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1587 - August 18: Virginia Dare becomes the first English child born in the New World. -
1774 - October 25: Fifty-one “patriotic ladies” gather in Edenton to announce in writing their boycott of East Indian tea as long as it is taxed by the British. This protest, known as the Edenton Tea Party, is one of the first political activities in this country staged by women -
1777 - Abigail Adams asks her husband, John, to "remember the ladies" when he and the Continental Congress begin writing the laws for the new country. "If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies," she continues, "we will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." -
1827 - After New York abolishes slavery, Isabella Baumfree changes her name and begins crusading for abolition, temperance, prison reform, women’s suffrage, and better working conditions. As Sojourner Truth, she becomes a famous figure at antislavery meetings. -
1848 - July 19–20: The world’s first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is debated and ultimately signed by 68 women and 32 men, setting the agenda for the women's rights movement that follows. -
1866 -The Fourteenth Amendment is passed by Congress (it will be ratified by the states in 1868), defining "citizens" and "voters" as "male" for the first time in the Constitution. -
1868 - The North Carolina legislature passes a new constitution that grants women the right to own property and businesses, to work for their own wages, to sue in courts, to make wills, and to make contracts without their husbands' consent. -
1964 - Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination by private employers, employment agencies, and unions based on race, sex, and other grounds. To investigate complaints and enforce penalties, it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which receives 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination in its first five years.