| 1851 | First Treaty of Fort Laramie. |
| 1862 | Homestead Act. Great Sioux Uprising (Santee Uprising). |
| 1864 | Sand Creek massacre. |
| 1867 | Treaty of Medicine Lodge. |
| 1868 | Second Treaty of Fort Laramie. |
| 1869 | First transcontinental railroad completed. |
| 1870 | Hunters begin to decimate bison herds. |
| 1873 | "Big Bonanza" discovered on Comstock Lode. |
| 1874 | Discovery of gold in Black Hills. |
| 1876 | Battle of the Little Big Horn. |
| 1877 | Chief Joseph surrenders. |
| 1879 | Carlisle Indian School opens. Exodusters move to Kansas. |
| 1881 | Sitting Bull surrenders. |
| 1882 | Chinese Exclusion Act. |
| 1886 | Geronimo surrenders. |
| 1886–1887 | Severe blizzards decimate cattle. |
| 1887 | Dawes Allotment Act. |
| 1889 | Rise of Ghost Dance. Two million acres in Oklahoma opened for settlement. |
| 1890 | Sitting Bull killed. Massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. |
| 1893 | Last land rush in Oklahoma Territory. Frederick Jackson Turner presents "frontier thesis." |