September 20, 1881 - Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated. Third person to serve as president in that year; March 1881 - Hayes turned power to Garfield; July 2 - Garfield shot; September 19 - died). 1841 -  Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler all held the office.

October 24, 1881 - Levi P. Morton, U.S. ambassador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty.

March 22 , 1882 - Congress outlawed polygamy.

May 6, 1882 - Over President Chester A. Arthur's veto, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; first time that the U.S. excluded immigrants based on race and nationality; only excluded Chinese laborers accused by many working-class Anglos of depriving them of jobs and undermining early efforts to unionize the western mining industry; U.S. continued to welcome merchants, who promised to help Americans maintain lucrative trading ties with the vast Chinese population, and professionals who offered valuable skills. Immigrants from no other nation received such discriminatory treatment; March 12, 1888 - China approves a treaty forbidding Chinese laborers to enter the United States for 20 years.

May 15, 1882 - President Chester A. Arthur formed a high-level commission to tackle the issue of protective tariffs introduced in years after the Civil War to shield the nation's manufacturers from foreign competition. Though the commission was charged with weighing the relative merits of tariffs, both in terms of the impact on global trade and smaller domestic enterprises, the deck was stacked in favor of protectionist and industrial interests. Commission's nine members included John L. Hayes, the secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, a likely proponent of protectionist measures. Commission report ed favorably on tariffs as a means to preserve the integrity and interests of American-made goods.

August 3, 1882 - Congress passes first law restricting immigration.

September 5, 1882 - The nation's first Labor Day parade was held in New York City; 1894 - became an official holiday.

January 16, 1883 - The U.S. Civil Service Commission was established when the Pendleton Act went into effect.

March 3, 1883 - Congress authorized the first steel vessels of the U.S. Navy; four boats were built - the cruisers Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and a dispatch boat Dolphin.

October 15, 1883 - U.S. Supreme Court struck down a significant part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, saying that only state-imposed discrimination was unlawful.

November 3, 1883 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared Native American Indians to be "dependent aliens."

March 3, 1884 - Supreme Court granted Congress the power to authorize greenbacks, regardless of whether or not the nation was engulfed in a war. In the short term, the ruling was a victory for the greenback movement, whose ranks and political influence had swelled during the late 1870s and early 1880s. However, the Court's ruling couldn't stave off the eventual implosion of the movement; though proponents of populist currency kept up their fight against the gold standard, many abandoned their allegiance to greenbacks and instead tabbed silver as their preferred alternative to gold.

March 6, 1884 - Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, present President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.

May 14, 1884 - Forces from reform-minded political movement, in the guise of the freshly formed Anti-Monopoly Party, held their first convention to nominate a candidate for the White House. Party chose Benjamin Butler as its presidential nominee, a staunch unionist who had switched allegiances from the Northern Democrats to the Radical Republicans before joining the Anti-Monopolists. Though Butler failed to capture the Oval Office and the Anti-Monopoly Party ultimately foundered, the call for legislation aimed at reigning in the trusts did not go unheeded: 1890 - Federal Government enacted the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the landmark bill designed to tame the trusts.

May 17, 1884 - Alaska becomes a U.S. territory.

June 5, 1884 - Civil War hero Gen. William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."

July 19, 1884 - President Chester Arthur issues a proclamation that grants him and the federal government the power to quarantine persons entering the United States through its ports of entry to avoid the spread of "pestilence." Although the proclamation used the word pestilence several times, it did not mention the specific name of the dreaded disease from which Arthur was trying to protect the nation: tuberculosis. Arthur saw the need to broaden the federal government’s powers to intervene in a national health crisis.

August 5, 1884 - The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.

October 13, 1884 - Greenwich was adopted as the universal meridian. President Chester A. Arthur hosts International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC attended by 41 delegates from 25 nations; several important principles were established: a single world meridian passing through the principal Transit Instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich; all longitude would be calculated both east and west from this meridian up to 180°; a universal day; and studies of the decimal system to the division of time and space. Resolution 2, fixing the Meridian at Greenwich was passed 22-1 (San Domingo voted against, France & Brazil abstained). Greenwich lies on the River Thames, a few miles from central London.

November 1, 1884 - The International Meridian Conference set up time zones for the world and adopted a treaty making Greenwich, England, the Prime Meridian.

November 4, 1884 - Democrat Grover Cleveland defeats Republican James G. Blaine in a very close contest to win the first of his two non-consecutive terms.

December 6, 1884 - Nation’s architectural tribute to its founding father, Revolutionary War hero and first president, George Washington, is completed. The Washington Monument, a 550-foot obelisk, still stands in the middle of Washington, DC’s Capitol Mall. in 1835, the Washington National Monument Society sponsored a competition for potential monument designs. The society requested a memorial that would reflect Washington’s "stupendousness and elegance." In 1848, the society chose a design by South Carolina architect Robert Mills. The site for the monument was chosen for its visibility from all vantage points around Washington, particularly from Washington’s grave at his estate, Mount Vernon, VA. The monument’s cornerstone was laid on the Fourth of July in 1848 by the brotherhood of Freemasons, a group to which Washington had belonged. Construction of the marble, granite and sandstone structure began in 1848 and took 30 years to complete. Work on the monument was interrupted by the Civil War between 1861 and 1864 and at various points due to lack of federal funding. Monument was officially opened to the public in 1888. Since then visitors have climbed the 897 stairs, or, in later years, taken the elevator to the top. The National Park Service, which administers the building, estimates that some 800,000 people visit the site every year.

February 21, 1885 - The Washington Monument was dedicated.

February 26, 1885 - Congress passed the Contract Labor Law, which promised to clamp down on business agents who contracted abroad for immigrant labor. Designed to fuel the rapid rise of industry, as well as the nation's westward expansion, employers used the foreign workers as a potent tool to fight against the burgeoning labor movement, primarily by deploying immigrant labor to break strikes. The result was a deluge of brutal and sometimes bloody conflicts. By the 1880s, the union movement, most notably the Knights of Labor, wielded enough clout to sway legislators and force the decline of contract labor.