The Golden Spike, Utah and the World of 1869

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the First Transcontinental Railroad, completed on May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah in a ceremony that joined 1,087 miles of Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) track (originating at Council Bluffs, Iowa) to 690 miles of Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) track (originating in Sacramento, California).  CPRR President Leland Stanford (former Governor of California and later founder of Stanford University) used a silver maul to tap a ceremonial final spike made of copper-alloyed gold into a pre-bored hole in a specially polished railroad tie made of California laurel wood while two locomotives, CPRR's Jupiter and UPRR's No. 119, were brought face to face on the tracks and the news went out across the country on the transcontinental telegraph line (which itself had been joined together at Salt Lake City in October 1861).  The journey that had taken wagon trains several grueling months and upwards of $1,000 in provisions to complete could then be made in a week's time for a ticket starting at $65.  The American landscape, physically and psychologically, was revolutionized by the transcontinental railroad.  Where before only the heartiest of stock could go, the railroad opened up the west to all kinds.  Where before settlers were forced to carve out an existence on the frontier, the trains brought all the modern conveniences of the East Coast cities.  Just 23 years before, in one of the most horrific incidents in the history of American westward expansion, the Donner Party pioneers became trapped in a snowy mountain pass in the formidable Sierra Nevada mountain range while trying to reach California.  In 1869, passengers traveled safely and quickly through the very same mountain pass on tracks built primarily by Chinese immigrants working for the CPRR, through thousands of feet of tunnels blasted through the mountains and 37 miles of roof to protect from the snow.

"Driving the Golden Spike - 1869" depicted in Utah State Capitol.

The Rest of the North America
March 4- Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union Army to victory in the Civil War, is sworn in as 18th President of the United States, vacating the position of Commanding General of United States Army to be filled by William Tecumseh Sherman.
May 15- Prominent women's rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York City, splintering off from the American Equal Rights Association over the decision to support Reconstruction Era constitutional amendments like the 15th Amendment (which prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on a citizen's race) despite the failure to include women in the rights they guaranteed.
May 24- Union veteran John Wesley Powell, who lost an arm in the Battle of Shiloh, sets out with a company of nine other men from Green River Station, Wyoming, along the recently completed transcontinental railroad which carried the boats in from Chicago, to chart the Green and Colorado Rivers and their tributaries.  The expedition was the first by people of European descent to explore much of the most rugged canyon country on the Colorado Plateau, including the Grand Canyon, which had previously been unknown.
September 24- An attempt by speculators Jay Gould and James Fisk to corner the gold market using insider information to monopolize U.S. Treasury gold sales results in a financial panic known as "Black Friday" and major scandal for the Grant Administration at the height of Gilded Age corruption.  Grant's quick release of $4 million in gold from the Treasury thwarted Gould and Fisk by driving down the price of gold and averting an eventual economic depression, but also saw a steep decline in the market.
November 6- The first season of intercollegiate football in the United States begins with a match between the Princeton Tigers and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in New Jersey, using improvised rules more resembling soccer and rugby than modern American football.  Rutgers wins the game, 6-4.
December 7- Notorious outlaws Jesse and Frank James's first confirmed bank robbery occurs in Gallatin, Missouri at the Daviess County Savings Association, where the cashier, John Sheets is fatally shot.  Jesse reportedly mistook Sheets for the man who killed their Confederate guerilla leader "Bloody Bill" Anderson at the Battle of Albany and likely committed the robbery more for vengeance than money, of which the robbery yielded little.
December 10- In order to attract more settlers and mute the influence of recently enfranchised racial minorities, the Wyoming territorial legislature becomes the first part of the United States to declare full voting rights for women, soon after followed by the Utah Territory.

Historic 1869 railroad grade near Golden Spike National Historic Site

The Rest of the World
1869- The nation of Japan is in a period of intense social and political reform called the Meiji Restoration, beginning the previous year with the fall of the feudal military government and the returning of centralized power to the Imperial Court and Emperor Meiji.  The Meiji era ushered in rapid Westernization, industrialization and militarization in response to the threat of European colonial powers, but would eventually lead to colonialism on Japan's own part and its alliance with Axis powers in World War II.
1869- Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, previously published in part in the periodical The Russian Messenger under the title The Year 1805, is published in its rewritten entirety.
September 12- The British Pacific & Orient Stream Navigation Company steamship SS Carnatic runs aground on a reef in the Red Sea near Egypt.  Captain P.B. Jones delays the evacuation for approximately 34 hours against the protestations of some passengers, insisting they wait for another company liner to pick them up, causing 31 people to drown when the ship suddenly breaks in half.  The £40,000 in gold is recovered in the following weeks.
November 17- The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Seas and allowing more direct access between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, is opened for use in Egypt, dramatically affecting world trade and the speed in which one could circumnavigate the globe.