Westward the course of empire

Westward Expansion

  • Louisiana Purchase

    Louisiana Purchase
    The Louisiana Purchase, The United States, afraid that France might withdraw its offer if they failed to act quickly, signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with France on April 30, 1803. News of the treaty reached Washington, D.C. and was announced to the American people on July 4th of that year.
  • Lewis and Clark Expedition begins

    Lewis and Clark Expedition begins
    One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. On May 14,the crops of Discovery Featuring approximately 45 men only 33 men would make the full journey .
  • Trail of Tears Starts

    Trail of Tears Starts
    By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of tears.
  • California Gold Rush Begins

    California Gold Rush Begins
    A fact is that few people mead money out of gold, and Mexicans were the firs people to fine gold in California Gold Rush . People begin to have Mexican work for days to fined gold for them this happened as well with a Shines that came to explore and people make them like slaves to fined gold like Mexicans.
  • Kansas-Nabraska Act

    Kansas-Nabraska Act
    The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 may have been the single most significant event leading to the Civil War. By the early 1850s settlers and entrepreneurs wanted to move into the area now known as Nebraska.
  • Homestead Act

    Homestead Act
    At a New Year's Eve party the night befor, Freeman met some local Land Office officials and convinced a clerk to open the office shortly after midnight in order to file a land claim. In doing so, Freeman became one of the first to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Homestead Act, a law signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20,1862.
  • US Civil War Ends

    US Civil War Ends
    In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith’s surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history.
  • Buffalo Soldiers Formde

    Buffalo Soldiers Formde
    Following the U.S. Civil War, regiments of African-American men known as buffalo soldiers served on the western frontier, battling Indians and protecting settlers. The buffalo soldiers included two regiments of all-black cavalry, the 9th and 10th cavalries, formed after Congress passed legislation in 1866 that allowed African Americans to enlist in the country’s regular peacetime military.
  • Transcontinental Railroad Completed

    Transcontinental Railroad Completed
    On this day in 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history.
  • Chief Joseph Surrenders to US Army

    Chief Joseph Surrenders to US Army