The road used by migrants moving westward in the mid-19th century, known as the Oregon Trail, ran about 2,000 miles from Independence or Westport, Missouri, to Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
It took about six months for wagon trains to cover the distance.
The Oregon Trail was in use from the 1840s until the advent of the railroads in the 1870s.
The 71-year-old head of the Gambino crime family Paul Castellano was shot dead on December 16, 1985, on 46th Street near Third Avenue in New York City. His successor, John Gotti, reputedly masterminded the killing.
“American Independent” candidate George Wallace, with his running mate Curtis LeMay, got 13.6 percent of the popular vote and 8.6 percent of the electoral vote. Richard Nixon won against both Wallace and Hubert Humphrey. How many electoral votes did independent candidate John Anderson get in 1980? None, but John Anderson did win 6.6 percent of…
Only two future presidents signed the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. George Washington and James Madison were the only two to sign the Constitution.
Legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone was an old man when Davy Crockett was just starting his own career as a backwoodsman. Born in Pennsylvania, Boone (1734-1820) is best known for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky. Crockett (1786-1836) served as a U.S. representative from Tennessee and died defending the Alamo. Both men are remembered in folklore…
First Bull Run, Virginia Confederacy July 21, 1861 Shiloh, Tennessee Union April 6-7, 1862 Second Bull Run, Virginia Confederacy August 29-30, 1862 Antietam, Maryland Union September 17, 1862 Federicksburg, Virginia Confederacy December 13, 1862 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi Union May 22—July 4, 1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Union July 1-3, 1863 The Wilderness, Virginia Union May 5-6,…
What Peter Minuit gave the Manhattoe tribe was a package of trinkets and cloth valued at 60 guilders, roughly equivalent to $24.