Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More

The term "eugenics" is introduced.

Date: 1883

The Story of Disability Justice
EUG
STER
HISS
GEN
DCRJ

The word "eugenics" is first used in 1883 by an Englishman named Sir Francis Galton, who is a cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton derives the term from the Greek word eugenes, meaning "good in birth" or "good in stock." He advocates for a science of improving the human race through selective breeding.

Galton's first priority is to stop reproduction by: "imbeciles, feebleminded persons, moral imbeciles, and such inebriates, epileptics, Deaf, and dumb, and blind persons," and formerly enslaved and incarcerated people. He also suggests that talent and high social rank are hereditary.