Crispus Attucks was the first casualty of the American Revolutionary War. He was shot and killed during the Boston Massacre in 1770.

- Francis Williams was the first U.S. African-American college graduate.

- Garrett Morgan, a scientist, invented the gas mask and the automatic traffic signal.

- Dr. Brady was the first African-American to earn a PhD in Chemistry. Dr. Brady also served as a professor at Howard University.

- Bernard A. Harris, Jr., Bernard A. Harris was the first African-American to walk in space. Mr. Harris flew on STS-55 and STS-63.

- Mr. Bunch was the first African-American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Bunch was an American statesman and civil rights leader.

- Matthew Henson was the first African-American to reach the North Pole. The U.S.N.S. Henson (ship) was named after Matthew Henson.

- Debi Thomas, figure skater, was the first African-American to win a Winter Olympic metal. She won the metal in 1988

- Gwendolyn Brooks was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Ms. Brooks started writing poetry at age seven, and her first poem was published in a magazine at age 13.

- Henry Blair was the first black inventor to get a patent. Blair invented the corn harvester.

- Benjamin Banneker invented the first clock in America.

- Lemuel Haynes was the first African-American to receive a degree from an American college. He, received an honorary MA degree from Middlebury College in 1804.

- G.T. Sampson patented the clothes dryer in 1892.

- James Derham was the first African-American physician. Mr. Derham was a former slave.

- Jupiter Hammon was the first black poet in the U.S.. Hammon wrote “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries”.

- Jo Anderson, a slave, along with Cyrus McCormick, invents a reaper which revolutionizes grain harvesting in 1831. Their invention forms the basis of the International Harvester Co.

- 1992: Mae Jemison becomes the first African American woman astronaut, spending more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour.

- 1992: Carol Moseley Braun becomes the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Illinois.

- 1993: Joycelyn Elders becomes the first African American woman to serve as the U.S. surgeon general.

- 1994: With his defeat of Michael Moore, 26, in Las Vegas, Nevada, George Foreman at 45 becomes the world's oldest heavyweight boxing champion.

- 1997: Tiger Woods becomes the first African American golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

- 1998: The "Little Rock Nine".nine black students who were prevented from attending a formerly all-white public school and whose case became a test of power between federal and state governments.are awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

- 1999: Rosa Parks is awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

- 2001: General Colin Powell becomes the first African American U.S. secretary of state, after having been nominated in 1989 the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President George H.W. Bush.

- 2001: Condoleezza Rice is named national security adviser, becoming the first woman and second African American to hold this position. Concurrently, Roderick Paige is named secretary of education and is the first African American to hold this position.

- 2002: Halle Berry becomes the first African American woman to win the Academy Award for best actress.

- 2003: 1st Lt. Vernice Armour becomes the first African American female combat pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. military history.

- 1866: The U.S. Army forms black cavalry and infantry regiments. Serving in the West from 1867 to 1896 and fighting Indians on the frontier, they are nicknamed "buffalo soldiers" by the Indians.

- 1867: Howard University, a predominantly black university, is founded in Washington, D.C. It is named for General Oliver Otis Howard, head of the post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau.

-1870: Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi takes the former seat of Jefferson Davis in the U.S. Senate, becoming the only African American in the U.S. Congress and the first elected to the Senate.

- 1870: Joseph Hayne Rainey is the first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. This congressman from South Carolina will enjoy the longest tenure of any African American during Reconstruction.

- 1881: Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama is founded on July 4 with Booker T. Washington as the school's first president.

- 1883: Inventor Jan Ernst Matzeliger patents his shoe-lasting machine that shapes the upper portions of shoes. His invention wins swift acceptance and soon supplants hand methods of production.

- 1887: Florida A&M University is founded as the State Normal (teacher-training) School for Colored Students.

- 1895: A merger of three major black Baptist conventions leads to the formation of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia.

- 1896: Mary Church Terrell becomes the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, working for educational and social reform and an end to racial discrimination.

- 1903: W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folk, which declares that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line," and discusses the dual identity of black Americans.

- 1905: Madame C.J. Walker develops and markets a method for straightening curly hair, on her way to becoming the first black female millionaire in the United States.

- 1906: After educator John Hope becomes its president, Atlanta Baptist College expands its curriculum and is renamed Morehouse College.

- 1910: The Crisis, a monthly magazine published by the NAACP, is founded. W.E.B. Du Bois edits the magazine for its first 24 years.

- 1911: The National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (National Urban League) is formed in New York City with the mission to help migrating African Americans find jobs and housing and adjust to urban life.

- 1914: George Washington Carver of the Tuskegee Institute reveals his experiments concerning peanuts and sweet potatoes, popularizing alternative crops and aiding the renewal of depleted land in the South.

- 1915: In Havana Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, loses the title in 26 rounds to Jess Willard, the last in a succession of "Great White Hopes." Rumours claim he lost to avoid legal difficulties.

- 1831: Nat Turner leads the only effective, sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history, attracting up to 75 fellow slaves and killing 60 whites. After the defeat of the insurrection, Turner is hanged on November 11.

- 1850: Harriet Tubman returns to Maryland to guide members of her family to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Later helping more than 300 slaves to escape, she comes to be known as the "Moses of her people."

- 1853: William Wells Brown.a former slave, abolitionist, historian, and physician.publishes Clotel, the first novel by an African American.

- 1855: John Mercer Langston, a former slave, is elected clerk of Brownhelm Township in Ohio. He is the first black to win an elective political office in the United States.

- 1920: The Negro National League, first of baseball's Negro leagues, is established.

- 1921: Shuffle Along, a musical by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, opens on Broadway. It is the first musical written and performed by African Americans.

- 1922: Louis Armstrong leaves New Orleans, arriving in Chicago to play second trumpet in cornetist King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong's work in the 1920s would revolutionize jazz.

- 1922: Aviator Bessie Coleman, who later refuses to perform before segregated audiences in the South, stages the first public flight by an African American woman.

- 1923: Charles Clinton Spaulding becomes president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. He builds it into the nation's largest black-owned business by the time of his death in 1952.

- 1923: Poet and novelist Jean Toomer publishes his masterpiece, Cane, an experimental novel often considered one of the greatest achievements of the Harlem Renaissance.

- 1924: Spelman Seminary, which began awarding college degrees in 1901, becomes Spelman College. The school began in 1881 with two Boston women teaching 11 black women in an Atlanta, Georgia, church basement.

- 1927: The all-black professional basketball team known as the Harlem Globetrotters is established.

- 1928: Poet and novelist Claude McKay publishes Home to Harlem, the first fictional work by an African American to reach the best-seller lists.

- 1936: Track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His victories derail Adolf Hitler's intended use of the games as a show of Aryan supremacy.

- 1937: Writer and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston publishes her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which receives considerable acclaim and criticism within the black community.

- 1938: In a knockout in the first round of their rematch, heavyweight champion Joe Louis wreaks vengeance on Max Schmeling of Germany, the only boxer to have knocked out Louis in his prime.

- 1940: Author Richard Wright publishes his masterpiece, Native Son. The stark, tragic realism of this novel immediately places Wright in the front ranks of contemporary American writers.

- 1940: Benjamin Oliver Davis, Sr., who in 1930 had become the first black colonel in the U.S. Army, becomes the first black general in 1940.

- 1941: Following considerable protest, the War Department forms the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps, later known as the Tuskegee Airmen, commanded by Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr.

- 1942: Charles Richard Drew, developer and director of blood plasma programs during World War II, resigns as the armed forces begin to accept the blood of blacks but resolve to racially segregate the supply.

- 1942: The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is founded in New York City. Its direct-action tactics achieve national prominence during the Freedom Rides of 1961.

- 1945: Ebony magazine is founded by John H. Johnson of Chicago. Modeled after Life but intended for the black middle class, the magazine is an instant success.

- 1945: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from Harlem, serving 11 successive terms.

- 1947: Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African American baseball player in the major leagues.

- 1949: Not satisfied with Billboard magazine's label of "race records" for its black music chart, Jerry Wexler, a white reporter at the magazine and later a legendary record producer, introduces the designation "rhythm and blues."

- 1950: Ralph Bunche is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as United Nations mediator in the Arab-Israeli dispute in Palestine.

- 1952: Ralph Ellison publishes his masterpiece, Invisible Man, which receives the National Book Award in 1953.

- 1955: Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the NAACP, refuses to surrender her seat when ordered to do so by a local bus driver, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56.

- 1955: Opera diva Leontyne Price is triumphant in the title role of the National Broadcasting Company's Tosca, making her the first African American to sing opera for television.

- 1955: Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Chuck Berry travels from St. Louis, Missouri, to Chicago, where he records "Maybellene," an immediate sensation among teenagers. The hit helps shape the evolution of rock and roll.

- 1956: Clifford Brown, the most influential trumpeter of his generation, dies at age 25 in a car accident. Noted for his lyricism and grace of technique, Brown is a principal figure in the hard-bop idiom.

- 1956: Tennis player Althea Gibson becomes the first African American to win a major title.the Wimbledon doubles.as well as the French singles and doubles and Italian singles.

- 1957: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is established by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and others to coordinate and assist local organizations working for the full equality of African Americans.

- 1958: Alvin Ailey founds the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Composed primarily of African Americans, the dance company tours extensively both in the United States and abroad.

- 1959: Singer Ray Charles records "What'd I Say," which becomes his first million-seller and exemplifies the emergence of soul music, combining rhythm and blues with gospel.

- 1959: Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, becomes the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. The 1961 film version features Sidney Poitier and receives a special award at Cannes.

- 1959: Motown Records is founded in Detroit, Michigan, by Berry Gordy, Jr. The "Motown sound" dominates black popular music through the 1960s and attracts a huge white crossover audience as well, becoming the "Sound of Young America."

- 1960: The sit-in movement is launched at Greensboro, North Carolina, when black college students insist on service at a local segregated lunch counter.

- 1962: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the University of Mississippi must admit its first African American student, James Meredith.

- 1963: Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, is shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home, following a historic broadcast on the subject of civil rights by President John F. Kennedy.

- 1963: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., writes "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to eight clergymen who attacked his role in Birmingham. Widely reprinted, it soon becomes a classic of protest literature.

- 1963: Sidney Poitier wins the Academy Award as best actor for his performance in Lilies of the Field. In 1967 he would star in two films concerning race relations, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night.

- 1963: The civil rights movement reaches a dramatic climax with a massive march on Washington, D.C. Among the themes of the march "for jobs and freedom" was a demand for passage of the Civil Rights Act. In Washington, an interracial audience of more than 200,000 hears Martin Luther King deliver his famous .I Have a Dream. speech.

- 1964: Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam, announcing the formation of his own religious organization. He makes the pilgrimage to Mecca, modifying his views on black separatism upon his return.

- 1964: President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, giving federal law enforcement agencies the power to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting, and the use of public facilities.

- 1964: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway. 1964

- 1965: The Voting Rights Act is passed following the Selma-to-Montgomery March, which garnered the nation's attention when marchers were beaten mercilessly by state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

- 1966: The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is founded in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, with the original purpose of protecting residents from acts of police brutality.

- 1966: Charting a new course for the civil rights movement, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, chooses to use the phrase "black power" at a rally during the James Meredith March that summer in Mississippi.

- 1966: Bill Russell, one of the greatest defensive centres in the history of basketball, becomes the first black coach of a major professional sports team (the Boston Celtics) in the United States.

- 1966: Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African American to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate.

- 1966: The African American holiday of Kwanzaa, patterned after various African harvest festivals, is created by Maulana Karenga, a black-studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

- 1967: Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali refuses to submit to induction into the armed forces. Convicted of violating the Selective Service Act, Ali is barred from the ring and stripped of his title.

- 1967: Thurgood Marshall, who as a lawyer argued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, becomes the first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice.

- 1967: Carl Stokes (Cleveland, Ohio) and Richard Hatcher (Gary, Indiana) are elected the first African American mayors of major U.S. cities.

- 1968: On April 4 the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The assassination is followed by a week of rioting in at least 125 cities across the nation, including Washington, D.C.

- 1968: Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress, defeating civil-rights leader James Farmer.

- 1974: Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record, which had stood since 1935.

- 1975: Tennis player Arthur Ashe wins the singles title at Wimbledon, becoming the first African American man to win the prestigious championship.

- 1975: Frank Robinson becomes the first African American manager of a Major League Baseball team, the Cleveland Indians. - 1976: Congressman Andrew Young of Georgia becomes the first African American U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

- 1977: Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) is adapted for television, becoming one of the most popular shows in the history of American television.

- 1979: Lou Brock steals his 935th base, becoming Major League Baseball.s all-time career stolen-base leader.

- 1982: Singer Michael Jackson creates a sensation with the album Thriller, which becomes one of the most popular albums of all time, selling more than 40 million copies.

- 1983: Writer Alice Walker receives the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple.

- 1983: Guion (.Guy.) Bluford, Jr., becomes the first African American in space as a member of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger.

- 1984: The Cosby Show, starring comedian Bill Cosby, becomes one of the most popular situation comedies in television history and is praised for its broad cross-cultural appeal and avoidance of racial stereotypes.

- 1986: Established by legislation in 1983, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day is first celebrated as a U.S. national holiday.

- 1989: David Dinkins becomes the first African American to be elected mayor of New York City.

- 1901: Frederick A. Patterson, founder of the United Negro College Fund, is born in Washington, DC.

- 1980: Atlanta's Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change is declared a national historic site.

- 1887: Alexander Miles patents the elevator.

- 1958: The Washington, DC Bar Association, located in a largely African American city, votes to admit black members.

- 1968: Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in the Black Power salute and are suspended from the games two days later.

- 1995: The Million Man March, organized by Minister Louis Farrakhan, fills Washington, DC with demonstrators and onlookers.

- 1901: Booker T. Washington, the black educator, dines at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt, the first African American to do so.

- 1983: A U.S. Senate bill designates the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

- 1991: Clarence Thomas is sworn in as the second African American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

- 1898: North Carolina Mutual and Provident Insurance Company is Founded. It is the first African-American Company to Surpass $1 Billion in Revenue.

- 1924: The first Colored World Series baseball game is played in Kansas City, Missouri.