1618 The Thirty Years' War devastates Germany; the country disintegrates into numerous independent principalities
1626 The Rhinelander Peter Minuit (Minnewit) -- director of the
Dutch colony-purchases
Manhattan from the Indians and builds Ft. New Amsterdam
1633 First publication in Germany encouraging emigration to America
1661 Georg Hack from Cologne settles in Maryland
1670 Hudson Bay Co. founded with Prince Ruprecht as governor
1676 Nikolaus de Meyer from Hamburg becomes Mayor of New York
1683 Early German settlers come to the American colonies for religious reasons, including the Mennonites and Quakers who arrive on the "Concord" and found Germantown, PA with Francis Daniel Pastorius as their leader / Vienna defended against Turkish invasion
1688 Germantown's Pastorius pens first protest against slavery
1691 British execute Frankfurt-born Jacob Leisler, first elected
governor of New York and
champion of American independence
1709 First mass emigration from the Palatinate (Pfalz)
1710 650 Palatines and Swiss settle at New Bern, NC
1720 Augsburg and Marienthal founded in Louisiana
1728 Seventh-Day Adventists under Conrad Beissel build Ephrata Cloisters in Pennsylvania
1732 The "Philadelphische Zeitung" (newspaper) appears
1733 Schwenkfelders from Silesia arrive in Pennsylvania
1734 Salzburg Protestants come to Georgia
1735 Printer John Peter Zenger's acquittal -- landmark victory
for freedom of the press / Moravians
(Herrnhuters) under Count Zinzendorf settle in Georgia
1736 Moravians found Bethlehem,Nazareth, and Lititz, PA
1741 President Eisenhower's ancestor-Hans N. Eisenhauer-arrives
1743 First Bible printed in America by Christopher Saur-in German
1768 Barbara Heck, German-lrish, founds first Methodist church in New York
1772 Pennsylvania Germans ("Dutchmen") form their own militias
/ Moravians found Schoenbrunn
mission in Ohio
1776 The Great American Revolution / Braunschweiger and Hessian troops land in Quebec (and introduce the decorated Christmas tree to North America); nearly 5000 Hessians remained in America
1777 Gen. von Steuben trains American army / Molly Pitcher (Maria
Ludwig) fights in several
battles / Christopher Ludwig is the army's director of baking / Major
F. von Heer commands Gen. Washington's German body-guards / Gen. Nicholas
Herkimer and the Germans of the Mohawk Valley defeat the British at Oriskan
1779 Gen. von Steuben writes first handbook for U.S. Army
1784 Johann Jacob Astor arrives and becomes richest American
/ German Society for the
Protection of Immigrants founded in New York
1786 Prussia's Frederick the Great recognizes the independent USA
1804 The Harmonists under George Rapp arrive in Pennsylvania.
Their Indiana settlement, Neu
Harmonie (1814- 824), becomes the economic "Wonder of the West"
1806 Defeated by Napoleon, The Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation ceases to exist 1807
Martin Baum, riverboat pioneer on the Ohio and Mississippi, becomes
mayor of Cincinnati
1815 Boston's Germans found Handel and Haydn Society / Napoleon
defeated by British and
Prussian forces
1817 Joseph Baumeler and his German separatists found the Zoar commune in Ohio
1820 Joseph Heister becomes Governor of Pennsylvania
1825 German introduced at Harvard University / Harmonists build
their third town, Old Economy,
now part of Ambridge, PA
1827 Francis Lieber from Berlin begins editing the Encyclopedia Americana in Boston
1829 Gomried Duden's published travel report encourages thousands of Germans to come to America, especially Missouri
1835 The Giessen-Society aims at a "New German Fatherland" in
America; this and similar attempts
failed / Philadelphia Maennerchor founded
1837 Pennsylvania publishes laws and governors' messages in English and German
1840 German Lutherans found Concordia College, Ft. Wayne, IN
/ First "Volksfest" celebrated in
Richmond, VA
1842 William Bouck (Bauk) becomes Governor of New York
1843 German Inspirationists settle near Buffalo and later move to Amana, IA
1844 German aristocrats found the "Mainzer Adelsverein"for settlement
in Texas. They build New
Braunfels and Fredericksburg
1847 Lutheran Missouri Synod organized, C.F.W. Walther, president
1848 The German Revolution for "unity, justice and freedom" /
J.J. Astor donates $400,000 for the
Astor Public Library in New York City / New York's Germania Orchestra
founded / Cincinnati
Turnverein founded
1849 Arrival of "Forty-Eighters" after the failed democratic revolution in Germany / J.A. Sutter loses his land and fortune in the California gold rush
1850 Levi Strauss produces first pair of jeans!
1853 Heinrich Steinweg creates the Steinway piano in New York
1854 221,253 German immigrants arrive in this peak year
1856 Mrs. Carl Schurz establishes first American Kindergarten in Watertown, Wl
1859 Abraham Lincoln acquires the "Illinois Staatsanzeiger" paper
and struggles through German
grammar
1861 The Civil War (1861-65) / German-American militia safeguard
Missouri for the Union / Julius
Sturges brings first pretzel on the market in Lititz, PA
1862 Homestead Act / Sioux Uprising in Minnesota results in an attack on the German Turner town of New Ulm, MN
1865 Union army volunteers born in Germany numbered 5,000; 41
reached the rank of Major
General / Young Count Zeppelin spent some time as a balloon observer
during the Civil War
1866 After Prussia' victory over its arch rival, Austria is no
longer a member state of the German
Federation / Adolf Pfannenschmidt from Rinteln founds Pfannenschmidtstadt-better
known today as
Hollywood!
1867 America's first Socialist party formed in New York City
1868 Joseph Pullitzer becomes a reporter for a German-language newspaper in St. Louis, MO. He later the New York World and turned it into a successful newspaper. The prestigious Pullitzer Prizes in literature and journalism are named in his honor.
1870 San Antonio, TX is 50% German / The Franco-Prussian War
(1870-71); Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck unites German states in the "Second Reich" (1871-1918)
1872 Brewers Philip Best, Valentin Blatz, Franz Falk, Frederick Miller, Jacob Obermann, Frederick Pabst, Joseph Schlitz and others make Milwaukee the leading beer exporter
1873 Bismarck's 14-year "Kulturkampf"- power struggle with Catholicism over control of education, civil marriage, and church appointments-motivates Catholic emigration
1877 Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior (187781)
1878 Bismarck's Socialist Law leads to wave of Social Democrat
emigration / "New Yorker
Volkszeitung" becomes organ of Socialist-Labor party
1880 Wisconsin has more German-Americans than any other state. It still does!
1882 250,630 German immigrants come to America, more than in any other year
1883 15,000 German Mennonites from Russia settle in Kansas /
Brooklyn Bridge opens -- built by
the Roeblings
1884 Ottmar Mergenthaler revolutionizes type-setting
1886 The Haymarket Riots in Chicago lead to arrest and execution
of radical socialist editor August
Spies of the "Arbeiter Zeitung"
1888 Some 800 German-language publications represent more than
50% of America's foreign
language press
1892 Henry Heinz, a German-American living in Pittsburgh, creates ketchup.
1893 Hesse-born John Peter Altgeld becomes Governor of Illinois
1901 The National German-American Alliance founded
1904 St. Louis Germans bring the "hamburger" on the market
1910 German-Americans developed 672,000 farms on a total area
of 100,000,000 acres (an
estimate)
1914 WW I begins in Europe. Pres.Wilson issues proclamations
of neutrality / Frederick
Weyerhaeuser, German-born lumber king, dies. His fortune: $300,000,000
1915 A German-American, Irish-American Alliance formed to keep the US out of the war
1917 The US enters the conflict. Anti-German hysteria throughout
the country; German-language
instruction ends in most states; hundreds of German-language publications
cease to exist; many a
Schmidt changes to Smith
1918 End of WW l; the imperial "Second Reich" ends / National
German-American Alliance
dissolved
1919 Germany's "Weimar Republic" founded / German instruction banned in Indiana and Nebraska; Steuben Society founded
1920 Prohibition until 1933; dark days for beer makers!
1921 First Quota Law limits immigration
1923 Supreme Court rules prohibiting German in schools unconstitutional
/ Charles P Steinmetz,
GE's wizard of electricity, dies / Inflation rocks young German republic
/ Hitler arrested after failing to seize power in Munich
1928 Herbert Hoover (originally Huber) elected -- first president of German ancestry
1929 "Black Friday" on New York Stock Exchange leads to worldwide
depression / baseball stars
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Frank Frisch, all of German descent
1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. Beginning of mass
exodus of Jewish and non-Jewish
intellectuals and artists from Nazi Germany, including Bauhaus members
1934 The Steuben Society and most German-Americans oppose Nazi
movement in the USA / the
Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation (National Carl Schurz Association)
publishes the
"American-German Review" and assists refugees from Germany
1936 The German-American Bund (Deutsch-Amerikanischer Volksbund)
with Fritz Kuhn as
"Fuehrer," a Nazi organization
1937 The American Nazi Party claims 200,000 members
1939 Fritz Kuhn jailed for misappropriation of Bund funds / Hitler
starts WW II with his Blitzkrieg
against Poland
1940 Most of the 114,058 Germans coming to the USA between 1931
and 1940 are opposed to,
or escape from, Nazi tyranny
1941 Following Pearl Harbor, Hitler declares war on the USA
1942 Gen. Eisenhower commands US Forces in the European theater.
Like "Ike," Adm. Nimitz,
Gen. Spaatz and others are also of German descent
1945 May 8, WW II in Europe ends with Germany's unconditional
surrender / CARE packages and
other American assistance during post war hunger period in West Germany
are a big help
1948 The Marshall Plan, in conjunction with currency reform,
jump starts the German economy into
the "economic miracle" of postwar recovery
1949 The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic
Republic founded; Germany
divided until 1990
1950 128,600 Germans immigrate
1952 General Dwight D. Eisenhower elected President
1968 Society for German-American Studies established
1969 Wernher von Braun and other German-American scientists provide
leadership for US space
program and moon landing
1973 Fuerth-born Henry A. Kissinger becomes Secretary of State and receives Nobel Peace Prize
1983 Tricentennial of German Immigration (landing of the "Concord"
with 13 Krefeld families and
founding of Germantown in 1683). German-American Day, Oct. 6, reinstituted
by President Ronald Reagan
1990 According to the US Census, German-Americans are largest
ethnic group with nearly 58 million (more than 23% of the population) claiming
at least some German ancestry. Wisconsin has the highest percentage of
Americans of German descent (nearly 54%), and Milwaukee is the US city
with the largest % of German-Americans.
2000 German remains the largest reported "ancestry" in Census 2000.