July 5, 1865 - President Johnson signed an executive order; confirmed the military conviction of a group of people who had conspired to kill the late President Lincoln; ordered execution of four of the guilty (Confederate sympathizers David E. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Mary E. Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd had been arraigned on May 9,  1865; had been convicted for "maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously" conspiring with several others; Mary Surratt and Edward Spangler had helped John Wilkes Booth gain entrance to the theater box in which Lincoln sat at the time of his murder. Spangler had "hindered" efforts to save Lincoln; Herold had helped Booth escape through military lines; Payne had attempted to kill Lincoln’s secretary of war, William H. Seward; Atzerodt had apparently lain in wait for Vice President Johnson on the night of April 14; O’Laughlin had been charged with lying in wait to murder Grant; others had been convicted of giving aid or support to Booth at various times before and after Lincoln’s assassination. Herold, Atzerodt, Payne and Surratt were sentenced to death by hanging; Spangler, O’Laughlin, Mudd and Arnold were given life in prison with hard labor).

July 20, 1865 - Patent Act of 1865; directed that the Commissioner of Patents turn over patent fees to the Treasury; meet expenses through Congressional appropriations.

December 6, 1865 - Georgia ratified 13th Amendment to the Constitution; officially ended the institution of slavery in the U.S. (Senate had passed the amendment in April 1864; House had passed the measure in January 1865); "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

December 18, 1865 - 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared in effect; ended

slavery in the United States (246 years after the first shipload of captive Africans had landed at Jamestown, Virginia and were bought as slaves); ensured that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

December 24, 1865 - Group of Confederate veterans convened in Pulaski, TN;  formed a secret society called the "Ku Klux Klan" (derived from Greek word "kyklos" - circle); grew from social fraternity into para-military group; philosophy of racial superiority bent on reversing federal government's progressive Reconstruction Era efforts in the South, especially policies that elevated the rights of the local African American population.

April 2, 1866 - President Johnson ended war in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

April 9, 1866 - Congress passed The Civil Rights Bill of 1866, over the veto of President Johnson; granted blacks the rights and privileges of American citizenship; formed the basis for the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

May 5, 1866 - Memorial Day first celebrated, community-wide event; businesses closed, residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags).

July 24, 1866 - Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.

July 28, 1866 - Metric system became legal measurement system in U.S.

August 20, 1866 - President Johnson formally declared the Civil War over (fighting had stopped months earlier).

1867 - Diamonds and gold discovered in the colony of South Africal made conflict between the Boer states and Britain inevitable.

January 8, 1867 - Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson's veto of District of Columbia suffrage bill (granted all adult male citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote (had passed the House in January 1866, had stalled in the Senate; had been recalled for Senate debate in   December 1866); first law in American history that granted African-American men the right to vote; 1870 - 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified; prohibited all states from discriminating against potential male voters because of race or previous condition of servitude.

March 1, 1867 - Nebraska became the 37th state.

March 2, 1867 - U.S. Congress created the Department of Education.

March 2, 1867 - Senate and House passed the Tenure of Office Act, over President Andrew Johnson's veto; required officeholders, confirmed by the Senate, to remain in place until the Senate approved their successors.

March 2, 1867 - Republican-dominated Congress passed the first Reconstruction Act, over President Andrew Johnson's veto; divided the South into five military districts; outlined how new governments were to be established, based on universal manhood suffrage; began the period known as Radical Reconstruction (14th Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868, had resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship; had stated that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside." The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the "equal protection of the laws").

March 23, 1867 - Congress passed third Reconstruction Act.

March 29, 1867 - British Parliament passed the British North America Act; created the Dominion of Canada; July 1, 1867 - British North America Act officially recognized the autonomous Dominion of Canada; confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec as a self-governing entity within the British Empire.

March 30, 1867 - Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million (roughly 2 cents an acre for some 591,000 square miles of land; twice the size of Texas, equal to nearly a fifth of the continental United States); ridiculed as ''Seward's Folly''; April 9, 1867 - Senate ratified the Treaty with Russia (37-2); June 20, 1867 - Russia ratified the sale; October 18, 1867 - United States formally took possession of Alaska from Russia in a ceremony held in Sitka, AK; July 1868 - the House approved appropriation for the purchase (113-48); designated as the Department of Alaska under Brevet Major General Jeff C. Davis, U.S. Army.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Alaska_Purchase_%28hi-res%29.jpg)

May 1, 1867 - Reconstruction of South began, black voter registration.

July 19, 1867 - Congress passed third Reconstruction Act, over President Andrew Johnson's veto.

August 12, 1867 - President Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (lead federal agency responsible for carrying out reconstruction programs in the post-Civil War southern states); believed Stanton was a tool of the Radicals who wanted to establish a military dictatorship in the South; caused an uproar in the House of Representatives; led to impeachment proceedings against Johnson; February 1868 - House charged Johnson with 11 articles of impeachment: for vaguely defined "high crimes and misdemeanors," including Stanton’s firing; violated Tenure of Office Act; House accused the President of publicly hurling "inflammatory and scandalous harangues" against Congressional members; February 24, 1868 - House of Representatives voted 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson; March 5, 1868 - Senate organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson; March 13, 1868 - impeachment trial of President Johnson began in the United States Senate; May 16,  1868 - Senate cast first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment; May 26, 1868 - Senate impeachment trial ended; Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction.

October 21, 1867 - More than 7,000 Southern Plains Indians gathered near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas; their leaders signed Medicine Lodge Creek Peace Treaty, one of the most important treaties in the history of U.S.-Indian relations; abandoned idea of a giant continuous Great Plains reservation; replaced with a new system: Plains Tribes were required to relocate to a clearly bounded reservation in Western Oklahoma; any tribal member living outside of the reservation would be in violation of the treaty; U.S. would be justified in using whatever means necessary to force them onto the reservation; new policy of "civilizing the tribes"; U.S. would no longer allow the Indians to preserve their traditional ways; would use schools and agricultural education programs to eradicate the old customs and assimilate Indians into white culture); when full import of Treaty became clear, some refused to abandon their hunting grounds and traditional ways; caused decades of violent conflict all across the West.

January 3, 1868 - Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's emperor; heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns; patriotic samurai from Japan's outlying domains joined anti-shogunate nobles in restoring the emperor to power after 700 years (fear that the nation's feudal leaders were ill equipped to resist the threat of foreign domination); after seizing power, young Emperor Meiji and his ministers moved royal court from Kyoto to Tokyo; dismantled feudalism; enacted widespread reforms along Western models; newly unified Japanese government began rapid industrialization and militarization; built Japan into a major world power by the early 20th century.

May 20, 1868 - Republican National Convention met in Chicago, nominated Ulysses S. Grant for President.

May 30, 1868 - By proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, first major Memorial Day observance held to honor those who died "in defense of their country during the late rebellion" (had been inspired by local observances that had taken place in various locations in the three years since the end of the Civil War); known to some as "Decoration Day"; mourners honored the Civil War dead; decorated their graves with flowers; General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery; 1966 - federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon B. Johnson, declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.

June 22, 1868 - Arkansas re-admitted to the Union.

June 25, 1868 - Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina readmitted to the Union.

June 25, 1868 - U.S. Congress enacted legislation; set an eight-hour day for federal government employees.

July 25, 1868 - Congress passed act creating the Wyoming Territory.

July 28, 1868 - 14th Amendment officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution; guaranteed citizenship and all its privileges to African Americans.

November 3, 1868 - Republican Ulysses S. Grant elected 18th President of the United States; defeated  Democrat Horatio Seymour.

December 25, 1868 - President Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to everyone involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.

Michael Les Benedict (1973). The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. (New York, NY: Norton, 212 p.). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 --Impeachment.

Milton Lomask (1973). Andrew Johnson: President on Trial. (New York, NY: Octagon Books, 376 p. [orig. pub. 1960]). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 --Impeachment.

Compiled by Richard B. McCaslin (1992). Andrew Johnson: A Bibliography. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 352 p.). Assistant Professor of History (High Point University). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 --Bibliography.

Eric L. McKitrick (1988). Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 533 p. [orig. pub. 1960]). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875; Reconstruction.

Howard Means (2006). The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation. (Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Senior Editor (Washingtonian magazine). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875; Presidents--United States--Biography; United States--Politics and government--1865-1869. Fate of the country hung in the balance, from the moment of Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865, until Andrew Johnson, his replacement, formally announced postwar plans on May 29, 1865.

Gene Smith (1977). High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. (New York, NY: Morrow, 320 p.). Johnson, Andrew, Pres. U. S., 1808-1875 -- Impeachment; Sumner, Charles, 1811-1874; Stevens, Thaddeus, 1792-1868; Reconstruction.

Hans L. Trefousse (1975). Impeachment of a President: Andrew Johnson, the Blacks, and Reconstruction. (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 252 p.). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875 --Impeachment.

--- (1989). Andrew Johnson: A Biography. (New York, NY: Norton, 463 p.). Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875; Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Reconstruction; United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1877.

LINKS

Alaska Day: October 18, 1867  

http://www.cityofsitka.com/alaskaday/                               

Details about this annual event that "commemorates the Purchase Transfer of Russian claim of Alaska to the United States of America at Sitka on Oct. 18, 1867, and celebrates the diversity of cultures and historical perspectives of our people." Features illustrated histories of the transfer and the festival, and links to information about Sitka, Alaska. From the City of Sitka.

Famous American Trials: The Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial, 1868

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/impeach/ impeachmt.htm                                       This presentation recounts the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, the 17th U.S. President. Provides a chronology, details about the trial process, a map showing the Senate vote, images, and links to related websites. Part of the Famous Trials project by a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, School of Law.

The Impeachment Trial of President Andrew Johnson: Supplement to the Congressional Globe  

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcg-imp.html 

Digitized supplement to the Congressional Globe (the predecessor to the Congressional Record) that provides a record of the documents and debates for the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Includes an index to the document and links to other Library of Congress resources related to the impeachment of President Johnson and the impeachment process in general. A special presentation from a larger collection of the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress.

Major Legislation of 39th Congress (March 4, 1865-March 4, 1867)

http://wapedia.mobi/en/39th_United_States_Congress

Major Legislation of 40th Congress (March 4, 1867-March 4, 1869)

http://wapedia.mobi/en/40th_United_States_Congress