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1492 Columbus sails to the Caribbean Islands.
1497 John Cabot explores North America.
1513 Ponce de Leon explores Florida.
1524 Verrazono leads French expedition from Carolina
to Nova Scotia, entering NY. harbor.
1565 St. Augustine, Florida is founded.
1579 Francis Drake claims California for Britain.
1587 Virginia Dare is the first baby born in America
to English parents.
1607 The first European settlement in America is
established at Jamestown, Virginia.
1608 Henry Hudson explores New York harbor and
the Hudson River to Albany; Samuel de Champlain explore Lake Champlain
in upstate New York; Spaniards settle Santa Fe, New Mexico.
1611 First authorized version of the Holy Bible
"King James Bible" published in England.
1620 Pilgrims land in Plymouth, Massachusetts;
the Mayflower Compact is drafted and signed.
1623 The Dutch found New Netherland (later New
York.)
1626 Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from Native
Americans.
1630 The Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded.
1631 Roger Williams, pioneer of religious tolerance,
arrives in America.
1633 First Baptist church is formed at Southwark,
London, England; John Cotton becomes a religious leader in Boston,
Massachusetts.
1634 Maryland is founded as a Catholic colony;
Anne Hutchinson, a religious controlversialist, migrates to Massachusetts.
1635 New Hampshire is founded by Captain John Mason;
the first public school, the Boston Latin School, is established.
1636 Welsh Puritan Roger Williams is banished from
Massachusetts and establishes Providence, Rhode Island, proclaiming
complete religious freedom.
1639 The first constitution in America is written,
the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
1640 John Eliot publishes the Bay Psalm Book, the
oldest surviving book printed in America.
1647 Margaret Brent is the first woman to claim
the right to vote. The first labor organization in the United States
is authorized in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; George Fox founds
the Society of Friends (Quakers)
1648 Maryland assembly passes act of toleration
professing belief in the Holy Trinity.
1654 The first Jews arrive in New Amsterdam. John
Eliot translates the first American Bible into the American Indian
Algonquin language.
1663 The Colony of New Jersey is founded by Sir
William Berkeley and Sir George Carteret; The Carolinas are founded.
1664 The English capture New Netherland.
1665 The first American bible is printed.
1669 William Penn writes, "No Cross, No Crown."
1682 William Penn founds Pennsylvania.
1683 Increase Mather writes "Remarkable Providence."
1684 Increase Mather becomes president of Harvard
College.
1688 The first formal protest against slavery
is made by Pennsylvania Quakers.
1712 A slave revolt in New York leads to the execution
of 21 blacks.
1731 The first circulating libraRY IS founded
in Philadelphia.
1732 Georgia is founded by James Oglethorpe and
others. Benjamin Franklin publishes the first Poor Richard's Almanac.
1737 John Wesley's "Psalms and Hymns" is published
in Charleston. John Wesley's evangelical conversion: George Whitefield
follows him to Georgia a Leader of the "Great Awakening."
1738 The Moravian Church is founded in America
by A. G. Spengenberg.
1741 Jonathan Edwards delivers his sermon "Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God" in Massachusetts. The second slave
uprising takes place in New York, and 26 slaves are killed and 71
are deported.
1749 Black slavery is legalized in Georgia.
1754 The French and Indian War begins (also called
The Seven Years' War.) 1758 The first Indian reservation is established.
1763 The French and Indian War ends.
1764 The Sugar Act places duties on lumber, food,
molasses, and rum in the colonies. Passage of the Stamp Act by Britain
leads to the Declaration of Rights, signed by nine Colonies opposed
to taxation without representation.
1765 Britain repeals the Stamp Act.
1766 The Townshend Acts levy taxes on glass, paint,
lead, paper, and tea.
1770 Five colonists are killed in the Boston Massacre.
The Boston Tea Party takes place. (Colonists dressed as Indians
dump British tea in the Harbor in protest of taxes.) Anne Lee of
Massachusetts settles in New York to begin a spiritualist revival.
The Intolerable Acts are passed by Parliament to curtail Massachusetts'
self-rule and bar the Use of Boston Harbor until the dumped tea
is paid for.
1773 The American Revolution begins with the battles
of Lexington and Concord. France and Spain each donate money to
help arm Americans; the Declaration of Independence is drafted and
signed; Nathan Hale is executed by the British as a spy; the First
fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, is founded at the College of William
and Mary; the Journeymen Printers' Strike is the first in the United
States. The Continental Congress adopts a flag with stars and stripes;
Washington defeats Lord Cornwallis at the battle of Princeton; Major
General John Burgoyn captures Fort Ticonderoga, but Americans defeat
him at Saratoga. France agrees to assist the United States and sends
a fleet; the British evacuate Philadelphia.
1774 George Washington orders a military campaign
against the Iroquois. 1775 Benedict Arnold is discovered to be traitor
and escapes to the British. Colonial and French armies defeat the
British at Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolutionary
War.
1783 The Revolutionary War ends with a treaty.
1784 The first daily newspaper, Pennsylvaina Packet
and General Advertiser, is published in Philadelphia.
1785 James Madison's Religious Freedom Act abolishes
religious tests in Virginia.
1787 The Constitutional Conventional begins in
Philadelphia.
1788 New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution, putting
it into effect.
1789 George Washington is chosen the first President;
John Adams, Vice President; Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state;
and Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury.
1790 Congress meets in Philadelphia, the temporary
capital, and votes to found a new capital On the Potomac River;
the United States signs the first treaty with the Iroquois.
1791 The Bill of Rights goes into effect; Vermont
is the first state to enter the Union after the original 13 colonies.
1792 The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney
revives slavery in the South.
1793 Suppression by the U.S. militia of the Whiskey
Rebellion, in which farmers protest the liquor tax of
1791 established the authority of the new federal
government.
1800 Church of United Brethern in Christ is founded
in the U.S.
1801 Tripoli declares war on the United States.
1803 The Supreme Court declares an act of Congress
unconstitutional in Marbury V. Madison and the United States buys
the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon, doubling its land.
1804 President Jefferson orders the Lewis and Clark
expedition to explore the northwest; Vice President Aaron Burr and
Alexander Hamilton duel; Hamilton dies the next day.
1805 The conflict with Tripoli ends.
1807 The United States Evangelical Association,
founded by Jacob Albright, holds its first convention. The importation
of slaves is outlawed (about 250,000 slaves are illegally imported
Between 1808 and 1860.)
1812 The War of 1812 begins between the United
States and England.
1813 The war of 1812 ends with the Treaty of Ghent.
1814 Florida is ceded (given up) to the United
States by Spain.
1816 The first savings bank is established, the
Provident Institute for Savings, in Boston, Massachusetts; the American
Bible Society is founded. Missouri is admitted to the Union as a
slave state; Troy Female Seminary, the first Women's college in
the United States, is founded by Emma Willard.
1824 The Sunday School Union is formed in the United
States.
1825 The Erie Canal is opened, cutting travel time
from New York City to Buffalo and the Great Lakes by one-third.
1827 Freedom's Journal, the first black U. S. newspaper,
is published.
1828 The first Native American newspaper, Cherokee
Pheonix, begins publication.
1829 The first school for the blind is incorporated
in the United States.
1830 President Jackson signs the Indian Removal
Act.
1831 Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia.
1832 The first meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery
Society is held; Oberlin College, Ohio, becomes the first to admit
a woman on a equal basis with men.
1835 Charles G. Finney, American evangilist wrote
"Lectures on Revivals in Religion." Texans are beseiged at the Alamo
in San Antonio; Texas declares independence From Mexico. 1836 The
panic of 1837 begins a seven-year depression.
1837 Cherokees begin the Trail of Tears, their
1,200-mile forced march to Oklahoma. Oberlin College, Ohio, becomes
the first college to confer degrees on women; the first Wagon train
leaves from Independence, Missouri, for California.
1843 Sojourner Truth, former slave, begins an abolitionist
lecture tour.
1844 The first telegraph message is sent from Washington
to Baltimore by Samuel Morse.
1845 The United States declares war on Mexico;
as a result, the United States obtains Texas, California, Arizona,
New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and part of Colorado; a treaty with Great
Britain gives the United States the Oregon Territory to the 49th
parallel; Henry David Thoreau is jailed for tax resistance.
1847 The first postage stamp is issued; Michigan
becomes the first state to abolish capital Punishment; American
preacher Henry Ward Beecher becomes minister of Plymouth Congregational
Church in Brooklyn, New York.
1848 The United States signs the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo with Mexico, ending the Mexican War and increasing U.S.
territory; the first women's rights convention is held in Seneca
Falls, New York; gold is discovered in California.
1849 Eighty thousand gold prospectors flood California.
1850 Senator Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 admits
California to the Union as a nonslave State, while Utah and New
Mexico enter with no decision on slavery.
1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe,
is published; the First Plenary Council of Roman Catholics is held
in Baltimore, Maryland.
1853 The American Labor Union is founded.
1854 The Republican party is formed in opposition
to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left the issue of slavery to a
vote by settlers.
1857 The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court
upholds slavery.
1858 The Lincoln-Douglas debates are held in Illinois.
1859 John Brown, abolitionist, captures the U.S.
arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; Brown is hanged for treason.
1860 A nationwide shoemakers' strike wins workers
higher wages; the National Labor Union is founded.
1861 The American Miners Association, the first
national coal miner's union, is founded; the Civil War begins when
Confederates fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
1862 Slavery is abolished in Washington, D.C.;
the Homestead Act grants land to settlers. Harriet Tubman frees
750 slaves in a raid; President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg
address and issues the Emancipation Proclamation; draft riots in
New York City kill Approximately a thousand, including blacks who
are hanged by a mob.
1863 Black prisoners of war are massacred by Confederate
soldiers at Fort Pillow, Tennessee; General Sherman marches through
Georgia, capturing Atlanta; the New Orleans Tribune, A black-run
daily newspaper, begins publication;133 Cheyenne and Arapahoe are
killed by Colorado cavalry volunteers at Sand Creek. The Confederacy
surrenders at Appomattox, Virginia, ending the Civil War; the first
state Civil rights law is passed in Massachusetts; the 13th Amendment
abolishes slavery; the Ku Klux Klan is formed in Pulaski, Tennessee;
President Lincoln is assassinated.
1864 American Evangelical Alliance is founded.
1868 Impeachment proceedings begin against President
Andrew Johnson; the 14th Amendment is ratified, guaranteeing due
process to all but Native Americans; a U.S.-Sioux treaty is signed
at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.
1869 The first national black labor group, the
Colored National Labor Convention, meets in Washington, D.C.; the
Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads are linked at Promontory,
Utah, forming the first transcontinental railroad; Wyoming territory
is the First to grant suffrage to women.
1870 The first woman candidate for U.S. President,
Victoria Claflin Woodhull, announces she will run; the great Chicago
Fire takes place; the first sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is established
at De Paul University; Ada Kepley, the first American woman graduate
of a law school, receives degree from Union College of Law, Chicago.
1872 Susan B. Anthony is arrested for voting; the
Amnesty Act restores rights to Southern citizens except for 500
Confederate leaders; Yellowstone, the first U.S. national park,
opens in Wyoming.
1873 The first illustrated daily newspaper, New
York Daily Graphic, is established.
1875 The Civil Rights Act gives equal rights to
blacks in public accommodations and jury duty 1876 General Custer
is defeated at the battle of the Little Bighorn.
1877 The United States violates its treaty with
the Dakota Sioux by seizing the Black Hills; Chief Joseph surrenders
with a starving remnant of Nez-Perce people. Sitting Bull surrenders;
President Garfield is shot and killed; Booker T. Washington Founds
Tuskegee Institute for blacks.
1883 The Supreme Court rules that Native Americans
are aliens; the Civil Rights Act of is invalidated by the Supreme
Court.
1885 The first skyscraper is built in Chicago.
1886 The Haymarket Square massacre takes place
in Chicago as a bomb explodes and Protestors demanding an eight-hour
day are arrested; Geronimo surrenders to Arizona Territory leaders;
the American Federation of Labor (AFL) is founded.
1887 Crazy Horse is assassinated while in custody.
The United Mine Workers is formed; sitting Bull is killed by police
at Standing Rock Reservation, South Dakota; 200 Sioux are massacred
by troops at Wounded Knee, South Dakota; William Kemmler is the
first criminal to be executed by electrocution at Auburn Prison,
New York; Ellis Island becomes a port of entry for immigrants.
1893 Financial panic lasting for four years begins.
The Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholds the "separate
but equal" Doctrine.
1898 The United States declares war on Spain; U.S.
Troops invade Puerto Rico to liberate It from Spain; Admiral Dewey
captures Manila.
1899 Philippine insurrection against U.S. rule
begins; The Awakening, an early feminist novel By Kate Chopin, is
published; the Open Door Policy makes China an international market
and preserves its integrity as a nation.
1900 The International Ladies Garment Workers Union
is founded; prohibitionist Cary Nation leads the first bottle-smashing
raid in Wichita, Kansas.
1901 President McKinley is assassinated. 1902 The
last Philippine resistance to U.S. intervention ends.
1903 Panama declares its independence from Colombia,
with U.S. support, and signs the Panama Canal Treaty; Orville and
Wilbur Wright make the first flights in a mechanically propelled
plane.
1905 The Niagara Movement, later to become the
NAACP, is founded.
1906 The San Francisco earthquake and fire occurs.
1907 Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first
Native American U.S. Senator.
1908 The United States bars Japanese immigration;
women demonstrate in New York City, demanding an end to sweatshops
and child labor; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is established.
1909 The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) is founded; Native American leader Geronimo
dies. 1911 The Triangle Shirt Waist Company fire in New York City
kills 146 sweatshop workers, mostly women, and leads to demands
for better working conditions.
1912 The "Bread and Roses" strike by 10,000 textile
workers begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
1913 Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes
income tax; The Federal Reserve system is adopted; the first important
U.S. exhibition of modern art is held at the New York City Armory;
Harriet Tubman, leader of the Underground Railroad, dies.
1914 The Colorado National Guard burns a striking
miner's camp and kills 13 children and seven adults in the Ludlow
Massacre.
1915 The Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom is founded; 25,000 women March in New York City demanding
suffrage; Haiti becomes a U.S. protectorate after U. S. troops land
there.
1916 The National Women's party is founded; the
first public birth control clinic opens in Brooklyn, New York; Jeannette
Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the House of
Representatives; Margaret Sanger is arrested for operating a birth
control clinic; the United States buys the Virgin Islands from Denmark;
a military government is cstablished in the Dominican Republic as
the country is occupied by U. S. Marines.
1917 Women picket the White House for the right
to vote; Puerto Rico becomes a U.S. territory; the United States
declares war on Germany, entering World War I; a wartime Draft is
enacted; Emma Goldman is sentenced to two years for aiding draft
resisters.
1918 The Sedition Act becomes law; World War I
ends.
1919 The Supreme Court holds that freedom of speech
does not apply to draft resistance; a women's suffrage bill passes
the House of Representatives; the Communist party of America is
founded; Congress overrides President Wilson's veto of Prohibition
Legislation.
1920 Five thousand alleged subversives are arrested
nationwide in "Palmer raids"; the sale of alcoholic beverages is
banned under the Eighteenth Amendment; women win the right to vote
with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment; the League of Women
Voters is founded; the first transcontinental airmail route is established
between New York City and San Francisco.
1921 Immigration is curtailed by quotas set by
Congress; the Ku Klux Klan begins a revival of violence against
blacks in the North, South, and Midwest; major powers meet at the
Limitation of Armaments Conference to reduce naval construction,
outlaw poison gas, restrict submarine attacks on merchantmen, and
discuss the integrity of China.
1922 Rebecca L. Felton, from Georgia, is appointed
the first woman U.S. senator.
1923 The War Resisters League is founded.
1924 The Supreme Court upholds the involuntary
sterilization of mentally retarded persons; native Americans are
declared citizens by Congress; the first U.S. gay rights organization,
the Society for Human Rights, is founded in Chicago.
1925 Nellie Taylor Ross, the first woman governor
in the United States, is sworn in in Wyoming; John T. Scopes is
convicted of teaching the theory of evolution; Tennessee bans the
teaching of evolution.
1927 Charles Lindbergh makes the first intercontinental
flight.
1929 The stock market crashes, beginning the Great
Depression.
1931 The Scottsboro Boys trial begins in Alabama;
the Empire State Building opens In New York City.
1932 Hattie Caraway, of Tennessee, is the first
woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt closes all U.
S. Banks; during the "100 days", a special session of Congress,
important New Deal legislation is passed, including the Establishment
of the National Recovery Adminitration and the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA); Francis Perkins, Secretary of Labor, becomes the
first woman Cabinet member; the Twenty-first Amendment, ending Prohibition
, is passed.
1935 The Works Projects Administration (WPA) is
established; the National Labor Relations Act, recognizing workers'
right to organize and bargain collectively, passes; President Roosevelt
signs the Social Security Act.
1937 Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot disappear
over the Pacific.
1938 The national minimum wage is enacted; the
"War of the Worlds" broadcast by Orson Welles, causes nationwide
fear that Martians have invaded Earth.
1939 Sit-down strikes are outlawed by the Supreme
Court; World War II begins with the German invasion of Poland.
1940 The Alien Registration Act (Smith Act) is
passed; Congress approves the first peacetime draft.
1941 The Ford Motor Company signs its first contract
with the United Auto Workers; the Japanese attack Peal Harbor, bring
the United States into World War II.
1942 President Roosevelt issues an executive order
to intern 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast; the Manhattan
project begins developing the atomic bomb.
1943 President Roosevelt bars all war contractors
from racial discrimination.
1944 Allies stage the D-Day invasion of Normandy;
Congress passes the G.I. Bill of Rights, providing veterans’
benefits.
1945 William L. Sperry wrote “Religion in
American.” The Yalta conference, attended by Roosevelt, Churchill,
and Stalin, brings Russia into World War II against Japan; Roosevelt
dies; Truman becomes president; Nazi Germany and Japan are defeated,
Ending World War II in Europe and the pacific; U.S. troops liberate
the concentration Camp at Dachau; the first atomic bomb is exploded
at Alamogordo, New Mexico; the United States drops atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Congress passes the Communist Control
Act; the United Nations Charter is adopted.
1946 The Atomic Energy Commission is formed; the
Philippines is given independence.
1947 The first draft-card burning takes place;
the cold war begins; aid given to Greece and Turkey under the Truman
Doctrine; Jackie Robinson, the first black major league Baseball
player, appears in his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers; the
Marshall Plan For European recovery is announced; the Department
of Defense is create; the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and
the National Security Council are established under the National
Security Act; the House of Representatives cites the Hollywood Ten,
accused of Subversion, for contempt of Congress.
1948 Twelve Communist party leaders are indicated
by the United States on grounds that they advocated the overthrow
of the government.
1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
is formed by the United States, Canada, and 10 European nations.
1950 Twenty-five protestant and four Easter Orthodox
Church groups organize National Council of the Churches of Christ
in the U.S. with 32 million members; the United States Recalls all
consular personnel from the People’s Republic of China; Truman
order the Employees of Communist party affiliation, two of the Hollywood
Ten are imprisoned for refuses to cooperate with the House Un-American
Activities Committee; the Korean Conflict begins; the United States
sneds 35 military advisers and agrees to give military and economic
aid to South Vietnam.
1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobel
are convicted of espionage conspiracy; the Mattachine Society, an
early gay rights organization, is formed in California; atomic energy
is first used to generate electricity in the United States; Korean
cease-fire talks begin.
1952 Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of
Positive Thinking; Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published
after years of work by 32 scholars; The United States Explodes the
world’s first hydrogen bomb; the Immigration and Naturalization
Act is passed, lifting the last racial and ethnic barriers to naturalization.
1953 President Truman announces development of
the hydrogen bomb; Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed; Vice
president Richard Nixon gives his “Checkers” speech;
The Korean conflict ends.
1954 Billy Graham holds evangelistic meetings in
New York, London and Berlin; World Council of Churches convenes
at Evanston, Illinois; Seven thousand square miles of the pacific
are irradiated by a Bikini Island hydrogen bomb test, which contaminates
Japanese fisherman; the U.S. Air Force begins flying French reinforcements
to Indochina; the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme
Court outlaws segregation in public schools; the Senate censures
Joseph McCarthy; the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
is formed, comprising the United States, Great Britain, France,
Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand.
1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat
to a white person and begins the Montgomery, Alabama, but boycott;
the AFL and CIO union labors merge, electing George Meany the First
president; the United States agrees to help train the South Vietnamese
army.
1956 Passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act inaugurates
the first interstate highway system.
1957 Elizabeth Eckford is blocked from becoming
the first black student at Little Rock Central High School with
the help of federal troops; Congress approves the first bill protecting
blacks’ right to vote since the Reconstruction era.
1958 The United States launches it first satellite
into orbit.
1959 Alaska and Hawaii become the forty-ninth and
fiftieth states, respectively.
1960 More than 70,000 black and white students
participate in sit-ins to protest Greenboro, North Carolina, incident
in which four black were denied service at a lunch counter.
1961 The New English Bible is available on the
350th anniversary of the King James authorized version of the Bible;
the United States breaks diplomatic ties with Cuba; the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba is thwarted; “freedom riders” test
segregation laws in the Deep South; the Student Non-Violent Coordination
Committee (SNCC) voter registration drive begins in the South; the
FBI launches its Socialist Worker Disruption program; Alan B. Shephard
Jr. travels on the first U.S. manned space flight.
1962 Protestant Episcopal Church consecrates J.M.
Burgess, a Negro, as Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts; the United
States announces resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing after
test-ban negotiations fail; James Meredith becomes the first black
to enroll at the University of Mississippi; President Kennedy orders
a blockade of Cuba, which begins The Cuban Missile Crisis; John
H. Glenn Jr. becomes the first American to orbit in space; Silent
Spring, by Rachel Carson, is published, launching the environmental
movement.
1963 The Supreme Court rules that states must provide
free legal counsel for indigents; blacks in Birmingham, Alabama,
begins mass demonstrations for civil rights; the supreme Court bars
mandatory Bible readings in public schools; Martin Luther King Jr.
leads a civil rights march on Washington, D.C.; a White House-Kremlin
“hot line” is installed; the War Registers League organizes
its first demonstration against U.S. involvement in Vietnam; President
Kennedy is assassinated; Congress passes the first Clean Air Act.
1964 The Twenty-fourth Amendment eliminates the
poll tax in federal elections; a civil Rights Act is passes by Congress;
Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President
Lyndon Johnson power to wage war in Indochina; Martin Luther King
Jr. receives the Nobel peace prize; Panama suspends relations with
the United States, which offers to negotiate a new Canal treaty.
1965 Malcolm X, black leader, is assassinated;
49 people are arrested during protests at Chase Manhattan Bank against
loans to South Africa; Martin Luther King Jr. leads a march on Selma,
Alabama, a massive electric power failure blacks out most of the
Northeast for the Night of November 9-10; the Supreme Court holds
that the “right of privacy” covers the use of contraceptives.
1966 Billy Graham conducts his Greater London Crusade;
The United Brethren Church and Methodist Churches vote to merge
in 1968 as the United Methodist Church with 11 million members;
Federal courts outlaw the last poll tax, the National Organization
for Women (NOW) us founded; Medicare begins to pay the health-care
expenses of U.S. citizens age 65 and older.
1967 Two hundred thousand people march against
the Vietnam War in New York City; Thurgood Marshall becomes the
first black Supreme Court justice; six days of racial Rioting in
Newark, New Jersey, leave 23 dead; week-long racial rioting in Detroit
leaves 43 dead; J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, authorizes
activities against black nationalist groups.
1968 Four black student demonstrators are killed
by police in Orangeburg, South Carolina; 500 unarmed Vietnamese
are killed by U.S. troops in the My Lai massacre; Martin Luther
King Jr. is assassinated; Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated hours
after his California primary victory; the American Indian Movement
is founded; a coalition of Women’s groups interrupts the Miss
America Pageant in the first mass demonstration of the modern women’s
movement; the United States ends the bombing of North Vietnam; Representative
Shirley Chisholm, from New York, becomes the first black Woman elected
to Congress.
1969 The stonewall rebellion, at a bar in New York
City, started the modern gay rights movement, the Woodstock festival
in upstate New York draws 300,000 for “three day of peace
and music”; the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial begins, in
which seven defendants are accused of inciting a riot at the 1968
Democratic National Convention; 2 million people nationwide demonstrate
against U.S. involvement in Vietnam; 78 Native Americans seize Alcatraz
Island, demanding it be made into a culture center; Black Panthers
Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are murdered by Chicago police; the
United States begins peace talks with Vietnam, as troop withdrawal
starts, Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.
1970 Chicano activists gather in Crystal City,
Texas, to found La Raza Unida Party; U.S. postal workers hold their
first strike; the Ohio national Guard kills four students in a Vietnam
War protest at Kent State University; Mississippi police kill two
black students at Jackson State University; Mississippi police kill
two black students at Jackson State University, President Nixon
signs a law giving 18-year-olds the right to vote; the united Farm
Workers begins a lettuce boycott; the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is established; Congress passes the Occupational Safety and
Health Act; the Chicago Seven are found not guilty, through five
are convicted of Crossing state lines with intent to incite riots;
the first two U.S. women generals are named by President Nixon.
1971 “The Jesus Movement” becomes a
much-publicized element of religion in America; Five hundred thousand
people demonstrate in Washington, D.C. against the Vietnam War and
14,000 are arrested; Native Americans leave Alcatraz Island after
holding it for 19 months.
1972 The Watergate break-in, which leads to the
resignation of President Nixon, takes place; Nixon makes an unprecedented
visit to China; the Senate approves a constitutional Amendment barring
the discrimination against women because of their sex and sends
the measure to the states to ratify.
1973 A peace treaty is signed with Vietnam in Paris,
President Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act; Ogala Sioux occupy
Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and declare an Independent Ogala Sioux
nation; Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President, and Gerald Ford
becomes the first appointed Vice President; Nixon fires Archibald
Cox, special prosecutor in the Watergate Case, and William Ruckelshaus
in the “Saturday Night Massacre”; Attorney General Elliot
Richard resigns; five of seven defendants in the Watergate trial
plead guilty, and two are convicted; the Supreme Court rules that
a State may not prevent a woman from having an abortion during the
first six months of pregnancy; Congress overrides Nixon’s
veto of the War Powers Acts, which curbs a President’s power
to commit armed forces to hostilities abroad without congressional
approval.
1974 A Gallop Poll shows that 40% of U.S. adults
attend church services weekly; The Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) lifts the oils embargo; the Coalition of Labor
Union Women is founded; the House Judiciary Committee votes Article
of Impeachment against President Nixon, and Nixon resigns; President
Ford pardons former President Nixon.
1975 Four women are ordained into the Episcopal
priesthood in Washington, D.C.; New York City’s Council of
Churches rejects the membership application of the Unification Church
of Rev. Sun Myung Moon; North Vietnamese troops enter Saigon; the
Mohawk tribe reclaims part of its homeland in New York State; former
Attorney General John N. Mitchell and ex-presidential advisers H.R.
Haldeman and John D. Ehrlicman are found guilty in the Watergate
trial; Congress votes $405 million in aid for South Vietnamese Refugees;
Vice President Rockefeller’s blue-ribbon panel uncovers illegal
CIA operations, including records on 300,000 persons and groups
and infiltration by agents into black, antiwar, and political movements.
1976 Parents protest the “brainwashing”
tactics allegedly used by Moon’s Unification Church to recruit
young members; the death penalty is ruled by the Supreme Court to
be a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment; The nation
celebrates it Bicentennial.
1977 The Orthodox Church in America selects it
first American-born prelate, Archbishop Theodosius; President Carter
pardon 10,000 Vietnam draft resister; the Department of Energy is
established; the National Women’s Conference convenes in Houston.
1978 Cult leader Jim Jones ordered his 900 cult
members to commit suicide in Guyana, S.A.; The “longest walk,”
by 300 Native American, begins, to protect treaty rights, gay activist
and City Council member Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone are
assassinated in San Francisco; the Senate votes to give the Panama
Canal to Panama; The Middle East “Framework for Peace”
is signed by Egypt and Israel after a Camp David conference led
by President Carter.
1979 Reverend Jerry Falwell found the Moral Majority
to encourage a voting block of Christian conservatives; The Three
Mile Island nuclear power plant has a near Meltdown, 110,000 demonstrate
in Washington, D.C. against nuclear power, Iranian students seize
the U.S. embassy in Teheran.
1980 Thirty thousand people march on Washington
against draft registration; 50,000 march in Chicago for passage
of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); President Carter announces
an embargo on the sale of grain and high technology to the Soviet
Union because of its Invasion of Afghanistan; the U.S. Olympic Committee
votes not to participate in the Olympic Games in Moscow.
1981 Iran releases 52 American hostages held 444days;
100,000 protest U.S. intervention in El Salvadore; Sandra Day O’Connor
is appointed the first woman Supreme Court justice; 11,500 air traffic
controllers strike and are fired by President Reagan; the first
reusable spacecraft, the shuttle Columbia, completes its two-day
mission.
1982 The ERA lapses without ratification; the Vietnam
War Memorial is dedicated in Washington; Anne M. Gorsuch becomes
the first Cabinet-level administrator to be cited for contempt of
congress, for refusing to turn over documents from the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
1983 The Puget Sound Women’s Peace Camp is
founded; the Seneca Falls, New York, women’s peace encampment
begins; 5,000 U.S. Marines and Army Rangers invade the island of
Grenada; Congress applies the War Powers Act, demanding that troops
leave Grenada; Federal District Judge Jack Tanner orders Washington
State to pay female employees according to “comparable worth”;
Dr. Sally K. Ride become the first American woman astronaut to travel
in space; the Supreme Court holds that the Internal Revenue Service
can deny tax exemptions to private schools that practice racial
discrimination.
1984 Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first
woman astronaut to walk in space; Geraldine A. Ferraro is the first
woman candidate on a major party ticket to run for Vice President;
The CIA acknowledges that it mined Nicaraguan harbors, touching
off a controversy in Congress; veterans of the Vietnam War reach
an out-of-court settlement with seven Chemical companies in their
class-action suit relating to the use of Agent Orange; a Salt Lake
City federal judge rules that the United States had been negligent
in its aboveground testing of nuclear weapons in Nevada from 1951
to 1962; the Senate votes to impose economic sanctions on South
Africa in protest against apartheid; Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO) hijackers seize an Italian cruise ships with Americans Aboard,
killing one; the United States and the Soviet Union meet in their
first summit conference in six years; Congress passes the Gramm-Rudman
Act in an attempt to curb the federal deficit.
1985 The United States and the Soviet Union agree
to resume negotiations on reducing nuclear arms and the space weapons
race. Soviet leader Cherenko dies and is succeeded by Mikail Gorbachev;
the Supreme Court bars public school teachers from positions in
Parochial schools; a summit meeting agreement is reached by Reagan
and Gorbachev on stepping up arms control talks and culture ties.
1986 The first official observance of the birthday
of Martin Luther King, Jr. takes place; the space shuttle Challenger
explodes moments after liftoff, killing all crew members, including
civilian school teacher, Christa McAuliffe; the United States bombs
Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, in retaliation against terrorist attack;
the antiviral drug azidothymidine (AZT) is found to improve the
health of some AIDS patients; U.S. officials announce that AIDS
cases and deaths will increase tenfold in the next five years; Congress
passes the antidrug legislation; the United States imposes more
economic sanctions against South Africa; President Reagan walks
out on arms talks with Soviet Leader Mikail Gorbachev in Iceland
because of a disagreement over the development of the U.S. “Star
Wars” programs.
1987 The Iran-contra affair dominates public attention
when it is revealed that arms were traded for hostages and money
was funneled to Swiss band accounts and used to finance the Contras
in Nicaragua; insider trading is revealed on Wall Street during
the bull market; the United States violates the SALT II treaty with
the Soviet Union; President Reagan appoints a commission to study
the AIDS crisis and backs AIDS education; a Clean-water act is passed
over a presidential veto; the United States imposes duties on Japanese
imports to curb the trade deficit; in a landmark case, surrogate
mother Mary Beth Whitehead is denied custody of “Baby M”;
the drug AZT is approved for fighting AIDS; animal forms are granted
patent rights; U.S. ships are involved in a conflict in the Persian
Gulf; Robert Bork is nominated by President Reagan to the Supreme
Court but withdraws in the face of strong opposition; the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) drops the Fairness Doctrine, which
allowed equal time on radio and television for controversial issues;
“Black Monday” marks the end of the bull market, when
Wall Street experiences its three biggest one-day point losses ever.
1988 Panamanian General Noriega is indicated on
drug bribery charges, disrupting U.S. Panama relations; Supreme
Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is confirmed; the U.S Canada Trade
Agreement approves lower barriers to trade. The space shuttle Discovery
is launched successfully after delays caused by the 1986 tragedy;
the U.S. agrees after a 13-year hiatus to meet with the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
1989 N.Y. City elects David Dinkins as first black
mayor; Pres. George Bush launches major anti-drug crusade; Hurricane
Hugo hits east coast of U.S.; a 6.9 earthquake hits San Francisco,
California; U.S. troops invade Panama against Manuel Noriega; U.S.
rejoices over fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany.
1990 President Bush and Gorbachev agree that Iraqi
troops must leave Kuwait; Census Bureau puts U.S. Population at
248,709,873; 87 people die in N.Y. City disco fire.
1991 In Tampa, Florida the N.Y Giants football
team win SuperBowl XXV; Pres. Bush lifts economics sanctions imposed
on South Africa; federal judge order all Iran-Contra charges against
Oliver North dropped; U.S. gymnast Kim Zmeskal wins gold medal;
Ty Murray Texas wins title of world champion all-round cowboy; Operation
Desert Storm is launched under the command of General Norman Schwarzkopf
(of Tampa) and Kuwait is freed from the Iraqi occupation; U.S. aircraft
drop food and medicine to starving Kurdish refugees in Northern
Iraq; the Supreme Court upheld regulations from the Reagan administration
which forbids family planning clinics from promoting or encouraging
abortions; the minimum wage is set at $4.25 per hour; Thurgood Marshall
(first black to serve on U.S. Supreme Court)retires after 24 years
of service; Carl Lewis sets new world record for the 100-meter sprint;
riots develop in Brooklyn, N.Y. after an incident between the Jewish
and black communities, resulting in 109 injuries; a lone gunman
killed 23 people (including himself) in Texas; computer giants I.B.M.
and Apple agree to make their products compatible; Pan American
World Airways ceases operations after 64 years in business; Terry
Anderson, Associated Press Correspondent and last of 17 U.S. citizens
taken as hostages in Lebanon in 1984, is freed.
1992 Mafia boss John Gotti is sentenced to life
in prison for murder; Supreme Court rules that cigarette manufactures
cannot claim protection from lawsuits against them just because
their packages have printed health warnings; General Noriega of
Panama gets 40 years in prison for trafficking drugs; Jeffrey Dahmer,
gruesome serial killer, is sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of
life in prison; former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is
sentenced to 6 years in prison for rape; Sam Walton, founder of
1735 Wal-Mart stores, dies of cancer; a NASA satellite, Cosmic Background
Explorer (COBE) finds evidence of cloud matter near the possible
“edge” of the universe; after 30 years on television
as host of the “Tonight Show”, Johnny Carson retires;
Hurricane Andrew devastates much of Dade County, Florida, with damages
there and in Louisiana near $20 billion; Arkansas Governor Bill
Clinton is elected 42nd President of the U.S.
1993 President George Bush and Yelstin sign the
START-2 treaty calling U.S. and Russia to scrap 75% of their 21,000
nuclear warheads; Reggie Jackson is elected to baseball’s
Hall of Fame; U.S. warships launch “smart” cruise missiles
at what Pentagon says is a Nuclear facility near the city; Hillary
Clinton heads the President’s Task Force on National Health
Reform; the Dallas Cowboys win Super Bowl XXVII in football; in
Waco, Texas, four agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
and two Members of the Branch Davidians cult are killed in a shoot-out;
a bomb explodes in the Underground parking garage at the World Trade
Center killing five people and injuring hundreds; William Jefferson
Clinton is inaugurated President of the U.S.
1994 O.J. Simpson (former football star and actor)
was arrested in the murder of his ex-wife and another man and was
eventually acquitted of criminal charges but convicted in a civil
suit; U.S. hosts World Cup soccer for the first time; an all female
team competes in America’s cup yachting races; baseball players’
strike cancels the World Series for the first time since 1904; Hubble
telescope finds conclusive evidence of black holes; U.S. wins more
gold medals than any other winter Olympics; NATO allies launch first
air attack in 45 years over Bosnia; Former U.S. President Richard
Nixon dies from stroke; Former Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dies
at 64 of lymphatic cancer; U.S. troops take over Haiti until Junta
leader Raoul Cedras steps down; former President Ronald Reagan reveals
he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
1995 168 people are killed and many others injured
when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bomb the nine-story federal
building in Oklahoma City; McVeigh is sentenced to death for the
bombing; several hundred thousand black men participate in the Million
Man March in Washington, D.C. to show they planned to become better
members of society; Republicans control the U.S. Congress and Newt
Gingrich becomes speaker of the house; Cal Ripkin Jr. of the Balitmore
Orioles sets a new record at never missing one f the 2,130 baseball
games his team had played; President Clinton announces that U.S.
would resume full diplomatic relations with the Communist Government
of Vietnam; Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, one of the Malcolm X’s
daughters, is arrested for tying to kill Louis Farrakhan; U.S. troops
land in Somali to oversee withdrawal of UN peacekeepers who tried
to intervene in that African nation’s civil war. 234-day baseball
strike ends; Actor Christopher Reeve falls from a horse and is left
paralyzed; Disney buys ABC for 19 billion dollars; Westinghouse
Electric Corporation buys CBS for 5.4 billion dollars; smoking is
banned in New York City restaurants.
1996 President Clinton changed the welfare system
to give states new guidelines for cutting back: welfare recipients
had to find work within two years or lose benefits and nobody could
receive benefits for more than 5 years in a lifetime; Unabomber
Ted Kazenyznski was arrested by FBI agent in Montana; U.S. Air Force
jet crashes in Croatia killing Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and
34 others; a Valujet plane crashes in the Florida Everglades killing
all 110 on board; TWA jet bound for Paris bursts into flames over
Long Island and crashes killing all 230 on board; a bomb explodes
in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park during opening festivities
for the Summer Olympics and two people are killed; President Bill
Clinton wins nomination for a second term at the Democratic National
Convention; Michael Johnson becomes the first man to win an Olympic
Gold Medal in both the 200- and 400-meter races and sets the 200-meter
record of 19 minutes 32 seconds; John Kennedy Jr. marries Carolyn
Bessette; Author Joe Klein’s book PRIMARY COLORS is published
anonymously; the New York Yankees ins the world series for the first
time in 15 years.
1997 Madeline Albright is confirmed as the first
female Secretary of State; 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate
cult commit suicide in hopes of boarding a spaceship they believed
was following comet Hale-Bopp; NASA’s Sojourner beams back
images of Mars taken as it scoots across the planet’s surface;
The Dow Jones industrial average drops 554.26 points as a result
of the unstable Asian market, then rebounds later; Kenny and Bobbi
McCaughey from Iowa become the parents of the first known set of
septuplets to survive after birth; Vice President Al Gore’s
fund-raising efforts come into serious question and there are further
accusations that the Clinton Administration operated a favors-for-funds
policy; Roma Downey and Della Reese star in CBS’s pro-religious
show Touched By An Angel; 21-year-old golfer Tiger Woods wins the
Masters by a record of 12 strokes; Comet Hale-Bopps is the brightest
comet to pass near Earth since the 16th century
1998 Allegations over “White-water”
and Arkansas land deal gone sour cause President and Mrs. Clinton’s
integrity to be seriously questioned; Paula Jones brings sexual
Harassment charges against President Clinton; testimony of Kathleen
Willey stats that Bill Clinton assaulted her during a meeting in
the Oval office; Monica Lewinsky’s 18-month affair with President
Clinton becomes public knowledge; the U.S. Government and 20 state
attorneys general charge Microsoft with unfair business practices
due to domination of the Internet access market; El Nino is blamed
for the torrential rains which caused landslides in parts of North
America; President Clinton makes the first trip by a sitting American
President to Africa; students mourn 5 friends gunned down in a Jonesboro
Arkansas school; President Clinton makes a state visit to China;
independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends congress a report detailing
possible grounds for impeachment of President Clinton; James Cameron’s
movie Titanic grosses close to a billion dollars and enthralls audiences
worldwide; The Hubble Space Telescope takes pictures of what scientists
believe is the first recorded planet outside the solar system; basketball
great Michael Jordan wins his sixth championship in a Decade; St.
Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire and Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa both top
the MLB record of 61 home runs per season set my Roger Maris in
1961.
Presidents
of the United States
President Term Party:
F=Federalist; D-R= Democratic-Republican W=Whig; R= Republican D=
Democratic; NU= National Union
1. George Washington
4/30/1789-3/3/1797 F
2. John Adams 3/4/1797-3/3/1801
F
3. Thomas Jefferson
3/4/1801-3/3/1809 D-R
4. James Madison 3/4/1809-3/3/1817
D-R
5. James Monroe 3/4/1817-3/3/1825
D-R
6. John Quincy Adams
3/4/1825-3/3/1829 D-R
7. Andrew Jackson 3/4/1829-3/3/1837
D-R
8. Martin Van Buren 3/4/1837-3/3/1841
D
9. William Henry Harrison
3/4/1841-4/4/1841 W
10. John Tyler 4/6/1841-3/3/1845
W
11. James K. Polk 3/4/1845-3/3/1849
D
12. Zachary Taylor 3/4/1850-7/9/1850
W
13. Millard Fillmore
7/10/1850-3/3/1853 W
14. Franklin Pierce 3/4/1853-3/3/1857
D
15. James Buchanan 3/4/1857-3/3/1861
D
16. Abraham Lincoln 3/4/1861-4/15/1865
R
17. Andrew Johnson 4/15/1865-3/3/1869
NU
18. Ulysses S. Grant
3/4/1869-3/3/1877 R
19. Rutherford B. Hayes
3/4/1877-3/3/1881 R
20. James Garfield 3/4/1881-9/19/1881
R
21. Chester A. Arthur
9/20/1881-3/3/1885 R
22. Grover Cleveland
3/4/1885-3/3/1889 D
23. Benjamin Harrison
3/4/1889-3/3/1893 R
24. Grover Cleveland
3/4/1893-3/3/1897 D
25. William McKinley
3/4/1897-9/14/1901 R
26. Theodore Roosevelt
9/14/1901-3/3/1909 R
27. William H. Taft 3/4/1909-3/3/1913
R
28. Woodrow Wilson 3/4/1913-3/3/1921
D
29. Warren G. Harding
3/4/1921-8/2/1923 R
30. Calvin Coolidge 8/3/1923-3/3/1929
R
31. Herbert C. Hoover
3/4/1929-3/3/1933 R
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3/4/1933-4/12/1945 D
33. Harry S. Truman 4/12/1945-1/20/1953
D
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower
1/20/1953-1/20/1961 R
35. John F. Kennedy 1/20/1961-11/22/1963
D
36. Lyndon B. Johnson
11/22/1963-1/20/1969 D
37. Richard M. Nixon
1/20/1969-8/9/1974 R
38. Gerald R. Ford 8/9/1974-1/20/1977
R
39. James (Jimmy) Carter
1/20/1977-1/20/81 D
40. Ronald Reagan 1/20/1981-1/20/1989
R
41. George Bush 1/20/1989-1/20/1993
R
42. Bill Clinton 1/20/93-1/20/2001
D
43. George W. Bush R
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