Little Glimpses of the 19th Century.[[3]]
The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled so as to Present a Nutshell Record.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
[3]. Began March SCRAP BOOK. Single copies, 10 cents.
EIGHTH DECADE.
POPULATION—Washington, D. C., 109,199; Chicago, 298,977; New York (including boroughs now forming Greater New York), 1,469,045; New York (Manhattan), 942,292; London, 3,251,804; United States, 38,558,371; Great Britain and Ireland, 31,672,678. World population, 1,310,000,000.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Spain Amadeus is made king, and in France Napoleon III falls with the empire.
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1871
In the United States, a great fire in Chicago destroys a large portion of the city; property loss, one hundred and ninety million five hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars; several hundred people are killed, and over one hundred thousand are rendered homeless; area burned, three and a half square miles. In the same month, October, vast fires rage in northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, with appalling loss of life. A commission of British and American statesmen meets In Washington and frames a treaty with reference to the claims of the United States against Great Britain for damage done during the Civil War by the Confederate cruiser Alabama and other Confederate vessels built and equipped in English ports; by terms of treaty the question is submitted to a board of arbitration to convene at Geneva next year. In New York, the corrupt Tweed ring is broken up, and its head, William M. Tweed, arrested and held in two million dollars bail. Under authority of Congress, President Grant takes steps to promote improvement in the Civil Service; he appoints a commission under George W. Curtis (see 1873). An act of Congress creates the Centennial Commission representing all States and Territories: it is authorized to prepare for a great international exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, in celebration of the nation’s centennial anniversary. Passage of the Force Bill to suppress the “Kuklux Klan” in the South. Death of George Ticknor, American writer and philologist; Alice and Phœbe Cary, poets; Robert Anderson, American soldier, the defender of Fort Sumter. Immigration, 321,350; exports, $442,820,178.