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1452 CE: First appearance of the Doctrine of Discovery in the papal bull Dum Diversas legitimizing the appropriation of non-Christians' lands and their enslavement.
1493 CE: Best-known articulation of the Doctrine of Discovery issued after Columbus' first expedition to the Americas.
1792 CE: Thomas Jefferson invokes the Doctrine of Discovery in justifying the appropriation of Native American lands.
1823 CE: The Doctrine of Discovery enters United States municipal law through the court case of Johnson v. McIntosh.