y Westinghouse opened at Niagara Falls.
1/1/1895, J Edgar Hoover, American criminologist and founder of the FBI, was born in Washington DC.
14/12/1894. Eugene Debs, President of the American Railway Union, was jailed for 6 months for ignoring an injunction to end the Pullman strike. The strike began on 11/5/1894 when the Pullman Company reduced wages but did not cut rents for workers living in company housing. The strike turned violent with riots and burning or railroad cars. Attorney-General Richard Olney obtained an injunction to end the strike on the grounds it was obstructing the mail, and when this was ignored federal troops arrived in Chicago to enforce the court order. By 10/7/1894 the strike was broken.
22/11/1894. The USA and Japan signed a commercial treaty.
1/5/1894. David Coxey, who led a march of 100,000 unemployed to the capital, Washington, to demand economic reform, was arrested.
2/3/1894, Jubal Anderson Early, US Confederate General (born 3/11/1816 in Franklin County, Virginia) died in Lynchburg, Virginia.
3/1/1894, Elizabeth Peabody, American educator and founder in 1960 of the first kindergarten in the US, died aged 89.
20/2/1893, Pierre Beauregard, American Confederate General, died.
15/12/1892, Paul Getty, US oil tycoon, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
17/8/1892. Mae West, US film actress, was born in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of a boxer.
1/1/1892. New York opened an immigration office on Ellis Island to cope with the flood of immigrants to the USA. Many were fleeing political and religious persecution in Russia and Central Europe. Named after Samuel Ellis, who owned the island in the 1770s, the new facility replaced older cramped facilities at The Battery on Manhattan Island.
7/4/1891, Phineas T Barnum, American circus showman, died aged 80.
4/3/1891, US Congress passed the Copyright Act, to protect authors, composers and artists.
14/2/1891, William Sherman, Union Army commander in the American Civil War, died in New York City.
6/8/1890. In New York’s Auburn prison, the electric chair was used for the first time on the murderer William Kemmler.
10/7/1890. Wyoming was admitted as the 44th State of the USA.
3/7/1890, Idaho became the 43rd State of the Union.
2/7/1890. The US government passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, banning trade monopolies. With more than 90% of the US oil trade in the hands of the Rockerfeller family, and sugar, wheat, and alcohol prices also governed by mysterious ‘trusts’, the US government felt that these trusts threatened the economic structure of the USA. A judge, Mr Justice Harlan, said that these trusts were another form of slavery, as capital became concentrated in the hands of a few.
1/6/1890, The US Census Bureau began using Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns. Hollerith’s company eventually became IBM.
14/4/1890, The Pan-American Union was established at the first International Congress of American States.
28/3/1890, Washington State University was established in Pullman, Washington.
8/3/1890, North Dakota State University was founded in Fargo, North Dakota.
11/11/1889. Washington became the 42nd State of the Union.
8/11/1889, Montana became the 41st State of the Union.
2/11/1889, North and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th States of the Union.
3/6/1889, The first ‘long-distance’ electric power transmission line in the US was completed. It ran 14 miles from a generator at Williamette Falls to downtown Portland, Oregon.
22/4/1889, The great land rush in the US, see 2/5/1890.
8/3/1889, John Ericsson, Swedish-US inventor and engineer, died in New York City (born in Langbanshyttan, Sweden, 31/7/1803).
22/2/1889, US President Grover Cleveland signed a Bill admitting North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington, as US States.
1/1/1889, The State of New York adopted the electric chair for capital punishment.
25/10/1888, Richard Byrd, US naval officer and polar explorer, was born in Winchester, Virginia.
9/10/1888, The 555-foot high white marble Washington Monument was opened. It was designed by Robert Mills.
18/4/1888, Rosc