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Timeline
The Classic Short Story
1450
 Johannes Gutenberg introduces modern printing.
c. 1450-c.1850
 In what is called the Middle Passage, approximately 22 million Africans died as they were brought to
the Americas as slaves.
1556
 In Venice, Italy, people are able to buy legal notices for one coin, called a gazetta.
1702
 The first English daily newspaper is sold in London. It fits on one sheet of paper.
174l
 First American magazines include Andrew Bradford's American Magazine and Benjamin Franklin's
General Magazine, and Historical Chronicle.
1764-1820
 Gothicism is an important literary movement in England.
1790
 The rotary press is invented.
1795
 The metal press is invented.
 Edward Jenner develops smallpox vaccination process using cowpox vaccine.
 Romanticism influences English Literature.
1798
 Alien and Sedition Acts.
1800
 John Chapman or "Johnny Appleseed" scatters apple seeds throughout the Midwest.
 U.S. President Jefferson pardons all convicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts.
 U.S population is estimated to be about 5.3 million people.
 In Philadelphia, free African Americans petition Congress to end the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.
 Congress convenes in Washington, D.C. for the first time.
1801-1871
 Literary Romanticism flourishes in Italy.
1801
 Robert Trevithick demonstrates a steam locomotive.
 The New York Evening Post begins publication.
1802
 The American Academy of the Arts is established in New York City.
 An uprising of black slaves in Santo Domingo is suppressed by French troops.
 Formation of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (U.S.) formed in response to concern over
obscene literature and pictures.
1803
 The Louisiana Purchase doubles the land area of the United States.
1804
 Napoleon becomes Emperor of France.
1805
 Thomas Jefferson begins his second term as president of United States
 Establishment of modern Egypt
1806
 Prussia declares war on France
 The British occupy the Cape of Good Hope.
1807
 Slavery is abolished in Great Britain.
 Embargo Act bans all trade with foreign countries and forbids American ships to set sail for foreign
ports.
 The Clermont, first reliable steamboat, travels from New York City to Albany, N.Y.
1808
 The Osage, a Sioux tribe, signs the Osage Treaty ceding their lands in what is now Missouri and
Arkansas to the U. S.
1809
 Ecuador gains its independence from Spain
1810
 New York becomes the largest city in the United States.
 The U.S. national census records 7,239,881 people.
1812
 The first use of "Uncle Sam" occurs during the War of 1812.
 Literary Romanticism flourishes in the United States.
 President Madison asks for a declaration of war against Great Britain because of the impressments of
seamen and the blockade of American ports.
1813
 The Boston Daily Advertiser begins publication under Nathan Hale.
1814
 Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner.”
 Napoleon is exiled to Elba.
 British forces invade Washington and set fire to the Capitol, the White House, and other buildings.
 Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812.
 The mechanical press is invented.
1815
 William Tudor founds The North American Review (1815-1939).
 Unaware that the War of 1812 has ended, the British attack Andrew Jackson in New Orleans, losing
2,036 soldiers. U. S. casualties include eight killed and 13 wounded.
1816
 Regular clipper ship service begins between New York and Liverpool.
 Argentina declares independence from Spain.
 African Americans establish the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
1817
 The abolitionist newspaper Philanthropist begins publication.
 Ferry service begins between Manhattan and Staten Island.
 Publications include: William Cullen Bryant, "Thanatopsis"
1818
 The Atlantic is crossed by steamship, the Savannah.
 First Pension Act provides for veterans of the Revolutionary War.
1819
 Congress offers a $50 reward for reporting the illegal importation of slaves into the United States.
 Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" appears in the May 1819 first installment of The Sketch Book.
1820-1843
 French Romanticism flourishes as a literary movement.
1820
 The Missouri Compromise balances slave and free states admitted to the union.
 Congress makes trade in foreign slaves an act of piracy.
 Gas lighting is first used in the United States.
 The whaling ship Essex is rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean. The disaster later
influences Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
1821-1829
 Greece fights in a war to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire.
1821
 The first public high school in the United States, called the English High School, opens in Boston.
 Nicaragua, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama gain independence from Spain.
 Republic of Liberia in West Africa is established as a refuge for freed American slaves.
 The Waterford Academy for Young Ladies, later the Emma Willard School, opens in Waterford, N.Y,
the first college-level school for women in the Unites States.
1822
 Brazil gains independence from Portugal.
 The Saturday Evening Post begins publication.
 Denmark Vesey, a free African American, is convicted and hanged along with 35 others in Charleston,
S.C. when his plans to lead a slave uprising are revealed.
 President James Monroe asks Congress to recognize several newly independent republics in Latin
America, among them Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.
 The typesetting machine makes printing more efficient.
1823
 The Monroe Doctrine closes American continent to colonial settlements by European powers
1824
 The first written American Indian language (Cherokee) is penned by Sequoyah, the son of a white
trader and a Cherokee woman.
 Emancipation Day is celebrated in Illinois when slavery is abolished.
 Bureau of Indian Affairs is established.
1825
 The New York Stock Exchange opens.
 The first railroad is constructed in England.
 The completion of the Erie Canal links the Great Lakes with New York City.
 Fanny Wright, a Scottish reformer, publishes a Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery and
establishes the Nashoba Community in Tennessee (1825-28) as a cooperative in which slaves could
earn their freedom.
1826
 William Cullen Bryant becomes assistant editor of the New York Evening Post.
 The American Temperance Society is founded.
 The first commercial rail line in America is completed in Quincy, Massachusetts.
1827
 The first Mardi Gras celebration is held in New Orleans.
 New York City's first public transit system, a horse-drawn carriage that seats twelve, begins.
 The first photographs are developed on metal plates.
1828
 Elias Boudinot and Sequoyah begin publishing the Cherokee Phoenix, the first American newspaper
published in a Native American language.
 The first westward bound railroad in America runs between Baltimore and Ohio.
 Books published this year include Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language and
John James Audubon Birds of America, an engraved series of 1,065 birds in their natural habitats.
1829
 Slavery is abolished in Mexico.
 Louis Braille perfects his reading method for the blind.
 The typewriter is patented in the U.S.