Do You Know the Major Events of the 20th Century?

In 1972, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Furman v. Georgia case established a moratorium on capital punishment, declaring that the arbitrary way executions were administered violated the rights to due process and the right against cruel and unusual punishment. States amended their laws to be more uniform, but a 1976 Supreme Court decision reinstated capital punishment, which remains legal in 24 states.

In 1960, a woman earned, on average, only about 66% of what a man working in the same position was paid. To combat this inequity, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, making it illegal to pay men and women different wages for the same jobs.

The antinuclear proliferation movement reached its height in the 1980s, when more than a million people rallied in New York City’s Central Park in 1982. The activists called for an end to the atomic arms race between the United States and Soviet Union. In 1987, the two governments signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), agreeing to eliminate short- and medium-range land-based missiles.

In 1972, activist Harvey Milk moved to San Francisco, where he opened a camera shop and became known as “the Mayor of Castro Street” thanks to his community leadership and vocal advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and social progress. He was elected to the city’s Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming the first openly gay elected official in California, and one of the first in the nation.

The movement for an eight-hour workday began in the 1860s, when 16-hour days were common. By 1890, full-time factory employees still worked an average of about 100 hours per week. Protests around the slogan “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will" made incremental progress, and Congress finally amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to set a 40-hour week in 1940.

According to a 1924 law, World War I veterans’ bonuses were due in 1945. But in 1929, the U.S. was hit with the worst stock market crash in history, and three years later, thousands of veterans gathered in Washington, D.C., in a so-called “Bonus Army” to ask for immediate payment. President Herbert Hoover forced the protesters out, and Congress eventually approved the bonus payment in 1936.

The women’s suffrage movement grew throughout the 19th century, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony officially founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Women were granted the vote in Wyoming that same year, but it was a longer fight in the rest of the U.S. In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the vote nationally, and Warren G. Harding was elected with their participation that year.

In 1787, the Constitution stipulated that U.S. senators would be elected by a vote of their state’s legislature. A movement for the people to elect their representatives directly began in the 1880s, after several cases in which senators bribed their way into office or were chosen by party machines. Direct Senate elections finally became law when the states ratified the 17th Amendment in 1913.

The original Clean Air Act was passed in 1964, in the wake of the scandal over pesticides caused by environmentalist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring.” Concern over pollution grew throughout the ’60s, and the first Earth Day in 1970 was a nationwide protest. That year, President Richard Nixon signed the expansion of the Clean Air Act that established the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the Vietnam War raged during the late 1960s, a movement rallied around the slogan “old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” calling attention to the fact that young Americans could be drafted and sent to war at age 18, but could not vote until they were 21. President Richard Nixon expressed support for lowering the voting age, and the change became law with the 26th Amendment in 1971.

The civil rights movement grew in strength over the 1950s and early ’60s, opposing unjust segregation and systemic racial discrimination. Thanks to efforts by such leaders as Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as his signature piece of legislation. It guaranteed equal voting rights, banned segregation in public facilities, and outlawed discrimination by employers, schools, and trade unions.

After unsuccessfully running for Vice President in 1920, Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first presidential election in 1932, and was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. Amid the tumult of World War II — which began during his second term — FDR continued to serve as President into an unprecedented fourth term, during which he passed away in 1945 and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman.

The U.S. increased its military involvement in Vietnam over the course of the 1960s, hoping to topple the communist government in North Vietnam. As casualties mounted, so did widespread opposition to the war, spurred on by the draft and moral concerns about the conflict. After years of intense public pressure, U.S. forces left Vietnam with a peace agreement signed in 1973.

The temperance movement began in the early 19th century and grew over the following decades, as activists such as Carrie Nation argued that alcohol consumption led to crime, poverty, and immorality. Their efforts led to the 18th Amendment in 1920, which prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation”of alcoholic drinks, as well as the Volstead Act to enforce the law. The 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933.