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Return to Republican
Republicans win control of both houses of Congress in November elections. -
William Levitt announces first Levittown.
Two thousand rental houses in a former potato field on Long Island, thirty miles from Midtown Manhattan. By 1951 the new community contained more than seventeen thousand homes. So many babies were born in Levittown that it soon became known as "Fertility Valley" and "the Rabbit Hutch." -
End to Segregation
Truman orders end to segregation in armed forces. -
Wages raised.
Minimun wage raised from 40 to 75 cents an hour in 1949. -
Fair Deal
A series of reform measures proposed by Truman in 1949 including aid to education, civil rights measures, and national medical insurance. -
Pulitzer Prize
Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1950. -
UNIVAC
Reminton Rand unveils UNIVAC, the first electronic digital computer to be marked commercially. -
"See It Now"
Edward R. Murrow inaugurates television news show See it Now. -
Micky D's
Mcdonald's chooses the golden arches as the design for its hamburger shops. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
The Supreme Court was unanimous in its 1954 decision in teh cas of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The Supreme Court ordered schools to be desegregated. -
Antipolio Vaccine
Dr. Jonas Salk reports the success of antipolio vaccine. Polio was considered the most frightening public health probelm at the time. -
Boycott
African Americans began to boycott the Montgomery, Alabama, bus company. -
Highway Act of 1956
Eisenhower signed the legislation creating the interstate highway system. Congress appropriated funds for a 41,000-mile interstate highway system consisting of multilane divided expressways that would connect the nation's major cities. -
Election of 1956
Eisenhower wins the votes, the American people enjoying the abundance oth the 1950's and content with legislative inaction. -
Civil Rights Act
Congress passes the first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction. -
SCLC
Southern Christian Leadership Conference was an orginization founded by Martin Luther King Jr. to direct the crusade against segregation. -
Cheating on Quiz Show??
Charles Van Doren confesses to cheating on the television quiz show Twenty-one. -
National Defense Education Act
Passed in response to Sputnik, it provided an opportunity and stimulus for college education for many Americans. -
Sit-In
African American college students staged a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina. -
Baby Boom
Post-World War II Americns idealized the family. The birthrate drastically increased. -
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was a radical group advocating black power.
