Key Events in American History: 1855

President: Franklin Pierce

VP: vacant

Date, Event

January Klamath & Salmon River War between settlers & Indians in Klamath County, CA

January Economic depression is hitting San Francisco

Feb 23rd Black Friday in San Francisco; Banking panic hits the city & ultimately California

Feb 24th Adams Express Company goes into receivership

Mar 30th Missourians cross into Kansas and give fraudulent votes to elect a pro-slavery body in KS

Oct 5th First battle of the Yakima War (Battle of Toppenish Creek)

Nov 10th Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes the "Song of Hiawatha"

Nov 26th Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins between anti- & pro-slavery forces

Dec 13th The first issue of "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper" appears in New York

California Gold Rush continues (1848-1855)

Third Seminole War in Florida

197 business failures in San Francisco

5,000 New Orleans residents die of yellow fever

Cattle population in Texas increases to 1 million

Walt Whitman publishes "Leaves of Grass"

Petroleum oil is researched for additional uses at Yale University

Jan 5th King C. Gillette (Businessman/Founder of Gillette Safety Razor co.)

Jan 23rd John Browning (Firearms Designer)

Mar 13th Percival Lowell (Astronomer)

Feb 23rd Carl Friedrich Gauss (Mathematician)