1869

Events from the year 1869 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Andrew Johnson (D-TN) (until March 4), Ulysses S. Grant (R-IL) (starting March 4)
* Vice President: vacant (until March 4), Schuyler Colfax (R-IN) (starting March 4)
* Chief Justice: Salmon P. Chase (OH)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives:
** until March 3: Schuyler Colfax (R-IN)
** March 3–March 4: Theodore Medad Pomeroy (R-NY)
** starting March 4: James G. Blaine (R-ME)
* Congress: 40th (until March 4), 41st (starting March 4)
==Events==
===January - March===
* January 1 – Sigma Nu, the first anti-hazing honor/social fraternity, is founded, at Virginia Military Institute.
* January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.
* January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.
* February 15 – Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.
* March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant is sworn in as the 18th President of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
* March 9 – Southern Illinois University Carbondale is established by the state legislature as Southern Illinois Normal College.
===April - June===
* April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York City.
* May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.
* May 10 – The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in Promontory, Utah.
* May 15 – Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
* May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
* June 1
** The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional baseball team.
** Thomas Edison is granted his first patent for the Electric Vote Recorder.
* June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York.
===July - September===
* July 4 – World's first rodeo held in Deer Trail, Colorado
* September 15 – Brooklyn Fire Department organized as a professional brigade.
* September 24 – Black Friday: The Fisk-Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.
===October - December===
* October 8 – New York Foundling Asylum incorporated.
* October 11 – Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.
* October 16 – The Tremont House in Boston becomes the first hotel to have indoor plumbing.
* November 6 – The first intercollegiate game of American football is played: Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4 in a college football game.
* December 7 – Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.
* December 10
** The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.
** The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, one of the first such laws in the world.
==Memoriam==
* January 1 – Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1857 to 1859 (aged 82; Dover, DE, USA)
* January 7 – Lovell Rousseau, Union Army general, lawyer and politician (aged 50; New Orleans, LA, USA)
* January 11 – Sophia Dallas, Second Lady of the United States as wife of George M. Dallas (aged 70; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* February 18 – Walker Brooke, U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1852 to 1853 (aged 55; Vicksburg, MS, USA)
* March 13 – James Guthrie, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1865 to 1868 (aged 76; Louisville, KY, USA)
* March 25 – Edward Bates, slave owner, lawyer and politician (aged 75; St. Louis, MO, USA)
* April 13 – Isaiah Rogers, architect (aged 68; Cincinnati, OH, USA)
* May 23 – Alexander O. Anderson, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1840 to 1841 (aged 74; Knoxville, TN, USA)
* June 2 – Sandy Cornish, freed slave and farmer (aged 76; Key West, FL, USA)
* July 18 – Laurent Clerc, advocate for the deaf (aged 83; Hartford, CT, USA)
* July 22 – John A. Roebling, bridge engineer (aged 63; New York City, NY, USA)
* July 30 – Isaac Toucey, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1851 to 1857 (aged 76; Hartford, CT, USA)
* August 6 – David J. Baker, U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1830 (aged 76; Alton, IL, USA)
* September 6 – William Hamlin, UEL Connexion (aged 82; Crawford, OH, USA)
* September 10 – John Bell, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1847 to 1859 (aged 73; Stewart County, TN, USA)
* October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857 (aged 64; Concord, NH, USA)
* November 11 – Hiram Bingham I, missionary to Hawaii (aged 80; New Haven, CT, USA)
* November 21 – Benjamin Fitzpatrick, U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1848 to 1849 and 1853 to 1861 (aged 67; Wetumpka, AL, USA)
* November 22 – William Hamlin, engraver (aged 97; Providence, RI, USA)
* December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist (aged 40; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
* December 24 – Edwin Stanton, 27th United States Secretary of War (aged 55; Washington, DC, USA)
==External links==
* 1869 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 9