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Smith Act
The Smith Act, was a US law passed in 1940 that made a criminal offense to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. The first prosecutions under the Smith Act, of leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, took place in 1941. After WWII the statute was used against the leadership of the Communist Party. The convictions of the principal officers of the CPUSA were sustained and the constitutionality of the advocacy provision of the Smith Act upheld by the Supreme Court. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. Iron Curtain was originally called by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. The Iron Curtain symbolised the ideologcal conflict andn physical boundary dividing Europe into two areas. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain threats to Greece and Turkey. Plus, he established that the US would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
Joseph McCarthy
The most enduring symbol of this “Red Scare” was Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy spent almost five years trying in vain to expose communists and other left-wing “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. -
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion (nearly $140 billion in 2017 dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. In addition, it helped reduce the influence and power of Communist parties in Western Europe. As a result, it angered the Soviety Union and was seen as another communist move by the US. -
Period: to
Cold War
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Berlin AIrlift
The crisis of the Berlin Airlift started on June 24, 1948, when Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany. The crisis ended on May 12, 1949, when Soviet forces lifted the blockade on land access to western Berlin. This was a result of competing occupation policies and rising tensions Western powers and the Soviet Union. -
Alger Hiss
Hiss was a former State Department official who was convicted in January 1950 of perjury concerning his dealings with Whittaker Chambers, who accused him of membership in a communist espionage ring. His case came at a time of growing worry about the domestic influence of communism, lend substance to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s sensational charges of communist infiltration into the State. It brought to attention Richard Nixon, then to a US representative from California. -
G.I. Bill
Also known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. From 1944 to 1949, nearly 9 million veterans received close to $4 billion from the bill’s unemployment compensation program. The education and training provisions only existed until 1956. -
Period: to
The 1950s
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Fair Deal
Fair Deal, in U.S. history, President Harry S. Truman’s liberal domestic reform program, the basic tenets of which he had outlined as early as 1945. In his first postwar message to Congress that year, Truman had called for expanded social security, new wages-and-hours and public-housing legislation, and a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act that would prevent racial or religious discrimination in hiring. -
Polio Vaccine
On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against polio, an epidemic virus. In 1952–an epidemic year for polio–there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease. Dr. Sabin also contributed to testing an oral version of the vaccine as it helped just as much as Jonas Salk's vaccine to polio. -
Elvis Presley
When Elvis Presley was a teenager, the Presleys moved to Memphis, where Elvis graduated from high school and took a job as a truck driver. He played guitar and sang country and hillbilly tunes. His music attracted attention in 1954 when he was 19. He infused Black rhythm-and-blues songs with his distinctive style, which came to dance moves that were considered quite sexually suggestive. In 1956, "Heartbreak Hotel" became his first number one hit and Elvis suddenly became a national sensation. -
Dr. Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk was born October 28, 1914, in New York City. In 1942 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health he became part of a group that was working to develop a vaccine against the flu. In 1947 he became head of the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh he began research on polio. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was released for use in the United States. He established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1963. Salk died in 1995. -
Bill Haley and the Comets
Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band, founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group placed nine singles in the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten. The song, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" became one of the biggest hits in the 1950s later on as it sold a million copies in a single month in the apring of 1955. -
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman was born on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia. He was the third out of 12 children. Little Richard helped define the early rock ‘n’ roll era of the 1950s with his driving, flamboyant sound. With his croons, wails, and screams, he turned songs like “Tutti-Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally” into huge hits and influenced such bands as the Beatles. During his success, Little Richard saw his doubts about rock deepen. In 1957 he abruptly and publicly quit performing rock music. -
Albert Sabin
Sabin was born in August 1906, in Poland. He received his M.D. from NYU in 1931 and began to research on polio, an infection that had reached proportions both nationwide and around the globe.Later in his life, he moved to the Children's Hospital Research Foundation, where his groundbreaking research demonstrated that it lives in the small intestines. Sabin was able to prove that it is essentially an infection of the alimentary tract and indicated polio might be prevented by an oral vaccine. -
Civil RIghts of Act of 1957
This act was enacted on September 9, 1957, a federal voting rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Its purpose was to show the federal government's support for racial equality after the US Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Opposition to the Act, including the longest one-person filibuster in US history, limited its immediate impact. -
Nikita Khrushchev
Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, serving as premier from 1958 to 1964. Though he largely pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, he instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by placing nuclear weapons 90 miles from Florida. At home, he initiated a process of “de-Stalinization” that made Soviet society less repressive. Yet Khrushchev could be authoritarian in his own right, crushing a revolt in Hungary and approving the construction of the Berlin Wall. -
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation wasn't a large movement in terms of sheer numbers, but in status, they were more visible than any pf the others. The years immediately after WWII, they saw a wholesale reappraisal of the conventional structures of society. Just as the economic boom was taking hold, students were beginning to question the rampant materialism of their society. In addition to their dissatisfaction with consumer culture, people railed against them, the virtue of their parents’ generation. -
Rosa Parks
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks was a African-American woman who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus, which spurred on the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott that helped launch nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities. The city of Montgomery had no choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses. Rosa Parks received many accolades during her lifetime, including the NAACP's highest award. -
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
A multinational organization founded in 1960 in Baghdad. OPEC's stated mission is "to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its member countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets, in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers, and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry.The organization is also a significant provider of information about the international oil market. -
New Frontier
During the campaign Kennedy had stated that America was “on the edge of a New Frontier”; in his inaugural speech he spoke of “a new generation of Americans”; and during his presidency, he seemed to be taking government in a new direction, away from the easygoing Eisenhower style. His administration was headed by strong, dedicated personalities. The New Frontier further promised -
Feminism
Feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the United States in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world, with an aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just enfranchisement. Issues addressed by the movement included rights regarding domestic issues such as clothing, jobs, gender equality between men and women, domestic violence, rape, and even women's shelters. -
Emmett Till Tragedy
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old and an African American boy from Chicago was brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. The white woman’s husband and her brother made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. As a result, the black society would be able to be equal along with the white society normally. -
Period: to
1960s
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Period: to
Civil Rights
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Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The work is generally related to social and economic development. Each program participant, a Peace Corps Volunteer, is also an American citizen. -
Montogomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery bus boycott, a mass protest against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. The 381-day bus boycott also brought the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., into the spotlight as one of the most important leaders of the American civil rights movement. -
Freedom Rides
This was an event of groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina, etc.The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along with their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On September 4th, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students’ entry into the high school. -
John Glenn
John Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio. A Marine pilot, he was selected in 1959 for Project Mercury astronaut training. He became a backup pilot for Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who made the first two U.S. suborbital flights into space. Glenn was selected for the first orbital flight, and in 1962, aboard Friendship 7, he made three orbits around Earth. After his service in the Marine Corps and NASA, he went on to serve as U.S. Senator from his home state. -
Assassination of Kennedy
President Kennedy was assassinated during a 10-mile motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas on November 22. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, wounding Kennedy and injuring Governor Connally. John Kennedy was announced dead minutes later. -
Warren Commisson
Lyndon Johnson established a commission to investigate Kennedy’s death. After a nearly yearlong investigation, the commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating Kennedy and that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, involved. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report proved controversial and failed to silence theories surrounding the event. This was called the Warren Commission. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
On the afternoon of November 22, 1963—around the time of President John F. Kennedy’s approaching motorcade through Dallas—Oswald was seen on the sixth floor of his work building, holding a rifle. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Oswald was spotted leaving the scene of the shooting and was later confronted by a police officer who Oswald then allegedly shot and killed. Oswald was later found and apprehended by the police at the Texas Theater, located the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff. -
Jack Ruby
On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby, a 52-year-old Dallas nightclub operator, stunned America when he shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963), the accused assassin of President John Kennedy. Two days earlier, on November 22, Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Oswald, a 24-year-old warehouse worker, was soon arrested for the president’s murder. He was then convicted of murder in 1964. -
Birmingham March
A movement in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by Martin Luther King Jr., the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities and eventually led the government to change the city's discrimination laws. The ending result wasn't the best as students got hosed down by the whites. -
"I Have A Dream" Speech
The speech was delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. before a crowd of some 250,000 people at the 1963 March on Washington, remains one of the most famous speeches in history. Weaving in references to the country’s Founding Fathers and the Bible, King used universal themes to depict the struggles of African Americans, before closing with an improvised riff on his dreams of equality. The eloquent speech was immediately recognized as a highlight of the successful protest and was a signature moment. -
Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater was a U.S. representative born on January 2, 1909, who ran his family’s department store before embarking on a political career. He served in the senate for 30 years, gaining recognition for his fiscal conservatism. Goldwater lost the 1964 campaign for the presidency to Lyndon B. Johnson in unprecedented landslide. He died in Paradise Valley, Arizona, on May 29, 1998. -
Daisy Girl Ad
An ad where a 3-year-old girl in a simple dress counted as she plucked daisy petals in a sun-dappled field. Her words were supplanted by a mission-control countdown followed by a massive nuclear blast in a classic mushroom shape. The message was clear if only implicit: Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was a genocidal maniac who threatened the world’s future. Because of the ad shown in 1964, it has brought up negative political advertising today. -
Orval Faubus
Orval Faubus was an American politician who served as 36th Governor of Arkansas. A Democrat, he is best remembered for his 1957 stand against desegregation of the Little Rock School District during the Little Rock Crisis, in which, by ordering the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School, he defied a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court made in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education. -
Anti-War Movement
The Anti-War Movement began because of the bombing and the start of Vietnam War that dragged many Americans to fight alongside.Small–among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses–but gained national prominence in 1965. Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society, attracted a huge base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968 after the successful Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese troops. -
Apollo 11
The Apollo 11 mission was one of the most significant events in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the USSR launched Sputnik, the first satellite, and successfully sent a man into space, America rushed to develop the technology that the Soviets already had, prompting the creation of the Apollo program. Apollo 11 was a mission to complete the first lunar landing. The mission was considered a great success and was a win for the United States in the Space Race. -
The New Right
The New Right was or is the movement of American conservatives in the 1970s and 1980s that rose up in opposition to liberal policies on taxes, abortion, affirmative action, as well as foreign policy stances on the Soviet Union. This movement lent substantial support to the Republican Party, leading to Republicans winning control of the U.S. Senate in 1980, and the election of Ronald Reagan as the 40th president of the United States the same year. -
Period: to
1970s
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Ike Turner
R&B legend Ike Turner was born on November 5, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He made R&B hits, including "I Idolize You," "It's Going to Work Out Fine" and "Poor Fool" with his wife. The duo's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" earned them their first and only Grammy Award together in 1971. Their last hit together was "Nutbush City Limits," written by his wife in 1973. Turner died of a cocaine overdose on December 12, 2007. -
Watergate (Scandal)
The Watergate scandal began early in the morning of June 17, 1972, when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings 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 wiretapping phones and stealing documents. In August 1974, after his role in the conspiracy was revealed, Nixon resigned. -
Title IX
The Title IX was an act that was used to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Education Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-first Congress, and related Acts, and for other purposes. The Title IX was also passed on as a part of the Education Amendments of 1972. -
Equal RIghts Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment, or the ERA, is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex; it seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of the divorce, property, employment, and other matters. In 1972, the amendment was introduced to the Congress and was then passed onto the U.S. House of Representatives and was approved by the U.S. Senate. -
Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis Schlafly was an American writer and political activist who was best known for her opposition to the women’s movement and especially the Equal Rights Amendment. She was a leading conservative voice in the late 20th century and a lightning rod for fervent debate about cultural values. She was also known for her social and political views over the conversation over anti-feminism, the legalization of having the choice to abort, and other social issues as well. -
The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." It is widely considered one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes. The Foundation wields considerable influence in Washington DC and enjoyed particular prominence during the Reagan administration. -
Federal Election Commission
The FEC is an independent regulatory agency whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. It was created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The commission describes its duties as "to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections." -
Three-Mile Island
Three Mile Island is the site of a nuclear power plant in south central Pennsylvania. In March 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors at the plant caused the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, resulting in a partial meltdown that released dangerous radioactive gasses into the atmosphere. Three Mile Island stoked public fears about nuclear power—no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States since the accident. -
The Moral Majority
An American political organization that was founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell, a religious leader, and televangelist, to advance conservative social values. Although it disbanded in 1989, the Moral Majority helped to establish the religious right as a force in American politics. It was also formed in response to the social and cultural transformations that occurred in the society of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s. -
AIDS Crisis
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the outbreak of AIDS swept across the United States and rest of the world, though the disease originated decades earlier. Today, more than 70 million people have been infected with HIV and about 35 million have died from AIDS since the start of the pandemic. AIDS spread to a large community of people, starting with homosexuals at first, but then spreading to heterosexuals and other human beings, causing them to be affected by the disease. -
Jimmy Carter
President Jimmy Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter became the 39th president of the United States who served in 1977 to 1981 and served as the nation's chief executive during a time of serious problems at home and abroad. Carter's perceived mishandling of these issues led to defeat in his bid for reelection. He later turned to diplomacy and advocacy, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002. -
Reaganomics
During the campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a recipe to fix the nation's economic mess. He claimed an undue tax burden, excessive government regulation, and massive social spending programs hampered growth. Reagan proposed a phased 30% tax cut for the first three years of his Presidency. The bulk of the cut would be concentrated at the upper income levels.Tax relief for the rich would enable them to spend and invest more. This new economic method is called, Reaganomics -
Period: to
1980s
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Sandra Day O'Conner
Sandra Day O'Conner was born in El Paso, Texas, on March 26, 1930, Sandra Day O'Connor was elected to two terms in the Arizona state senate. In 1981 Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. She received unanimous Senate approval, and made history as the first woman justice to serve on the nation's highest court. O'Connor was a key swing vote in many important cases, including the upholding of Roe v. Wade. She retired in 2006 after serving for 24 years. -
Music Television (MTV)
When MTV, or Music Television, released, the program went on to revolutionize the music industry and become an influential source of pop culture and entertainment in the United States and other parts of the world, including Europe, Asia, and Latin America, which all have MTV-branded channels. It is usually based off of music videos and other music produced that helped bring up hit singers such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, and even Duran Duran. -
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, a former California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president. Raised in small-town Illinois, he became a Hollywood actor in his 20s and later served as the Republican governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Dubbed the Great Communicator, the affable Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. -
SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative)
The SDI is a U.S. strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks—as originally conceived, from the Soviet Union. The SDI was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan in a nationwide television address on March 23, 1983. Because parts of the defensive system that Reagan advocated would be based in space, the proposed system was dubbed “Star Wars." The SDI had a purpose to defend the U.S. from the Soviet attacks by the ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). -
Reagan Doctrine
President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine” that was held under the Reagan Administration. The doctrine served as the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of “freedom fighters” around the globe. It was also used as a strategy in order to overwhelm the global influence on the Soviet Union in an attempt to end the Cold War from continuing any further. -
Challenger Explosion
The NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after liftoff, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard. It was then later determined that two rubber O-rings, which had been designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. As a result of this incident, NASA received a lot of media coverage. -
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran-Contra Affair was a secret U.S. government arms deal that freed some American hostages held in Lebanon but also funded armed conflict in Central America. In addition, the controversial dealmaking—and the ensuing political scandal—threatened to bring down the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
It was also a grand scheme that violated American law and policy all around: Arms sales to Iran were prohibited; the U.S. government had long forbidden ransom of any sort for hostages, etc. . -
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey was born in the rural town of Kosciusko, Mississippi, on January 29, 1954. In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, where she hosted a hit television chat show, People Are Talking. Afterward, she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to host her own morning show. She later became the host of her own, wildly popular program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. That same year, Winfrey launched her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). -
George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush was born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, he fought in WWII and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966. He served as Ronald Reagan's vice president for two terms and then won the 1988 U.S. presidential race, before losing his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. Afterward, he made appearances for son George W. Bush, who also was elected U.S. president, and co-founded the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. -
Lionel Sosa
Sosa entered political advertising by supporting John Tower. With Sosa's support, Tower won 37% of the Hispanic vote. The previous Hispanic best vote percent for a statewide Republican candidate had been below 8%. The success of Sosa's agency in the Tower campaign led several national companies, including Bacardi, Coors, and Dr. Pepper to seek his advice for reaching the Hispanic audience. Sosa then created a new Agency, Sosa, and Associates, which became the largest Hispanic advertising agency. -
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television, or BET, is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the BET Networks division of Viacom. It is the most prominent television network targeting African American audiences, with approximately 88,255,000 American households (75.8% of households with television) receiving the channel. The channel has offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. -
Period: to
1990s
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Rodney King Incident
He was an African-American taxi driver who became known internationally as the victim of Los Angeles Police Department brutality, after a videotape was released of several police officers beating him during his arrest on March 3, 1991. A civilian, George Holliday, filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage clearly showed King being beaten repeatedly, and the incident was covered by news media around the world. -
Ross Perot
Ross Perot is an American business magnate and former politician. As the founder of Electronic Data Systems, he became a billionaire. He ran an independent presidential campaign in 1992 and a third party campaign in 1996, establishing the Reform Party in the latter election. Both campaigns were among the strongest presidential showings by a third party or independent candidate in U.S. history. He is advocated a balanced budget, the end of outsourced jobs, and etc. -
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton became the 42nd U.S. president served in office from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates, and a budget surplus. Clinton was also charged and impeached because of the findings on him having a sexual relationship with a White House intern. But, he was then free of charge by the Congress. -
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton was born on October 26th, 1947 who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the Wellesley College in 1973 and moved onto getting her J.S. in 1973 as well at Yale Law School. Hillary was also an American politician, former diplomat, and became the First Lady of Arkansas from the yeats 1983 to 1992 alongside with Bill Clinton as the governor of Arkansas. She was also an advocate for gender equality and healthcare reform such as abortion, etc. -
1993 World Trade Center Attack
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, carried out on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 pounds urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower, bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so but killed six people and injured over a thousand. -
Lewinsky Affair
It was an American political sex scandal that involved President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship came to light in 1998. Clinton ended a televised speech with the statement that he "did not have sexual relations" with Lewinsky. Further investigation led to the impeachment of President Clinton by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a Senate trial. -
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader was born in Connecticut in 1934, Ralph Nader went on to study law and became a crusader of car-safety reform in the 1960s. In 1971 he founded the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and has continued to be an opponent of unchecked corporate power. Beginning in the 1990s, Nader entered the U.S. presidential race multiple times, with a notable run as a candidate for the Green Party in the 2000 election. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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Al Gore
An American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Gore was Bill Clinton's running mate in their successful campaign in 1992, and the pair was re-elected in 1996. Near the end of Clinton's second term, Gore was selected as the Democratic nominee for the 2000 presidential election but lost the election in a very close race after a Florida recount. After his term, he remained an active author and environmentalist. -
George W Bush
An American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, and then he worked in the oil industry. Bush was elected President of the United States in 2000 when he defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore after a close and controversial win that stopped recount in Florida -
9/11 Attack
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. As a result, almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. -
No Child Left Behind Act
he No Child Left Behind Act authorizes several federal education programs that are administered by the states. The law is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Under the 2002 law, states are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3–8 and once in high school. All students are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014. The major focus of No Child Left Behind is to close student achievement gaps by providing all children. -
The Great Recession
A period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country.[1][2] In terms of overall impact, the International Monetary Fund concluded that it was the worst global recession since the 1930s The causes of the recession largely originated in the United States, particularly related to the real-estate market, though choices made by other nations contributed as well. -
2nd Iraq War
A protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government.[53] An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3–4 years of conflict.The U.S. became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition. -
John McCain
An American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Arizona since 1987. He was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama. Before running, he became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. While McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese, and was a prisoner of war. Later on he headed into politics. -
Housing Bubble
A real estate bubble affecting over half of the U.S. states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. On December 30, 2008, the Case–Shiller home price index reported the largest price drop in its history. The credit crisis resulting from the bursting of the housing bubble is—according to general consensus—an important cause of the 2007–2009 recession in the United States. -
Barack Obama
Barack Obama was an American politician born in Hawaii, who served as the 44th President of the United States from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017. The first African American to assume the presidency, he was previously the junior United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008. Before that, he served in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 until 2004. He was also known as the first African-American president.
