-
Jamestown
Jamestown was the permanent settlement in America. The British settlers began a completely new world. They set up trade, began colonization, and began paving the overall road for America. They were the first people in the beginning of a new nation essentially. -
Plymouth
The pilgrims colonized Plymouth. The pilgrims wanted to escape the British to start a new life outside of their old religion. This was the second colony in the new nation after Jamestown. -
Enlightenment
The American Enlightenment was a period in American history that was full of learning. It applied science, religion, and politics to things. During this time, people really started to question and figure out the way that things work. This was the first step to the American Revolution. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian war was a seven-year-long war between Britain and America against the French and the Native Americans. The most important piece of this war was the Treaty of Paris. This gave Britain the land to the east of the Mississippi that was French previously. It also gave all of the French land west of the Mississippi to the Spanish. -
Stamp Act
The stamp act was a tax from Great Britain that caused everything to have proof. The act made it very difficult to do anything because you basically needed approval for everything you wanted to do. They were also being taxed for things without really knowing what was happening. This started the phrase "no taxation without representation." -
Townshend Acts
These acts were a series of acts passed by the British that taxed goods in the colonies. The Colonists viewed the acts as abusing power because they didn't have any representation in parliament. The colonists did not respond to these acts well as they started to rebel. The Colonists biggest form of rebelling at the time was to smuggle goods. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston massacre began as multiple armed British redcoats guarded the Boston Customs House. A group of colonists were not happy with them and began throwing snowballs, ice, and oyster shells at the guards. A colonists hit a guard in the face and drew blood. The guards began firing in response to this, thinking that it was violent. When the smoke cleared, the guards killed 5 and wounded 6 colonists. This further incited the rage towards Britain. -
Tea Acts
British Parliament passed the Tea Act that allowed the British East India Company to sell the colonies. They sold for very cheap compared to other brands, but they still taxed when the tea got to the colonies. As a result of taxes, the colonists had began smuggling things that were taxed. The colonists still managed to smuggle the tea even though this was designed to stop tea smuggling. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a protest by American's in response to being taxed. The Sons of Liberty dressed up as native Americans, boarded docked ships in the harbor, and threw 342 chests full of tea into the water. -
First Continental Congress
The first continental congress was composed of members from 12 of the 13 colonies. They met in Philadelphia at Carpenter's Hall. They did not have a set goal, but they had tasks that they were supposed to complete. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The battles of Lexington and Concord kicked off the American Revolutionary war. These wars were a result of America being tired of having the British hovering over them every time they did anything. The biggest things that set off the war for America were all of the acts Britain put in place. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration was written by 5 people and adopted by the committee on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia. This was America's first formal statement that they were declaring independence and wanted to govern themselves. The declaration was a huge step in becoming a completely independent nation away from Britain. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle of Saratoga was 2 Battles that were fought 18 days apart. The Battle of Quebec was supposed to isolate the New England colonies and squash them completely because much of the Continental Army was sick and in retreat. The Army survived this battle. The second battle was the battle of Bemis Heights, which was won by the Continental Army. The Continental Army won the Battle of Saratoga decisively. This was a huge win for them and a crucial turning point in the revolutionary war. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of confederation was the first written constitution in the United States. This officially named the colonies the "United States of America." This also gave America a stronger union and government that compared better to other nations. -
Battle of Yorktown
Th Battle of Yorktown was the last major battle in the American Revolution. It was the start of the nation's new independence. It cemented Washington as a great leader and gave him a huge advantage to be first US president. The British army surrendered to Washington's army in Yorktown, Virginia. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris formally ended the American Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay negotiated the peace treaty with representatives of King George III. In the treaty, Britain formally recognized American independence and it seceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi river to the US. This doubled the size of the nation and paved the way for the westward expansion. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shay's Rebellion was a series of violent attacks on courthouses and other government properties in Massachusetts. They began in 1786 and eventually led to full-blown military confrontation in 1787. The rebels were mainly revolutionary soldiers who were now farmers. They opposed state economic policies causing poverty foreclosures. They rebelled because they wanted compensation for fighting in the war. -
United States Constitution
The US constitution established America's national government and fundamental laws. It also guaranteed certain basic rights for citizens. It set up the three branches of government that we still have today (Judicial, legislative, and executive). It was a better version of the articles of confederation and replaced them. It had a much stronger federal government with a system of checks and balances to ensure no branch had too much power. -
Federalist Papers
The Federalist papers were a series of 85 essays arguing for ratification of the proposed US constitution. They appeared in the Independent Journal and was addressed to the people of the state of New York. They were written by statesmen Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. -
Washington is First President
George Washington was the commander in chief of the continental army. He pleased the people of the United States throughout his time leading the army. He was elected as president in a lobsided election. He was inaugurated in New York City and was the only president to not use the White House as his home. He served two terms as president and everyone still loved him, but he did not run again because he didn't want to mess up the country. -
Bill of Rights
The Bill of rights was an afterthought to the US constitution. It was not originally deemed important, but it was eventually realized as being important because they wanted to get the constitution ratified. James Madison was the biggest contributor to the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments were ratified to keep the people of America safe. -
Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin to speed up the process of removing the seeds from the cotton fiber. Cotton was America's leading export in the 19th century. Although Whitney did not intend to, the cotton gin increased the need for slaves in the south. Whitney also eventually helped make muskets, which led to the creation of interchangeable parts that made repairing much easier and assembly faster for many things. -
Election of 1800
The Election of 1800 was an important election because it entailed the first peaceful transfer of power between parties under the constitution. Thomas Jefferson succeeded John Adams in the election. The election ended up having to go to the House of Representatives tied for a few days until they finally got it sorted out and elected Jefferson as president. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the current United States. The land that was purchased stretched from West of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Border. James Monroe purchased the land during Thomas Jefferson's era of presidency. The land purchased was a big deal for the US because it allowed us to trade more and control the entirety of the Mississippi. -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the biggest opposition for slavery at first. He was opposed to it and made it clear that he was. He was the 16th President of the United States, elected shortly before the civil war. He wrote the emancipation proclamation, which paved the way for the end of slavery. He also wrote the Gettysburg Address to bring peace to the people who had lost a loved one in the battle. He was assassinated in 1865 and is viewed as one of the best American presidents in American history. -
War of 1812
The United States took on the Naval superpower Great Britain. The war began because Britain was still trying to restrict American trade and America's want to keep expanding the territory. The US fought the Native Americans, the Canadians, and the British in the War of 1812. The US took many defeats in the war including the burning and capturing of Washington D.C. The war was ended when Great Britain and the United States signed a treaty in Ghent, Belgium. -
Battle of New Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans was the final battle in the War of 1812. It was fought after the war was over, but the news did not get there in time to tell them to stop fighting. Andrew Jackson went out and knocked on doors to recruit people to the militia. He used anyone that would fight including slaves, Indians, pirates, and frontiersman. The US fought using a system that only used the best shooters to shoot and the best reloaders to reload the muskets. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri compromise was a big part of America because it broke the country into sections. It gave Missouri to the Union as a slave state and claimed Maine as a free state. It also banned slavery purchase from the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36 30 parallel. -
Monroe Doctrine
President James Monroe warned the powers of Europe to stop interfering with the colonization of the Western Hemisphere. He stated that if they did, then the United States would view it as a hostile act. This protected the western Hemisphere from Europe because the US would go to war with them. -
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean using the Hudson River. the river made it much easier to move things and travel to the new land from the Louisiana Purchase. Before the Erie Canal, people had to walk or use the land to get wherever they wanted, which was very hard and it took a very long time. -
Nullification
The Nullification started when the South Carolina state legislature nullified federal tariffs that impacted South Carolina negatively. He said that if the federal government enforced the tariffs, then secession would follow. president Jackson responded with force and said that the law must be obeyed. Jackson made a compromise that would lower the tariff for everyone and please South Carolina. -
Trail of Tears
There were hundreds of thousands of Native Americans that were living in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida that were moved from their homes. The United States designated an "Indian Territory" to the west of the Mississippi. The Native Americans had to walk to the designated area. There were thousands of native Americans that died attempting to make it to the area. -
Telegraph
Samuela Morse invented the Telegraph in the 1830s and 1840s. It was a revolutionary invention that enabled people to communicate quicker and much easier. In 1844, he sent the first telegraph message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The telegraph paved the way for the telephone and the internet to use for a very long time after. -
Annexation of Texas
Mexico used Texas to draw people in and gave them free land within Texas. Americans lied to Mexico about why they wanted the land and eventually the American population outnumbered the Mexican population. The Mexican government tried to regulate the communities, but that resulted in rebelling from the Americans. In 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. America claimed the land as their own and fought in the bottom of Texas, which was debating where the border was for Texas. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was 5 bills that attempted to resolve disputes over slavery in new territories after the Mexican American War. It made California a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to decide for themselves, and defined a new Texas-New Mexico border. It also made it easier for slaveowners to recover runaway slaves under the fugitive slave act of 1850. The compromise led to the Civil War because of how people felt about it. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
The Senator of Illionois proposed a bill the organize the territory of Nebraska. The territory became Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas. The bill raised controversy on the topic of slavery because it has previously been banned in part of the territory. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas was series of outbreaks of guerilla warfare between pro slavery and anti-slavery forces following the new territory of Kansas. The pro slavery groups came from Missouri. Throughout all of the fighting, 55 people died from 1855 to 1859. These incidents served as an important precursor to the Civil War. -
Dred Scott vs. Sanford
The Dred Scott vs. Sanford case was a decade long fight for freedom by a black enslaved man (Dred Scott). The case went through several courts and eventually went to the supreme court. The supreme court did not give him freedom and it gave the ant-slavery movement momentum. The case and the decision were a key thing moving towards the civil war. -
Lincoln/Douglas Debates
The republican candidate Abraham Lincoln and Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas had 7 debates before the election of 1860. It was the first time that presidents had argued peacefully in front of a crowd and using their own thoughts and points to talk about. The biggest issue in the country at the current time was slavery. Thousands of people looked at the debates and watched it to know what they were talking about and who they wanted to vote for. -
South Carolina Secedes
5 representatives from South Carolina authored a letter to the House that said South Carolina would secede from the United States. They were the first of 11 total states that would eventually secede from the nation. The South began seceding because of slavery and formed the Confederate States of America in 1861. -
Beginning Of the Civil War
Soon after the Confederate States of America had been formed, the first shots of the civil war were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The Union had 23 states and had a size advantage in population and manufacturing. The Confederates had 11 States and very strong military tradition along with very strong soldiers and the best commanders in the nation. The first battle, known as the Battle of Bull Run, was a confederate win and caused both sides to call for more troops. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Lincoln stated that al enslaved people in the states that were currently rebelling against the Union would be free. He freed all of the slaves in the confederate states that were not bordering a union state. This changed Lincoln's views on slavery and redefined the civil war from a struggle to preserve the union to one focused on ending slavery and set up how the country would be after the Civil War. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The battle of Gettysburg is considered as one of the most important battles in the Civil War. After a huge win for the Lee and the confederates, they marched into Pennsylvania and clashed with the Union army. The confederates were on offense for days but could not win the battle. The confederates had to retreat toward Virgina after having many killed and wounded in the battle. The Union won in a huge turning point, stopping Lee's army from invading the north. -
Gettysburg Address
President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the National Ceremony of Gettysburg on the site of one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Civil War. He invoked the principles of human equality in the speech and connected the deaths in the Civil War as a new birth of freedom. The speech was remembered as one of the greatest speeches in American History. -
Reconstruction Era
The Reconstruction Era was the effort to reintegrate the Southern states from the confederacy back into the United States. It was also the period when 4 million newly freed ex-slaves were trying to get into the United States. The government passed strict black codes to control the labor and behavior of ex-slaves. This caused the north to be outraged and a new wing in the republican party. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. This made all slaves free in America. This also meant that the Union had gotten what many people sacrificed themselves for during the Civil War. -
Freedman's Bureau
The Freedman's Bureau was established by congress to help millions of ex slaves and poor whites in the south in the aftermath of the civil war. They provided food, housing, and medical aid to them. They also helped establish schools and offered legal assistance for them. It was an attempt to settle former slaves on land confiscated or abandoned during the civil war.The Bureau was prevented from fully achieving its goals due to a shortage of funds and people to help, along with politics of race. -
End of the Civil War
General Grant accepted General Lee's surrender at the Appomattox Court House on April 9. The Union won the war after many turning points throughout the war. The war ended as one of the bloodiest 4 years in American history after losing 620,000 total union and confederate soldiers. Another death that did not happen on the battlefield because of the Civil War was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln the night before the war was over. -
Purchase of Alaska
The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for less than 2 cents an acre in 1867. The territory was twice the size of Texas and added a plot of land that was different from the rest of America. The territory also had a lot of natural resources, and a gold rush was sparked in Alaska that won more happiness from the rest of the country about it. -
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Central pacific railroad and the Union Pacific railroad companies built the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. It went from the western part of the country to the east. The two companies raced each other, with one company starting in Sacramento, California and the other company starting in Omaha, Nebraska. They met each other at Promontory, Utah to complete the railroad on May 10, 1869. -
space filler
-
space filler
-
Red Cross Founded
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross on May 21, 1881. She created this after she heard about the swiss inspired red cross foundation while visiting Europe. She fought for the US to protect the war-injured. This eventually became what we know today, which provides a lot of relief to the people and place that are affected by natural disaster. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act counteracted a Supreme Court decision of the previous year, Wabash v. Illinois, that had struck down states' authority to regulate railroads. The act created the Interstate Commerce Commission, charged with investigating interstate shipping, forcing railroads to make their rates public, and suing in court when necessary to make companies reduce "unjust or unreasonable" rates. -
Plessy V. Ferguson
This was a major case for the segregation of america. The supreme court ruled that segregation laws did not violate the US constitution as long as the facilities were equal. This was true, but the facilities were not really equal, although they claimed them to be. -
President McKinley Assassination
William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was assassinated at the temple of music in Buffalo, New York. He was 6 months into serving his second term as president. He was killed by Leon Czolgosz. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes President
On September 14, 1901 Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the US. He was the youngest president to be sworn into office at the age of 42. He was the first president to leave the United States during his term. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in ending the Russo-Japanese war. -
Pure Food And Drug Act
When Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle revealed food adulteration and unsanitary practices in meat production, public outrage prompted Congress to establish federal responsibility for public health and welfare. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation’s first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Agency. -
Model T Introduction
The Model T, sold by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927, was the earliest effort to make a car that most people could actually buy. It was actually affordable and it became so popular at one point that a majority of Americans owned one, directly helping rural Americans become more connected with the rest of the country and leading to the numbered highway system. The manufacturing needs of the Model T went hand in hand with Ford’s revolutionary modernization of the manufacturing process. -
16th Amendment
The 16th Amendment was created in 1913. The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution gives Congress the power to collect a federal income tax from all individuals and businesses without sharing or “apportioning” it among the states or basing the collection on the U.S. Census. -
Panama Canal
Following the failure of a French construction team in the 1880s, the United States commenced building a canal across a 50-mile stretch of the Panama isthmus in 1904. Chief engineer John Stevens devised innovative techniques and spurred the crucial redesign from a sea-level to a lock canal. His successor, George Washington, stepped up excavation efforts of a stubborn mountain range and oversaw the building of the dams. It opened in 1914. -
Unrestricted submarine warfare
On February 1, 1917, the lethal threat of the German U-boat submarine raises its head again, as Germany returns to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare it had previously suspended in response to pressure from the United States and other neutral countries. They continued to do this and eventually pushed the United States into the War. -
Sinking of Lusitania
On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the British-owned luxury steamship Lusitania, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans, according to the Library of Congress. The disaster immediately strained relations between Germany and the neutral United States, fueled anti-German sentiment and set off a chain of events that eventually led to the United States entering World War I. -
18th amendment
The 18th Amendment prohibited alcohol use in the United States. This caused a lot of turmoil in the United States. People began simply breaking the law and they would get alcohol and drink it. People began hiding it often and they would go to secret places to drink. People got very creative with hiding their alcohol and the police could not find it. Speakeasies were created as secret places to drink and you would need a code to get into the place. These were well hidden from cops. -
19th Amendment
The 19th amendment was ratified in 1919 which granted women the right to vote. The woman's suffrage used rallies, marches, articles, debates, and more to further their cause, and getting the opportunity to vote was a big accomplishment. This victory took decades but it was a defining achievement. They thought it was a huge step in the right direction for getting men and women equal rights. -
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was a report on German reparations for World War I drafted by a committee of experts led by American financier Charles G. Dawes that was accepted by the Allies and by Germany on August 16, 1924. The plan provided for the reorganization of the Reichsbank and for an initial loan of 800 million marks to Germany. The Dawes Plan seemed to work so well that by 1929 it was believed that the stringent controls over Germany could be removed and total reparations fixed. -
Great Depression
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the US, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. -
Wall Street Crash
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression (1929-39), the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time. -
FDR elected for a third term
On July 18, 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms. He ran for president again, even though there was an unwritten rule that someone didn't run for more than two terms. He received some criticism for running a second time. -
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. -
US joins WW2 efforts
The day after Peral Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan. The United States eventually joined the Allies in the war. The Allies included Great Britain, France, The Soviet Union, The United States, and China. They fought the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. -
Japanese Internment Camps
Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, would be incarcerated in isolated camps. Enacted in reaction to the Pearl Harbor attacks and the ensuing war, the incarceration of Japanese Americans is considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century. -
D-Day
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion required extensive planning. -
US bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
United Nations Formed
The United Nations (U.N.) is a global diplomatic and political organization dedicated to international peace and stability. The U.N. was officially established in 1945 following the horrific events of World War II, when international leaders proposed creating a new global organization to maintain peace and avoid the abuses of war. The U.N. initially had just 51 member states. -
Truman Doctrine
In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Historians have often cited Truman’s address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold War. The Cold war stemmed into a big scare for the United States and changed history. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. It was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbors and also to improve commerce between the US and Europe. -
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of the United States, Great Britain and France to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. The blockade made it impossible to touch foot in Berlin because it was a declaration of war. The US solution to this problem was to airlift food and drop it into Berlin. This was known as the Berlin Airlift. -
Desegregation of Military
President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, calling for the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, he repudiated 170 years of officially sanctioned discrimination. Since the American Revolution, African Americans had served in the military, but almost always separately from white soldiers. The Black soldiers typically had small roles in the military and didn't really do much. This was a big step for America and a big step towards everything being less segregated. -
NATO Formed
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union founded a rival alliance in 1955. The alignment of nearly every European nation into one of the two opposing camps formalized the political division of the European continent that had taken place since World War II. This alignment provided the framework for the military standoff that continued throughout the Cold War. -
Introduction of Levittowns
A Levittown is a large suburban development community. Levittown was a post-war housing project consisting of mass-produced homes. The development consisted of more than 17,000 detached homes that were built to house thousands of veterans who returned after World War II. The newly built suburban communities offered attractive alternatives to the cramped central city locations. -
Korean War begins
Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years. Korea had been separated for years by a demilitarized zone. North Korea became a communist territory and South Korea became a democracy. The border is still a demilitarized zone today -
Brown V. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare and coincided with increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. People were continuously on the lookout for people that were suspicious and had any trace of promoting communism. -
Emmett Till death
On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman four days earlier. His killers made him take a cotton Gin to the river. The white woman’s husband and his brother beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. -
Rosa Parks Arrested
Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. -
USSR launches first satellite
The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “fellow traveler,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. This was the start of the space race that the United States participated in. There were multiple countries in the race. -
Greensboro Sit Ins
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. These sit ins forced restaurants to change and serve african americans. This also caused them to desegregate the restaurants. -
Nixon Kennedy televised Debate
In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in the first televised presidential debates in American history. The Kennedy-Nixon debates not only had a major impact on the election’s outcome but ushered in a new era in which crafting a public image and taking advantage of media exposure became essential ingredients of a successful political campaign. They also heralded the central role television has continued to play in the democratic process. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961 was a failed attack launched by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to push Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. On April 17, 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. It didn't go well. The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense 13-day standoff in 1962 over the installation of nuclear Soviet missiles in Cuba. In a TV address on October 22 JFK notified Americans about the presence of the missiles and made it clear the US was prepared to use military force if necessary. Many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Disaster was avoided when the US agreed to Soviet Union’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the US not invading Cuba. -
MLK "I have a Dream" Speech
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech at the march on Washington in front of 250,000 people on August 28, 1963. Weaving in references to the country’s Founding Fathers and the Bible, King used universal themes to depict the struggles of African Americans before closing with an improvised riff on his dreams of equality. The speech was immediately recognized as a highlight of the successful protest and has endured as one of the signature moments of the civil rights movement. -
JFK assassination
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. The driver of the president’s Lincoln limousine, with its top off, raced to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, but after being shot in the neck and head, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. He was 46 years old. The assassination had a profound political and cultural impact on the United States. -
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. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Voting rights act 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. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
MLK assassination
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. -
Apollo 11 Landing
On July 20, 1969, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy threw down the Cold War gauntlet and announced the ambitious goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag in the dusty lunar soil. The United States won the space race by putting feet on the moon and they still have the flag on the moon to this day. -
Energy Crisis
American oil consumption in the form of gas was rising as domestic oil production was declining, leading to an increasing dependence on oil imported from abroad. Americans worried little about dwindling supply or spike in prices and were encouraged by policymakers who believed that Arab oil exporters couldn’t afford to lose the revenue from the U.S. market. In 1973, when an oil embargo imposed by members of the OAPEC led to fuel shortages and sky-high prices throughout much of the decade. -
Roe V. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States. The court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion had been illegal throughout much of the country since the late 19th century. -
US withdraw from Vietnam
Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam. -
Ronald Reagan Elected
Dubbed the Great Communicator, the affable Ronald Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. Reagan, who survived a 1981 assassination attempt, died at age 93 after battling Alzheimer’s disease. -
Space Shuttle Challenger explosion
The NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after liftoff, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who would have been the first civilian in space. It was later determined that two rubber O-rings, which had been designed to seal the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch.