First transcontinental railroad
A golden spike joins two oceans
On 10 May 1869 the tracks of the Central Pacific, built from the west, and the Union Pacific, built from the east, met in Utah, and a ceremonial golden spike was driven in. The line across the Sierra Nevada was laid mainly by thousands of Chinese workers. Crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific shrank from months to about a week.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — 24 years earlier
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 8 years earlier
- 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — 1 year later
- 1886 Benz's first automobile — 17 years later
- 1889 Eiffel Tower — 20 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 16 years earlier
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 8 years earlier
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 2 years earlier
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — same year
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 8 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 7 years later
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — same year
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 10 years later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 16 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 16 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 17 years later
Asia
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 16 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 1 year earlier
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 7 years later
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 14 years later
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 16 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 18 years earlier
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 24 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 24 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 60)
- Karl Marx (aged 51)
- Queen Victoria (aged 50)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 48)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 41)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 35)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 29)
- Thomas Edison (aged 22)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 16)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 13)