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Fair Employment Practices Committee formed
The FEPC was created by Eisenhower in order to help prevent discrimination against African Americans in defense and government jobs. After the executive order was signed, many African Americans applied for defense jobs, but the industry as a whole refused to cooperate. This forced Roosevelt to strengthen the FEPC in 1943 by increasing its budget and replacing a Washington-based part-time staff with a full-time staff located around the country. -
CORE formed
The Congress of Racial Equality was formed in 1942 and became one of the leading organizations in the early years of the American Civil Rights movement. In the beginning, it focused on pacifist and nonviolent ways of protest, but as the years went on, they shifted their focus to the political ideology of black nationalism and separatism. CORE helped with and supported many movements during the civil rights movement like Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. -
Jackie Robinson joins Dodgers
Jackie Robinson was the first black athlete to play Major League Baseball in the 20th century. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and was named Rookie of the Year that year, National League MVP in 1949 and a World Series champ in 1955. -
Desegregation in Military
In 1948, Truman signed the executive order establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military. -
US aids French in Vietnam (1950 - 1954)
The US chose to provide aide to the French in Vietnam because after China fell to communism, they were afraid that Vietnam would as well, and then the rest of Southeast Asia would follow. This is known as the Domino Theory. Many Americans opposed US involvement. They saw the conflict as a civil war that we should not interfere in, they saw South Vietnam as a corrupt dictatorship and that defending them was immoral, and they believed that the US draft system was unfair. The war ended in 1954 -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education was a major ruling by the Supreme Court saying that the American State laws establishing racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. This ruling had a large impact on schools, and completely took the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling out of effect. The court unanimously ruled that the "separate but equal" standard had no place in the education system. They said that the children were "being deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th amendment -
SEATO formed
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was made by the US, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. Its purpose was to stop the spread of communism in their countries. In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed by the US, Can., and other Western nations. It was made to provide security to the signing nations from the Soviet Union. NATO is still in effect today, while SEATO was successful for a short period of time, and ended in 1977. -
Rosa Parks gets arrested
Rosa Parks was arrested in 1954 for not giving up her front seat on a bus to a white person. This made a great impact on the start of desegregation of Montgomery buses, because it sparked the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott lasted for 381 days, and brought segregation to the forefront of American politics. -
French Surrender
Ho Chi Minh’s Vietminh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days. The Vietminh victory at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French colonial influence in Indochina and cleared the way for the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel at the conference of Geneva -
Montgomery Improvement Organization formed
The MIA was formed in the days following the December 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks, to oversee the Montgomery bus boycott -
The Southern Manifesto
The Southern Manifesto was a time when the south rebelled against the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling, stating that all schools needed to be integrated. The Manifesto said that the ruling was an abuse of judicial power over the states' rights. It told all southerners to do everything they could to resist the ruling and integration of schools. Howard Smith initially introduced the idea of the Manifesto in a speech on the House Floor. A small group rose to applaud the speech; no one stood to oppose it. -
Montgomery Buses Desegregated
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
SCLC formed
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was an all black organization created to coordinate the nonviolent actions of local protest groups throughout the South. MLK Jr. was the main leader, and he help the organization to draw on the power of the black churches. The Montgomery bus boycott was the main event that led the SCLC to be formed. The SCLC formed other organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Organization and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a result of President Eisenhower sending a proposal for a civil rights legislation to congress. The act established the Civil Rights section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to get court orders against interference with the right to vote. It also created a Federal Rights Commission with the right to investigate discriminatory cases and recommend things they can do to fix the problem. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students that enrolled in Little Rock High School in 1957. This was a major event for the civil rights movement because it was testing the Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board. On the students' first day, the Alabama governor called in the Alabama National Guard to block their entry into the school. Later that month, President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the children to the school. Eventually the students were welcomed. -
Vietcong formed
Vietcong, in full Vietnam Cong San, English Vietnamese Communists, the guerrilla force that, with the support of the North Vietnamese Army, fought against South Vietnam and the United States. -
NASA created
The driving force for the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was the launch of the Soviet Union's satellite, Sputnik 1. This event began the space race, and quickly led to the creation of NASA. The Senate Special Committee on Space and Aeronautics was created in early 1958 with the goal of creating a space agency. There were Congressional hearings in the spring of '58, and Congress and Eisenhower passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law on July 29, 1958. -
SDS formed
Students for a Democratic Society was an American student organization that flourished in the mid-to-late 1960s and was known for its activism against the Vietnam War -
Greensboro Sit-In
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed with the goal to give young black students more of a voice in the fight for civil rights. It wasn't long until the organization became one of the movements' more radical groups. SNCC was an off branch of SCLC, and was a large part of of the freedom rides led by the SCLC. SNCC also directed much of the black voter registration drives in the South. In 1964, three of its members were killed by the Ku Klux Klan. This began SNCC's violence. -
Peace Corps created
When the Peace Corps was founded, there were thousands of volunteers for the program, but only around 750 people were chosen to help in 13 different countries around the world. There were three main goals for the Corps: to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women, to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. -
JFK elected to President
John F. Kennedy was the youngest president ever to be elected. His economic programs launched the country into its longest sustained expansion since WWII. He took aggressive action to equal rights problems, calling for a new civil rights legislation. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia. -
Desegregation of Interstate Transport
In response to the "Freedom Rides" organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the desegregation of all buses, trains, and terminals. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
On April 17, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. -
Berlin Wall built
The reason for the Berlin Wall being built was by 1961, Cold War tensions over Berlin were running high again. For East Germans dissatisfied with life under the communist system, West Berlin was a gateway to the democratic West. Between 1949 and 1961, some 2.5 million East Germans fled from East to West Germany, most via West Berlin. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This event was the moment when two superpowers came their closest to nuclear conflict. The Crisis mostly played out at the White House and didn't involve many of the usual parties when dealing with a possible conflict. The Cuban missile crisis stands as a singular event during the Cold War and strengthened Kennedy’s image domestically and internationally. -
James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss
James Meredith became the first black student enrolled in the University of Mississippi. His attendance sparked a violent uprising on campus, requiring President Kennedy to send National Guard and Army troops. -
Letter from Birmingham Jail
The Letter from Birmingham Jail was an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was a political demonstration held in Washington, D.C., in 1963 by civil rights leaders to protest racial discrimination and to show support for major civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress. -
Sixteenth Street Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four people were killed in the bombing. -
JFK assassinated
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. -
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed
After difficult negotiations, the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It banned nuclear weapons tests under water, in the atmosphere, or in outer space, allowed underground nuclear tests as long as no radioactive debris fell outside the boundaries of the nation doing the test, pledged countries to work towards complete disarmament, an end to the armaments race, and an end to the contamination of the environment by radioactive substances. -
Twenty-fourth Amendment ratified
The main accomplishment of the Twenty-fourth amendment outlawed poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections. Before it passed, five states maintained poll taxes which unfairly affected African-American voters. The poll tax exemplified “Jim Crow” laws which aimed to disenfranchise black voters and institute segregation. There were some critics of the legislation that still believed that the law didn't go far enough to protect the rights of black voters in state and local elections. -
Teach-Ins
Teach ins were popularized during the U.S. government's involvement in Vietnam. The first teach-in, which was held overnight at the University of Michigan in March 1965, began with a discussion of the Vietnam War draft and ended in the early morning with a speech by philosopher Arnold Kaufman. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed
Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Economic Opportunity Act passed
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 authorized the formation of local Community Action Agencies as part of the War on Poverty. -
Beatlemania
Beatlemania was the intense fan frenzy directed towards the English rock band the Beatles in the 1960s. -
Malcolm X breaks away from the Nation of Islam
Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He was still a Muslim, he said, but felt that the Nation had "gone as far as it can" because of its rigid teachings. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It was first proposed by John F. Kennedy and heavily opposed by the South, but made it through and was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. The act also forbade the use of federal funds for discriminatory programs, authorized the Office of Education to assist with school desegregation, and denied the discrimination of voting rights. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overcome legal barriers at state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment. It banned the use of literacy tests, provided for federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than 50 percent of the non-white population had not registered to vote, and authorized the U.S. attorney general to investigate the use of poll taxes in state and local elections -
Medicare and Medicaid formed
The Medicare program, providing hospital and medical insurance for Americans age 65 or older, was signed into law as an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935. Medicare is funded entirely by the federal government and paid for in part through payroll taxes. Medicaid, a state and federally funded program that offers health coverage to certain low-income people, was also signed into law by President Johnson on July 30, 1965, as an amendment to the Social Security Act. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam -
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment. -
Immigration and Nationality Act of '65 passed
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States. -
EEOC formed
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. The laws apply to all types of work situations including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, and wages. The EEOC has the authority to investigate charges of discrimination against employers who are covered by the law. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is an extensive statute that funds primary and secondary education, emphasizing high standards and accountability. -
Black Panthers created and 'Black Power' used
Black Panther Party was originally named the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and its main purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The organization eventually developed into a group that called for many things, including the arming of African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft, and many other things. The term 'Black Power' was a movement that supports African American rights and political power. -
Riots and Newark and Detroit
Over the four days of rioting, looting, and property destruction, 26 people died and hundreds were injured. -
Thurgood Marshall elected to Supreme Court
President Johnson appointed U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11 -
Air Quality Act
The Air Quality Act of 1967 authorized expanded studies of air pollutant emission inventories, ambient monitoring techniques, and control techniques. -
War becomes a stalemate
Kennedy administration officials quoted in The New York Times estimate that there are 20,000 guerrilla troops in South Vietnam. Despite hundreds of engagements during the preceding two months and encouraging victories for South Vietnamese forces, the Vietcong had grown in numbers, and U.S. officials felt that the war had reached a point of stalemate. -
Haight-Ashury District started
The Haight-Ashbury district is noted for its role as a center of the 1960s hippie movement. The earlier bohemians of the beat movement had congregated around San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood from the late 1950s. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Robert Kennedy Assassinated
Robert Francis Kennedy was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. -
Nixon elected
On November 5, 1968, the Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon won the election over the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Nixon ran on a campaign that promised to restore "law and order". -
MLK assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and the leader of the American Civil Rights movement from the mid 1950s until his death in 1968. His leadership was the largest necessity that pushed the end of segregation of Blacks in the south and many other parts of the United States. He was also the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which led the March On Washington in 1963. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. -
Tinker v. Des Moines School District
The Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court case secured students' rights to freedom of speech in public schools. Mary Beth Tinker was 13 years old when she and her friends chose to wear black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. When she arrived at school, they asked her to remove the arm band and she was then suspended. The court found that the First Amendment applied to public schools, and school officials could not censor student speech unless it disrupted the educational process -
EPA created
The Environmental Protection Agency was formed to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection. The Agency was created in the wake of an elevated amount of concern about the environment. Around the same time, President Nixon also created a council in part to consider how to organize federal government programs designed to reduce pollution. -
26th amendment ratified
The 26th amendment stated that the right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
