This Year in History:
1866
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On April 9, 1866, exactly one year after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House—and decades before police officers would be pulling over speeding cars—the National Intelligencer reports that…
On April 10, 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh, 54. In 1863,…
Thirteen years after American settlers founded the city named for him, Chief Seattle dies in a nearby village of his people. Born sometime around 1790, Seattle (Seathl) was a chief…
On July 30, 1866, during the turbulent Reconstruction era after the Civil War, white resistance to African American citizenship turns violent in New Orleans when a white mob kills dozens…
On October 6, 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in…
On November 20, 1866, a Frenchman named Pierre Lallement receives a U.S. patent for the nation’s first pedal bicycle. Lallement had arrived in the United States the year before, carrying…
Determined to challenge the growing American military presence in their territory, Native Americans in northern Wyoming lure Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman and his soldiers into a deadly ambush on December…
