Timeline of United States history (1820-1859)

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

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 - 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 with Indians 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 - US recognizes the Republic of Texas
1837 - Caroline Affair
1837 - Michigan becomes a state
1837 - Oberlin College enrolls first female students
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

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 published
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
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
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

1820-1859
History of the United States