European Explorations Before the Territorial Period

1541	Coronado in Kansas: 1st recorded entry of Europeans into area. Spanish withdraw, but presence in North America introduces horse, plus missionaries and traders in overall area.
1600s- 700s	French explorers & fur traders down from Canada via Mississippi (17th) and up Missouri (early 18th); ally with Kansa & Osage.
1803	Louisiana Purchase: Kansas becomes US territory
1804-1820	US explorations of new territory: Lewis & Clark 1804, Major Stephen H. Long's expedition 1819-20 (which labels  whole plains area "Great American Desert" fit only for non-farming, uncivilized peoples.
1820s-30s	Euro-American presence & interaction with native inhabitants expands:  - Sante Fe Trail opens 1821.  1825 Council Grove treaty with Osage to allow safe passage to travellers; see Susan Shelby Magoffin trail diary 1846-7. - Frontier forts established (Ft Leavenworth 1827) - Indian Missions founded in E. Kansas 1829: Shawnee Methodist Mission - Rev Thomas Johnson & wife, 1831: Shawnee Baptist Mission opened: Idea of Isaac McCoy:  missionionaries included Johnston Lykins, Jotham Meeker, John G. Pratt   - 1830 "Indian Removal" moves eastern Native American tribes west of Mississippi to Great American Desert lands including Kansas; land to be held by them forever (revised starting 1853)  -  Oregon Trail cuts across NE Kansas

 
Territorial and Civil War Era 1854-65

1854	Kansas-Nebraska Act allows former Indian lands opened (as of May 30, 1854) to Euro-American settlement, leaves open to settler vote question of whether each will be slave or free
March 1854	Eli Thayer of Massachusetts creats Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society (1855 becomes New England Emigrant Aid Society) to send settlers committed to Free State cause.
1850s	Earliest Kansas settlers arrive:  - Emigrant Aid's Dr. Charles Robinson and Samuel C. Pomeroy; James H. Lane all become important Free State cause fighters and early Kansas state politicians; Robinson helps found both Lawrence and Topeka (with Cyrus K. Holliday)  - Isaac T. Goodnow helps found Manhattan  - John Brown, rabid free stater, arrives in Osawatomie  - Clarina Nichols  arrives to urge Kansas state constitution, when written, give women equal rights  - John Ritchie and wife arrive in Topeka  - Robert Gaston Elliot founds Kansas Free State newspaper 1854  Other free state newspaper editors include John Speer  and T. Dwight Thatcher  - Thomas Ewing Jr. becomes first supreme court chief justice; commands Ks-Mo Border district  in Civil War. - Edwin Tucker comes to Kansas 1857 as boy, keeps diary; later serves in legislature, is early Washburn U. regent  - Thomas C. Wells letters describe life in Manhattan Kansas 1856-60  - Edward Fitch arrives 1855, marries Sara Fitch, dies 1863 in Quantrill's raid: see Kansas History articles for many letters of both
1856-1858	Bleeding Kansas: violence erupts between Missouri "ruffians" and Kansas Free State "Jayhawkers"; resulting disputed elections and events pushes whole nation closer to confrontation  - 2 women Free State supporters publish influenctial books: Hannah H. Ropes (Six Months in Kansas) and Sara T. L. Robinson (Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life)  - Julia Louisa Lovejoy writes letters home about emigrant experiences in Kansas  - by 1857 Free Stater cause pretty safe in crucial NE Kansas Topeka-Lawrence corridor; increased anti-slave settlement and reports of "bogus" pro-slave elections means US Congress won't accept Pro-Slave Lecompton Consitution, laws. But some violence continues to south (including John Brown's  Osawatomie) through 1857-8
1859-60	Free State Wyandotte Constitution drafted 1859; thanks to Clarina Nichols' work, some increased womens rights included
Jan 29, 1861	Kansas becomes a state: Robinson 1st governor, Lane and Pomeroy 1st senators
1861-1865	Civil War Era  - many Kansas regiments serve in Union army; figures include Gen. James G. Blunt  - Aug 21, 1863 Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence  - Oct 1864 Price's Raid (most major Civil War fighting in Kansas)

Era of Settlement, Expansion, Agrarian Protest, c 1860s-1890  

1860s-1880s	Age of Industrial, RR expansion. 1859 Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe RR organized in Topeka; 1862 Congress OKs transcontinental RR. 1877 barbed wire helps fence prairies
1860s-80s	Great Plains settled: 1862 Homestead Act, buffalo slaughers, etc open up plains to common men and women. Howard Ruede, Abbie Bright, Ise family. Mary "Mother" Bickerdyke, Civil War Nurse, convinces 300 veterans to move to Kansas. Foreign immigration increases 1870s-90s; 1874 Russian Mennonites bring hard red winter wheat.
1850s-on	Kansas towns and cities grow. Ex:  Martha Farnsworth
1870s-	African-Americans: Exodusters: former slaves come to Kansas 1877 as Reconstruction ends in south; Nicodemus founded 1877; 1889 Alfred Fairfax 1st Black elected to state legislature
c 1867-late 1880s	Cattle trails link up with RR: 1867 Abilene 1st railhead. Cattle drives, cow towns follow until 1886 blizzard, drouth, overgrazing, fencing end open range grazing, trail drives; Nat Love famous black cowboy known as "Deadwood Dick"; Wyatt Earp appointed to Wichita Police 1875; later to Dodge City
1860s-	Kansas women's suffrage expands, but not complete: 1867 campaign fails; 1886 Kansas women get right to vote in municpal elections (but not state or national); 1887 Susan Madora Salter elected mayor of Argonia (1st woman in nation).
1867	Lucy Hobbs Taylor of Lawrence 1st woman dentist in Kansas
1880	Kansas first state to adopt constitutional amendment establishing prohibition
1867-1930	Orphan Trains to Kansas

 
Protest, Reform, Changing Life in Kansas, c. 1890-1920s

1890s	Populist Era: 1890 Kansas People's (Populist) Party founded; important Populist speakers include Mary Elizabeth Lease, Annie Laporte Diggs and "Sockless" Jerry Simpson. William A. Peffer 1st Populist senator in nation 1891; 1892 Populist Lorenzo Lewellings elected governor; 1893 "Legislative War" for control Ks House of Representatives
1890s 1910s	Progressive Era: William Allen White1895 begins publishing Emporia  Gazette;  Progressive governors E.W. Hoch  and Walter Stubbs bring reform
1890s-1920s	Kansas arts and education develops: artist  Birger Sandzen arrives Lindsborg 1894 (d. 1954); Margaret Hill McCarter of Topeka publishes 15+ novels, is 1st woman to address Republican National Convention
1897	Charles M. Sheldon publishes In His Steps;  is prohibitionist
1890s-1901	Carrie Nation's saloon smashing campaign to make prohibition actually enforced; also see other prohibitionists: Dr. Eva Harding, Rev. Frank Emerson, Rev. John Thomas McFarland
1890s-1920s	Prominent African-Americans: Beginning of longest-running Black newspaper in US: Nick Chiles founds the Plaindealer 1899; John A. Gregg (b. 1877) grad KU 1902, becomes prominent pastor Kansas and elsewhere
1890s	Sports: James A. Naismith (basketball inventor) coaches KU basketball
1904-1923	Samuel Crumbine, MD introduces progressive public health
1910s-20s	Women in politics: Kansas woman suffrage amendment ratified; 1918 Minnie Grinstead 1st woman elected to Kansas legislature; 1920s Lila Day Monroe works to keep women's issues important politically
1910s-	Publishing: 1911 Edgar Watson Howe, Atchison, begins publication of E. W. Howe's Monthly; 1912 E. Haldeman-Julius takes over Appeal to Reason, with wife Marcet begins book publishing
1919-1930s	Dr. John R. Brinkley claims successful goat gland therapy (eventually debunked); later runs unsuccessfully for governor
1925	Dr. Karl Menninger helps found Menninger Sanitarium in Topeka
1928	Senator Charles Curtis elected Vice-President of US; only Native American in that office

 
Depression, Drought and Dust: 1930s

1929-39	Depression  in Kansas
1933-1938	Drought and dust storms across Great Plains - region becomes "Dust Bowl"
1932	Walter H. and Olive Ann Beech found Beech Aircraft in Wichita
1930s	"Goat Doctor" John R. Brinkley; runs for governor
1930s	Adventurous Kansas Women: 1937 Amelia Earhart  disappears; Osa Johnson continues African/Asian photography, lectures after husband Martin dies 1937
1936	Ks. Gov Alf Landon unsuccessful run for president
1930s-40s	John Steuart Curry does statehouse murals
1930s	Charlie Parker creats bebop in Kansas City

 
Today's Kansas: World War II and Beyond

1941-1945	WWII era: Kansans mobilized to serve in military and in homefront; bases & defense plants in Kansas;
1940s-50s	Dwight D. Eisenhower: Runs D-Day; elected President of US
1949	Georgia Neese Clark (Gray) US Treasurer
1950s	William Inge dramas set in Kansas very successful on Broadway
1954	Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka overturns segregation; various Topekans involved
1980s	Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton gains national reputation for her paintings
1933-1980s	Zula Bennington Greene writes "Peggy of the Flint Hills" column