First slavery codes begin trend of making African servants slaves for life

First recorded prosecution against strikers in New York City

Virginia hypersurveillance law enacted: An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections

Philadelphia printers conduct first successful strike for increased wages

William Pollard is issued the first patent for a machine that roves and spins cotton

Slave importation from outside the U.S. prohibited

Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrates the telegraph

New Hamsphire enacts first state 10-hour-day law

Abraham Lincoln takes office as president and Civil War begins

President Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishes enslavement in the United States except as punishment for a crime

2,000 Union Army troops arrive in Galveston, Texas to announce an executive decree that freed the 250,000 African American laborers still held in bondage by the Confederacy after the Civil War.
The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth

Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor and Colored National Labor Union formed

Christopher Latham Sholes invents and sells typewriter prototype

Thomas Edison and a team of engineers create the phonograph

Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions formed

First Labor Day parade in New York City

Congress passes Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years - the first act to place broad restrictions on immigration
Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts

U.S. Industrial Commission declares trade unions good for democracy

Willis H. Carrier designs the first air conditioning system

Uprising of the 20,000 female shirtwaist makers in New York strike against sweatshop conditions
Clara Lemlich and the Uprising of the 20,000

19th Amendment to the Constitution adopted; the right to vote may not be abrogated by sex

Philo Farnsworth demonstrates the first television

President Franklin Roosevelt proposes New Deal programs to Congress
Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal
Art of the New Deal

National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act passed

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry complete the prototype for the first digital computer

The Complex Number Calculator is demonstrated by George Stiblitz

Enrico Fermi's University of Chicago team produces the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction

Team led by J.R. Oppenheimer, Arthur H. Compton, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard detonates the first atomic bomb

Taft-Hartley Act restricts union member' activities

The Eckert and Mauchly Computer Company sells first commercial computer

Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin) passed

President John Kennedy's order gives federal workers the right to bargain

Civil Rights Act bans institutional forms of racial discrimination

Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of age
An Overview of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act

Occupational Safety and Health Act passed

Cray Research, Inc. introduces the Cray-1 supercomputer

Mandatory retirement is prohibited except for high-powered decision-making positions that also provide large pensions

Immigration Reform and Control Act prohibits employers with more than three employees from discriminating against anyone (except unauthorized immigrants) on the basis of national origin or citizenship status

The Nineteenth Century Civil Rights Acts, amended to ensure all persons equal rights under the law and outline the damages available to complainants in actions brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act

Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier develop CRISPR-Cas9

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act bars employers from using individuals' genetic information when making hiring, firing, job placement, or promotion decisions
You Should Be Worried About Your DNA Privacy
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008