-
Arab-Israeli-Palestine Conflict Begins
It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of British Palestine in the morning of 15 May. -
Sam Walton Opens First Walmart
Sam Walton opened the first Walmart in 1962, after years in the retail management business. The discount chain expanded internationally over the next 30 years, growing into the world’s largest company by 2010. Walton stepped down as CEO in 1988, at the age of 70, but remained active in the company until his death in 1992. -
Israeli-Palestine Conflict Begins
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's longest-running and most controversial conflicts. At its heart, it is a conflict between two self-determination movements — the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project — that lay claim to the same territory. -
Six Day War
The Six-Day War was a brief but bloody conflict fought in June 1967 between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.The brief war ended with a U.N. brokered ceasefire, but it significantly altered the map of the Mideast and gave rise to lingering geopolitical friction. -
OPEC Oil Embargo
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations. -
First Cell-Phones
on April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from handheld subscriber equipment. The prototype handheld phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 2.5 pounds and measured 9 inches long, 5 inches deep and 1.75 inches wide. -
Bill Gates startes Microsoft
On this day in 1975, at a time when most Americans use typewriters, childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft, a company that makes computer software. They originally called it Micro-Soft for microprocessors and software in order to produce software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer. -
National Rifle Associate (NRA) Lobbying Begins
n 1975, it began to focus more on politics and established its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), with Carter as director. The next year, its political action committee (PAC), the Political Victory Fund, was created in time for the 1976 elections. -
Steve Jobs Starts Apple
In 1975, the 20-year-old Jobs and Wozniak set up shop in Jobs' parents' garage, dubbed the venture Apple, and began working on the prototype of the Apple I. To generate the $1,350 in capital they used to start Apple, Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen microbus, and Steve Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard calculator. Jobs was a college drop out. -
Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
The Community Reinvestment Act is a federal law enacted in 1977 to encourage depository institutions to meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The Community Reinvestment Act requires federal regulators to assess how well each bank fulfills its obligations to these communities. -
Camp David Accords
Under the Camp David Accords, Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, which Israel had taken in the Six-Day War in 1967. In exchange, Egypt offered a peace treaty and the establishment of normal diplomatic relations with Israel ending thirty years of warfare. -
Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty
The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords. The main features of the treaty were mutual recognition, cessation of the state of war that had existed since the 1948, normalization of relations and the complete withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula which Israel had captured during the Six Day War in 1967. -
Period: to
Iran Hostage Crisis
Iran hostage crisis, international crisis (1979–81) in which militants in Iran seized 66 American citizens at the U.S. embassy in Tehrān and held 52 of them hostage for more than a year. The crises had a dramatic effect on domestic politics in the United States and poisoned U.S. Iranian relations for decades. -
Conservative Resurgence
A periodization concept, often used by historians, for the period of time roughly corresponding to the administrations of Presidents Nixon through Reagan, and perhaps beyond, during which the dominance of liberalism was replaced by the dominance of conservatism in American politics. -
"Trickle Down Economics"
Trickle-down economics, also called trickle-down theory, refers to the economic proposition that taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society should be reduced as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term.Ronald Reagan believed in the trickle down economics theory. -
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs was a relatively small component of federal law-enforcement efforts until the presidency of Ronald Reagan, which began in 1981. Reagan greatly expanded the reach of the drug war and his focus on criminal punishment over treatment led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997 -
AIDS Epidemic
The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), found its way to the United States as early as 1960, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in gay men in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco in 1981 -
Sandra Day O'Connor Appointed to U.S Supreme Court.
O'Connor was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court in 1975 and appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979. President Ronald Reagan nominated O'Connor to the Supreme Court of the United States on July 7, 1981. -
Period: to
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. -
Marines in Lebanon
On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber driving a van devastated the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. Then, on October 23, a Lebanese terrorist drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. -
Iran-Contra Affair
In the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to effect the release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Money from the Iran weapons-sale then was used to fund the Contras, a group of guerrilla “freedom fighters” opposed to the Marxist government of Nicaragua. -
The Oprah Winfrey Show Firs Airs
On Sept. 8, 1986, the first edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired nationally. This daytime television talk show turns Winfrey into one of the most powerful, wealthy people in show business and, arguably, the most influential woman in America. -
"Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall"
"Tear down this wall", also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, was a speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987.President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the wall that divided Communist East Germany from the western enclave in Berlin. -
End of Cold War
During 1989 and 1990, the Berlin Wall came down, borders opened, and free elections ousted Communist regimes everywhere in eastern Europe. In late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its component republics. With stunning speed, the Iron Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end.
