World History 1865 Part 1

About the history of the world in 1865, Lewis Carroll writes Alice in Wonderland, the Ku Klux Klan is founded, the Civil War ends, Lincoln is assassinated.

TWO CENTURIES OF WORLD HISTORY: 1778-1978

1865

* Mark Twain (original name Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was a 30-year-old reporter on the San Francisco Call. His first short story. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," appeared in the New York Saturday Press after having been rejected elsewhere. Later reprinted in a variety of publications, the yarn brought young Twain his first taste of fame.

* Author Mary Mapes Dodge, 34, of New York, turned out her realistic fictional account of Dutch youth, Hans Brinker, which, together with her later stories, made her the preeminent writer of children's literature of her day.

* British author Lewis Carroll (original name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), 33, an ordained deacon and mathematics professor, wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

* A rash of American universities sprang up: Purdue in Lafayette and Indiana State in Terre Haute, Ind.; Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y.; the University of Maine in Orono; the University of Kentucky in Lexington; Loyola in Los Angeles, Calif.; Washburn in Topeka, Kans.; Virginia Union in Richmond; and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

* The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tenn. Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was appointed the first Grand Wizard of the Empire.

* The Union Stockyards opened on Chicago's South Side.

* Adolphus Busch, 25, a recent immigrant to America from Germany, married the daughter of Eberhard Anheiser in St. Louis and was made a partner in his father-in-law's brewery.

* James H. Nason of Franklin, Mass., patented the coffee percolator.

* Louis Pasteur launched an intensive five-year search for a cure of the silkworm disease which had decimated the French silk industry. From a stark makeshift laboratory in the heart of the silkworm region of the Cevennes, France, he persevered--although handicapped by a debilitating stroke and depressed by the death of two of his daughters--until he isolated the parasites plaguing the worms. His discovery came in time to save the industry.

Apr. 9 The U.S. Civil War ended as Gen. Robert E. Lee signed the surrender papers before Grant at the home of Wilmer McClean at Appomattox Courthouse, Va.

Apr. 14 John Wilkes Booth, 27, an actor of mediocre talent, entered the presidential box at Ford's Theater and shot and killed President Lincoln.

Apr. George Pullman, 34, a Chicago contractor, unveiled the Pioneer, the first Pullman sleeping car. Pullman invested huge sums in his project, which was intended to bring luxury train travel to the masses. With black walnut woodwork, spring beds, chandeliers, and plush carpeting, the "hotel on wheels" proved too wide for most bridges of the time. But the popularity of the cars forced railroad companies to modify their lines. The Pioneer's maiden run was a somber affair; draped in black, it bore the body of Abraham Lincoln back to Illinois.

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