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.

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.''

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.

March 4, 1885 - Grover Cleveland inaugurated as first Democratic President since Civil War.

June 17, 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City aboard the French ship Isere.

February 9, 1886 - President Cleveland declares a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence.

May 4, 1886 - At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally, fatally injuring eight policemen and wounding more than 60 others. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more; demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers, was organized by German-born labor radicals in protest of the killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before. A grand jury eventually indicted 31 suspected labor radicals in connection with the bombing, and eight men were convicted in a sensational and controversial trial. Judge Joseph E. Gary imposed the death sentence on seven of the men, and the eighth was sentenced to 15 years in prison. November 11, 1887 -  Samuel Fielden, Adolph Fischer, August Spies, and Albert Parson were executed. 1893 - Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned fully the three activists still living.

May 8, 1886 - The Presidential Succession law was passed in the U.S., providing for succession to presidency in the event of the death of the President and/or Vice President.

May 26, 1896 - Nicholas II, the last czar, is crowned ruler of Russia in the old Ouspensky Cathedral in Moscow. November 1894 - succeeded to the Russian throne upon the death of his father, Czar Alexander III; married Alexandra, a German-born princess. Resisted calls for reform and sought to maintain czarist absolutism; although he lacked the strength of will necessary for such a task. The disastrous outcome of the Russo-Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which Nicholas only diffused after approving a representative assembly--the Duma--and promising constitutional reforms. The czar soon retracted these concessions and repeatedly dissolved the Duma, contributing to the growing public support enjoyed by the Bolsheviks and other revolutionary groups.

June 2, 1886 - President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony.

June 8, 1886 - First Civil Rights Act passes.

June 9, 1886 - President Grover Cleveland submits a proposal to the Senate that outlines conventions for extraditing criminals of Japanese nationality who had committed crimes on U.S. soil and then escaped to Japan back to the U.S. for trial. The plan had already been agreed to by the Japanese government. Cleveland’s approval of this measure reflected an increasingly restrictive American policy toward immigrants. The impetus for the legislation came from a recent forgery case in San Francisco. The perpetrator was originally from Japan and had avoided prosecution in the U.S. by fleeing back to Japan. The Japanese government voluntarily returned the forger to California, where he was taken into custody by state law enforcement, successfully prosecuted for the crime and imprisoned. Still, there was only vague protocol for extraditing Japanese-born criminals back to the United States for trial.

June 30, 1886 - Act of Congress created U.S. Division of Forestry; first chief, Dr. Bernhard E. Fernow; 1901 - renamed Bureau of Forestry; 1905 - renamed Forest Service; Act of Congress transferred Forest Reserves from Dept. of the Interior to Dept of Agriculture (opened natural resources for legitimate uses, outlined the principles by which federally owned lands would be reserved for public purposes).

October 28, 1886 - President Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, in New York Harbor. Originally known as "Liberty Enlightening the World," the statue was proposed by the French historian Edouard de Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Congress approved the use of a site on New York Bedloe's Island, which was suggested by Frýdýric-Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor who designed the statue. On the pedestal was inscribed "The New Colossus," a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the United States with the declaration, "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door." 1892 - Ellis Island, adjacent to Bedloe's Island, opened as the chief entry station for immigrants to the United States, and for the next 32 years more than 12 million immigrants were welcomed into New York harbor by the sight of "Lady Liberty." 1924 - the Statue of Liberty was made a national monument; 1956 - Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island.

December 8, 1886 - A  group of craft unions  in Columbus, OH formed the American Federation of Labor under the leadership of Samuel Gompers and Adolph Strasser; vowed to uphold the core principles of craft unions (one hundred national and international member organizations would remain largely independent entities). The AFL acted as a "loose" thread between the groups, largely serving as a safeguard for union members and adjoining "industrial territories." 

February 2, 1887 - Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, PA; newspaper editor belonging to group of groundhog hunters from Punxsutawney called Punxsutawney Groundhog Club declared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America's only true weather-forecasting groundhog - if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.

February 4, 1887 - President Grover Cleveland signed The Interstate Commerce Act of 12887 into law; created the regulatory body, Interstate Commerce Commission; original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers; first independent agency (so-called Fourth Branch -press, the people, interest groups. U.S. independent administrative government agencies, technically part of the executive branch ); the President appointed the five members of the Commission with the consent of the Senate; 1995 - agency was abolished, remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.

February 8, 1887 - President Grover Cleveland signs Dawes Severalty Act to end tribal control of reservations and divide their land into individual holdings; reversed the long-standing American policy of allowing Indian tribes to maintain their traditional practice of communal use and control of their lands; gave the president the power to divide Indian reservations into individual, privately owned plots, dictated that men with families would receive 160 acres (effort to encourage Native Americans to take up farming, live in smaller family units that were considered more "American" and renounce tribal loyalties), single adult men were given 80 acres, and boys received 40 acres. Women received no land; provided that after the government had doled out land allotments to the Indians, the sizeable remainder of the reservation properties would be opened for sale to whites. Consequently, Indians eventually lost 86 million acres of land, or 62 percent of their total pre-1887 holdings; reduced Native American landholdings from 138 million acres in 1887 to 78 million in 1900 and continued the trend of white settlement on previously Native American-held land; proved a very effective tool for taking lands from Indians and giving it to Anglos, but the promised benefits to the Indians never materialized; June 18, 1934 - Wheeler-Howard Act (Indian Reorganization Act) repudiated the policy and attempted to revive the centrality of tribal control and cultural autonomy on the reservations, ended further transfer of Indian lands to Anglos and provided for a return to voluntary communal Indian ownership, but considerable damage had already been done.

April 4, 1887 - Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of an American community in Argonia, KS.

June 2, 1887 - Cleveland first president to be married in White House, married the beautiful Frances Folsom (21), 27 years younger.

November 9, 1887 - The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

November 29, 1887 - US receives rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, HI.

March 12, 1888 - China approves a treaty forbidding Chinese laborers to enter the United States for 20 years. May 6, 1882 - Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; first time that the U.S. excluded immigrants based on race and nationality.

June 5, 1888 - Democrats nominate Grover Cleveland for president.

June 5, 1888 - President Grover Cleveland vetoes a bill that would have given a pension to war widow Johanna Loewinger, whose husband died 14 years after being discharged from the army (served in the Civil War, enlisting on June 28, 1861); Discharged a little less than a year later for what the army surgeon’s certificate called "chronic diarrhea." He received his pension until his death in 1876. After his death, his widow, Johanna, applied for a widow’s pension, but was denied since her husband died from "suicide by cutting his throat with a razor" and not from any long-term disability caused by his military service. Johanna claimed her husband had suffered from "insanity" triggered by his military service and felt entitled to the benefits. After reviewing the matter, Cleveland declared all previous inquests into the former soldier’s unfortunate death to be satisfactory and vetoed the bill.

June 23, 1888 - Frederick Douglass is first African-American nominated for president.

June 25, 1888 - Republican Convention, in Chicago, nominates Benjamin Harrison.

November 6, 1888 - Republican Benjamin Harrison was elected president; beat incumbent Grover Cleveland in the Electoral College, even though Cleveland led in the popular vote.

February 22, 1889 - President Grover Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the Union.

March 2, 1889 - Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Bill, proclaiming unassigned lands in the public domain; the first step toward the famous Oklahoma Land Rush.

January 17, 1893 - Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen (revolutionary "Committee of Safety," organized by Sanford B. Dole) and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives. February 1, 1897 - Minister John Stevens recognized Dole's new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation. President Grover Cleveland sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. 1898 - the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the 50th state.

March 4, 1893 - Grover Cleveland (D) inaugurated as 24th U.S. president (2nd term).

April 5, 1893 - Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, then Superintendent of Weights and Measures, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, decided that the International Meter and Kilogram would in the future be regarded as the fundamental standards of length and mass in the United States, both for metric and customary weights and measures; known as "The Mendenhall Order", departed from the previous policy of attempting to maintain our standards of length and mass to be identical with those of Great Britain.

May 1, 1893 - World Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.

June 7, 1893 - Mohandas K. Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer working in South Africa, refuses to comply with racial segregation rules on a South African train and is forcibly ejected at Pietermaritzburg (first act of civil disobedience).

September 9, 1893 - President Grover Cleveland’s wife Frances becomes the first first lady to give birth in the White House when the couple’s daughter Esther is born. She remains the only child of a president to be born in the White House.

September 16, 1893 - More than 50,000 people claimed land in the "Cherokee Strip" during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.

September 19, 1893 - With the signing of the Electoral Bill by Governor Lord Glasgow, New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant national voting rights to women. The bill was the outcome of years of suffragette meetings in towns and cities across the country, with women often traveling considerable distances to hear lectures and speeches, pass resolutions, and sign petitions. New Zealand women first went to the polls in the national elections of November 1893.

November 1, 1893 - Congress voted to repeal the three year-old Sherman Silver Purchase Act (helped to generate $155.9 million in Treasury notes); gold reserves had dipped to a scant $80 million.

January 17, 1894 - Treasury Department issued a $50 million bond in hopes of replenishing the nation's sagging gold supplies; proved to be a resounding flop: the public refused to buy; forced banks to buy good bulk of the bonds; 1896 - Cleveland mandated a public subscription that helped staunch decline in gold reserves.

March 25, 1894 - Coxey's Army of the unemployed sets out from Massillon OH for Washington, DC.

June 28, 1894 - President Grover Cleveland, foe of organized labor, but under voter pressure in midterm election year in wake of May 1894 Pullman Palace Car Co. workers' strike, signed a Labor Day holiday bill; designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day; September 5,1882 - Peter J. McGuire, Carpenters and Joiners Union secretary, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, introduced the idea for the holiday as New York City parade was organized by the city's Central Labor Union, a branch of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor; August 16, 1884 - Detroit's first Labor Day celebration in Recreation Park, attracted 50,000 Knights of Labor and the Trade and Labor Assembly; 1887 - Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday.

July 4, 1894 - After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.

August 18, 1894 - Congress established the Bureau of Immigration.

August 27, 1894 - Congress passed first graduated income tax law passed; contained in Wilson-Gormann Tariff, a major piece of trade legislation. President Grover Cleveland refused to sign the bill on the grounds the tariff provisions were too protectionist. Supreme Court effectively squashed it in the ruling on Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. The Court interpreted the income tax as a direct tax which, according to the Constitution, isn't within the federal government's legislative powers. The Wilson-Gormann Tariff only served to put the income tax on the legislative map. With the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, the tax made its way into America's law and pocketbooks.

September 25, 1894 - President Grover Cleveland issues a presidential proclamation pardoning Mormons who had previously engaged in polygamous marriages or habitation arrangements considered unlawful by the U.S. government. At the time, and to this day, plural marriages between one man and multiple women; one woman and multiple men; or multiple men and women are illegal in the United States.

December 22, 1894 - French officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason by a military court-martial and sentenced to life in prison for his alleged crime of passing military secrets to the Germans. The Jewish artillery captain, convicted on flimsy evidence in a highly irregular trial, began his life sentence on the notorious Devil's Island Prison in French Guyana four months later. Case demonstrated the anti-Semitism permeating France's military and, because many praised the ruling, in France in general. Interest in the case lapsed until 1896, when evidence was disclosed that implicated French Major Ferdinand Esterhazy as the guilty party. The army attempted to suppress this information, but a national uproar ensued, and the military had no choice but to put Esterhazy on trial. January 1898 - Esterhazy was court-martialed, acquitted within an hour. In response, the French novelist Émile Zola published an open letter entitled "J'Accuse" on the front page of the Aurore, which accused the judges of being under the thumb of the military. By the evening, 200,000 copies had been sold. 1898 - Major Hubert Henry, discoverer of the original letter attributed to Dreyfus, admitted that he had forged much of the evidence against Dreyfus and then Henry committed suicide. Soon afterward, Esterhazy fled the country. The military was forced to order a new court-martial for Dreyfus. 1899 - he was found guilty in another show trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, a new French administration pardoned him. 1906 - the supreme court of appeals overturned his conviction. The debacle of the Dreyfus affair brought about greater liberalization in France, a reduction in the power of the military, and a formal separation of church and state.

January 12, 1895 - Printing and Binding Act of 1895 prohibits the copyrighting of any Government publication.

January 21, 1895 - The Supreme Court handed down a judgment in the case of United States v. E.C. Knight that effectively neutered the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Supreme Court sided with the argument that the anti-trust legislation should distinguish between commercial and manufacturing enterprises and thus only apply to companies engaged in interstate trade. In turn, a company such as the sugar trust at the heart of the case, which "restricted" its business to manufacturing within a single state, was deemed legal, despite squashing any semblance of competition in the sugar refining industry. Passed in 1890, the Sherman Act was designed to weed out oversized businesses that blocked the "natural" flow of competition. Though the act was invoked that same year to force the break-up of Standard Oil, it was generally regarded as a limp piece of legislation that did little to stem the rise of trusts. Decision derailed any efforts to put a lid on monopolies, until the passage of the Clayton Act in 1916.

February 8, 1895 -United States gold supplies dwindled to $41 million. With the U.S. Treasury teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Cleveland intervened, and using a syndicate led by J.P. Morgan as an intermediary and U.S. bonds as bait, attempted to buy back gold from foreign investors. Cleveland sold roughly sixty-two million dollars worth of bonds, valued at 3.75 percent, to Morgan's syndicate. Morgan and company in turn shopped the issues to foreign parties for a handsome profit. Although clearly borne of desperation, the deal nonetheless provided some badly needed relief:.

January 4, 1896 - Utah was admitted to the Union as the 45th state, six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah.

January 6, 1896 - President Grover Cleveland issued a public subscription because the nation's gold reserves stood at perilously low levels (dwindled to $41 million the previous February); success of the subscription hinged on the public's willingness to place its faith in the government; 1895 - Cleveland had brokered a deal to sell $62 million at a relatively small premium to J.P Morgan's syndicate: outraged the country, number of people accused the president of being a bedfellow of the banking community. The nation bought the entire run of the subscription, helped resuscitate the country's ailing finances.

May 18, 1896 - "Separate but Equal" doctrine. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled seven to one in Plessy v. Ferguson that a Louisiana law providing for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" on its railroad cars is constitutional. The high court held that as long as equal accommodations were provided, segregation was not discrimination and thus did not deprive African Americans of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment; eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. 1954 - struck down by the Supreme Court in their unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

June 8, 1896 - President Grover Cleveland ( leader of a Democratic Party that was largely anti-immigrant) asks leaders of federal departments to investigate how many aliens (foreign nationals) are currently employed in the federal government, specifically directing his request to the secretaries of state, treasury, war, navy, interior and agriculture, the postmaster general and the attorney general. Cleveland firmly believed that the government carried the unquestionable authority to "prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security…even where there is not treaty stipulation on the subject." His fear of what he thought would be damaging immigrant influence prompted him to investigate potential subversive behavior among federal employees of foreign birth as part of a larger program to stave off the negative effects of immigration on the nation’s political and economic security.

July 7, 1896 - William Jennings Bryan, a young scribe from Nebraska, stepped to speak before the Democrat's 20,000 delegates at their Chicago convention. An ardent supporter of the silver movement, Bryan seized the reins of the party by railing against the Republican's and their "demand for a gold standard." During his speech, Bryan laid down his now famous vow against gold and the Republicans: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." These indelible words sent the delegates into frenzy and effectively sealed Bryan's unlikely nomination as the Democrat's candidate for President. Republicans were able to lavish roughly $7 million on their campaign. Bryan, on the other hand, spent a scant $300,000 and ultimately lost his bid for the White House.

July 28, 1896 - The city of Miami, FL was incorporated.

October 1, 1896 - The U.S. Post Office established Rural Free Delivery.

November 3, 1896 - Republican William McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan to become the 25th President of the United States.

February 1, 1897 - Minister John Stevens recognized Dole's new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation. President Grover Cleveland sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. 

February 27, 1897 - Great Britain agrees to U.S. arbitration in a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, defusing a dangerous U.S.-British diplomatic crisis. Prime Minister Salisbury sent a conciliatory note to the United States recognizing Cleveland's broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine and agreeing to U.S. arbitration. A U.S. commission was appointed. 1899 - border was decided on that largely upheld Britain's original claims. 1841 - gold discovered in eastern British Guiana. 1887 - Venezuela accused Britain of pushing settlements farther into the contested area and cut diplomatic ties with Great Britain. 1895 - Britain refused to submit the quarrel to U.S. arbitration, which provoked a belligerent reaction from U.S. President Grover Cleveland's administration.

Alyn Brodsky (2000). Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character. (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 496 p.). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908; Presidents--United States--Biography.

Henry F. Graff (2002). Grover Cleveland. (New York, NY: Times Books, 154 p.). Professor Emeritus of History (Columbia University). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908; Presidents--United States--Biography. 

H. Paul Jeffers (2000). An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland. (New York, NY: Morrow, 385 p.). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908; Presidents--United States--Biography; United States--Politics and government--1885-1889; United States--Politics and government--1893-1897.

John F. Marszalek (1988). Grover Cleveland: A Bibliography. (Westport, CT: Meckler, 268 p.). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908 --Bibliography; United States--Politics and government--1885-1889--Bibliography; United States--Politics and Government--1893-1897--Bibliography. Series: Meckler's bibliographies of the presidents of the United States ; 22.

ed. Allan Nevins (1933). Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850-1908; Selected and Edited by Allan Nevins. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 640 p.). Cleveland, Grover.

Allan Nevins (1933). Grover Cleveland; A Study in Courage. (New York, NY: Dodd, Mead, 832 p.). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908.

Rexford G. Tugwell (1968). Grover Cleveland. (New York, NY: Macmillan, 298 p.). Cleveland, Grover, 1837-1908.