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Americans with Disabilities Act

(Encyclopedia)Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. civil-rights law, enacted 1990, that forbids discrimination of various sorts against persons with physical or mental handicaps. Its primary emphasis is on enablin...

learning disabilities

(Encyclopedia)learning disabilities, in education, any of various disorders involved in understanding or using spoken or written language, including difficulties in listening, thinking, talking, reading, writing, s...

Native Americans

(Encyclopedia)Native Americans: see Americas, antiquity and prehistory of the; Natives, Middle American; Natives, North American; Natives, South American. ...

Dawes Act

(Encyclopedia)Dawes Act or General Allotment Act, 1887, passed by the U.S. Congress to provide for the granting of landholdings (allotments, usually 160 acres/65 hectares) to individual Native Americans, replacing ...

Neutrality Act

(Encyclopedia)Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

Indian Reorganization Act

(Encyclopedia)Indian Reorganization Act, legislation passed in 1934 in the United States in an attempt to secure new rights for Native Americans on reservations. Its main provisions were to restore to Native Americ...

Indian Removal Act

(Encyclopedia)Indian Removal Act, in U.S. history, law signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 providing for the general resettlement of Native Americans to lands W of the Mississippi River. From 1830 to 1840 ap...

Canada Act

(Encyclopedia)Canada Act, also called the Constitutional Act of 1982, which made Canada a fully sovereign state. The British Parliament approved it on Mar. 25, 1982, and Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed it on Apr. 17,...

Homestead Act

(Encyclopedia)Homestead Act, 1862, passed by the U.S. Congress. It provided for the transfer of 160 acres (65 hectares) of unoccupied public land to each homesteader on payment of a nominal fee after five years of ...

Stamp Act

(Encyclopedia)Stamp Act, 1765, revenue law passed by the British Parliament during the ministry of George Grenville. The first direct tax to be levied on the American colonies, it required that all newspapers, pamp...