1855 in the United States explained
Events from the year 1855 in the United States.
Incumbents
Events
- April - Cincinnati riots of 1855: Tension between nativists and German-American immigrants in Cincinnati breaks out into territorial street fighting on election day.
- May 17 - The Mount Sinai Hospital is dedicated (as the Jews' Hospital) in New York City; it opens to patients on June 5.
- June 6 - Portland Rum Riot: A crowd gathers at a storehouse believed to hold alcohol in Portland, Maine. The militia is called in and fires on the crowd to disperse the crowd, killing one person.
- June 28 - The Sigma Chi fraternity is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
- July 1 - Quinault Treaty signed, Quinault and Quileute cede their land to the United States.
- July 2 - The Kansas Territorial Legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.
- July 4 - Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn.
- July 6 - The Kansas Territorial Legislature meets for the last time in Pawnee, voting to relocate to Shawnee, closer to the border of slave state Missouri.
- July 16 - U.S. Indian commissioner Isaac Stevens signs the Hellgate treaty with Native Americans living in modern-day western Montana.
- August 6
- September 3 - First Sioux War: Battle of Ash Hollow - U.S. forces defeat a band of Brulé Lakota in present-day Garden County, Nebraska.
- October 5 - Yakima War: Battle of Toppenish Creek - In the Yakima River Valley, a band of Yakama warriors forces a company of U.S. soldiers to retreat in the first battle of the War.
- October 28–31 - First Fiji expedition: The U.S. Navy dispatches the USS John Adams to Viti Levu, Fiji, to protect American interests. One American sailor is killed and two Marines are wounded.[2]
- November 1 - 31 people are killed in the Gasconade Bridge train disaster in Missouri.
- November 9–10 - Yakima War: Battle of Union Gap - American soldiers attack a Yakama village, forcing the village to retreat.
- November 21 - Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to the Wakarusa War between antislavery and proslavery forces.
Ongoing
Births
- February 4 - George Cope, painter (died 1929)
- February 23 - Jonathan Bourne, Jr., U.S. Senator from Oregon from 1907 to 1913 (died 1940)
- June 14 - Robert M. La Follette, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (died 1925)
- June 17 - Janet Cook Lewis, portrait painter, librarian, and bookbinder (died 1947)
- July 29 - Bowman Brown Law, politician (died 1916)
- August 4 - Jay Hunt, film director (died 1932)
- September 2 - M. Hoke Smith, U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1911 to 1920 (died 1931)
- October 21 - Howard Hyde Russell, temperance activist (died 1946)
- October 23 - James S. Sherman, 27th vice president of the United States from 1909 to 1912 (died 1912)
- October 26 - Jessie Wilson Manning, American author and lecturer
- November 5 - Eugene V. Debs, union leader (died 1926)[3]
- November 6 - Annie Keeler, early woman physician (died 1927)
- December 10 - August Spies, labor activist and newspaper editor (died 1887)
- December 28 - John William Wood, Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson, North Carolina (died 1928)
Deaths
See also
Notes and References
- Web site: Railroad — Western North Carolina Railroad. North Carolina Business History. 2006. historync.org. 2013-05-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20131030140855/http://www.historync.org/railroad-WNCRR.htm. 2013-10-30.
- http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq56-1.htm Casualties: U. S. Navy and Marine Corps
- Web site: Eugene Victor Debs 1855-1926. Eugene V. Debs Foundation. 2011-04-23. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110509025951/https://debsfoundation.org/personalhistory.html. 2011-05-09.
