(Encyclopedia) Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, 1930, passed by the U.S. Congress; it brought the U.S. tariff to the highest protective level yet in the history of the United States. President Hoover desired…
(Encyclopedia) Fair Labor Standards Act or Wages and Hours Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1938 to establish minimum living standards for workers engaged directly or indirectly in interstate…
(Encyclopedia) Freedom of Information Act (1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category…
(Encyclopedia) National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted…
(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…
military leader and former slaveBirthplace: Mandingo, Africa Born in Africa, Francisco Menendez was brought to America as a slave in the early 1700s. He escaped and fled from the British…
A History of Pay Inequity in the U.S. June 10, 1963: John F. Kennedy signs the Equal Pay Act into law. Almost four decades later, men's and women's salaries have yet to reach…
(Encyclopedia) Embargo Act of 1807, passed Dec. 22, 1807, by the U.S. Congress in answer to the British orders in council restricting neutral shipping and to Napoleon's restrictive Continental System…
(Encyclopedia) Compromise of 1850. The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the…
