Timeline of United States history (1860-1899)
This section of the Timeline of United States history concerns events from 1860 to 1899.
1860s
1860–1865
- 1860 - Pony Express begins
- 1860 - Crittenden Compromise
- 1860 - South Carolina secedes
- 1861 - Abraham Lincoln becomes President
- 1861 - Confederate States of America (the Confederacy) established under President Jefferson Davis
- 1861 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter
- 1861 - Morrill tariff
- 1861 - Kansas admitted to the Union as a free state
- 1861 - Ex Parte Merryman, federal court case which objected to Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus
- 1861 - First Battle of Bull Run
- 1862 - Homestead Act
- 1862 - Pacific Railway Act
- 1862 - Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act
- 1863 - National Banking Act of 1863
- 1863 - Battle of Antietam
- 1863 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
- 1863 - Battle of Gettysburg
- 1863 - Pro-Union counties become sovereign state of West Virginia
- 1863 - New York City draft riots
- 1864 - National Banking Act of 1864
- 1864 - Wade Davis Bill
- 1864 - Sand Creek Massacre
- 1864 - Maximilian Affair
- 1864 - Nevada becomes a state
- 1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassinated
- 1865 - Andrew Johnson becomes President
- 1865 - United States Civil War ends
- 1865 - 13th Amendment
- 1865 - Freedman's Bureau
1866–1869
- 1866 - Civil Rights Act of 1866
- 1866 - Ku Klux Klan founded
- 1866 - Ex Parte Milligan 71 US 2 1866 rules that civilians cannot be tried in military tribunals when civilian courts are available
- 1867 - Tenure of Office Act
- 1867 - The Grange founded
- 1867 - Reconstruction Acts
- 1867 - Alaska Purchase from Russia
- 1867 - Nebraska becomes a state
- 1867 - Medicine Lodge Treaty
- 1868 - Burlingame Treaty
- 1868 - 14th Amendment
- 1868 - Tenure of Office Act
- 1868 - University of California chartered
- 1868 - Carnegie Steel Company founded
- 1868 - Typewriter invented
- 1868 - Treaty of Fort Laramie with Lakota nation
- 1869 - Ulysses S. Grant becomes President
- 1869 - Wyoming becomes first state to grant woman suffrage
- 1869 - Golden spike nailed in, completing the First Transcontinental Railroad (North America)
- 1869 - James Fisk and Jay Gould's "Black Friday"
- 1869 - Knights of Labor formed
1870s
- 1870 - 15th Amendment
- 1870 - First graduate programs (at Yale and Harvard)
- 1870 - Force Acts
- 1871 - Great Chicago Fire
- 1871 - Treaty of Washington with the British Empire regarding the Dominion of Canada
- 1872 - Yellowstone National Park created
- 1872 - Crédit Mobilier scandal
- 1872 - Amnesty Act
- 1872 - Alabama Claims
- 1873 - Panic of 1873
- 1873 - Virginius Affair
- 1874 - Red River Wars
- 1875 - Aristides wins first Kentucky Derby
- 1875 - Resumption Act
- 1875 - Civil Rights Act of 1875
- 1876 - National League of baseball founded
- 1876 - Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
- 1876 - Munn v. Illinois establishes public regulation of utilities
- 1876 - Colorado becomes a state
- 1876 - Battle of Little Bighorn
- 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
- 1877 - Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President and Reconstruction ends with the Compromise of 1877
- 1877 - Nez Percé Indian War
- 1878 - Bland-Allison Act
- 1878 - Morgan silver dollars first minted
- 1879 - Thomas Edison invents light bulb
- 1879 - Knights of Labor go public
1880s
- 1880s - Dust Bowl begins
- 1880 - U.S. population exceeds 50 million for first time
- 1881 - James Garfield inaugurated as President
- 1881 - James Garfield assassinated
- 1881 - Chester A. Arthur inaugurated as President
- 1881 - Clara Barton creates Red Cross
- 1881 - Tuskegee Institute founded
- 1881 - A Century of Dishonor written by Helen Hunt Jackson
- 1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act and European Restriction Act
- 1883 - Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 1883 legalizes doctrine of segregation
- 1883 - Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
- 1883 - Brooklyn Bridge opens
- 1885 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated as President
- 1885 - Washington monument completed
- 1885 - Stanford University founded
- 1886 - Haymarket Riot
- 1886 - American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus, Ohio
- 1887 - Congress creates Interstate Commerce Commission
- 1887 - Dawes Act
- 1887 - Hatch Act
- 1888 - Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
- 1888 - National Geographic Society founded
- 1889 - Benjamin Harrison becomes President
- 1889 - North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington become states
- 1889 - Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania
- 1889 - Jane Addams founds Hull House
1890s
- 1890 - Sherman Antitrust Act
- 1890 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act
- 1890 - McKinley tariff
- 1890 - Yosemite National Park created
- 1890 - Idaho and Wyoming become states
- 1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre
- 1890 - North American Women's Suffrage Association founded
- 1891 - Basketball invented
- 1891 - Baltimore Crisis
- 1892 - Homestead Strike
- 1892 - General Electric Company founded
- 1892 - Sierra Club founded
- 1893 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated President for second term
- 1893 - Panic of 1893
- 1893 - Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed
- 1894 - Coxey's Army
- 1894 - Pullman strike
- 1894 - Wilson-Gorman tariff, including Income Tax
- 1895 - Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company strikes down part of Wilson-Gorman Tariff
- 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 1896 legalizes segregation in railway cars
- 1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech
- 1896 - Gold discovered in Alaska's Klondike
- 1896 - Utah becomes a state
- 1896 - Hawaii annexed
- 1897 - William McKinley becomes President
Wreckage of the USS Maine
- 1897 - Boston subway completed
- 1897 - Dingley tariff
- 1898 - USS Maine explodes in Havana, Cuba harbor, precipitating the Spanish-American War
- 1898 - DeLome Letter
- 1898 - Treaty of Paris (1898) ends Spanish-American War
- 1898 - Newlands Resolution
- 1898 - American Anti-Imperialist League organized
- 1899 - Teller Amendment
- 1899 - American Samoa occupied
- 1899 - Open Door Notes
| 1820-1859 | 1860-1899
History of the United States |
1900-1929 |