An American Chronology Parallel to Mendelssohn's World

Meanwhile, what was going on on THIS side of the Atlantic Ocean around the time Felix Mendelssohn was alive in Europe? He was born in 1809 and died in 1847 but I fudged a little on what dates to start and end with, here.

1800 – Nation's Capital moved from Philadelphia to the new city of Washington D.C.
1801-1809 – Thomas Jefferson, President (Republican from Virginia)
1803 – Louisiana Purchase; Ohio admitted to the Union
1803-1806 – Lewis & Clark Expedition, exploring the new territories of the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean
1806 – Noah Webster publishes “Dictionary of the English Language”
1808 – Congress prohibits importing of African Slaves
1809-1817 – James Madison, President (Republican from Virginia)
1811 – First steamboat sails down the Mississippi & reaches New Orleans
1811 – William Henry Harrison defeats Native Americans at Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana Territory
1811 – construction begun on the National Road (The Cumberland Road) which would end in 1839 in Illinois, the first major “highway” that helped increase settlements in the territories of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois
1811 – Lorenzo da Ponte, poet who wrote the words for Mozart's operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte, had relocated to New York City but left to set up a grocery store on the square of Sunbury PA where he remained until 1818
1812 – Louisiana admitted to the Union; remainder of Louisiana Territory reorganized as Missouri Territory
1812 – USA declares war on Great Britain: War of 1812 begins
1814 – British army burns Washington D.C.
1814 – Andrew Jackson crushes Creek Resistance in South
1814 – December: Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812
1815 – January: Andrew Jackson, not receiving the news, defeats the British at the Battle of New Orleans
1816 – Indiana admitted to the Union
1817 – Mississippi admitted to the Union
1817-1818 - 1st Seminole War in Florida
1817-1825 – James Monroe, President (Republican from Virginia)
1818 – Illinois admitted to the Union
1818 – Treaty w/Britain sets Canadian Border at 49th Parallel
1819 – USA annexes Florida from Spain
1819 – Alabama admitted to the Union
1820 – Minstrel Shows start to become popular entertainment
1820 – Maine (once part of Massachusetts) is admitted to the Union
1820 – Washington Irving publishes The Sketch Book
1821 – Missouri Compromise: Missouri admitted as a Slave State to balance Maine's having been admitted as a Free State
1821 – Mexico gains independence from Spain
1822 – Florida Territory established
1822 – Stephen Austin founds colony in Texas
1825 – Completion of the Erie Canal
1825 – Rossini's opera “Barber of Seville” performed in Italian in NYC; it had been performed in English & adapted from the original in NYC in 1819, just 3 years after its premiere in Rome
1825-1829 – John Quincy Adams, President (Republican of Massachusetts)
1826 – James Fenimore Cooper publishes The Last of the Mohicans
1826 – July 4th, Stephen Foster born near Pittsburgh PA
1829-1837 – Andrew Jackson, President (Democrat of Tennessee)
1830 – Indian Removal Act forces eastern Native Americans west of Mississippi
1830 – Joseph Smith founds Church of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon)
1831 – First locomotive runs from Albany to Schenectedy, NY
1831 – Words composed for “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” sung to “God Save the King” becomes the song “America”
1832 – Cholera pandemic
1834 – Indian Territory founded
1835 - 2nd Seminole War in Florida
1836 – Arkansas admitted to the Union as the 25th State
1836 – Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas – Death of Davy Crockett
1836 – Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes essay, Nature – considered the beginning of the Transcendentalist Movement
1837 – The Panic of 1837 – led to a five-year Depression w/bank failures and record high unemployment
1837-1841 – Martin van Buren, President (Democrat from New York)
1838 – Cherokee Trail of Tears – forced migration to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma)
1838 – first performance of Mendelssohn's St. Paul in NY (received poor reviews)
1839 – Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Fall of the House of Usher
1840-1841 – James Fenimore Cooper publishes The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer
1841 – William Henry Harrison, President (Whig from Indiana) – dies after 1 month in office
1841-1845 – succeeded by Vice-President John Tyler as President (Whig from Virginia)
1842 – Work day limited to a 10-hour day for children under the age of 12 in Massachusetts
1842 – Dec. 7th, first concert by the orchestra that would become the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, performed Beethoven's 5th
1845 – Edgar Allan Poe publishes his poem, The Raven
1845 – President John Tyler annexes Texas and it is admitted to the Union (following 10 years of independence)
1845-1848 – Mexican-American War
1845-1849 – James Knox Polk, President (Democrat from Tennessee)
1846 – Areas of Arizona and New Mexico annexed by the USA
1846 – Iowa admitted to the Union
1846 – Stephen Foster publishes “Oh, Susanna”
1846-1847 – Mormon Trek from Nauvoo (in Illinois) to Salt Lake City, Utah
1847 – American troops take Mexico City
1847 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes Evangeline, a Tale of Acadia
1848 – Treaty Gaudalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War: Mexico cedes California and areas that became several Western States
1848 – Wisconsin admitted to the Union
1848 – Gold discovered in California
1848 – USA annexes Oregon Territory (including Washington, parts of Idaho, Montana & Wyoming)
1848 – following several revolutions across Europe, newly arrived European immigrants begin settling in the West
1849 – Zachary Taylor, President (Whig from Virginia)
1849 – Death of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore
1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery on the Underground Railroad
1850 – Millard Fillmore (Whig from New York) becomes President following the death of Zachary Taylor
1850 – California admitted to the Union
1850 – Stephen Foster publishes “Old Folks at Home” (“Swanee River”)
1850 – Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act requiring the return of escaped slaves
1850 – Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes The Scarlet Letter
1851 – Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick
1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin