istoryworld
Events relating to america
Liberal leaders Juan Alvarez and Ignacio Comonfort launch a political programme in Mexico that becomes know simply as 'the Reform'
Longfellow publishes his American Indian epic, The Song of Hiawatha, in an irresistibly catchy metre
Abolitionist John Brown presides over the lynching of five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie in Kansas
An American adventurer, William Walker, wins control of the government in Nicaragua and for a year rules as president
Democrat candidate James Buchanan wins the US presidential election, defeating Republican John C Fr&eqacute;mont
The Haughwout Store, a five-storey building in New York, instals the first Otis safety elevator
An ultra-reactionary Supreme Court judgement in the Dred Scott case heightens US tensions over slavery
Conservatives seize Mexico City at the start of a civil war against the Liberal government
John O'Mahony, an Irish emigrant to the USA, founds the Fenian Brotherhood as a secret organization supporting the Irish republican cause
Abraham Linclon comes to national prominence through his debates on slavery with Stephen Douglas, his rival for an Illinois seat in the Senate
Oliver Wendell Holmes' book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is the first in a breakfast-table series
Longfellow uses a romantic story of early New England for his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish
Frozen remains and a document are finally found to reveal the fate of the Franklin expedition of 1845 to the NorthWest Passage
Edwin L. Drake strikes oil in Pennsylvania, leading to several local oil rushes
John Brown is captured leading a group of abolitionists to seize arms from the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry
Abolitionst John Brown is convicted of treason at Harper's Ferry and is hanged
Mail is carried by horse relay from Missouri to California, travelling 2000 miles in ten days in the service known as the Pony Express
Lincoln becomes the Republican presidential candidate, benefiting from a Democratic party split on the issue of slavery
German immigrants arriving in the USA now outnumber even the Irish
US adventurer William Walker, thrown out of Nicaragua in 1857, is executed in Honduras
Republican contender Abraham Lincoln is elected US president with only 39% of the popular vote and no electoral votes in eleven southern states
South Carolina becomes the first southern state to secede from the Union in response to Lincoln's election
The Liberals recover Mexico City and elect Benito Juarez as president
Seven southern states, meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, agree to form the Confederate States of America
The seven members of the newly formed Condederacy elect Jefferson Davis as their provisional president
