What was the Code of Hammurabi?
The oldest legal code, the Code of Hammurabi was developed circa 1950 B.C. during the reign of Babylonian leader Hammurabi.
It is now known for its emphasis on the law of retaliation (an eye for an eye).
Cost-of-living raises, based on the U.S. cost-of-living index, were first negotiated into General Motors-United Auto Workers Union contracts in 1948.
Invented by Samuel F. B. Morse and completed in 1844, the telegraph line ran from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. The first message, telegraphed on May 24, 1844, was, “What hath God wrought!”
When the Civil War broke out, a West Point graduate, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) had fallen into alcoholism and hard times after his service in the Mexican War. He was working as a clerk in his father’s leather shop in Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War began. Obtaining a commission as a colonel of volunteers,…
No U.S. ships were fired on in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. The U.S. Navy reported that month that the USS Maddox and the USS Turner had been fired upon by three North Vietnamese patrol boats. Later investigations showed no evidence of any such attacks.
The 1882 law, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was enacted to preserve jobs for native-born Americans, suspended Chinese immigration to the U.S. for ten years. Renewed from time to time in the 20th century, it was completely suspended in 1965.
Carol Moseley Braun (Democrat, Illinois), whose term began in 1993, was the first black woman senator. The first black senator was Hiram Revels of Mississippi, who served during Reconstruction, 1870-71.