Video: 'Jan. 20, 1986: First MLK Day'

(Monday, January 20, 1986) — Singing the ballads of the civil rights movement, thousands of people marched slowly through Atlanta today as the nation marked the first Federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In Atlanta, where Dr. King was born and where he is buried, and in cities across the country, church bells tolled, choirs sang and citizens paused to remember the slain civil rights leader, eulogized in speeches and services as the nation’s “drum major for justice and peace.”

Video: 'Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History' (Dec. 24, 1865, at 10:22)

(Sunday, December 24, 1865, Christmas Eve) — Six veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club today in Pulaski, Tennessee, that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.

Video: 'The 13th Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies'

(Monday, December 18, 1865) — The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery, was declared in effect today by Secretary of State William H. Seward, having been ratified by three-quarters of the states (including those in secession) as of Dec. 6, 1865.

Slavery is legally outlawed in the last two slave states of Kentucky and Delaware and the remaining 45,000 slaves are freed.

Video: 'The 13th Amendment'

(Wednesday, December 6, 1865) — The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude (except as punishment for a crime), was ratified today as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.

Video: 'Rosa Parks_Dec 1, 1955 achievement'

(Thursday, December 1, 1955, around 6 p.m. local time) — Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, was arrested today after refusing to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.

Video: 'Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History' (Nov. 25, 1915, at 18:19)

(Thursday, November 25, 1915, Thanksgiving Day) — A new version of the Ku Klux Klan, targeting blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants, was founded tonight by William Joseph Simmons, who proclaimed himself the Imperial Wizard of the group as he staged a cross-burning on Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.

Video: 'Reconstruction - black codes 14th wques'

(Friday, November 24, 1865) — Mississippi today became the first Southern state to enact laws which came to be known as “Black Codes” aimed at limiting the rights of newly freed blacks. Other states of the former Confederacy soon followed.

(Thursday, November 1, 1945) — Ebony, a monthly magazine geared toward African-American readers, was first published today.

Video: 'Ceremony for lying in state of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks'

(Sunday, October 30, 2005, shortly before 8:00 p.m. EDT) — Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, who died Oct. 24, 2005, at the age of 92, tonight became the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.