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Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson is considered to be one of the greatest blues performers of all time. His hits include "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Sweet Home Chicago," which has become a blues standard. Part of his mythology is a story of how he gained his musical talents by making a bargain with the devil. He died at age 27 as the suspected victim of a deliberate poisoning. -
Television
The invention of the television was the work of many individuals in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Individuals and corporations competed in various parts of the world to deliver a device that superseded previous technology. Many were compelled to capitalize on the invention and make profit, while some wanted to change the world through visual and audio communication technology. -
G.I. Bill
On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill, in order to help soldiers secure stability as they returned to civilian life. A broadcast aired shortly after the bill was signed describes a nation preparing to welcome World War II veterans. -
Iron Curtain
The iron curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of WWII until the end of the cold war. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself as its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. -
Atomic Bomb
The atomic bomb, and nuclear bombs, are powerful weapons that use nuclear reactions as their source of explosive energy. Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II. A period of nuclear proliferation followed that war, and during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in a global nuclear arms race. -
Hiroshima
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. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” -
The Marshall Plan
Also known as the European Recovery Program, the Marshall Plan channeled over $13 billion to finance the economy recovery of Europe. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked the economy. The plan is named for Secretary of State Gorge C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University. -
Period: to
Cold War
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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 and further developed when he pledged to contain threats to Greece and Turkey. -
The Berlin Airlift
The Russians closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. They believed this would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies. Instead of retreating from West Berlin 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
The Fair Deal was an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. -
Rock 'n' Roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from African American musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues, along with country music. -
Little Richard
Born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, 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. -
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary movement whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of standard narrative values, spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. -
Period: to
1950s
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The Korean War (The Forgotten War)
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-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them.
American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China–or even, World War III. -
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley came from very humble beginnings and grew up to become one of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll. By the mid-1950s, he appeared on the radio, television and the silver screen. On August 16, 1977, at age 42, he died of heart failure, which was related to his drug addiction. Since his death, Presley has remained one of the world's most popular music icons. -
Hydrogen Bomb
After the Soviet atomic bomb success, the idea of building a hydrogen bomb received new impetus in the United States. In this type of bomb, deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes) are fused into helium, thereby releasing energy. There is no limit on the yield of this weapon. The scientific community split over the issue of building a hydrogen bomb. Edward Teller, who had explored the idea of a 'super' during the Manhattan Project, supported its development. -
Dr Jonas Salk
American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. 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. For promising eventually to eradicate the disease, which is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time. -
Polio Vaccine
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. 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. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time. -
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. -
Period: to
Civil Rights
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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 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. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was 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. -
Rosa Parks
By refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement. The local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws. The boycott lasted more than a year ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end racial segregation. -
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. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. -
Ike Turner
R&B legend Ike Turner was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up playing the blues. In 1956, he met a teenager and singer named Anna Mae Bullock. He married her and helped create her stage persona, Tina Turner. The two became the Ike & Tina Turner Revue and created several R&B hits. The duo's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" earned them their first Grammy Award together in 1971. Their last hit together was "Nutbush City Limits," released in 1973. -
Orval Faubus
An American politician who served as 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967. A Democrat, he is best remembered for his 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. -
Little Rock 9
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. 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. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school. -
Counter Culture
A counterculture (also written counter-culture) is a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores. A counter cultural movement expresses the ethos and aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era. When op positional forces reach critical mass, countercultures can trigger dramatic cultural changes. -
Hippies
Members of a countercultural movement that rejected the mores of mainstream American life. The movement originated on college campuses in the United States, although it spread to other countries, including Canada and Britain. The name derived from “hip,” a term applied to the Beats of the 1950s, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who were generally considered to be the precursors of hippies. The movement arose in part as opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Malcolm X
The-activist and outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration championed by Martin Luther King Jr. He urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary.” Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam with black nationalism and sought to encourage disadvantaged young blacks searching for confidence in segregated America. -
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a permanent, intergovernmental Organization, created at the Baghdad Conference by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The five Founding Members were later joined by nine other Members: Qatar, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Angola, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. OPEC had its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in the first five years of its existence. This was moved to Vienna, Austria -
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 as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. -
Feminism
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. -
Period: to
1960s
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Assassination of JFK
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, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald, born in New Orleans in 1939, joined the U.S. Marines in 1956. He was discharged in 1959 and nine days later left for the Soviet Union, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a citizen. He worked in Minsk and married a Soviet woman and in 1962 was allowed to return to the United States with his wife and infant daughter. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when about 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. -
The Great Society
In a speech presented at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson outlines his vision of a "Great Society," which includes the ideas that will later become programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start. -
Barry Goldwater
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 2, 1909, Barry Goldwater 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. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which 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. It survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Congress expanded the act and passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Anti-War Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society 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. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Because Kennedy was assassinated the 25 amendment allows the vice president to become president. On January 20, 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson began his first elected term as president of the United States. In his inaugural address, Johnson calls for the nation to unite toward a common goal. -
Nixon's Presidency
Best remembered as the only president ever to resign from office. Nixon stepped down rather than face impeachment over his efforts to cover up illegal activities in the Watergate scandal. A former Republican congressman and U.S. senator from California. He ran for the White House in 1968 and won. Nixon’s achievements included forging diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, and withdrawing U.S. troops from war in Vietnam. -
Apollo 11
American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon. Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he set took his first step, Armstrong famously said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John Kennedy announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. -
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Born in the wake of elevated concern about environmental pollution, EPA was established on December 2, 1970 to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection. Since its inception, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people. -
The New Right
Anti-feminists rallied against the Equal Rights Amendment and the eroding traditional family unit. Many ordinary Americans were shocked by the sexual permissiveness found in films and magazines. Those who believed homosexuality was sinful lambasted the newly vocal gay rights movement. As the divorce and crime rates rose, an increasing number of Americans began to blame the liberal welfare establishment for social maladies. A cultural war unfolded at the end of the 1970s. -
Period: to
1970s
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Watergate
The Watergate scandal began when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings in Washington, D.C.The prowlers were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, and they had been caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. After his role in the conspiracy was revealed, Nixon resigned. The Watergate scandal led many Americans to question their leaders. -
Equal Rights Amendment
First proposed by the National Woman’s political party, the Equal Rights Amendment was to provide for the legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Under the leadership of U.S. Representative Bella Abzug of New York and feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, it won the requisite two-thirds vote from the U.S. House of Representatives in October 1971. In March 1972, it was approved by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states. -
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the few dozens of US environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. -
Gerald Ford's Presidency
Gerald Ford took office following the resignation of President Richard Nixon who left the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. Ford became the first unelected president in the nation’s history. A longtime Republican congressman from Michigan, Ford had been appointed vice president less than a year earlier by President Nixon. He is credited with helping to restore public confidence in government after the disillusionment of the Watergate era. -
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. -
Video Head System (VHS)
The Video Home System (VHS) is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan (JVC) in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan in late 1976 and in the United States in early 1977. -
Jimmy Carter's Presidency
Jimmy Carter struggled to respond to formidable challenges, including a major energy crisis as well as high inflation and unemployment. In the foreign affairs arena, he reopened U.S. relations with China and made headway with efforts to broker peace in the historic Arab-Israeli conflict. Carter’s diagnosis of the nation’s “crisis of confidence” did little to boost his sagging popularity, and in 1980 he was soundly defeated in the general election by Ronald Reagan. -
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Black Entertainment Television (BET), American cable television network and multimedia group providing news, entertainment, and other programming developed primarily for African American viewers. BET also operates a channel geared toward African American women, Centric; features contemporary and 20th-century popular music through BET Gospel, BET Hip-Hop, BET James, and BET Soul; produces documentaries and movies for distribution on the BET channel; and sponsors the BET Awards. -
Election of 1980
1980 Presidential Election. The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent. -
Reagonomics
The media called it 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. -
Period: to
1980s
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Reagan Presidency
Aformer actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. He served as the Republican governor of California. 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. -
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. A moderate conservative, she was known for her dispassionate and meticulously researched opinions. Sandra Day O’Connor was a pioneering force on the Supreme Court and will always be remembered as acting as a sturdy guiding hand in the court’s decisions during those years. In 2009 President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. -
Music Television (MTV)
On this day in 1981, MTV: Music Television goes on the air for the first time ever, with the words “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.” The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video to air on the new cable television channel, which initially was available only to households in parts of New Jersey. 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. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) "Star Wars"
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. The Strategic Defense Initiative was the United States’ response to possible nuclear attacks from afar. The Strategic Defense Initiative was ultimately set aside. -
Reagan Doctrine
In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” The doctrine served as the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of “freedom fighters” around the globe. -
Challenger Explosion
The NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded 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 later determined that two rubber O-rings had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. The tragedy and its aftermath received extensive media coverage and prompted NASA to temporarily suspend all shuttle missions. -
Health Care Reform
Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes—for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place -
Persian Gulf War/ 1st Iraq War
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. The Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm. After 42 days of relentless attacks by the allied coalition in the air and on the ground, U.S. President declared a cease-fire. -
Period: to
1990s
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Election of 1992
United States presidential election of 1992, American presidential election held on Nov. 3, 1992, in which 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. -
Bill Clinton Presidency
Bill Clinton 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. In 1998, the House of Representatives impeached Clinton on charges related to a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. He was acquitted by the Senate. -
World Trade Attack - 1993
Terrorists drove a rental van into a parking garage under the World Trade Center’s twin towers and lit the fuses on a homemade bomb stuffed inside. Six people died and more than 1,000 were injured in the massive explosion, which carved out a crater several stories deep and propelled smoke into the upper reaches of the skyscrapers. It would eventually be overshadowed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Clinton said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact. NAFTA, a trade pact between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the three nations. The passage of NAFTA was one of Clinton’s first major victories as the first Democratic president in 12 years–though the movement for free trade in North America had begun as a Republican initiative. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
DOMA denied to same-sex couples all benefits and recognition given to opposite-sex couples. Those benefits included more than 1,000 federal protections and privileges, such as the legal recognition of relationships, access to a partner’s employment benefits, rights of inheritance, joint tax returns and tax exemptions, immigration or residency for noncitizen partners, next-of-kin status, protection from domestic violence, and the right to live together in military or college housing. -
Lewinsky Affair
The Monica Lewinsky scandal began in the late 1990s, when America was rocked by a political sex scandal involving President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern in her early 20s. In 1995, the two began a sexual relationship that continued sporadically until 1997. In 1998, when news of his extramarital affair became public, Clinton denied the relationship before later admitting to “inappropriate intimate physical contact” with Lewinsky. -
Election of 2000
United States presidential election of 2000, American presidential election held on Nov. 7, 2000, in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore but defeated Gore in the electoral college. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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9/11 Attacks
On September 11, 2001, 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 during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. -
PATRIOT ACT
The USA PATRIOT Act, as it is officially known, is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” Bush hoped the bipartisan legislation would empower law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent future terrorist attacks on American soil. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
The 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. -
Hurricane Katrina Disaster
Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale–it brought sustained winds of 140 miles per hour–and stretched some 400 miles across. The storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were displaced from homes, and experts estimate that Katrina caused more than $100 billion in damage. -
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. With the highest voter turnout rate in four decades, Obama and Delaware senator Joe Biden defeated the Republican ticket of Arizona senator John McCain, who sought to become the oldest person elected president to a first term in U.S. history. -
John McCain
He was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. After his release, McCain served as a Republican congressman and senator from the state of Arizona, earning renown as a "maverick" who challenged party orthodoxy. He launched a bid for the U.S. presidency in 1999 and earned the Republican nomination in 2008, before losing to Barack Obama. After winning a sixth Senate term in 2016, McCain made headlines for his opposition to Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare and his battle with brain cancer. -
Barack Obama
President Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president of the United States on November 5, 2008, transcending centuries of inequality in America. On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected president of the United States over Senator John McCain of Arizona. Obama became the 44th president, and the first African American to be elected to that office. He was subsequently elected to a second term over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. -
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in the Bronx borough of New York City. Her desire to be a judge was first inspired by the TV show Perry Mason. She graduated from Yale Law School and passed the bar in 1980. She became a U.S. District Court Judge in 1992 and was elevated to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. In 2009, she was confirmed as the first Latina Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) "Obamacare"
Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called Obamacare, U.S. health care reform legislation, signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, which included provisions that required most individuals to secure health insurance or pay fines, made coverage easier and less costly to obtain, cracked down on abusive insurance practices, and attempted to rein in rising costs of health care. widely considered the most far-reaching health care reform act since the passage of Medicare.
