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America enters a recession
America entered another recession with unemployment at 6%; worst level since WWII. The Kennedy Administration blamed Eisenhower for this because of the failure to stimulate growth. Kennedy's advisors wanted to push deficit spending by improving the Department of Defense's budget by 20% for nuclear missles and lowering taxes. This was similar to FDR's New Deal. In 1961, Congress passed the new minimum wage to $1.25 per hour, helped out high unemployed cities, and extended unemployment insurance. -
Period: to
New Frontier
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Creation of the Peace Corps & Alliance for Progress
Created by Kennedy with a goal to help out third world countries. Many of the volunteers were right out of college and it got the nickname "Kennedy's Kiddie Korps". Some work included agricultural, medical, or education. Allaince for Progress was another foreign aid program created to help out Latin American countries. This was mainly created to prevent the spread of communism from Castro's regime and the US spent $12 billion in Latin America. This program did not bring fundamental reforms. -
Space Race Begins
After the first Soviet and first American orbited the earth in space, the two superpowers were in overdrive to get the first man on the moon. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) began creating launch pads in Cape Canaveral, Florida and a control facility in Texas. In 1962, Kennedy addressed the nation on the Space Race effort. -
Freedom 7 launch
Alan Shepard was the first American to enter space. He was in a capsule called Freedom 7 that was strapped to a rocket booster and launched into orbit. He eventually reentered the atmosphere and landed in the Atlantic and was picked up by the Navy. This was the result of the Space Race that started in the 1950s in which the USSR launched the first man ever in space; Yuri Gagarin. He was in space only a month before Shepard. -
Problems at home
After the US sent their first man into space, there was a bit of releif and American ingenuity restored. Before his death in the fall of 1963, Kennedy started to focus more on improving American life at home by reducing poverty. He had Robert Kennedy investigate on racial tensions in the south and he presented a bill for segregation and to cut taxes by over $10 billion. -
The last of Kennedy
President and Mrs. Kennedy were in Dallas Texas to meet with the democratic party and discuss issues. They were riding in a convertible limousine with the Texas Governor when Kennedy was shot from a distant building. The car sped its way to the nearest hospital where President Kennedy was announced dead. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on the plane right after Kennedy's death. The TV made it possible to see everything that was going on at the time and the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald. -
Warren Commission Investigates
After the assassination, The Warren Commission investigates into the killing of President Kennedy and after looking into the killer, they concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald has acted alone. Again in 1979, they reopened the investigation and concluded that Oswald was a conspiracy and that two people shot at the president because one shooter from one angle would have been able to make an impossible shot at the President. Other private parties investigated and concluded the CIA or communists did it. -
Man on the moon
July 20, 1969: first man on the moon which was Neil Armstrong. The long term effect of this was colleges and schools were expanding their science programs. A lot of the items invented for space flight are practical house hold things such as the cordless drill and tennis shoes. New industries and jobs emerged for creating these newly developed consumer goods.
