legislation - events

1790 BC	Babylonian Empire	King Hammurabi of Babylon establishes a great bureaucracy to run his empire and personally attends to details such as correcting the calendar. His Code of Laws, although harsh, attempts to fit punishments to crimes; it protects the rights of women and recognizes an upper class, imposing harsher penalties for upper-class transgressors.
594 BC	Greece	In the Greek city-state of Athens, the statesman Solon is appointed archon with unlimited powers. He lays down new laws and a constitution, which end the practice of selling bad debtors into slavery and make a compulsory reduction in all debts. The reforms also include opening the Assembly to the lowest classes, the codification of the law, democratic reforms in the law courts, and a system of appointment to office by the drawing of lots amongst all citizens.
287 BC	Rome	The plebeians in Rome secede again. The Senate appoints Hortensius as dictator to deal with the situation, and the Lex Hortensia is passed. This law recognizes the plebiscites (laws passed by the plebeians) of the plebeian tribal assembly as valid and binding on the whole state, without the need for senatorial ratification as previously, so that the will of the people as a whole becomes sovereign.
66 BC	Rome	A bill is passed in Rome, with the support of the orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero and the quaestor Julius Caesar, giving the Roman general Pompey the Great proconsular command in the East, with powers of declaring war. Pompey sets out on a four-year career of conquest and settlement in the East.
9	Roman Empire	The Roman law Lex Papia Poppaea completes the Leges Juliae/Julian Laws, imposing penalties for celibacy and childlessness in an effort to increase the Roman population.
126	Roman Empire	The Roman emperor Hadrian orders a codification of the Roman law which has grown enormously overcomplicated, with a vast amount of judgement law having been added to the original Twelve Tables of the ancient city of Rome. The codification is undertaken from 126 to 129 by the African jurist Salvius Julianus, grandfather of the future emperor Didius Julianus. Its publication gives a great impetus to legal studies in Rome.
212	Roman Empire	The Roman jurist Aemilius Papinian, one of three famous jurists who flourished during the reign of the late emperor Septimius Severus (the other two being Domitius Ulpian and Julius Paulus), refuses to write a legal defence of the co-emperor Caracalla's murder of his brother, Geta, and is beheaded in Rome, in Caracalla's presence. Caracalla quietens the objections of the army to Geta's murder by huge donations. Then, to obtain more tax revenue, he extends Roman citizenship to all free male adults throughout the empire: the Constitutio Antoniniana (‘Antonine Constitution’).
604	Japan	The Japanese regent, Prince Shotoku Taishi, introduces a Chinese-influenced constitution to increase the power of the Japanese emperors.
c. 700	Wessex	King Ine of Wessex, England, issues one of the earliest written Anglo-Saxon law codes. The fact that the area, which includes the modern counties of Dorset and Somerset, still contains many Celts, is shown by a reference to a separate class called Welshmen. Most crimes are punishable by payments of compensation to the victims or their families.
930	Iceland	The Althing (parliament) is established in Iceland; it meets annually until it is abolished by the Danes in 1800.
1047–1080	France	The earliest known code of laws and customs of any French town, the Etablissements de Saint-Quentin, is drawn up. (The original code is lost but is known from a copy of 1151.)
11–30 November 1215	Italy, Holy Roman Empire, France, Languedoc	Pope Innocent III legislates at the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome for the organization and financing of the Fifth Crusade, for the suppression of heresy, and for the regulation of religious orders, and orders that Jews and Muslims living in Christian lands must wear distinctive clothing. The Norman crusader and lord of Languedoc, Simon IV de Montfort, is confirmed in his lands in southern France.
1264	Poland	Prince Boleslaw V of Kraków grants a charter to Jews who, with Germans, are settling in Poland. This charter acts as the model for all subsequent confirmations of Jewish liberties in Poland until the end of the 18th century.
1279	England	In the course of a dispute with John Pecham, archbishop of Canterbury, King Edward I of England forbids grants of land to the church in the Statute of Mortmain. This is the first act of anticlerical legislation in England.
1305	England	King Edward I of England introduces measures to standardize certain weights and measures, including the yard and the acre.
9 September 1305	England, Scotland	King Edward I of England enacts an ordinance for the government of Scotland. The country is to be ruled by a governor, a lieutenant, and a chamberlain. There is also to be a separate Scottish parliament.
1393	England	The third ‘Great’ Statute of Praemunire, containing antipapal legislation including a ban on excommunication without royal assent, is passed in England.
1418	Germany, Holy Roman Empire	The Hanse makes its first legislative act, regulating the alliance and its trading operations. The German port of Lübeck is recognized as its leading member.
31 March 1492	Spain, North Africa	King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Aragon and Castile issue an edict that gives Spanish Jews the choice of converting to Christianity within three months or emigrating. 170,000 subsequently choose the latter, many seeking refuge in the Maghreb in North Africa.
7 August 1495	Holy Roman Empire	The Diet (legislative assembly) of Worms proclaims ‘general peace’ within the Holy Roman Empire, abolishing private warfare. The Reichskammergericht (a supreme court) is established, and an imperial tax (the Common Penny) is to be levied under the direction of the diet, for funding imperial defence. None of these measures will be effective.
3 November–18 December 1534	England	The seventh session of the English ‘Reformation Parliament’ passes the Act of Supremacy which confirms King Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England, making England a sovereign state in which the king is superior to all ecclesiastical and secular authorities. A second Act of Succession makes the oath of loyalty statutory, given to all successive rulers of England. Other acts grant the crown a tenth of church income and extend treason to cover defamation of the king; the former Lord Chancellor Thomas More, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, and the Earl of Kildare are attainted.
1541	England	An English act of Parliament is passed for the maintenance of archery and the debarring of unlawful games, such as slide thrift. King Henry VIII indulges in many of these ‘unlawful games’ himself, but he is also keen to promote archery in England, and has a reputation as a fine archer.
26 September 1653	UK	The Act of Satisfaction is passed by the English Parliament, distributing large tracts of forfeited land in Ireland in order to settle the claims of those who had advanced money to meet army pay arrears, to discharge other military pay demands, and to encourage Protestants to settle in Ireland.
1705	North America	Massachusetts declares mixed marriages illegal, and sets a fine of $50 to any minister who marries a white person and a black person. The law is repealed in 1843.
5 April 1764	America, UK	The British Parliament passes the Sugar Act to help defray the cost of protecting Britain's expanded American empire. The act levies duties on molasses, sugar, indigo, pimento, wine, and textiles. It mandates an elaborate system of paperwork to aid enforcement. It also denies a jury trial to those accused of violating its decrees.
22 March 1765	America, UK	The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, levying a direct tax on all colonial legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards, dice, and almanacs. Designed to defray the cost of defending the colonies, the tax provokes widespread protest in colonial America.
26 June–2 July 1767	America	The British Parliament adopts the Townshend Acts, taxing all glass, lead, paper, paints, and tea imported to the American colonies. To ensure compliance, the acts establish a Board of Customs Commissioners in Boston, a city becoming notorious for its recalcitrance.
31 March 1774	America, UK	In the Boston Port Act, the British Parliament responds to the Boston Tea Party by closing the port of Boston. Americans regard this as the first of the so-called Intolerable Acts.
14 June 1777	AMERICA	The Continental Congress votes to adopt a flag (designed, according to legend, by the seamstress Betsy Ross at the request of George Washington) as the national emblem of the new United States of America.
October 1780	Habsburg Monarchy	Personal serfdom is abolished in the Habsburg Monarchy by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II.
1784	America	The American states of Connecticut and Rhode Island abolish slavery.
4 July 1784	Habsburg Monarchy	The Habsburg monarch and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II of Austria repeals the constitution of Hungary as part of his campaign to create a unified Habsburg empire and to break the power of the local Hungarian nobility.
25 May–17 September 1787	America	The Constitutional Convention opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with participants including George Washington (president), Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Edmund Randolph. The new constitution establishes a bicameral legislature whose power is counterbalanced by an executive officer, an independent judiciary, and the authority of individual states.
3 April 1789	Sweden	King Gustav III's act of unity and security in Sweden, granting him absolute powers, becomes law.
3 May 1791	Poland	Poland's Four Year Sejm (parliament), in power 1788–92, introduces a new constitution, converting Poland's long-established electoral monarchy into a hereditary monarchy, giving executive power to the king and a council of state, and placing legislative power in the hands of a two-chamber Sejm. Russia opposes the changes, and promotes agitation in Poland in defence of the old constitution.
15 December 1791	USA	The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are ratified. They are known hereafter as the ‘Bill of Rights’.
22 August 1795	France	A third French constitution is approved by the National Convention, vesting executive power in five directors (the Directory).
1 January 1801	UK	The Act of Union creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, bringing Ireland under direct control of the Parliament in Westminster.
1804	UK	Boys as young as five or six are being used to clean chimneys in Britain. Legislation is passed preventing the apprenticing of boys under nine and limiting the working day to a maximum of eight hours; these laws are often broken.
21 March 1804	France	The Civil Code (renamed the Code Napoleon in 1807) is promulgated in France, providing a uniform civil law (previously French law was split between Roman law in the south and custom law in the north).
1805	Prussia, Europe	Internal customs duties in Prussia are abolished under the minister of trade, Baron Heinrich vom Stein, while the rest of central Europe preserves anticompetitive legislation.
14 October 1807	Prussia	In an attempt to modernize Prussian agriculture, the medieval feudal system of tenure, in which peasants are tied to their landlords and the land they work, is ended by an Act of Emancipation.
1814	France	The French government introduces legislation which makes abortion illegal, unless the mother's life is at risk.
4 May 1814	Spain	King Ferdinand VII of Spain annuls the liberal constitution of the cortes (national assembly), one of the first of a wave of antidemocratic acts performed by royalty returning to office after Emperor Napoleon I's defeat.
29 August 1833	UK	A British Factory Act is passed, by which no children under the age of 9 are to work in textile factories, those between 9 and 12 are not to work more than a 9-hour day and those between 9 and 11 are to receive 2 hours of education per day. Most night work is abolished.
1835	UK	Bull- and bear- baiting and cockfighting are banned in Britain by an act of Parliament.
18 September 1838	UK	The Anti-Corn Law League is established in Manchester, England, by the English industrialist Richard Cobden. Its purpose is to campaign for the repeal of the laws that protect the domestic landed interest by regulating the importation of corn into Britain.
7 September 1848	Austrian Empire	The feudal practice of serfdom, by which peasants are tied to the land and controlled by their landlords to whom they owe dues of service, is abolished in Austria.
9 September 1850	USA	The US Congress passes the Texas and New Mexico Act, establishing the boundaries of Texas and New Mexico, and the Utah Act, establishing the boundary of Utah. As part of the so-called Compromise of 1850, the fate of slavery in the prospective states of New Mexico and Utah would be decided by the principal of popular sovereignty.
1857	UK	The Matrimonial Causes Act sets up divorce courts, allowing divorcees to remarry without recourse to a private act of Parliament, and outlines permissible terms for divorce in Britain: men must prove adultery and women adultery and cruelty or desertion. The legislation also introduces the principle of a husband's responsibility for alimony.
7 March 1857	USA	The US Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no free black person was entitled to claim US citizenship. The decision renders the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
1865	UK	The British Parliament passes the British Locomotives on Highways Act, or ‘Red Flag Act’. It reduces the speed limit for steam-powered carriages to two miles per hour in cities and four in the country, and requires men on foot carrying red flags to precede them. It stifles further development of steam carriages and cars in Britain.
26 September 1865	New Zealand, UK	A Native Rights Act in New Zealand recognizes the Maori people as natural-born subjects of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, and institutes a land court to hear their grievances against colonial settlers who have dispossessd them of their lands.
12 December 1865	Sweden	A new constitution in Sweden abolishes the traditional four estates and replaces them with two chambers, following long-standing demands for political reform.
March 1867	USA	The US Congress overrides President Andrew Johnson's veto to pass the Reconstruction Act. It divides the South into five military districts, each under the command of a military governor. Civil government will be restored on an individual basis as states rejoin the Union.
29 March 1867	UK, Canada	The British North America Act establishes the Dominion of Canada comprising Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, confederated provinces with a central parliamentary government under a British governor-general.
15 August 1867	UK	The Second Reform Act extends the franchise in Britain and redistributes parliamentary seats to reflect increasing urbanization. The electorate is roughly doubled from 1 to 2 million.
May 1868	USA	The US Senate twice votes 35–19 to impeach President Andrew Johnson. Both times the vote falls short of the necessary ⅔ majority.
April 1869	USA	After ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black American male suffrage, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas are readmitted to the Union.
December 1869	USA	The Wyoming Territory becomes the first US state or territory to grant suffrage to women.
March 1870	USA	The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing black American voting rights, becomes law.
1873	UK	Legislation in Britain extends women's rights to claim custody of their children in divorce proceedings.
8 August 1875	UK	The Public Health Act is passed by the British Parliament, providing a complete sanitary code for both the public and industry. It lays the foundation of modern sanitary legislation in Britain.
18 October 1878	Germany	An anti-Socialist law in Germany prohibits public meetings, publications, and collections, thus driving socialism underground.
1882	UK	The Married Women's Property Act in Britain gives married women the right of separate ownership of property of all kinds.
1882	UK	A second Married Women's Property Act in Britain permits women to retain rights over their own property.
8 June 1886	UK	British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone's Liberal government is defeated on the second reading of the Irish Home Rule Bill, with 93 Liberals, including John Bright, Joseph Chamberlain, and the Marquess of Hartington voting with the opposition.
31 May 1889	UK	The Naval Defence Act in Britain inaugurates an extensive naval building programme, the prime minister Lord Salisbury undertaking that Britain will maintain a navy equal to the combined strengths of the next two largest fleets according to his ‘two-power standard’.
1890	USA	The US Congress passes the McKinley Tariff Act, raising tariffs to record heights.
1 October 1890	Germany	The German antisocialist law of 1878 proscribing the Social Democratic Party (SPD) expires and is not renewed.
1893	New Zealand	New Zealand becomes the first country to extend the franchise to women.
5 May 1894	USA	US president Grover Cleveland repeals the McKinley Tariff of October 1890.
1896	UK	The ‘Red Flag Act’ of 1865, which required a man on foot carrying a red flag to precede all carriages, is repealed.
28 March 1898	Germany	The first German Navy Bill is introduced by Alfred von Tirpitz and begins the expansion of the German navy and competition with Britain's naval power.
22 July 1901	United Kingdom	The British House of Lords rules on the ‘Taff Vale Case’, and weakens the position of trade unions by ruling that a trade union may now be liable for damages caused by its members during a strike. This means that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, who have been sued by the Taff Vale Railway Company, will have to pay a fine of £23,000.
1906	United Kingdom	The British Trade Disputes Act reverses the Taff Vale judgement of 1901. Peaceful picketing is now allowed and unions are immune from claims for damage caused by strikes.
1906	United Kingdom	The British government passes legislation to provide children with free meals at school.
1 July 1910	South Africa	By an act of the British Parliament the Union of South Africa becomes a dominion, an independent country remaining within the British Empire.
15 May 1911	United Kingdom	The elected British House of Commons passes the Parliament Bill, under which the hereditary House of Lords will lose the right to veto legislation. The bill now passes to the House of Lords, which makes many amendments.
23 December 1913	USA	The US Congress passes the Glass-Owen Currency Act (Federal Reserve Bank Act), establishing a Federal Reserve Board with power over monetary policy and 12 district Federal Reserve banks, and creating the nation's first central banking system since the dissolution of the Second Bank of the United States in the 1830s.
12 December 1916	USA, Japan	The US Senate passes its Immigration Bill, with an amended literacy test clause designed to meet Japanese criticism.
January 1919	USA	The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages, becomes law.
17 June 1930		The US president Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on some 890 agricultural and manufactured items.
1 March 1932	United Kingdom	The Import Duties Act comes into force in Britain, effectively ending 80 years of free trade.
14 July 1933	Germany	All political parties other than the National Socialist (Nazi) Party are banned in Germany.
1934	USA	Using powers granted to him by the Gold Reserve Act, the US president Franklin D Roosevelt devalues the dollar to 59.06% of its last official gold value.
1–16 February 1934	Austria	Political parties are forcibly dissolved in Austria except for Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss's Fatherland Front.
15 February 1934	USA	The Civil Works Emergency Relief Act becomes law in the USA, extending the scope of New Deal relief and work relief provision through civil works projects during the economic depression.
6 June 1934	USA	The US Congress passes the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act. It authorizes the president to conclude trade agreements with individual nations, thereby annulling the 1930 Smoot–Hawley tariff.
1935	USA	In a second round of New Deal legislation in the USA, President Franklin D Roosevelt establishes the Resettlement Administration, to help owners and tenants move to better land; the Works Progress Administration, to provide work for the unemployed; and the Rural Electrification Administration, to raise the standard of rural living by equipping farms with electric power.
2 August 1935	India, UK	The British Parliament passes the Government of India Act. It reforms the governmental system, separates Burma and Aden from India, grants provincial governments greater autonomy, and creates a central legislature in Delhi (effective from 1 April 1937).
14 August 1935	USA	The Social Security Act is enacted in the USA. It provides for old-age pensions, help for the disabled, and unemployment assistance (from 1942), paid for by contributions rather than from tax revenues. The act also provides states with matching grants to help them care for dependent mothers and children.
1936	USSR	In Moscow, Russia, the government revokes a 1920 law legalizing abortion, and introduces restrictions on the availability of abortion.
12 December 1936	Ireland	The Constitution (amendment) Act in the Irish Free State removes the king from membership of the Irish parliament and deprives the British governor general of most of his functions.
1937	Germany	A German court rules that the state may remove children from homes that do not teach Nazi ideology.
15 September 1937	USA	The National Housing Act (Wagner–Steagall Act) creates the US Housing Authority, to make housing for people on low incomes more affordable and to spur rural and urban construction.
4 November 1939	USA, UK, France	US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs a bill enabling belligerents in the war in Europe to buy arms in the USA on a ‘cash and carry’ basis, provided that such arms are carried in their own ships. Britain's naval blockade of German trade ensures that only Britain and France are able to take advantage of this provision.
24 October 1940	USA	The 40-hour work week, declared by Congress in a 1938 law, goes into effect in the USA.
20 May 1941	USA	President Roosevelt moves Thanksgiving to the last Thursday of November, ending a two-year experiment in which it was the fourth Thursday of the month.
20 December 1941	USA	President Roosevelt signs the Draft Act, which calls for all men 18 to 64 to register and all men 20 to 44 to be eligible for active duty.
January 1942	USA	The US Office of Production Management bans retail sales of new cars and passenger trucks to shift the focus of the auto industry to the production of military vehicles.
17 December 1943	USA	US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, granting Chinese people resident in the USA the right to naturalization and permitting immigration of 105 Chinese citizens a year.
22 June 1944	USA	The US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, also known as the GI Bill of Rights. The act guarantees veterans a wide range of benefits, including money for college tuition and low-cost home mortgages.
24 December 1946	France	The Fourth Republic is declared in France when a new constitution is narrowly ratified by a referendum.
1948	UK	All Commonwealth citizens qualify for British passports by the passing of the British Citizenship Act.
1 October 1949	China	China's communist leader Mao Zedong proclaims the establishment of a People's Republic, with its government based in Beijing and with Zhou Enlai as prime minister and foreign minister.
7 October 1949	East Germany	The Soviet-occupied zone of Germany (East Germany) is proclaimed a Democratic Republic.
1 August 1950	Belgium	King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates in favour of his son, Prince Baudouin, who acts as head of state from 11 August to 17 July 1951, when he is crowned king.
May 1954	USA	The US Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, overturns the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 and declares ‘separate but equal’ schools to be unconstitutional.
30 June 1960	South Africa	The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act comes into force in South Africa, establishing separate ‘homelands’ for blacks.
18 April 1962	Jamaica, UK	Following Jamaica's vote (in September 1961) to leave the British West Indies Federation, the British Parliament passes the West Indies Act, dissolving the federation.
10 October 1967	UK	The Road Safety Act introduces breathalyser tests in Britain to check the blood alcohol level of drivers.
25 October 1967	UK	The Abortion Bill is passed in Britain, permitting abortion on medical and psychological grounds.
15 January 1968	UK	A new law in Britain extends the terms on which divorce may be obtained, permitting it on grounds of ‘irretrievable breakdown’.
1969	UK	The Divorce Reform Bill in Britain sets the period of separation at two years by mutual consent and five years without consent. Supplementary measures to protect the financial position of women in the event of divorce are drawn up in 1970.
1970	USA	New York State liberalizes the abortion laws, virtually permitting ‘abortion on demand’. Only two other states in the USA, Hawaii and Alaska, have this kind of legislation.
15 August 1971	USA	The US president Richard Nixon introduces a ‘New Economic Policy’, effectively ending the 1944 Bretton Woods system. The new policy suspends the conversion of dollars into gold and imposes a 90-day wage freeze and a 10% import surcharge, following the first US trade deficit since 1894.
March 1972	USA	The US Senate sends a 27th amendment to the states. Known as the Equal Rights Amendment, the legislation prohibits sex discrimination.
7 November 1973	USA	The US Congress overrides President Richard Nixon's veto and passes the War Powers Act, restricting the ability of the president to maintain troops overseas without congressional approval.
21 November 1974	USA	The US Congress passes the Freedom of Information Act over President Gerald Ford's veto. It prohibits the government from denying access to documents without good cause and requires federal agencies to supply documents without delay.
1975	UK	The Sex Discrimination Act in Britain, introduced in stages, outlaws discrimination in employment or education on grounds of sex or marital status.
1976	UK	The Race Relations Act in Britain, introduced in stages, makes the inciting of racial hatred an offence and in 1977 establishes the Commission for Racial Equality.
16 December 1976	UK	Legislation is passed permitting all-day pub opening (from 11 in the morning to 11 at night) in Scotland.
1980	UK	The English Court of Appeal awards child custody to a lesbian mother for the first time.
19 February 1980	UK	The Employment Bill is published in Britain, outlawing secondary picketing and requiring unions to hold secret ballots before strikes.
11 January 1989	Hungary	The Hungarian parliament passes a law allowing the formation of political parties.
1 July 1991	USA	A law passed by Congress extending the employment rights of mentally ill Americans goes into effect. Among other provisions, employers cannot ask job applicants if they have a history of mental illness.
24 June 1992	USA	The US Supreme Court opens the way for damage suits by cigarette smokers against the tobacco companies when it rules that the warning labels on cigarette packages do not exempt the manufacturers from lawsuits.
12 December 1997	USA	The US Justice Department orders Microsoft to sell its Internet browser separately from its Windows operating system to prevent it from building a monopoly of Web access programs.
23 November 1998	Europe	The European Commission ends the ban on the export of British beef imposed in March 1996 after the discovery of the link between BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a fatal illness affecting humans. The ban formally comes to an end on 1 August 1999.
14 July 1999	UK	The European Commission votes to formally end its ban on beef exports from Britain after veterinary officials reported that the epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is under control.
26 October 1999	the Netherlands	The Dutch parliament votes 49–26 to end the ban on brothels imposed in 1912. The law, which will go into effect in 2000, will legalise the Netherlands' sex industry.
29 October 1999	UK	A European Union scientific committee rejects French claims that British beef can not be considered safe and rules that current regulations for the British beef do not need to be changed or tightened.

legislation (redirected from Legal act)

legislation - events

legislation
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