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• 1800
• 1825
• 1850
• 1875
• 1900
• 1925
• 1950
• 1975

• 1800

  • 1804 - Aaron Burr shoots Alexander Hamilton in New Jersey
  • 1807 - The City cedes land at the Battery for fortification
  • 1808 - Congress bans the importation of slaves
  • 1812 - West Battery continuously manned during the war of 1812
  • 1815 - Castle Clinton becomes headquarters for the Third Military District
  • 1824 - Castle Garden opens to the public as a resort, theater and restaurant, for $5, ticket holders can promenade around the walls, and sip mint juleps, ginseng, and punch liquor (free of charge)
  • 1824 - The Marquis de Lafayette arrives by boat at Castle Garden

• 1825

  • 1825 - Hans Christian Oersted's discoveries in electromagnetism lead to a petitioning for a telegraph room at the Castle
  • 1825 - A portion of the Castle is converted into a reading room with newspapers from major cities
  • 1825 - Among the first in the City, the Castle is lit with gas lights, using four to five hundred jets
  • 1828 - Balloon ascension by Eugene Robertson, who almost loses his life when his balloon becomes attached to Castle Garden's flagpole
  • 1830 - Public "warm seawater" bathhouses are installed at Castle Garden
  • 1833 - During President Jackson's first visit to New York, the bridge connecting the Castle to the Battery collapses just after he traverses it
  • 1835 - Samuel Morse demonstrates his telegraph to the public at the Castle
  • 1841 - The first steam fire engine is demonstrated at the Castle
  • 1842 - Samuel Colt presents his submarine at the Battery
  • 1845 - The Irish potato famine kills 1 million and prompts 500,000 to immigrate to U.S. over the next five years
  • 1845 - The Castle area is roofed over, enclosed by a spacious dome and adapted as a theater
  • 1849 - The California Gold Rush sparks the first mass Chinese immigration
  • 1849 - Cholera epidemic rages in NYC

• 1850

  • 1850 - Jenny Lind makes her American debut at Castle Clinton
  • 1851 - President Millard Fillmore visits Castle Garden before touring the newly completed Erie Canal
  • 1851 - The Hungarian Patriot, Louis Kossuth, lands at Castle Clinton
  • 1855 - Castle Garden is leased to New York State Commissioners of Emigration
  • 1855 - The land of The Battery is extended, joining Castle Garden to the island of Manhattan
  • 1861 - Abraham Lincoln takes the presidential oath of office
  • 1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation abolishes slavery
  • 1867 - The employment office at Castle Garden is replaced by the Labor Exchange
  • 1870 - The 15th Amendment of the Constitution provides African American males with the right to vote

• 1800

  • 1877 - Thomas Edison develops tin foil phonograph
  • 1877 - First National League baseball game
  • 1883 - Emma Lazarus publishes her poem "The New Colossus"
  • 1886 - A gift from France, the Statue of Liberty is dedicated to the United States
  • 1890 - Immigrants land for the last time at Castle Garden
  • 1892 - Ellis Island becomes the U.S. immigration center
  • 1896 - Castle Garden is transformed into the New York Aquarium

• 1900

  • 1904 - New York City Subway opens
  • 1907 - In a "Gentlemen's Agreement", Japan ends issuance of passports to its laborers and the U.S. agrees not to prohibit Japanese immigration
  • 1917 - The U.S. enters World War 1 and anti-German sentiment swells at home
  • 1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill granting Native Americans full citizenship

• 1925

  • 1929 - Congress makes annual immigration quotas permanent
  • 1939 - World's Fair is held in Flushing Meadows, Queens
  • 1941 - Robert Moses begins demolition of the Aquarium for his never-built "Brooklyn to Battery Bridge" plan
  • 1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. More than 1,000 Japanese-American community leaders are incarcerated because of national security
  • 1945 - The War Bride Act and the G.I. Fiancées Act allows immigration of foreign-born wives, fiancées, husbands and children of U.S. armed forces personnel

• 1950

  • 1950 - Bureau of Indian Affairs terminates federal services for Native Americans
  • 1950 - Castle Clinton is named a National Historic Monument by Congress
  • 1952 - The Immigration and Nationality Act allows individuals of all races to be eligible for naturalization
  • 1953 - Congress amends the 1948 refugee policy to allow the admission of 200,000 more refugees
  • 1959 - Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution prompts mass exodus of more than 200,000 people in three years
  • 1966 - The Cuban Refugee Readjustment Act permits 400,000 fleeing Cubans to enter and remain in the U.S.

• 1975

  • 1986 - The Immigration Reform and Control Act legalizes illegal aliens
  • 1988 - The Civil Liberties Act provides compensation and a presidential apology to all Japanese survivors of internment camps