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Joseph McCarthy- McCarthyism
McCarthyism refers to an effort spearheaded by Senator Joseph McCarthy beginning in the 1950's to find Communists and Communist sympathizers in the U.S. Senator McCarthy believed Communism was the greatest evil in the world and that the Soviet Union would try to overthrow the U.S. government from within by using specially-trained operatives -
Period: to
1950-1990's
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The Korean War
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. -
The Cold War- Rosenburg Executions
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. -
Brown V. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court's unanimous decision overturned provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which had allowed for "separate but equal" public facilities, including public schools in the United States. Declaring that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," the Brown v. Board decision helped break the back of state-sponsored segregation, -
Emmett Till's Murder
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death gouged his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan. -
Civil Rights Movement
During the civil rights era in the United States, groups and individuals worked to end racial segregation and the unequal treatment of African-Americans. Led by prominent figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., protesters and organizers used grassroots campaigns and legal means to transform a nation and seek a brighter future for all Americans. -
The Space Race
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world's two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system. -
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States following the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. -
The Vietnam War- U.S. Involvment
By 1969, at the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were involved in the Vietnam conflict. Growing opposition to the war in the United States led to bitter divisions among Americans, both before and after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. -
Malcolm X Assassinated
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights -
Martin Luther King Assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. A single shot fired by James Earl Ray from over 200 feet away at a nearby motel struck King in the neck. He died an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital. The death of America's leading civil rights advocate sparked a wave of rioting in the black communities of several cities around the country. -
Assassination Of Robert F. Kennedy
At 12:50 a.m. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate, is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. The shooter, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was promptly arrested. Kennedy, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital, where he fought for his life for the next 24 hour -
WoodStock-1969
On this day in 1969, the grooviest event in music history--the Woodstock Music Festival--draws to a close after three days of peace, love and rock 'n' roll in upstate New York.As "Three Days of Peace and Music," Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the arty New York town of Woodstock. -
Ricahard Nixon/ Watergate Scandal
Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, several burglars were arrested inside the office of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), located in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. This was no ordinary robbery: The prowlers were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, and they had been caught while attempting to wiretap phones and steal secret documents.In August 1974, after his role in the Watergate conspiracy had finally come to light, the president resigned -
Jimmy Carter/Iran Hostage Crisis
On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. The immediate cause of this action was President Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow Iran’s deposed Shah, a pro-Western autocrat who had been expelled from his country some months before. The students set their hostages free on January 21, 1981, 444 days after the crisis began and just hours after President Ronald Reagan deliveered his inaugral adress. -
John Lennon's Murder
John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City. The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment building when Mark David Chapman shot him four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely, was rushed to the hospital but died en route -
Assassination Attempt of Ronald Reagan
John Hinckley, Jr. shoots President Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. just after the president had addressed the Building and Construction Workers Union of the AFL-CIO. Hinckley was armed with a .22 revolver with exploding bullets and was only ten feet away from Reagan when he began shooting. Fortunately, he was a poor shot and most of the bullets did not explode as they were supposed to. But one bullet manged to hit President Reagan in the chest. -
HIV/AIDS
The origin of AIDS and HIV has puzzled scientists ever since the illness first came to light in the early 1980s. For over twenty years it has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments, with everything from a promiscuous flight attendant to a suspect vaccine programme being blamed. -
Breakup of The Soviet Union
On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. A few days earlier, representatives from 11 Soviet republics (Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) met in the Kazakh city of Alma-Ata and announced that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union. Instead, they declared they would establish a Commonwealth of Independent States.
