President:
Pres: Millard Fillmore
Pres: Franklin Pierce elected over Whig candidate Winfield Scott
General
- Business: Wells Fargo and Co. founded
- Finance: Foreign prospectors taxed
- Natives: Treaty with Apache tribe
- Science: America imports swallows from Germany as defense against caterpillars
- Transportation: National road completed
East
- Maryland: Ice so thick on Susquehanna River that cars could be hauled across ice
First Plenary Council of American Roman Catholics held in Baltimore
- Massachusetts: Education made mandatory
Midwest
South
- Louisiana: Yellow Fever outbreak with 8000 dead in New Orleans
West and Pacific
- California: First major wave of African-American migration