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In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
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They were spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you."
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The Electoral College meets in all the states and cast ballots for president and vice president. The results are certified and sent to Congress. Two sets of results are returned for Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina.
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This is the final session for the lame-duck Congress which leaves office on March 5, 1877 (the day for inaugurating the new president and swearing in the new Congress). Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the House in both the outgoing and incoming Congresses.
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A special Senate committee for establishing a process for resolving the disputed electoral count is announced. It is chaired by Republican George Edmunds of Vermont. Other Republican majority members are: Roscoe Conkling of New York; Frederick Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; and Oliver Morton of Indiana. Democratic minority members are: Thomas Bayard of Delaware; M. W. Ransom of North Carolina; and Allen Thurman of Ohio.
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The Senate passes the Electoral Commission bill, which establishes a 15-member commission—of five senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices—to decide the disputed election. Its decisions will be considered final unless overridden by both houses of Congress. The bill is approved by the Senate, 47-17, with Democrats voting 23-1 and Republicans voting 24-16 in the affirmative.
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According to Harper’s Weekly, an assassination attempt is made on the life of Governor Stephen Packard of Louisiana, a Republican. The governor knocks down the gun aimed at his heart, and the bullet grazes his knee. The perpetrator is taken into custody.
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Rutherford B. Hayes is sworn in publicly as president of the United States.
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Edison invents the light bulb
Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement In Electric Lights". However, he continued to test several types of material for metal filaments to improve upon his original design and by Nov 4, 1879, he filed another U.S. patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires. -
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Gottlieb Daimler builds the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle. (1886)
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President Hayes removes the remaining federal troops in the South from political duty (guarding the statehouses) and the era of Reconstruction formally ends.
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Spain gives Cuba independence, United States takes Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines as colonies
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William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, commissioned by Thomas Alva Edison, builds the first motion-picture camera and names it the Kinetograph (1889)
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