The Transcontinental Railroad was completed. The first spikes were driven in 1863 during the Civil War, and over the following 6 year period, over 2,000 miles of track was laid entirely by hand over rugged terrain including the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Central Pacific Company built East from Sacramento, while the Union Pacific built West from Omaha, Nebraska. Both teams … [Read more...] about May 10, 1869
April 28, 1869
On this day in 1869, eight Irish laborers joined forces with a group of Chinese laborers to lay ten miles and fifty-six feet of track in under twelve hours for the Central Pacific Railroad company. It was a record in track-laying never to be equalled. The feat was the result of an ongoing rivalry between the Union Pacific and Charles Crocker’s Central Pacific. Each rail handler … [Read more...] about April 28, 1869
June 20, 1867
Clan Na Gael, the American counterpart to Ireland's revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood, was founded on this day in 1867. John Devoy, Daniel Cohalan and Joseph McGarrity help form the brotherhood in New York, with the purpose of securing an independent Ireland. … [Read more...] about June 20, 1867
May 5, 1867
Nellie Bly, American journalist, was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran to Irish immigrants in Pennsylvania. Born in Cochran Mill's, an area named for her father Michael who began as a mill laborer and ended up owning the mill. Bly once faked insanity to expose inhumane practices in the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. In doing so she spawned a new form of "investigative" … [Read more...] about May 5, 1867
April 10, 1867
George Russell, who went by AE, was born on this day in 1867 in Lurgan, Co. Armagh. An important and interesting figure in Ireland's literary history, AE was a poet, journalist, painter and mystic. Raised in Dublin, he began an early friendship with W.B. Yeats. He worked for the Irish Agricultural Organization Society for many years and was the editor of their journal, the … [Read more...] about April 10, 1867