Mirabilis Members 1800s

There shall be initially 410 Mirabilis Members. Mirabilis is latin for miracle.

The Mirabilis Members will each be unique in that they will adopt a year in the great American story beginning with 1607 through to the inaugural year – 2017.

Each year on July 4th the Club will add a new Mirabilis Member for the new year.

1800

“Democratic-Republican” Thomas Jefferson elected President of the United States.

1801

War with the Barbary Pirates began with unprovoked attacks on American merchant ships.

John Marshall became Chief Justice of the United States. He would increase the authority and power of the third branch of government in many ways not anticipated by the founders.

1802

Congress created the United States Military Academy at West Point in Orange County, New York.

1803

The United States purchased New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory, 828,000 square miles, from France for 15 million dollars.

Ohio became the 17th State in the Union

1804

The Corps of Discovery Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, explored the Louisiana Territory, recently acquired from France.

1805

United States Marines attacked the “shores of Tripoli.” First Barbary War ended with Treaty signed by Youssef Karamanli.

Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived at the Pacific Ocean, the first Americans to cross the continent.

1806

Henry Knox, hero of the Revolutionary War died in Thomaston, Maine.

Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived back in St. Louis, having lost only one man in the two year trek.

1807

Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves to the United States.

English warship HMS Leopard attacked and boarded American ship the Chesapeake, looking for British deserters. Four Americans killed, 17 wounded.

Robert Morison, first American missionary to China arrived in Guangzhou

American Congress enacted Embargo Act against Britain and France, resulting in economic disaster for the economy.

1808

Democrat-Republican” James Madison elected 4th President of the United States

1809

Robert Fulton patented the steamboat. Future President Abraham Lincoln born in Kentucky

1810

United States annexes The Republic of West Florida

1811

General William Henry Harrison defeated the Shawnee at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

1812

The United States declared war on Great Britain for impressment of American sailors, Britain’s support of rebellious Indian tribes in the American Midwest, and outrage over insults to national honor.

1813

United States Naval Captain Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British naval squadron in the Battle of Lake Erie. It is the first total defeat of a British naval squadron in history.

1814

British forces burned Washington D. C. but were rebuffed in Baltimore Harbor.

1815

Andrew Jackson fought and won the Battle of New Orleans with a cobbled-together force of regular army, militia, pirates, local volunteers, Indians, and Africans against a superior veteran British army commanded by General Packenham.

1816

“Democrat-Republican James Monroe elected 5th President of the United States and fourth Virginian to hold that office.

1817

President James Madison vetoed the Bonus Bill, though in favor of internal improvements, he saw no warrant in the Constitution to spend federal money on roads, bridges, etc.

1818

General Andrew Jackson led an army into Florida in response to raids in Alabama and Georgia, in the First Seminole War.

Paul Revere and Abigail Adams, died, two stalwarts of the founding of the United States.

1819

The Panic of 1819 created the first serious financial panic of the century.

Spain ceded Florida to the United States in the Adams-Onis Treaty

1820

In order to deflect contention over the expansion of slavery westward, Congress passed the “Missouri Compromise” bill establishing the southern boundary of Missouri as the line between slave and free states.

1821

Mexico permitted Moses Austin to bring 300 American families to settle in Texas; his son Stephen leads the immigrants upon his father’s death the same year.

1822

The first group of freed slaves, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, arrived in Africa. By 1847 they established the nation of Liberia, with Monrovia as the capitol, and English as the national language. Eventually, 13,000 Americans will settle there, the organization having been supported by John Randolph, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln and other prominent white men.

1823

President James Monroe stated his foreign policy principles before Congress, a view which will prevail till the end of the century. The policy becomes known as “the Monroe Doctrine” though it was set down by John Quincy Adams.

1824

John Quincy Adams son of former President John Adams elected President of the United States, perhaps the most experienced statesman ever to hold the office.

1825

American Tract Society founded

Scotsman Robert Owen’s utopian colony of New Harmony founded in Indiana. It failed.

Sequoyah’s syllabary adopted by the Cherokee nation

1826

Former Presidents and personal friends, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, die on the Fourth of July in their respective homes in Virginia and Massachusetts.

1827

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first to offer commercial transportation for goods and people.

1828

Andrew Jackson elected President of the United States

Noah Webster published the great dictionary that defined American English for many generations and is still in use today.

1829

First gold rush in America occurred in North Georgia. A U. S. Mint was established in the town of Dahlonega.

Joseph Smith of New York published The Book of Mormon, claiming its divine origins. He becomes the founder of the Mormon religion.

1830

Sioux, Fox, and Sauk tribes signed the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, ceding to the United States most of the land that would become Missouri, Minnesota and Iowa.

1831

Bloodiest slave rebellion in American history took place in Southampton County, Virginia when an African American slave and preacher, Nat Turner, and about seventy followers began the systematic murder of white people across the county. Fifty-five whites, men, women, and children were slaughtered. The rebellion was crushed and everyone associated with Turner executed. The rising sent shock waves through the South and emancipation debate ended abruptly in that region.

1832

Charles Carroll of Carrollton died at age 95; the Marylander was the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1833

City of Chicago established by 350 settlers

American Anti-Slavery Society founded by William Garrison and Lewis Tappan. Garrison’s anti-slavery publication The Liberator already had a large and growing readership.

1834

Senator Henry Clay officially named the Anti-Andrew Jackson Party the “Whigs.”

Anti-abolitionist riots occurred in New York City.

1835

Under President Andrew Jackson, the National Debt was paid off for the first and only time in history.

Texas declared independence

Second Seminole War broke out in Florida.

1836

Martin Van Buren elected President of the United States, Andrew Jackson’s hand-picked choice for successor.

The Republic of Texas created after a successful war of secession from Mexico.

1837

Abolitionist printer, Elijah P. Lovejoy, murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, as he tried to protect the destruction of his business for the third time.

Birth of Dwight L. Moody, America’s most famous evangelical evangelist of the second half of the century.

1838

Cherokee tribes from the Carolinas and Georgia forge the “trail of tears” as they are removed to new reservations in Oklahoma Territory.

1839

The Virginia Military Institute was founded in Lexington, Virginia to train young men for military service as officers. The Institute will provide hundreds of graduates to the Confederate army in the War Between the States. One of the professors, General Thomas Jackson will become one of the most famous American officers in history, as will later graduate, George C. Marshall.

1840

War hero and Whig Party President William Henry Harrison elected President; party leader Henry Clay finally in the majority.

1841

President Harrison died and Vice President John Tyler became President. He was a strict constitutionalist and thwarted his own party’s big government plans.

Texas became the 28th State.

1842

Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled the northern boundary dispute with Great Britain, east of the Rockies.

The University of Notre-Dame founded in South Bend, Indiana.

1843

Ulysses .S Grant graduated from West Point, 21st in his class.

1844

Dark horse Democratic Presidential candidate James Polk won the election, made four promises, which included not running for a second term. He accomplished all four and died the same year.

Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith shot to death by a mob while jailed for polygamy and treason.

1845

The United States Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Maryland.

American journalist John L. O’Sullivan mentioned in a newspaper article that the United States has a “manifest destiny” to expand its borders from shore to shore.

1846

The United States went to war with Mexico over Texas boundary disputes.

1847

General Zachery Taylor defeated Mexican Army at Buena Vista though outnumbered three to one. General Winfield Scott captures Vera Cruz.

Samuel Colt sold his first revolver to the United State government.

1848

The war with Mexico ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; the United States acquired California and New Mexico Territories. The War costed about 40,000 lives combined.

California gold rush began with discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill

1849

Mexican War hero General Zachery Taylor inaugurated as 12th President of the United States

1850

The last great legislative battle among the three most politically powerful Senators, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay resulted in “The Compromise of 1850,” barely stalling secession and possibly war, for ten more years.

Vice-President Millard Fillmore became President upon the untimely death of Zachery Taylor.

1851

Great American classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville published in serial form.

1852

Blockbuster novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin published by Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of anti-slavery preacher Lyman Beecher and sister of seven preachers including abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher and wife of anti-slavery college professor Calvin Stowe. The book was banned in the South but inflamed anti-slavery passions in the North.

1853

Franklin Pierce inaugurated as 14th President with the party slogan of “We Polked them in ’44, We’ll Pierce them in 52.”

1854

Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill applying the principle of “popular sovereignty” to the creation of new states. The unpopular measure led immediately to the creation of the Republican Party, a coalition of Northern Whigs, Free Soil Party, abolitionists, and others.

1855

Ambassador James Gadsden closed the deal with Mexico for another 30,000 square miles to round out the acquisition from the Mexican War.

1856

James Buchanan, “Old Buck,” won the Presidency for the Democrats over the upstart Republican Party, which did remarkably well with the “The Pathfinder,” John C. Fremont.

Bloody civil war raged in Kansas between pro and anti-slavery settlers.

Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts half to death over a public insult to Brooks’ uncle, Senator Butler. Brooks resigned and was accorded a hero’s welcome at home. Sumner recovered to become the foremost Northern leader of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Pro and anti-slavery passions heated to red-hot over the incident.

Abolitionist John Brown and his gang massacre five settlers in Pottawatomie, Kansas.

1857

The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford decision declared that slaves were not citizens and could not sue in federal court and, therefore, Scott had to remain enslaved though he lived in free territory for a number of years. 

1858

Abraham Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” speech in Springfield, Illinois after accepting the Republican nomination to run for Senate against Stephen A. Douglas the “Little Giant” of the United States Senate.

1859

Abolitionist leader and wanted murderer John Brown raided Harpers Ferry, Virginia with his gang in a failed attempt to raise a slave rebellion. After barricading themselves in the fire engine house, the raiders are attacked by a platoon of Marines who kill or capture most of the gang. Brown was charged with treason and hanged by the state of Virginia.

1860

Republican Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States with a minority of the popular vote, and no votes south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

1861

11 Southern States seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America

President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to “suppress the rebellion” and help restore the Union. The War Between the States ensued, usually known as “The Civil War.”

The Battle of First Bull Run ended in Union defeat. It was the first major clash between the opposing amateur armies.

1862

Several major Confederate victories under General Robert E. Lee seemed to indicate the South might win the war, but at great cost in blood and treasure.

1863

President Lincoln added the abolition of slavery as a goal of the Union war effort.

The Fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania together set back the fortunes of the Confederacy.

1864

Overpowering and relentless offensives against the thinning Confederate armies brought huge casualties to both sides, as the war hung in the balance, with the election of the President looming.

1865

The Confederacy falls when General Robert E. Lee surrenders his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to General Ulysses Grant, and General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to William T. Sherman in North Carolina.

President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by actor, John Wilkes Booth, and Vice-President, Tennesseean, Andrew Johnson, becomes President.

13th Amendment to the Constitution added, officially freeing the slaves and prohibiting slavery.

1866

The Republican Party moved to impeach President Johnson, but failed conviction by one vote

The Radical Republicans took over the “reconstruction” of the former Confederate States by creating military districts and running the political life at the point of the bayonet.

1867

Secretary of State William H. Seward engineered the purchase of Alaska from Russia for about two cents per acre.

1868

War hero Ulysses S. Grant was elected President of the United States; he served two terms and oversaw a scandal-plagued end, though he himself escaped censure.

14th Amendment to the Constitution added, granting citizenship to former slaves.

1869

The golden spike was driven, and the first transcontinental railroad is completed.

1870

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution ratified, granting freedmen the right to vote.

1871

John D. Rockefeller created the “South Improvement Company” and railroad interests to organize and control the petroleum industry.

1872

The New York Sun breaks the Credit Moblier scandal of the Grant administration.

1873

Modoc Indian War ended with the capture of “Captain Jack” and the Sioux War began when George Custer began the chase with the 7th U.S. Cavalry.

1874

Future President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou Henry born.

1875

Scottish-born engineer, inventor, and scientist Alexander Graham Bell made first sound transmission on his “acoustic telegraph,” secured a patent and eventually invents the telephone.

1876

Republican Governor of Ohio and war hero, Rutherford B. Hayes elected President, though the outcome hung in the balance for several months. A whiff of scandal was in the air as the two parties sat down and worked out the result, with Florida holding the key to the outcome.

Reconstruction of the South is ended.

George Armstrong Custer and several companies of the 7th Cavalry, while chasing Sioux and Cheyanne warriors, bit off more than they could chew and were wiped out at the Little Big Horn River.

1877

Battles with Indians in the Indian wars continue in many places. Crazy Horse is murdered by soldier while in captivity.

1878

Phonograph patented by Thomas Alva Edison of Milam, Ohio.

1879

Thomas Edison demonstrates first practical light bulb.

Mary Baker Eddy founded the “Church of Christ, Scientist” in Boston.

1880

Former Union General and Ohioan James Garfield elected President of the United States, serving less than a year before being assassinated by a disgruntled office-seeker, Charles Guiteau. He is succeeded by Vice-President Chester Arthur.

1881

Author, educator, and orator Booker T. Washington opened the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

1882

The Personal Liberty League was founded to oppose the Temperance Societies. Vermont, Kansas, and Iowa were already “dry.”

1883

First rodeo held in Pecos, Texas

First Steel-wire suspension bridge is opened between Brooklyn and Manhattan, after 13 years of construction.

1884

New York Governor, “Honest Grover” Cleveland elected President on a reform-Democratic ticket. He will be the only Democrat, and the only non-Civil War veteran till 1900, elected to that office between Presidents Grant and Wilson.

1885

The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City, a gift from France; some assembly required.

1886

Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House, the only President to do so.

1887

The United States Navy leased Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for naval base.

1888

Republican Benjamin Harrison, Brevet Brigadier General in the Civil War, from Indiana, elected 23rd President.

1889

The Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood kills 2,200 people

The First issue of the Wall Street Journal hits the streets

1890

Sequoia and Yellowstone national Parks created by Congress.

The 7th Cavalry kill more than 150 Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

United Mine Workers Union organized.

1891

Striking workers marching in Chicago turned into Haymarket Riot which results from bomb thrown at police, killing seven. Four anarchists hanged for throwing the dynamite and inciting the riot.

1892

Grover Cleveland became the first and only President to be elected twice in non-concurrent terms.

Carnegie Steel Company launched, producing more steel in one year than in the entire United Kingdom.

1893

Economic panic caused large downturn in economy.

“World’s Fair” in Chicago showcased new inventions, architecture, and industrial arts. One pundit exclaimed that “everything man is capable of inventing has been done!”

1894

Organized by Socialist Eugene V. Debs, national railroad strike of Pullman car operators began in Chicago with 4,000 employees and spread across the country. President Cleveland took national action against the strikers. In the course of the strike thirty were killed and fifty-seven injured and millions of dollars in property were destroyed.

1895

J.P. Morgan and the Rothschilds banks sold the United States government enough gold to survive the depletion in the treasury.

1896

Ohio Republican Civil War hero, William McKinley elected President over populist Democrat candidate William Jennings Bryan, who will be the party nominee two more elections and lose them all.

1897

Klondike gold rush began.

The “yellow journalism” of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in the United States covered the unrest in Cuba, favorable to the rebels, and agitated for retaliation against Spain

1898

The United States went to war with Spain over oppression in the island of Cuba. The war lasted three months and three weeks at the cost of about 3,000 American and 16,000 Spanish lives, more than 90% of them from disease.

1899

The United States received the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as a result of the War with Spain.

War with the United States broke out in the Philippines because the U.S. refused to grant independence.

Vice President Garret Hobart died in office, opening the way for a new candidate in the upcoming Presidential election. The reluctant choice will be Spanish-American War hero Theodore Roosevelt.