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U.S. involvement in Vietnam War begins
The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[36] and also known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a Cold War-era proxy war[37] that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War (1946–54) and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other c -
John F. Kennedy elected president
Jogn F, Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be eleced president of the United States, Narrowoly beatin Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become President. The campaign was hard fough and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many oberservers believed that Kennedy's poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. -
Bay of Pigs
Finally, in April 1961, the CIA launched what its leaders believed would be the definitive strike: a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles. He met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the problem. -
John F. Kennedy Assassinated
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.[1] Kennedy was fatally shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade. A ten-month investigation from November 1963 to September 1964 by the Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Har -
The Beatles perform in U.S. for the first time
The Beatles rise to prominence in the United States in February 1964 was a significant development in the history of the band's commercial success. In addition to establishing the Beatles international stature, it changed attitudes to popular music in the United States, whose own Memphis-driven musical evolution had made it a better global trend-setter. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed
The United States Congress overwhelming approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. The resolution marked the beginning of an expanded military role for the United States in the Cold War battlefields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. -
Tet Offensive
On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year holiday called Tet), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. -
Election of 1968 (who ran? who won?)
The people who ran Richard Nixon, Hubert Humpgrey, and George Wallace
Who won? Richard Nixon -
Richard Nixon resigns from presidency
Richard Nixon was elected the 37th President of the United States (1969-1974) after previously serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from California. After successfully ending American fighting in Vietnam and improving international relations with the U.S.S.R. and China, he became the only President to ever resign the office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. -
Richard Nixon visits China
The week that changed the world," as President Nixon called his historic 1972 visit to China, made for a eight-day television extravaganza — and a public relations coup for hosts and guests alike. For eight days and nights, American television audiences tuned in to a spectacular parade of images from China, the first they had seen in more than twenty years. On the president's instructions, the American press corps strongly favored television over print journalists, as the medium would better ca -
Watergate Affair
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis.[1] The term Watergat -
U.S. involvement in Vietnam War ends
On Jan. 23, 1973, President Richard Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War. In a televised speech, Nixon said the accord would “end the war and bring peace with honor.” The Paris Peace Accords, negotiated by Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, called for a ceasefire to begin on Jan. 27 between North and South Vietnamese troops that would allow Americans troops to begin a 60-day withdrawal. Additionally, North Vietnam agr -
Jimmy Carter elected president
Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.), 39th president of the United States, was born Oct. 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Ga., and grew up in the nearby community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter Sr., was a farmer and businessman; his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.
He was educated in the public school of Plains, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States -
Camp David Accords (between Egypt and Israel)
Camp David Accords, agreements between Israel and Egypt signed on September 17, 1978, that led in the following year to a peace treaty between those two countries, the first such treaty between Israel and any of its Arab neighbours. Brokered by U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian Pres. Anwar el-Sādāt and officially titled the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” the agreements became known as the Camp David Accords because the negotiations took -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans hostage. "From the moment the hostages were seized until they were released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as president 444 days later," wrote historian Gaddis Smith, "the crisis absorbed more concentrated effort by American officials and had more extensive coverage on television and in the press than any other event since World War II." -
Ronald Reagan elected president
He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and in 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter. As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives.
