Presidency of James Buchanan

U.S. territorial extent in 1860

• April 3, 1860 – Pony Express begins.
• November 6 – 1860 United States presidential election: Abraham Lincoln elected president and Hannibal Hamlin vice president with only 39% of the vote in a four-man race.
• December 18 – Crittenden Compromise fails.
• December 20 – President Buchanan fires his cabinet.
• December 20 – South Carolina secedes from the Union
• January 9, 1861 – Secessionist forces in South Carolina fire at the USS Star of the West, forcing it to withdraw.
• January 9 – Mississippi secedes from the Union
• January 10 – Florida secedes from the Union
• January 11 – Alabama secedes from the Union
• January 19 – Georgia secedes from the Union
• January 26 – Louisiana secedes from the Union
• February 1 – Texas secedes from the Union
• February 4 – Secessionist states establish the Confederate States of America
• February 18 – Jefferson Davis elected Provisional President of the Confederacy
• March 2 – The Corwin Amendment to enshrine slavery forever is passed by Congress. It is not ratified.

Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

• 1861 – Lincoln becomes the 16th president and Hamlin becomes the 15th vice president
• 1861 – American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter
• 1861 – First Battle of Bull Run (First Battle of Manassas)
• 1861 – Davis unanimously elected to full term as Confederate president.
• 1862 – Battle of Hampton Roads (Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack; first ever naval battle between iron-sided ships)
• 1862 – Homestead Act
• 1862 – Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
• 1862 – Gen. Robert E. Lee placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia
• 1862 – Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Battle of Manassas)
• 1862 – Battle of Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg)
• 1862 – Dakota War of 1862 begins
• 1862–1863 – Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
• 1863 – Battle of Gettysburg
• 1863 – The Siege of Vicksburg ends
• 1863 – New York City draft riots
• 1863 – Pro-Union Virginia counties become separate state of West Virginia
• 1863 - Lincoln announces the 10% Plan
• 1864 – Gen. Ulysses S. Grant put in command of all Union forces
• 1864 – Wade–Davis Bill
• 1864 – Sand Creek massacre
• 1864 – Nevada becomes a state
• 1864 – U.S. presidential election, 1864; Lincoln is reelected president and Andrew Johnson elected vice president on the "fusion" Union Party ticket.
• 1864 – Sherman's March to the Sea
• 1865 – Robert E. Lee made commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces
• 1865 – President Lincoln begins second term; Andrew Johnson becomes the 16th vice president
• 1865 – Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, captured by a corps of black Union troops
• 1865 – Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House
• 1865 – Freedmen's Bureau
• 1865 - the 13th Amendment was adopted, setting slaves free forever.

Presidency of Andrew Johnson

• April 15, 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln assassinated; Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th president
• April–June 1865 – American Civil War ends as the last elements of the Confederacy surrender
• 1865 – Ku Klux Klan founded
• 1865 – Slavery abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.
• 1866 – Civil Rights Act of 1866
• 1866 - Tennessee becomes the first Confederate state readmitted to the union
• 1867 – Tenure of Office Act enacted
• 1867 – Territory of Alaska purchased from the Russian Empire
• 1867 - The US Annexes the Midway Islands in the Pacific
• 1867 – Nebraska becomes a state
• 1867 - Congress passes a series of Reconstruction acts and the period of Radical Reconstruction begins
• 1868 – Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, acquitted by the Senate by one vote.
• 1868 – Fourteenth Amendment is ratified; second of Reconstruction Amendments
• 1868 – The Copperheads are dissolved.
• 1868 – Ulysses S. Grant is elected president and Schuyler Colfax is elected vice president of the United States
• 1868 - Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama are admitted back into the union
• 1868 - Boss Tweed gained control of Tammany Hall

Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant

• 1869 – Grant becomes the 18th president and Colfax becomes the 17th vice president
• 1869 – The First transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory
• 1869 - Texas v. White upholds Radical Reconstruction and states that once Texas joins the Union, its union was indissoluble

Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes

• 1877 – After only two days as president-elect, Hayes becomes the 19th president and Wheeler becomes the 19th vice president
• 1877 – Reconstruction ends
• 1877 – Nez Perce War
• 1878 – Bland–Allison Act
• 1878 – Morgan silver dollars first minted
• 1879 – Thomas Edison creates first commercially viable light bulb
• 1879 – Knights of Labor go public

Presidency of James A. Garfield

• 1881 – Garfield becomes the 20th president
• 1881 – President Garfield is shot by a deranged gunman on a train platform.

Presidency of Chester A. Arthur

• 1881 – President Garfield dies after 199 days, Vice President Arthur becomes the 21st president
• 1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory
• 1881 – Clara Barton creates the American Red Cross
• 1881 – Tuskegee Institute founded
• 1881 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett near Fort Sumner
• 1881 – A Century of Dishonor written by Helen Hunt Jackson
• 1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act
• 1882 – Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert and Charlie Ford
• 1883 - The Southern section of the second transcontinental railroad line is completed.
• 1883 – Buffalo Bill's Wild West show founded. participants include: Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley.
• 1883 – Civil Rights Cases 109 US 3 1883 legalizes doctrine of segregation
• 1883 – Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
• 1883 – Brooklyn Bridge opens
• 1883 - Joseph Pulitzer buys the New York World
• 1884 – U.S. presidential election, 1884: Grover Cleveland elected president and Thomas A. Hendricks elected vice president
• 1884 – Washington Monument completed

First presidency of Grover Cleveland

• 1885 – Grover Cleveland becomes the 22nd president; Thomas A. Hendricks becomes the 21st vice president
• 1885 – Vice President Hendricks dies
• 1886 – Haymarket Square Riot
• 1886 – American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus, Ohio
• 1886 – Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) dedicated
• 1887 – The United States Congress creates Interstate Commerce Commission
• 1887 – Dawes Act
• 1887 – Hatch Act
• 1888 – Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
• 1888 – National Geographic Society founded
• 1888 – U.S. presidential election, 1888: Benjamin Harrison elected president and Levi P. Morton vice president despite coming in second in the popular vote.

Presidency of Benjamin Harrison

• 1889 – Harrison becomes the 23rd president and Morton becomes the 22nd vice president
• 1889 – Oklahoma Land Rush (April 22, 1889)
• 1889 – Centennial of the Constitution celebrated.
• 1889 – North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington become states
• 1889 – Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania
• 1889 – Jane Addams founds Hull House
• December 6, 1889 – Former Confederate president Jefferson Davis dies.
• 1889 - During a speech given by Benjamin Harrison, he becomes the first U.S. president in history to have a voice recording.

Second presidency of Grover Cleveland

• 1893 – Grover Cleveland becomes the 24th president; Adlai E. Stevenson becomes the 23rd vice president
• 1893 – Panic of 1893
• 1893 – Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed
• 1893 - Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago
• 1894 – Coxey's Army
• 1894 – Pullman Strike
• 1894 – Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act, including income tax
• 1894 – Sunset Limited service opened on the second transcontinental route by Southern Pacific Railroad
• 1895 – Lee Shelton shoots Billy Lyons, spawning countless ballads.
• 1895 – Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. strikes down part of Wilson-Gorman Tariff
• 1895 - William Randolph Hearst purchases the New York Morning Journal
• 1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson 163 US 537 1896 affirms the idea of "separate but equal"
• 1896 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech
• 1896 – Gold discovered in the Yukon's Klondike
• 1896 – Utah becomes a state
• 1896 - Henry Ford builds his first automobile
• 1896 – U.S. presidential election, 1896: William McKinley elected president and Garret A. Hobart vice president

Presidency of William McKinley

• 1897 – McKinley becomes the 25th president; and Hobart becomes the 24th vice president

Wreckage of the USS Maine

• 1897 – Boston subway completed
• 1897 – Dingley tariff
• 1898 – The City of Greater New York is created through the annexation of Brooklyn, Western Queens County, and Staten Island into New York City
• 1898 – USS Maine explodes in Havana, Cuba harbor, precipitating the Spanish–American War
• 1898 – De Lôme Letter
• 1898 – Treaty of Paris (1898) ends Spanish–American War; Philippine–American War begins
• 1898 – Hawaii annexed
• 1898 – Newlands Resolution
• 1898 – American Anti-Imperialist League organized
• 1899 – Teller Amendment
• 1899 – Newsboys' strike of 1899
• 1899 – American Samoa occupied
• 1899 – Open Door Notes
• 1899 – Vice President Garret Hobart dies