First Steamboat

1 February 1788 

On this date in 1788... 

The first U.S. steamboat patent was issued by the state of Georgia to Issac Briggs and William Longstreet. The newly constituted U.S. Governmernt overruled Georgia's patent and John Fitch Was Granted a U.S Patent for the Steamboat in 1791. The development of steam riverboats hastened the settlement of the West and became a common feature of Southern rivers into the 20th century.

Other Years:

• 1834 - The state of Georgia began seizing Cherokee property. 
• 1839 - Cherokee Chief John Ross, and 228 other Cherokee arrived in Little Rock, on the way to Indian Territory. Chief Ross's wife, Quatie, died and was buried in Little Rock.
• 1856 - Auburn University was chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
• 1861 - Texas seceded from the Union. 
• 1865 - General W.T. Sherman's march through South Carolina began.
• 1871 – Reconstruction Representative Jefferson Long of Georgia was the first black to make an official speech in the House of Represantatives. He argued against leniency to former Confederates.
• 1873 - Confederate Navy officer, diplomat, and scientist, Matthew Fontaine Maury died.
• 1959 - Texas Instruments requested a patent on the first Integrated Circuit.
• 1960 - Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, that had refused them service.

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