Polk, the dark horse

Event · 1844 CE · in North America

The Democrats meeting in Baltimore passed over their favourites and chose James K. Polk on the ninth ballot, the first “dark horse”. He beat Henry Clay on a promise to annex Texas and take Oregon.

In the guided tours

• Political upsets: Ten US elections that went against the odds or turned the country over, and how the map changed with them, from Jefferson's revolution of 1800 to 2016.

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Around the same time and place

• George Washington (1732 CE – 1799 CE): Commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and first President of the United States (1789–1797).
• Abraham Lincoln (1809 CE – 1865 CE): 16th President of the United States, who led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and was assassinated in 1865.
• American Civil War (1861–1865 CE): War between the Union and the Confederacy of southern slave states; the Union victory preserved the United States and ended slavery.
• Wilbur and Orville Wright (1867 CE – 1948 CE): American aviation pioneers from Dayton, Ohio, who built and flew the first successful powered, controlled airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December 1903. Wilbur died in 1912 and Orville in 1948.
• Telephone (1876 CE): Alexander Graham Bell received a US patent for the telephone and made the first successful call in Boston in March 1876.
• Thomas Jefferson (1743 CE – 1826 CE): Principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third US President, who made the Louisiana Purchase.
• Monroe Doctrine (1823 CE): In his annual message to Congress in December 1823, President James Monroe declared that the Americas were closed to further European colonisation and that the US would oppose European interference there.
• Trail of Tears (Cherokee removal) (1838–1839 CE): The United States forcibly removed the Cherokee Nation from its homeland in the Southeast to Indian Territory (Oklahoma); thousands died on the march, part of the wider removal of the Five Civilized Tribes.

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