1765

When Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act on American colonies as a revenue measure, the colonies boycotted British goods; Britain repealed the Stamp Act the next year.

1767-1770

When the British Parliament passed the Townshend Acts taxes to pay for the salaries of judges and officials, the colonies reacted by boycotting English goods. Parliament repealed the taxes except that on tea. The tea tax was the pretext for the "Boston Tea Party," in which, on December 16, 1773, colonists dressed as Indians boarded three British ships and emptied chests of tea in Boston Harbor.

December 1774

The First Continental Congress, a convention of delegates from the American colonies, outlawed exports of goods to Britain, establishing the first American export controls.

1807

After three Americans were killed when a British warship attacked a U.S. frigate, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson closed down the U.S. market with the Embargo Act, which prohibited U.S. ships from leaving for foreign ports, foreign ships from carrying U.S. goods out of U.S. ports, and coastal shippers from diverting their cargoes to foreign ports.

1808

The U.S. Congress passed subsequent embargo acts to close loopholes in the original legislation. The Enforcement Act (January 9, 1809) increased the punishments for evading the law, but failed in stopping French and British attacks on U.S. merchant vessels carrying goods to Europe.

1809

Under pressure, Jefferson repealed the Embargo Act. Successive nonintercourse acts (1809, 1810) reopening American ports to ships of all nations except Britain and France failed to accomplish their goals.

1812

On April 4, Congress passed another embargo act, which imposed a 90-day moratorium on all trade between the United States and Britain as relations between the two countries worsened. The act had little effect before it was superseded June 18, 1812, by a U.S. declaration of war on Britain.

1861-1865

During the Civil War between the northern and southen U.S. states, the North, with its far superior resources in seapower, railroads, production of iron, and munitions, imposed a blockade against the South that gradually tightened and then stopped the import of foreign goods to the southern states.

1898

In the Spanish-American War, the United States maintained a naval blockade of Cuba while native insurgent forces harassed Spanish troops on the island. A concurrent blockade of the Philippines was intended to deny Spain revenues from that colony.

1914-1918

During World War I, the United States imposed sanctions against Japanese shipping. U.S. steel was released to Japan only in exchange for immediate delivery of ships for the Atlantic war effort.

1938-1947

Britain and the United States levied controls against Mexico to settle the expropriation of the oil industry by Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas and against Japan (1940-41) to force its withdrawal from Southeast Asia. The embargo against Japan (effective October 1940) also included freezing assets (beginning July 1941).

1939-1945

During World War II, the Alliance Powers placed economic sanctions first against Germany and then on Japan. The United States also placed sanctions against Argentina in an attempt to eliminate the Nazi influence there and destabilize the Peron government.

1948-1949

The United States levied economic controls against the Netherlands to persuade that country to recognize the independence of its colony Indonesia.

1949-1970

The United States imposed sanctions on China in retaliation for its takeover and subsequent assistance to North Korea and its human rights violations.

1950-present

The United States leveled economic sanctions , which continue today, against North Korea, for its attack on South Korea. An arms agreement with North Korea in October 1994 allowed a partial lifting of the sanctions in exchange for a Korean commitment to freeze its nuclear capability.

1951-1953

With the United Kingdom, the United States imposed sanctions on Iran to press for reversal of Iran's nationalization of oil facilities and to destabilize the Mohammad Mussadiq government, which was overthrown in 1953.

1954-1994

The United States, in a joint effort with South Vietnam, imposed sanctions on North Vietnam to impede its military effectiveness. President Clinton lifted the embargo against the unified Vietnam in 1994.

1956-1962

The United States imposed sanctions on Laos to destabilize the leftist governments of both Prince Souvanna Phouma and General Phoumi and to prevent Communist takeover.

1960-present

The United States banned economic and military aid to the Cuban dictatorship of Fidel Castro, the first of numerous sanctions. In 1992, Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, which tightened the 1960 embargo by prohibiting foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. In 1996, Congress passed the Libertad Act (the "Helms-Burton Act"), which imposes U.S. sanctions on third-country companies investing in Cuba.

1965-1979

In its first use of economic sanctions, the UN Security Council banned exports of oil and of other commodities to southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to prevent white settlers from seizing control of the country.

1973-present

The United States imposed sanctions against Libya to protest dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi's support of terrorist groups in the Middle East. The sanctions were later strengthened to an embargo on all trade and a freeze on Libyan assets.

1979-present

The administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter froze Iranian assets in the United States after revolutionary forces took Americans hostage in Teheran. Sanctions were expanded in 1981 into a broad trade embargo to curtail Iran's support of international terrorism. The trade embargo was lifted in 1981 after the hostages were released. The United States reimposed sanctions against Iran in 1995 and 1996.

1986-1991

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, passed over President Ronald Reagan's veto, banned new investments and bank loans to South Africa and prohibited bilateral trade in a number of goods. The United States worked with France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, all participants in sanctions against South Africa, in an action that was widely credited with bringing down apartheid. In July 1991, President George Bush lifted sanctions against the country after political reforms were introduced.

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SOURCES: Congressional Quarterly; Institute for International Economics