Money and emergency powers

1. 18191819Congress, Elections & Speech

   Federal Indian boarding school system begins

   417 schools by 1969; at least 973 children dead.

   Source: Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume IIRead the full story →
2. 1913December 23, 1913Wall Street & Banking

   The Federal Reserve Act is signed

   A central bank with the power to issue the currency. The consumer price index that year averaged 9.9; in July 2026 it was 333.918.

   Source: Federal Reserve Act Signed into LawRead the full story →
3. 19321932Health, Food & Regulators

   Public Health Service begins the Tuskegee study

   399 men with syphilis, untreated for forty years.

   Source: The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee TimelineRead the full story →
4. 1933April 5, 1933Wall Street & Banking

   Every American ordered to surrender gold by May 1

   Executive Order 6102: delivery at $20.67 an ounce, $100 exception, ten years in prison for keeping it.

   Source: Executive Order 6102, Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold CertificatesRead the full story →
5. 1934January 31, 1934Wall Street & Banking

   Gold repriced at $35 after the public sold at $20.67

   The dollar cut to 59 percent of its gold value; $2 billion of the gain funds the Exchange Stabilization Fund.

   Source: Gold Reserve Act of 1934Read the full story →
6. 19381938Housing & Private Equity

   FHA manual: inharmonious racial groups lower value

   Restrictive covenants recommended for insured loans.

   Source: RedliningRead the full story →
7. 1942February 19, 1942Housing & Private Equity

   Executive Order 9066 signed

   120,000 people removed and held without charge; property sold in days.

   Source: Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration (1942)Read the full story →
8. 1944December 18, 1944Housing & Private Equity

   Korematsu v. United States upholds the removal, 6 to 3

   Jackson's dissent: a loaded weapon.

   Source: Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214Read the full story →

Stories (4)

• 1876 to 1945How the 1913 Income Tax on the Richest 2% Became Paycheck Withholding for Every WorkerThe 16th Amendment was sold in 1913 as a tax on the richest 2 to 3 percent of Americans, at rates from 1 to 7 percent. Within five years the top rate was 77 percent. Within thirty years the tax was withheld from every worker's paycheck. The amendment put no limit on the rate, on who pays, or on what income counts.Taxes & Government Spending
• 1933 to 1974Executive Order 6102: When FDR Made Owning Gold a Federal Crime in 1933On April 5, 1933 the president ordered every American to hand their gold to a Federal Reserve bank by May 1 at $20.67 an ounce, with up to ten years in prison for keeping it. Nine months later the government set the price at $35, kept the difference, and used $2 billion of it to fund a Treasury account outside the budget. The Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of gold clauses in private contracts 5 to 4. It was a crime to own gold coins until December 31, 1974.Wall Street & Banking
• 1934 to 2025Federal Redlining Maps, FHA Racially Restrictive Covenants, and Interstate Highways Built Through Black NeighborhoodsIn the 1930s a federal agency drew maps of more than 150 cities and colored the neighborhoods where Black families lived red, for hazardous. The Federal Housing Administration's underwriting manual told lenders that the infiltration of inharmonious racial groups lowered a property's value and recommended deed covenants restricting who could live there. The government insured the mortgages accordingly until Congress outlawed the practice in 1968. In the twenty years after 1956 the federal highway program then routed the interstates through the same neighborhoods, displacing more than 475,000 households by the Transportation Department's own estimate. Today 74 percent of the neighborhoods colored red are low or moderate income. The white homeownership rate is 74.5 percent and the Black rate is 45.4. In 2025 Congress took back $2.4 billion it had set aside to reconnect the neighborhoods the highways cut.Housing & Private Equity
• 1942 to 1990Executive Order 9066: The Internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Loss of Their PropertyOn February 19, 1942 the president signed an order that let the Army remove anyone it chose from any area it chose. The Army used it to remove about 120,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast, two thirds of them American citizens, and hold them in camps for up to three years. They sold or abandoned their homes, farms, and businesses in days. The Supreme Court upheld it 6 to 3 in 1944. A federal commission found in 1983 that the causes were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership, with no military necessity. In 1988 Congress apologized and paid $20,000 to each of 82,250 survivors.Housing & Private Equity