Video: 'Beginning of the Dream: Homestead Act Made Law'

(Tuesday, May 20, 1862, during the American Civil War) — U.S. President Abraham Lincoln today signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.

Video: May 20, 1862 (at 1:00:30)

(Tuesday, May 20, 1862, part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War) — Federal Gen. George McClellan’s troops are now only nine miles from Richmond, the Confederate capital, but McClellan refused to attack and instead demanded 40,000 additional men even though he already outnumbered the rebels that he faced.