An armed group of white supremacists attacks a courthouse guarded by a mostly-Black militia in the town of Colfax, Louisiana on April 13, 1873. A bloodbath ensues, as the militia surrenders and the white supremacists carry out a day-long campaign of terror that came to be known as the Colfax Massacre.

Influential English writer Dorothy Richardson, whose stream-of-consciousness style will influence James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, is born on May 17, 1873.

On May 20, 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, Custer and his 7th Cavalry clash for the first time with the local Lakota Native Americans, who will defeat them three years later at the Little Big Horn.

William Henry Jackson becomes the first person to photograph Colorado’s elusive Mount of the Holy Cross, providing reliable proof of its existence.

On October 3, 1873, the United States military hangs four Native Americans found guilty of murdering the Civil War general Edward Canby during the Modoc War in Oregon. Canby was the highest ranking military official and one of the only generals ever killed by Native Americans.

On October 27, 1873, a DeKalb, Illinois, farmer named Joseph Glidden submits an application to the U.S. Patent Office for his clever new design for a fencing wire with sharp barbs, an invention that will forever change the face of the American West.

Bridget Landregan is found beaten and strangled to death in the Boston suburb of Dorchester. According to witnesses, a man in black clothes and a flowing cape attempted to sexually assault the dead girl before running away. In 1874, a man fitting the same description clubbed another young girl, Mary Sullivan, to death. His third victim, Mary Tynan, was bludgeoned in her bed in 1875. Although she survived for a year after the severe attack, she was never able to identify her attacker.