1855 Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which describes romantic attraction between men, is published.
1882 The state of Massachusetts declares Leaves of Grass obscene.
1895 Oscar Wilde is sentenced to two years of hard labor for gross indecency.
1924 The Society for Human Rights, the first homophile organization in the United States, is founded in Chicago.
1925 The Society for Human Rights is disbanded after a police raid leads to the arrests of founder Henry Gerber and the group’s president, John T Graves. A newspaper exposé publicly disparages the group as a cult.
1928 Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness is published.
1933 Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany; begins persecution of homosexuals. Magnus Hirschfeld’s work and research is destroyed.
1941 The United States enters World War II.
1943 Jim Kepner begins what becomes known as ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archive.
1945 The first organization for gay veterans, the Veterans’ Benevolent Association, is founded.
1948 Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
1951 The Mattachine Society is founded in Los Angeles, California. Christine Jorgensen completes her gender affirmation surgery in Denmark.
1952 The American Psychiatric Association publishes the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which classifies homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disorder.
1953 Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
1955 The first lesbian activist group, the Daughters of Bilitis, is founded in San Francisco, California.
1961 José Sarria becomes the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States.
1966 A police raid on Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco turns into a riot, marking the birth of the transgender liberation movement.
1969 A police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City becomes a riot when gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people resist police harassment.
1970 The first gay pride celebration takes place on the first anniversary of Christopher Street Liberation Day.