Historical information compiled by J.L. Panagopoulos©
B.C.E
200,000 years ago: Glaciers covered the land that is now the Great Lake region
3,100 B.C.E. - The written word begins to keep accounts and cooking instructions.
Before 20,000 B.C. E. Native Americans began arriving from Asia and spread across the Americas.
About 14,000 ago, people moved into the Meadowcroft Rock shelter, a sandstone shelter near present-day Pittsburgh.
About 12,500 ago, Hunters left a projectile point and a blade in a cave in southern Idaho.
11,000 years ago, glacial ice left the Straits of Mackinac. Hunters left projectile points and a hide scraper in a cave in Oregon.
CIR. 10,000 Years ago, hunters left artifacts behind in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State as they tracked and killed mastodons to feed their families.
About 9500 Clovis cultures extend across the continent. Clovis people live in small bands related to family ties and hunt cooperatively in groups.
About 9300 people hunt horses, tapirs, and ground sloths in south-central Arizona.
About 9000 People live along the shores of Healy Lake in Alaska in a settlement that will be continuously occupied for the next 11,000 years.
Also, in China, at about the same time, early Chinese were so advanced they were making bone musical instruments. A bone flute from this period was just recently found.
About 8800 People in the Delaware River Valley of Pennsylvania eat seeds, roots, hackberries, wild plums, ground cherries, grapes, blackberries, and other wild foods.
About 8300 hunters have developed methods for trapping bison by driving whole herds over cliffs or forcing them into box canyons, corrals, and ravines. The techniques survived for nearly 10,000 years until 1800 A.D.
About 8000 The continent's population reaches the maximum density readily sustainable by hunting-and-gathering lifestyle.
About 7700 In the northeastern Great Basin, people make baskets of twine. They collect, store, and cook seeds in the baskets.
About 7000 Across the continent, the few remaining mastodons and other large mammals died; more than 30 species have become extinct.
About 6000, The ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches of the Southwest and the Athabasca peoples of Alaska, California, and the Northwest Coast moved to North America from Asia and settled in the far north.
About 5800 Salmon provide a primary food source for the Plateau and the Northwest Coast migratory peoples.
About 5500 Along the southern California coast, people begin to hunt large game less and eat more fish and seeds.
About 5000 People across the continent began making baskets to gather, process, and store fruits, nuts, and seeds. - In the Illinois Valley, hunter-gatherers establish permanent communities.
After 4000, cultures east of the Mississippi underwent a population explosion as they settled into semi-permanent villages and increased their food-gathering activities.
4004 Sunday, October 23, 9 am London time. The date/time in which James Ussher, Chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and John Lightfoot of Cambridge (1600s) decided God created the earth
390 BCE, Romans built a shrine to Moneta -Goddess of Warning - where we get our modern words for money and mint.
About 3500 Domesticated corn arrived in the Southwest from Mexico but remains a curiosity.
About 3000 Along the Snake River of eastern Washington, people grind stones and attach them to their fishing nets for sinkers techniques for grinding and polishing slate and other stones.
About 2000-3000 B.C.E., China started farming and raising livestock.
About 2500 Domesticated chili peppers arrive in the southwest from Mexico. Ancestors of Pueblo Indians decided the culinary volcanoes were too hot to eat - In western Kentucky, men use axes and incisors to do woodwork.
Before 2000, people began making cooking vessels from soft stone steatite in Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Over the following centuries, the new cooking fashion spread to the Northeast - In Illinois, people began to smoke tobacco using stone pipes. By 2000 B.C.E., people live in semi-permanent villages along the Pacific coast. They fish, gather berries, and make bone, wood, and stone tools.
Around 2000, in the Northeast, people began making pottery. They use grass and fiber roots for tempering.
Around 2000 B.C.E., China created a writing system.
2070-1600 B.C.E. The Xia (She) Dynasty (The first dynasty of China) was created.
About 1700 In the Northeast, more and more people become farmers. They plant gourds, tobacco, and edible seeds but continue to hunt wild game and collect wild plant foods.
1600-1046 B.C.E. The Shang Dynasty of China is created.
1760 BC, Hammurabi's code was created in Babylon.
About 1500, A fishing community developed at what is now Cape Alava on the coast of Washington State and remained continuously occupied for 3,000 years. - People in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana bury their dead at the summits of hills made from glacial gravel.
About 1200 At Poverty Point, Louisiana, people build an elaborate complex of earthen mounds. By 1000 B.C.E. - The Indians of the Southeast had made the transition from hunter-gatherers to semi-nomadic farmers. They cultivate squash, gourds, sunflowers, maygrass, marsh elder, goosefoot, knotweed, and other plants.
1046-221 B. C. E. The Zhou (Jhou) Dynasty is created.
About 1000 Domesticated beans arrive in the Southwest from Mexico. - The ancestors of the Arapaho begin migrating away from the Great Lakes into the Great Plains.
About 9000, the ancestors of the Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga people became allies in the earliest version of the Iroquois Confederacy.
In 620 BC, Draco, an Athenian lawmaker, created the first written account of Greek laws.
About 500 In central Ohio Valley, the Adena people hunt and gather wild plants. - People of Northwest Coast begin to evaluate themselves in terms of social status.
About 300 People in Ohio and Illinois Valleys begin to grow corn, but it remains an incidental crop for another 1,000 years.
about 250 People settled into villages along the river valley of the Plains.
221-206 B.C.E. The Qin Dynasty is created in China.
About 220 B.C.E., China established a distinct form of government- the Imperial dynastic system.
From 206 B.C.E. to 220 AD, the Han Dynasty of China was created.
About 100 The Adena culture of the Ohio Valley gives way to the Hopewell culture. Hopewell peoples continue Adena mound-building practices.
30 B.C.E. - 14 A.D. Emperor Augustus of Rome introduced the world to land and sales tax.
About C.E. 1, the people of western Alaska acquired the first iron tools through trade with Asia - People of the San Francisco Bay area use bone whistles and wear bone pendants. They battle with enemies, burying shells, coyote teeth, and bear claws with the dead.
A.D.
By 100 Across the Southwest, people from many different backgrounds evolve into a loosely related cultural group known today as the Basket Makers because of their fine baskets.
About 250 Influenced by their Hohokam neighbors, hunter-gatherers in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona settled into communities and created the Mogollon culture.
220-581 A.D. The Three Kingdoms of China is created.
After 400, the Hopewell culture declined in the Northeast but flourished in the Southeast. About A.D. 450 - The early Anasazi domesticated turkeys - People modify mound-building practices in the lower Mississippi Valley. No longer used for burials, the new mounds are conical or flat-topped.
The 456 Julian calendar took effect in Rome following recommendations made to Julius Caesar by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria.
About 500 Southeastern Great Basin hunter-gatherers from the Fremont culture lived in pit houses and above-ground homes made of stone and adobe.
About 550 The Hohokam people of southern Arizona expand from the river valleys into the desert.
536, the “Marriage Rite” is now considered a sacrament.
581-618 The Sui Dynasty is created in China.
597 England adopted the Julian calendar until 1752 when it was replaced by the Gregorian system.
After 600, The peoples of the Great Basin began hunting with bows and arrows. The new weapons allow them to hunt much more efficiently.
618-907 The Tang Dynasty is created in China.
At about 700, the Anasazi began moving from pit houses into aboveground homes of stone, mud, and brush. - Villages along the Mississippi, Tennessee, Cumberland, and lower Ohio Rivers have a uniform layout. Around a central plaza, temples and residences of the social elite are built on top of platform-shaped mounds. Less elaborate homes surround the platforms.
The 749 Vikings' first known attack in England.
Around 798, The Three Fires Confederacy was formed with the Great Lakes Indians.
After 800, an enterprising tinkerer developed a new, cold-hard cultivar of corn, and Indians of the Northeast began cultivating it as a significant crop.
886 When a man was murdered, the Vikings demanded that a wergeld (monetary reparation) was to be paid to the family or kinsmen of the victim.
About 900 Anasazi population expands, causing a building boom. The most extensive collection of communities goes up in Chaco Canyon, with eight towns clustered together in the canyon and four more on the nearby mesas. Farmers from the Northeast migrate into the Great Plains and settle in villages overlooking stream valleys from the Dakotas to Texas.
960-1279 The Song Dynasty is created in China.
About 1000 Northwest Coast, complex societies produce elaborate artwork that is connected to the custom of ranking themselves according to inherited status - People across the northern woodlands live in villages and farm corn and other crops - The people who call themselves Seven Fireplaces and eventually become known as Sioux move into Minnesota and Wisconsin from the Southeast and settle there.
About 1000 Viking explorer Leif Ericson leads the first expedition to North America.
About 1050 Cahokia, Illinois, mound builders construct about one hundred small mounds and create the largest mound in North America. The terraced earthwork rises 110 feet, covers sixteen acres, and contains more than 21 million cubic feet of earth. The community surrounding the master temple covered five square miles and houses an estimated 40,000 people.
About 1150, The climate of the Colorado Plateau grows cooler and drier. The growing season shortens, and farming becomes more difficult. The pattern continues throughout the 1200s.
By 1200, the Ancestors of Apaches and Navajos migrated southward from western Canada.
About 1200 Ponca and Omaha peoples migrated westward from eastern woodlands into the Great Plains and settled in Nebraska.
1206-1368 The Yuan Dynasty is created in China.
About 1230 Building activity peaks at Mesa Verde. About 7,000 people live in 1,000 cliff houses - Anasazi began to abandon their stone homes.
About 1250 Mississippian communities in Cahokia, Illinois, are declining. Beside the Black Warrior River in Alabama, another central mound-building town emerges, with about 20 platform mounds and 2,000 inhabitants. Other similar communities develop at the same time in Georgia and eastern Oklahoma.
In about 1275, colonists from the Mississippi area settled in southern Missouri, set up a temple town, and fortified communities.
1276 Severe drought destroys crops in the Colorado Plateau and contributes to the growing exodus of Anasazi from their stone villages. Drought lasts until 1299.
Before 1300, Mandans arrived in the Missouri River Valley of the Dakotas from their homeland in Minnesota and Iowa.
About 1300 Speakers of Numic languages (Mono, Paiutes, Panamint, Shoshone, Kawaiisu, and Utes) Migrate out of southeastern California and spread northward and east across the Great Basin. - Iroquoian peoples live in longhouses in clans traced through their mothers.
In about 1325, Mississippian colonists in Missouri abandoned the colony.
About 1350 Keresan-speaking Pueblo people arrive in the Rio Grande region.
1368-1644 The Ming Dynasty is created in China.
Before 1400, Anasazi abandoned Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and other sites around Southwest. Many Anasazi are thought to have moved to Hopi and Zuni territory to the Rio Grande and its tributaries in New Mexico, where they became known as Pueblo Indians. Apaches say the Anasazi left the earth and moved to the Big Dipper. Navajo say Anasazi learned the secret of life and were destroyed.
About 1400 Wiyot, Yurok, Karok, Hupa, and Tolowa peoples of the northern coast of California live in plank houses. Farmers from southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa moved to the Dakotas and developed a culture known as Middle Missouri.
Around 1421, Chinese explorers were thought to have visited our west coast and made many possible inland trips.
In 1450, Hiawatha, an Onondaga chief, strengthened the League of Five Iroquois Nations, which united the Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk Tribes. 1492 Before Columbus, an estimated 2-8 million people inhabited what would eventually become the U.S. - Approximately 40 million bison roam the open spaces of the continent.
CIR. 1497-1600 Explorers and fishermen contact North America, spreading epidemics and diseases among woodland tribes.
CIR. 1500 Residents of mound-building communities in Illinois, Georgia, and eastern Oklahoma abandoned their homes and resettled in scattered small villages in the 1500s. Pushed out by larger tribes from north and east, the Tsitsista (Cheyenne) moved slowly south from Minnesota.
About 1500 Mandans of Dakotas reach a height of cultural power. About 1513, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon begins his search for the fountain of youth in what is today Florida.
1521 After too many brutal encounters with Europeans, Florida Indians attack their former friend, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, dies.
1522 Chicora, a Carolina or Yamassee Indian, is kidnapped by the Spanish and taken the next year to Spain.
1524 Indians along the Atlantic coast observe the arrival of an outsider, Giovanni da Verrazano, and an Italian sailing for the King of France.
1528 Tribes across Texas and southern New Mexico encounter their first non-Indians in the form of four shipwreck survivors.
1531 Sever earthquake hits Lisbon, destroying 1,500 houses and killing an estimated 30,000 people.
1532 Explorers begin the conquest of the Incas - the only highly civilized society to function without using money.
1534, Iroquois Indians met their first non-Indian French explorer, Jacques Cartier. In 1535, Jacques Cartier expeditioned to St. Lawrence.
1539 Unhappy at being bullied, Zuni executes Estevanico, a black traveling with a party of Spanish explorers.
1540-42 Native People of Southeast meet Europeans for the first time as Hernando de Soto travels from Florida to Mississippi and Arkansas, and Oklahoma - Natives of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansa meet large numbers of non-Indians for the first time as Francisco Vazquez de Coronado and 300 Spanish men and women search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.
1541: The death of Queen Margaret Tudor of Scotland, daughter of Henry VII and wife of James IV of Scotland.
1542 Indian people along the California coast and Oregon encounter the first non-Indian in the form of explorer Juan Cabrillo.
1550 Ozette on the Pacific coast of Washington, a mudslide seals a Makah village intact.
CIR. 1559-1570 Beginning of the "known" League of Iroquois.
1560 King Outina, ruler of 40 Indian villages in Florida, allies with the French.
1565, Spain established the first permanent settlement at St. Augustine, Florida.
In 1577, English mariner Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth in the Golden Hind on his circumnavigation of the globe.
1579 Sir Francis Drake rounds Cape Horn and sails up the Pacific coast.
1582 Oct. 4 is the last day of the Julian Calendar in Italy and Catholic Europe.
1584 John White at Roanoke Island.
1585 Indians of Virginia welcome Sir Richard Grenville - Indians of North Carolina watch uneasily as the English try to establish a permanent colony on Roanoke Island.
In 1599, Acoma Pueblo was defeated by the Spanish.
1600 17th Century Jesuit influence upon Indians - Five Algonquian tribes band together in Virginia to form what becomes known as the Powhatan Confederacy.
1603 March 24 Queen Elizabeth dies. James accedes to the English throne. The outbreak of plague in England.
1603-1604 Champlain’s first expeditions. Native Americans in Canada describe the location of the Detroit River to Champlain.
1604 Spanish envoys signed peace with England in Somerset House, England. Work begins on the “new” translation of the Bible to be called The King James Bible.
1607, 120 colonists left for Virginia from England (Pilgrims). Non-white outsiders are about to establish the first permanent British colony - British expedition to Jamestown, contact with Powhatan Confederacy Thames river in London freezes over.
1608 Champlain founded Quebec
1608 Pocahontas, teenage daughter of Algonquian leader Wa-hun-sen-a-cawh, saves the life of Jamestown colonial leader John Smith -French colonization Quebec - Champlain at Quebec.
1609 Native people living along the Hudson River and New York Bay encountered Henry Hudson, who introduced firearms and alcohol. Henry Hudson up the Hudson River, contact with Mohicans - Champlain discovers Lake Champlain.
1610 Pueblo Indians continue to work as servants for the Spanish.
1611 King James Bible published.
1611-12 Chaplain published maps showing a connection between Lake Huron and Erie.
1611 Religious zealots in colonial America demands that the church be mandatory. Working, traveling, or kissing on the Sabbath can earn you a fine or an afternoon in the stocks.
1612 Bavarian Astronomer Simon Mayr becomes the first man to witness the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope.
1613 Algonquian Pocahontas is kidnapped by Virginia colonial leader Samuel Argall - Marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
1613-17 European diseases, including smallpox and measles, ravage the Timucua people of Georgia and Florida.
1614 Indians of New York found their lives changing as Dutch traders and colonists moved in.
1615 Oct. First missionaries in New France.
1615-20 Five-year epidemic of smallpox, plague, and other diseases from Europe killed 75-90 % of the Massachusetts, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket peoples.
1616 Oneida Indians in NY were attacked by the French. Pocahontas traveled to England.
1617 Pocahontas dies of smallpox in England.
1603-1635 Champlain’s voyages; early contact with Canadian tribes.
1618 Etienne Brule is known to have paddled the north channel of Lake Huron
1619-1911 The Qing Dynasty is created in China.
1619 House of Burgesses was the first representative legislative body in colonial America at Jamestown, Capitol of Virginia.
1620 First English colonist at Plymouth, Massasoit, friendly Wampanoag Chief assists Pilgrim settlers.
1621 Dutch at Albany, New York - Italian scientist Galileo Galilei 57, perfects his telescope.
1621 With the help of Native guides, Brule explores Lac Tracy (Lake Superior), noting copper deposits.
1622 Opechancanough’s first uprising against the settlers in Virginia.
1622 Champlain becomes Governor of "New France," including our Peninsula regions of the Great Lakes and Quebec
1623 French fort built at Quebec.
1625 First Jesuit missionaries from France to North America.
1626 Manhattan Indians enter into a transaction with the Dutch for land.
1627 Company of 100 Associates Formed for Fur Trade and Colonization.
1628 First land grant by Charles I.
In 1629, the English invaded Quebec.
1631 Roger Williams contends that the royal charter for Massachusetts illegally expropriated land rights of the Indians of Massachusetts.
In 1632, the English surrendered Quebec back to France.
1633 Champlain, Governor of New France.
1634 French Explorers, fur traders, and Missionaries begin occupation of the Great Lakes region
1634 Nicolet arrives at the Straits of Mackinac, and the fur trade of the Straits formally begins.
1636 Roger Williams rounds the colony at Providence and adopts a humane policy toward Indians.
In 1636, Harvard College became the colonies' first institution of higher learning.
1637 Pequot War in New England; Roger Williams prevents Alliance of New England tribes against New England colonies.
1638 New York "area' called “Terra Incognita” on maps.
1640 First “known” white man in Western New York. - Beaver and otter nearly exterminated in Iroquois country - Nov. 2 Two Jesuit Fathers travel to Niagara River.
1642 Iroquois “beaver war” eliminates Hurons as rivals.
1643 Roger Williams publishes a key to the language of American Natives.
1644 Opechancanough’s second uprising in Virginia.
1648 Iroquois on St. Lawrence, moving towards war.
1641 Jesuits establish French settlements at Soo with Father Dablon and Father Marquette.1649 Iroquois battle Huron.
1649, the First Religious Toleration Act in America granted freedom of worship to both Protestants and Catholics in Maryland.
1650 Lauson, Governor of New France. - Edinburgh Castle surrenders to Cromwell after a three-month siege.
1658 Arguson, Governor at Quebec.
1663 100 Associates end rights in New France, West Indian Company Established. - Feb. 5 Tremendous earthquake in Western New York and Canada.
1665 Tracy, Governor West India Co.
In 1666, the Iroquois invaded the Great Lakes, resulting in the Iroquois Point, Michigan battle.
1668, the French started a settlement in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
1670, Father Marquette built a mission site for the Huron tribes at Mackinac Island.
1671 Marquette establishes a mission site at St. Ignace. - Indian Council at Falls of St. Mary claiming land. - New France Count Frontenac, Governor of New France.
1671 The First military outpost in Michigan, called Fort de Buade, was established at St. Ignace, Michigan
1678 LaSalle in Canada-New York.
In 1679, LaSalle built the ship "Griffin" on the Niagara River. - LaSalle trading house at Mackinac. - LaSalle descends Mississippi to the Gulf.
1680 LaSalle walks an overland route to Frontenac (Lake Ontario).
1681 The First globe was created in Venice, including the maps of the Great Lakes from LaSalle. (The globe is currently displayed in the Archaeological Museum, Venice, Italy.)
1682 William Penn’s treaty with the Delaware, Susquehanna’s, and other tribes began a long period of friendly relations with the Indians under Quaker leadership; the presentation of "Penn” wampum belts by the Indians.
1683 French Marines, led by Barre, cross Lake Ontario. English attack on the French fort at Sorrel.
1686 English on Lake Erie.
1687, the French prepared for the invasion of Seneca country. - LaSalle's second trip to the Gulf on Mississippi.
1689 Count Frontenac arrives at Quebec.
1690 Fort DuBaude is established at St. Ignace. - Colonist at Quebec.
1690 Treasury bills were the first paper money issued in America by the Massachusetts Bay Company to fund a war with the French.
1691 Siege of Montreal by British.
1691-98 English, French and Indian Wars.
1692 Salem witchcraft trials.
1696 Frontenac invades Oswego (Fort Oswego, Lake Ontario).
1701 Cadillac founded Detroit for New France.
In 1702, Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, became the royal governor of New York.
1702-1713 English, Queen Ann’s War.
1712 British inspire Native Americans to begin raids against French allies
1711-1712 Tuscarora War on the southern frontier.
About 1722, remnants of Tuscarora move north to join the Iroquois as the sixth nation.
1713 April Treaty of Utrecht- Nova Scotia.
1715, the French built Fort Michilimackinac.
The 1717 French fort was erected at the south end of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
1718 Post at Chequamegon Bay was re-established on Madeline Island as Fort La Pointe, Wisconsin.
1719 Fort Ouiatenon was started on the Ohio below modern-day Lafayette, Indiana.
1726 Fort Oswego was built by the English (Lake Ontario).
1728, William Byrd surveyed the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina.
1733 Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack was first published.
In 1743, Mohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant was born.
1744-1748, the British went to war against Spain and France, King George’s War.
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
1749 Celeron de Blainville asserts French claim to Ohio country.
1750 There are 650 residents living in the settlement at Detroit, Michigan
1751 Fort at St. Mary's River (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan) was built.
1752 July 30 Marquis Dupuesne arrives in Quebec as Governor of New France. - October Duquesne and Intendant Bigot complete plans for Ohio River exploration. -On Nov 14, Canadian militia levied for the expedition.
1753 Feb 1 Advance detachment commanded by Charles Deschamps de Boisheber leaves Montreal. - CIR. March 15, Boishebert (French) reaches Fort Niagara (in retaliation against the English). - On March 23, Duquesne orders landing at Presque Isle. - On April 15, Boishebert explores Lake Erie's shore to Presque Isle. - May 15 Engineer Marin (French) supervises the building of Fort Presque Isle. - c. June 20: Marin selects the site of Fort Le Boeuf. - On July 12, Marin starts to build Fort Le Boeuf. - On Oct 29, Marin dies; Repentigny temporarily in command. - Dec. 5 George Washington at Venango. - Dec 11-16 George Washington at Fort Le Boeuf. - On Dec 25, Duquesne recalls St. Pierre and assigns Contrecoeur to command the Ohio.
1754 Albany Conference to organize Canadian governor's completion of Fort Duquesne Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1754-1760 French and Indian War (Seven Years War). - On April 16, Contrecoeur summons the English to surrender their Fort at the Forks of the Ohio (Pittsburgh). - On May 23, British Officer George Washington led the Virginia force Skirmishes with the French party, killing or capturing all but one. - June 15 Enclosure of Fort Duquesne completed. - On June 28, Coulon de Villiers begins a campaign against Washington. - On July 4, Washington surrendered Fort Necessity.
1755 General Braddock arrives in North America. British leadership begins to falter - On June 28, Rigauville and 120 Hurons set out from Fort Duquesne (Fort Ticonderoga) to harass the English army. - July 9 Battle of Monongahela. Dumas wins the victory over Braddock.
1756 Edmond Atkin appointed Indian Superintendent. - Quakers lost political control in Pennsylvania.
1756-1757, the Delaware War encompassed the Pennsylvania frontier.
1757 Surrender of Fort William Henry and massacre of prisoners by Indian allies of Montcalm.
1758 July 30 The Marquis Duquesne arrives in Quebec as Governor of New France. - October Duquesne and the intendant Bigot complete plans for an expedition to the Belle Rivier (Ohio River) - Nov 14 Canadian militia levied for expedition French capture British Fort Oswego (Lake Ontario). British siege fort at Louisburg, Quebec July British and French battles at Lake George - Ticonderoga and Crown Point - July 22 Gen. Amherst attack Ticonderoga - July 23 French withdraw to Crown Point - July 25 Fort at Louisburg falls - July 26 Fort Ticonderoga besieged - July 27 Surrender of Fort Ticonderoga. - August 4 English at Crown Point abandoned. - Oct. 10 Gen. Amherst on Lake Ontario.
1758-1759 Gen. Amherst becomes commander of all North American British troops.
1759-1760 Cherokee War on the Carolina frontier.
1759 British headquarters located in New York. - Feb. English sail toward Quebec May forces move at Schenectady. - May 20 Forces move up Mohawk River. - On July 1, the British embarked on Lake Ontario at Oswego. - July 2: Stopped at Sodus Bay. - July 3 Stopped at Irondequoit - July 8 British entrench at Fort Niagara. - On July 11, the French approached the British at Fort Niagara. July 23 Sir William Johnson backs British troops at Niagara with Native Warriors. - July 24 French surrender of Fort Niagara. - July 29 English siege at Quebec under Wolfe. - On Sept 18, the French surrendered Quebec.
1758-1760 French army at Montreal.
1760 April Levi retakes Quebec. - April 27 French Fail. - Sept 6 Amherst to Quebec. - On Sept 8, Montreal surrendered. - On Nov 29, the Rogers Rangers landed in Detroit with about 275 troops.
1761, the British took control of Michilimackinac. - A proclamation prohibiting settlement on the Appalachian frontier by Colonel Henry Bouquet.
1761-1762 Seneca planned a major attack on the British along the western frontier under the leadership of Kaiaghshota.
On July 2, 1762, Spain joined France against Britain.
January 2, 1762, the Spanish war was declared against Britain.
1763 Delaware Prophet, sometimes called Neolin, preaches message of the Master of Life. - Feb. 10 Treaty of Paris ends colonial phase of Seven Years’ War. - April 3 William Johnson’s Articles of Peace. Colonel Henry Bouquet urges convening of large congress with northern tribes to discuss Indian grievances; Sir Jeffery Amherst declines to hold a conference - May-June Sir Jeffery Amherst begins a policy of “economy” by curtailing Indian presents and setting up new trade regulations at frontier posts - May-June Pontiac sends war belts to urge an attack on frontier post-May Pontiac’s surprise attack on Detroit betrayed June Pontiac’s war of independence beings; capture of seven frontier Forts and siege of Fort Pitts and Fort Detroit Amherst uses smallpox infested blankets to spread disease to Indians Amherst urges use of English dogs to hunt Indians - Oct. 7 Royal proclamation of 1763 establishes Indian sanctuary and restricts westward movement of colonists - Nov. Distribution of Gifts to southern Indians at Congress of Augusta, Georgia by Southern Superintendent John Stuart Dec. Paxton Riots on Pennsylvania frontier, the massacre of Conestoga mission Indians in retaliation of Pontiac’s War. - Ojibwa, Sac, and Fox Indians capture Fort Michilimackinac during Pontiac’s Rebellion (Beaver War).
1764 Sir William Johnson dies. - The British reorganized the Indian administration and planned to extend Frontier Indian boundary lines according to the Plan of 1764. Along the Mississippi, the French finally received official word from France that it was illegal to declare war against the British of North America. - For the Illinois French to do so violated the terms of the September 8, 1760 capitulation, a point of honor in eighteenth-century warfare. The British returned to Fort Michilimackinac.
1765, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, taxing newspapers, legal documents, and other printed materials.
1765, Pontiac signed a treaty with the British.
In 1766, Pontiac met with the British and promised to recall war belts.
1768 Fort Stanwix Treaty extended a northern Indian boundary line to meet the southern Indian boundary line.
1769 Assassination of Pontiac in Illinois country.
In 1770, British soldiers in Boston fired into a crowd of colonists, killing three and wounding 8…. It was known as the Boston Massacre, and it was used to rally Americans against British policies.
1771-72 Alexander Henry begins their first mining venture at the Porcupine Mountains, Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
1773: The extension of the southern Indian boundary line was completed. - Protesting British importation of duty-free tea, colonists dressed as Indians staged the Boston Tea Party, dumping 342 chests of tea into the water.
1774: The first British civil government was established in British North America by signing the Quebec Act. Citizens of French descent have no voting privileges unless they take an oath of allegiance.
1774 First Continental Congress, a convention of delegates from all the American colonies (except Georgia), met in Philadelphia to address British injustices. These injustices include what became known as the Intolerable Acts. The Congress adopts a Declaration of Rights, establishing the colonial position on taxation and trade. Britain takes it as a joke.
1775-1783 American Revolution 1776 The United States of America became a new nation when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Jefferson. Britain offers a reward to learn the names of the signers, asserting that the act constitutes high treason punishable by death.
1776 Ben Franklin arranges for the harsh imprisonment of his only son, William, for being a Tory.
1775-1779 Border Wars.
1776 Col. Rochester of NY assists in framing the Constitution of North Carolina. - The British defeated the American fleet on Lake Champlain under the leadership of Benedict Arnold.
1776 First organized attempt by the U.S. government to issue money came during the American Revolution. This, too, ended in a disaster, and the phrase "not worth a continental" was born.
1777, American forces defeat the British at Saratoga, New York, turning the war and convincing France to form a military alliance with America. - Washington launches an attack against the British at the Battle of Princeton.
1778 Sept Treaty at Fort Stanwix Franklin and Adams in Paris and develop an intense dislike for one another.
1779 There are now 3,000 residents in the settlement of Detroit, Michigan
1779 March 22 Gen. George Washington orders Col. Brodhead’s Campaign against Detroit. Benedict Arnold turns into a traitor and sides with the British. - August 11 Expedition against Indians at the head of Allegany River and French Creek, and in Ohio, George Washington plans to capture Fort Niagara.
1779-1781 Fort Michilimackinac and the old village settlement were abandoned, and the garrison moved to Mackinac Island.
1780 Robert Campbell builds Mill Creek sawmill Mackinac 1780s Fort Michilimackinac is burned under orders of Governor Sinclair.
In 1781, the State of N.Y. was ceded to U.S. British forces, defeated at Yorktown, Virginia, in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.
1783 American Revolution ends. Treaty of Paris Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution establishing a system of government. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form… Franklin D. Roosevelt states in his inauguration. “That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced.” - Treaty of Peace with Great Britain Treaty of Peace with Native American Indian lands of N.Y. purchased.
In 1781, the Spanish invaded Michigan at Fort St. Joseph; their siege lasted one day.
1783: The signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between the British and the Americans required all English settlers loyal to the Crown of England to leave American lands.
1784 Act to create a superintendent’s post for Native American affairs. Americans sought the council of the Iroquois Treaty at Fort Stanwixb. vbh
1785, Massachusetts ceded to the U.S. Council at Fort Herkimer. Congress attempted treaties with Indians.
1786 Shay’s Rebellion.
1787 Garrisons at Detroit, Michigan is strengthened, British forces still in Detroit bribe Native Americans to increase hostility against Americans.
1787, Delaware ratified the Constitution, becoming the first state of the newly formed United States of America. - Lease of lands of the Six Nations of Iroquois.
1788 Treaty of Fort Schuyler (N.Y.) concluded the Council of the Iroquois at Fort Schuyler. - Holland land purchase of N.Y.
In 1788, Britain started sending its criminals to Australia for exile. Over 160,000 convicts and undesirables are transported over the next 80 years.
1789-1797 Electoral College chose George Washington as the United States' first president. Washington and his wife moved into the first presidential home at No. 1 Cherry Street in New York City, the nation’s capital. - John Adams becomes the first vice president. “I am vice president,” he says. “In this, I am nothing.” - Land titles in N.Y. and Massachusetts were given out. - The contracted road from Fort Stanwix (Rome) to Seneca Lake, N.Y. - First families occupy Holland land purchase tracts, N.Y.
1792, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, press, and rights to trial by jury and peaceful assembly.
1792 First elections were held in Michigan to send three representatives to British-ruled Upper Canada's Parliament.
1793 Eli Whitney invents cotton gin.
1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the defeat of Native and British forces from Detroit.
1794 President Washington sent federal troops to quash the Whiskey Rebellion, a violent protest by whiskey producers in Pennsylvania against the feral tax on their product.
1795, Native Americans signed the treaty of Greenville, which gave Native land to the American government.
1796, the British evacuated from Detroit, and General Anthony Wayne raised the First American Flag in Detroit.
1796 Fort Mackinac turned over to American troops. - John Adam and Thomas Jefferson clash in the first presidential campaign and the second four years later.
1798 Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont spits in the face of Connecticut’s Roger Griswold, the first recorded congressional brawl. - Niagara Road surveyed.
1797-1801 John Adams President of the United States
In 1799, Michigan became a territory, and our first county was named Wayne. Wayne County at that time took in the entire Lower Peninsula of Michigan and parts of what is now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
1800 Washington, D.C., carved out of Maryland and Virginia, became the nation's capital. - First Lady Abigail Adams describes the mostly undeveloped federal city as romantic but wild.
1800 Congress divides Wayne County into two sections, the Northwest Territory and the Indiana Territory
1801-1809 Thomas Jefferson President of the United States
1801 John Marshall was appointed the US Supreme Court chief justice by President John Adams. Marshall raises the Supreme Court to a level of importance equal to that of the executive and judicial branches of government.
1802 Detroit, Michigan, incorporates their first Post Office.
1803 Louisiana Purchase from France doubles the size of the US, extending its western border to the Rocky Mountains. The vast acquisition later forms part or all of the fifteen states. In dealing with Napoleon of France, President Jefferson later admitted he “stretched the Constitution until it cracked.”
1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked upon their epic track across the continent to explore the lands recently acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. - Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
1805 Detroit named the Capitol of Michigan Territory. Later that year, Detroit was destroyed by fire.
1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Britain’s Admiral Horatio Nelson is mortally wounded as the Royal Navy defeats the Franco-Spanish fleet.
1807 Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, became the first financially successful steamboat to travel up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in about 30 hours.
1806 Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel.
1806 Rebuilding of Detroit is aided by sawmills built along the St. Clair River.
1807 Revolutionary War hero William Hull negotiates the Treaty of Detroit and Native nations, securing a large section of southeast Michigan to America.
1809-1817 James Madison President of the United States
1809 Meriwether Lewis kills himself in Tennessee. - Abraham Lincoln was born. - Author Edgar Allen Poe is born.
1809 First paper and printing press in Michigan was owned by James M. Miller in Detroit.
1810, the population of Detroit reached 4,762 residents.
1811 Construction began on what became known as the National Road, linking the east with the Midwest. - Birth of Hungarian composer Frantz Liszt.
1812 War of 1812 begins after years of British interference with American shipping and other degradations. British captured Fort Mackinac during the War of 1812 - Oct. Americans captured British vessels at Fort Erie.
1813, United States Lieutenant Oliver Perry defeated British ships on Lake Erie, opening the way for Americans to reoccupy Detroit.
In 1813, Louis Cass was appointed the new territorial governor of the Michigan Territory.
1813 Crossing of the Niagara and bloody conflict of the War of 1812. - Dec. 12 Fort George evacuated (N.Y.) - Dec. 18 Fort Niagara Falls to British. - Dec. 29 Conquest of Black Rock and Buffalo.
1814 British forces capture the nation’s capital, burning the President’s house, the U.S. Capitol, and other government buildings. “Few thought of going to bed,” a Washington resident later writes of the destruction. “They spent the night gazing on the fires and lamenting the disgrace of the city.” The British are subsequently repelled after attacking Baltimore… American soldiers were defeated while attacking Fort Mackinac. - On July 2, the British captured Fort Erie.
In the 1815 Treaty of Ghent, the British returned Fort Mackinac to American forces at the end of the War of 1812. The British lost the Mackinaw outpost but gained occupation of Drummond Island and Lake Huron.
1816 June 6-12 Frost every night in N.Y. Cold summer scarcity of food for all - France decrees that the Bonaparte family shall be excluded from the country forever.
1816 "Detroit Gazette" first published weekly. "Catholepistermiad," or the University of Michigan, was established, making it one of the first Universities in the United States.
1817-1825 James Monroe President of the United States
1817 April 15 Law authorizing the building of the Erie Canal-Gov. - Dewitt Clinton, July 4, broke ground for Erie Canal at Rome, N.Y.
1818 Illinois becomes a state. 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States after 300 years of domination. - Mid-section of Erie Canal completed.
1818 First public land sale in Detroit.
1819 Michigan begins her first bank.
1819 Michigan Territory was given authority to elect a delegate to the United States Congress.
1819 Treaty of Saginaw is signed between Governor Cass and the Native Nations, adding 6,000,000acres of land to Michigan Territory
1820 Governor Cass explored the territory and negotiated with the Native inhabitants, adding a 16-square-mile area of land along the St. Mary's River, the Treaty of Sault Ste. Marie.
1820 Michigan Territory has 8,096 residents.
1820 The Missouri Compromise is reached. Missouri is admitted to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, thus maintaining the balance of slave and free states in the US Senate. The compromise also bans slavery from the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri, except in Missouri itself.
1821 Governor Cass negotiated the "Treaty of Chicago" with the Indian Nations, expanding United States ownership to half of the Lower Peninsula.
1822: The first public stagecoach begins operation in Detroit.
1822 Dr. Beaumont (Mackinac Island) experiments on Alexis St. Martin. - First shipment of flour shipped on Erie Canal (mid-section) from Rochester to Little Falls, N.Y. - Seneca Indian Chief Cornplanter addresses Governor of Pa. N.Y. - State road completed in Allegany.
1823 Fort Bradly was built at the Soo, ending Chippewa's control over the area.
1823 Michigan Territory was granted permission for the legislature of nine presidential and 18 local elected members.
1823 Oct. 7 Aqueduct built in Rochester. - N.Y. completed the Erie Canal's Eastern section and the Aqueduct of the Erie Canal at Rochester.
1824: The Great Sauk Trail started between Detroit and Chicago.
1824 Erie Canal completed to Lockport.
1825 September, Announce the date for the opening of the Erie Canal. - Oct. Filling of the Erie level of canal commences. - Oct. 25: Entire Erie Canal filled with water.
1828, the First Territorial Capitol building was built in Detroit.
1825-1829 John Quincy Adams President of the United States
1829-1837 Andrew Jackson President of the United States
1830 Michigan Territory population soars to 31,639.
1830 Detroit and Pontchartrain railroad became the first incorporated rail line in the Northwest Territory
1830, President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, requiring eastern Indians to be resettled west of the Mississippi River.
1831, Lewis Cass resigned, and President Andrew Jackson appointed him Secretary of War. Steven T. Mason (19 years old) became the first acting governor of Michigan.
1831 Nat Turner, a black preacher in Virginia, leads a slave revolt.
1832, England relaxed punishment for forging money in Britain. The forger was exiled to Australia instead of the death penalty.
1832 Black Hawk Wars and the Cholera epidemic kills many in Detroit, Michigan.
1832 The First "Poor House" opened in Detroit, Michigan.
1834 Michigan Territory Legislature petitioned Congress for permission to form a state but were refused.
1834 Cholera epidemic kills 1/7 of Detroit's population.
1835 Governor Mason calls for militia to gather over the Ohio border dispute (Toledo War).
1836, Michigan ceded land to Ohio in exchange for the Upper Peninsula.
1836 Business and property prices doubled in Michigan, and citizens are now provided daily stagecoach and mail service.
1836: Three thousand Mexican troops under Santa Anna stormed the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
1837 January 26, 1837, Michigan became the 26th State of the Union of the United States.
1837, Detroit's population grew to 10,000 residents.
1837-1841 Van Buren President of the United States
1837, Michigan becomes a state.
1838, Michigan opened its first public school in Detroit.
1839 George Armstrong Custer is born.
1839 Whigs carry the State of Michigan election.
1841-1845 Taylor President of the United States
1842 Treaty of La Pointe gives over Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royal to Michigan, both rich in prospective mines.
1844 On a test line of his telegraph between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Samuel F.B. Morse taps out his first message to connect the two cities.
1845-1849 Polk President of the United States
In 1845, the Republic of Texas became the nation’s 28th state.
1846 State Legislature relocated State Capitol in Lansing.
1846, President Polk and Congress declared war on Mexico. - Britain cedes the southern portion of Oregon Territory below Vancouver to the US. - Mormon Joseph Smith is killed by the mob, Brigham Young leads a mass exodus of Mormons from Illinois to Utah.
In 1847, Thomas Edison, the light bulb inventor, was born.
1848 New Capitol built in Lansing, Michigan.
1848 Cholera outbreak in Detroit, Michigan, 300 die.
1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first US women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY. The way adopts a Declaration of Sentiments that calls for women to receive “all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the U.S.”
1848 James Marshall discovers gold at Sutter’s Mill in California.
1849 English-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from New York medical school as the first female doctor in the United States.
1850-1853 Fillmore President of the United States
1850 Compromise of 1850 temporarily simmers the growing strife. It overcomes slavery by admitting California to the Union as a free state and allowing the territories of New Mexico and Utah to decide the issue for themselves. The compromise also abolishes the slave trade in the District of Columbia while providing a stricter federal law for the return of runaway slaves.
1851 Saginaw, Michigan, lumber mill produces 92 million board feet in one year.
1851 John James Audubon, an American ornithologist renowned for painting birds, dies.
In 1851, Isaac Singer created the first sewing machine.
1852: The first teacher training school west of New York opens in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” becomes a best seller.
1853-1857 Franklin Pierce President of the United States
1854, Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing people of two territories to decide whether to allow slavery. - The Republican Party was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, by antislavery groups opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
1854 London Cholera Epidemic.
1855 Soo ship channel and locks opened.
1856, the State of Michigan receives 3,000,000 acres of public land.
1856 Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln delivers an anti-slavery speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
1857-1861 Buchanan President of the United States
In 1857, General Lewis Cass was appointed Secretary of State.
1857, the First Agricultural School in the United States opened in Lansing, Michigan, at Michigan State University.
In 1857, Elisha G. Otis installed the first passenger elevator in New York City.
1859: The first commercially drilled oil well was drilled near Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1860, the State of Michigan's population still growing by 749,113.
1860, Pony Express began delivering mail from St Louis, Missouri, then the western terminus of the American Railroad system, to Sacramento, California.
1861 Michigan soldiers (90,000) reached Washington in preparation for the Civil War.
In 1861, Thomas Edison began experiments on the new electric battery.
1861-1865 Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
1861-1865 American Civil War.
In 1861, ten Southern states followed South Carolina out of the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. - The Civil War began on April 12, 1862. - The Homestead Act grants free/cheap public land to frontier settlers. - Nation's first general income tax was levied to help pay for the Civil War. It ended in 1872 but became a permanent fixture in American life.
1863 First large load of Bessemer Steel was produced in America at Wyandotte, Michigan.
In 1863, Calumet Copper lode was discovered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, calling it “a fit and necessary war measure” - Gettysburg. In the greatest battle ever fought on American soil, Union forces defeated invading Confederates. The decisive victory, occurring simultaneously with the Confederate surrender at Vicksburg, marks the turning point in the Civil War. The U.S. Capitol dome was completed and capped with the Statue of Freedom in 1865. General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, surrenders to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Washington D.C. by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth 13 Amendment to the Constitution outlaws slavery throughout the U.S. It is followed by the 1868 - 14 Amendment confirming the citizenship of blacks. The 15th Amendment in 1870 made denying voting rights based on race illegal.
1865, African Americans assembled in Detroit, Michigan, to petition the Legislature to grant suffrage rights.
1865-1869 Andrew Johnson President of the United States
1866 Transatlantic cable is completed. - The Ku Klux Klan is formed to terrorize liberated blacks and foreign-born citizens in the South.
1867 William H. Seward, Secretary of State, negotiates the purchase of Alaska from Russia for 7,200,000 (.02 cents per acre). - Sholes/Glidden/Soule created the first typewriter.
1869-1877 U.S. Grant President of the United States
1869 A golden spike is driven into a railroad rail at Promontory Point, Utah, marking the completion of the world’s first transcontinental railroad.
1870 Michigan population reaches 1,054,067
1870-80 Average Michigan lumber production reached a billion board feet, keeping 1,800 commercial ships busy with exports.
1871 Michigan forest fires destroy much of Holland and Manistee, Michigan.
1871 Great Chicago Fire kills 250. - Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, receives a patent for the improvement of suspenders.
1872 Great Fire of Chicago. - Susan B. Anthony illegally votes in the presidential election in Rochester, NY, and is arrested and fined. - Yellowstone, the U.S.'s first national park, is established.
1873 Detroit River, ships pass along the river, one every six seconds carrying 50 million dollars in cargo to Chicago, Illinois.
1875, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, giving blacks equal rights in public accommodations and access to jury duty. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1883.
1876 Detroit receives awards for stove manufacturing, shoe production, furniture, forestry, products, and fruit at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
1876: The first telephone wire system in the state (20 miles) in Ontonagon after seeing Bell's invention at the Centennial Exposition.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell transmits human speech for the first time while developing the telephone. - General George A. Custer and 264 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry die at the Little Bighorn River during the war with the Sioux Indians.
In 1878, the first phones were installed in Detroit, and the first phonograph was exhibited in Detroit.
1879 New Lansing State Capitol built.
1877-1881 R.B. Hayes President of the United States
1877: The first commercial telephone line was installed in Massachusetts.
1878: A woman suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress. It failed to pass but was reintroduced in every session of Congress for the next 40 years.
In 1879, Thomas Edison produced the first practical light bulb. California Electric Light Co. begins operating the world’s first central power plant selling electricity to private customers. - F.W. Woolworth opens the first “five-cent” store in Utica, N.Y.
In 1880, the Population of Michigan was 1,636,937, with most people living in rural farming areas.
1880 New York streets are lit by electricity.
1881-1881 Garfield President of the United States
1881-1885 Arthur President of the United States
1881 Clara Barton organizes the Red Cross. - President James A. Garfield is assassinated in Washington by Charles Julius Guiteau.
1882 Franklin D. Roosevelt is born and serves as US president from 1933-45.
1883 Brooklyn Bridge was completed and hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody organizes his Wild West Show.
1884 Construction begins in Chicago on the Home Insurance Building, the world’s first skyscraper.
1885-1889 Cleveland is President of the United States
In 1885, Sir Henry Bessemer patented the process named after him that led to the mass production of steel.
1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor and became the first view of America for many in the growing “nation of immigrants.”
In 1888, George Eastman perfected the “Kodak” box camera, the first designed for mass production and amateur use.
1889-1893 B. Harrison President of the United States
1889, Herman Hollerith’s punched-card tabulating machine was the first successful computer used to tabulate the results of the 1890 census.
The 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota began after the federal government banned the Sioux’s Ghost Dance. - Electric Chair is used for the first time in the execution of convicted murderer William Kemmler, New York. - Frontier is officially declared closed. Census Bureau announces that so many people have filled in pockets throughout the West that it is no longer meaningful to talk about a “frontier line.”
1891 James Naismith invents basketball.
1892, Old Point Mackinac Lighthouse was built.
1893-1897 Cleveland was re-elected President of the United States
In 1893, Henry Ford made his first successful gasoline engine.
1894 Thomas Edison markets the kinetoscope, an early form of movie in which a viewer peers through a magnifying lens as moving images illuminated by an electric light.
In 1895, Charles and Franklin Duryea established the first American company for manufacturing gasoline-powered automobiles. - The first professional football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
1897-1901 McKinley President of the United States
1897 the First American subway opened in Boston with 1.5 miles of track.
1901-1909 Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States
1901 President William McKinley is assassinated in Buffalo, NY by Leon Czolgosz.
1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright designed and built the first successful airplane. The first World Series is held, and Boston defeats Pittsburgh.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was one of the worst disasters in American history.
1909-1913 Taft President of the United States
1912 Titanic sinks.
In 1912, The Republic of China was created.
1913-1921 Wilson President of the United States
In 1913, Ford Company engineers developed the assembly line.
1914 Panama Canal opens.
1917 WWI
1918 Influenza epidemic sweeps the world, killing 20 million people.
In 1920, Women were given the right to vote under the 19th Amendment.
1920 Prohibition begins following the ratification of the 18th Amendment.
1921-1923 Harding President of the United States
1923-1929 Coolidge President of the United States
1926 First liquid-propelled rocket was launched using technology developed by aerospace pioneer Robert Goddard.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first aviator to make a solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Television makes a debut.
1929-1933 Hoover President of the United States
The 1929 Stock Market Crash plunged the nation into the Great Depression. - Martin Luther King is born.
1929, Robert Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole. - Gangland violence in Chicago reaches its peak during Prohibition with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
1930, U.S. astronomers announced the discovery of Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system.
1933-1945 F. D. Roosevelt President of the United States
1933 Nation suffers through Great Depression. - F. D. Roosevelt launches a massive recovery program known as the New Deal. - Prohibition is repealed with the 21st Amendment.
1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
1942, President Roosevelt signs an Executive Order allowing the military to move 112,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes on the West Coast to inland concentration camps.
1944 Allied forces invade Normandy, France. In 1945, Germany surrendered on May 7th. 1947 Captain Charles Yeager, flying the Bell X-1, exceeds the speed of sound. In the 1948 Marshall Plan, the US delivered billions of dollars to aid war-ravaged Europe.
1945-1953 Truman President of the United States
1950 Korean War begins.
1953-1961 Eisenhower President of the United States
The 1954 Commissioning of the atomic submarine U.S.S. Nautilus marks the world’s first full-scale use of controlled nuclear energy.
1955, Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved, beginning the end of a dreaded disease that often left its victims children or paralyzed for life.
1957, the Mackinac Bridge that crosses the Straits of Mackinac was built.
1959, Alaska became the 49th state in the US.
1961-1963 J. F. Kennedy President of the United States
1963-1969 L.B. Johnson President of the United States
1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech during a civil rights march in Washington. - President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald??
1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the most comprehensive civil rights act in American history, integrating public accommodations and prohibiting job discrimination. U.S. Surgeon General releases the first report on the health dangers of smoking. - Beatles storm the nation.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee.
1969-1974 Richard Nixon, President of the United States
1969 Man lands on the moon and returns safely to Earth. - Woodstock music festival. - Anglo-French airline Concorde breaks the sound barrier seven months after its inaugural flight.
1973: Last U.S. ground troops leave Vietnam. Saigon fell two years later, officially ending the Vietnam War. - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state laws cannot forbid a woman from having an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy and can only regulate abortions during the second trimester to protect a woman’s health.
1974 Nixon resigns as 37th President.
1974-1977 Gerald Ford President of the United States
1976 Bicentennial of the U.S.
1977-1981 James Carter President of the United States
In 1979, corporal punishment (spanking your child) was banned in Sweden.
1981-1989 Ronald Reagan President of the United States
1989-1993 George Bush, President of the United States
1992 The Vatican admits that Galileo correctly stated in 1623 that the earth revolved around the sun.
1993-2001 Clinton President of the United States
In 1993, FDIC was established. Americans had a banking system that citizens could trust for the first time.
Historical information compiled by J.L.Panagopoulos© copyright © 2013 J. L. Panagopoulos All Rights Reserved.
B.C.E
200,000 years ago: Glaciers covered the land that is now the Great Lake region
3,100 B.C.E. - The written word begins to keep accounts and cooking instructions.
Before 20,000 B.C. E. Native Americans began arriving from Asia and spread across the Americas.
About 14,000 ago, people moved into the Meadowcroft Rock shelter, a sandstone shelter near present-day Pittsburgh.
About 12,500 ago, Hunters left a projectile point and a blade in a cave in southern Idaho.
11,000 years ago, glacial ice left the Straits of Mackinac. Hunters left projectile points and a hide scraper in a cave in Oregon.
CIR. 10,000 Years ago, hunters left artifacts behind in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State as they tracked and killed mastodons to feed their families.
About 9500 Clovis cultures extend across the continent. Clovis people live in small bands related to family ties and hunt cooperatively in groups.
About 9300 people hunt horses, tapirs, and ground sloths in south-central Arizona.
About 9000 People live along the shores of Healy Lake in Alaska in a settlement that will be continuously occupied for the next 11,000 years.
Also, in China, at about the same time, early Chinese were so advanced they were making bone musical instruments. A bone flute from this period was just recently found.
About 8800 People in the Delaware River Valley of Pennsylvania eat seeds, roots, hackberries, wild plums, ground cherries, grapes, blackberries, and other wild foods.
About 8300 hunters have developed methods for trapping bison by driving whole herds over cliffs or forcing them into box canyons, corrals, and ravines. The techniques survived for nearly 10,000 years until 1800 A.D.
About 8000 The continent's population reaches the maximum density readily sustainable by hunting-and-gathering lifestyle.
About 7700 In the northeastern Great Basin, people make baskets of twine. They collect, store, and cook seeds in the baskets.
About 7000 Across the continent, the few remaining mastodons and other large mammals died; more than 30 species have become extinct.
About 6000, The ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches of the Southwest and the Athabasca peoples of Alaska, California, and the Northwest Coast moved to North America from Asia and settled in the far north.
About 5800 Salmon provide a primary food source for the Plateau and the Northwest Coast migratory peoples.
About 5500 Along the southern California coast, people begin to hunt large game less and eat more fish and seeds.
About 5000 People across the continent began making baskets to gather, process, and store fruits, nuts, and seeds. - In the Illinois Valley, hunter-gatherers establish permanent communities.
After 4000, cultures east of the Mississippi underwent a population explosion as they settled into semi-permanent villages and increased their food-gathering activities.
4004 Sunday, October 23, 9 am London time. The date/time in which James Ussher, Chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and John Lightfoot of Cambridge (1600s) decided God created the earth
390 BCE, Romans built a shrine to Moneta -Goddess of Warning - where we get our modern words for money and mint.
About 3500 Domesticated corn arrived in the Southwest from Mexico but remains a curiosity.
About 3000 Along the Snake River of eastern Washington, people grind stones and attach them to their fishing nets for sinkers techniques for grinding and polishing slate and other stones.
About 2000-3000 B.C.E., China started farming and raising livestock.
About 2500 Domesticated chili peppers arrive in the southwest from Mexico. Ancestors of Pueblo Indians decided the culinary volcanoes were too hot to eat - In western Kentucky, men use axes and incisors to do woodwork.
Before 2000, people began making cooking vessels from soft stone steatite in Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Over the following centuries, the new cooking fashion spread to the Northeast - In Illinois, people began to smoke tobacco using stone pipes. By 2000 B.C.E., people live in semi-permanent villages along the Pacific coast. They fish, gather berries, and make bone, wood, and stone tools.
Around 2000, in the Northeast, people began making pottery. They use grass and fiber roots for tempering.
Around 2000 B.C.E., China created a writing system.
2070-1600 B.C.E. The Xia (She) Dynasty (The first dynasty of China) was created.
About 1700 In the Northeast, more and more people become farmers. They plant gourds, tobacco, and edible seeds but continue to hunt wild game and collect wild plant foods.
1600-1046 B.C.E. The Shang Dynasty of China is created.
1760 BC, Hammurabi's code was created in Babylon.
About 1500, A fishing community developed at what is now Cape Alava on the coast of Washington State and remained continuously occupied for 3,000 years. - People in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana bury their dead at the summits of hills made from glacial gravel.
About 1200 At Poverty Point, Louisiana, people build an elaborate complex of earthen mounds. By 1000 B.C.E. - The Indians of the Southeast had made the transition from hunter-gatherers to semi-nomadic farmers. They cultivate squash, gourds, sunflowers, maygrass, marsh elder, goosefoot, knotweed, and other plants.
1046-221 B. C. E. The Zhou (Jhou) Dynasty is created.
About 1000 Domesticated beans arrive in the Southwest from Mexico. - The ancestors of the Arapaho begin migrating away from the Great Lakes into the Great Plains.
About 9000, the ancestors of the Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga people became allies in the earliest version of the Iroquois Confederacy.
In 620 BC, Draco, an Athenian lawmaker, created the first written account of Greek laws.
About 500 In central Ohio Valley, the Adena people hunt and gather wild plants. - People of Northwest Coast begin to evaluate themselves in terms of social status.
About 300 People in Ohio and Illinois Valleys begin to grow corn, but it remains an incidental crop for another 1,000 years.
about 250 People settled into villages along the river valley of the Plains.
221-206 B.C.E. The Qin Dynasty is created in China.
About 220 B.C.E., China established a distinct form of government- the Imperial dynastic system.
From 206 B.C.E. to 220 AD, the Han Dynasty of China was created.
About 100 The Adena culture of the Ohio Valley gives way to the Hopewell culture. Hopewell peoples continue Adena mound-building practices.
30 B.C.E. - 14 A.D. Emperor Augustus of Rome introduced the world to land and sales tax.
About C.E. 1, the people of western Alaska acquired the first iron tools through trade with Asia - People of the San Francisco Bay area use bone whistles and wear bone pendants. They battle with enemies, burying shells, coyote teeth, and bear claws with the dead.
A.D.
By 100 Across the Southwest, people from many different backgrounds evolve into a loosely related cultural group known today as the Basket Makers because of their fine baskets.
About 250 Influenced by their Hohokam neighbors, hunter-gatherers in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona settled into communities and created the Mogollon culture.
220-581 A.D. The Three Kingdoms of China is created.
After 400, the Hopewell culture declined in the Northeast but flourished in the Southeast. About A.D. 450 - The early Anasazi domesticated turkeys - People modify mound-building practices in the lower Mississippi Valley. No longer used for burials, the new mounds are conical or flat-topped.
The 456 Julian calendar took effect in Rome following recommendations made to Julius Caesar by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria.
About 500 Southeastern Great Basin hunter-gatherers from the Fremont culture lived in pit houses and above-ground homes made of stone and adobe.
About 550 The Hohokam people of southern Arizona expand from the river valleys into the desert.
536, the “Marriage Rite” is now considered a sacrament.
581-618 The Sui Dynasty is created in China.
597 England adopted the Julian calendar until 1752 when it was replaced by the Gregorian system.
After 600, The peoples of the Great Basin began hunting with bows and arrows. The new weapons allow them to hunt much more efficiently.
618-907 The Tang Dynasty is created in China.
At about 700, the Anasazi began moving from pit houses into aboveground homes of stone, mud, and brush. - Villages along the Mississippi, Tennessee, Cumberland, and lower Ohio Rivers have a uniform layout. Around a central plaza, temples and residences of the social elite are built on top of platform-shaped mounds. Less elaborate homes surround the platforms.
The 749 Vikings' first known attack in England.
Around 798, The Three Fires Confederacy was formed with the Great Lakes Indians.
After 800, an enterprising tinkerer developed a new, cold-hard cultivar of corn, and Indians of the Northeast began cultivating it as a significant crop.
886 When a man was murdered, the Vikings demanded that a wergeld (monetary reparation) was to be paid to the family or kinsmen of the victim.
About 900 Anasazi population expands, causing a building boom. The most extensive collection of communities goes up in Chaco Canyon, with eight towns clustered together in the canyon and four more on the nearby mesas. Farmers from the Northeast migrate into the Great Plains and settle in villages overlooking stream valleys from the Dakotas to Texas.
960-1279 The Song Dynasty is created in China.
About 1000 Northwest Coast, complex societies produce elaborate artwork that is connected to the custom of ranking themselves according to inherited status - People across the northern woodlands live in villages and farm corn and other crops - The people who call themselves Seven Fireplaces and eventually become known as Sioux move into Minnesota and Wisconsin from the Southeast and settle there.
About 1000 Viking explorer Leif Ericson leads the first expedition to North America.
About 1050 Cahokia, Illinois, mound builders construct about one hundred small mounds and create the largest mound in North America. The terraced earthwork rises 110 feet, covers sixteen acres, and contains more than 21 million cubic feet of earth. The community surrounding the master temple covered five square miles and houses an estimated 40,000 people.
About 1150, The climate of the Colorado Plateau grows cooler and drier. The growing season shortens, and farming becomes more difficult. The pattern continues throughout the 1200s.
By 1200, the Ancestors of Apaches and Navajos migrated southward from western Canada.
About 1200 Ponca and Omaha peoples migrated westward from eastern woodlands into the Great Plains and settled in Nebraska.
1206-1368 The Yuan Dynasty is created in China.
About 1230 Building activity peaks at Mesa Verde. About 7,000 people live in 1,000 cliff houses - Anasazi began to abandon their stone homes.
About 1250 Mississippian communities in Cahokia, Illinois, are declining. Beside the Black Warrior River in Alabama, another central mound-building town emerges, with about 20 platform mounds and 2,000 inhabitants. Other similar communities develop at the same time in Georgia and eastern Oklahoma.
In about 1275, colonists from the Mississippi area settled in southern Missouri, set up a temple town, and fortified communities.
1276 Severe drought destroys crops in the Colorado Plateau and contributes to the growing exodus of Anasazi from their stone villages. Drought lasts until 1299.
Before 1300, Mandans arrived in the Missouri River Valley of the Dakotas from their homeland in Minnesota and Iowa.
About 1300 Speakers of Numic languages (Mono, Paiutes, Panamint, Shoshone, Kawaiisu, and Utes) Migrate out of southeastern California and spread northward and east across the Great Basin. - Iroquoian peoples live in longhouses in clans traced through their mothers.
In about 1325, Mississippian colonists in Missouri abandoned the colony.
About 1350 Keresan-speaking Pueblo people arrive in the Rio Grande region.
1368-1644 The Ming Dynasty is created in China.
Before 1400, Anasazi abandoned Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and other sites around Southwest. Many Anasazi are thought to have moved to Hopi and Zuni territory to the Rio Grande and its tributaries in New Mexico, where they became known as Pueblo Indians. Apaches say the Anasazi left the earth and moved to the Big Dipper. Navajo say Anasazi learned the secret of life and were destroyed.
About 1400 Wiyot, Yurok, Karok, Hupa, and Tolowa peoples of the northern coast of California live in plank houses. Farmers from southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa moved to the Dakotas and developed a culture known as Middle Missouri.
Around 1421, Chinese explorers were thought to have visited our west coast and made many possible inland trips.
In 1450, Hiawatha, an Onondaga chief, strengthened the League of Five Iroquois Nations, which united the Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk Tribes. 1492 Before Columbus, an estimated 2-8 million people inhabited what would eventually become the U.S. - Approximately 40 million bison roam the open spaces of the continent.
CIR. 1497-1600 Explorers and fishermen contact North America, spreading epidemics and diseases among woodland tribes.
CIR. 1500 Residents of mound-building communities in Illinois, Georgia, and eastern Oklahoma abandoned their homes and resettled in scattered small villages in the 1500s. Pushed out by larger tribes from north and east, the Tsitsista (Cheyenne) moved slowly south from Minnesota.
About 1500 Mandans of Dakotas reach a height of cultural power. About 1513, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon begins his search for the fountain of youth in what is today Florida.
1521 After too many brutal encounters with Europeans, Florida Indians attack their former friend, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, dies.
1522 Chicora, a Carolina or Yamassee Indian, is kidnapped by the Spanish and taken the next year to Spain.
1524 Indians along the Atlantic coast observe the arrival of an outsider, Giovanni da Verrazano, and an Italian sailing for the King of France.
1528 Tribes across Texas and southern New Mexico encounter their first non-Indians in the form of four shipwreck survivors.
1531 Sever earthquake hits Lisbon, destroying 1,500 houses and killing an estimated 30,000 people.
1532 Explorers begin the conquest of the Incas - the only highly civilized society to function without using money.
1534, Iroquois Indians met their first non-Indian French explorer, Jacques Cartier. In 1535, Jacques Cartier expeditioned to St. Lawrence.
1539 Unhappy at being bullied, Zuni executes Estevanico, a black traveling with a party of Spanish explorers.
1540-42 Native People of Southeast meet Europeans for the first time as Hernando de Soto travels from Florida to Mississippi and Arkansas, and Oklahoma - Natives of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansa meet large numbers of non-Indians for the first time as Francisco Vazquez de Coronado and 300 Spanish men and women search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.
1541: The death of Queen Margaret Tudor of Scotland, daughter of Henry VII and wife of James IV of Scotland.
1542 Indian people along the California coast and Oregon encounter the first non-Indian in the form of explorer Juan Cabrillo.
1550 Ozette on the Pacific coast of Washington, a mudslide seals a Makah village intact.
CIR. 1559-1570 Beginning of the "known" League of Iroquois.
1560 King Outina, ruler of 40 Indian villages in Florida, allies with the French.
1565, Spain established the first permanent settlement at St. Augustine, Florida.
In 1577, English mariner Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth in the Golden Hind on his circumnavigation of the globe.
1579 Sir Francis Drake rounds Cape Horn and sails up the Pacific coast.
1582 Oct. 4 is the last day of the Julian Calendar in Italy and Catholic Europe.
1584 John White at Roanoke Island.
1585 Indians of Virginia welcome Sir Richard Grenville - Indians of North Carolina watch uneasily as the English try to establish a permanent colony on Roanoke Island.
In 1599, Acoma Pueblo was defeated by the Spanish.
1600 17th Century Jesuit influence upon Indians - Five Algonquian tribes band together in Virginia to form what becomes known as the Powhatan Confederacy.
1603 March 24 Queen Elizabeth dies. James accedes to the English throne. The outbreak of plague in England.
1603-1604 Champlain’s first expeditions. Native Americans in Canada describe the location of the Detroit River to Champlain.
1604 Spanish envoys signed peace with England in Somerset House, England. Work begins on the “new” translation of the Bible to be called The King James Bible.
1607, 120 colonists left for Virginia from England (Pilgrims). Non-white outsiders are about to establish the first permanent British colony - British expedition to Jamestown, contact with Powhatan Confederacy Thames river in London freezes over.
1608 Champlain founded Quebec
1608 Pocahontas, teenage daughter of Algonquian leader Wa-hun-sen-a-cawh, saves the life of Jamestown colonial leader John Smith -French colonization Quebec - Champlain at Quebec.
1609 Native people living along the Hudson River and New York Bay encountered Henry Hudson, who introduced firearms and alcohol. Henry Hudson up the Hudson River, contact with Mohicans - Champlain discovers Lake Champlain.
1610 Pueblo Indians continue to work as servants for the Spanish.
1611 King James Bible published.
1611-12 Chaplain published maps showing a connection between Lake Huron and Erie.
1611 Religious zealots in colonial America demands that the church be mandatory. Working, traveling, or kissing on the Sabbath can earn you a fine or an afternoon in the stocks.
1612 Bavarian Astronomer Simon Mayr becomes the first man to witness the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope.
1613 Algonquian Pocahontas is kidnapped by Virginia colonial leader Samuel Argall - Marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
1613-17 European diseases, including smallpox and measles, ravage the Timucua people of Georgia and Florida.
1614 Indians of New York found their lives changing as Dutch traders and colonists moved in.
1615 Oct. First missionaries in New France.
1615-20 Five-year epidemic of smallpox, plague, and other diseases from Europe killed 75-90 % of the Massachusetts, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket peoples.
1616 Oneida Indians in NY were attacked by the French. Pocahontas traveled to England.
1617 Pocahontas dies of smallpox in England.
1603-1635 Champlain’s voyages; early contact with Canadian tribes.
1618 Etienne Brule is known to have paddled the north channel of Lake Huron
1619-1911 The Qing Dynasty is created in China.
1619 House of Burgesses was the first representative legislative body in colonial America at Jamestown, Capitol of Virginia.
1620 First English colonist at Plymouth, Massasoit, friendly Wampanoag Chief assists Pilgrim settlers.
1621 Dutch at Albany, New York - Italian scientist Galileo Galilei 57, perfects his telescope.
1621 With the help of Native guides, Brule explores Lac Tracy (Lake Superior), noting copper deposits.
1622 Opechancanough’s first uprising against the settlers in Virginia.
1622 Champlain becomes Governor of "New France," including our Peninsula regions of the Great Lakes and Quebec
1623 French fort built at Quebec.
1625 First Jesuit missionaries from France to North America.
1626 Manhattan Indians enter into a transaction with the Dutch for land.
1627 Company of 100 Associates Formed for Fur Trade and Colonization.
1628 First land grant by Charles I.
In 1629, the English invaded Quebec.
1631 Roger Williams contends that the royal charter for Massachusetts illegally expropriated land rights of the Indians of Massachusetts.
In 1632, the English surrendered Quebec back to France.
1633 Champlain, Governor of New France.
1634 French Explorers, fur traders, and Missionaries begin occupation of the Great Lakes region
1634 Nicolet arrives at the Straits of Mackinac, and the fur trade of the Straits formally begins.
1636 Roger Williams rounds the colony at Providence and adopts a humane policy toward Indians.
In 1636, Harvard College became the colonies' first institution of higher learning.
1637 Pequot War in New England; Roger Williams prevents Alliance of New England tribes against New England colonies.
1638 New York "area' called “Terra Incognita” on maps.
1640 First “known” white man in Western New York. - Beaver and otter nearly exterminated in Iroquois country - Nov. 2 Two Jesuit Fathers travel to Niagara River.
1642 Iroquois “beaver war” eliminates Hurons as rivals.
1643 Roger Williams publishes a key to the language of American Natives.
1644 Opechancanough’s second uprising in Virginia.
1648 Iroquois on St. Lawrence, moving towards war.
1641 Jesuits establish French settlements at Soo with Father Dablon and Father Marquette.1649 Iroquois battle Huron.
1649, the First Religious Toleration Act in America granted freedom of worship to both Protestants and Catholics in Maryland.
1650 Lauson, Governor of New France. - Edinburgh Castle surrenders to Cromwell after a three-month siege.
1658 Arguson, Governor at Quebec.
1663 100 Associates end rights in New France, West Indian Company Established. - Feb. 5 Tremendous earthquake in Western New York and Canada.
1665 Tracy, Governor West India Co.
In 1666, the Iroquois invaded the Great Lakes, resulting in the Iroquois Point, Michigan battle.
1668, the French started a settlement in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
1670, Father Marquette built a mission site for the Huron tribes at Mackinac Island.
1671 Marquette establishes a mission site at St. Ignace. - Indian Council at Falls of St. Mary claiming land. - New France Count Frontenac, Governor of New France.
1671 The First military outpost in Michigan, called Fort de Buade, was established at St. Ignace, Michigan
1678 LaSalle in Canada-New York.
In 1679, LaSalle built the ship "Griffin" on the Niagara River. - LaSalle trading house at Mackinac. - LaSalle descends Mississippi to the Gulf.
1680 LaSalle walks an overland route to Frontenac (Lake Ontario).
1681 The First globe was created in Venice, including the maps of the Great Lakes from LaSalle. (The globe is currently displayed in the Archaeological Museum, Venice, Italy.)
1682 William Penn’s treaty with the Delaware, Susquehanna’s, and other tribes began a long period of friendly relations with the Indians under Quaker leadership; the presentation of "Penn” wampum belts by the Indians.
1683 French Marines, led by Barre, cross Lake Ontario. English attack on the French fort at Sorrel.
1686 English on Lake Erie.
1687, the French prepared for the invasion of Seneca country. - LaSalle's second trip to the Gulf on Mississippi.
1689 Count Frontenac arrives at Quebec.
1690 Fort DuBaude is established at St. Ignace. - Colonist at Quebec.
1690 Treasury bills were the first paper money issued in America by the Massachusetts Bay Company to fund a war with the French.
1691 Siege of Montreal by British.
1691-98 English, French and Indian Wars.
1692 Salem witchcraft trials.
1696 Frontenac invades Oswego (Fort Oswego, Lake Ontario).
1701 Cadillac founded Detroit for New France.
In 1702, Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, became the royal governor of New York.
1702-1713 English, Queen Ann’s War.
1712 British inspire Native Americans to begin raids against French allies
1711-1712 Tuscarora War on the southern frontier.
About 1722, remnants of Tuscarora move north to join the Iroquois as the sixth nation.
1713 April Treaty of Utrecht- Nova Scotia.
1715, the French built Fort Michilimackinac.
The 1717 French fort was erected at the south end of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
1718 Post at Chequamegon Bay was re-established on Madeline Island as Fort La Pointe, Wisconsin.
1719 Fort Ouiatenon was started on the Ohio below modern-day Lafayette, Indiana.
1726 Fort Oswego was built by the English (Lake Ontario).
1728, William Byrd surveyed the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina.
1733 Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack was first published.
In 1743, Mohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant was born.
1744-1748, the British went to war against Spain and France, King George’s War.
1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
1749 Celeron de Blainville asserts French claim to Ohio country.
1750 There are 650 residents living in the settlement at Detroit, Michigan
1751 Fort at St. Mary's River (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan) was built.
1752 July 30 Marquis Dupuesne arrives in Quebec as Governor of New France. - October Duquesne and Intendant Bigot complete plans for Ohio River exploration. -On Nov 14, Canadian militia levied for the expedition.
1753 Feb 1 Advance detachment commanded by Charles Deschamps de Boisheber leaves Montreal. - CIR. March 15, Boishebert (French) reaches Fort Niagara (in retaliation against the English). - On March 23, Duquesne orders landing at Presque Isle. - On April 15, Boishebert explores Lake Erie's shore to Presque Isle. - May 15 Engineer Marin (French) supervises the building of Fort Presque Isle. - c. June 20: Marin selects the site of Fort Le Boeuf. - On July 12, Marin starts to build Fort Le Boeuf. - On Oct 29, Marin dies; Repentigny temporarily in command. - Dec. 5 George Washington at Venango. - Dec 11-16 George Washington at Fort Le Boeuf. - On Dec 25, Duquesne recalls St. Pierre and assigns Contrecoeur to command the Ohio.
1754 Albany Conference to organize Canadian governor's completion of Fort Duquesne Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1754-1760 French and Indian War (Seven Years War). - On April 16, Contrecoeur summons the English to surrender their Fort at the Forks of the Ohio (Pittsburgh). - On May 23, British Officer George Washington led the Virginia force Skirmishes with the French party, killing or capturing all but one. - June 15 Enclosure of Fort Duquesne completed. - On June 28, Coulon de Villiers begins a campaign against Washington. - On July 4, Washington surrendered Fort Necessity.
1755 General Braddock arrives in North America. British leadership begins to falter - On June 28, Rigauville and 120 Hurons set out from Fort Duquesne (Fort Ticonderoga) to harass the English army. - July 9 Battle of Monongahela. Dumas wins the victory over Braddock.
1756 Edmond Atkin appointed Indian Superintendent. - Quakers lost political control in Pennsylvania.
1756-1757, the Delaware War encompassed the Pennsylvania frontier.
1757 Surrender of Fort William Henry and massacre of prisoners by Indian allies of Montcalm.
1758 July 30 The Marquis Duquesne arrives in Quebec as Governor of New France. - October Duquesne and the intendant Bigot complete plans for an expedition to the Belle Rivier (Ohio River) - Nov 14 Canadian militia levied for expedition French capture British Fort Oswego (Lake Ontario). British siege fort at Louisburg, Quebec July British and French battles at Lake George - Ticonderoga and Crown Point - July 22 Gen. Amherst attack Ticonderoga - July 23 French withdraw to Crown Point - July 25 Fort at Louisburg falls - July 26 Fort Ticonderoga besieged - July 27 Surrender of Fort Ticonderoga. - August 4 English at Crown Point abandoned. - Oct. 10 Gen. Amherst on Lake Ontario.
1758-1759 Gen. Amherst becomes commander of all North American British troops.
1759-1760 Cherokee War on the Carolina frontier.
1759 British headquarters located in New York. - Feb. English sail toward Quebec May forces move at Schenectady. - May 20 Forces move up Mohawk River. - On July 1, the British embarked on Lake Ontario at Oswego. - July 2: Stopped at Sodus Bay. - July 3 Stopped at Irondequoit - July 8 British entrench at Fort Niagara. - On July 11, the French approached the British at Fort Niagara. July 23 Sir William Johnson backs British troops at Niagara with Native Warriors. - July 24 French surrender of Fort Niagara. - July 29 English siege at Quebec under Wolfe. - On Sept 18, the French surrendered Quebec.
1758-1760 French army at Montreal.
1760 April Levi retakes Quebec. - April 27 French Fail. - Sept 6 Amherst to Quebec. - On Sept 8, Montreal surrendered. - On Nov 29, the Rogers Rangers landed in Detroit with about 275 troops.
1761, the British took control of Michilimackinac. - A proclamation prohibiting settlement on the Appalachian frontier by Colonel Henry Bouquet.
1761-1762 Seneca planned a major attack on the British along the western frontier under the leadership of Kaiaghshota.
On July 2, 1762, Spain joined France against Britain.
January 2, 1762, the Spanish war was declared against Britain.
1763 Delaware Prophet, sometimes called Neolin, preaches message of the Master of Life. - Feb. 10 Treaty of Paris ends colonial phase of Seven Years’ War. - April 3 William Johnson’s Articles of Peace. Colonel Henry Bouquet urges convening of large congress with northern tribes to discuss Indian grievances; Sir Jeffery Amherst declines to hold a conference - May-June Sir Jeffery Amherst begins a policy of “economy” by curtailing Indian presents and setting up new trade regulations at frontier posts - May-June Pontiac sends war belts to urge an attack on frontier post-May Pontiac’s surprise attack on Detroit betrayed June Pontiac’s war of independence beings; capture of seven frontier Forts and siege of Fort Pitts and Fort Detroit Amherst uses smallpox infested blankets to spread disease to Indians Amherst urges use of English dogs to hunt Indians - Oct. 7 Royal proclamation of 1763 establishes Indian sanctuary and restricts westward movement of colonists - Nov. Distribution of Gifts to southern Indians at Congress of Augusta, Georgia by Southern Superintendent John Stuart Dec. Paxton Riots on Pennsylvania frontier, the massacre of Conestoga mission Indians in retaliation of Pontiac’s War. - Ojibwa, Sac, and Fox Indians capture Fort Michilimackinac during Pontiac’s Rebellion (Beaver War).
1764 Sir William Johnson dies. - The British reorganized the Indian administration and planned to extend Frontier Indian boundary lines according to the Plan of 1764. Along the Mississippi, the French finally received official word from France that it was illegal to declare war against the British of North America. - For the Illinois French to do so violated the terms of the September 8, 1760 capitulation, a point of honor in eighteenth-century warfare. The British returned to Fort Michilimackinac.
1765, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, taxing newspapers, legal documents, and other printed materials.
1765, Pontiac signed a treaty with the British.
In 1766, Pontiac met with the British and promised to recall war belts.
1768 Fort Stanwix Treaty extended a northern Indian boundary line to meet the southern Indian boundary line.
1769 Assassination of Pontiac in Illinois country.
In 1770, British soldiers in Boston fired into a crowd of colonists, killing three and wounding 8…. It was known as the Boston Massacre, and it was used to rally Americans against British policies.
1771-72 Alexander Henry begins their first mining venture at the Porcupine Mountains, Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
1773: The extension of the southern Indian boundary line was completed. - Protesting British importation of duty-free tea, colonists dressed as Indians staged the Boston Tea Party, dumping 342 chests of tea into the water.
1774: The first British civil government was established in British North America by signing the Quebec Act. Citizens of French descent have no voting privileges unless they take an oath of allegiance.
1774 First Continental Congress, a convention of delegates from all the American colonies (except Georgia), met in Philadelphia to address British injustices. These injustices include what became known as the Intolerable Acts. The Congress adopts a Declaration of Rights, establishing the colonial position on taxation and trade. Britain takes it as a joke.
1775-1783 American Revolution 1776 The United States of America became a new nation when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Jefferson. Britain offers a reward to learn the names of the signers, asserting that the act constitutes high treason punishable by death.
1776 Ben Franklin arranges for the harsh imprisonment of his only son, William, for being a Tory.
1775-1779 Border Wars.
1776 Col. Rochester of NY assists in framing the Constitution of North Carolina. - The British defeated the American fleet on Lake Champlain under the leadership of Benedict Arnold.
1776 First organized attempt by the U.S. government to issue money came during the American Revolution. This, too, ended in a disaster, and the phrase "not worth a continental" was born.
1777, American forces defeat the British at Saratoga, New York, turning the war and convincing France to form a military alliance with America. - Washington launches an attack against the British at the Battle of Princeton.
1778 Sept Treaty at Fort Stanwix Franklin and Adams in Paris and develop an intense dislike for one another.
1779 There are now 3,000 residents in the settlement of Detroit, Michigan
1779 March 22 Gen. George Washington orders Col. Brodhead’s Campaign against Detroit. Benedict Arnold turns into a traitor and sides with the British. - August 11 Expedition against Indians at the head of Allegany River and French Creek, and in Ohio, George Washington plans to capture Fort Niagara.
1779-1781 Fort Michilimackinac and the old village settlement were abandoned, and the garrison moved to Mackinac Island.
1780 Robert Campbell builds Mill Creek sawmill Mackinac 1780s Fort Michilimackinac is burned under orders of Governor Sinclair.
In 1781, the State of N.Y. was ceded to U.S. British forces, defeated at Yorktown, Virginia, in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.
1783 American Revolution ends. Treaty of Paris Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution establishing a system of government. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form… Franklin D. Roosevelt states in his inauguration. “That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced.” - Treaty of Peace with Great Britain Treaty of Peace with Native American Indian lands of N.Y. purchased.
In 1781, the Spanish invaded Michigan at Fort St. Joseph; their siege lasted one day.
1783: The signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between the British and the Americans required all English settlers loyal to the Crown of England to leave American lands.
1784 Act to create a superintendent’s post for Native American affairs. Americans sought the council of the Iroquois Treaty at Fort Stanwixb. vbh
1785, Massachusetts ceded to the U.S. Council at Fort Herkimer. Congress attempted treaties with Indians.
1786 Shay’s Rebellion.
1787 Garrisons at Detroit, Michigan is strengthened, British forces still in Detroit bribe Native Americans to increase hostility against Americans.
1787, Delaware ratified the Constitution, becoming the first state of the newly formed United States of America. - Lease of lands of the Six Nations of Iroquois.
1788 Treaty of Fort Schuyler (N.Y.) concluded the Council of the Iroquois at Fort Schuyler. - Holland land purchase of N.Y.
In 1788, Britain started sending its criminals to Australia for exile. Over 160,000 convicts and undesirables are transported over the next 80 years.
1789-1797 Electoral College chose George Washington as the United States' first president. Washington and his wife moved into the first presidential home at No. 1 Cherry Street in New York City, the nation’s capital. - John Adams becomes the first vice president. “I am vice president,” he says. “In this, I am nothing.” - Land titles in N.Y. and Massachusetts were given out. - The contracted road from Fort Stanwix (Rome) to Seneca Lake, N.Y. - First families occupy Holland land purchase tracts, N.Y.
1792, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, press, and rights to trial by jury and peaceful assembly.
1792 First elections were held in Michigan to send three representatives to British-ruled Upper Canada's Parliament.
1793 Eli Whitney invents cotton gin.
1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the defeat of Native and British forces from Detroit.
1794 President Washington sent federal troops to quash the Whiskey Rebellion, a violent protest by whiskey producers in Pennsylvania against the feral tax on their product.
1795, Native Americans signed the treaty of Greenville, which gave Native land to the American government.
1796, the British evacuated from Detroit, and General Anthony Wayne raised the First American Flag in Detroit.
1796 Fort Mackinac turned over to American troops. - John Adam and Thomas Jefferson clash in the first presidential campaign and the second four years later.
1798 Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont spits in the face of Connecticut’s Roger Griswold, the first recorded congressional brawl. - Niagara Road surveyed.
1797-1801 John Adams President of the United States
In 1799, Michigan became a territory, and our first county was named Wayne. Wayne County at that time took in the entire Lower Peninsula of Michigan and parts of what is now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
1800 Washington, D.C., carved out of Maryland and Virginia, became the nation's capital. - First Lady Abigail Adams describes the mostly undeveloped federal city as romantic but wild.
1800 Congress divides Wayne County into two sections, the Northwest Territory and the Indiana Territory
1801-1809 Thomas Jefferson President of the United States
1801 John Marshall was appointed the US Supreme Court chief justice by President John Adams. Marshall raises the Supreme Court to a level of importance equal to that of the executive and judicial branches of government.
1802 Detroit, Michigan, incorporates their first Post Office.
1803 Louisiana Purchase from France doubles the size of the US, extending its western border to the Rocky Mountains. The vast acquisition later forms part or all of the fifteen states. In dealing with Napoleon of France, President Jefferson later admitted he “stretched the Constitution until it cracked.”
1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked upon their epic track across the continent to explore the lands recently acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. - Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
1805 Detroit named the Capitol of Michigan Territory. Later that year, Detroit was destroyed by fire.
1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Britain’s Admiral Horatio Nelson is mortally wounded as the Royal Navy defeats the Franco-Spanish fleet.
1807 Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, became the first financially successful steamboat to travel up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in about 30 hours.
1806 Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel.
1806 Rebuilding of Detroit is aided by sawmills built along the St. Clair River.
1807 Revolutionary War hero William Hull negotiates the Treaty of Detroit and Native nations, securing a large section of southeast Michigan to America.
1809-1817 James Madison President of the United States
1809 Meriwether Lewis kills himself in Tennessee. - Abraham Lincoln was born. - Author Edgar Allen Poe is born.
1809 First paper and printing press in Michigan was owned by James M. Miller in Detroit.
1810, the population of Detroit reached 4,762 residents.
1811 Construction began on what became known as the National Road, linking the east with the Midwest. - Birth of Hungarian composer Frantz Liszt.
1812 War of 1812 begins after years of British interference with American shipping and other degradations. British captured Fort Mackinac during the War of 1812 - Oct. Americans captured British vessels at Fort Erie.
1813, United States Lieutenant Oliver Perry defeated British ships on Lake Erie, opening the way for Americans to reoccupy Detroit.
In 1813, Louis Cass was appointed the new territorial governor of the Michigan Territory.
1813 Crossing of the Niagara and bloody conflict of the War of 1812. - Dec. 12 Fort George evacuated (N.Y.) - Dec. 18 Fort Niagara Falls to British. - Dec. 29 Conquest of Black Rock and Buffalo.
1814 British forces capture the nation’s capital, burning the President’s house, the U.S. Capitol, and other government buildings. “Few thought of going to bed,” a Washington resident later writes of the destruction. “They spent the night gazing on the fires and lamenting the disgrace of the city.” The British are subsequently repelled after attacking Baltimore… American soldiers were defeated while attacking Fort Mackinac. - On July 2, the British captured Fort Erie.
In the 1815 Treaty of Ghent, the British returned Fort Mackinac to American forces at the end of the War of 1812. The British lost the Mackinaw outpost but gained occupation of Drummond Island and Lake Huron.
1816 June 6-12 Frost every night in N.Y. Cold summer scarcity of food for all - France decrees that the Bonaparte family shall be excluded from the country forever.
1816 "Detroit Gazette" first published weekly. "Catholepistermiad," or the University of Michigan, was established, making it one of the first Universities in the United States.
1817-1825 James Monroe President of the United States
1817 April 15 Law authorizing the building of the Erie Canal-Gov. - Dewitt Clinton, July 4, broke ground for Erie Canal at Rome, N.Y.
1818 Illinois becomes a state. 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States after 300 years of domination. - Mid-section of Erie Canal completed.
1818 First public land sale in Detroit.
1819 Michigan begins her first bank.
1819 Michigan Territory was given authority to elect a delegate to the United States Congress.
1819 Treaty of Saginaw is signed between Governor Cass and the Native Nations, adding 6,000,000acres of land to Michigan Territory
1820 Governor Cass explored the territory and negotiated with the Native inhabitants, adding a 16-square-mile area of land along the St. Mary's River, the Treaty of Sault Ste. Marie.
1820 Michigan Territory has 8,096 residents.
1820 The Missouri Compromise is reached. Missouri is admitted to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, thus maintaining the balance of slave and free states in the US Senate. The compromise also bans slavery from the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri, except in Missouri itself.
1821 Governor Cass negotiated the "Treaty of Chicago" with the Indian Nations, expanding United States ownership to half of the Lower Peninsula.
1822: The first public stagecoach begins operation in Detroit.
1822 Dr. Beaumont (Mackinac Island) experiments on Alexis St. Martin. - First shipment of flour shipped on Erie Canal (mid-section) from Rochester to Little Falls, N.Y. - Seneca Indian Chief Cornplanter addresses Governor of Pa. N.Y. - State road completed in Allegany.
1823 Fort Bradly was built at the Soo, ending Chippewa's control over the area.
1823 Michigan Territory was granted permission for the legislature of nine presidential and 18 local elected members.
1823 Oct. 7 Aqueduct built in Rochester. - N.Y. completed the Erie Canal's Eastern section and the Aqueduct of the Erie Canal at Rochester.
1824: The Great Sauk Trail started between Detroit and Chicago.
1824 Erie Canal completed to Lockport.
1825 September, Announce the date for the opening of the Erie Canal. - Oct. Filling of the Erie level of canal commences. - Oct. 25: Entire Erie Canal filled with water.
1828, the First Territorial Capitol building was built in Detroit.
1825-1829 John Quincy Adams President of the United States
1829-1837 Andrew Jackson President of the United States
1830 Michigan Territory population soars to 31,639.
1830 Detroit and Pontchartrain railroad became the first incorporated rail line in the Northwest Territory
1830, President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, requiring eastern Indians to be resettled west of the Mississippi River.
1831, Lewis Cass resigned, and President Andrew Jackson appointed him Secretary of War. Steven T. Mason (19 years old) became the first acting governor of Michigan.
1831 Nat Turner, a black preacher in Virginia, leads a slave revolt.
1832, England relaxed punishment for forging money in Britain. The forger was exiled to Australia instead of the death penalty.
1832 Black Hawk Wars and the Cholera epidemic kills many in Detroit, Michigan.
1832 The First "Poor House" opened in Detroit, Michigan.
1834 Michigan Territory Legislature petitioned Congress for permission to form a state but were refused.
1834 Cholera epidemic kills 1/7 of Detroit's population.
1835 Governor Mason calls for militia to gather over the Ohio border dispute (Toledo War).
1836, Michigan ceded land to Ohio in exchange for the Upper Peninsula.
1836 Business and property prices doubled in Michigan, and citizens are now provided daily stagecoach and mail service.
1836: Three thousand Mexican troops under Santa Anna stormed the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
1837 January 26, 1837, Michigan became the 26th State of the Union of the United States.
1837, Detroit's population grew to 10,000 residents.
1837-1841 Van Buren President of the United States
1837, Michigan becomes a state.
1838, Michigan opened its first public school in Detroit.
1839 George Armstrong Custer is born.
1839 Whigs carry the State of Michigan election.
1841-1845 Taylor President of the United States
1842 Treaty of La Pointe gives over Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royal to Michigan, both rich in prospective mines.
1844 On a test line of his telegraph between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Samuel F.B. Morse taps out his first message to connect the two cities.
1845-1849 Polk President of the United States
In 1845, the Republic of Texas became the nation’s 28th state.
1846 State Legislature relocated State Capitol in Lansing.
1846, President Polk and Congress declared war on Mexico. - Britain cedes the southern portion of Oregon Territory below Vancouver to the US. - Mormon Joseph Smith is killed by the mob, Brigham Young leads a mass exodus of Mormons from Illinois to Utah.
In 1847, Thomas Edison, the light bulb inventor, was born.
1848 New Capitol built in Lansing, Michigan.
1848 Cholera outbreak in Detroit, Michigan, 300 die.
1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first US women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY. The way adopts a Declaration of Sentiments that calls for women to receive “all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the U.S.”
1848 James Marshall discovers gold at Sutter’s Mill in California.
1849 English-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from New York medical school as the first female doctor in the United States.
1850-1853 Fillmore President of the United States
1850 Compromise of 1850 temporarily simmers the growing strife. It overcomes slavery by admitting California to the Union as a free state and allowing the territories of New Mexico and Utah to decide the issue for themselves. The compromise also abolishes the slave trade in the District of Columbia while providing a stricter federal law for the return of runaway slaves.
1851 Saginaw, Michigan, lumber mill produces 92 million board feet in one year.
1851 John James Audubon, an American ornithologist renowned for painting birds, dies.
In 1851, Isaac Singer created the first sewing machine.
1852: The first teacher training school west of New York opens in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” becomes a best seller.
1853-1857 Franklin Pierce President of the United States
1854, Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing people of two territories to decide whether to allow slavery. - The Republican Party was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, by antislavery groups opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
1854 London Cholera Epidemic.
1855 Soo ship channel and locks opened.
1856, the State of Michigan receives 3,000,000 acres of public land.
1856 Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln delivers an anti-slavery speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
1857-1861 Buchanan President of the United States
In 1857, General Lewis Cass was appointed Secretary of State.
1857, the First Agricultural School in the United States opened in Lansing, Michigan, at Michigan State University.
In 1857, Elisha G. Otis installed the first passenger elevator in New York City.
1859: The first commercially drilled oil well was drilled near Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1860, the State of Michigan's population still growing by 749,113.
1860, Pony Express began delivering mail from St Louis, Missouri, then the western terminus of the American Railroad system, to Sacramento, California.
1861 Michigan soldiers (90,000) reached Washington in preparation for the Civil War.
In 1861, Thomas Edison began experiments on the new electric battery.
1861-1865 Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
1861-1865 American Civil War.
In 1861, ten Southern states followed South Carolina out of the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. - The Civil War began on April 12, 1862. - The Homestead Act grants free/cheap public land to frontier settlers. - Nation's first general income tax was levied to help pay for the Civil War. It ended in 1872 but became a permanent fixture in American life.
1863 First large load of Bessemer Steel was produced in America at Wyandotte, Michigan.
In 1863, Calumet Copper lode was discovered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, calling it “a fit and necessary war measure” - Gettysburg. In the greatest battle ever fought on American soil, Union forces defeated invading Confederates. The decisive victory, occurring simultaneously with the Confederate surrender at Vicksburg, marks the turning point in the Civil War. The U.S. Capitol dome was completed and capped with the Statue of Freedom in 1865. General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, surrenders to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Washington D.C. by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth 13 Amendment to the Constitution outlaws slavery throughout the U.S. It is followed by the 1868 - 14 Amendment confirming the citizenship of blacks. The 15th Amendment in 1870 made denying voting rights based on race illegal.
1865, African Americans assembled in Detroit, Michigan, to petition the Legislature to grant suffrage rights.
1865-1869 Andrew Johnson President of the United States
1866 Transatlantic cable is completed. - The Ku Klux Klan is formed to terrorize liberated blacks and foreign-born citizens in the South.
1867 William H. Seward, Secretary of State, negotiates the purchase of Alaska from Russia for 7,200,000 (.02 cents per acre). - Sholes/Glidden/Soule created the first typewriter.
1869-1877 U.S. Grant President of the United States
1869 A golden spike is driven into a railroad rail at Promontory Point, Utah, marking the completion of the world’s first transcontinental railroad.
1870 Michigan population reaches 1,054,067
1870-80 Average Michigan lumber production reached a billion board feet, keeping 1,800 commercial ships busy with exports.
1871 Michigan forest fires destroy much of Holland and Manistee, Michigan.
1871 Great Chicago Fire kills 250. - Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, receives a patent for the improvement of suspenders.
1872 Great Fire of Chicago. - Susan B. Anthony illegally votes in the presidential election in Rochester, NY, and is arrested and fined. - Yellowstone, the U.S.'s first national park, is established.
1873 Detroit River, ships pass along the river, one every six seconds carrying 50 million dollars in cargo to Chicago, Illinois.
1875, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, giving blacks equal rights in public accommodations and access to jury duty. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1883.
1876 Detroit receives awards for stove manufacturing, shoe production, furniture, forestry, products, and fruit at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
1876: The first telephone wire system in the state (20 miles) in Ontonagon after seeing Bell's invention at the Centennial Exposition.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell transmits human speech for the first time while developing the telephone. - General George A. Custer and 264 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry die at the Little Bighorn River during the war with the Sioux Indians.
In 1878, the first phones were installed in Detroit, and the first phonograph was exhibited in Detroit.
1879 New Lansing State Capitol built.
1877-1881 R.B. Hayes President of the United States
1877: The first commercial telephone line was installed in Massachusetts.
1878: A woman suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress. It failed to pass but was reintroduced in every session of Congress for the next 40 years.
In 1879, Thomas Edison produced the first practical light bulb. California Electric Light Co. begins operating the world’s first central power plant selling electricity to private customers. - F.W. Woolworth opens the first “five-cent” store in Utica, N.Y.
In 1880, the Population of Michigan was 1,636,937, with most people living in rural farming areas.
1880 New York streets are lit by electricity.
1881-1881 Garfield President of the United States
1881-1885 Arthur President of the United States
1881 Clara Barton organizes the Red Cross. - President James A. Garfield is assassinated in Washington by Charles Julius Guiteau.
1882 Franklin D. Roosevelt is born and serves as US president from 1933-45.
1883 Brooklyn Bridge was completed and hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody organizes his Wild West Show.
1884 Construction begins in Chicago on the Home Insurance Building, the world’s first skyscraper.
1885-1889 Cleveland is President of the United States
In 1885, Sir Henry Bessemer patented the process named after him that led to the mass production of steel.
1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor and became the first view of America for many in the growing “nation of immigrants.”
In 1888, George Eastman perfected the “Kodak” box camera, the first designed for mass production and amateur use.
1889-1893 B. Harrison President of the United States
1889, Herman Hollerith’s punched-card tabulating machine was the first successful computer used to tabulate the results of the 1890 census.
The 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota began after the federal government banned the Sioux’s Ghost Dance. - Electric Chair is used for the first time in the execution of convicted murderer William Kemmler, New York. - Frontier is officially declared closed. Census Bureau announces that so many people have filled in pockets throughout the West that it is no longer meaningful to talk about a “frontier line.”
1891 James Naismith invents basketball.
1892, Old Point Mackinac Lighthouse was built.
1893-1897 Cleveland was re-elected President of the United States
In 1893, Henry Ford made his first successful gasoline engine.
1894 Thomas Edison markets the kinetoscope, an early form of movie in which a viewer peers through a magnifying lens as moving images illuminated by an electric light.
In 1895, Charles and Franklin Duryea established the first American company for manufacturing gasoline-powered automobiles. - The first professional football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
1897-1901 McKinley President of the United States
1897 the First American subway opened in Boston with 1.5 miles of track.
1901-1909 Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States
1901 President William McKinley is assassinated in Buffalo, NY by Leon Czolgosz.
1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright designed and built the first successful airplane. The first World Series is held, and Boston defeats Pittsburgh.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was one of the worst disasters in American history.
1909-1913 Taft President of the United States
1912 Titanic sinks.
In 1912, The Republic of China was created.
1913-1921 Wilson President of the United States
In 1913, Ford Company engineers developed the assembly line.
1914 Panama Canal opens.
1917 WWI
1918 Influenza epidemic sweeps the world, killing 20 million people.
In 1920, Women were given the right to vote under the 19th Amendment.
1920 Prohibition begins following the ratification of the 18th Amendment.
1921-1923 Harding President of the United States
1923-1929 Coolidge President of the United States
1926 First liquid-propelled rocket was launched using technology developed by aerospace pioneer Robert Goddard.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first aviator to make a solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Television makes a debut.
1929-1933 Hoover President of the United States
The 1929 Stock Market Crash plunged the nation into the Great Depression. - Martin Luther King is born.
1929, Robert Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole. - Gangland violence in Chicago reaches its peak during Prohibition with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
1930, U.S. astronomers announced the discovery of Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system.
1933-1945 F. D. Roosevelt President of the United States
1933 Nation suffers through Great Depression. - F. D. Roosevelt launches a massive recovery program known as the New Deal. - Prohibition is repealed with the 21st Amendment.
1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
1942, President Roosevelt signs an Executive Order allowing the military to move 112,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes on the West Coast to inland concentration camps.
1944 Allied forces invade Normandy, France. In 1945, Germany surrendered on May 7th. 1947 Captain Charles Yeager, flying the Bell X-1, exceeds the speed of sound. In the 1948 Marshall Plan, the US delivered billions of dollars to aid war-ravaged Europe.
1945-1953 Truman President of the United States
1950 Korean War begins.
1953-1961 Eisenhower President of the United States
The 1954 Commissioning of the atomic submarine U.S.S. Nautilus marks the world’s first full-scale use of controlled nuclear energy.
1955, Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved, beginning the end of a dreaded disease that often left its victims children or paralyzed for life.
1957, the Mackinac Bridge that crosses the Straits of Mackinac was built.
1959, Alaska became the 49th state in the US.
1961-1963 J. F. Kennedy President of the United States
1963-1969 L.B. Johnson President of the United States
1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech during a civil rights march in Washington. - President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald??
1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the most comprehensive civil rights act in American history, integrating public accommodations and prohibiting job discrimination. U.S. Surgeon General releases the first report on the health dangers of smoking. - Beatles storm the nation.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee.
1969-1974 Richard Nixon, President of the United States
1969 Man lands on the moon and returns safely to Earth. - Woodstock music festival. - Anglo-French airline Concorde breaks the sound barrier seven months after its inaugural flight.
1973: Last U.S. ground troops leave Vietnam. Saigon fell two years later, officially ending the Vietnam War. - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state laws cannot forbid a woman from having an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy and can only regulate abortions during the second trimester to protect a woman’s health.
1974 Nixon resigns as 37th President.
1974-1977 Gerald Ford President of the United States
1976 Bicentennial of the U.S.
1977-1981 James Carter President of the United States
In 1979, corporal punishment (spanking your child) was banned in Sweden.
1981-1989 Ronald Reagan President of the United States
1989-1993 George Bush, President of the United States
1992 The Vatican admits that Galileo correctly stated in 1623 that the earth revolved around the sun.
1993-2001 Clinton President of the United States
In 1993, FDIC was established. Americans had a banking system that citizens could trust for the first time.
Historical information compiled by J.L.Panagopoulos© copyright © 2013 J. L. Panagopoulos All Rights Reserved.