“10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America” by Steven M. Gillon is an extraordinarily written book about the course of history that swept through America. The author covered crucial topics that covers the span of American history from settlement to recent past and reveals the great diversity of our national experience. Of all the 10 chapters, I chose three that made a more significant appearance to me. The three chapters include: “Gold Rush”, “Murder at Fair: The assassination of President McKinley” and last but not least “Einstein’s letter”. I’ve chosen these particular topics because they are very different from one another yet they tie into the same result: change of American history. These topics tell the story of rural farmers, gold
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It all started when James Marshall, a worker at John Augustus Sutter’s Fort of fifty thousand acres, found pieces of gold while working on the construction of sawmill on a new piece of land that Sutter did not yet have a title to. Marshal noticed glittering flakes at the riverbed and couldn’t believe what he just saw.” I reached my hand down and picked it up, it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold” said Marshal. Marshal revealed his discovery of gold to Sutter but Sutter decided to keep it a secret since he didn’t own the land that Marshal found the gold in yet. Somehow rumors spread across San Francisco about the discovery of gold but people didn’t believe it. But all that changed on a Friday, May 12, 1848 when Sam Brannan traveled to San Francisco carrying gold and the proof of the new discovery. Within a month, by July 4, thousands of people flocked into the hills in search of gold. Until the summer of 1848, Californians had the gold rush all to themselves until December 5 when President Polk delivered his final State of the Union message to Congress and confirmed the discovery of Gold in California. People from all around the world started seeking for gold. In 1848, Henry Simpson’s book included the best routes to California in his best-selling book “The Emigrants’ guide to The Gold Mines”. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to the Gold Mines alone within America. Americans were not the only ones immigrating to California. Word of the Gold Rush spread to Hawaii and Mexico, then toward South America before reaching Far East and Europe. Within a year, there were 6,000 Mexican immigrants in the gold mining region. Australians went home with their success stories and immigration increased. Young men left Asia after the Taiping Revolution and fled for the gold fields. Irish immigration boomed by the year 1851 as well as French. By 1860, California’s population
It all started when James Marshall, a worker at John Augustus Sutter’s Fort of fifty thousand acres, found pieces of gold while working on the construction of sawmill on a new piece of land that Sutter did not yet have a title to. Marshal noticed glittering flakes at the riverbed and couldn’t believe what he just saw.” I reached my hand down and picked it up, it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold” said Marshal. Marshal revealed his discovery of gold to Sutter but Sutter decided to keep it a secret since he didn’t own the land that Marshal found the gold in yet. Somehow rumors spread across San Francisco about the discovery of gold but people didn’t believe it. But all that changed on a Friday, May 12, 1848 when Sam Brannan traveled to San Francisco carrying gold and the proof of the new discovery. Within a month, by July 4, thousands of people flocked into the hills in search of gold. Until the summer of 1848, Californians had the gold rush all to themselves until December 5 when President Polk delivered his final State of the Union message to Congress and confirmed the discovery of Gold in California. People from all around the world started seeking for gold. In 1848, Henry Simpson’s book included the best routes to California in his best-selling book “The Emigrants’ guide to The Gold Mines”. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to the Gold Mines alone within America. Americans were not the only ones immigrating to California. Word of the Gold Rush spread to Hawaii and Mexico, then toward South America before reaching Far East and Europe. Within a year, there were 6,000 Mexican immigrants in the gold mining region. Australians went home with their success stories and immigration increased. Young men left Asia after the Taiping Revolution and fled for the gold fields. Irish immigration boomed by the year 1851 as well as French. By 1860, California’s population