Confederate President Jefferson Davis is captured in Irwin County, Georgia. Five days earlier Davis led the final meeting of the Confederate cabinet in Washington, Georgia, and it was rumored that Davis and his wife had been trying to flee the country.
The British Parliament enacts the Tea Act on its American colonies, financially assisting the struggling British East India Company. The Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly in the United States and, along with the Townshend Acts, tried to generate revenue to make their colonial governments sustainable.
Railroads Link at Promontory summit
Railroad executive and former California Governor Leland Stanford drives the "Golden Spike" into the rail at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory, completing the first American Transcontinental Railroad. The merging of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads linked the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by rail for the first time.
