Perhaps the greatest physical feat of 19th century America was the creation of the transcontinental railroad. Two railroads, the Central Pacific starting in San Francisco and a new railroad, the Union Pacific, starting in Omaha, Nebraska, would build the rail-line.racing railroad development from the early 1800s to the 1840s, this page is a good resource for a time period often neglected by other railroad history sites. Report broken link. The Promise of Gold Mountain. The discovery of gold in California lured Chinese as well as Easterners to the hills of California.
Tyrone Davis, a suave soul singer who placed 43 songs in the R&B charts between 1968 and 1988, died on Feb. 9 of pneumonia. He was 66. The Mississippi native was just a teenager when he moved to Chicago in 1959. Davis toiled at a factory during the day and spent his evenings honing his smooth vocal style.
Jefferson Davis was a 35-year-old widower when he and Varina met. His first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of the future president Zachary Taylor, had died of malaria three months after their wedding in 1835.