In the last year of relative calm before the storm of the Civil War, Americans elected dark horse candidate Abraham Lincoln as their president. Out West, the Pony Express began express mail delivery. In December, South Carolina became the first Southern state to secede from the Union; 10 more would follow in the new year. In England, Charles Dickens published the first installment of “Great Expectations,” a landmark of Victorian-era literature.
Apr
03
On April 3, 1860, the first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously leaves St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately 1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet’s arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting a new standard for speedy mail delivery. Although ultimately short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express captivated America’s imagination and helped win federal aid for a more economical overland postal system. It also contributed to the economy of the towns on its route and served the mail-service needs of the American West in the days before the telegraph or an efficient transcontinental railroad.
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1754: Pony Express rider crossing hostile country between St Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, pursued by native Americans. Horse and rider relay mail service took about 10 days to cover the 1,800 mile route and operated from April 1860 to October 1861 when the transcontinenetal telegraph system opened. On the right is a Native American 'burual' polatform. From The Illustrated London News, October 1861. Engraving. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
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Nov
06
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860. He opposed any compromise plan that would extend slavery, including the Crittenden Compromise.
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