American business: events and eras.

After losing more than $200 million in 1978 and nearly the same amount in just the first quarter of 1979, the Chrysler Corporation was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The gold rush era led to the creation of the institutions that still govern American mining, sparked the development of the American West, brought rapid population growth to Sacramento and San Francisco, and created demand for transcontinental railroads and telegraphs and for international shipping between California and all parts of the world.

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act was designed to give tax breaks to business owners and the upper class in an effort to stimulate the market.

The International Monetary Fund maintains a system of fixed exchange rates centered on gold and the U.S. dollar, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development provides economic assistance to developing countries.

Consumer boycotts are used by various political and social-awareness groups and individual consumers in an effort to effect change or simply to punish a company for a perceived injustice.

Before 1767, most residents of the British American colonies drank smuggled Dutch tea rather than pay the high British tax on tea.

The Black Monday crash, one of the worst in U.S. history, had an enormous impact on American and world business.

The gold rush led to the development of the Homestake mine, which operated for 125 years and produced 10 percent of the world’s supply of gold.

The financiers’ attempt to control the gold market failed when the U.S. government released $4 million in gold on Friday, September 24, 1869, known as Black Friday.

The Asian financial crisis emerged when traders in foreign currencies became convinced that several Asian currencies were overvalued.

In the fall of 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sought to increase the price of oil, because the dollar was losing value.

The representatives at the Annapolis Convention decided that the Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced and that a constitutional convention should be held to reinvent the federal government.

The American Bimetallic League sought to pressure the federal government to mint silver dollar coins to be reintroduced into general circulation as legal tender.

The United States purchased Alaska to boost American fishing and whaling industries, increase the nation’s control of commerce in the Pacific, and create a bridge to Asian markets.

The pipeline across Alaska was one of the most ambitious and debated construction efforts mounted by private industry in American history.

The air traffic controllers’ strike of 1981 violated federal law and the terms of the controllers’ contract.

The American Industrial Revolution (1877–1919) was an era in which the nation was transformed from its agrarian, rural roots to an increasingly urban, mechanized, and innovative power.