*From the New International Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language*

1526 Spanish explorers bring the first Africans to the new territory, 20 years after Spain approves the shipment of slaves to the New World. It is believed that the first group of Africans brought over managed to escape and settle inland with Native Americans.

1700 Ten percent of the populations of the colonies (27,000) blacks are slaves. 90% of the slaves live in the South, where tabacco, rice, and indigo are the major crops.

Judge Samuel Sewall publishes the first pamphlet condemning slavery in the colonies. A three-page document that argues no man has the right to own another.

1761 Benjamin Banneker constructs a wooden clock that keeps precise time. The self-taught astronomer and mathematician produce a chiming clock that keeps accurate time for longer than 20 years.

1769 Thomas Jefferson proposes a law before the Virginia assembly that would emancipate slaves. It is rejected.

Anthony Benezet, a Quaker, establishes a school for blacks in Philadelphia.

Phyllis Wheatley, 18-year-old slave in Boston has her poetry printed by the University of Cambridge in New England.

1775 George Washington declares that no blacks can serve in the Continental Army. The British offer freedom to any black that serve with the Loyalist troops. Washington after the British decision reverses his order and allows blacks to remain in the army.

1776 The Declaration of Independence is ratified by all 13 colonies, after

Jefferson's passage condemning slavery is removed.

Ten thousand African Americans fight with colonial forces. Many are honored for valor and heroism, including Oliver Cromwell, William Flora, James Robinson, and Deborah Sampson (who fought disguised as a man).

1776 Vermont free blacks and abolishes slavery. It is the first state to do so.

1780 Pennsylvania abolishes slavery, with a gradual system of emancipation

1789 Benjamin Banneker accurately predicts a solar eclipse.

Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a black explorer, establishes a settlement at the southern end of Lake Michigan. The settlement becomes the city of Chicago.

1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin.

1826 The first African American males to graduate from college are John Russwrum from Bowdoin College and Edward A. Jones from Amherst College.

1831 The first Convention of People of Color is held at Wesleyan Church in Philadelphia. Delegates from five states set the agenda for studying various aspects of black life and conditions.

1832 Oberlin College is founded as an integrated institution. It is the first college in the U.S. to be established as such; other colleges and universities have changed policy to admit blacks. By 1835, the enrollment of Oberlin is 35% black.

1830 Joseph Cinque, an African slave bound for Puerto Principe from Cuba on the Amistad, commandeers a mutiny by the slaves held on board. All but two of the crew is killed, and the two are to sail the ship to Africa. They sail north instead and come ashore on Long Island, NY. The fifty-three slaves are tried and found innocent in 1841 of all charges. John Quincy Adams defends them. Cinque returns to Africa after lecturing in the U.S. to raise funds for his passage.

1849 Harriet Tubman, a major force behind the Underground Railroad, escapes slavery. She will return to the South 19 times to assist others in their flight to freedom.

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published for the first time. It sells 300,000 copies in the first year. The story is about a generous slave who is help by Simon Legree, a brutal slave owner who eventually flogs Tom to death. The story fuels anti-slavery sentiment.

1853 Ashmond Institute in Oxford, Pennsylvania, is the first black college in the U.S. It is eventually renamed Lincoln University.

1863 President Lincoln declares on January 1 that all slaves in the Confederate states are hereafter free. In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln does not free the slaves in territories that do not participate in the southern rebellion. The effectiveness of the proclamation depends on the Union Army winning.

1864 Congress passes the 13 Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States. All Confederate states wishing to reenter the Union must illegalize slavery. South Carolina is the first to do so.

1896 Plessy v. Ferguson is the first Supreme Court ruling to follow the "separate but equal" doctrine that remains the rule of the land until Brown v. The Board of Education in 1954.

1901 One month after being sworn in as president, Theodore Roosevelt invites Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. Reaction in the South is hostile to Roosevelt because of this social association with a black man.

1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York. It is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The organization worked to reverse discriminatory laws and offer legal assistance to blacks unconstitutionally imprisoned.

1910 13 of the 48 states have laws illegalizing interracial marriage.

1911 The National Urban League is founded. The main purpose of the organization is to raise the educational and employment opportunities of African Americans.

1918 The NAACP commences a strong public campaign to make lynching illegal under federal law. They publish a booklet; Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 with detailed case histories of 100 actual lynchings. They assemble statistics on lynchings in the U.S. and publish foe legislation combating such attacks.

1919 Some states try to pass legislation that declares membership in the NAACP illegal.

1924 As immigration laws tighten with the closing of Ellis Island, one of the restrictions is that no immigrants from Africa will be accepted.

1936 Jesse Owens competes in the Olympics in Germany and wins four gold medals. This humiliates the German team and German Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, who have sought to prove racial superiority of whites in athletic competition.

1945 One million African Americans serve with the American Armed Forces.

1946 Jackie Robinson becomes the first black baseball player in the major leagues. He plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Two years later is voted Most Valuable Player for the Nation League.

1950 Ralph Bunche is the first black awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche is honored for his role as mediator in the Arab-Israeli War.

Gwendolyn Brooks, a poet is awarded a Pulitzer Prize. She is the first African American honored by a Pulitzer award.

1951 The Tuskegee Institute, which has been filing statistics on lynching since 1881, announces that this is the first year in their history with no lynchings.

1959 Prince Edward County in Virginia votes to abolish the school system rather than give in to integration.

1963 WWII veteran and NAACP regional representative Medgar Evers is hot in the back and killed at his home a few hours after President Kennedy gives a television address on the importance of civil rights. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Four children, all African American, are killed by bomb blast in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Segregationists are believed to be responsible. Riots follow.

March on Washington is the largest civil rights rally in history. Two hundred fifty thousand people march to the Lincoln Memorial to hear several speakers, including Rev. Martin L. King Jr. King's speech "I have a dream" is a plea for equality and brotherhood between blacks and whites. It becomes one of the most quoted orations in U.S. history.

1964 Malcolm X establishes the Organization for Afro-American Unity.

1965 Malcolm X is assassinated while speaking at a public rally.

Watt, a district in Los Angels has riots, which several thousand people are arrested during the six-day melee, and 35 are killed.

1966 CORE votes to endorse and the NAACP votes to reject the concept of "Black Power".

1967 Thurgood Marshall is appointed to the Supreme Court. He is the first African American to sit on the bench.

1968 Rev. Martin L. King, Jr. Is assassinated in Memphis.

1971 Mostly black prisoner in Attica State Prison in New York riot. Conditions are cramped in the prison and black prisoners charge that white guards are excessively abusive. The takeover lasts for four days and is broken up by state troopers storming the facilities. 11 guards and 32 prisoners are killed.

1983 President Reagan reverses his initial position and signs into law the national holiday for Martin L. King, Jr.

Jesse Jackson, founder of PUSH, declares his candidacy for presidency.

1984 Jesse Jackson becomes the first black candidate in a presidential primary to win the majority vote in any state.

1991 Thurgood Marshall announces his retirement from the Supreme Court. Citing his age and deteriorating health, Marshall removes himself amid fears that the court will now shift to a conservative majority.