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Period: to
1954-1975
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Dwight David Eisenhower
"Ike" was born Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Texas, U.S. and died March 28, 1969, Washington, D.C. He was the 34th president of the U.S. In 1952, as the Republican candidate, he defeated Stevenson. His policy of support for Middle Eastern countries facing communist aggression, enunciated in the Eisenhower Doctrine. He sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce integration of a city high school (1957). When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I (1957), he responded by creating NASA (1958). -
Geneva Conference
A multinational conference in Geneva, Switzerland whose purpose was to attempt to find a way to unify Vietnam and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina, split Vietnam in half at the 17th parallel. North Vietnam wound up communist and a non-communist government was established in South Vietnam, lead by Ngo Dinh Diem.
Kennedy, David., et al. The American Pageant. Thirteenth edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign started when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. -
Interstate Highway System
Highway System One of Eisenhower's enduring achievements was championing and signing the bill that authorized the Interstate Highway System in 1956. The improved ability to move logistics throughout the country, would not only be beneficial for military operations, but provide a measure of continued economic growth. -
Little Rock Crisis
The Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower. -
NASA
After the Soviet Launch of Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower launched a national campaign that funded not just space exploration but a major strengthening of science and higher education. He rushed construction of more advanced satellites, created NASA as a civilian space agency, signed a landmark science education law, and improved relations with US scientists. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The SNCC was founded in early 1960 in Raleigh, North Carolina, to capitalize on the success of a surge of sit-ins in Southern college towns, where black students refused to leave restaurants in which they were denied service based on their race. In the years following, SNCC strengthened its efforts in community organization and supported Freedom Rides in 1961, along with the March on Washington in 1963, and agitated for the Civil Rights Act (1964). -
The Growing Problem
In January, Kennedy is warned by Eisenhower that Indochina is a growing problem. Kennedy approves secret military plan for Vietnam and Laos, establishing Special Forces (Green Berets) to conduct covert operations against and inside North Vietnam and Laos. JFK also orders personnel increases for the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Saigon. Shortly afterward, U.S. advisers received authorization to engage the enemy if fired upon. By the end of the year advisers number 3,000. -
John F. Kennedy
JFKennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy oversaw the failed invasion of communist Cuba (called the "Bay of Pigs Invasion") in 1961. In October 1962, it looked like the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union might go to war over these bases. Kennedy, however, was able to resolve what is now called the Cuban Missile Crisis peacefully. On November 22, 1963, he was assassinated during a trip to Dallas Texas while riding in a parade with his wife. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the revolutionary leftist government of President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side, and the United States on the other. The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when the US reached an agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for never invading Cuba. -
March on Washington
The Great March on Washingtonwas one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march.The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations under the theme "jobs, and freedom." -
The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of racially motivated terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the U.S. 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
"A Great Society" for the American people and their fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his first years of office he obtained passage of one of the most extensive legislative programs in the Nation's history. Maintaining collective security, he carried on the rapidly growing struggle to restrain Communist encroachment in Vietnam. -
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and also women. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (known as "public accommodations"). -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
In August 1964, there was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. There, two US Warships had been attacked by the North Vietnamese. In response, The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed by Congress essentially giving the president a blank check for return action.
Kennedy, David., et al. The American Pageant. Thirteenth edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident -
Great Society Program
The Great Society Program became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson's recommendations. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Act prohibits states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states had prevented African Americans from exercising the franchise. -
Operation Starlite
Operation Starlite,was the first major offensive regimental size action conducted by a purely U.S. military unit during the Vietnam War. The operation was launched based on intelligence provided by Major General Nguyen Chanh Thi, the commander of the South Vietnamese forces in northern I Corps area. Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt devised a plan to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Viet Cong regiment to nullify the threat on the vital Chu Lai base and ensure its powerful communication tower remained intact. -
Black Panther Party
The Black Panthers, Founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the organization initially set forth a doctrine calling primarily for the protection of African-American neighborhoods from police brutality The leaders of the organization espoused socialist and Marxist doctrines; however, the Party's early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse membership. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks that were launched against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed to take place. -
MLKJ Assassination
Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of powerful words and non-violent tactics such as sit-ins, boycotts and protest marches to fight segregation and achieve significant civil and voting rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning. -
Richard Nixon
The Nation was painfully divided, with turbulence in the cities and war overseas. During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation. -
Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the United States federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. -
Watergate Scandal
The Watergate Scandal was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17th 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of Nixon— the only resignation of a U.S. President. -
Gerald Ford
As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play. -
Pardon of Nixon
Ford issued Proclamation 4311, which gave Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while President. When he announced the Nixon pardon, Ford also introduced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada. -
WIN
Whip Inflation Now was an attempt to spur a grassroots movement to combat inflation, by encouraging personal savings and disciplined spending habits in combination with public measures, urged by U.S. President Gerald Ford. People who supported the mandatory and voluntary measures were encouraged to wear "WIN" buttons, perhaps in hope of evoking in peacetime the kind of solidarity and voluntarism symbolized by the V-campaign during World War II. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period leading to the formal reunification of Vietnam into a communist state.
