1955-1975

  • Polio Vaccine

    An effective polio vaccine is ready to be released.
  • Rosa Parks

    Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat for a white man.
  • Minimum wage

    Minimum wage rises from $.75 to $1 an hour.
  • Eisenhowers Heart Attack

    Eisenhower suffers a heart attack after playing golf.
  • Eisenhower Re-elected

    President Eisenhower is Re-elected for a 2nd term.
  • Interstate Highway System

    Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act.
  • Soviet test ICBM

    Soviet Union announces that they have launched the first intercontinental ballistic missile.
  • Sputnik

    The Soviets launch Sputnik
  • Little Rock Desegregation

    Eisenhower sends military to enforce the desegregation laws.
  • Rise of Nuclear Power Plant

    First nuclear power plant begins to run.
  • Translatlantic travel begins

    The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) begins the first regular jet airline service across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • Lunch Sit-Ins

    Sit-in demonstrations begin in Charlotte, North Carolina as black students protest segregation and discrimination in schools.
  • President JFK

    JFK beats Nixon in the presidential race.
  • First U.S. Combat Death

    An American serviceman dies in Vietnam, the first combat death reported
  • Bay of Pigs

    A force of 1,500 Cuban exiles, trained and financed by the United States, lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the Castro regime.
  • Kennedy Assassinated

    President Kennedy is assassinated.
  • President Lyndon B Johnson

    Lydon B Johnson becomes President of the United States
  • King Advocates Against War

    Martin Luther King Jr. delievers a speech criticizing U.S.'s foreign policy with Vietnam.
  • March on the Pentagon

    Thousands march to the Pentagon to protest the war in vietnam
  • MLK assassinated

    James Earl Ray assassinated MLK
  • President Nixon

    President Nixon is Elected
  • Nixon promises withdrawl from Vietnam

    Nixon says he will pull the troops from Vietnam.
  • 26th amendment

    The 26th amendment was ratified
  • Watergate

    Five men are caught burglarizing the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C.
  • Vietnam ceasefire is signed

    Representatives from South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the United States sign a peace agreement in which a ceasefire is declared.
  • Nixon resigns

    President Nixon resigns amidst the Watergate scandal; his vice president Gerald Ford takes office.
  • Fall of Saigon

    The North Vietnamese take Saigon; the war in Vietnam ends.