitting his resignation in an address to the nation the evening before, Nixon stated that "the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations."[529][530][531]
|Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as President after the resignation of President Nixon.[532]
|September 8
|President Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as President during the Watergate Scandal.[533]
|December 31
|Executive Order 6102, restricting the private holding of gold within the United States, was lifted.[534]
|January 27
|The Church Committee, Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church, was established in the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal; investigating the illegal activities of the CIA, NSA and FBI.[535]
|April 4
|Bill Gates founded Microsoft Corporation.[536]
|April 30
|Fall of Saigon: Saigon, the capitol of South Vietnam, was captured by the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong, causing the South to surrender and officially ending the Vietnam War.[537]
|July 15
|Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: The first joint U.S.–Soviet space mission began in Kazakhstan.[538]
|September 5
|President Ford was uninjured after a failed assassination attempt by Manson Family cult member Lynette Fromme in Sacramento, California.[539]
|April 1
|Steve Jobs founded Apple Inc.[540]
|July 2
|Gregg v. Georgia: The Supreme Court affirmed that the death penalty did not violate the Eighth Amendment.[541]
|July 4
|United States Bicentennial: Americans celebrated the United States bicentennial.[542]
|October 19
|The Copyright Act of 1976 was signed into law.[543]
|November 2
|U.S. presidential election, 1976: Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was elected President, defeating incumbent Gerald Ford.[89]
|January 23
|The television miniseries Roots aired on ABC.[544]
|May 25
|Star Wars is released and goes on to become the highest-grossing film of its time.[545]
|July 13–14
|New York City blackout of 1977: A twenty-five-hour blackout, resulting in looting and other disorder, took place.[546]
|August 4
|The United States Department of Energy is established.[547]
|August 16
|Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll", died at his home in Graceland.[548]
|September 7
|The Torrijos–Carter Treaties between the U.S. and Panama, relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal, were ratified.[549]
|The Commodore PET, the first personal computer for retail sale, was released.[550]
|September 17
|The Camp David Accords were signed by Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt at Camp David.[551]
|October 25
|The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was signed into law.[552]
|October 27
|The Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act was signed into law.[553]
|November 18
|Jonestown massacre: The mass-suicide of 909 American citizens who were members of the religious cult the Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, occurred in Guyana. With the addition murders of nine others, including Congressman Leo Ryan, the 918 deaths were the largest loss of American life in a single incident and in a non-natural disaster at the time.[554][555][556]
|November 27
|Moscone–Milk assassinations: Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, were assassinated by Dan White in San Francisco.[557]
|March 28
|Three Mile Island accident: The partial nuclear meltdown and release of small amounts of radioactive gases and iodine of a nuclear power plant in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania began; considered to be the worst commercial nuclear power accident in U.S. history.[558]
|May 21
|White Night riots: After the lenient sentence of Moscone-Milk assassin Dan White, over 5,000 demonstrators in San Francisco's gay community staged what turned into a violent protest.[559]
|May 25
|American Airlines Flight 191 flight crashed shortly after takeoff from O'Hare International Airport, killing all 271 aboard and two on the ground; being the deadliest aviation accident on U.S. soil.[560]
|October 17
|The United States Department of Education is established.[561]
|November 4
|Iran hostage crisis: The U.S. embassy in Tehran was raided by student activists of the Iranian Revolution after overthrown CIA instated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was allowed into the U.S.; beginning the 444-day capture of the embassy and the holding of fifty-two American embassy personnel.[562]
|March 18
|The Refugee Act was signed into law.[563]
|March 21
|1980 Summer Olympics boycott: Protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter announces the U.S. would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow.[564]
|April 4
|The United States Department of Health and Human Services was established.[565]
|April 24
|Operation Eagle Claw: Eight U.S. military personnel were killed after the failed attempt to rescue the fifty-two American hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.[566]
|May 18
|Eruption of Mount St. Helens: The eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington killed fifty-seven people.[567]
|June 1
|CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, was founded.[568]
|November 4
|U.S. presidential election, 1980: California Governor Ronald Reagan was elected President, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter and Illinois Representative John B. Anderson.[569]
|December 8
|Musician John Lennon was assassinated outside of The Dakota in New York City.[570]
|January 20
|Iran releases the 52 U.S. hostages held in Tehran after 444 days (the day of the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan); signing the Algiers Accords.[571]
|March 30
|Reagan assassination attempt: President Reagan and three others were injured after an assassination attempt of the President by John Hinckley, outside of the Hilton Washington in Washington D.C.[572]
|April 12
|STS-1: The Space Shuttle Columbia was launched, being the first flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program.[573]
|July 17
|Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: A hotel walkway collapsed in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 and injuring over two hundred.[574]
|August 1
|MTV, the first 24-hour cable network dedicated to airing music videos, was launched.[575]
|August 4
|Reaganomics: The Kemp-Roth Tax Cut was signed into law.[576]
|September 21
|Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the first woman to serve on the court.[577]
|November 16
|President Reagan signed NDSS 17, authorizing the beginning of CIA support for contra rebels in Nicaragua.[578]
|June 12
|Anti-nuclear protests were held at Central Park in New York City, with nearly one million peaceful demonstrators protesting the arms race.[579]
|August 25
|Multinational forces, including 800 Marines, were deployed to Lebanon to oversee the withdrawal of Palestine Liberation Organization after Lebanese Civil War.[580]
|March 23
|President Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative.[581][582]
|April 18
|1983 United States embassy bombing: The U.S. embassy in Beirut was bombed by members of the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), killing 63 people, including 17 U.S. government personnel.[583]
|October 23
|Beirut barracks bombing: 241 United States Marine Corps personnel were killed in a suicide bombing by members of the IJO in Lebanon.[584]
|October 25
|Operation Urgent Fury: Under executive action from President Reagan, the U.S. deployed 1,900 military personnel in the Invasion of Grenada.[585]
|April 23
|U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler announces Dr. Robert Gallo and fellow NCI researcher's discovery of HTLV-III as the virus that causes AIDS.[586]
|May 8
|1984 Summer Olympics boycott: The Soviet Union, later joined by most of the Eastern Bloc, announced the boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.[587]
|July 18
|San Ysidro McDonald's massacre: A mass shooting in San Ysidro, California left 22 (including the perpetrator) dead and injured 19 others; being the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time.[588]
|November 6
|U.S. presidential election, 1984: President Reagan was reelected to a second term, defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale.[589]
|July 13
|Live Aid, a concert attended by 100,000 people and watched by 1.9 billion viewers in 150 countries at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, was held, raising global awareness of famine in Ethiopia.[590]
|Arrow Air Flight 1285, carrying U.S. Army personnel to Egypt, crashed in Newfoundland, Canada, killing all 256 passengers on board and being the deadliest single aviation accident in the history of the U.S. military.[591]
|January 20
|The first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is observed.[592]
|January 28
|Space Shuttle Challenger disaster: The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded due to a leak in the shuttle's solid rocket booster 73 seconds after departing from the Kennedy Space Center, killing all seven crew members aboard, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe.[593]
|April 15
|Operation El Dorado Canyon: The U.S. began air strikes against Libya after the Berlin discotheque bombing.[594]
|May 19
|The Firearm Owners Protection Act was signed into law.[595]
|May 25
|Hands Across America: Over five million Americans formed a human chain across the contiguous United States, holding hands for 15 minutes to raise awareness of hunger and homelessness.[596]
|October 1
|The Goldwater–Nichols Act was signed into law.[597]
|October 9
|The Fox Broadcasting Company was founded.[598]
|October 21
|The Compact of Free Association was signed by the U.S., giving Independence to the Marshall Islands.[599]
|October 22
|The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was signed into law.[600]
|November 3
|Iran–Contra affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa first revealed that the United States had secretly sold weapons to Iran in exchange for American hostages, amid a U.S. arms embargo.[601][602]
|November 6
|The Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed into law.[603]
|November 25
|After the resignation of National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that the profits from the U.S. arms trade with Iran were illegally diverted to support contra groups in Nicaragua.[601][604]
|November 26
|The Tower Commission is established by President Reagan to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.[605]
|May 5
|Joint special House and Senate hearings on the Iran-Contra affair began.[606]
|June 12
|During a visit to Berlin, President Reagan challenged Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall", referring to the Berlin Wall.[607]
|October 19
|Black Monday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points in a single session, losing 22.6% of its value.[608]
|October 23
|The U.S. Senate rejects President Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork.[609]
|November 18
|A joint congressional report investigating the Iran-Contra affair found that the "ultimate responsibility for the events in the Iran-contra affair must rest with the President."[610][611]
|December 8
|The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. between the U.S. and Soviet Union.[612]
|May 14
|Carrollton bus collision: A drunk driver crashed into a church bus near Carrollton, Kentucky, killing twenty-seven people.[613]
|The Yellowstone fires of 1988 burned 793,880 acres of Yellowstone National Park.[614]
|August 8
|Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois added lights for night games, being the last major league park that didn't have lights.[615]
|August 10
|The Civil Liberties Act, compensating Japanese Americans who "lost liberty or property because of discriminatory action by the Federal government during World War II", was signed into law.[616]
|August 30
|STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery was launched.[617]
|November 2
|Morris worm, the first computer worm distributed via the Internet, was launched.[618]
|November 8
|U.S. presidential election, 1988: Vice President George H. W. Bush was elected President, defeating Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.[619]
|March 15
|The United States Department of Veterans Affairs was established.[620]
|March 24
|Exxon Valdez oil spill: An oil tanker struck a reef in Prince William Sound, spilling over 11 million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Alaska.[621]
|May 31
|Speaker of the House Jim Wright becomes the first House Speaker to resign amid scandal; he was succeeded by Tom Foley.[622]
|September 10–22
|Hurricane Hugo struck the East Coast, killing 49 people and causing $7 billion in damage.[623][624]
|October 17
|The Loma Prieta earthquake, striking the San Francisco Bay Area and interrupting the 1989 World Series, killed sixty-three people.[625]
|December 3
|Malta Summit: President Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev met in Malta weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, releasing statements indicating that the war may be coming to an end.[626]
|December 20
|Operation Just Cause: 26,000 U.S. military personnel were deployed in the U.S. invasion of Panama, removing Military Governor Manuel Noriega from power and restoring Panama's democratically elected government.[627]
|The Office of National Drug Control Policy was established.[628]
|January 13
|Douglas Wilder was elected Governor of Virginia, becoming the first African American to become governor of a U.S. State.[629]
|April 24
|The Hubble Space Telescope was launched during a mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery.[630]
|June 1
|The 1990 Chemical Weapons Accord was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union.[631]
|July 26
|The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law.[632]
|August 2
|Gulf War: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein leads the deployment of 140,000 Iraqi troops in the invasion of Kuwait.[633]
|November 15
|The Clean Air Act of 1990 was signed into law.[634]
|January 17
|Operation Desert Storm: The United States leads 34 coalition nations in the invasion of Ba'athist Iraq; deploying over 500,000 U.S. military personnel in response to Iraq's annexation of Kuwait.[635][636]
|February 28
|President George H.W. Bush announces that a cease fire was reached between in the Gulf War, stating that "Kuwait is liberated. Iraq's army is defeated."[637]
|July 31
|START I was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union.[638]
|December 26
|The dissolution of the Soviet Union, recognizing the independence of twelve Soviets states after the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who declared his office extinct, formally ended the Cold War.[639]
|Confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas were held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, after allegations regarding sexual harassment charges were pressed by former aide Anita Hill.[641]
|April 29–
May 4
|1992 Los Angeles riots: Riots in Los Angeles, spurred by the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the beating of Rodney King, took place, which resulted in over fifty deaths and $1 billion in damage.[642]
|May 7
|The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting changes to Congressmen's salaries from taking effect until after an election of Representatives, was ratified.[643]
|August 16–28
|Hurricane Andrew: A Category 5 hurricane killed sixty-five people and caused $26 billion in damage to Florida and other areas of the Gulf Coast.[644][645]
|November 3
|United States presidential election, 1992: Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was elected President, defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush and Texas businessman Ross Perot.[646]
|January 3
|START II was signed between the United States and the Russian Federation.[647]
|February 13–
April 19
|Waco siege: After the ATF failed to raid the compound of members of the religious sect the Branch Davidians, the FBI prompted a 51-day standoff; resulting in the deaths of 72 Branch Davidians after a fire broke out in the compound.[648][649]
|February 26
|1993 World Trade Center bombing: A truck bomb exploded in the parking garage under the World Trade Center in Manhattan, killing six people and injuring 1,042 others.[650][651]
|October 3–4
|Battle of Mogadishu: 18 U.S. military personnel, as a part of Operation Gothic Serpent, were killed and 84 wounded after a seventeen-hour assault was prompted by Somali militiamen.[652]
|November 30
|The Don't ask, don't tell policy, prohibiting openly gay and bisexual people from serving in the military, was signed into law.[653]
|The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was signed into law.[654]
|December 8
|The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by the United States.[655]
|Great Flood of 1993: Massive flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers killed 48 people and caused $30.2 billion in damage; being the costliest flood in U.S. history.[656]
|January 17
|The 1994 Northridge earthquake, striking the Northridge, Los Angeles area, killed fifty-seven people and leaving 20,000 others homeless; causing $20 billion in damage and being the costliest earthquake in U.S. history.[657]
|September 19
|The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, authorizing the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and the Violence Against Women Act, was signed into law.[658][659][660]
|November 8
|Republican Revolution: The Republican Party picked up 54 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate, being one of the largest shifts in party balance in U.S. congressional history.[661]
|TWA Flight 800: A flight exploded off Long Island, killing all 230 aboard.
|Khobar Towers bombing: A bombing left nineteen American servicemen dead in Saudi Arabia.
|Centennial Olympic Park bombing: A bombing in Atlanta killed one and injured 111.
|August 22
|The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, replacing the AFDC with TANF, was signed into law.[662][663]
|U.S. presidential election, 1996: Bill Clinton was reelected to a second term as President of the United States, defeating presidential candidates Bob Dole and Ross Perot.
|United States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996: The shutdown ended.
|Clinton banned federal funds from being used for human cloning research.[664]
|Sparked by a global economic crisis scare, the Dow Jones Industrial Average followed world markets and plummeted 554.26, or 7.18%, to 7,161.15.
|Former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones accused Clinton of sexual harassment.
|Lewinsky scandal: Bill Clinton was accused of having a sexual relationship with 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
|1998 U.S. embassy bombings: 224 were killed in bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
|Gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered near the University of Wyoming.
|Dennis Hastert of Illinois becomes Speaker of the House of Representatives.
|The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,006.78.
|April 20
|Two teenage students murdered 12 other students and 1 teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
|1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak: A violent tornado outbreak in Oklahoma killed fifty people and produced a tornado which caused $1 billion in damage.
|EgyptAir Flight 990: The first officer deliberately crashed a plane south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing 217.
|Along with the rest of the world, the United States prepared for the possible effects of the Y2K bug in computers, which was feared destined to cause computers to become inoperable and wreak havoc.
|October 12
|USS Cole bombing: The USS Cole was bombed in Yemeni waters, killing seventeen United States Navy sailors.
|November 7
|The 2000 Presidential election between Texas Governor George W Bush and Vice President Al Gore. The election resulted in a dispute in Florida. After a lengthy court battle, George W Bush was declared the winner of Florida by 537 votes, thus he was elected President of the United States.
|January 20
|First inauguration of George W. Bush: George W. Bush was inaugurated the forty-third President of the United States.[665]
|June 7
|The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 was signed into law by President George W. Bush.[666]
|September 11
|September 11 terrorist attacks: Nineteen terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,996 people and injuring over 6,000. Flight 93 was about to make a crash in Washington, D.C., but the passengers fought the terrorists until the plane crashed into the field.[667]
|September 18
|2001 Anthrax attacks: Anthrax attacks killed five and infected seventeen more through the mail system.[668]
|October 7
|War in Afghanistan: The United States launched an invasion of Afghanistan.[669]
|October 26
|The USA PATRIOT Act, increasing law enforcement agencies' ability to conduct searches in cases of suspected terrorism, was signed into law.[670]
|November 12
|American Airlines Flight 587: A flight crashed in Queens, New York, killing 265.[671]
|June 13
|The United States officially withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.[672]
|January 8
|The No Child Left Behind Act education reform bill was signed into law.[673]
|October 2–22
|Beltway sniper attacks: Ten people were killed and three were injured in attacks around the Washington, D.C. area.[674]
|November 25
|The United States Department of Homeland Security was created.[675]
|February 1
|Space Shuttle Columbia disaster: The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.[676]
|February 17
|2003 E2 nightclub stampede: A nightclub stampede in Chicago, Illinois killed twenty-one.[677]
|February 20
|The Station nightclub fire: A fire caused by pyrotechnics at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island killed 100 people and injured over 230.[678]
|March 19
|Invasion of Iraq: The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq.[679]
|December 13
|Capture of Saddam Hussein: In Iraq, deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured by United States special forces.[680]
|February 4
|The social networking website Facebook was launched.[681]
|2004 Atlantic hurricane season: Four deadly and damaging hurricanes impacted Florida, killing a combined one hundred people in the United States and producing over $50 billion in damage.[682]
|November 2
|U.S. presidential election, 2004; President George W. Bush was reelected.[683]
|January 20
|Second inauguration of George W. Bush: George W. Bush was inaugurated to his second term.[684]
|August 23–30
|Hurricane Katrina: A hurricane devastated the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coastlines killing at least 1,836 people and causing $81 billion in damage.[685]
|November 7
|The Democratic Party regained control of both houses of Congress and gained control of a majority of state governorships.[686][687][688]
|January 3
|Democrat Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.[689]
|January 10
|Iraq War troop surge of 2007: George W. Bush ordered the substantial increase of the number of United States troops in Iraq.[690]
|April 16
|Virginia Tech massacre: A South Korean student shot and killed thirty-two other students and professors before killing himself.[691]
|August 1
|The I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed, killing thirteen people.[692]
|Late-2000s recession: A recession began.[693][694][695]
|February 5–6
|2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak: An outbreak of tornadoes killed over sixty people and produced $1 billion in damage across Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama.[696]
|September 1–14
|Hurricane Ike: A hurricane killed 100 people along the Texas coast, producing $31 billion in damage and contributing to rising oil prices.[697]
|July 11
|Oil prices in the United States hit a record $147 per barrel.[698]
|Global financial crisis in September 2008: The stock market crashed.[699][700][701]
|September 14
|Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers: Investment bank Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history.[699]
|November 4
|U.S. presidential election, 2008: Barack Obama was elected the forty-fourth President of the United States.[702]
|January 20
|Inauguration of Barack Obama: Obama was inaugurated the forty-fourth President of the United States.[703]
|February 17
|President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package.[704]
|Tea Party protests: The first of a series of protests, focusing on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and conservative views of the Constitution, were conducted across the country.[705]
|June 25
|Death of Michael Jackson: Pop icon Michael Jackson died.[706]
|August 8
|Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; becoming the first Latino Justice.[707]
|November 5
|Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan killed twelve servicemen and injured thirty-one.[708]
|February 23
|The United States Navy lifted its ban on women in submarines.[709]
|March 23
|The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama.[710]
|April 20
|Deepwater Horizon oil spill: The BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over an 87-day period; being the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.[711]
|July 21
|The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law; establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.[712]
|November 2
|United States Senate elections, 2010: The Republican Party gained five seats, to forty-seven, reducing the Democratic presence in the Senate to fifty-one. Two seats remained in the hands of independents.[713]
|United States House of Representatives elections, 2010: The Republican Party gained sixty-two seats, giving them an absolute majority of 242 in the House and reducing the Democratic presence to 193.[714]
|November 28
|United States diplomatic cables leak: WikiLeaks began to release classified diplomatic documents to the international press.[715]
|December 22
|The Senate ratified the New START treaty.[716]
|December 22
|The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 was signed into law, ending the Don't ask, don't tell policy regarding homosexuals in the United States Armed Forces.[717]
|January 8
|2011 Tucson shooting: A gunman targeting Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords critically injured Giffords and killed six others, including federal judge John Roll, in Tucson, Arizona.[718]
|March 19
|Operation Odyssey Dawn: The United States began air and cruise missile attacks against Libya.[719]
|April 25–28
|April 25–28, 2011 tornado outbreak: The largest tornado outbreak ever in United States history occurs in the American Midwest and Southern United States killing 348 People and causing 11 Billion Dollars in Damage.
|May 2
|Death of Osama bin Laden: Al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden was killed by United States forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.[720]
|May 22
|Joplin Tornado: An EF-5 tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri, killing 161, and causing $2.8 Billion in damage, including the destruction of a large portion of the main retail strip, a hospital, the high school, a middle school, and several elementary schools.
|August 2
|United States debt-ceiling crisis: The Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law, increasing the legal limit on federal government debt in order to prevent default and establishing the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.[721]
|August 5
|United States federal government credit-rating downgrade, 2011: The credit-rating arm of Standard & Poor's reduced the rating of United States federal government debt from AAA to AA+.[722]
|August 8
|August 2011 stock markets fall: Major United States stock market indices dropped in value by some two and a half trillion dollars.[723]
|September 17
|The populist Occupy Wall Street protest movement made camp in Zuccotti Park in New York City.[724]
|December 18
|Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq: The last United States troops withdrew from Iraq under the terms of the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement.[725]
|September 11
|2012 Benghazi attack: An attack that was coordinated against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia.
|October 25–30
|Hurricane Sandy: A devastating hurricane wreaks havoc for the Eastern United States coast. There were many states severely impacted by the hurricane, especially New York and New Jersey, which took a direct hit from the storm.
|November 6
|United States presidential election, 2012: Barack Obama is reelected as president.
|December 14
|Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: Occurs in Newtown, Connecticut killing 20 Children and 6 Staff Members in Sandy Hook Elementary School, perpetrated by a 20 Year Old, Adam Lanza.
|January 20
|Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term as president.[726]
|April 15
|Boston Marathon bombings: Two pressure cooker bombs explode during the Boston Marathon.[727]
|Global surveillance disclosures: The revelations of the NSA's PRISM, Boundless Informant and XKeyscore domestic surveillance programs were first published by The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.[728][729][730]
|April 16
|Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Flight MH370 of Malaysian airlines went missing and hasn't been seen since. Despite search efforts from the US and the rest of the world. 3 American citizens was on-board this flight.
|May 23
|2014 Isla Vista killings occurs, killing 6, and wounding 14 others, perpetrated by elliot rodger.
|President Obama orders the return of a small number of troops to Iraq to help bolster Iraqi and Kurdish military forces in their war with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[731]
|August 9
|Michael Brown was shot and killed, in what was ruled by a grand jury to be self-defense, by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, igniting protests and riots in the following months.[732]
|November 3
|New building, 1 World Trade Center, opens in New York City.[733]
|November 4
|In national elections, Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate and maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives.[734]
|December 17
|President Obama announces a restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time since 1961.[735]
|April 27
|2015 Baltimore protests: Protests and rioting occur in Baltimore, Maryland after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.
|June 17
|Charleston church shooting: A gunman killed 9, including a state senator in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
|June 26
|Obergefell v. Hodges: Gay marriage is fully legalized in all 50 states.
|July 20
|Restoration of relations with Cuba.
|December 2
|2015 San Bernardino attack: Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married radical Muslim couple, kills 14 people at a center for the developmentally disabled.
|June 11
|2016 Orlando Nightclub Shooting: A self-proclaimed Islamic State fighter, Omar Mateen, kills 49 and injures 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, before being shot and killed by an officer.
|July 7
|2016 shooting of Dallas police officers: Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed and fired upon a group of police officers in Dallas, Texas, killing five officers and injuring nine others. Two civilians were also wounded. Johnson was an Army Reserve Afghan War veteran who was reportedly angry over police shootings of black men and stated that he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers. The shooting happened at the end of a peaceful protest against police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, which had occurred in the preceding days.
|August 12–22
|2016 Louisiana floods: Prolonged rainfall in southern parts of the U.S. state of Louisiana resulted in catastrophic flooding that submerged thousands of houses and businesses. Louisiana's governor, John Bel Edwards, called the disaster a "historic, unprecedented flooding event" and declared a state of emergency.
|August 13
|2016 Milwaukee riots: A riot began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sparked by the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. During the three-day turmoil, several people, including police officers, were injured and dozens of protesters arrested.
|November 8
|United States presidential election, 2016: Donald Trump wins the 2016 presidential election, and becomes the forty-fifth president of the United States.[736] The Republicans also regained the majority of both the House and Senate; an election in which the Republican candidate wins the election while the majority in Congress maintains a Republican control hasn't happened since 2004.
|January 20
|Inauguration of Donald Trump, Donald Trump is inaugurated as the forty-fifth president of the United States
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