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Haymarket Square Bombing
An explosion in the middle of a labor strike in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. Although investigators later concluded that anarchists had detonated the bomb, the American people quickly placed blame on the strikers. The bombing brought an end to the union group the Knights Of Labor.
Depression of 1893
A depression caused by overspeculation, depressed agricultural prices, and weakened American credit abroad. The worst depression in America since the 1870s, the Depression of 1893 hit farmers hard and left millions in the cities without work. President Grover Cleveland’s inability to end the depression caused social unrest and helped strengthen the Populist Party’s following.
“Cross of Gold” Speech
Speech delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the speech, Bryan railed against the Gold Standard and proposed to issue paper money that would be backed by Silver. Though he lost the election, his speech is regarded as one of the finest speeches ever delivered in American politics.
USS Maine Explosion
Mysterious explosion of a U.S. Navy ship in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on February 15, 1898. Although historians have since concluded that a boiler accident caused the ship to explode, Yellow Journalists published sensationalist stories about the incident that quickly led the American public to believe that agents from Spain had sabotaged the ship. The destruction of the Maine pushed the United States and Spain closer to the Spanish-American War.
