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Timeline |
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  President William Henry Harrison dies on April 4, only 29 days after taking office. John Tyler becomes President. Johann Augustus Sutter purchases Fort Ross from the Russian colonists who founded it in 1811. By convincing Governor Juan Bautista Alvardo that he is a minor European noble, Sutter obtains Mexican citizenship and a 50,000 acre land grant in California which he names New Helvetia. In Paris, carbon arc lights are used in the first public demonstration of electric streetlights. Prussian gunsmith Johann Nikolas Dreyse invents the world's first successful breech loading, bolt-action rifle. New Zealand becomes a British colony. Horace Greeley founds the New York Tribune.  The Webster-Ashburton Treaty defines the northern border of Maine, fixing the US-Canadian border in the East. The US Supreme Court affirms the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, striking down a Pennsylvania law giving runaway slaves legal protection from being forcibly returned to their owners. The United States recognizes the independence of Hawaii. On August 29, the Treaty of Nanking is imposed on China following its defeat in the Opium War. Foreigners are granted immunity from Chinese law in several key port cities, the Chinese government is forbidden from imposing any tariff greater than five percent on imported goods, and Hong Kong is ceded to the British.  The British government suspends funding for Charles Babbage's research. After seeing a demonstration of Babbage's "analytical engine", Prime Minister Robert Peel reportedly joked, "How about setting the machine to calculate the time at which it will be of use?" Crawford Williamson Long of Jefferson, Georgia, becomes the first physician known to have used general anesthesia on a surgical patient. Under the influence of ether, James Venable experiences no pain as Long removes a cyst from his neck. The following year, he administers ether to his wife to ease the pain of childbirth. Notre Dame University is founded in South Bend, Indiana. A banner year for poets: Tennyson publishes Morte d'Arthur, Poe pens The Raven, and Longfellow writes Excelsior.  The US Congress approves a $30,000 appropriation to fund the world's first long distance telegraph line, a 35 mile line between Baltimore and Washington, DC. An epidemic of yellow fever sweeps through the Mississippi Valley, killing an estimated 13,000 people. The first iron hulled, propellor driven steamship, the SS Great Britain, is launched on July 19. Twice the size of any other commercial vessel, the Great Britain can cross the North Atlantic in 15 days regardless of the direction of wind or current; sailing ships take 3 months, on average, to make the same journey. Britain and France recognize Hawaiian independence. The Economist publishes its first issue in September. American settlers in the Willamette River Valley organize the Provisional Government of Oregon. On the day that legendary mountain man Joe Meek shouted, "Who's for a divide?" to force a vote on the question of whether to offer a direct challenge to the British claim of sovereignty in the region, it was two Canadians, F. X. Matthieu and Etienne Lucier, who crossed the line and won the day for the Americans.   The great auk (Pinguinus impennis), a flightless bird resembling a penguin which once numbered in the millions, passes into extinction as the last living specimen is killed by collectors on Eldey Island, ten miles off Iceland. The birds were killed in vast numbers to supply food and bait to cod fishermen in the North Atlantic and feathers to Europe.Dark horse Democratic candidate James K. Polk wins the presidential election. Samuel Morse keys in the first long distance telegraph transmission, sending the message, "What hath God wrought?" from the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, to a colleague at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad station in Baltimore, Maryland. Charles Goodyear patents the basic rubber vulcanization process. The first products to be developed under license from Goodyear are overshoes offered by the L. Candee Company of New Haven, Connecticut.  Congress sets the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as the day for all future presidential elections. The US Senate ratifies a treaty providing for the annexation of the Republic of Texas, prompting Mexico to sever diplomatic relations with the United States. Florida becomes the 27th state on March 3. Texas becomes the 28th state on December 29. The United States Naval Academy is founded at Annapolis, Maryland. The world's first wire cable suspension bridge spans the Allegheny River at Pittsburgh. Built by John Augustus Roebling, the bridge allows an aqueduct to cross the river. Potato crops fail throughout Europe as a fungal disease (Phytophthora infestans) rots tubers both in the ground and in storage. Famine kills an estimated 2,500,000 people from Ireland to Russia. British explorer Sir John Franklin leads a Royal Navy expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. Unusually good summer weather allows them to venture deep into the Arctic, where both of Franklin's ships become hopelessly icebound when the weather turns. All hands are lost. President Polk proclaims that the US has "clear and unquestionable" title to the lands of western North America between Russian Alaska and Mexican California, an area claimed and occupied by Britain for more than thirty years. Oregon's Provisional Government lends an air of legitimacy to Polk's assertion, but the British hope to hold the line at the Columbia River. International treaties recognize the southern boundary of the territory claimed by Russia to be fifty four degrees, forty minutes north latitude -- hence the jingoistic slogan, "Fifty-four forty or fight!"  After Mexico rebuffs a token effort to purchase the disputed territory, President Polk precipitates war by ordering General Zachary Taylor to advance from the Neuces River to the Rio Grande. The area bounded by the rivers is claimed by both Mexico and Texas. However, the real significance of shifting the border to the Rio Grande lies upriver, where it would compel Mexico to cede the long-established settlements of El Paso and Santa Fe. As the Mexican War heats up, American settlers in the Sacramento Valley declare an independent republic on June 14. The so-called Black Bear Revolt soon becomes a campaign to secure California for the United States when it gains the open support of Army troopers under John C. Fremont and warships of the US Pacific Fleet. The western US-Canadian border is fixed by treaty at the 49th parallel. Iowa becomes the 29th state on December 28. The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by Congress. A bequest from a wealthy Englishman who had never in his life been to the United States, James Smithson, provides the initial funding for the Institution. British scholar Henry Rawlinson deciphers the written language of the ancient Assyrian civilization. The first widely publicized use of anesthesia occurs in the office of Boston dentist Thomas Green Morton. Thanks to press coverage of his use of ether to render a patient unconscious while he extracts a tooth, ether quickly comes into widespread use in Army field hospitals.  The war with Mexico culminates with the fall of Mexico City to American forces under General Winfield Scott. Former slave Frederick Douglass begins publishing The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper in Rochester, New York. Karl Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto. Emily Bronte publishes Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre. Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero announces the discovery of nitroglycerin.   On January 24, gold is discovered at a sawmill being built for Johann Augustus Sutter on the American River. Sutter tries to keep word of the discovery secret, but it inevitably leaks out. By year's end, an estimated six thousand men are at work in the gold fields. Revolution sweeps through the capital cities of the European continent. Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor is elected to the presidency. Wisconsin is admitted to the Union as the 30th state. A telegraph connection is established between New York and Chicago. Pittsburgh composer Stephen Collins Foster writes the popular song, "Oh! Susanna," which debuts on February 25 in a rendition by G. N. Christy of the Christy Minstrels. Foster's song achieves widespread popularity and will be something of an anthem for the 49ers following the California Gold Rush the following year. The Associated Press is founded.  US commodity prices rise sharply as news of the gold strike at Sutter's Mill reaches the East. Many workers strike for better pay, but wage hikes do not keep pace with the rising cost of living. The first gold seekers from the East arrive in California aboard, appropriately enough, the SS California on February 28. Built to accommodate 210, the California puts in at San Francisco with 350 passengers aboard. The US Department of the Interior is formed by act of Congress on March 5. Among the functions it assumes is control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was heretofore a part of the War Department. The derby, or bowler hat, is introduced by Thomas Bowler, Ltd., of London. French inventor Joseph Monier patents reinforced concrete. New York inventor Walter Hunt patents an early safety pin design. On March 3, newly arrived federal appointee Governor Joseph Lane reads a proclamation from the balcony of the Rose Farm in Oregon City, officially declaring Oregon to be a Territory of the United States. Governor Lane, a Democrat, invites elected Governor George Abernethy of the Provisional Government, a Whig, to pay him a visit; Abernethy declines, pointing out that Lane failed to present his credentials, and invites Lane to pay him a visit, instead.  Senator Henry Clay, the "Great Compromiser," introduces an omnibus bill containing resolutions intended to reduce tensions between slave and free states. Among the elements of the intricate compromise are the admission of California to the Union as a free state, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. After vigorous debate, the compromise legislation is passed. The first recorded case of a federal marshal enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act occurs in New York. Believing he is apprehending an escaped slave from the Baltimore area, the marshal in fact arrests a free man by the name of James Hamlet. The arrest arouses considerable public anger, and Hamlet is soon freed.  The cornerstone of the Washington Monument is laid on July 4. At the celebrations, President Taylor reportedly overindulges on cherries and ice milk. He falls ill and dies five days later. Vice President Millard Fillmore assumes the presidency.President Fillmore installs the first cooking stove in the White House. The chefs resign in protest, preferring to cook in a fireplace, but agree to return after an expert from the Patent Office spends a day showing them how to regulate the heat from the fire. Congress issues the first railroad land grant to the Illinois Central Railway. The IC, which will not be chartered until the following year, is given over 2,500,000 acres of federal land in Illinois, much of which will later be sold to settlers, speculators, and entrepreneurs for anywhere from $5 to $15 an acre. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, begun in 1828, finally reaches Cumberland, Maryland -- eight years after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Plans to extend the canal to Pittsburgh are abandoned, but the completed 185 mile segment will remain in use for almost a century. German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, age 29, invents the Bunsen burner. Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The Scarlet Letter. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency opens in Chicago. The first Red Delicious apples are found growing on a sapling in Iowa.  Tribal chieftains cede all Sioux lands in Iowa and part of Minnesota to the federal government. Social reformer Amelia Jenks Bloomer urges revision of women's clothing in her magazine The Lily. She will be ridiculed for wearing full-cut trousers ("bloomers") under a short skirt in public, an outfit actually designed three years earlier by Elizabeth Smith Miller. The first successful undersea telegraph cable is laid across the English Channel between Calais and Dover. Reuters News Service is founded.   Democrat Franklin Pierce defeats Whig candidate Winfield Scott in the presidential election. The National Road, begun in 1811 as the Cumberland Road, finally reaches Illinois. Brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker go into business together, eventually building the largest wagon and carriage manufacturing concern in the world. Elisha Graves Otis, inventor of the safety elevator, decides to give up and head for California to prospect for gold, but he changes his mind after receiving two unsolicited orders for his "safety hoister." The completion of a 45 mile canal allows operations to begin at the first hydraulic placer mine in California. Hydraulic mining, which uses high-pressure water cannons to literally wash away whole hillsides in search of gold, will leave scars on the landscape that remain visible to the present day.  The Black Fleet of Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives at Japan. Perry's demand for a treaty precipitates a civil war following the death of the Tokugowa shogun a week after the American fleet departs. The Gadsen Purchase secures for the United States the best railroad route between Texas and California. Congress appropriates $150,000 for the War Department to survey potential transcontinental railroad routes. An epidemic of yellow fever sweeps the nation. In New Orleans, almost 8000 people die. Samuel Colt, whose company has been building revolvers with interchangeable parts for several years, revolutionizes the gunsmithing business by fully implementing the mass production of firearms in a new factory in Hartford, Connecticut. The first manned flight of a winged aircraft sends the coachman of English engineer Sir George Cayley some 500 yards in a large glider. Swedish inventor J. E. Lundstrom patents the safety match.  In response to naval incursions into the Black Sea, Russia cuts off diplomatic relations with Britain and France in February. The Crimean War gets underway with allied troop landings in September. The tragic Charge of the Light Brigade occurs on October 25 during the Battle of Balaclava. Florence Nightengale leads 34 nurses to the Crimea to tend to wounded soldiers. Commodore Perry returns to Japan in February and secures the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31. The treaty establishes diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States, opens two Japanese ports to Yankee traders, and obliges the Japanese government to take responsibility for the safety of shipwrecked American sailors. The Republican party is organized on February 28 in Ripon, Wisconsin, by disaffected Whigs and Democrats opposed to the spread of slavery. The Whig party is effectively destroyed when many of its northern members become Republicans. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820, opens Indian treaty lands to settlement, and undoes Henry Clay's compromise legislation of 1850. The first fractional distillation of crude petroleum is accomplished by Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman. The beneficiary of his research, the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, is primarily interested in distilling lubricants from the petroleum; the lighter, more volatile compounds, such as gasoline, are considered undersirable waste products.   Congress authorizes the construction of a transcontinental telegraph line from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast. Prohibition laws are enacted in Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, and the Nebraska Territory. Czar Nicholas I of Russia, the "Iron Czar", dies on March 2 after a 30 year reign. The Sault St. Marie River Ship Canal is completed, linking Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Widely known as the "Soo", the canal transforms the Great Lakes into a huge inland waterway and opens the vast iron ore deposits of northern Michigan and Minnesota to exploitation. Boston publisher John Bartlett publishes the first edition of Familiar Quotations. Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass. English photographer Roger Fenton takes the first pictures of soldiers at war. His photos of British soldiers in the Crimean War do not benefit from significant distribution because the technology does not yet exist to publish photographs.  The Crimean War ends in defeat for Russia on February 1. An armed force led by American adventurer William Walker, age 32, sacks the Nicaraguan capital, Granada. Setting himself up as a dictator, Walker hopes to eventually conquer Central America and establish an autocratic empire based on slave labor, vast agricultural plantations, and a canal across the isthmus. The United States immediately grants diplomatic recognition to Walker's regime. On May 20, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivers a speech on the Senate floor in which he denounces the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and insults its authors, Stephen A. Douglas and Andrew P. Butler. Two days later, Representative Preston Smith Brooks of South Carolina, Butler's nephew, assaults Senator Sumner in the Senate Chamber. Sumner is beaten so badly that he will not be able to resume his duties in the Senate for three years, but the voters of Massachusetts reelect him anyway. Pro-slavery raiders pillage Lawrence, Kansas, on May 21, perhaps the most infamous incident in the "bleeding Kansas" era. The first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi River opens on April 21, connecting Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Less than a fortnight later, the SS Effie Afton collides with the bridge. Before the Chicago & Rock Island RR can file suit to recover the cost of repairing the damaged bridge, the owners of the steamboat file a lawsuit claiming that the 1582-foot-long bridge has blocked their right of way. The courts uphold the suit, calling the bridge a public nuisance, but the Supreme Court will later overturn this decision on the strength of the arguments mustered by the railroad's lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. English engineer Henry Bessemer patents the Bessemer converter, a blast furnace which will bring down the cost of steel and permit its widespread use in construction and industry.  In India, the Sepoy Rebellion ends the century-long rule of the British East India Company. The following year, the Crown assumes all duties and treaty obligations of the East India Company. Chief Justice Robert B. Taney announces the Dred Scott Decision on March 6. The Supreme Court ruling establishes that escaped slaves cannot claim sanctuary in free states, reaffirms that black men do not have the right to bring suit in a court of law, and includes an obiter dicta by Taney to the effect that Congress lacks the authority to ban slavery in the territories. The Panic of 1857 strikes the New York financial markets following the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. The situation is exacerbated by the loss of three tons of gold aboard the SS Central America, which founders in a September hurricane 200 miles off Charleston, South Carolina. A severe economic depression follows. In reaction to the financial panic, the New York Tribune lays off all but two of its foreign correspondents. One of the two retained is Karl Marx. Kentucky steel manufacturer William Kelly patents a "pneumatic" process for making steel which he invented in 1847. His legal battle with Henry Bessemer and a shortage of sufficiently pure iron ore will combine to delay the adoption of blast furnaces in the US. Boston composer James Pierpont publishes "Jingle Bells", which quickly becomes a seasonal standard. The world's first commercial passenger elevator is installed in New York. The elevator serves a five-story department store at the corner of Broadway and Broome Streets. During fall, the first American Chess Congress is held in New York. Paul Charles Murphy of New Orleans, age 20, takes top honors and will go on to tour Europe, defeating all challengers and winning unofficial standing as world champion.   While accepting the Republican nomination for US senator, former congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois observes that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln loses the election to incumbent Senator Stephen A. Douglas. President Buchanan and Queen Victoria inaugurate the first transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging messages on August 16. The electrical insulation on the cable soon begins to fail, rendering it useless by October. Denver is founded in the wake of a gold strike on Cherry Creek, some 90 miles from Pike's Peak. Named for Kansas Territory governor James W. Denver, the boomtown will become a major rail junction and eventually grow into one of the largest inland cities in the United States. Minnesota becomes the 32nd state. London tobacco merchant Philip Morris begins turning out cigarettes at a new factory. The habit of smoking cigarettes was brought to England by soldiers returning from the Crimean War in 1856 and was initially widely derided as being effeminate. There are already over 400 cigarette factories in the United States by this time. Our American Cousin, by playwright Tom Taylor, premieres on October 18 at Laura Keen's Theater in New York. Big Ben begins keeping time atop the 316-foot clock tower of Westminster Palace in London. The massive clockworks is named for Sir Benjamin Hall, chief administrator of the project. Though still unfinished, New York's Central Park opens to the public. Landscaping and construction work will continue for another five years.   The legendary Comstock Lode is discovered on the slopes of Mt. Davidson near Washoe, Nevada. On Valentine's Day, Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd state. On April 25, construction begins on the Suez Canal. The work will be done entirely by hand until 1863, when steam shovels and other heavy equipment arrives from Europe. Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Species in the Struggle for Life. Charles Dickens publishes A Tale of Two Cities. Thomas Austin, a wealthy Australian settler, imports two dozen rabbits from England and sets them loose on his estate, hoping that they'll take to their new surroundings so he can hunt them. Within months, Austin shoots over ten thousand rabbits. On August 28, "Colonel" Edwin Laurentine Drake, an unemployed railroad conductor bankrolled by New York financier James Townsend, strikes oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The well produces about 400 gallons of crude oil per day, which is distilled primarily for kerosene. Discovered in 1855, kerosene is quickly becoming a popular fuel for lamps and stoves; gasoline is still considered to be a hazardous waste product. Jules Leotard, age 21, performs the world's first flying trapeze act at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris on November 12. Leotard uses a pile of mattresses to cushion against falls, as safety nets will not be introduced until 1871.  Abraham Lincoln is elected president in November with 40% of the popular vote. In response to the outcome of the presidential election, South Carolina secedes from the Union on December 20. American cotton exports total $192 million, accounting for more than half of all US exports. Russian pioneers found the port city of Vladivostok, which is typically icebound for three months out of every year. The Henry rifle, the first truly practical lever-action repeating rifle, is patented. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company also has a repeating rifle in production, but the early Winchesters are widely regarded as inferior to Henry rifles. John D. Rockefeller enters the oil business at the age of 20. Sent to Titusville, Pennsylvania, to assess the potential of the petroleum industry there, he reports back to his partners in Cleveland that there is little future in oil. He then invests his life savings in a refinery. Elizabeth Cady Stanton argues for female suffrage in an address before a joint session of the New York state legislature. English inventor Frederick Walton coins the word "linoleum" to describe oxidized, solidified linseed oil, a cheap rubber-like material for use as a floor covering.  The provisional government of the Confederate States of America is formed on February 4 at Montgomery, Alabama. Former US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis is named president on February 8 and confirmed by election in October.  Kansas joins the Union as the 34th state.In his inaugural address on March 4, President Lincoln says, "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it." The Civil War begins on April 12 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, an island fort guarding the approach to the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina. The first transcontinental telegraph is completed, opening a Western Union line from New York to San Francisco and ending the brief, colorful existence of the Pony Express. By proclamation of the new national parliament, the Kingdom of Italy is formed on March 17 under King Victor Emmanuel II. Italy will not be truly united, however, until Rome joins the kingdom as its new capital in 1870. The first practical bicycle, the velocipede, is developed by Paris coach builder Pierre Michaux. Louis Pasteur publishes Memoire sur les corpuscles organises qui existent dans l'atmosphere, a turning point in the understanding of diseases and how they are spread. California's modern wine industry is born when the state legislature commissions Count Agoston Haraszthy to select cuttings of European wine grapes to improve the quality of the local vineyards. Haraszthy will return with 100,000 cuttings from 300 different varieties of grapes.  The Civil War is going badly for the Union, with significant reversals in the Second Battle of Bull Run and McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. The Battle of Shiloh on April 6 and 7 is declared a victory by both Union and Confederate generals despite massive casualties on both sides.  The legendary theft of The General, a Western & Atlantic RR steam locomotive, is executed by Union raiders under Captain James J. Andrews, who plans to isolate General Beauregard's Confederate forces at Chattanooga by cutting the rail lines Beauregard needs to move his army. Confederate forces give chase in the locomotive Texas and eventually catch Andrews' raiders.President Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, declaring that all slaves held in states "in rebellion against the United States" will be free as of January 1, 1863. General Daniel Butterfield, chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac, composes "Taps". In Minnesota, a Sioux uprising begins in August under the leadership of Little Crow. President Lincoln dispatches General Polk, commander of the Army of the Potomac at Second Bull Run, to deal with the situation. Over three hundred Sioux men are sentenced to death after Polk puts down the insurrection, though most of the death sentences are later commuted and the Indians freed.  Cochise becomes leader of a group of Mimbreno and Chiricahua Apaches when Mangas Coloradas is killed at the Battle of Apache Pass. For the next decade, Cochise and his warriors will be the terror of white settlers in the southwest. The Homestead Act is passed by Congress on May 20, opening the West to settlement by guaranteeing US citizens, as well as foreigners who declare their intent to become citizens, the right to claim 160 acres of land. Aside from a $10 registration fee, the land is free provided that the person who claims it lives on it for five years. The first casino in Monte Carlo opens for business. A widespread crop failure in England ensures that the British government will not offer diplomatic recognition to the Confederate States of America -- the British need northern wheat more than southern cotton.  The turning point of the Civil War comes in early July, when Vicksburg falls to Union forces, cutting Confederate supply lines on the Mississippi River, and General Robert E. Lee's Army of Virginia is defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Union turns to conscription to keep the Army up to strength, but an exemption from military service can be purchased for $300. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, age 25, leads the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry in the first combat action fought by black troops of the Union Army. Their assault on Battery Wagner begins at dusk on July 18 and ends with the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts being driven back after losing half their number, including Colonel Shaw. Union forces capture the salt deposits on the Louisiana gulf coast and destroy all the salt works in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, denying the Confederacy its main sources of the vital mineral. In Washington, DC, the Capitol dome is completed on December 2. West Virginia is admitted to the Union as the 35th state. French forces which were sent to Mexico in December, 1861, occupy Mexico City on June 7. A group of exiled Mexican aristocrats meet under the auspices of the French and offer the throne to Archduke Maximillian of Austria, the brother of Emperor Franz Josef. Perrier Sparkling Water is first sold commercially in France. "Winged Victory" is unearthed at an archeological dig at the Greek city of Samothrace. The London Underground, the first subway in the world, opens on January 10. It will carry almost ten million passengers in its first year of operation.  General William Tecumseh Sherman succeeds Ulysses S. Grant as commander of the Army of Tennessee in February. Grant is promoted to lieutenant general on March 9, and the next day he is appointed supreme commander of all Union forces. Sherman razes Atlanta in July and embarks on his March to the Sea. New York photographer Mathew B. Brady travels through the war-torn Confederacy with a wagon full of photographic equipment, documenting the impact of the war on the South. Nevada is admitted to the Union as the 36th state. President Lincoln is reelected in November with 55% of the popular vote. In December, the Gatling gun is first used in combat during the Battle of Nashville, where it helps deal a devastating defeat to Confederate forces under General John Bell Hood. The Geneva Conventions are signed by representatives of 26 nations, establishing the Red Cross and pledging all parties to abide by humanitarian rules governing the treatment of civilians caught in war zones, prisoners of war, and wounded and sick military personnel. Wartime inflation reduces the value of Confederate money to less than five cents to the dollar, while Union currency is worth less than half its face value. The phrase "In God We Trust" first appears on US currency by order of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Portland Chase. Austrian Archduke Maximilian becomes Emperor of Mexico on June 12, ruling with the support of the French force which brought down the government of Benito Juarez the previous year. King Kamehamea IV of Hawaii sells the island of Niihau to Mrs. Elizabeth Sinclair. The French paddlewheel steamer Washington completes its first Atlantic crossing. The Washington will serve on the transatlantic route between New York and the English Channel ports for the next 110 years.   General Lee surrenders the Army of Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9. The last Confederate forces in the field surrender on May 26 at Shreveport, Louisiana, bringing the Civil War to an end. President Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater on April 14. On April 27, a massive boiler explosion on the steamboat Sultana kills 1600 out of the estimated 2300 people aboard, most of them Union soldiers returning from the war. The first known train robbery in the United States occurs on May 5 near North Bend, Ohio. The passengers aboard an Ohio & Mississippi RR train bound from Cincinnati to St. Louis are robbed at gunpoint after the train is derailed. As the Central Pacific and Union Pacific race to build a transcontinental railroad line, George Pullman builds the Pioneer, the first practical sleeping car. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect on December 18, prohibiting slavery throughout the land. In Chicago, the Union Stock Yards open on December 25.  The price of lamp oil from sperm whales rises to $2.25 per gallon (roughly $40/gallon in modern terms), increasing the demand for kerosene. American petroleum production is concentrated in Pennsylvania, where the first oil pipeline in the country is built to connect the well field at Pithole to the nearest railroad, five miles away. The US refuses to recognize the reign of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and demands the removal of the French troops supporting him. The emperor sends his wife to Rome to appeal to Pope Pius IX for assistance. She quickly realizes that the cause is hopeless, and her husband ends up before a firing squad when his government is overthrown the following year. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is founded with the chief aim of stopping the abuse of horses. The first production model of the classic, lever-action Winchester rifle hits the market. An improved version of the Henry rifle, the basic Winchester design will remain essentially unchanged for the better part of a century. Massive cholera outbreaks kill 120,000 in Prussia, 110,000 in Austria, and 50,000 Americans. Over 2000 people die in New York City, prompting the formation of the first municipal Board of Health in the US. Western Union buys out two smaller competitors, gaining control of over 75,000 miles of telegraph wire and becoming the first great industrial monopoly of the impending Gilded Age. The first cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail takes place, bringing a Texas herd to Abilene, Kansas, for shipment by rail to points east.
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