Social, political, economic, and religious events in history provide a context to better understand the attitudes and behaviors of individuals. This timeline gives some of the major occurrences in Kentucky and American history that influenced events leading to the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which made slavery illegal and extended civil rights to former slaves.

The Kentucky timeline and the American timeline are on separate pages, but are linked together. You can go easily between the pages to see events that took place in the same time period.