ered. The fall of Sumter ‘set the heather afire’ in the North, and the Civil War was underway.
4/3/1861, President Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address as US President, promised to uphold the Union but also to preserve slavery in areas where it existed.
8/2/1861, The Confederate States united to fight the American Civil War, and chose Jefferson Davis as provisional President.
4/2/1861, Delegates from the seven Southern Confederate US States met in Montgomery to draft a separate Constitution. They were alarmed at President Lincoln’s overwhelming victocy in the rapidly-industrialising North, and his opposition to slavery.
29/1/1861, Kansas became the 34th State of the Union.
1860, The US songwriter Dan Emmett “I wish I was in the land of the dixes”; referring to the banknotes issued by the Citizen’s Bank of Louisiana, which used both English and French on its notes, so the 10$ notes were stamped ‘dix’, and became known as dixes. Emmett’s line became corrupted to “I wish I was in the land of Dixie”.
20/12/1860. South Carolina seceded from the USA.
13/9/1860, John Pershing, commander of US forces in France in World War One, was born in Linn County, Missouri.
6/3/1860. The Republican politician Abraham Lincoln made a campaign speech defending the right to strike.
28/1/1860, Joseph Addison Alexander, US scholar (born 24/4/1809 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) died in Princeton.
10/1/1860. The first major factory accident in the USA. A textiles factory collapsed in St Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing 77 people.
1859, Boston’s Public Garden was established, 108 acres.
23/11/1859, Billy the Kid, or William Bonney, was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
14/2/1859. Oregon became the 33rd State of the USA.
1858, Central Park in New York opened to the public, although it was not completed until 1863.
9/11/1858, The New York Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert.
13/7/1858, US anthropologist Robert Culin was born in Philadelphia (died 8/4/1929).
16/6/1858. In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, US Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be addressed. He declared ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’.
11/5/1858. Minnesota became the 32nd State of the USA.
23/12/1856, James Buchanan Duke, US industrialist, was born in Durham, North Carolina (died 10/10/1925 in New York).
22/12/1856, Frank B Kellogg, US politician, was born.
4/7/1855. New York became the 13th state to ban the production or sale of alcoholic beverages. For more on Prohinition see Morals-Punishment.
5/7/1854, In America, the Republican Party was officially founded.
31/3/1854. The USA and Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening up the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
28/2/1854, The United States Republican Party was formed, in Ripon, Wisconsin.
8/7/1853. US Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Japan’s Edo Bay (now Tokyo) with his ‘black ships’ and demanded that the country open up to US trade. He backed up his demand with cannon fire. For 250 years Japan had been a feudal state run by the Tokugawa shoguns.
31/12/1852, Henry Carter Adams, US economist, was born.
22/10/1851, Archibald Alexander, US Presbyterian clergyman, died in Princeton, New Jersey (born 17/4/1772 in Virginia).
18/9/1851. The New York Times was first published. It was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond.
13/8/1851, Felix Adler, US educationalist (died 24/4/1933) was born.
3/6/1851, George Adams, US historian (died 26/5/1925) was born.
15/2/1850, Albert Cummins, US politician, was born (died 30/7/1926).
1849, US Congress created the Department of the Interior, to administer the large areas added to the US by the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territories.
10/5/1849. In New York, 22 died and 56 were injured as troops fired on anti-British riots sparked by Irish gangs. The mob, armed with bricks and clubs, had gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House to revile the British actor Charles Macready, who had scorned the vulgarity of Americans.
24/6/1848, Brooks Adams, US historian, (died 13/2/1927) was born.
29/5/1848, Wisconsin became the 30th S