Milestones

1857	Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 15.
1878	Graduates from Yale second in his class; delivers senior oration as salutatorian. Enrolls in the University of Cincinnati Law School.
1880	Graduates from law school and passes the bar exam.
1880–1881	Works part-time as a reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.
1881	Becomes assistant prosecutor of Hamilton County.
1882	Appointed collector of internal revenue in Cincinnati.
1883	Resigns as collector; works as an attorney in private practice.
1886	Marries Helen (“Nellie”) Herron.
1887	Becomes a judge on the Ohio Superior Court.
1889	His son Robert Alphonso Taft is born.
1890	Appointed solicitor general of the United States.
1891	His father, Alphonso Taft, dies; his daughter, Helen Herron Taft, is born.
1892	Becomes a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
1896	Named dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School. William McKinley is elected president.
1897	His son Charles Phelps Taft II is born.
1900	Named chairman of the Philippines Commission; arrives in Manila.
1901	Becomes civil governor of the Philippines. McKinley is assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. Declines appointment as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
1902	Roosevelt declares the Philippine-American war over.
1903	Declines a second appointment as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
1904	Becomes secretary of war. Visits Panama to oversee construction of the Panama Canal. Theodore Roosevelt is elected president in his own right.
1906	Serves temporarily as provisional governor of Cuba.
1907	His mother, Louisa Taft, dies.
1908	Accepts the Republican nomination for president and is elected the twenty-seventh president of the United States.
1909	Sworn in as president on March 4. Signs Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act. Appoints Horace Harmon Lurton to the Supreme Court. The Pinchot-Ballinger affair erupts.
1910	Roosevelt delivers his “New Nationalism” speech at Osawatomie, Kansas. Appoints Charles Evans Hughes, Willis Van Devanter, and Joseph Rucker Lamar to the Supreme Court and elevates Justice Edward Douglass White to be chief justice.
1911	Mobilizes twenty thousand American soldiers on the Mexican border. Supreme Court orders dissolution of Standard Oil and American Tobacco companies. Signs Canadian Tariff Reciprocity Agreement, which Canada rejects. Signs arbitration treaties with France and England and vetoes tariff reductions. Taft administration files suit against U.S. Steel for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
1912	Appoints Mahlon Pitney to the Supreme Court. Is renominated by the Republican Party for president during a bitter convention fight that splits the party. Roosevelt forms the Progressive Party (also called the Bull Moose Party) and runs as its candidate for president. Sends marines to Cuba and Santo Domingo and battleships to Nicaragua. Woodrow Wilson wins presidential election, defeating Taft and Roosevelt.
1913	The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments are ratified. Vetoes literacy tests for immigrants and the Webb-Kenyon Interstate Liquor Act. Leaves office and returns to Yale to teach law. Publishes Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence, and Its Perils.
1914	Publishes The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court.
1916	Publishes Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers.
1917	The United States declares war on Germany.
1918	Is named as co-chairman of the National War Labor Board. World War I ends.
1919	Theodore Roosevelt dies. Eighteenth Amendment ratified, authorizing Prohibition.
1920	League of Nations founded. Warren G. Harding is elected president.
1921	Appointed the tenth chief justice of the United States.
1922	Writes the opinions in Stafford v. Wallace and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. Congress passes Conference of Senior Circuit Judges Act of 1922. Publishes Liberty Under Law.
1923	Issues a rare dissent in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital. Harding dies in office; Calvin Coolidge becomes president.
1925	Congress passes the Judiciary Act of 1925. Writes the opinion in Carroll v. United States.
1926	Writes the opinion in Myers v. United States.
1927	Joins Justice Holmes’s opinion in Buck v. Bell.
1928	Writes the opinion in Olmstead v. United States. Herbert Hoover elected president.
1929	After lobbying by Taft, Congress allocates funds for a new Supreme Court building.
1930	Resigns from the Supreme Court on February 3. Dies on March 8.