-
CIA is created
When the CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis. Today, its primary purpose is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence, and to carry out covert operations. -
McCarthy’s Witch Hunts
-
Period: to
Korean War
Korean War, a conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in which at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. -
22nd Amendment ratified
Passed by Congress in 1947, and ratified by the states on February 27, 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment limits an elected president to two terms in office, a total of eight years. However, it is possible for an individual to serve up to ten years as president. -
Period: to
Brown v Board of Education
In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The 1954 decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal. -
Eisenhower’s presidency begins
Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. -
Rosenberg’s Execution
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines and valuable nuclear weapon designs. -
US Tests Castle Bravo (H-bomb)
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. -
Period: to
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. -
Rosa Parks arrested
Because she sat down and refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black people to relinquish seats to white people when the bus was full. (Blacks also had to sit at the back of the bus.) -
Period: to
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. -
Elvis Presley’s debut album
Rock 'N' Roll (Remastering From Original 1956) -
Period: to
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis was an international crisis in the Middle East that was precipitated on July 26, 1956, when the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal. The canal was owned by the Suez Canal Company, which was controlled by French and British interests. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It orbited for three weeks before its batteries ran out. -
Johnson’s presidency begins
Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure as the 36th president of the United States began on November 22, 1963, following the assassination of President Kennedy and ended on January 20, 1969. He had been vice president for 1,036 days when he succeeded to the presidency. -
JFK’s presidency begins
Oval Office portrait, 1963
35th President of the United States
In-office January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963 -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Period: to
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. -
Period: to
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989 as well as encircling and separating West Berlin from East German territory. Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic on 13 August 1961. -
USSR Tests Tsar Bomb (H-bomb)
Tsar Bomba, (Russian: “King of Bombs”) , byname of RDS-220, also called Big Ivan, Soviet thermonuclear bomb that was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. -
Period: to
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program -
“I have a dream” speech given
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., delivered a speech to a massive group of civil rights marchers gathered around the Lincoln memorial in Washington DC. -
JFK Assassination
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
In 1964, Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam. -
Immigration Act of 1965
The Immigration and Naturalization Act is federal immigration law. Also known as the Hart-Celler Act, the law eliminated the national origins quota system, which had set limits on the numbers of individuals from any given nation who could immigrate to the United States. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. -
Table Grape Boycott (Delano Grape Strike)
On September 8, 1965, over 800 Filipino farmworkers affiliated with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) struck ten grape vineyards around Delano. They demanded a raise both in their hourly wages, from $1.25 to $1.40, and in the piece rate (the pay a worker earned for each box of grapes packed). -
Miranda vs Arizona
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's ... -
Indian Civil Rights act of 1968
The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 granted Native American people, for the first time, full access to the United States Bill of Rights. This guaranteed them the right to freedom of religion, the right of habeas corpus--or justification of lawful imprisonment, and the right to a trial by jury (among others). -
Mỹ Lai massacre
The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children, and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. -
MLK Jr. Assassination
Martin Luther King Jr., an African American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. -
Nixon’s presidency begins
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the only U.S. president ever to do so. -
Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin
Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin into an initial Earth orbit of 114 by 116 miles. -
Jr. land on the moon
Apollo 11, U.S. spaceflight during which commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin (“Buzz”) Aldrin, Jr., on July 20, 1969, became the first people to land on the Moon and walk the lunar surface. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States of America. -
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to simply as Woodstock, was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock. -
War on Drugs begins
The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. -
Raza Unida Party created
The goals of La Raza Unida were to provide encouragement for more involvement of the people in the politics of Mexican Americans or Chicanos. They wanted a greater number of Mexican-Americans to be there in the government and a greater number of Chicanos to give their votes. The Raza Unida Party was established on January 17, 1970, at a meeting of 300 Mexican Americans at Campestre Hall in Crystal City, Texas. -
Kent State University Shooting
The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, 40 mi south of Cleveland. -
26th Amendment ratified
On July 1, 1971, our Nation ratified the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18. -
Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. -
Title IX - Higher Education Act
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) prohibits sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity) discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. -
Roe v Wade
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. -
Period: to
Wounded Knee Occupation
The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. -
Ford’s presidency begins
Gerald Ford's tenure as the 38th president of the United States began on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of Richard Nixon from office, and ended on January 20, 1977, a period of 895 days. -
Apple is founded
Apple Computers, Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976, by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who brought to the new company a vision of changing the way people viewed computers. Jobs and Wozniak wanted to make computers small enough for people to have them in their homes or offices. -
AIDS Epidemic begins
In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report about five previously healthy homosexual men becoming infected with Pneumocystis pneumonia, which is caused by the normally harmless fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii. Jul 13, 2017 -
Carter’s presidency begins
Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. -
Harvey Milk Assassination
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978. -
1979 Energy Crisis
The 1979 Oil Crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. -
Sandra Day O’Connor sworn into Supreme Court
President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona court of appeals judge, to be the first woman Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. On September 21, the Senate unanimously approved her appointment to the nation's highest court, and on September 25 she was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. -
Period: to
Iran Hostage Crisis
On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the embassy and detained more than 50 Americans, ranging from the Chargé d'Affaires to the most junior members of the staff, as hostages. The Iranians held the American diplomats hostage for 444 days. -
Period: to
Soviet-Afghan War
The Soviet-Afghan War was a conflict wherein insurgent groups known collectively as the Mujahideen, as well as smaller Marxist–Leninist–Maoist groups, fought a nine-year guerrilla war against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Army throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. -
Mikhail Gorbachev takes office
Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief regimes of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as General Secretary, the de facto head of government, in 1985. -
Period: to
Iran Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair, often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. -
Microsoft creates Windows
Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). -
Reagan’s presidency begins
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. -
Collapse of USSR
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the process of internal disintegration within the USSR which resulted in the end of its existence as a sovereign state. -
Clinton’s presidency begins
Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. -
NAFTA is established
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was enacted in 1994 and created a free trade zone for Mexico, Canada, and the United States, is the most important feature in the U.S.-Mexico bilateral commercial relationship. -
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
3009-546, enacted September 30, 1996, made major changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which the bill's proponents argued was mainly to counter the rapidly-growing undocumented immigrant population, and also to protect the legal immigrants and citizens of the United States. -
Clinton’s Impeachment
The impeachment of Bill Clinton occurred when Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, was impeached by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on December 19, 1998, for "high crimes and misdemeanors". -
Bush’s presidency begins
George W. Bush's tenure as the 43rd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2001, and ended on January 20, 2009. Bush, a Republican from Texas, took office following a narrow victory over Democratic incumbent vice president Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.