Assignment: 

From the following list choose one event that interests you.  Write a 5-page essay in which you 1) describe the event and the context in which it occurred, and 2) make an argument for its significance, both at the time it occurred and subsequently.  Do not simply recount the event.  Examine why the event was important or some controversial aspect of it. 

This assignment expands upon the kinds of analytical essays you've been writing by adding a research component.  As with the previous assignments, you need to narrow your topic and choose a thesis that clearly states your argument. 

Your essay should conform to the MLA guidelines and format and should include at least five outside sources. 

* 1909: The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is founded.

* 1920: The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution gives women over age 21 the right to vote. 

* 1930 (March 12): Mahatma Gandhi begins a civil disobedience campaign against the British.

* 1942 (February 19): President Roosevelt authorizes relocation of Japanese-Americans from the west coast to inland internment camps (Executive Order 9066). 

* 1947: Jackie Robinson signs with the Brooklyn Dodgers and becomes the first African American baseball player in the major leagues. 

* 1950 (February 9): Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis) gives a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, during which he claims to have the names of Communists working in the State Department.

* 1955 (May 23): The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church approves ordination of women ministers.

* 1955 (December): African Americans boycott Montgomery, Alabama buses after a police court fines Rosa Parks for ignoring a driver's order to move to the rear of the bus. 

* 1961 (August 13): East German authorities close the border between East and West Berlin and erect the Berlin Wall.

* 1964 (August 4): The bodies of three murdered civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, are found near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

* 1965 (February 21): Malcolm X is assassinated as he addresses a Harlem rally.

* 1965 (August 12): Riots destroy the Watts district of Los Angeles.

* 1966 (October): The Black Panther Party is founded in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

* 1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by Betty Friedan to help U.S. women gain equal rights.

* 1969 (June): The Stonewall riots in New York City protest a police raid on a Greenwich Village homosexual dance club and bar.

* 1971: The 26th Amendment lowers the voting age to 18.

* 1973 (February): About 200 American Indian Movement activists forcibly occupy the historic town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

* 1978 (May 22): With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Nazi Party wins a court decision giving members the right to march in Skokie, Illinois.

* 1981 (September): Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.

* 1982 (June 30): The Equal Rights Amendment fails to be ratified, falling three states short of the 38 needed for ratification.

* 1983 (June): Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to travel in space.

* 1983 (August 8): Newscaster Christine Craft is awarded $500,000 in damages after being demoted from her anchor position because she was "too old, unattractive and not deferential enough to men."

* 1984 (November 29): According to data released by the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, seventy-three percent of the people who were diagnosed as having contracted AIDS before January 1983 have died.

* 1992 (March 18): White voters in South Africa overwhelmingly approve a government proposal to dismantle all forms of apartheid and to conduct talks with black rulers designed to end white-only rule.

*1993 (April 19) The Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, burns to the ground after a 51-day standoff with law-enforcement officers.

* 1994 (April 19): The United States Supreme Court rules that gender is not sufficient basis to disqualify an individual from a jury.

—This list was compiled by the reference librarians at the University of Virginia, with additional help from John Cosgrove, Humanities Librarian, Scribner Library.