FACTBOX: Significant events in black American history

(Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama became the first black to lead a major U.S. party into a race for the White House on Tuesday as he captured the Democratic presidential nomination.

Following is a timeline of some significant events in black American history.

1619 - The first African slaves arrive in Virginia.

1793 - The invention of the cotton gin increases demand for slave labor in the South. Fugitive Slave Act seeks to require free states to return fugitive slaves, but is rarely enforced in the North.

1808 - Importation of slaves banned.

1861 - The Confederacy is founded when the South secedes from the United States. Civil War begins.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in Confederate states free.

1865 - The civil war ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws slavery.

1868 - The 14th amendment grants full citizenship to all African-Americans.

1870 - The right to vote is given to black males.

1896 - The Supreme Court holds racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for segregation in the South.

1947 - Jackie Robinson becomes the first black to play Major League baseball, known as America's pastime.

1948 - President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.

1954 - Supreme Court's "Brown v. Board of Education" decision declares segregation in schools unconstitutional.

1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest sparks a successful year-long boycott led by Martin Luther King to desegregate the city's buses.

1963 - King is jailed during civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama. Delivers "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.