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Jackie Robinson joins Brooklyn Dodgers
Jackie Robinson would become the first African American to play Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Robinson would play first base when he was finally called up to play with the Dodgers. When the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson, they would end the racial segregation between blacks being in the MLB. It would stop blacks from being segregated to Negro Leagues in the U.S. Today Jackie Robinson's number of 42 is retired for all MLB teams. -
Truman orders desegregation
Harry Truman orders that the U.S. military is to desegregate. It allows all race, color, and religion. -
Eisenhower takes office
Dwight D. Eisenhower takes office in 1953. Eisenhower would become the 34th president of the United States. -
French end 80 year struggle
The French would end their struggle of war and things of that nature after 80 years. -
SEATO was formed
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization for defense in the Southeast Asia region. It was to prevent communism in Southeast Asia. -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka was a Supreme Court case that the justices would unanimously rule that racial segregation of children in schools is unconstitutional. Brown claimed that black children were not given equal to white children schooling and went against the 14th amendment. This case would show, during the civil rights movement, that the term "separate but equal" education and other things showed that the people were not equal at all. -
French surrendered
French would surrender to the northwest Vietnam. The French would surrender in 57 days. -
Rosa Parks arrested
Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1st, 1955, for not giving up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The law required for Rosa Parks to give up her seat to any white person that requested to sit down. She had to give up the seat and go to the back of the bus. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, it sparked a 381 day boycott of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. -
Supreme Court desegregates buses
The Supreme Court comes to a decision to desegregate the buses in the United States due to it being unconstitutional. After the Rosa Parks arrest, African Americans began to boycott the buses because it wasn't fair for them to give up their seat to a white person. This would lead to a boycott that would begin to make the buses lose money. They would have a 381 day boycott against the buses before the Supreme Court would desegregate the buses. -
The Southern Manifesto
The Declaration of Constitutional Principles, also known as the Southern Manifesto, was a written document in 1956 in the United States Congress. It was signed by 101 congressman, 99 democrats and two republicans, from 11 different states. The written document was saying that the Brown v. Board of Education was that the Supreme Court was using too much of it's power and that they would fight the Supreme Court on their decision. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 would be signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This was the first action since the reconstruction, that the government would take significant legislative action to protect the civil rights of all people in the United States. Even though many people in the south narrowed it down, it still gave people the protection of their voting rights, established the Civil Rights division in the Justice Department, and created the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. -
Brown decision to desegregate schools
The decision of the Brown v. Board of Education case would unanimously say that black children were not getting the equal schooling of the white children. This decision would mark that desegregating of schools will be happening and that soon the black and white children would be mixed together. The Little Rock Nine were 9 black students trying to enter a white school and the governor sent out the national guard to prevent that but the president made sure that they would get into the school. -
NASA created
The United States Congress legislation established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. This was made for America to start their exploration of space and NASA was a easy way of keeping track of their findings or exploration in space. NASA was created because of the Soviet Union's spacecraft Sputnik I, which orbited earth in 98 minutes. The U.S. feared that this could lead to missiles being sent to the U.S. -
Fidel Castro Overthrows Regime
After overthrowing the regime, Castro would take control of military and political power in Cuba. He ran Cuba as a one party Communist Party rule. -
JFK Elected
John F. Kennedy would be elected president of the United States in 1960. He would become the 35th president in America's history. -
SDS formed
The Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist group that was made to give students more power, better possible budgeting, and radicalism. -
Woolworth's Lunch sit-in
Four African American students went into a diner and sat at the lunch counter and asked for service. They were denied service, so in protest they stayed in the restaurant until they got service. -
Freedom Ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists that would ride interstate buses from Washington D.C. to the southern states. They wanted to see if the southern states upheld the courts decision. These people would ride the buses to challenge the cases that would state that the segregation of buses are unconstitutional. The southern states would ignore the rulings and the federal government would do nothing to enforce the ruling of the Supreme Court. -
Berlin Wall Built
The Berlin Wall would be built be the people in Berlin due to half the country siding with communism and the other side didn't. -
CIA authorized to overthrow Castro
Castro being in power was not like by the United States, so they planned on sending a full on invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro. -
Kennedy and Khrushchev focus on Berlin
Kennedy and Khrushchev would focus on Berlin because the country would divide. The city divided into a communist party and the other not within the city, so they focused on Berlin to prevent even more communism. -
Peace Corps Created
President John F. Kennedy would issue an establishing of the Peace Corps within the Department of State. This would send American men and women to foreign countries to assist in development efforts. It captured the ideas and thoughts of the U.S. people and within the first week of the Peace Corps creation, thousands of U.S. citizens sent in letters hoping that they could volunteer to the Peace Corps. -
The Bay of Pigs invasion
The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed invasion of Cuba by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A counter military group, which was made up of many Cuban exiles who traveled to the U.S. after Castro's takeover, who were trained by the U.S. military and were finally fighting back. Over 1400 people were split in 5 different infantry's before the fighting actually took place. -
Universities Desegregate
After having the Alabama National Guard come out to block the doors of the University of Alabama from letting two black students into the university. Alabama Governor George Wallace finally ends the blockade into the university and allowed the two black students into the university. President John F. Kennedy sent federalized National Guard troops down to Alabama and told them to allow the students into the University of Alabama. -
Soviets building Nuclear Missiles in Cuba
The United States would come to the realization that the Soviet Union was doing nuclear missile testing in Cuba. -
1st American to orbit Earth
John Glenn would become the first American to orbit the whole Earth and return safely back to the ground. This was a major win for the American people. -
Kennedy blames Khrushchev
Kennedy blamed Khrushchev due to the finding that the Soviet Union was doing nuclear missile testing in Cuba. He thought he needed to pay more attention to them. -
Medgar Evers Assassinated
Medgar Evers, a civil rights movement leader, was be shot and killed in Jackson, Mississippi. He would be shot by a white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. -
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was a treaty signed by John F. Kennedy that stated that there would be no testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, in the atmosphere, or underwater. This signed treaty was considered the first major step in the controlling of nuclear weapons. This treaty was made because the Soviet's were testing nuclear weapons in Cuba and the U.S. were scared that they would use it to hurt their country. -
Kennedy called up Alabama National Guard
Kennedy called up the National Guard to protect the African American children that were trying to get into schools. -
March on Washington
The March of Washington was a march consisting of 250,000 people gathering in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The event was to draw attention to the jobs and freedom that African Americans were not getting in America still. They were facing inequalities that other white Americans weren't facing in America. This is where Martin Luther King Jr. would make his famous "I have a dream" speech to the thousands of people in attendance. -
16th Street Baptist Church Bombed
The 16th Baptist Church would exploded on Sunday morning before the Sunday services would beginning in Birmingham, Alabama. Four young black girls would be killed during the bombing and many other people would be injured in the bombing. Many people, for good reason, would be angered over it and their would be clashes between the police and the protesters. This would show the U.S. how dangerous the Civil Rights Movement would be to the African Americans. -
John F. Kennedy Assassinated
John F. Kennedy would get assassinated by a sniper in Dallas, Texas. He was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was shot a few days after the assassination took place. He was riding in a car that was accompanied by his wife, the governor of Texas, and the governors wife before getting shot in the throat and then the killing shot in the head. Once shot, JFK's wife jumped on the back of the car to retrieve bits of his head. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, prevented people of other color, religion, race, or sex from the opportunity of being appointed a job. This means that all people will be given their civil rights and labor laws will be given equally to all people in the United States. It also prevents unequal of voters application and racial segregation within schools, employment, and just in the public. -
Malcolm X broke away from Nation of Islam
Malcolm X would break away from the Nation of Islam because he found out that blacks and whites can live together unlike what the Nation of Islam said. -
Economic Opportunity Act
It was a huge part on the "War on Poverty". This act would provide job training, education about jobs, and loans to smaller businesses to protect them from unemployment and poverty -
Beatle Mania
The band group "The Beatles" would come to America for the first time in their careers. It was such a huge event for the people in America due to it being the first time they have ever came. -
24th Amendment
The United States Constitution prohibits that both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote by placing taxes or poll taxes on peoples right to vote. This was brought up in the Congress once the African Americans in the southern states were being denied access to the voting booths because they were African American. They were also being denied due to the high taxes they have to pay, most African Americans were poor, so they couldn't afford to vote. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was a codename that was for the bombing campaign of different places in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. This was to put pressure on the North Vietnam's communist leaders to stop them from putting so much time into trying to wage war with the United States and give the South Vietnam people time to recover and regroup. This marked the first major assault against the North Vietnamnese. -
U.S. airstrikes North Vietnam and Vietcong in South
This came from being apart of the U.S. plans for Operation Rolling Thunder. The military would run airstrikes for the North Vietnamese and Vietcong's in the south. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was put into place to end all discrimination to blacks to vote. Most of these were happening in the south during the time. -
Malcolm X shot and killed
Malcolm X would be shot and killed at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. He was assassinated by a rival Black Muslims while addressing one of his organization -
Medicare and Medicaid
In the Social Security Amendment of 1965, Medicare and Medicaid were created to give families insurance for the elderly and the poor. -
Water Quality Act
This act requires that the water in states have to be set to certain standards and make an association to make sure that the water was up to code. -
Immigration and Nationality Act
This act would allow more immigrants to enter the United States better than what the former act said. It allows immigrants to be united with their families and attracted skilled laborers to America. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Lyndon B. Johnson signed this act to provide better resources for vulnerable students and give districts with low money more items to help better the education of all students. -
Bloody Sunday
In months earlier, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the African American community the right to vote without anything saying that they couldn't. So a large group of African American people, supports of MLK, got the idea to test the new ruling. They would do a walk to Montgomery from Selma to truly test if people in the south would obey the new law. But George Wallace didn't and sent policemen out to stop them in anyway. It became a blood filled day for the African Americans. -
Marines defend airbase in Da Nang
3,500 marines were sent to the Da Nang airbase to retrieve the Southern Vietnamese to free them up for combat. -
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was made for better safety of motor vehicles. This act made standards that vehicles had to meet before they could be sold. -
Clean Water Restoration Act
The Clean Water Restoration Act was the Government providing federal funding to reconstruct the sewage water plants so they are safer and cleaner. -
Air Quality Act
The Air Quality Act is federal law that makes sure that the air quality in America is not contaminated by pollution on a national level. -
Robert Kennedy killed
Robert Kennedy was killed while announcing that he had won the California presidency primary. While announcing to a large crowd of people awaiting to hear the news, a man by the name of Sirhan Sirhan came out of the crowd and proceeded to shoot Robert Kennedy. After Robert Kennedy was shot, he was brought to one of the nearby hospitals in Los Angeles and soon later was announced that he had died. -
Nixon wins Presidency
Richard Nixon would win the presidency in 1968. Nixon would become the 37th president of the United States of America. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a series of attacks that were made by the Vietcong people on the South Vietnamese people in their cities or small villages. People would say that this is the turning point in the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese people took heavy loss before this time from the Americans and Ho Chi Minh was nearing his death so the South Vietnamese really needed to have victory for them. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in April of 1968 at the hotel that he was staying in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot by a white man that didn't agree with the things that King was doing during his time alive to get the African American community equal rights. King was a man that took nonviolent tactics to compete against segregation and other things like that. King's death shocked everyone in the nation. -
Tinker v. Des Moines School District
Tinker would sue the Des Moines school district for not allowing students express themselves freely. Students were being told they couldn't wear arm bands in protest so they took it to court and won because it went against their rights to them to stop. -
EPA created
The Environmental Protection Agency was a federal government agency that was made to protect the environment from harmful things that could ruin it. -
My Lai Massacre goes public
When the My Lai Massacre went public it showed that the U.S. military was doing wrong things by killing innocent Vietnamese people that had nothing to do with the war off of orders given to them. -
Publication of Pentagon Paper
The publication of the Pentagon Papers were papers that were within the Government that gave information about the Vietnam War. The papers were published by Daniel Ellsberg and brought to the attention to the public by the putting it in the New York Times Paper. These papers showed that the Government in the Vietnam War was doing a lot more than what they were telling to the American public. -
26th Amendment
The twenty-sixth amendment was made so that the voting age of people all of America would be decreased. The decreasing of the age to 18, allowed teenagers to vote who believed that they were old enough to make adult decisions. They knew that they wanted to vote so they could make decisions that older people in the United States didn't think that they could make. After many protests, the teenagers of the U.S. got what they wanted. -
War Powers Act
The Wars Power Act is a federal law that would take some power from the President from entering conflicts freely. It would have to go through Congress first. -
Paris Peace Act
The United States, Vietcong, North and South Vietnamese came to an agreement to end all war that was going on in Vietnam and restore peace between the people.