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G.I Bill
Officially 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. The education and training provisions existed until 1956, while the Veterans’ Administration offered insured loans until 1962. We still use this bill today. -
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During World War II, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II. -
Iron Curtains
In one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. -
Dr. Jonas Sal
In 1947, Salk took a position at University of Pittsburgh, where he began conducting research on polio, also known as infantile paralysis. By 1951, Salk had determined that there were three distinct types of polio viruses and was able to develop a "killed virus" vaccine for the disease. The vaccine used polio viruses that had been grown in a laboratory and then destroyed. Preliminary testing of the polio vaccine began in 1952 - the shot given mostly to children. -
2nd Red Scare
The Second Red Scare was a fear-driven phenomenon brought on by the growing power of communist countries in the wake of the WWII, particularly the Soviet Union. Many in the U.S. feared that the Soviet Union and its allies were planning to forcefully spread communism around the globe, overthrowing both democratic and capitalist institutions as it went. With the Soviet Union occupying much of Eastern and Central Europe, many in the U.S. perceived their fears of communist expansionism as confirmed. -
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. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947 -
Berlin Airlift
In June 1948 the Russians who wanted Berlin all for themselves closed all passages western-occupied Germany into western occupied Berlin They believed that people who lived there wouldnt get any supplies and would eventually drive Britain France and the U.S. out of the city for good. The U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. This effort known as the Berlin Airlift lasted for more than a year and carried more than 2.3 million tons of cargo into West Berlin -
Fair Deal
A "Fair Deal" is what President Harry Truman called his plan. He announced it in a speech on January 5, 1949. His Fair Deal recommended that all Americans have health insurance, that the minimum wage the lowest amount of money per hour that someone can be paid be increased, and that, by law, all Americans be guaranteed equal rights. -
Tv Shows in the 50's
In 1952 for the first time, television news was able to broadcast the presidential debate live from Philadelphia to the rest of the nation. Residents knew in real time that Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson were running for President against each other. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. -
Politics in the 50's
On the national political scene, the Democrats controlled the White House at the beginning of the decade. The president, Harry S Truman, had came into office upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Truman won the 1948 election, but chose not to run for reelection four years later. Republican Dwight Eisenhower earned an easy victory in the 1952 presidential race, beating Democrat Adlai Stevenson. The 1956 election saw the same two opponents, and the same results. -
Beat Generation
Generally apolitical and indifferent to social problems, they advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. Apologists for the Beats, among them Paul Goodman, found the joylessness and purposelessness of modern society sufficient justification for both withdrawal and protest. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm X articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism. A minister, human rights activist and prominent black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and 1960s. Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means necessary," including violence. -
Ike turner
His first recording Rocket 88, credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, in 1951 is considered a contender for first rock and roll song. So he is the first black rock and roll artist which he was first rhythm and blues. -
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. -
Polio Vaccine
Between 1963 and 1999, Sabin live vaccine largely replaced Salk killed vaccine everywhere in the world. However, because the live virus in the vaccine occasionally became strong enough to cause actual disease, Salk killed-type vaccine has replaced the live type in the United States. American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. -
Earl Warren Supreme Court
At the 1952 Republican National Convention, Warren stood as a California "favorite son" candidate for the Presidential nomination, hoping to be a power broker in a convention that might be deadlocked. Warren was stymied, however, when former Pomona congressman and then Senator Richard Nixon, who had previously publicly promised Warren his support, furtively undermined Warren and switched his support to General Dwight D. Eisenhower when offered the vice-presidency. -
Albert Sabin
The Sabin Vaccine Institute is founded on the legacy and global vision of one of the pre-eminent scientific figures in the history of medicine, Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Best known as the developer of the oral live virus polio vaccine, Dr. Sabin not only dedicated his entire professional career to the elimination of human suffering though his groundbreaking medical advances, he also waged a tireless campaign against poverty and ignorance throughout his lifetime. -
Emmett Till tragedy
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants 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. They beat him almost to death shot him in the back of his head then tied him to a cotton gin and dropped in the river -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War. More than 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
a civil-rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. -
Elvis
was an American singer, musician, and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King". Elvis Presley was highly influential in changing the social and moral values of white American society, but also in creating a new genre of music which was known and rock n' roll. The influence of rock n' roll was very significant in the United States. -
Space Race
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system. -
Little Richard
Little Richard is an American musician, songwriter, singer, and actor. He is known as the architect of Rock & Roll. 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. -
Peace corps
John F. Kennedy, proposed to the University of Michigan, to help the developing countries, by promoting peace. He encouraged them to go to needy countries and give them aid, financially, educationally, and physically. This spurred an evolution in the form of volunteering around the world. Volunteers helped teach not only about HIV/AIDS but also about having safe sex. Also going to rural countries and helping them. -
New Frontier
The term New Frontier was used by liberal Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The phrase developed into a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs. Among the legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration, unemployment benefits were expanded, improve housing and transportation. -
Hippies
Of a counter cultural movement that rejected the mores of mainstream American life. The movement originated on college campuses in the United States. Although the movement arose in part as opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, hippies were often not directly engaged in politics, felt alienated from middle-class society, which they saw as dominated by materialism and repression, and they developed their own distinctive lifestyle -
LSD
LSD was popularized in the 1960s by individuals such as psychologist Timothy Leary, who encouraged American students to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” This created an entire counterculture of drug abuse and spread the drug from America to the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Even today, use of LSD in the United Kingdom is significantly higher than in other parts of the world. The ‘60s counterculture used the drug to escape the problems of society -
Native-American Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights and Native rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s changed America. Both campaigns were driven by a thirst for justice, freedom, and respect. But the two had different philosophies.the goal of full inclusion of African American citizens as self-sufficient, self-sustaining members of American society. The Native rights movement had a dual goal achieving the civil rights of Native peoples as American citizens, and the sovereign rights of Native nations. -
Feminism
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 employment. In the 1960s, women did not tend to seek employment due to their engagement with domestic and household duties which lead them out of politics, jobs, and law. -
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
A permanent, intergovernmental Organization, created at the Baghdad Conference, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.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." -
Cesar Chavez
Mexican-American a prominent union leader and labor organizer. Hardened by his early experience as a migrant worker, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. His union joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in its first strike against grape growers in California, and the two organizations later merged to become the United Farm Workers. Stressing nonviolent methods, Chavez drew attention for his causes via boycotts, marches and hunger strikes. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. -
Assassination of JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. -
Ascendency of Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th president of the United States he was sworn into office following the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Upon taking office, Johnson launched an ambitious slate of progressive reforms aimed at creating a “Great Society” for all Americans. Many of the programs he championed Medicare, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act had a profound and lasting impact in health, education and civil rights. -
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, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Anti-War movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. Anti-war marches and other protests, attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968 after the successful Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese troops proved that war’s end was nowhere in sight. -
Great Society
Great Society, political slogan used by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to identify his legislative program of national reform. The president proclaimed his pledged to redouble the “war on poverty” he had declared one year earlier. He called for an enormous program of social-welfare legislation, including federal support for education, hospital care for the aged through an expanded Social Security program, and continued enforcement of the Civil Rights Act 1964. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil-rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. As the world watched, this grew awareness for voting rights for blacks. -
Watts Riot
In the predominantly black Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, racial tension reaches a breaking point after two white policemen scuffle with a black motorist suspected of drunken driving.A riot soon began, spurred on by residents of Watts who were embittered after years of economic and political isolation. The rioters eventually ranged over a 50-square-mile area of South Central Los Angeles, looting stores, torching buildings, and beating whites as snipers fired at police and firefighters. -
Warren Burger Supreme Court
President Richard Nixon named Warren Burger chief justice of the Supreme Court. He didn't fulfill Nixon's desire to reverse Warren Court decisions. Burger's court upheld the 1966 Miranda decision, and Burger voted with the majority in the court's landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, establishing women's constitutional right to have abortions. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988. -
Black Panther Party
African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans. The release of all African Americans from jail. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. The first steps by humans on another planetary body were taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. The astronauts also returned to Earth the first samples from another planetary body. Apollo 11 achieved its primary mission - to perform a manned lunar landing and return the mission safely to Earth - and paved the way for the Apollo lunar landing missions to follow -
The New Right
New Right refers to three historically distinct conservative political movements. The NEW RIGHT was a combination of Christian religious leaders, conservative business bigwigs who claimed that environmental and labor regulations were undermining the competitiveness of American firms in the global market, and fringe political groups. -
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the President and approved by Congress. The current Administrator is Scott Pruitt. -
Watergate
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. -
Rise of the N.R.A. to national politics
There is a common misconception among historians, academics, and the general public that the gun rights movement was born out of the turbulent 1970s, and gained momentum following the Cincinnati Revolt at the National Rifle Association’s 1977 Annual Convention, when the NRA’s membership replaced the organization’s existing officers with those who were staunch opponents of gun control. -
Camp david accords
At the White House, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The accords were negotiated during 12 days of intensive talks at President Jimmy Carter’s Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. The final peace agreement the first between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors was signed in March 1979. -
The Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a prominent American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s. -
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. -
Sam Walton’s Just-in-Time Inventory
This method eliminates the need for storage at each store. Instead, the local distribution center can know, via satellite, when a given store is nearly out of a product and can truck more in immediately. The discount chain expanded internationally over the next 30 years, growing into the world’s largest company by 2010. Walton stepped down as CEO in 1988, at the age of 70, but remained active in the company until his death in 1992. -
Discount Retailing
A retail shop which sells products at prices that are lower than the typical market price. A "full-line discount store/shop" or "mass merchandiser", such as Aldi or Lidl, may offer a wide assortment of goods with a focus on price rather than service, display or wide choice within lines. Meanwhile, a specialty, "single line" or "category killer" discount store/shop, such as Toys "R" Us or Staples, may specialist in specific merchandise lines, relying on bulk purchase. -
Entertainment in the 80s
explosion of blockbuster movies and the emergence of cable networks like MTV, which introduced the music video and launched the careers of many iconic artists. People watched family sitcoms like “The Cosby Show.” They also rented movies to watch on their new VCRs. By the end of the 1980s, 60 percent of American television owners got cable service–and the most revolutionary cable network of all was MTV. -
Election of 1980
Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. Due to the rise of conservativism following Reagan's victory, some historians consider the election to be a realigning election that marked the start of the "Reagan Era". Carter's unpopularity and poor relations with Democratic leaders encouraged an intra-party challenge by Senator Ted Kennedy, a younger brother of former President John F. Kennedy. Carter defeated Kennedy in the majority of the Democratic primaries. -
A.I.D.S crisis
cases of a rare lung infection called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) were found in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. At the same time, there were reports of a group of men in New York and California with an unusually aggressive cancer named Kaposi’s Sarcoma. the first cases of PCP were reported in people who inject drugs. There were 270 reported cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men 121 of them had died -
Sandra Day O’Connor
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. -
Reagan Presidency
Ronald Reagan, a former actor and California governor. 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. -
Space shuttle program
the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also known as NASA, which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System or STS, was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. -
Music Television (MTV)
MTV 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. its programming consisted of basic music videos that were introduced by VJs and provided for free by record companies. As the record industry recognized MTV’s value as a promotional vehicle, money was invested in making creative, cutting-edge videos. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) “Star Wars”
a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan on 23 March 1983. Reagan was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which he described as a "suicide pact", and he called upon the scientists and engineers of the United States to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. -
Oprah Winfrey
A billionaire businesswoman, is one of the most affluent and powerful people in America. Deemed the undisputed "Queen of Talk" since the mid-1980s, she was the first black woman to host a nationally syndicated weekday talk show. Winfrey became the third woman to own her own studio, when she started Harpo Studios in 1988. Her company, Harpo, Inc., has grown to include divisions for production, film, radio, print, online, and philanthropy. -
Internet in the 90s
Windows mimicked many of the features of the Apple Macintosh's proprietary operating system, but could be installed on less-costly hardware by a host of different manufacturers. Instead of having to stare at screens full of green type on a black background, PC users suddenly saw fonts, graphics and color pictures, and became accustomed to pointing-and-clicking with a mouse and multitasking, or doing several things at once in different parts of the screen. -
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Founder Robert L. Johnson, quickly recognized the dearth of television programming designed for the African American public and created BET to reach that demographic audience. In 1988 BET News was launched with Ed Gordon serving as the anchor of the first half hour news program directed toward an African American audience. Several news programs including Our Voices and Lead Story. Now The cable channel is viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide. -
Persian Gulf War
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the U.S and other Western nations to intervene. Hussein defied United Nations Security Council demands to withdraw from Kuwait by mid-January 1991, and the Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm. -
Rodney King Incident
Caught by the Los Angeles police after a high-speed chase on March 3, 1991. The officers pulled him out of the car and beat him brutally, while amateur cameraman George Holliday caught it all on videotape. The four LAPD officers involved were indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer. However, after a three-month trial, a predominantly white jury acquitted the officers, inflaming citizens and sparking the violent 1992 Los Angeles riots. -
Election of 1992
Democrat Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican Pres. George Bush. Independent candidate Ross Perot secured nearly 19 percent of the vote the highest percentage of any third-party candidate in a U.S. presidential election in 80 years.Bush faced a stiff early challenge from conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. At the Republican National Convention in 1988, Bush had pledged to the delegates that he would resist any tax increases, giving his famous “read my lips” pledge -
1993 World Trade Center Attack
At 12:18 p.m., a terrorist bomb explodes in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast. Although the terrorist bomb failed to critically damage the main structure of the skyscrapers, six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. The World Trade Center itself suffered more than $500 million in damage. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
controversial trade pact signed in 1992 that gradually eliminated most tariffs and other trade barriers on products and services passing between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The pact effectively created a free-trade bloc among the three largest countries of North America. Inspired by the success of the European Economic Community in eliminating tariffs in order to stimulate trade among its members. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. Until Section 3 of the Act was struck down in 2013, DOMA, in conjunction with other statutes, had barred same-sex married couples from being recognized as "spouses" for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them from receiving federal marriage benefits. -
Welfare Reform
President Clinton signed into law that dramatically change the nation's welfare system into one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance. The law contains strong work requirements, a performance bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work including increased funding for child care and guaranteed medical coverage. -
Election of 2000
Between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush, and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President. The election hinged on results from the state of Florida, where the vote was so close as to mandate a recount. The outcome of the election was ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. -
9-11 Attacks
19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda 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. Almost 3,000 people were killed, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
A US Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. To receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels -
Hurricane Katrina Disaster
The storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding, and many people charged that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the people affected by the storm. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were displaced from their homes, and experts estimate that Katrina caused more than $100 billion in damage. -
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. 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. -
Election of 2008
Americans elected Illinois senator Barack Obama their 44th president. The result was historic, as Obama, a first-term U.S. senator, became, when he was inaugurated on January 20, 2009, the country’s first African American president. He also was the first sitting U.S. senator to win election to the presidency since John F. Kennedy in 1960. First black president won against Mitt Rodney. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
A stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Great Recession, the ARRA's primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. -
First Hispanic SCOTUS judge - Sonya Sotomayor
President Barack Obama announced his nomination of Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice. The nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68 to 31, making Sotomayor the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history. She was among the majority in two landmark Supreme Court rulings. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) “Obamacare”
signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. The term "Obamacare" was first used by opponents, then re appropriated by supporters, and eventually used by President Obama himself. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. -
Undoing of DOMA
President Obama has instructed the Justice Department to no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, the legal prohibition on federal recognition of same-sex marriages. After a district judge ruled in July that DOMA is unconstitutional, Justice announced it would appeal the ruling, arguing it has an obligation to defend all federal laws. That angered the gay rights community, which was quick to note President Obama's campaign promise to repeal the policy.
