Eyewitness to America: 500 years of America in the words of those who saw it happen

The old world discovers the new world, October 10-13,1492 / Bartolomé de Las Casas

Columbus meets the native Americans, October 12, 1492 / Christopher Columbus

Epidemic at Stadacona, and a cure, February 1536 / Jacques Cartier

The founding of St. Augustine, August 25-September 8, 1565 / Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales

Sir Francis Drake claims a kingdom, June 17, 1579 / Francis Fletcher

Virginia, July 2-4, 1584 / Captain Arthur Barlow

The lost colony, 1590 / John White

The founding of Jamestown, May 13, 1607 / John Smith

Pocahontas saves John Smith, January 1608 / John Smith

The first representative assembly in America, July 30, 1619 / John Twine.

Cont.): The Pilgrims' landing and first winter, November 21, 1620

March 20, 1621 / William Bradford

The Maypole of Merry-Mount, May 1, 1628 / Thomas Morton

Roger Williams demands freedom of religion, 1634-1636 / Nathaniel Morton

Stuyvesant's bad government, 1647 / Junker Van der Donck and others

An angry slave, October 2, 1663 / John Josselyn

Jolliet and Marquette travel the Mississippi, June 10-17, 1673 / Father Jacques Marquette

King Philip's war: Mary Rowlandson is captured, Februry 10, 1675 / Mary Rowlandson

New York and environs, September 24-October 11, 1679 / Jaspar Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter

Harvard students, July 9, 1680 / Jaspar Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter.

Cont.): Trial of "witches" Susannah Martin and Mary Lacey, 1692 / Ezekiel Cheever and Cotton Mather

Freedom of the press, August 4, 1735 / John Peter Zenger

The march of the Acadians during the French and Indian War, August 30-September 5, 1755 / Colonel John Winslow

James Otis starts a fire, February 24, 1761 / John Adams

A mob confronts a stamp distributor, October 30, 1765 / Francis Fauquier

Franklin argues against the Stamp Act in the British Parliament, February 13, 1766 / Unofficial transcript

The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770 / John Tudor

The Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773 / John Andrews

The First Continental Congress, September-October 1774 / John Adams

Patrick Henry's speech, March 23, 1775 / Edmund Randolph.

Cont.): Lanterns in the North Church steeple, April 18, 1775 / Paul Revere

Standoff at Lexington, April 19, 1775 / Jonas Clark

The shot heard 'round the world, April 20, 1775 / William Emerson

Washington is chosen for command, June 15, 1775 / John Adams

Jefferson is selected to write the Declaration of Independence, June, 1776 / John Adams

Young Jefferson gets some advice from Ben Franklin, July 1776 / Thomas Jefferson

the Declaration's missing clause, July 1776 / Thomas Jefferson

Signing the Declaration, August 2, 1776 / Dr. Benjamin Rush

Recruiting trouble, 1776 / Captain Alexander Graydon

Winter at Valley Forge, December 12, 1777-January 8, 1778 / Dr. Albigence Waldo.

Cont.): Yankees invade Great Britain, April 22-23, 1778 / Captain John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones refuses to surrender, September 23, 1779 / Lieutenant Richard Dale

Cornwallis surrenders, October 19, 1781 / Lt. General Charles, Marquis Cornwallis

The eve of the Constitutional Ceonvention, May 17-20, 1787 / George Mason

Last-minute dissenters at the Constitutional Convention, September 15-17, 1787 / James Madison

Jefferson at the White House / Margaret Bayard Smith

The bathtub dictator sells Louisiana, 1803 / Lucien Bonaparte

Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton, July 11, 1804 / Nathaniel Pendleton and William P. Van Ness

Lewis and Clark head to the Pacific, August 12 and November 7, 1805 / Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Cont.): First voyage of the Clermont, August 7, 1807 / H. Freeland

Tecumseh, July-October 1811 / William Henry Harrison

Dolley Madison saves Washington's portrait, August 23-24,1814 / Dolley Madison

Uninvited guests find dinner at the White House, August 24, 1814 / George Robert Gleig

Public amusements in New Orleans, 1818 / Henry Bradshaw Fearon

Calhoun and the Missouri Compromise, February 24, 1820 / John Quincy Adams

Peale's Museum, 1826 / Anne Royall

Lunch in New York City, May 21, 1827 / Captain Basil Hall

Early Cincinnati, February 10, 1828 / Frances Milton Trollope

One tough bear, April 7, 1828 / Jedediah Smith

Early Texas, April 27, 1828 / José María Sánchez

Jackson's rowdy inauguration, March 11, 1829 / Margaret Bayard Smith.

Cont.): A slave ship in the South Atlantic, May 24, 1829 / Robert Walsh

America's first steam engine races a horse, September 18, 1830 / John Hazelhurst Bonval Latrobe

Exploring Florida, January 1832 / John James Audubon

Life with a slave breaker, 1833 / Frederick Douglass

Spanish California, 1835 / Richard Henry Dana

Fall of the Alamo, March 6, 1836 / Vicente Filisola

Money in New York City and manners in Niagara Falls, 1837 / Frederick Marryat

The Trail of Tears begins, August 28, 1838 / William Shorey Coodey

Barnum discovers Tom Thumb, November 1842 / Phineas Taylor Barnum

The first telegraph message, March 4, 1843, and May 24, 1844 / Samuel F.B. Morse

Waiting for the end of the world, October 22, 1844 / Anonymous.

Cont.): Thoreau at Walden Pond, September 1845 / Joseph Hosmer

The Oregon Trail, 1846 / Francis Parkman

The Mormon Exodus, May 8-10, 1846 / Anonymous Daily Missouri Republican reporter

The Donner party, November 20, 1846-March 1, 1847 / Patrick Breen

Gold strike at Sutter's Mill, January 24, 1848 / James W. Marshall

The Seneca Falls Convention, July 19-20, 1848 / Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony

Man overboard! October 13, 1849 / Herman Melville

Hawthorne and The scarlet letter, 1849 / James T. Fields

Poe's macabre dream, 1849 / John Sartain

On the Underground Railroad, About 1850 / Levi Coffin

Sojourner Truth at a woman's rights convention, 1851 / Marius Robinson.

Cont.): Commodore Perry opens Japan, July 12, 1853 / Official report of the expedition

Chief Seattle speaks, 1854 / Henry A. Smith

Lincoln and Doublas debate / June-July 1858 / Gustave Koerner

First overland mail reaches the West Coast, October 9-10, 1858 / Waterman L. Ormsby

John Brown's raid, October 16, 1859 / John E. Daingerfield

The Pony Express, 1861 / Mark Twain

Lincoln at the White House, March 27-28 and October 9, 1861 / William Howard Russell

Fort Sumter is attacked, April 8-15, 1861 / Mary Boykin Chesnut

War news reaches the north, April 14-16, 1861 / Mary Ashton Livermore

Lincoln tears the flag, June 29, 1861 / Julia Taft Bayne

First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861 / William Howard Russell.

Cont.): The Confederate Congress, 1862-1863 / Reuben Davis

Battle of the Ironclads: the Merrimack versus the Monitor, March 9, 1862 / Captain G.J. Van Brunt, U.S.N., and Lieutenant James H. Rochelle, C.S.N.

Lincoln proclaims emancipation, September 22, 1862 / Salmon P. Chase

Adventures of a blockade runner, 1862 / Captain John Wilkinson, C.S.N.

Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863 / General Alfred Pleasonton and anonymous New York World reporter

Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 / John Russell Young

Andersonville Prison, July 3-September 7, 1864 / John L. Ransom

Sherman burns Atlanta, November 14-16, 1864 / F.Y. Hedley, David Conyngham, and Major George Ward Nichols

A missing brother at Christmas, December 26, 1864 / Walt Whitman.

Cont.): Lee surrenders to Grant, April 9, 1865 / Horace Porter

Lincoln is shot / April 14, 1865 / Major Henry R. Rathbone

Death of Lincoln, April 14-15, 1865 / Gideon Welles

Freedom, April 26, 1865 / Booker T. Washington

The Reconstruction, 1865 / Sidney Andrews

Baseball innovations, 1866-1876 / Albert Goodwill Spaulding

Early Denver, June 19, 1866 / Bayard Taylor

The last spike, March 10, 1869 / General Grenville M. Dodge

Powell enters the Grand Canyon, August 13-14, 1869 / John Wesley Powell

New money and robber barons, 1869-1873 / George Templeton Strong

The great fire and its aftermath, October 8-11, 1871 / Joseph Edgar Chamberlain, Alexander Frear, Lambert Tree, and William A. Croffut.

Cont.): A Ku Klux Klan trial, November 1871 / Testimony of Gadsden Steel

United States v. Susan B. Anthony

and vice versa, June 17-18, 1873 / Court records

The first telephone call, March 10, 1876 / Alexander Graham Bell

Custer is killed at Little Bighorn, June 25, 1876 / Chief White Bull

Aleuts, June 30-July 2, 1879 / Libby Beaman

Electric light, October 21, 1879 / Thomas Alva Edison

Jesse James's body, April 3, 1882 / Anonymous Western Associated Press reporter

Haymarket Riot, May 1, 1886 / Barton Simonson

Frank Lloyd Wright sees his first city, 1887 / Frank Lloyd Wright

The great Oklahoma land rush, April 22, 1889 / Hamilton S. Wicks

The Johnstown flood, June 2, 1889 / Anonymous Philadelphia Public Ledger reporter.

Cont.): The first electrocution, August 6, 1890 / Anonymous New York World reporter

Massacre at Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890 / Black Elk

The invention of basketball, December 1891 / James Naismith

The first department store, 1896 / George Steevens

The Rough Riders charge San Juan Hill, July 1, 1898 / Richard Harding Davis

Carrie Nation, December 27, 1900 / Anonymous Topeka Daily Capital reporter

The Wright Brothers fly, December 17, 1903 / Orville Wright

Ellis Island, 1905 / Edward Steiner

The great earthquake and fire, April 18, 1906 / Jack London

Building the Panama Canal, November 1906 / Theodore Roosevelt

The birth of the blues, 1911, W.C. Handy

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, March 25, 1911 / Pauline Cuoio Pepe.

Cont.): The Titanic sinks, April 14-15, 1912 / Harold Bride

Jim Thorpe, November 9, 1912 / Anonymous New York Times reporter

The first assembly line, April 1, 1913 / Henry Ford

Sinking the Lusitania, May 17, 1915 / Kapitän-Leutnant Walter Schwieger

War in the air, April 29, 1918 / Captain Eddie Rickenbacker

The Americans join the war in Europe, September 9-November 8, 1918 / Corporal Elmer Sherwood

Babe Ruth, October 12, 1923 / Heywood Broun

"Rhapsody in blue", January 1924 / George Gershwin

Among the believers, July 14, 1925 / H.L. Mencken

First rocket flight, March 17, 1926 / Dr. Robert H. Goddard

The flapper, 1926 / Samuel Crowther

Television is born, April 7, 1927 / Anonymous New York Times reporter.

Cont.): Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic, May 21, 1927 / Edwin L. James

Radio and its evils arrive, October 24, 1927 / Franklin Pierce Adams

Al Capone, patriot, 1929 / Claud Cockburn

Prohibition, 1929 / Paul Morand

Raid of an abortion clinic, April 15, 1929 / Margaret Sanger

Crash, October 24, 1929 / Elliott V. Bell

First view from the Empire State Building, May 1, 1931 / Anonymous New York Times reporter

In the death house with the Scottsboro Boys, June 1932 / Langston Hughes

General Douglas MacArthur fires on Americans, July 29, 1932 / Lee McCardell

Depression prices, 1933 / Paul Angle

Roosevelt's New Deal, March 5, 1933-April 27, 1934 / Harold L. Ickes

The Lindbergh Case circus, January 1935 / Stanley Walker.

Cont.): Gutzon Borglum carves Mount Rushmore, September 21, 1936 / Ernie Pyle

Hitting bottom, Autumn 1936 / F. Scott Fitzgerald

The War of the Worlds, October 30, 1938 / John Houseman

A movie executive pleads for a few famous last words, October 29, 1939 / David O. Selznick

Charlie "Bird" Parker makes the scene, 1941 / Idrees Sulieman

An early warning, January 7, 1941 / Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew

Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 / Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Pearl Harbor news reaches FDR, December 7, 1941 / Grace Tully

Evacuation to Manzanar, April 26, 1942 / Yuri Tateishi

A codebreaker's daring trick, May 20, 1942 / Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton

The homefront, 1943 / Nell Giles.

Cont.): A walk to San Stefano, July 31, 1943 / Staff Sergeant Jack Foisie

The death of Captain Waskow, January 10, 1944 / Ernie Pyle

D-Day, June 6, 1944 / Lieutenant Robert Edlin

Go for broke! October 29, 1944 / Stan Nakamoto

Iwo Jima, February 1945 / Edgar L. Jones

The death of Roosevelt, April 12-13, 1945 / Merriman Smith, Janet Flanner, and Mollie Panter-Downes

The United Nations, April 13-June 23, 1945 / Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg

The Trinity test, July 16, 1945 / Robert Krohn

Dropping the atom bomb, August 6, 1945 / Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.

ENIAC, February 14, 1946 / T.B. Kennedy, Jr.

Jackie Robinson in the Major Leagues, 1947-1955 / Roger Kahn.

Cont.): Jonas Salk hunts for a polio vaccine, June 16, 1950-February 23, 1954 / Anonymous nurses at Municipal Hospital

North Korea challenges the United Nations, June 25, 1950 / Dean Acheson, President Harry Truman, and John Hickerson

Firing MacArthur, April 6-9, 1951 / President Harry Truman

A neighborhood vote, February 17, 1952 / Bernard Taper

McCarthy meets his match, April 23-June 17, 1954 / Official records

Elvis, May 1955 / Jean Yothers

The front of the bus, December 1, 1955 / Rosa Parks

First day of school in Little Rock, September, 1957 / Relman Morin

Space, May 5, 1961 / Alan Shepard, Jr.

The Cuban missile crisis, October 16-27, 1962 / Minutes of the Executive Committee; Nikita Khrushchev.

Cont.): Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963 / James Reston

A dissenter's view of Dr. King's speech, August 28, 1963 / Malcolm X

The Feminine Mystique and the Women's Rights Movement, 1963 / Betty Friedan

President Kennedy is assassinated, Novbember 22, 1963 / Merriman Smith

The Beatles arrive, February 7-9, 1964 / Tom Wolfe and William Whitworth

The Vietnam War begins, August 4-11, 1964 / Admiral James Stockdale

Police try to halt the Selma March, March 21, 1965 / Sheyann Webb

Story pitch at a Hollywood studio, 1967 / John Gregory Dunne

The long, hot summer, July 1967 / James Ingram

The My Lai Massacre, March 16, 1968 / Varnado Simpson

Police break up a student protest, August 27, 1968 / Studs Terkel.

Cont.): A fortunate son, October, 1968 / Lieutenant Lewis B. Puller, Jr.

The birth of modern sports: Curt Flood fights baseball, October-December 1968 / Curt Flood

Stonewall, July 3, 1969 / Howard Smith

On the moon, July 21, 1969 / Neil Armstrong

Woodstock, August 15-18, 1969 / Richie Havens, Miriam Yasgur, and Myra Friedman

Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970 / James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger

Kent State, May 4, 1970 / John Kifner

Roe v. Wade, December 13, 1971, and October 13, 1972 / Court records

The Watergate cover-up begins, June 18, 1972 / H.R. Haldeman

Fear and loathing at the Super Bowl, January 1973 / Hunter S. Thompson

The double life of Patty Hearst, April 15, 1974 / Patricia "Tania" Hearst.

Cont.): The fall of Saigon, April 10-30, 1975 / Stephen Klinkhammer

Warhol's world, October 29, 1977-January 17, 1980 / Andy Warhol

The Iranian Hostage Crisis: week one, November 4-9, 1979 / Hamilton Jordan

Ronald Reagan in the White House, 1980-1988 / Peggy Noonan

Offerings: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982- / Cynthia Loose

Living with AIDS, 1985-1990 / Ryan White

Space shuttle Challenger, January 28, 1986 / William Harwood

The Rodney King verdict and riots, April 29-May 1, 1992 / Staff of the Los Angeles Times

The Quilt, October 11, 1992 / Fern Shen and Michele Norris

Getting wired: E-mail from Bill, October 1993-January 1994 / John Seabrook.