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Luna
The Soviet Union's Luna became the First Human-Made Object to Touch the Moon. The Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union Had Just Begun. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery city bus and was arrested. Montgomery's public transportation system had longstanding rules requiring African American passengers to sit in the back of the bus and to give up their seats to white passengers if the buses filled. Parks was not the first to protest the policy by staying seated, but she was the first around whom Montgomery activists rallied. -
Sputnik 1
The Soviets achieve success first. On October 4, 1957 the Soviets sent sputnik one, the first human-made satellite into orbit. It was a decisive Soviet propaganda victory. In 1958, the US government created the national aeronautics and space administration (NASA) and the national advisory committee for aeronautics (NACA). -
Communist Hysteria
In 1958, radical anticommunists founded the John Birch Society, attacking liberals and civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. as communists. Although joined by Cold War Communism found themselves smeared by the red scare. The leftist American tradition was in tatters, destroyed by anticommunist hysteria. Movements for social justice, from civil rights to gay rights to feminism, were all suppressed under Cold War conformity. -
Alan Shepard
American Astronaut Alan Shepard accomplished a suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 Capsule. President John Kennedy would use Americas losses in the “Space race“ to bolster funding for moon landing. -
Cuban Missile Crisis Starts
President Kennedy addressed the American people to alert them of found launch sits for nuclear weapons threat. The world watched horror as the United States and the Soviet Union hovered on the brink of nuclear war. Finally, on October 28, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove its missiles from Turkey and a formal pledge that the United States would not invade Cuba, and the crisis was resolved peacefully. -
JFK Assassinated
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas while he was riding in a convertible vehicle. He was promoting a bill for Civil Rights, which caused controversy among American citizens. -
Civil Rights Act
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. This is considered one of the most important pieces of Civil Rights history. Ended discrimination of colored people in all public places.