Note These Dates

Below is a timeline of helpful dates for a family historian to know. To find clues about our ancestor's lives, one must know where to place them in history. 

Beginning of mankind = Walking
Boats on rivers; Ships on the sea
3200 B.C. = wheels on chariots
1347-53 = Bubonic Plague in Europe
=========================
NEW WORLD!

1492 = Christopher Columbus

1582 =  The Gregorian Calendar was implemented by His Holiness, Pope Gregory XIII in October.
1585 = Roanoke Colony settled (N.C.)
1607 = Jamestown settled (VA.)
1620 = Mayflower ship landed (MA.)
1704 = First U.S. Newspaper
1749 = Calendar standardized; Conestoga wagon (PA). 

1751 = Law changed end of year to Dec 31. 
1752 = Sept. The United States finally switched from the old Julien calendar to Gregorian calendar with 11 days difference. Jan 1 began the year.
1755-1763 = French and Indian War
1775-1783 = War of Independence
1776 = July 4. USA Birthday!
1790 = First USA Census
1792 = Kentucky Statehood (15th)
1803 = Louisiana Purchase 
1812-1815 = War of 1812.

1817-1818 = 1^st Seminole War
1818 = Illinois Statehood (21st)

1820 = Missouri Compromise
1821 = Missouri Statehood (24th); Santa Fe Trail  
1830 = Oregon Trail
1831 =  McCormick's reaper
1832 = Black Hawk War  
1835 = Telegraph;

1835-1842 = 2^nd Seminole War

1837 = Osage River Steamboat; Miller County, MO.
1838 = Trail of Death
1839 = Daguerreotype photos
1843 = Typewriter
1845 = The New England Historic Genealogical Society
1846-1848 = Mexican War
1849 = California Gold Rush
1849 = Cholera Epidemic
1850 = Family Names in Census
1854 = Ambrotype photos
1856 = tintype or ferreotype photos
1858 = Colorado Gold Rush
1859 = Paper Photographs
1861 = Kansas Statehood (34th); Color Photography
1861-1865 = Civil War.
1862 = Homestead Act; Tax Act
1862-1870 = Missouri's Oath of Loyalty Law
1865 = Black marriages legalized in MO.
1869 = First Transcontinental Railroad
1879 = Edison's light bulb
1884 = Flash photography
1885 = Fingerprints
1886 = horse-less carriage
1888 = Eastman’s Kodak Camera
1889-1899 = Spanish-American War
1890 = American Frontier closed.
1892 = Ellis Island; Dalton's Raid on the Banks, Coffeyville, KS. 
1893 = First concrete paved street
1897 = Alaska Gold Rush
1899 = Philippine American War
1903 = Airplane  
1910 = Registry of Births and Deaths in Missouri.
1914-1918 = World War I.
1918-20: "Spanish" Flu 
1921 = Fire destroys most of 1890 Census
1929 - 1941 = American Depression
1933 = State Birth Certificates
 1935 = MO. Sales Tax
1939-1945 = WWII.
1950-1953 = Korean War
1950 = Atomic clock
1953 = DNA Structure Discovery
1954 = International Confederation of Genealogy and Heraldry.
1961 = First manned rocket
1961-1975 = Vietnam War 
1976 = Roots! By Alex Haley; United States of America Bicentennial; O'Neal's Golden Wedding Anniversary
1977 = Dad's 50th birthday 
1980s = Human Genome Mapping
1981 = Church of God (Anderson, IN) Centennial;  Ullom's Golden Wedding Anniversary
1983 = Ancestry.com;
1984 = Family Tree Maker software
1988 = Mom and Dad's last wedding anniversary. 
1991 = Persian Gulf War
1992 = Dalton Defender's Centennial 
1994 = GPS (Global Positioning System)
1996 = Memory Makers Magazine; Google Search Engine launched
2003 = My in-law's Golden Wedding Anniversary
2008 = Nazarene denomination Centennial
2019-2020 = Worldwide Coronavirus Pandemic
2020 = Eldon Church of the Nazarene Centennial, Eldon, MO. 

Timeline compiled by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 2/5/2021

____ = First Church of God, Kansas City, KS 50th Anniversary
____ = Metropolitan Nazarene, Kansas City, KS. 50th Anniversary
____ = Grandview Nazarene, Grandview, MO 50th Anniversary 

I recommend this website to convert dates and times. Say you have a tombstone with a death date and age, but no birth date. Use this website's handy date calculator to figure an approximate birth date. Time and Date.com