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Murder of Emmett Till
Two white men in Mississippi kidnapped and brutally murdered fourteen-year-old Emmett Till. Till allegedly whistled at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and another man, J. W. Milam, abducted Till, beat him, mutilated him, shot him, and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River. Emmett’s mother held an open-casket funeral so that Till’s body could make national news. The men were brought to trial, but an all-white jury found the two not guilty.
-The American Yawp -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery city bus and was arrested. Montgomery activists rallied around her because of this. Montgomery’s black population coordinated an organized boycott of the city’s buses. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted from December 1955 until December 20, 1956, when the Supreme Court ordered their integration. The boycott crushed segregation in Montgomery’s public transportation and energized the entire civil rights movement.
-The American Yawp -
Sputnik 1 Goes to Orbit
After the end of the war, American and Soviet rocket engineering teams worked to adapt German technology in order to create an intercontinental ballistic missile. The Soviets achieved success first. They used the same launch vehicle to send Sputnik 1 into orbit. It was a decisive Soviet propaganda victory. -
The Civil Rights Act
As pressure built, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, the first such measure passed since Reconstruction. The act was compromised away nearly to nothing, although it did achieve some gains, such as creating the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Commission, which was charged with investigating claims of racial discrimination. And yet, despite its weakness, the act signaled that pressure was finally mounting on Americans to confront the legacy of discrimination. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba. On October 22, President Kennedy addressed the American people to alert them to this threat. Over the course of the next several days, the world watched in horror as the United States and the Soviet Union hovered on the brink of nuclear war. Finally, on October 28, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba in exchange for a U.S. agreement to remove its missiles from Turkey.
-The American Yawp -
The Moon Landing
Americans hailed this as a profound victory in the space race against the Soviet Union. This landmark achievement fulfilled the promise of John F. Kennedy, who had declared in 1961 that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The brief moment of wonder only punctuated years of turmoil. The Vietnam War disillusioned a generation, and the forward-thinking spirit of a complex decade had waned. Uncertainty loomed.
-The American Yawp -
The Watergate Scandal
"No scandal did more to unravel public trust than Watergate. Five men were arrested inside the offices of the DNC in the Watergate Complex. Police found the men attempting to install sophisticated bugging equipment. One of those arrested was a former CIA employee then working as a security aide for the Nixon administration’s Committee to Re-elect the President."
-The American Yawp While there is no direct evidence that Nixon supported the break-in, he was recorded saying some fishy things. -
American Troops Return from Vietnam
Nixon sought to appease antiwar sentiment by promising to phase out the draft, train South Vietnamese forces to assume more responsibility for the war effort, and gradually withdraw American troops. Nixon and his advisors called it “Vietnamization.” Nixon was elected president and his plans went through.
The American Yawp