Category: Victorian Era Timeline

QUEEN VICTORIA DIES

Queen Victoria seems ill for several months before she dies. She loses her appetite, appears to be confused sometimes, and she finally dies a few days after suffering a series of strokes.

THE WORLD’S FAIR

One of the largest world’s fairs in history opens to the public in Paris, France with the United States among 42 nations and 25 colonies to exhibit. This world’s fair also included the second modern Olympic Games held within its 553 acre site and would draw over thirty-nine million paid visitors through its close on November 12.

ELLIS ISLAND OPENS

Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, opens as the main east coast immigration center, and would remain the initial debarkation point for European immigrants into the United States until its closure in 1954. More than 12 million immigrants would be processed on the island during those years. Ellis Island replaced Castle Garden, in Manhattan, as the New York immigration center.

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

The Statue of Liberty, known during its construction and erection as “Bartholdi’s Light” or “Liberty Enlightening the World” is dedicated by President Grover Cleveland in New York Harbor. First shown in the United States at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia ten years earlier, the huge sculpture by French artist Auguste Bartholdi provided the beacon to millions of immigrants and citizens who would pass its position in the decades to come.

THE PANAMA CANAL

The construction of the Panama Canal begins under French auspices, although it would eventually fail on the sea level canal in 1893, and would be bought out by the United States twenty-four years later under President Theodore Roosevelt.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL SPEAKS ON A TELEPHONE

While Alexander Graham Bell may not have invented the telephone, he got the first patent for a telephone on March 7, 1876. A few days later, he had the first phone conversation when he spoke to his assistant, Thomas Watson.

SITTING BULL AND CRAZY HORSE

Reporting on the Indian Wars, inspector E.C. Watkins pronounces that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne under Indian leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are openly hostile against the United States government, forming U.S. policy over the next year that would lead to battles such as Little Big Horn.

THE WOMEN’S CRUSADE

The Women’s Crusade of 1873-74 is started when women in Fredonia, New York march against retail liquor dealers, leading to the creation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. In 1917, this movement would culminate in the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the sale of liquor in the United States, a ban that would last for sixteen years.

EAST MEETS WEST

At Promontory, Utah, the final golden spike of the transcontinental railroad is driven into the ground, marking the junction of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. This act, as much as any other, would signal the marked increase in the settlement of the west.

SURRENDER AND ASSASSINATION

General Robert E. Lee, as commander in chief of Confederate forces, surrenders his 27,000 man army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the four years of Civil War conflict. Additional troops under southern command would continue to surrender until May 26. The McLean House is the location for the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre, Washington, D.C.. five days after the signing at Appomattox of the Confederate surrender. The shot, fired by actor John Wilkes Booth, during the play “Our American Cousin,” ends the life of the president who presided over the War of Rebellion and the end of slavery. Lincoln would die one day later.