The Allies secure victory at Guadalcanal as the Japanese complete their evacuation from the South Pacific island. Guadalcanal, the largest island in the Solomon Islands, was the site of the first Allied offensive against the Japanese in the Pacific. The Allied victory ended the Japanese conquest and forced the enemy into a defensive shell.
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is born in Lancaster, Ohio. Sherman, one of the most successful American generals, has been called the first "modern" general for his campaigns of attrition imposed on the American South during the Civil War.
President Grover Cleveland signs the Dawes Act into law, an effort to rapidly assimilate American Indians into American culture. The act, sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Henry Dawes, allotted individual plots of land to American Indian families, breaking up communities and tribes.
