Haudenosaunee women stage a women’s strike (or sex strike according to some accounts) and restore their veto powers over wars and conflicts that they once had before male assertions of power in the wake of European colonization. This is the first recognized women’s protest in North America.

Jamestown, Va., is recognized as the first English settlement in North America, coming more than 40 years after the first Spanish settlement in North America (St. Augustine, Fla.). French and Dutch settlements soon follow. At Jamestown, Pocahontas, an Indigenous girl, mediates between the Algonquin and English settlers. This era of exploration leads to pandemics wiping out numerous Indigenous communities while creating demand for imported labor from the African continent through the transatlantic slave trade (ca.1518–1808).

The 1619 arrives in Virginia, becoming the first slave-trading vessel to land on an English settlement in North America. The ship carries more than 20 captive Africans originating from the Ndongo region (present-day Angola), which is later ruled by Queen Nzinga (r.1624–1663) as she wars against the Portuguese to protect her people from the transatlantic slave trade.

Anne Bradstreet becomes the first poet of any gender to publish a book of poetry in the American colonies with The Tenth Muse Sprung up in America, 30 years after Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts (1620).

A Virginia slave law establishes hereditary slavery in North America, stating that all children born to an enslaved woman would “follow the condition of the mother.”

The Salem Witch Trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony set off widespread accusations of witchcraft against mostly women. This moral panic among Puritans has its roots in Europe, where mostly women, accused of witchcraft, were often burned at the stake. In all, 19 people (14 of them women) are hanged during the Salem trials.

1730s–1740s: The first great religious awakening in America takes place, which personalizes ideas of salvation and spiritual connections with the divine. This movement plants early seeds of antislavery and feminist sentiments and other ideas of equality.

Phillis Wheatley is the first African American of any gender to publish a book of poetry with Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

The United States forms as a republic during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) with the Declaration of Independence, which states that “all men are created equal.” Abigail Adams pens her letter to her husband John Adams to “remember the ladies” ahead of his attendance at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

The French Revolution begins, inspired and triggered by the American Revolution after massive spending to support it causes France to spiral into a financial crisis.

Inspired by the French Revolution and in revolt against the brutal conditions of chattel slavery, a slave uprising on the Caribbean island of San Domingue leads to the Haitian Revolution (also called the Haitian War for Independence from France). The same year, abolitionist feminists Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft write their respective manifestos: Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen and A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

1803–1805: During Thomas Jefferson’s presidency (1801-1809), he acquires former French territories through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, sold by Napoleon Bonaparte while on the verge of losing his war against Haiti, which forms as the first free Black republic in the world on Jan. 1, 1804. The sale leads to a wide expansion of the United States, and Jefferson funds the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806), subsequently relying on Sacagawea, a young Shoshone woman, as a guide in the new territory and interpreter in exchanges with Indigenous communities.

The United States abolishes the transatlantic slave trade, which leads to further reliance on hereditary slavery among the enslaved communities already here in the U.S.

1831–1833: The year 1831 begins with William Lloyd Garrison launching his antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, which platforms the voices of abolitionists, including a free African American woman Maria W. Stewart, who becomes the first American-born woman to speak in public against slavery and for women’s rights. In August of 1831, Nat Turner leads an enslaved uprising in Southampton, Va. The aftermath results in more restrictive laws against the mobility and literacy of enslaved communities. This in turn intensifies the abolitionist movement. More women abolitionists, including Lucretia Mott and Sarah and Angelina Grimké, follow in Stewart’s footsteps by speaking out against slavery. They establish female antislavery societies between 1832 and 1833. This decade also launches the second great religious awakening as well as the Trail of Tears, following the Indian Removal Act (1830) under President Andrew Jackson, which forcibly removes the Cherokee from their lands.

Lucretia Mott helps to stage a walkout at the World Antislavery Convention in London when women are prevented from speaking in public.

In February, the Mexican-American War comes to an end after two years, leading to further expansion of territories to the United States, including Texas and much of the Southwest. In July, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott take the lead at the first women’s rights convention in the U.S., which takes place in Seneca Falls, N.Y. There, they set demands for women’s rights, including the right to own property, seek education and to vote, as outlined in The Declaration of Sentiments, mainly written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

1849–1851: Harriet Tubman self-emancipates from slavery in the fall of 1849 before she begins her heroic work on the Underground Railroad for the next decade. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law goes into effect, empowering enslavers to reclaim freedom seekers residing in free states. In 1851, Sojourner Truth delivers her famous speech at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, more widely known as “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” (although she likely never said those exact words).

The first organized march by women takes place among textile workers in New York City on March 8, with demands for shorter workdays and fair wages. March 8 will later be commemorated as International Women’s Day.

1861–1865: The U.S. Civil War takes place, culminating with the abolition of slavery in 1865, outlawed in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.

The women’s suffrage movement splits over the 15th Amendment, which extends voting rights to Black men while excluding women of all races. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony lead the charge against the 15th while Lucy Stone leads the movement in support of it, hoping to eventually expand to women’s suffrage. The Amendment comes after the 14th Amendment (1868) grants birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law to the newly freed African American community.

Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman to run for president of the United States.

The Comstock Law goes into effect during widespread efforts to outlaw abortion and replace midwifery with gynecological medicine (excluding women practitioners); the law prohibits the distribution by mail of birth control, sex education and pornographic materials.

The Page Act bans Chinese women from entering the U.S., on suspicions of prostitution, becoming the first federal law to ban a national group based on race and gender; this becomes the blueprint used to issue the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

On July 4, during the Centennial Celebration of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Susan B. Anthony leads members of the National Women’s Suffrage Association in a women’s protest at Independence Hall, where they present the Declaration of the Rights of Women of the United States.

Sophia Hayden, who became the first woman to graduate from MIT with a degree in architecture, designs the Women’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the Columbus expedition. The Women’s Building highlights women’s achievements but is criticized for segregating women from the overall exposition while also excluding African American women (with the sole inclusion of Fannie Barrier Williams). Journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells helps to organize a boycott of the World’s Fair, due to its overall exclusion of African Americans.

Queen Lili‘uokalani becomes the last sovereign monarch in Hawaii when she is forced from the throne during her peaceful resistance to the annexation of Hawaii.

The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson legalizes racial segregation—also known as “Jim Crow”—in Southern states. In the wake of this decision, various Black women gather to address their rights at the founding convention of the National Association of Colored Women.

The Spanish-American War expands United States territory to include Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines while establishing a protectorate over Cuba.

1911–1912: On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City results in the deaths of 146 garment workers (123 of them young women who are mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants). The unsafe working conditions causing the tragedy prompt widespread outrage, which leads to women workers organizing the Bread and Roses strike the following year; approximately 25,000 textile workers (mostly women) stage a labor walkout in January 1912 in Lawrence, Mass.

Alice Paul organizes the National Women’s March for Suffrage in Washington, D.C. on March 3. Harriet Tubman, dying a week later on March 10, delivers this message: “Tell the women to stand together for God will not forsake us!” The women, however, do not stand together as Black suffragists, led by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, refuse instructions to walk in the back of a segregated parade.

Margaret Sanger opens Planned Parenthood on Oct. 16; Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman elected to Congress in the House of Representatives.

The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution grants women the right to vote.

The United Nations—in response to the genocide committed during World War II (1939- 1945)—drafts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under the leadership of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt consults with Mary McLeod Bethune, the African American civil rights leader and educator who ensures that the Declaration addresses both race and gender equality.

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education overturns Plessy v. Ferguson. The defense used by the NAACP legal team and spearheaded by Thurgood Marshall (appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 under President Lyndon B. Johnson) is inspired by a seminar paper written by legal scholar Pauli Murray, who challenges legal segregation through the 13th and 14th Amendments. Trailblazing lawyer Constance Baker Motley (who will later become the first Black woman appointed to a federal judiciary) is recognized as writing the original complaint in this Supreme Court case and takes the lead in subsequent legal efforts to desegregate schools and universities across the South.

Claudette Colvin is arrested on March 2 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala. That summer, Mamie Till-Mobley insists on an open casket funeral in Chicago after her son Emmett Till is brutally lynched when visiting relatives in Mississippi, which shocks the nation. Rosa Parks is arrested on Dec. 1 for also refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus. Her arrest prompts an organized boycott by the Women’s Political Council in Montgomery, which catapults Martin Luther King, Jr. into leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. The bus boycott lasts 381 days.

Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique. The March on Washington for Civil Rights takes place on Aug. 28. A month later, white supremacists bomb the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair. The tragedy inspires protest art and music, including Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.” President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on Nov. 22.

With applied pressure from the Civil Rights Movement—spearheaded by community organizer Ella Baker in the background and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the fore through organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—the Civil Rights Act becomes law. Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer emerges as a leader during the Democratic National Convention where she gives testimony about her struggles to vote. Patsy Mink becomes the first Asian American woman and woman of color elected to Congress in the House of Representatives.

In February, Malcolm X is assassinated. In March, Martin Luther King, Jr leads civil rights activists in a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. for voting rights. Violence instigated by state law enforcement is televised, thus galvanizing the movement on both a national and international stage. In August, the Voting Rights Act is passed, which removes barriers to voting in Southern states. In October, nationality quotas are removed with the overhaul of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The National Organization of Women (NOW) is founded by Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Muriel Fox and Shirley Chisholm.

Following the intensification of anti-war protests against the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, New York Radical Women, led by Robin Morgan, stage a protest against the Miss America pageant, elevating the women’s liberation movement into the national spotlight. A different protest takes place with the first Miss Black America pageant under the banner of “Black is beautiful.” Shirley Chisholm becomes the first Black woman elected to Congress in the House of Representatives.

Gloria Steinem launches Ms. magazine and becomes the public face of feminism. Shirley Chisholm launches her Democratic primary presidential campaign, becoming the first Black woman to run for president in a major political party. In June, Angela Davis, a symbol of the Black Panther Party and Black feminism, is acquitted on all charges of conspiracy, murder and kidnapping, the culmination of a two-year “Free Angela” campaign after her arrest in 1970 over a courtroom shootout involving Black Party members in California, where it was discovered that the guns used were registered under her name. The same month, Title IX—authored by Rep. Patsy Mink—is established, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 under President Bill Clinton) helps to launch the ACLU Women’s Rights Project.

The Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion. The same year Dolores Huerta, labor organizer and feminist activist, emerges as a leader for United Farm Workers.

The United Nations declares the “Year of the Woman” and hosts the first of its World Conference on Women in Mexico City in June.

The inauguration of President Ronald Reagan launches a politically conservative era in the U.S. This includes the intensification of the “Stop ERA” movement in the prevention of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Black feminists Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith create the Kitchen Table Women of Color Press to independently publish works by feminists of color. These publications contribute to the growth of women’s studies, which expand during this decade.

The Feminist Majority is founded by Eleanor Smeal, Peg Yorkin, Katherine Spillar, Toni Carabillo and Judith Meuli and is dedicated to women’s equality, especially in the arena of politics.

The Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas Congressional hearings raise the issue of sexual harassment (both intra-racially and in general) in the public sphere five years after the Supreme Court decision in Vinson v. Meritor Savings Bank (1986) defined the terms of workplace sexual harassment. The hearings—in which Hill accuses Thomas of sexual harassment when serving under him—highlight its personal impact and the ways that the public is largely ignorant of the issues, as demonstrated with the eventual appointment of Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the terms intersectionality and critical race theory in 1989, serves as a legal consultant for Hill’s defense team.

In January, Maya Angelou becomes the first African American and woman to deliver a poem at a presidential inauguration when President Bill Clinton is sworn in as the 42nd President of the United States. Later in the year, Toni Morrison becomes the first African American of any gender to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is signed into law.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton declares “women’s rights are human rights” at the fourth U.N. World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman secretary of state during President Clinton’s second term. Civil rights feminist activist Loretta Ross spearheads efforts to assemble 18 reproductive health organizations by women of color into the Sister Song Reproductive Justice Collective.

The Color of Violence: Violence against Women of Color Conference is held in April, which platforms intersectional analyses and grassroots strategies tackling gendered violence in relation to racism, state violence, and militarism. From this event, the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence network is launched.

Colin Powell becomes the first African American secretary of state under President George W. Bush. The terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11 lead to the U.S. declaring war against Afghanistan. The Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan (RAWA), which documents human rights violations by the Talban, warns that U.S. military intervention would exacerbate civilian casualties, countering the U.S. rhetoric of military intervention as a necessary advancement of women’s rights.

The U.S. War on Terror expands to Iraq, triggering global protests against what is considered flimsy evidence of “weapons of mass destruction.” The all-women country trio, the Dixie Chicks (now The Chicks) is blacklisted from country music radio for criticizing the war, with many fans burning their albums amid death threats.

Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African American woman secretary of state under President George W. Bush. Late August, Hurricane Katrina decimates New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast with a death toll over 1,000 and widespread displacement of residents, mostly impacting low-income African American communities.

Barack Obama makes history when he is elected as the 44th and first Black president of the United States. Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives.

2011–2013: The expansion of social media on the Internet leads to the global reach of social movements: including Slut Walk and Arab Spring on Facebook, the latter igniting revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and #BlackLivesMatter (launched by Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors and Ayo Tometi) and #SayHerName (launched by Kimberlé Crenshaw) on Twitter (now X). In 2013, the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder weakens the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizes same-sex marriage. Women on the 20 grassroots campaign pushes for the placement of a woman on $20 U.S. currency, which leads to the selection of Harriet Tubman for the honor.

The Obama administration officially selects Harriet Tubman for a future appearance on $20 currency. Hillary Rodham Clinton makes history as the first woman to receive the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States and the first woman to win the popular vote even though she is not elected to the presidency.

Clinton’s loss of the presidential election against an openly sexist campaign run by Donald J. Trump prompts the Women’s March in January. In August, pop star Taylor Swift wins a lawsuit against her sexual aggressor after being publicly groped; the lawsuit takes place two months before Hollywood actors break their silence about widespread sexual assault and exploitation by movie producer Harvey Weinstein. This sets off the Me-Too movement against sexual assault, first launched on Twitter (now X) with a #MeToo tweet by actor Alyssa Milano. Tarana Burke, who launched an earlier iteration of the movement in 2006, emerges alongside other survivors and activists as feminist leaders of the movement.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggers a worldwide lockdown. Women scientists, including Katalin Kariko (awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2023) and Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, are instrumental in helping to develop the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Kamala Harris makes history as the first woman vice president of the United States. In August, President Joe Biden ends the war in Afghanistan, and the Taliban immediately regains power.

In April, Ketanji Brown-Jackson becomes the first African American woman appointed to the Supreme Court under President Joe Biden. In June, the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturns Roe v. Wade, removing federal protections for abortion access. On Sept. 8, Queen Elizabeth II dies after 70 years on the throne, becoming the longest reigning monarch in British history. She is succeeded by her son King Charles III. On Sept. 16, the death of Mahsa “Jina” Amini in police custody ignites the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran. This event, along with the Taliban’s removal of women from public life in Afghanistan, help launch the global “End Gender Apartheid” campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris makes history as the first woman of color to receive the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States. Like Hillary Clinton, she too loses to President Trump even though she receives 75 million votes.

Ms. Magazine joins in the commemoration of the semiquincentennial of U.S. democracy