2. DATE- #41 1857 1857 - Dred Scott v. Sanford: Landmark Supreme Court decision holds that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens.

3. DATE- #42 1859 1859 - Abolitionist John Brown and 21 followers capture federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now W. Va.), in an attempt to spark a slave revolt (Oct. 16).

4. DATE- #43 1860 1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union

5. DATE- #44 1861 1861- Confederates attack Ft. Sumter in Charleston, S.C., marking the start of the Civil War.

6. DATE- #45 1863 1863- Emancipation Proclamation is issued, freeing slaves in the Confederate states

7. DATE- #46 1865 1865- Lincoln is assassinated (April 14) by John Wilkes Booth in Washington, DC.

8. DATE- #47 1867 1867 - U.S. acquires Alaska from Russia for the sum of $7.2 million

9. DATE- #48 1869 1869- Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads are joined at Promontory, Utah, creating first transcontinental railroad

10. DATE- #49 1870 1870- Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving blacks the right to vote

11. DATE- #50 1871 1871- Chicago fire kills 300 and leaves 90,000 people homeless

12. DATE- #51 1876 1876- Lt. Col. George A. Custer's regiment is wiped out by Sioux Indians under Sitting Bull at the Little Big Horn River, Mont.

13. DATE- #52 1886 1886 - Statue of Liberty is dedicated (Oct. 28). American Federation of Labor is organized

14. DATE- #53 1890 1890- Last major battle of the Indian Wars occurs at Wounded Knee in South Dakota the frontier is closed

15. DATE- #54 1896 1896- Plessy v. Ferguson: Landmark Supreme Court decision holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws in the South

16. DATE- #55 1898 1898- Spanish-American War: USS Maine is blown up in Havana harbor. U.S. declares war on Spain (Spain gives up control of Cuba, which becomes an independent republic, and cedes Puerto Rico, Guam, and (for $20 million) the Philippines to the U.S.

17. DATE- #56 1903 1903- U.S. acquires Panama Canal Zone (treaty signed Nov. 17). Wright brothers make the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

18. DATE- #57 1914 1914- World War I: begins in 1914 U.S. enters World War I in 1917. War ends in 1919

19. DATE- #58 1916 1916- Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives

20. DATE- #59 1918 1918 - Worldwide influenza epidemic strikes; by 1920, nearly 20 million are dead. In U.S., 500,000 perish.

21. DATE- #60 1919 1919- Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote