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Jan 1, 1492
Columbus
Columbus opens trade between Europe and America. (pg 9) -
Industrialization
Europeans followed Industrialization across the Atlantic. Increasing diversity began to be viewed as a "problem" for public schooling. This problem was centered around religion. (pg 40-41) -
Irish Potato Famine
The Irish Famine caused the first mass migration of Irish people to the United States. The Irish Potato Famine continued to spur on Irish immigration well into the 20th century after the devastating fungus that destroyed Ireland's prized potato. The lack of industry and overall poverty brought many impoverished Catholic farmers and laborers into the U.S. https://www.findmypast.com/articles/world-records/full-list-of-united-states-records/immigration-and-travel/irish-famine-immigrants-1846-1851 -
California Gold Rush
The California gold rush was a moment in the history of westward migration in the U.S. It was also an important period in U.S. immigration history. Many immigrant groups, especially the Chinese, began coming to the United States following news of the discovery of gold in California. Initially, the call for citizens was open to all, but as immigrants began coming in larger numbers, laws were established to limit immigration. http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/399-california-gold-rush.html -
Civil War Ends
Before the war it was illegal to educate black slave children. With the end of the war, there was still a resistance to educating black children, but if they were educated at all, they were educated in separate schools. (pg 41) -
Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on land confiscated or abandoned during the war. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedmens-bureau -
14th Amendment
Made responsibility for civil rights a federal rather than a state function. African Americans began to gain more access to public education. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (pg 42) -
Jewish families arrive from Russian Territories
Just as ethnic Russians and Poles were finding their way to American shores, one of the most dramatic chapters in world history was underway—the mass migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States. In a few short decades, from 1880 to 1920, a vast number of the Jewish people living in the lands ruled by Russia—moved to the U.S. In so doing, they left a centuries-old legacy behind, and changed the culture of the United States profoundly. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. -
Japanese Workers Arrive in Hawaii
In 1885, 900 Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii. The Japanese would quickly become one of the island kingdom’s largest ethnic groups. Most of the immigrants aboard the City of Tokio were single men. They came looking for greater financial opportunities, and found work in Hawaii’s enormous sugar cane plantations..
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/feb8/japanese-immigrants-arrive-hawaii/ -
Statue of Liberty
Between 1886 and 1924, almost 14 million immigrants entered the United States through New York. The Statue of Liberty was a reassuring sign that they had arrived in the land of their dreams. .
"...Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!
cries she With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! -
Italians Arrive
Italian immigrants to the United States from 1890 onward became a part of what is known as “New Immigration,” which is the third and largest wave of immigration from Europe and consisted of Slavs, Jews, and Italians. This “New Immigration” was a major change from the “Old Immigration” which consisted of Germans, Irish, British, and Scandinavians and occurred throughout the 19th century. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~molna22a/classweb/politics/Italianhistory.html -
Plessy vs Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. . As a result, restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public accommodations based on race became commonplace. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson -
Melting Pot Play
The play the Melting Pot was where the term 'melting pot" originated. The goal of creating one homogenous culture from the many that arrived on the shores of the United States was captured from words of the play. " America is God's Crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!" (pg 43) -
Puerto Ricans Granted Citizenship
A month before the United States enters World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones-Shafroth Act, granting U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico. Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act, under which Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans were granted statutory citizenship, meaning that citizenship was granted by an act of Congress and not by the Constitution. www.history.com/this-day-in-history/puerto-ricans-become-u-s-citizens-are-recruited-for-war-effort -
19th Amendment
The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=63 -
Immigration Quota Act
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act -
Indian Citizenship Act
On June 2, 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. Yet even after the Indian Citizenship Act, some Native Americans weren't allowed to vote because the right to vote was governed by state law. Until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. http://edu.lva.virginia.gov/online_classroom/shaping_the_constitution/doc/indian_citizenship_act -
Bracero Program
The Bracero Program allowed Mexican men to come to the US to work on, short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts. From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, making it the largest U.S. contract labor program. The Bracero Program contributes to our understanding of the lives of migrant workers in Mexico and the United States, as well as our knowledge of, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, agriculture, labor practices and race relations. http://braceroarchive.org/about -
Brown vs Board of Education
The 1954 Supreme Court decision stated that seregat3ed schools were inherently unequal and that state laws that allowed separate schools for black and white children were unconstitutional. ( pg 46) -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act -
Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party, original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft -
Loving vs. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United States. The plaintiffs in the case were Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman whose marriage was deemed illegal according to Virginia state law. With the help of the ACLU, the Lovings appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that “anti-miscegenation” statutes were unconstitutional. https://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/loving -
Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Education Act was the first federal legislation to address the unique educational needs of students with limited English-speaking ability (later called “limited English proficient”). It set the stage for further legislation regarding equality of educational opportunity for language minorities.
http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/379-bilingual-education-act-of-1968.html -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in New York City. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement.
https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots -
Refugee Act of 1980
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the need for a change in American policy concerning refugees became apparent as hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodians fled physical danger in their homelands. Between 1975 and 1979, some 300,000 of these refugees were able to come to the United States through Presidential action, as the law at the time restricted refugee admissions. -
Busing & Desegregation
I attended a suburban, mostly white high school in St. Louis county. My freshmen year, black students were bused from downtown every day. There was protesting downtown (see picture,) but in our parts there was little fuss. We didn't realize how big of a deal this was, but it was great for us as humans. -
Sanda Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is a retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who served from her appointment in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman to serve on the Court. www.britannica.com/biography/Sandra-Day-OConnor -
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the former official U.S. policy (1993–2011) regarding the service of homosexuals in the military. The term was coined after Pres. Bill Clinton in 1993 signed a law directing that military personnel “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, and don’t harass.” When it went into effect on October 1, 1993, the policy theoretically lifted a ban on homosexual service that had been instituted during World War II. https://www.britannica.com/event/Dont-Ask-Dont-Tell -
September 11, 2001
The events of September 11, 2001, injected new urgency into INS’ mission and initiated another shift in the United States' immigration policy. The emphasis of American immigration law enforcement became border security and removing criminal aliens to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. At the same time the United States retained its commitment to welcoming lawful immigrants and supporting their integration and participation in American civic culture. https://www.uscis.gov/ -
Great American Boycott
The Great American Boycott also called the Day Without an Immigrant, was a one-day boycott of United States schools and businesses by immigrants in the United States (mostly Latin American) which took place on May 1, 2006. As a continuation of the 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests, the organizers called for supporters to abstain from buying, selling, working, and attending school, to demonstrate through the extent to which the labor obtained of undocumented immigrants is needed. wikipedia -
Barak Obama Elected President
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama is elected the 44th president and becomes the first African-American chief executive of the United States. In his victory speech, President Obama remarks that "change has come to America." https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/barack-obama-elected-president-video
