Timelines

30,000-10,000 B.C:Palo Indians cross from Asia to America over an ice sheet that will eventually melt away.

1000: Anasazi start to raise corn, beans, and squash at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde in present day New Mexico. They also build dams and irrigation systems to make the desert bloom. To live they make apartments inside the canyon walls.
1001: Norse Vikings make a settlement at Vineland
1050-1250: The Cahokia settlement across from present day St. Louis. This tribe will trade with the whole Mississippi basin.
October 12, 1492: At 2am after a 33-day journey, a lookout on one of Columbus ships sees land. Spain will follow up on this discovery unlike the Vikings. He thinks he has landed in Asia but will soon be proved wrong. Because of this discovery Ireland will get the potato, Italy will have tomato sauce on her noodles, the Indians will taste onions, peach’s, pears, oranges, banana’s, rice, wheat, and sugar. The Indians will be introduced to the horse, cow, pig, goat, chicken, and honeybee. Europe will soon have squash, cocoa, beans, corn, avocados, pineapples, chili peppers, peanuts, tobacco, and cotton. Unfortunately for the Indians the Spanish also brought infectious diseases that they had never dealt with and a religious fanaticism that led them to a policy of convert or die.
1497: Cabot reaches North America
1513: Ponce de Leon explores Florida
1519: Cotes invades Mexico
1534-1535: Cartier explores the St. Lawrence River.
1539-1542: De Soto explores the southeast. He will discover 10 future states before dying of fever on the banks of the Mississippi. He will also decimate most of the Mississippi tribes in his wake.
1540-1542: Coronado explores the southwest. He will discover the Grand Canyon and California. His goal is to find the seven cities of gold.
1565: St. Augustine becomes the first permanent settlement in North America.
1587-1590: The English try to establish their first colony at Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. It fails and the people disappear to history.
1598: Juan de Onate conquers the Pueblo’s in New Mexico for Spain and Spain establishes it’s first missionary colonies in North America.
1607: The London Company, a joint stock enterprise formed to find gold in the new world, sends a ship to America. The ship sails into the Chesapeake Bay and on the James River before they settle. The settlement is named Jamestown and Captain John Smith is left in charge. However the colony suffers from disease and Indian attacks the first few years and even though every year brings more men more then 80% will die.
1608: The French settle in Quebec
1609: Hudson explores Hudson River for the Dutch
1610: Santa Fe is founded.
1611: First year that Tobacco is grown in Virginia. John Rolfe, who married Pocahontas, will introduce it in London and even though King James I will declare it unhealthy it will make him rich.
1614: Fort Orange (Albany) is founded by the Dutch.
1619: The first legislative assembly, known as the House of Burgesses, meets in Jamestown. Also that year 20 slaves are sold by the Dutch in Jamestown.
1620: A group of radical Protestants, who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic practices, and replace it with a simple plain service and autonomous church congregations, sails for the New World. Called Pilgrims, they end up in New England and settle a colony called Plymouth. More then half will die that first year.
1622: After a series of bad faith actions on both parties, the Powhatan Confederacy attacks Jamestown. The leader is captured and executed and the tribe scattered on the frontier.
1624: The Dutch settle New Amsterdam and the English settle St. Christopher in the Lesser Antilles.
1630: A less radical group of Puritans who studied John Calvin, and led by John Winthrop, settle Boston and the surrounding area calling it Massachusetts Bay.
1634: King Charles I grants a charter to Cecil Calvert to found a proprietary colony, which he will call Maryland.
1636: Roger Williams is banned from Massachusetts Bay for preaching freedom of religion. He flees to modern day Rhode Island and founds Providence.
1636-1637: The Pequot War begins when the Puritans and their allies the Narragansett attack the prosperous Pequot tribe. The Pequot’s would be pushed to the brink of extinction.
1637: Ann Hutchison who is preaching that good works is not what gets you into heaven and that men can be directly spoken to by God is banned from Massachusetts Bay. She will be killed by Indians in 1643, which the Puritans consider divine intervention.
1640: Sugar is begun to be grown on Barbados.
1642: The French found Montreal.
1664: England capture New Amsterdam and rename it New York, New Jersey is founded the same year.
1670: Charles Town founded by sugar growers from Barbados. Finding that sugar and tobacco will not grow in the new area the settlers plant rice and start a rich slave trade. Marquette, Joliet, and LaSalle explore the Great Lakes and Mississippi valley for France. They also spread Christianity while doing so.
1675-1676: An Indian chief known as Metacom or King Phillip leads an attack on Massachusetts Bay. Before he is killed his tribe will destroy a dozen settlements and kill 600 settlers. His head will be kept on a pole in Plymouth for 20 years and his tribe is sold into slavery in Virginia.
1676: A member of the House of Burgess, Nathanael Bacon, leads a rebellion in Virginia. His army of farmers and indentured servants will occupy and burn Jamestown and force the governor to flee briefly. Bacon will die of disease shortly after this and his rebellion will collapse. The result will be a turn away from indentured slavery to black slavery.
1680: Pope’s Rebellion. An Pueblo Indian led this rebellion against Spanish authority and manages to drive Spain out of New Mexico for a time while killing all the religious leaders in the colony.
1681: William Penn a Quaker establishes Philadelphia as a holy experiment. He pledges not to persecute anyone who lives there.
1691: Massachusetts Bay loses its charter and becomes a royal colony like Virginia.
1692: Spain reconquers New Mexico. Salem Witch Trails take place in Massachusetts Bay.
1701: Iroquois decide to be neutral to both England and France.
1711-1713: Tuscarora War in North Carolina.
1715: Yemasee War in South Carolina.
1718: New Orleans founded by French
1732: Georgia founded.
1739: Stono Rebellion in Carolina. Tired of slavery and it’s horrors a group of new arrived slaves broke into a store on the Stono River, armed themselves, and started to march towered Florida. On the way they would plunder plantations and kill 24 whites before being gunned down by a militia company.
1754: Washington is defeated at Fort Necessity. The French and Indian War begins.
1756-1763: The Seven Years War is fought in America and Europe. This is the first true world war.
1763: The Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Year War. France loses all its land in America and the “Catholic menace” was ended. Proclamation of 1763 closes the border to Americans.
1764: Sugar Act and Currency Act.
1765: Parliament passes the Stamp Act. This act puts taxes on any legal document, newspaper, pamphlet, even dice and playing cards. The Colonies rebel against this tax and refuse to pay. Because of this the Sons of Liberty are formed. The colonists refuse to import anything of British origin.
1766: Britain repeals the Stamp Act.
1767: Townsend Act is passed. This act taxes glass, paper, and tea. Again the colonies rebel and refuse to import British goods.
1770: All taxes are repealed except for the one on tea. March 5, 1770: British troops after being pelted with snowballs and rocks in Boston open fire on a mob killing five men.
1773: Parliament agrees to help the East India Company sell its tea in America. They arrange a lower price then the current smuggled tea. Boston however refuses to accept the tea in any form because of the taxes. The night before the customs house was to seize the tea, the sons of liberty disguised themselves as Indians, went onto the ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.
1774: The British government passes the Cohesive Acts, which are also called the Intolerable Acts. These acts close the port of Boston, place Massachusetts under martial law, and allow the French to practice Catholicism in Canada. Because of this 12 colonies send men to Philadelphia in what will be called the First Continental Congress. The congress acts the King to intercede stating that they are loyal but King George III refuses.
April 19, 1775: British troops and American rebels fire at each other in the towns of Lexington and Concord in the Massachusetts countryside. This is the opening battle of the Revolutionary War. The Americans will lose 10 men the British 70 and the British will be forced to retreat to Boston.
May of 1775: The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia. The congress appoints George Washington head of the army outside Boston, recruits man and supplies for war, takes charge of the post office and Indian affairs, borrows money and prints it’s own currency. It becomes in effect the first government of the United States.
December 1775: Virginia Governor Dunmore tries to make the slaves revolt by announcing that he will free any slave that joins the British Army.
January 1776: Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense, which states the arguments for independence. March 1776: The British Army leaves Boston.
July 2, 1776: The Congress approves a declaration written by Thomas Jefferson that states that the “United States is and ought to be free and independent states and that all ties to the British are hereby dissolved.” Two days later they publish the document but it will not be signed for a month.
August 1776: The British take New York City.
1776: Although not in America, Adam Smith writes The Wealth of Nations, here Smith argues that the production of wealth would increase dramatically if individuals were allowed to pursue their self-interest, with little interference from government. And in serving their own interests, individuals would serve the public interest, unconsciously, as if guided, as he said, by an "unseen hand." This was not a new idea in America.
1776-1780: The States all write Constitutions.
1777: Vermont abolishes slavery
October 1777: The United States Army stops an invasion from Canada led by General John Burgoyne. Because of this victory France and Spain will declare war on Britain.
1780: Massachusetts becomes the last state to ratify a Constitution
1781: Articles of Confederation are ratified. The articles put all the power in the hands of an elected assembly. However the assembly has no power to tax or lay duties on trade.
October 18, 1781: Surrounded by France and the United States Army, General Cornwallis surrenders his troops at Yorktown. The war is for all intents and purposes over.
1783: The Treaty of Paris gives America freedom. The trans-Appalachian west became part of the United States, along with all the land between Canada and the northern border of Florida
1785-1787: Shays Rebellion
1787: Constitutional Convention passes a new constitution for the government with power divided in three branches. One of the last acts of the Articles Congress is to pass the Northwest Ordinance, this act lets future states enter into the union as equal members, it sets aside land for public education, it disallows slavery, and it makes an effort to appease the Indian.
1790: An English immigrant, Samuel Slater, builds America’s first factory. It is a textile mill for changing cotton into cloth.
1790’s-1840’s: The Second Great Awaking occurs in America. Charles Finney preaches that man can chose salvation for himself. Many communities arise as communal and a counter to the industrialized world. One of these is Brook Farm.
1794: Farmers out west refuse to pay a whiskey tax recently passed by Congress. The reason that they refuse to pay is since they cannot ship their grain to markets in time for it to be still fresh they must ship it as whiskey. President Washington orders the army to crush the rebellion. Also that year the Miami Indian Confederacy is destroyed at Fallen Timbers.
1798: The Alien and Sedition Acts are passed which make it a crime to criticize the government.
1800: Thomas Jefferson becomes the first Democrat-Republican elected President proving that a smooth transfer of power can take place. The party will later drop the name Republican and just be the Democrat Party. That same year there is a slave uprising in Virginia that fails. It is known as Gabriel’s Uprising.
1803: The United States buys the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million dollars. This purchase doubles the country in size
1804: Vice-President Aaron Burr kills Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
1804-1806: Lewis and Clark’s Corp of Discovery explore the Louisiana Territory
1808: Congress bans the importation of slaves into the United States.
1816: The American Colonization Society is formed to free slaves and relocate them to Africa.
1819-1820: The Missouri Compromise where Missouri entered the union as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and a line was moved west called the 36 30” in which slavery is made illegal north of the area.
1820’s: The Lowell Factory System is built.
1822: Denmark Vesey, a slave in South Carolina tries to start an insurrection.
1825: The Erie Canal opens. It runs from Buffalo on Lake Erie, to Albany on the Hudson River. Now farmers out west have a way to ship goods to New York City.
July 4, 1826: On the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die. They are the last two members of the committee of Independence to do so.
1826: The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance is formed to stop drinking alcohol and the evils that came from it.
1828: Andrew Jackson becomes the first Democrat elected president.
1830: The Baltimore and Ohio becomes the first Railroad in the USA. Plans for the city of Chicago are laid out. Congress passes the Indian Removal Act to remove the southeastern tribes from their homes to present day Oklahoma.
1831: McCormick invents the reaper for wheat farming. The US ends debtor prison. Mt. Auburn Cemetery becomes the first rural cemetery as attitudes change from fear to acceptance of death. The Anti-Mason party becomes the first third party. Nat Turner, a slave in Virginia, starts an insurrection and his followers will kill sixty slave owners and their families before being caught and hung.
1833: William Lloyd Garrison forms the Anti-Slavery Society
1834: The nations first strike occurs at Lowell, Massachusetts.
1838-1839: The Trail of Tears when the Southeast Indians are forcibly removed.
1845: Frederick Douglass publishes his Narrative of Slave Life in which he destroys the myth of slavery.
1846-1848: The Mexican War takes place. In the end the United States will annex Texas and most of the Southwest.
1848: The Illinois and Michigan canal opens in Chicago. First Board of Education in Massachusetts starts to develop class levels, requires attendance, and set a curricula. In Seneca Falls, New York the first Women’s Rights convention is held.
1850: The Compromise of 1850 is passed. In it California entered the union as a free state, New Mexico and Utah were organized into territories to decide the question of slavery for themselves, Texas debts before the war were paid off by the US, New Mexico received some land from Texas, the slave trade was ended in the District of Columbia as was slavery, and a Furtive Slave Law was passed which would permit owners to recover slaves in the North that had runaway.
1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe, the wife of a Christian preacher, publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin which shows the horrors of slavery.
1854: Stephen Douglass brings up a bill called the Kansa-Nebraska Act, which destroys the last vestige of the Missouri Compromise line. This bill lets Kansas and Nebraska territory decide for themselves about the question of slavery. Also that year in Boston, an escaped slave living for many years in the town by the name of Anthony Burns was returned to Virginia to the protest of 50,000 townspeople.
1856: In Kansas, the free town of Lawrence is burned to the ground by a raid of pro slavery people. In retaliation a man named John Brown leads a gang to Pottawatomie Creek and murders 5 pro slavery people. That same year in Congress Congressmen Preston Brooks beats with his cane, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner for making anti-slavery remarks.
1857: The Supreme Court rules against Dred Scott, a slave who has lived for many years with his master in the west. Chief Justice Roger Taney says” that a black man had no rights a white man had to respect”. He also stated that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery.
1858: A young lawyer from Springfield by the name of Abraham Lincoln, debates with Senator Stephen Douglass on the question of slavery while trying to win a seat in the Senate for the new Republican Party.
1859: John Brown leads a raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in an effort to seize the arsenal and free the slaves in the south. He is arrested and hanged.
1860: Lincoln becomes the first Republican president and South Carolina secedes from the union. She will be followed by Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, and Louisiana. The Knights of Labor, the nations first union, is formed.
April 12, 1861: The South fires on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina harbor and the Civil War begins.
July 21, 1861: The battle of First Bull Run in which the North loses.
1862: Congress passes the Pacific Railway Act, which gives two corporations the right to build the Transcontinental Railroad. One company, the Central Pacific was to build east from California while the other, Union Pacific, was to start at Omaha, Nebraska and move west. Each company got a 400-foot right of way on either side of the track and money for each mile of track ranging from $16,000 to $48,000. Congress also passes the Homestead Act, which gives farmers out west 160 acres of land which after 5 years was owned by the farmer.
April 6-7, 1862: The battle of Shiloh, which the North wins. 20,000 men fell which were more then all other wars combined at that time.
September 17, 1862: The battle of Antietam in which neither side wins however the North fails to destroy the invading South.
December 13, 1862: The battle of Fredericksburg that the North loses after a series of successive charges toward a well-defended point.
January 1, 1863: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, which puts the war on a new idea i.e. the freeing of the slaves instead of the preservation of the nation on the status quo.
April 30-May 6, 1863: The Battle of Chancellorsville which the North loses, however Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, who is a practicing Christian evangelist, is killed.
May 18-July 4, 1863: The City of Vicksburg is put under siege and falls to the Union Army. This puts the Mississippi River in the hands of the North and splits the Confederacy.
July 1-3 1863: The Battle of Gettysburg, which the North wins. This battle is the result of the second southern invasion of the North and this time they lose.
November 19,1863: Lincoln makes his famous Gettysburg Address. An interesting note is that this marks one of the few times Lincoln mentions God in a speech.
November 1864: In the first time in a civil war, a presidential election is held in which Lincoln wins a second term.
November-December 1864: Sherman, after capturing Atlanta, makes his famous march to the sea.
November 29, 1864: The Colorado Militia, commanded by a former Methodist Minister named John Chivington, attacks a band of peaceful Indians at Sand Creek. He and his man kill, rape, and loot mostly women and children.
April 9, 1865: Lee surrenders to Grant and the war is over.
April 14, 1865: Lincoln is assassinated and dies the next day. This is the first time that a president is killed. Andrew Johnson becomes president.
December 6, 1865: The Thirteenth Amendment is passed which officially frees all slaves.
March 1867: The “Radical” Republicans pass the Reconstruction Act in Congress, which tries to get the black man the right to vote. The South will be occupied until they agree.
February 1868: Andrew Johnson is impeached by the house and saved by one vote in the Senate. He had lost all power that he once held and would not run again.
July 9, 1868: The Fourteenth Amendment gives the black man citizenship rights.
November 1868: Grant is elected president of the United States. He is the second republican so elevated.
December 1868: General Custer’s 7th cavalry attacks a peaceful Indian camp at Washita Creek, Texas.
1869: Wyoming Territory gives women the right to vote.
February 3, 1870: The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified. This gives the black man the vote.
April-October 1871: Grant sends troops against the KKK down south. This would help crush the Klan and the KKK would not be revived until 1915.
1872: Grant makes Yellowstone the first national park. Grant’s administration has its first corruption scandal when it is reveled that his friends have stolen money from the Union Pacific. This scandal is called Credit Mobilier and it would be the first of many.
1873: Barbed wire is invented in Dekalb, Illinois.
1875-1876: Armor and Swift begin the first Chicago meatpacking with the development of the refrigerated railroad car.
May 10, 1876: President Grant opens up the Centennial’s Exposition in Philadelphia.
June 25, 1876: Custer loses his life in the Battle of Little Bighorn.
July 4-8, 1876: In Hamburg, South Carolina a group of blacks is stopped from marching in an Independence Day parade. When the blacks march on the courthouse, the white townspeople turn a cannon on them. After surrendering the black leaders are murdered. The whites were found innocent of murder after which Grant sent troops.
November 1876: In a disputed presidential election with the electoral votes tied, a committee is set up and the Republican candidate Hayes is selected in exchange for ending Reconstruction.
1877: Widespread railroad strikes occur in the “Great Strike of 1877”. President Hayes uses federal troops for the first time to break up a strike. Chief Joseph surrenders his tribe of Nez Pierce Indians.
1878: Thomas Edison builds his Edison Electric Company and invents the light bulb.
1879: Andrew Carnegie begins to produce steel.
1881-1882: Chinese are excluded from coming to America.
1882: First Electric Streetcar is built in Chicago. John D. Rockefeller establishes the Standard Oil Trust
1883: National Time Zones are standardized.
1885: First Iron frame Skyscraper is built in Chicago.
1886: Haymarket Square riot in Chicago results in the death of 7 socialist leaders. The American Federation of Labor is founded. Also Geronimo surrenders marking the end of the last Indian resistance.
1887: The Dawes Act breaks up Indian reservations and gives each Indian 160 acres of land although much of it ends up in the hands of white men.
Late 1880’s: Farmers Alliances are formed. They want state ownership of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and money circulated in silver.
1889: Hull House is founded in Chicago. Jane Addams opened this house as a way to give the poor someplace to escape too. The house had a daycare, playground, bathhouse, gym, and library. She and her partner, Florence Kelly, would later get landmark Illinois legislation passed to monitor the factory system.
1890: Chicago has become the world’s meatpacking city. Sherman Anti-Trust Act is passed. Wounded Knee Massacre occurs in South Dakota as Indians are shot down while trying to surrender. Yosemite National Park is second national park.
1892: Homestead Steelworkers Strike The Peoples or Populist Party becomes a third party. They support the farmer’s allegiance goals.
1893: The World’s Columbia Exposition opens in Chicago. Frederick Turner announces that the frontier is closed. Ant-Saloon League is founded.
1894: Pullman Strike in Chicago.
1895: Booker T. Washington gives a speech in Atlanta favoring economic advancement for the African-American over ending segregation.
1896: Plessy vs. Ferguson makes segregation legal in the United States.
1897: In Lattmer, Pennsylvania a mine strike is broken up by the murder of at least 19 miners by the sheriff and his deputies. They are later declared innocent.
1898: Spanish American War is won by United States. The United States receives a part of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippians. Also that year Hawaii is made a territory of the United States.
1900: In the election of 1900, a general mine strike threatens to shut down the nation until the Republican president, William McKinley go over the heads of the mine owners and get a deal from J. P. Morgan. The mine agrees to a 10% wage increase but no union.
1901: J.P. Morgan starts the first billion-dollar corporation, U.S. Steel. Henry Ford starts Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan.
1902: 50,000 coal miners go on strike in Pennsylvania. They demand an increase in wages and an 8-hour workday, which the mine owners refuse. For many months the strike is at an impasse until President Roosevelt steps in and makes a deal for the miners.
1903: Panama grants canal rights to the United States. Congress establishes Federal Wildlife Sanctuaries. Women’s Trade Union League founded.
1904: Roosevelt threatens to intervene in Latin America if they need help. This is called the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
1905: Niagara Movement promotes African-American rights.
1906: Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, which reveals the unsanitary condition in the meat factory. Because of this Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. President Roosevelt invites Russia and Japan to America to work out their differences. Japan receives all her war aims and Roosevelt gets the Nobel Peace Prize. San Francisco Earthquake.
1907-1909: Roosevelt sends out the United States Navy on a worldwide “Great White Fleet” tour.
1908: Ford invents the Model T.
1909: NAACP founded.
1911: The Society of American Indians is founded to push for rights for Indians. In New York, a factory burning called the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire brings attention to the plight of workers.
1912: The United States invades Cuba and Nicaragua.
1913: Ford invents the assembly line, which makes his cars cheaper to own.
1914: The United States invades Mexico. World War I begins in Europe. The Panama Canal is opened for business. Federal Trade Commission created. Clayton Anti-Trust Act passed by Congress.
1917: The United States enters World War I on the side of the Allies.
1917-1918: More then a half million blacks migrate north in the Great Migration.
1919: The Treaty of Versailles ends World War I. President Wilson tries to get his 14 points passed one of which establishes a “League of Nations” which is a forerunner of the UN. 18th Amendment outlawing the selling or production of Alcohol is passed. Prohibition is law.
1920: 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote is passed. KDKA makes the first commercial radio broadcast.
1921: Federal Highway Act is passed by Congress authorizing connecting roads across state lines.
1922-1923: The Supreme Court makes decisions against strikes, child labor laws, and minimum wage laws.
1923: The KKK, which was revived in 1915, reaches a peak of activity. This time it will die out in 1944 only to be revived once again in 1946.
1925: In Tennessee, the Scopes Monkey Trial takes place putting Evolution against Creation for the first time in the national eye.
1927: Charles Lindbergh makes a trans-Atlantic flight. The Jazz Singer becomes the first motion picture with sound.
1929: League of United Latin American Citizens is founded to push for the rights of Mexican-Americans. The Stock Market crashes ushering in the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover becomes President as the last of a long line of Republicans until 1952.
1931: In Alabama, the Scottsboro case comes to trial. Nine black defendants are accused of raping two white females on a train and found guilty. They are sentenced to death although none will be ever executed.
1932: World War I veterans march on Washington D.C. to receive their bonus money early. The United States Army moves in on them and forces them to flee. Hoover’s government passes the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which gives money to states to give to the needy. FDR will later steal this idea for his New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected President of the USA he is the first Democrat elected since Wilson.
1933: The great plain gets hit with a drought and thousands of acres of farmland are blown away in the “Dust Bowl”. FDR starts the era of big government with the New Deal and the establishment of the AAA, CCC, TVA, FDIC, and NIRA. He also has congress repeal Prohibition.
1934: Congress passes the Federal Housing Administration bill, which establishes the FHA.
1935: The WPA is established to give unemployed workers something to do while fixing up the nation. The National Labor Relations Act gives right to organize. Social Security is enacted.
1936: Roosevelt is re-elected for his second term.
1936-1937: The CIO starts a yearlong Flint, Michigan sit-down strike to protest unfair employer practices. Roosevelt makes the owners back down.
1937: The Farm Security Administration is established. This act helps out farmers. The Republic Steel Plant tries to strike in Chicago. Chicago police fire into the mass picket line killing 10 people.
December 7, 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and the United States joins World War II.
1942: West Coast Japanese Americans are interned in camps. The Manhattan Project begins in Chicago.
September 1943: The Allies invade Italy
June 6, 1944: The Allies invade France
February 1945: Dresden, Germany firebombed for no reason at all.
April 1945: The islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima are invaded by the US.
May 8, 1945: VE Day in Europe when Germany surrenders.
August 1945: Atomic Bombs are dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
September 1945: Japan surrenders on VJ Day.
October 24, 1945: The United Nations is born.
1946: The Baby Boom Generation is born.
1947: Levittown, New York becomes the first suburb.
1948: Marshall Plan helps Europe to recover.
1949: The USSR explodes a nuclear bomb starting the arms race.
1950: Joseph McCarthy starts his anti-communist hearings. The Korean War begins. The Rosenberg’s are found guilty of espionage and treason and sentenced to death.
1953: The Korean War ends.
1954: The US Senate condemns McCarthy and refuses to let him talk. The Supreme Court rules in Brown vs. the Board of Education that segregation is illegal.
1955: The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins and Dr. Martin Luther King jr. is pushed to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.
1956: Eisenhower starts the Interstate system.
1957: Little Rock, Arkansas becomes the first city to let African Americans into a desegregated high school. This only happens after President Eisenhower sends federal troops to the city.
1958: Congress passes the National Defense Education Act to help improve math, science, and foreign langrage education.
1960: Greensboro, North Carolina becomes the birthplace of the sit in. The SNCC is formed.
1961: Civil Rights workers start Freedom Rides by riding on buses and testing discrimination in bus stations. The United States tries to invade Cuba in the Bay of Pigs.
1962: First US manned orbit of earth. Silent Spring is published becoming the first environmental book in the modern era. Castro is found to have nuclear missiles in Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crises begins.
1963: The Feminine Mystique is published starting the women’s lib movement. Birmingham, Alabama becomes the center of African American protest after the police commissioner turns fire hoses and dogs on the protesters. Martin Luther King jr. leads a march on Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
1964: President Johnson passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes segregation illegal in public, and state supported institutions. It gives the Justice Department more power to intervene and establishes a commission to look at discrimination in private employment. The Free Speech Movement begins on college campus. In August, the United States is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam and the Vietnam War starts.
1965: Malcolm X is assassinated stopping for a time the Black Muslim movement in America.
1966: The National Organization for Women is founded.
1968: Both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are assassinated within a month of each other.
1970: Cambodia is bombed in an escalation of the Vietnam War. In America, the First Earth Day is celebrated.
1973: The Watergate hearings begin. Roe vs. Wade is passed making it legal to have an abortion. The Energy Crises begins and America is forced to pay double for gasoline while at the same time hurting the auto and steel industry.
1974: Richard Nixon resigns as president.
July 4, 1976: The country celebrates 200 years of independence.
1979: Three Mile Island Nuclear accident.
1979-1981: 52 Americans are held hostage by Iran.
1981: AIDS comes to America.
1989: The Berlin Wall comes down ending the Cold War.
1991: The First Persian Gulf War.
1992: LA riots due to the Rodney King verdict.
1998: Clinton is impeached and found innocent.
2000: George W. Bush becomes President after a hard fought election.
September 11, 2001: The World Trade Center is hit by Islamic fundamentalists.