In what year were people first offered the opportunity to claim up to 160 acres of free land?

The Homestead Act was put into place in the year 1862.

The Homestead Act was put into act in order to encourage citizens to travel west and conquer land through Manifest Destiny. This act allowed citizens to claim up to 160 acres of free land, just as the description above states.

Hope this helps!

in his book, the riddle of the rosetta stone, james giblin talks about how there was a young british polymath and physician named thomas young who made a lot of advances on the deciphering of the rosetta stone. he says that even though young made a lot of mistakes because he was working under false assumptions, he also made huge contributions like deciphering three out of the seven symbols (more than anyone else before him). young published his findings and continued his good work but he wasn't able to progress much further due to some unfavorable situations, he still laid the basis for many other scholars and of course for the man who has been generally known to have deciphered it, jean-françois champollion

i believe it's that they cared for people. hope this ! : )