Gilded Age

The **Gilded Age** is a period of history, part of modern times. It lasted from 1865 until 1890, from the Slaveholders' Rebellion until the Steampunk Era.

## Timeline

### 1865

**July 21:** Wild Bill Hickok kills a cowboy in the first recorded quick draw gunfight--Springfield, Missouri

**December 1:** A cannon fired from Florida sends three explorers from the Earth to the Moon.

Captain Nemo conducting biological experiments on the Mysterious Island (34°57 S 150°30 W, about 2,500 km east of New Zealand).

### 1866

Using the advanced submarine *Nautilus*, Nemo begins a campaign of terror against all sea powers.

Alfred Nobel invents dynamite--Krummel, Germany

**March 5:** John Carter is transported to Barsoom.

Jonah Hex (1838-1904) becomes a bounty hunter.

### 1867

Beginning of the extermination of the American buffalo.

Former Confederate spy Jesse James (b. 1847) begins leading a gang of outlaws in a series of spectacular crimes.

The Marquess of Queensberry publishes his Rules.

### 1868

**January 16:** Emperor Meiji of Japan (1852-1912) declares the restoration of imperial rule and the end of the power of the Shogunate.

**September:** Confederate veteran Rhett Butler marries plantation heiress Scarlett O'Hara--Jonesborough, Georgia

Buffalo Bill Cody wins his nickname in a buffalo-killing contest.

**November 3:** Ulysses S. Grant elected President of the United States.

### 1869

**May 10:** Leland Stanford hammers the Golden Spike to complete the transcontinental railroad--Promontory, Utah

**October 16:** Cardiff Giant uncovered--Cardiff, New York.

**November 17:** Suez Canal opens for shipping.

### 1870

Calamity Jane Canary (1852-1903) becomes a scout for Gen. George Custer.

**July 19:** Franco-Prussian War begins.

### 1871

**March 18:** Paris Commune established.

March 21: Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) becomes chancellor of the German Empire (until 1890).

**June 1:** As Marshal of Abilene, Kansas, Wild Bill Hickok disarms John Wesley Hardin.

**October 8:** Mrs. O'Leary's cow starts the Great Chicago Fire.

**November 10:** Henry Morton Stanley tracks down Dr. David Livingstone: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”--Ujiji, Tanzania

Invention of the penny-farthing bicycle.

### 1872

**September:** Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) splits with Karl Marx at the First International--The Hague, Netherlands

**October 2:** Phileas\_Fogg
 bets his friends at the Reform Club that he can circumnavigate the
globe in 80 days, and sets off that same day with his manservant Jean Passepartout.

**December 21:** Fogg and Passepartout arrive back at the Reform Club in time to win the bet.

### 1873

Dorian Gray (1853-1891) has his portrait painted.

**March 1:** The Pirate King defeated by a modern major general--Penzance, Cornwall

**May 20:** Levi Strauss patents his blue jeans.

### 1874

John Reid (b. 1850), the only survivor of a massacred band of Texas Rangers, adopts the persona of the Lone Ranger in order to pursue the killers.

**December 4:** The *Marie Celeste* is found floating off the coast of Portugal, its crew mysteriously vanished.

### 1876

Rudolf Rassendyll impersonates his distant cousin, King Rudolph V of Ruritania, the Prisoner of Zenda.

**March 10:** Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone--Boston.

**June 26:** at Lakota Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse turn the Battle of Little Big Horn into Custer's last stand .

**August 2:** Wild Bill Hickok is murdered after being dealt the Dead Man's Hand, aces and eights--Deadwood, South Dakota

**September 7:** Jesse James and Cole Younger lead the great Northfield, Minnesota Raid.

### 1877

**June 21:** Hanging of the Molly McGuires--Pottsville, Pennsylvania

**August 24:** John Wesley Hardin captured by the Texas Rangers--Pensacola, Florida

**October 5:** Chief Joseph (1840-1904) of the Nez Perce declares, "I will fight no more forever."

**November 21:** Thomas\_Edison (1847-1931) invents the phonograph, his first major invention--Menlo Park, New Jersey

### 1878

Start of the Hatfield/McCoy Feud across the Kentucky/West Virginia border, which continues until 1891.

Ned Kelly (1854-1880) goes into hiding in the Outback.

Lincoln County War

Sir Joseph Porter, ruler of the Queen's Navy, solves the amorous problems of the HMS *Pinafore*--Portsmouth

### 1879

Zulu war.

**October 22:** Edison invents the light bulb

Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) founds the First Church of Christ, Scientist.

Connecticut Yankee Hank Morgan transported back to King Arthur's court. (See 528.)

### 1880

A Phantom terrorizes the French Opera.

**July 3:** The first case of Sherlock Holmes (1854-1957)

The vampire known as Spike is created.

 The Boer Wars begin.

### 1881

**January 1:** Sherlock Holmes meets Dr. James Watson--London

**March 4:** Holmes and Watson investigate a study in scarlet--their first case together--London.

**March 20:** Dr. Henry Jekyll takes the potion for the first time that transforms him into Mr. Edward Hyde.

**July 2:** President James Garfield assassinated by frustrated office-seeker Charles Guiteau.

**July 14:** Billy the Kid (William Bonney, b. 1861) shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

**July 19:** Sitting Bull surrenders--Fort Buford, North Dakota

**October 26:** John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887) and Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) win a gunfight at the OK Corral--Tombstone, Arizona

### 1882

**February:** Helen Keller (1880-1968) contracts an illness that leaves her deaf and blind.

**August 2:** Judge Roy Bean becomes the Law West of the Pecos--Vinegaroon, Texas

**August:** Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) declares that God is dead.

Simon Morley travels back to Old New York from the year 1970.

**April 3:** Jesse James officially killed (though he is reportedly seen alive as late as 1948)--St. Joseph, Missouri

### 1883

**August 12:** Extinction of the quagga--Amsterdam

Dinah working on the railroad, blowing her horn.

### 1884

**February 10:** Henry Jekyll, transformed permanently into Edward Hyde, takes his own life rather than face punishment for his crimes.

**March 3:** Anne Sullivan becomes Helen Keller's teacher--Tuscumbia, Alabama

Allan Quartermain (1815-86) discovers King Solomon's Mines--Kukuanaland

The American buffalo virtually exterminated.

### 1885

Henry Frankenstein (b. 1860), aided by Ygor, reanimates a creature, using the techniques of his Great Uncle Victor Von Frankenstein--Frankenstein, Germany. (See 1795.)

**January 1:** Dr. Emmett Brown, time traveller from 1985, is stranded in the Old West--Hill Valley, California

**April:** Sharpshooter Annie Oakley joins Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show.

September 2: Marty McFly comes back from the future to rescue Doc Brown.

### 1886

Working with Doctor Septimus\_Praetorious (and assisted again by Ygor), Henry Frankenstein creates a Bride for his Monster. Later, after learning to talk, the Monster attempts to destroy himself, his Bride and Pretorious--Frankenstein, Germany

**January 29:** Karl Benz patents the first gas-powered automobile.

**May 4:** Seven police officers are killed in the Haymarket Riot--Chicago

**May 29:** Coca-Cola advertised for sale for the first time, combining the great tastes of cola nuts and coca leaves.

**July 23:** Steve Brodie jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge.

**September 4:** Geronimo surrenders--Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.

**October 28:** President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty--New York City.

**November 30:** Premiere of *Folies Bergere*--Paris.

### 1887

John Henry (b. 1844) dies in a contest with a steam engine.

**May 30:** Julian West falls asleep and does not wake up until the year 2000.

Revolution on the Island of Dr. Moreau--Noble's Isle

**February 2:** The groundhog Punxsutawney Phil begins prophecizing--Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

**November 8:** The Gramophone invented--Washington, D.C.

### 1888

**January 7:** Sherlock Holmes tangles with Professor James Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, for the first time.

**January 13:** National Geographic Society founded--Washington, D.C.

**March 20:** Holmes encounters the well-known adventuress Irene Adler (b. 1858), the only woman who ever outsmarts him.

**June 2:** Mighty Casey strikes out--Mudville, Massachusetts

**June 20:** Holmes forced to seek the help of his smarter brother Mycroft at the Diogenes Club.

**August 31:** Jack the Ripper claims his first victim--Whitechapel, London

**November 9:** Jack the Ripper takes his last victim.

**November 22:** Birth of Tarzan, Lord Greystoke. The infant is adopted by gorillas and becomes Tarzan of the Apes.

**December 23:** Vincent Van Gogh cuts off his left ear.

### 1889

Marlow travels up the Congo River to confront a megalomaniacal colonial agent named Kurtz.

**March 31:** Gustave Eiffel completes his Tower--Paris

**May 31:** The Johnstown Flood kills 2,200 people--Cambria County, Pennsylvania

**June:** Vincent Van Gogh paints *Starry Night*.

**October 1:** Sherlock Holmes and James Watson investigate the Hound of the Baskervilles.

**November 14:** *New York World* reporter Nellie Bly sets out to best Phileas Fogg's round-the-world time--New York City

### 1890

**January 25:** Nellie Bly arrives back in New York City, 72 days after she departed.

**July 27:** Vincent Van Gogh shoots himself in a cornfield.

**December 29:** In the Wounded Knee Massacre, the U.S. government suppresses the Paiute prophet Wavoka's Ghost Dance movement.