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"Beatniks"
Beatniks were prominent during the second half of 1900s as part of a counter culture. This was part of a literary movement known as the Beats Generation. -
Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)
A cabinet-level department of the United States government from 1953 until 1979. It was administered by the United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. -
Operation Wetback
An immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), in cooperation with the Mexican government. The program was implemented in May 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell and utilized special tactics to deal with illegal border crossings into the United States by Mexican nationals. -
Geneva Conference
A conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland from April 26 – July 20, 1954. It was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War. -
Domino Theory
A theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. -
SEATO, Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
An international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. -
Brown v Board of Education of Topeka
A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
A political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement. -
Little Rock Nine
A group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Suez Crisis
An invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. -
Highway Act
Authorized the construction of a 41,000-mile network of interstate highways that would span the nation. Eisenhower signed the bill into law and was allocated $26 billion to pay for them. -
Formation of SCLC, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
An African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, which is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., had a large role in the American civil rights movement. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957, and Congress approved it in March of the same year. Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine. -
Sputnik
First artificial Earth satellite launched by Moscow in 1957. The launch sparked U.S. fears of Soviet dominance in technology and outer space. It led to the creation of NASA and the space race. -
Yates v United States
A case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the First Amendment protected radical and reactionary speech, unless it posed a "clear and present danger." -
Civil Rights of 1957
Eisenhower sent Congress a proposal for civil rights legislation. It was a federal voting rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Its purpose was to show the federal government's support for racial equality after Brown v. Board of Education. Opposition to the Act, including the longest one-person filibuster in U.S. history, limited its immediate impact. -
NDEA, National Defense and Education Act
NDEA was passed in response to the soviet's launch of Sputnik. The law provided federal funding to the U.S's national defense. It also supports education in the area of science, math and foreign language -
NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA was enacted in 1958 as an organization that would conduct all non-military space program, in addiction to other space studies. It was created as part of the space race against the soviets. -
Civil Rights of 1960
Enacted May 6, 1960, it was a U.S federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for offenders. -
Formation of SNCC, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
SNCC was founded in April 1960 by young African Americans regrading civil rights. Their intentions are to enact non-violent change to the South, giving young blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement. -
OPEC, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
OPEC is a intergovernmental organization created by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi and Venezuela. It was created to secure fair and stable petroleum prices. -
U-2 Incident
In May 1960, the USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane in soviet air. The caught pilot was charged with espionage, later released in exchange for a captured soviet agent known as the "spy swap". -
"Military-Industrial Complex"
As part of Eisenhower's farewell speech, the president warned of a "military industrial complex". The idea that a nation's main manufacturing source is military weapon, leading to most of the national budget funding the military.
