Also Within this year in history
In the last year of relative calm before the storm of the Civil War, Americans elected dark horse candidate Abraham Lincoln as their president. Out West, the Pony Express began express mail delivery. In December, South Carolina became the first Southern state to secede from the Union; 10 more would follow in the new year. In England, Charles Dickens published the first installment of “Great Expectations,” a landmark of Victorian-era literature.
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1754: Pony Express rider crossing hostile country between St Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, pursued by native Americans. Horse and rider relay mail service took about 10 days to cover the 1,800 mile route and operated from April 1860 to October 1861 when the transcontinenetal telegraph system opened. On the right is a Native American 'burual' polatform. From The Illustrated London News, October 1861. Engraving. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860. He opposed any compromise plan that would extend slavery, including the Crittenden Compromise.
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