Key Events in American History: 1856
President: Franklin Piece
VP: vacant
Date, Event
Jan 1st Postage stamps are now required on all mail
Feb 18th The Know-Nothings nominate Millard Fillmore as their nominee for President
May 16th The Vigilance Committee is revived in San Francisco and lynches 2 gangsters & arrests most Democratic officials
May 21st Lawrence, KS is captured & burned by pro-slavery forces
May 22nd Congressman Preston Brooks beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for his speech he made condemning pro-slavery Southerners
May 24th Pottawatomie Massacre: Followers of John Brown kill 5 homesteaders in KS for burning Lawrence, KS
Jun 2nd Anti-slavery forces led by John Brown defeat pro-slavery forces in Kansas
Jun 5th Samuel Colt marries Elizabeth Jarvis
Jul 17th Great Train Wreck of 1856: 2 trains collide near Philadelphia, PA killing 59 & injuring at least 100
Nov 4th Democrat James Buchanan defeats Millard Fillmore (Know-Nothing)
Other
Bleeding Kansas continues (1854-1860)
Western Union Telegraph Company is founded
Indian population in California has declined from 100,000 in 1849 to 50,000
Harper's Weekly begins publication in New York
Births
Apr 5th Booker T. Washington (Orator/Civil Rights Leader)
May 6th Sigmund Freud (Neurologist/Father of Psychoanalysis)
Jul 10th Nikola Tesla (Inventor)
Dec 28th Woodrow Wilson (28th President)
Deaths
Oct 4th Alfred V. du Pont (Businessman)
Oct 4th Tom Bell (Outlaw)
