All times in UTC ·
Dashed edge = started before, or continues beyond, this day
Events on Tuesday 30 May 1854 1
1854Kansas-Nebraska Act signedUS law allows popular sovereignty on slaveryPresident Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, letting settlers in the new territories decide by popular vote whether to permit slavery. The act repealed the Missouri Compromise line and intensified sectional conflict that led toward the American Civil War.