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Treaties
Antarctic Treaty
The 12 nations listed in the preamble (below) signed the Antarctic Treaty on 1 December 1959 at Washington, D.C. The Treaty entered into force on 23 June 1961; the 12 signatories became the original 12 consultative nations.
Jun 25, 2008, 9:57am
Important Writings, Papers, & Designs
Zimmerman Telegram
This telegram, written by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann, is a coded message sent to Mexico, proposing a military alliance against the United States.
May 25, 2008, 12:46pm
Speeches
The Silent Majority Speech
Nixon delivered an address to the nation now referred to as "The Silent Majority Speech" on November 3, 1969. Nixon laid out a plan for the end of the war through the process of diplomatic negotiation and Vietnamization.
Oct 28, 2007, 11:48pm
Speeches
President Nixon's Phone Call to the Moon
On July 20, 1969, 600 million people watched the moon landing as the astronauts took photographs, gathered samples, set up scientific instruments, raised the flag, and received a phone call from President Nixon.
Oct 28, 2007, 11:06pm
Speeches
President Bush's Immigration Speech - May 2007
Immigration has become one of the top issues in the United States in the last decade. This speech was President Bush's response to the growing immigration crisis.
Oct 28, 2007, 10:53pm
Speeches
President Bush's 9-11 Address to the Nation
September11th, 2001
On September 11th, 2001, the United States was attacked in both New York and Washington DC by a group of terrorists who used planes to crash into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. This speech was President Bush's address to the nation.
Oct 28, 2007, 10:10pm
Bills
Wade - Davis Bill
At the end of the Civil War, this the Wade-Davis Bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the readmittance of the Confederate states to the Union.
Nov 23, 2006, 11:29pm
Proclamations
Thanksgiving - The Continental Congress Gives Thanks
It's interesting in a time of political correctness and the eradication of God from our political documents to remember that our Founders actually issued a formal proclamation giving thanks to God for our independence.
Nov 19, 2006, 10:49pm
Acts
Sherman Act, 1890
The Sherman Antitrust Act has stood since 1890 as the principal law expressing our national commitment to a free market economy in which competition free from private and governmental restraints leads to the best results for consumers. Congress felt so strongly about this commitment that there was only one vote against the Act.
Nov 9, 2006, 4:00pm
Acts
Social Security Act Amendments - Medicare, 1965
The Social Security Act Amendments was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965, in Independence, MO. It established Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor.
Aug 12, 2006, 2:06pm
Acts
National Labor Relations Act, 1935
The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, passed through Congress in the summer of 1935 and became one of the most important legacies of the New Deal.
Aug 11, 2006, 11:07pm
Acts
Coinage Act, 1792 (The Mint Act)
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton suggested the establishment of a national currency. Congress enacted this legislation following his recommendations the following year.
Aug 11, 2006, 10:38pm
Acts
Pendleton Act (Civil Service Reform Act), 1883
The Pendleton Act classified certain jobs, removed them from the patronage ranks, and set up a Civil Service Commission to administer a system based on merit rather than political connections. As the classified list was expanded over the years, it provided the American people with a competent and permanent government bureaucracy.
Aug 11, 2006, 6:49pm
Acts
Civil Rights Act, 1964
The assassination of John Kennedy in November 1963 left most civil rights leaders grief-stricken. Kennedy had been the first president since Harry Truman to champion equal rights for black Americans. But on November 27, 1963, addressing the Congress and the nation for the first time as president, Johnson called for passage of the civil rights bill as a monument to the fallen Kennedy.
Aug 11, 2006, 6:40pm
Important Writings, Papers, & Designs
The de Lôme Letter
The De Lome letter, a note written by Sor Don Enrigue Dupuy de me, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States. De ms unflattering remarks about McKinley helped fuel this countrs aggressive, warlike foreign policy.
Aug 11, 2006, 6:35pm
Acts
Federal Highway Act of 1956
The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, authorized the building of highways throughout the nation, which would be the biggest public works project in the nation's history.
Aug 11, 2006, 6:11pm
Acts
Kansas Nebraska Act, 1854
The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which spawned "Bleeding Kansas," was another dramatic episode in the struggle between pro- and antislavery advocates.
Aug 11, 2006, 6:06pm
Acts
Boulder Canyon Project Act, 1928
The Boulder Canyon Project Act, passed in 1928, authorized the Bureau of Reclamation to construct Boulder Dam on the Colorado River, thereby creating Lake Mead above the dam.
Aug 11, 2006, 5:47pm
Acts
Keating Owen Child Labor Act, 1916
The Keating-Owen Act banning articles produced by child labor from being sold in interstate commerce. The act was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court just two years later.
Aug 11, 2006, 3:36pm
Acts
Tennessee Valley Authority Act
This act of May 18, 1933, created the Tennessee Valley Authority to oversee the construction of dams to control flooding, improve navigation, and create cheap electric power in the Tennessee Valley basin.
Aug 11, 2006, 3:31pm
Acts
Lend Lease Act, 1941
The Lend-Lease Act, approved by Congress in March 1941, gave President Roosevelt virtually unlimited authority to direct material aid such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes, trucks, and food to the war effort in Europe without violating the nation's official position of neutrality.
Aug 11, 2006, 3:22pm
Acts
Social Security Act, 1935
FDR had proposed a three-part program of old-age security consisting of: old-age welfare pensions; compulsory contributory social insurance (what we now think of as Social Security); and a third-tier which would consist of optional annuity certificates sold by the government to workers who, upon retirement, could convert the certificates to monthly annuities which would be used as supplements to their basic Social Security retirement benefit.
Aug 11, 2006, 3:14pm
Acts
Morrill Act, 1862
Passed on July 2, 1862, The Morrill Act made it possible for new western states to establish colleges for their citizens. The new land-grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education.
Aug 11, 2006, 2:45pm
Acts
Homestead Act, 1862
The Homestead Act of 1862 has been called one the most important pieces of Legislation in the history of the United States. Signed into law in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln after the secession of southern states, this Act turned over vast amounts of the public domain to private citizens. 270 millions acres, or 10% of the area of the United States was claimed and settled under this act.
Aug 11, 2006, 2:24pm
Presidential Executive Orders
Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces, 1948
On 26 July 1948, President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981, establishing the Presidens Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. It was accompanied by Executive Order 9980, which created a Fair Employment Board to eliminate racial discrimination in federal employment.
Aug 10, 2006, 10:54pm
Acts
The Alien Act
The Alien Act is one of a collection of acts passed in 1789 known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Aug 10, 2006, 7:29pm
Acts
Judiciary Act of 1789 - Part 1
(Sections 1-21)
In the Judiciary Act of 1789, the First Congress provided the detailed organization of a federal judiciary that the Constitution had sketched only in general terms.
Aug 10, 2006, 7:15pm
Acts
Judiciary Act of 1789 - Part 2
(Sections 22-35)
In the Judiciary Act of 1789, the First Congress provided the detailed organization of a federal judiciary that the Constitution had sketched only in general terms. (part two)
Aug 10, 2006, 7:14pm
Acts
Chinese Exclusion Act
The door to the Chinese American dream was finally slammed shut in 1882, when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act was the first significant restriction on free immigration in U.S. history, and it excluded Chinese laborers from the country under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.
Aug 10, 2006, 6:39pm
Presidential Executive Orders
Executive Order 10924 - Establishment of the Peace Corps, 1961
The founding of the Peace Corps is one of President John F. Kennedy's most enduring legacies. Yet it got its start in a fortuitous and unexpected moment.
Aug 10, 2006, 4:00pm
Acts
Interstate Commerce Act, 1887
Approved on February 4, 1887, the Interstate Commerce Act created an Interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the conduct of the railroad industry. With this act, the railroads became the first industry subject to Federal regulation.
Aug 10, 2006, 3:50pm
Acts
The Patriot Act - HR 3162
The USA Patriot Act was passed 45 days after the September 11th attacks on America. The act is supposed to faciliate the hunt for terrorists, but it has severely impacted our civil liberties in the process.
Aug 10, 2006, 11:16am
Supreme Court Decisions
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1831
In 1831 the US Supreme Court issued a decision that defined Native Americans as "domestic dependant nations" instead of foreign nations. This redesignation allowed states, such as Georgia, to disenfranchise Native American tribes of their lands.
Mar 26, 2006, 11:52pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
This Supreme Court decision forbade states from enacting any legislation that would interfere with Congress's right to regulate commerce among the separate states.
Mar 26, 2006, 9:36pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Winters v. People of the State of New York, 1908
Winters v. People of the State of New York has become the foundation of all Indian water law. Also known as the "Winters Doctrine", this finding by the Supreme Court allowed that an Indian reservation may reserve water in an amount necessary to fulfill their purpose....
Mar 26, 2006, 9:23pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Just as George Washington helped shape the actual form that the executive branch would take, so the third chief justice, John Marshall, shaped the role that the courts would play.
Mar 26, 2006, 8:53pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Plessy v. Ferguson
On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads. For fifty years, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld the principle of racial segregation. Across the country, laws mandated separate accommodations on buses and trains, and in hotels, theaters, and schools.
Mar 26, 2006, 8:29pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Elk Grove v. Michael A. Newdow, 2004
US Pledge of Allegiance
The Supreme Court has decided to preserve a reference to God in a patriotic oath known as the Pledge of Allegiance. For now, the Pledge of Allegiance, a patriotic oath recited by millions of school children every day, will remain intact.
Mar 26, 2006, 7:32pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Brown v. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.
Mar 26, 2006, 7:23pm
Supreme Court Decisions
Roe V. Wade - Women's Right to Choose
Roe V. Wade was a Supreme Court decision upholding a woman's right to choose and maintain control over her body. It is one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history.
Mar 26, 2006, 6:50pm
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