History
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| Literature
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Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation
Battle of Gettysburg fought | 1863
| Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg Address
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General Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea
| 1864
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Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox
Lincoln assassinated
Freedmen's Bureau established
| 1865
| James Russell Lowell
"Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration"
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Congress passes the Civil Rights Bill over Johnston's veto
Ku Klux Klan organized
| 1866
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Congressional reconstruction
| 1867–1877
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| 1867
| Mark Twain
"The Notorious Jumping Frog"
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| 1868
| Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
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Congress passes Fifteenth Amendment
Transcontinental railroad completed
Brooklyn Bridge begun
| 1869
| Bret Harte
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat"
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Amnesty Act returns political rights to Confederate leaders
| 1872
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The great buffalo slaughter
| 1872–1874
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| 1874
| George Washington Cable
"Belles Demoiselles Plantation"
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Financial panic and depression
| 1873–1877
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Battle of Little Big Horn
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
| 1876
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Thomas Edison invents the phonograph
| 1877
| Sidney Lanier
"The Symphony"
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Edison develops the incandescent light bulb
| 1879
| Henry James
Daisy Miller
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| 1880
| Joel Chandler Harris
"The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story"; "Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match at Last"
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Booker T. Washington founds Tuskegee Institute
| 1881
| Henry James
The Portrait of a Lady
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Chinese Exclusion Act
John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil
| 1882
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The Civil Service or Pendleton Act passed
| 1883
| Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins
Life among the Piutes
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| 1884
| Mark Twain
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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The world's first skyscraper built in Chicago
| 1885
| William Dean Howells
The Rise of Silas Lapham
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Statue of Liberty dedicated
Haymarket riots
| 1886
| Sarah Orne Jewett
"A White Heron"
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Ghost Dance religion
| 1888–1891
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| 1889
| Hamlin Garland
"Under the Lion's Paw"
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Wounded Knee massacre
| 1890
| First volume of Emily Dickinson's poems published posthumously
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International copyright law passed
| 1891
| William Dean Howells
Criticism and Fiction
Ambrose Bierce
"The Boarded Window"
Mary E. Wilkinson Freeman
"The Revolt of 'Mother"
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Ellis Island opens as receiving station for immigrants
| 1892
| Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
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Chicago World's Fair
| 1893
| Stephen Crane
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Henry James
The Real Thing and Other Tales
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Plessy v. Ferguson upholds Jim Crow laws
| 1896
| Edwin Arlington Robinson
"Luke Havergal"
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Boston opens the first subway in America
| 1897
| Paul Laurence Dunbar
"We Wear the Mask"
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Spanish-American War begins after the sinking of the Maine
| 1898
| Henry James
The Turn of the Screw
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The Philippine War
| 1898–1902
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| 1899
| Kate Chopin
The Awakening
Charles W. Chesnutt
"The Passing of Grandison"
Frank Norris
"A Plea for Romantic Fiction"
Edith Wharton
"The Muse's Tragedy"
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Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
| 1901
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The Wright brothers launch the first airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
| 1903
| Henry James
The Ambassadors
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| 1905
| Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth
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Pure Food and Drug Act passed
| 1906
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| 1907
| Henry Adams
"The Dynamo and the Virgin"
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| 1908
| Jack London
"To Build a Fire"
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Sigmund Freud lectures in America on his theories concerning the unconscious and harmful repressions
| 1909
| Gertrude Stein
"The Gentle Lena"
Mary Austin
"The Fakir"
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NAACP founded
| 1910
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Mexican Revolution
| 1911
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Woodrow Wilson elected president
| 1912
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First assembly line at Ford Motor Company
New York Armory Show of modern art
| 1913
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World War I begins
Panama Canal opens
| 1914
| Robert Frost
North of Boston
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"Great Migration" of southern blacks to the North
| 1914–1920
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German submarine sinks the Lusitania
Provincetown Players established
| 1915
| Ezra Pound begins Cantos
Edgar Lee Masters
"Petit, the Poet"; "Elsa Wertman"
Robert Frost
"The Road Not Taken"
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President Wilson reelected president
| 1916
| Carl Sandburg
"Fog"; "Monotone"; "Gone"
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U. S. enters World War I
Russian Revolution breaks out
| 1917
| Susan Glaspell
"A Jury of Her Peers"
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On November 11, an armistice ends World War I
The Theater Guild established
| 1918
| Theodore Dreiser
"The Second Choice"
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Race riot erupts in Chicago
| 1919
| Sherwood Anderson
Winesburg,Ohio
Wallace Stevens
"Anecdotes of the Jar";
"Ploughing on Sunday"
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Prohibition begins after the Eighteenth Amendment is ratified by every state but Connecticut and Rhode Island
The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote
| 1920
| Edwin Arlington Robinson
"Firelight"; "The Mill";
"Mr. Flood's Party"
Robert Frost
"Fire and Ice"
Ezra Pound
"Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"
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Congress established a quota system by which annual immigration can be regulated and decreased
| 1921
| Elinor Wylie
"Wild Peaches"; "Sanctuary";
"Prophecy"
Marianne Moore
"Poetry"
Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
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| 1922
| T. S. Eliot
The Waste Land
Eugene O'Neill
The Hairy Ape
Claude McKay
"America"
James Weldon Johnson
The Book of Negro Poetry
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Teapot Dome scandal
| 1923
| Ellen Glasgow
"Jordan's End"
Robert Frost
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
Edna St. Vincent Millay
"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed"
Wallace Stevens
"Bantams in Pine-Woods"
William Carlos Williams
"The Red Wheelbarrow"
E. E. Cummings
"Buffalo Bill's"
Jean Toomer
Cane
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Calvin Coolidge elected president in a landslide
| 1924
| H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)
"Heliodora"
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The Scopes trial
| 1925
| T. S. Eliot
"The Hollow Men"
Amy Lowell
"Meeting-House Hill"
Robinson Jeffers
"Roan Stallion"
Countee Cullen
"Heritage"
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Ernest Hemingway
"Big Two-Hearted River "
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| 1926
| Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
Archibald MacLeish
"Ars Poetica"
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First talking movie, The Jazz Singer
Charles Lindbergh flies the first successful solo transatlantic flight
| 1927
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Stock market crashes
| 1929
| William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury
Thomas Wolfe
"An Angel on the Porch"
Katherine Anne Porter
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
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| 1930
| Allen Tate
"Ode to the Confederate Dead"
Hart Crane
The Bridge
John Dos Passos
The 42nd Parallel
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Scottsboro defendants arrested
| 1931
| Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat Nor Drink"
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Babylon Revisited"
William Faulkner
"That Evening Sun"
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Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president in a landslide victory over Hoover
| 1932
| Willa Cather
"Neighbour Rosicky"
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Prohibition repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment
First "New Deal" legislation
| 1933
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| 1934
| William Carlos Williams
"This Is Just to Say"
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Roosevelt initiates second "New Deal" legislation
Social Security Act passed
| 1935
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The Golden Gate Bridge opens
| 1937
| John Dos Passos
U.S.A.
Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God
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New Deal ends
| 1938
| John Steinbeck
"The Chrysanthemums"
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Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact shocks the world
World War II begins
| 1939
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Germany launches a blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France
| 1940
| Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Richard Wright
Native Son
Woody Guthrie
"This Land Is Your Land"
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On December 7, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; within days of Pearl Harbor, the United States is also at war with Germany and Italy
| 1941
| Eudora Welty
"A Memory"
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Battle of Midway
Soviets defend Stalingrad
The internment of Japanese Americans
| 1942
| William Faulkner
Go Down, Moses
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Allied forces invade Sicily
| 1943
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D-Day: Allies invade Normandy
Battle of the Bulge
| 1944
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On April 12, Roosevelt dies
U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
United Nations found
Ho Chi Minh unifies Vietnam
| 1945
| Richard Wright
Black Boy
Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie
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| 1946
| Elizabeth Bishop
The Fish
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Marshall Plan approved
| 1947
| Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man
Richard Wilbur
The Beautiful Changes
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Truman elected president
| 1948
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is formed by the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
| 1949
| Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman
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The Korean War
| 1950–1953
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McCarthyism
| 1950–1954
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| 1951
| J. D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
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Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president
| 1952
| Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man
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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed
| 1953
| Isaac Bashevis Singer
Gimpel the Fool
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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, outlaws segregation of schools
| 1954
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Montgomery bus boycott
| 1955
| Flannery O'Connor
"Good Country People"
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| 1956
| Allen Ginsberg
Howl
John Ashbery
"Some Trees"; "The Painter"
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The Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first satellite
| 1957
| Jack Kerouac
On the Road
Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin
Denise Levertov
"The Third Dimension"
James Baldwin
"Sonny's Blues"
Frank O'Hara
"Why I Am Not a Painter"
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| 1958
| Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita
Bernard Malamud
"The Mourners"
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Fidel Castro leads a rebellion to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista
| 1959
| Saul Bellow
Henderson the Rain King
Robert Lowell
Life Studies
James Merrill
"A Timepiece"
W. D. Snodgrass
"April Inventory"; Heart's Needle
Gary Snyder
"The Late Snow & Lumber Strike of the Summer of Fifty-Four"; "Riprap"
Philip Roth
"The Conversion of the Jews"
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John F. Kennedy elected president
First oral contraceptive
| 1960
| Gwendolyn Brooks
"We Real Cool"
Robert Lowell
"For the Union Dead"
W. S. Merwin
"The Drunk in the Furnace"
Anne Sexton
"Her Kind"; "The Farmer's Wife"
Thomas Pynchon
"Entropy"
John Updike
Rabbit, Run
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Peace Corps created
The Soviets erect the Berlin Wall
Alan Shepard becomes the first American launched into space
| 1961
| Edward Albee
The American Dream
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Cuban missile crisis
| 1962
| Rachel Carson
Silent Spring
William Stafford
"Before the Big Storm"
James Dickey
"The Lifeguard"
Robert Bly
"Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River"; "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter"; "Watering the Horse"
Sylvia Plath
"Daddy"
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President Kennedy assassinated
| 1963
| Thomas Pynchon
V.
Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I Have a Dream"
Bob Dylan
"The Times They Are A-Changin'"
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Lyndon Johnson elected president in a landslide
Direct military participation in the Vietnam war begins
| 1964
| Theodore Roethke
"The Far Field"; "The Pike"; "In a Dark Time"
John Cheever
"The Swimmer"
Amiri Baraka
"In Memory of Radio"; "An Agony, As Now."
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Voting Rights Act passed
First Vietnam war protests
Immigration and Naturalization Act paves the way for increased diversity
Medicare and Medicaid established
| 1965
| Sylvia Plath
Ariel
A. R. Ammons
Corsons Inlet
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| 1966
| Robert Penn Warren
"Blow, West Wind"
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The Black Panthers Party of Oakland, California, calls on African Americans to arm themselves against police harassment
| 1967
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated
Senator Robert Kennedy assassinated
Riots at Democratic Convention in Chicago
Richard Nixon elected president
| 1968
| John Barth
"Lost in the Funhouse"
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In July, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become first to walk on the surface of the moon
The Woodstock Music Festival attracts 400,000 people to the largest rock concert ever organized
| 1969
| John Berryman
The Dream Songs
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Four student protestors at Kent State killed by the National Guard
| 1970
| Joyce Carol Oates
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
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Voting age lowered to eighteen
| 1971
| Jay Wright
"Preparing to Leave Home"
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The Vietnam peace treaty ends the war for American troops
| 1973
| Adrienne Rich
"Diving into the Wreck"
Toni Morrison
Sula
Alice Walker
"Everyday Use"
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Richard Nixon resigns
| 1974
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Jimmy Carter elected president
| 1976
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Carter pardons Vietnam war draft evaders
| 1977
| Simon J. Ortiz
"Vision Shadows"
Anne Tyler
"Average Waves in Unprotected Waters"
Charles Simic
"Euclid Avenue"
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| 1978
| John Cheever
The Stories of John Cheever
Tim O'Brien
Going after Cacciato
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Iran hostage crisis begins
| 1979
| John Updike
"Separating"
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Iran hostage rescue attempt fails
Ronald Reagan defeats President Carter for the presidency
| 1980
| Sam Shepard
True West
Joseph Brodsky
Lullaby of Cape Cod
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Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman justice of the United States Supreme Court
AIDS first reported in the United States
| 1981
| Lorna Dee Cervantes
"Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races"
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| 1982
| Alice Walker
The Color Purple
Bobbie Ann Mason
"Shiloh"
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The Supreme Court declares anti-abortion laws unconstitutional
| 1983
| Cathy Song
"Picture Bride"
Raymond Carver
"A Small, Good Thing"
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Democratic Party names Geraldine Ferraro as first female vice presidential candidate by a major party
| 1984
| Nash Candelaria
"El Patrón"
Louise Erdrich
"The Red Convertible"
Saul Bellow
"A Silver Dish"
John Edgar Wideman
Sent for You Yesterday
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Iran-Contra affair
| 1986–1989
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| 1986
| Rita Dove
"Roast Possum"
Ann Beattie
"Janus"
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| 1987
| August Wilson
Fences
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Vice President George Bush wins presidency
| 1988
| Toni Morrison
Beloved
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Chinese army crushes student rebellion in Beijing's Tiananmen Square
Berlin Wall dismantled
| 1989
| Amy Tan
"Half and Half"
Bharati Mukherjee
"The Management of Grief"
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Iraq invades Kuwait
| 1990
| Jamaica Kincaid
"Mariah"
John Edgar Wideman
Philadelphia Fire
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Persian Gulf war
Soviet Union collapses
| 1991
| Isabel Allende
"And of Clay Are We Created"
Sandra Cisneros
Woman Hollering Creek
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Los Angeles race riots
Bill Clinton elected president
| 1992
| Mary Oliver
"Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York, 1957"
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| 1994
| Don DeLillo
"The Angel Esmeralda"
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Bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building
| 1995
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Bill Clinton reelected to the presidency
| 1996
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House of Representatives votes to impeach President Clinton
| 1998
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President Clinton is acquitted by the Senate
| 1999
| Annie Proulx
"The Half-Skinned Steer"
Jhumpa Lahiri
"The Third and Final Continent"
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George W. Bush assumes the presidency after controversial election
World Trade Center in New York destroyed by terrorists
| 2001
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War in Iraq begins
| 2003
| Sherman Alexie
"What You Pawn I Will Redeem"
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George W. Bush elected to second term
| 2004
| Edwidge Danticat
The Dew Breaker
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| 2006
| Al Gore
An Inconvenient Truth
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Al Gore and Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) win the Nobel Peace Prize
| 2007
| Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
Isabel Allende
Inés of My Soul
Joyce Carol Oates
The Gravedigger's Daughter
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