The Rock Island Railroad Bridge, the first railroad bridge to cross the Mississippi River, was completed and tested that day with the weight of a locomotive. The next day a full train with three engines and eight passenger cars made the crossing between Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. (By John Osborne)

St. John Nepomuk Church opened its doors in St. Louis, Missouri, under the Reverend Henry Lipowsky. It was the first completely Bohemian-American church in the country. (By John Osborne)

Susan B. Anthony helps to found the New York Women's State Temperance Society at a convention in Rochester, New York. (By John Osborne)

A bakery in the basement of a six-story New York City tenement at 142 Elm Street caught fire at around seven or eight o'clock in the evening.  Before the fire was put out twenty residents were trapped and burned or suffocated. This led in April, 1860 to a state law being passed, the first in the nation, requiring fire escapes on all tenement buildings in the state. (By John Osborne)

After a February 2, 1860 fire in a tenement building on Elm Street in New York City killed twenty people, the New York state legislature passed a law requiring fire escapes on all city tenements. (By John Osborne)

In the first serious oil well fire in the United States, a gusher at Oil Creek, Pennsylvania caught fire.  The fire burned for three days and nineteen people were killed. (By John Osborne)

President Lincoln signed the contentious bill abolishing slavery within the District of Columbia. It was the first federal bill abolishing slavery anywhere in the United States. (By John Osborne)

The iron pile Minot's Ledge Lighthouse on the Massachusetts coast was swept away in a storm, less than seventeen months after its completion.  Two young assistant keepers were lost. It was replaced by a stone lighthouse that opened in 1860. (By John Osborne)

Just before dawn, Confederate artillery forces opened fire on Fort Sumter, the federal island outpost in Charleston Harbor.  Fire was returned from the fort, starting at seven a.m.  The bombardment continued until the early afternoon of the following day, when Major Anderson accepted a ceasefire and made preparations to evacuate the fort.  (By John Osborne)