1. Westward Expansion in the 19th century
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2. Westward Movement Westward movement
Following the Civil War, the westward movement of settlers intensified into the vast region between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean.
The years immediately before and after the Civil War were the Era of the American Cowboy,
marked by long cattle drives for hundreds of miles over unfenced open land in the West, the only way to get cattle to market.

3. Homestead Act
Many Americans had to rebuild their lives after the Civil War and moved west to take advantage of :
the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave free public land in the western territories to settlers who would live on and farm the land.
Southerners and African Americans, in particular, moved west to seek new opportunities after the Civil War.

6. Western Frontier
New technologies (for example, railroads and the mechanical reaper):
opened new lands in the West for settlement and made farming more prosperous
Great Plains and Rocky Mountain region of the American West was no longer a mostly unsettled frontier, but was fast becoming a region of farms, ranches, and towns.

7. Admission of New States
As the population moved westward, many new states in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains were added to the Union.
By the early 20th century, all the states that make up the continental United States, from Atlantic to Pacific, had been admitted.
Oklahoma Land Rush

8. The Transcontinental Railroad
Connected Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads
Chinese and Irish immigrants were the predominant groups that helped to build the railroad
Two railroads united at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869

9. The Golden Spike

10. Battle of Little Big Horn, 1876
An armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army
Indians were led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull
U.S. Army General Custer and his 7th Cavalry suffered a major defeat

11. Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890
In an effort to bring hope of freedom in Indian Reservations, Indians began performing “ghost dances.”
The ghost dances alarmed U.S. army soldiers monitoring the reservations and they decided to arrest Indian Chief, Big Foot (aka Spotted Elk) near Wounded Knee River.
What triggered the massacre is debated, but in the end 150 Lakota Indians were killed, 50 wounded and 25 soldiers were killed.