Timeline of United States history (1820-1859)

Westward expansion: The route of the Oregon Trail is shown in red in the western United States

This section of the Timeline of United States history concerns events from 1820 to 1859.

Table of contents

1 1820s 2 1830s 3 1840s 4 1850s

1820s

• 1820 - Missouri Compromise
• 1820 - Land Act
• 1820 - Maine becomes a state
• 1821 - Missouri becomes a state
• 1822 - Denmark Vesey executed
• 1822 - Cumberland Road Bill
• 1823 - Monroe Doctrine declared
• 1823 - Treaty with Russia
• 1824 - First presidential nominating political convention
• 1824 - John Quincy Adams defeats Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in election of 1824; Adams immediately appoints Clay his new Secretary of State, which Jackson calls their "Corrupt Bargain"
• 1824 - Gibbons v. Ogden cements Congressional control over interstate commerce
• 1825 - John Quincy Adams becomes President
• 1825 - Erie Canal opened
• 1826 - John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die on July 4
• 1828 - Tariff of Abominations passed
• 1828 - John C. Calhoun (Jackson's vice-president) anonymously publishes South Carolina Exposition and Protest arguing that states can nullify certain federal laws
• 1829 - Andrew Jackson becomes President, appoints his "Kitchen Cabinet"

• 1830s - Second Great Awakening
• early 1830s-Oregon Trail comes into use
• 1830 - Indian Removal Act
• 1831 - Nat Turner's revolt
• 1831 - The Liberator begins publication
• 1831 - Cyrus McCormick invents the reaper
• 1832 - Worcester v. State of Georgia - U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Cherokees; President Jackson ignores the ruling
• 1832 - Black Hawk War
• 1832 - Tariff of 1832
• 1832 - Ordinance of Nullification passed by South Carolina
• 1832 - Seminole War begins
• 1832 - Department of Indian Affairs established
• 1832 - Jackson re-elected amid struggle with Nicholas Biddle over the fate of the Second Bank of the United States; this struggle leads to the Panic of 1837
• 1833 - Force Bill passed
• 1835 - Texas War for Independence begins
• 1835 - Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy in America published
• 1836 - Battle of the Alamo, Battle of San Jacinto
• 1836 - Samuel Colt invents revolver
• 1836 - Gag Rule imposed
• 1836 - Specie Circular issued
• 1836 - Arkansas becomes a state
• 1837 - Martin Van Buren becomes President
• 1837 - U.S. recognizes the Republic of Texas
• 1837 - Caroline Affair
• 1837 - Michigan becomes a state
• 1837 - Oberlin College enrolls first female students, first coeducation in United States
• 1837 - Panic of 1837
• 1837 - Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge reverses Dartmouth College v. Woodward; property rights can be overridden by public need
• 1838-1839 - The Trail of Tears
• 1838 - Aroostook War
• 1839 - Amistad case

• 1841 - William Henry Harrison becomes President and dies
• 1841 - John Tyler becomes President
• 1842 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty
• 1844 - Samuel Morse sends first telegraph message
• 1845 - James Knox Polk becomes President
• 1845 - Florida and Texas become states
• 1846 - Mexican-American War begins
• 1846 - Wilmot Proviso proposed
• 1846 - Walker Tariff Bill
• 1846 - Iowa becomes a state
• 1846 - Polk Doctrine declared
• 1848 - Seneca Falls convention

"...miners, '49ers

• 1848 - Gold discovered at Sutter's Mill in California
• 1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• 1848 - Wisconsin becomes a state
• 1849 - Zachary Taylor becomes President

• 1850 - Millard Fillmore becomes President
• 1850 - Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
• 1850 - Compromise of 1850 passed
• 1850 - California becomes a state
• 1853 - Franklin Pierce becomes President
• 1853 - Commodore Matthew Perry opens Japan
• 1853 - Gadsden Purchase
• 1853 - Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published for the first time
• 1854 - Kansas-Nebraska Act ushers in "Bleeding Kansas" (1854-1859)
• 1854 - Ostend Manifesto
• 1854 - Kanagawa Treaty
• 1854 - Walker Expedition
• 1856 - Sack of Lawrence, Kansas
• 1856 - Pottawatomie Massacre
• 1856 - Preston Brooks canes Charles Sumner on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building
• 1857 - James Buchanan becomes President
• 1857 - Dred Scott v. Sanford 60 US 393 1857 declares that blacks are not citizens of the United States and cannot sue
• 1857 - LeCompton Constitution rejected in Kansas Territory
• 1857 - Panic of 1857
• 1858 - Transatlantic cable laid
• 1858 - Minnesota becomes a state
• 1858 - Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• 1859 - Harper's Ferry Raid (John Brown's Raid)
• 1859 - Comstock Lode discovered
• 1859 - Oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania
• 1859 - Oregon becomes a state