Landmark Supreme Court cases

Order these U.S. Supreme Court decisions by the year they were decided. You place all 31 cards on one timeline, one at a time. Three wrong guesses ends the run.

Landmark Supreme Court cases
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Order these U.S. Supreme Court decisions by the year they were decided. Drag or tap it onto the line
Law
?
Law
31
Cards
3
Lives per run
release years and dates
Ordered by
Cards only
Card reveal

How the Supreme Court cases timeline game works

Landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions are the cards here, each with a short line on what the ruling did. You're ordering them by the year each case was decided. One case starts on the timeline with its year showing. For every new card, choose the gap where it belongs among the rulings already placed. Find the right gap and the year shows up; a wrong one still sends the case to its real spot and costs one of your three lives.

The rulings touch federal power, slavery and segregation, speech, the rights of the accused, privacy and elections. The busiest stretch is the era when the Court expanded civil rights and protections for defendants, with landmark rulings coming close together. Some cases overturned or narrowed earlier ones, which tells you the order of that pair.

Want a longer game? On the deck tree you can tick this deck alongside any other one measured in release years and dates, and they shuffle into a single timeline together.

What's in the deck

Here are 28 of the 31 cards you might be dealt, with 3 more in the deck. Their values stay hidden until you place them.

  • Marbury v. Madison Established judicial review
  • McCulloch v. Maryland Affirmed federal implied powers
  • Gibbons v. Ogden Broadened federal commerce power
  • Dred Scott v. Sandford Denied citizenship to enslaved people
  • Plessy v. Ferguson Upheld separate but equal
  • Lochner v. New York Struck a law on freedom of contract
  • Schenck v. United States Set the clear and present danger test
  • Gitlow v. New York Applied free speech to the states
  • Wickard v. Filburn Stretched federal commerce power
  • Korematsu v. United States Upheld Japanese American internment
  • Brown v. Board of Education Desegregated public schools
  • Mapp v. Ohio Applied the exclusionary rule
  • Gideon v. Wainwright Guaranteed the right to counsel
  • Griswold v. Connecticut Recognized a right to privacy
  • Miranda v. Arizona Required warning of rights on arrest
  • Loving v. Virginia Struck down interracial marriage bans
  • Terry v. Ohio Allowed stop and frisk
  • Tinker v. Des Moines Protected student free speech
  • New York Times Co. v. United States Blocked prior restraint of the press
  • United States v. Nixon Limited executive privilege
  • Regents v. Bakke Reshaped affirmative action
  • Texas v. Johnson Protected flag burning as speech
  • Planned Parenthood v. Casey Reaffirmed abortion rights
  • Bush v. Gore Settled the presidential election
  • Lawrence v. Texas Struck down sodomy laws
  • District of Columbia v. Heller Affirmed an individual right to arms
  • Citizens United v. FEC Freed corporate campaign spending
  • Shelby County v. Holder Weakened the Voting Rights Act

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