-
Dwight D. Eisenhower takes office
Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He launched the Interstate Highway System, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) -
Period: to
1954-1975
-
Brown vs. Board of Education
Brown v. Board Brown v. Board of Education was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared segregation laws in public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. -
Rosa Parks Arrest
Parks Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person and was arrested that day for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses, sparking a boycott of buses that gained national attention. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed
The Signing The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. By 1957, only about 20% of African Americans were registered to vote but by 1960, was increased by 3%. -
Little Rock Nine
Little Rock Nine The Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The students were at first prevented from entering the school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and escorting the students in. -
Sputnik Launch
Sputnik launch The launch of Sputnikmand the failure of its first two Project Vanguard launch attempts shook the American public. Although Sputnik was itself harmless, it became a mental threat the United States had perceived from the Soviet Union since the Cold War began. After the initial public shock, the Space Race began, leading to the first humans launched into space, Project Apollo and the first humans to land on the Moon. -
"Sit-in" movement
Sit-in Movement The Greensboro Sit-Ins at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation. Within weeks, sit-in campaigns had begun in nearly a dozen cities -
John F. Kennedy takes office
Kennedy On Tuesday November 8, 1960, Kennedy defeated Nixon and won the Presidency of the United States. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963 – ending his short lived but world. Kennedy’s presidency was very active and addressed many major issues of the day – the Cuban Missile Crisis, Latin America and the spread of Communism, the Peace Corps, Vietnam, Civil Rights, the Space Program and many other issues -
Bay of Pigs invasion
Bay of Pigs On April 17, the Cuban-exile invasion force, known as Brigade 2506, landed at beaches along the Bay of Pigs and immediately came under heavy fire. Cuban planes attacked the invaders, sank two escort ships, and destroyed half of the exile's air support. It became a disaster because Kennedy did not provide air-support for the rebels and tensions only got worse between the U.S. and Cuba. -
James Meredith becomes Mississippi's first black college student
James Meredith In 1961, he was admitted to the University of Mississippi but was denied in the discovering of his race.Meredith then filed a suit alleging discrimination. Although the district court ruled against him, the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor and became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. -
Cuban missle crisis
Cuban missle crisis On October 1962, an American spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy demanded the removal of the missiles already there and the destruction of the sites and for thirteen days, the world would watch carefully as the two powers were at the brink of nuclear war. -
Birmingham Campaign
Birmingham Was a movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the treatment that black Americans faced. Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs on children and bystanders. It got Conner fired, forced desegregation in birmingham and gave national attention to civil rights. -
Lyndon B. Johnson takes office
Johnson Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States following the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Upon taking office, Johnson launched a series progressive reforms aimed at curing poverty and creating what he called a "Great Society" for all Americans. Many of the programs he introduced, like Medicare, made a lasting impact in health and education. -
John F. Kennedy assassination
JFK assassination JFK was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade. A ten-month investigation in 1963–64 by the Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed
Civil Rights Act It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the public. -
Tonkin Gulf incident
Gulf of Tonkin On August 2, 1964, the Maddox was conducting a "DeSoto patrol." The purpose of this mission was to collect intelligence on radar and coastal defenses of North Vietnam. It was this day that the North Vietnamese torpedo patrol boats attacked the Maddox. The U.S.S. Ticonderoga sent aircraft to repel the North Vietnamese attackers and sunk one boat while damaging other enemy vessels -
Malcom X asassination
Malcom X While delivering a speech on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated by three men who rushed the stage. The hree men were Black Muslims Talmadge Hayer, Norman Butler, and Thomas Johnson. -
Tet Offensive
Tet Offensive was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched 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. -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination
Dr. Martin luther King jr.At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. -
Robert Kennedy assassinated
Robert Kennedy assassination The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California, during the campaign season for the United States Presidential election, 1968. Kennedy was shot as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and died in the Good Samaritan Hospital twenty-six hours later. -
Richard M. Nixon takes office
Nixon Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a Republican U.S. representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. -
US land on the moon
US first to land on moon The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin being the first two humans to step on the lunar surface. -
Nixon orders invasion of Cambodia
Nixons orders was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during mid-1970 by the United States (U.S.) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. These invasions were a result of the policy of President Richard Nixon. The objective of the campaign was the defeat of the approximately 40,000 troops of the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong. -
Kent State shooting
Kent state Shooting occurred at Kent State University in the U.S. city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign. -
Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal 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 Richard Nixon. -
Vietnam Cease fire
Cease fire On January 15, 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered a ceasefire of the aerial bombings in North Vietnam. By January 27, 1973, all warring parties in the Vietnam War signed a ceasefire as a prelude to the Paris Peace Accord. -
Agnew resigns vice presidency
Agnew resigns On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew became the second Vice President to resign the office. Agnew resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme wherein he was accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland. -
Gerald R. Ford takes office
Ford was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and prior to this, was the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. He was the first person appointed to the Vice Presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, after Spiro Agnew had resigned. When Richard Nixon's resigned on August 9, 1974, he became the first unelected president. -
Nixon resigns
Nixon resigns was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a Republican U.S. representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961.The Watergate scandal escalated too quick, costing Nixon much of his political support and resigned because of it. -
Fall of Saigon
Saigon Falls 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.