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The Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, prepared at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. -
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African/Black descent. It is used by African Americans in the United States. -
Sit-Ins
A form of nonviolent protest, employed during the civil rights movement and later in the movement against the Vietnam War. In a sit-in, demonstrators occupy a place open to the public, such as a racially segregated (see segregation) lunch counter or bus station, and then refuse to leave. -
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at a meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
New Frontier
The term New Frontier was used by liberal Democratic[1] presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. -
Alliance for Progess
The Alliance for Progress initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America. -
Flexible Response
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of Massive Retaliation. -
The Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. -
Bay of Pigs
Bay of Pigs invasion, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States following years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. -
Declaration of Indian Purpose
In order to give due recognition to certain basic philosophies by which the Indian people and all other people endeavor to live, We, the Indian people, must be governed by high principles and laws in a democratic manner, with a right to choose our own way of life. -
Presidential Commissoin on the Status of Women
The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women -
James Meredith
James Howard Meredith is a Civil Rights Movement figure, writer, political adviser and Air Force veteran. He became the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans -
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) , and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a pivotal moment in the Cold War. Fifty years ago the United States and the Soviet Union stood closer to Armageddon than at any other moment in history. President John F. Kennedy was informed of a U-2 spy-plane’s discovery of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. -
Silent Spring
Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. The book was published on 27 September 1962 and it documented the adverse effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. -
The Feminine Mystique
The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States -
Birmingham Campaign
The Birmingham Campaign was a Birmingham-based strategic effort by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil rights for African Americans in the spring of 1963. -
Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C -
The Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. -
Head Start
The modern Head Start program began as part of the "war on poverty" President Lyndon B. Johnson declared in his January 1964 State of the Union address. In July 1964, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act, and Head Start was born from that. -
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Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Jack Weinberg, Michael Rossman, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others. -
The 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. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
Medicaid
On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Medicare, a health insurance program for elderly Americans, into law. At the bill-signing ceremony, which took place at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, former President Harry S. Truman was enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary and received the first Medicare card. -
Teach-Ins
"Teach ins" were popularized during the U.S. government's involvement in Vietnam. The first teach-in, which was held overnight at the University of Michigan in March 1965, began with a discussion of the Vietnam War draft and ended in the early morning with a speech by philosopher Arnold Kaufman. -
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, children, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice. -
Medicare
President Johnson signs Medicare bill on July 30, 1965. On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law Medicare, which provides low-cost hospitalization and medical insurance for the nation's elderly. -
Voting Rights of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
Watts Riot
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police.False rumors spread that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of looting and arson followed -
Black Panthers
Black Panther Party, original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. -
National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women (NOW), American activist organization (founded 1966) that promotes equal rights for women. The National Organization for Women was established by a small group of feminists who were dedicated to actively challenging sex discrimination in all areas of American society but particularly in employment. -
Kerner Commission
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong (rebel forces sponsored by North Vietnam) and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. -
My Lai
The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in South Vietnam on 16 March 1968. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were massacred by the U.S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division -
MLK Assassinated
Dr. King's Assassination. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by a sniper's bullet while standing on the second-floor balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. As news of King's death spread, violent riots broke out in African American neighborhoods in over one hundred cities across the United States. -
Vietnamization
Vietnamization of the war was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops -
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Woodstock
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock—was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Scheduled for August 15–17 on a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains of southern New York State, northwest of New York City, it ran over to Monday, August 18. -
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, -
The Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws, and one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world -
Stagflation
Stagflation is said to occur when the economy experiences high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. Stagflation in the 1970s was caused by the fall of the Bretton Woods system and the 1973 oil crisis. -
La Raza Unida
La Raza Unida Party (RUP) was a militant, anti-American hate group which was established in 1970 at a meeting of 300 Mexican-Americans in Crystal City, Texas by José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean. La Raza Unida simply means “The Race United.” -
Kent State
The Kent State shootings were the shootings on May 4, 1970 of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. -
The Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency is an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA -
Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools. -
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Roe vs. Wade
Roe v. Wade, (1973), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy, and overturning all state laws outlawing or unduly restricting abortion. It is one of the most controversial decisions in US Supreme Court history. -
Clean Water Act
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to sweeping amendments in 1972. As amended in 1972, the law became commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA). -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. From the first, the ERA was highly controversial in terms of the meaning of equality for women. -
SALT I
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. -
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement. After the five burglars were caught and the conspiracy was discovered, Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. -
Title IX
Title IX is a portion of the United States Education Amendments of 1972, (June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C., co-authored and introduced by Senator Birch Bayh; it was renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002, after its House co-author and sponsor. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the few dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). -
Ford Pardons Nixon
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974. He pardoned Nixon because he thought the country should move on and look to the future rather than the past. Many people opposed Ford's decision to pardon Nixon, and this hurt his presidential campaign. -
Helsinki Accords
The Helsinki Accords, Helsinki Final Act, or Helsinki Declaration was the first act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Finlandia Hall of Helsinki, Finland -
Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a cabinet-level department of the United States Government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. -
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem , following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter.