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American history
American History -
Joseph McCarthy McCarthyism
Senator McCarthy spent almost five years trying in vain to expose communists and other loyalty risks in the U.S. government. In the hyper-suspicious atmosphere of the Cold War, insinuations of disloyalty were enough to convince many Americans that their government was packed with traitors and spies. McCarthy’s accusations were so intimidating that few people dared to speak out against him. It was not until he attacked the Army in 1954 that his actions earned him the censure of the U. -
The Korean War
75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. After some early back-and-fort -
Brown V. Board of Education
- The story of Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legal segregation in public schools, is one of hope and courage. When the people agreed to be plaintiffs in the case, they never knew they would change history. The people who make up this story were ordinary people. They were teachers, secretaries, welders, ministers and students who simply wanted to be treated equally.
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Emmett Till's murder
- A 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was visiting his relatives in Mississippi when he was snatched from his great-uncle's home on the night of August 28. He was then beaten, shot in the head, and then thrown into Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days later. Ostensibly, the murderers killed Till because he whistled at a white woman.
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The 'Little Rock Nine'
- Although most school districts at least attempted to integrate, some districts tried to avoid it, particularly those in the South. One of the most famous cases of integration was the story of the Little Rock Nine, which took place in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus had the National Guard block nine black students from entering Central High in Little Rock because he didn’t want to integrate Little Rock’s schools. President Eisenhower heard of this and sent Federal Troops to protect
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The Space Race
- Sputnik to be hurled into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik was actually no larger than a beach ball and sent meaningless signals back to earth, but it had a profound effect on the thinking of citizens and governments around the globe.
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Hippie Culture (Music, Clothing, Beliefs)
- rock music *hallucinogenic drugs
- long hair and clothing *strongly against violence and supported liberal policies and freedom of personal expression *concepts of peace, freedom, and harmony
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Cold War
- Cold War is the conflict between the Communist nations led by the Soviet Union and the democratic nations led by the United States. It is fought by all means - propaganda, economic war, diplomatic haggling and occasional military clashes. It is fought in all places - in neutral states, in newly independent nations in Africa, Asia and even in outer space.
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Malclm X
- Malcolm X was a prominent black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and '60s. Due largely to his efforts, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952 to 40,000 members by 1960. Articulate, passionate and a naturally gifted and inspirational orator, Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means necessary,
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George Wallace, Governor of Alabama
- A farmer's son, Wallace and his brothers Jack and Gerald and his sister Marianne attended local schools and helped out on the farm. In 1936, while attending Barbour County High School, Wallace won the state Golden Gloves bantamweight championship and held the title for the following year. He was also quite active with the high school football team until his graduation in 1937. Wallace enrolled in the University of Alabama Law School in 1937, the same year his father died, leaving the family w
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Lyndon V. Johnson
Upon taking office, Johnson, a Texan who had served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, launched an ambitious slate of progressive reforms aimed at alleviating poverty and creating what he called a "Great Society" for all Americans. Many of the programs he introduced--including Medicare and Head Start--made a lasting impact in the areas of health, education, urban renewal, conservation and civil rights. Despite his impressive domestic achievements, however, Johnson's l -
John F. Kennedy
The campaign was hard fought and bitter. For the first time, presidential candidates engaged in televised debates. Many observers believed that Kennedy's poised and charming performance during the four debates made the difference in the final vote. He was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die. -
Martin Luther King Jr - nobel pieace prize
- Worked in the civil rights movemnet, gave famus speech at Wachington, and campained on behalf of poor and against Vietnam war. A Baptist minister and civil-rights activist, had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among many efforts, King headed the SCLC. Through his activism, he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and other areas of the nation,
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War protests
*protests against the decision to militarily support South Vietnam
*Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers.
* North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. And by the time U.S. planes began regular bombings of North Vietnam in February 1965, some critics had begun to question the government’s assertion that it was fighting a democratic war to -
Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Sirhan B. Sirhan killed Robert in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Robert's courtesy of the funeral was held in New York in the police department. -
Woodstock
Historical Importance of the Woodstock Festival. The Woodstock Festival was a three-day concert (which rolled into a fourth day) that involved lots of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll - plus a lot of mud. The Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 has become an icon of the 1960s hippie counterculture. -
Technological Advances of the Time Period
"Renaissance" means rebirth or revival. The Renaissance Period occurred at the end of the Middle Ages, beginning in the 14th century, with evidence that it began in Italy, and ending in the 17th century. This period also is sometimes referred to as the Elizabethan Era. After the Middle Ages, the literature of the Greeks and Romans were rediscovered, and inventors and explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci came into the spotlight. The world went from a period of lit -
Disco Music/Culture
Disco had been the first dance music culture, based on electronic productions. Highly successful for a short amount of time in the late 1970s, Disco pioneered dance and club culture, and opened the way for other new club music scenes. Genres such as Synth-Pop, New Wave, High NRG, Hiphop, Electronic Body Music, Garage, or House and Techno appeared in the (club) music culture of the 1980s (Meyer 1998; McLeod 2001; Brewster and Broughton 2006). -
Richard Nizxon/Watergate Scandal
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. While historians are not sure whether Nixon knew about the Watergate espionage operation before it happened, he took steps to cover it up afterwards, raising -
Jimmy Carter\Iran Hostage Crisis
An angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans hostage. "From the moment the hostages were seized until they were released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as president 444 days later," wrote historian Gaddis Smith, "the crisis absorbed more concentrated effort by American -
HIV/AIDS
First case of AIDS was found in San Francisco. Started because of the Hippie Movement. -
Ronald Reagan\Reaganomics
*When Ronald Reagan's offers for acting roles started to wane, General Electric offered him a position as their corporate spokesman in 1954. He learned to express himself well in front of audiences for GE products, which later came in handy when he ran for president and had to give speeches across the country for votes."Reaganomics", a term used to describe the policies of the Reagan presidency, is based on the supply side of economics, and the "trickle down" theory. -
John Lennonn's Murder
At 5pm on the day of the shooting, Mark David Chapman was caught on camera as John Lennon signed his copy of the album Double Fantasy. Three hours later patrolmen Frauenberger and Palma of the NYPD 20th Precinct answered a “shots fired” call to 1 West 72nd Street: the Dakota Building. Arriving at the scene, they found Lennon bleeding from four .38 calibre gunshot wounds. Chapman, having gunned down the rock icon, calmly dropped his pistol and took out a copy of JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye a -
Assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan
On March 31, 1981, John W. Hinckley, Jr., shot President Ronald Reagan and several others in a failed assassination attempt. The FBI conducted an extensive investigation, named REAGAT. This FOIA release consists of an extensive “Prosecutive Report” submitted by the FBI to the Department of Justice in May 1981 as Justice lawyers considered how to prosecute Hinckley for the attacks. -
The Falling of the Berlin Wall/Fall of Communism/Breakup of Soviet Uion
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.
