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Library of Congress
In 1800, as part of an act of Congress providing for the removal of the new national government from Philadelphia to Washington, President John Adams approved an act of Congress providing $5,000 for books for the use of Congress—the beginning of the Library of Congress. -
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Thomas Jefferson 3rd U.S President
Thomas Jefferson was elected the third President of the U.S in 1801 and then re-elected again in 1805. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase eventually doubled the size of the United States, greatly strengthened the country materially and strategically, provided a powerful impetus to westward expansion, and confirmed the doctrine of implied powers of the federal Constitution. -
12th Amendment Added to The U.S Constitution
The Twelfth Amendment requires a person to receive a majority of the electoral votes for vice president for that person to be elected vice president by the Electoral College. If no candidate for vice president has a majority of the total votes, the Senate, with each senator having one vote, chooses the vice president. -
Embargo Act
The Embargo Act closed U.S. ports to all exports and restricted imports from Britain. The act was Pres. Thomas Jefferson's response to British and French interference with neutral U.S. merchant ships during the Napoleonic Wars. -
First Successful Steamboat
The first successful steamboat was the Clermont, which was built by American inventor Robert Fulton in 1807. systems and, eventually, moved to France to work on canals. It was in France that he met Robert Livingston. -
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James Madison 4th U.S President
Madison won the 1808 presidential election by a wide margin. He defeated Federalist Charles C. Pinckney and Independent Republican George Clinton, securing nearly 70 percent of the electoral votes. -
War of 1812
Conflict fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against Great Britain and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. -
Treaty of Ghent
The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands -
Second Bank of The United States
The Second Bank of the United States, chartered in 1816, was designed to ensure financial stability in the U.S. -
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James Monroe 5th U.S President
In 1816 Monroe was elected president of the United States as the Republican candidate, defeating Rufus King, the Federalist candidate. -
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John Quincy Adams 6th U.S President
John Quincy Adams was elected as president without getting the majority of the electoral vote or the popular vote, being the only president to do so. -
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Andrew Jackson 7th U.S President
Andrew Jackson was the first to be elected president by appealing to the mass of voters rather than the party elite. -
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down, Westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism abounded. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. -
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Martin Van Buren 8th U.S President
Martin Van Buren successfully ran for president in the 1836 presidential election, defeating several Whig opponents. However, his popularity soon eroded with his response to the Panic of 1837, which centered on his Independent Treasury system. -
William Henry Harrison 9th U.S President
Whig General William Henry Harrison defeated Democratic President Martin Van Buren. Harrison won by a margin of 5% in the popular vote but dominated the electoral college. Harrison was nominated at the 1839 Whig National Convention, the first convention in Whig history. -
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John Tyler 10th U.S President
When President William Henry Harrison died in April 1841. He was the first Vice President to succeed to the Presidency after the death of his predecessor. -
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James K. Polk 11th U.S President
As President, he oversaw the largest territorial expansion in American history— over a million square miles of land—acquired through a treaty with England and war with Mexico. -
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Mexican American War
The United States Congress declared war on Mexico after a request from President James K. Polk. The U.S. also tried to buy Texas and what was called “Mexican California” from Mexico, which was seen as an insult by Mexico. -
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Zachary Taylor 12th U.S President
Taylor won the election and became the nation's 12th president, replacing President James K. Taylor narrowly defeated the Democratic Party, led by Michigan's Lewis Cass, and the Free-Soil Party, led by former President Martin Van Buren. -
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Millard Fillmore 13th U.S President
Millard Fillmore became President of the United States upon the death of Zachary Taylor. Fillmore had been Vice President of the United States for 1 year, 4 months when he became the 13th United States president. -
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Franklin Pierce 14th U.S President
By pursuing the recommendations of southern advisers, Pierce — a New Englander — hoped to ease the divisions that led eventually to Civil War. Franklin Pierce became President at a time of apparent tranquility. -
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. -
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James Buchanan 15th U.S President
Having thus consolidated his position in the South, Buchanan was nominated for president in 1856 and was elected, winning 174 electoral votes to 114 for the Republican John C. Frémont and 8 for Millard Fillmore, the American Party candidate. -
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Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S President
Abraham Lincoln became the United States' 16th President in 1861, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863. -
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Civil War
The Civil War was a brutal war that lasted from 1861 to 1865. It left the south economically devastated, and resulted in the criminalization of slavery in the United States. -
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First Transcontinental Railroad
Just as it opened the markets of the west coast and Asia to the east, it brought products of eastern industry to the growing populace beyond the Mississippi. The railroad ensured a production boom, as industry mined the vast resources of the middle and western continent for use in production. -
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Andrew Johnson 17th U.S President
With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. -
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Ulysses S. Grant 18th U.S President
A war hero, drawn in by his sense of duty, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republican Party and was elected president in 1868. As president, Grant stabilized the post-war national economy, supported Congressional Reconstruction, ratification of the 15th Amendment, and crushed the Ku Klux Klan.
