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Period: to
1960s-1970s
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Lunch Counter Sit-In at Woolworth's in Greenboro, NC
African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s but when they were refused service, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South. -
LASER was invented
Theodore Maiman invented the ruby laser considered to be the first successful optical or light laser -
The Birth Control Pill Is Approved by the FDA
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First Televised Presidential Debate
70 million American viewers watched the first of four televised presidential debates between candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy -
Peace Corps Founded
An organization sponsored by the US government that sends young people to work as volunteers in developing countries. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
1,200 exiles landed on Cuba's Bay of Pigs -
Freedom Ride
ramapgin whites near Anniston, Alabama burned a bus carrying an interracial group of Freedom riders -
Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev met in 1961
Khrushchev threatened to make a rteaty with East Germany and cut off Western access to Berlin. -
Construction began on the Berlin Wall
-Made of barbed-wire and concrete
-designed to plug the heavy population drain from Eas Germany to West Germany through Berlin -
Berlin Crisis
-Kennedy ordered a naval "quarantine" or Cuba
-Kennedy demanded immediate removal of threatening weaponry
-what started as a trivial incident escalated into a confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union -
Berlin Crisis
-American and Soviet tanks began a gradual withdrawal from stand-off positions either side of the border
-Khrushchev agreed to pull missiles out of Cuba
-U.S. agreed to end the quarantine
-U.S. also agreed to remove missiles held in Turkey -
Rachel Carson Publishes Silent Spring
-it generated a storm of controversy over the use of chemical pesticides
-took Carson four years to complete -
Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published
-groundbreaking feminist book
-examines and confronts this stay-at-home mom role for women
-Friedan's book helped change the way women were perceived within U.S. society in the latter half of the century -
Kennedy's speech at American University
-Washington, D.C.
-urged Americans to abandon the view of the USSR as a Devil-ridden land filled with fanatics
-tried to lay the foundations for a realistic peace policy with the Soviet Union -
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech
King led 200,000 black and white civil rights demonstrators on a peacful "March on Washington" -
The Beatles go to America
-greeted by 5,000 screaming fans when they arrived at the New York airport
-appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show -
Civil Rights Act Passes in U.S
-signed into law by President Lyndon B Johnson
-outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women -
Malcolm X Assassinated
-African American nationalist and religious leader
-assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights -
U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
-President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to escalate the Vietnam Conflict by sending U.S. ground troops to Vietnam
-3,500 U.S. Marines landed near Da Nang in South Vietnam; they are the first U.S. troops arrive in Vietnam -
Watts race riots
-begin a five day siege
-34 dead
-property destruction in excess of $200 million -
New York City Great Blackout
-Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to 12 hours -
Mass Draft Protests in U.S.
-50,000 anti-war protesters took part in a rally in NYC -
National Organization for Women (NOW) Founded
-Founded by Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique
"The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men." -
Medicare begins
the government medical program for citizens over the age of 65 -
National Historic Preservation Act
expanded the National Register of Historic Places to include historic sites of regional, state, and local significance -
Edward Brooke elected to Congress
-first black United States Senator in eighty-five years
-was the Republican candidate from Massachusetts and former Attorney General of that state -
Three U.S. Astronauts Killed During Simulated Launch
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The Outer Space Treaty is signed
-into force by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union
-in effect on October 10, 1967 -
Thurgood Marshall Becomes the First African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice
would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution -
Tet Offensive
North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong forces attacked both towns and cities in South Vietnam, breaking the ceasefire that had been called for the Vietnamese holiday of Tet (the lunar new year). -
Ford Theatre re-opened
-place where President Lincoln was assassinated
-restored to its original appearance and use as a theatre -
Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination
The FBI investigated the crime, but many believed them partially or fully responsible for the assassination. An escaped convict by the name of James Earl Ray was arrested -
Robert Kennedy Assassination
Robert F. Kennedy was shot three times by Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan after giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California -
Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon
-part of the Apollo 11 mission
-A few minutes later, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin followed in Armstrong's steps -
Nixon's New Vietnam Policy
-declar the Nixon Doctrine that expected Asian allies to care for their own military defense
-heavily protested throughout the remainder of the year -
Rock and Roll concert at Woodstock
-500,000 young people converged on Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York
-There were lots of drugs, lot of sex and nudity, and lots of mud
-The Woodstock Music Festival became an icon of the 1960s hippie counterculture -
"Chicago 7" jailed
-Five members convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic Presidential Convention in Chicago -
Beatles Break Up
-John Lennon left the band in September of 1969
-a public announcment was made by Paul in April of 1970. -
First "Earth Day"
-held with millions of American participating in anti-pollution demonstrations
-school children walking to school instead of riding the bus -
Kent State Shooting
-The National Guard Opened Fire on the Kent State Campus
-killing four and wounding nine others -
Invasion of Laos
-forty-four day raid by South Viet soldiers
-aid of United States air and artillery -
largest attacks by North Vietnam
begin again by United States forces against Hanoi and Haiphong -
First U.S. Presidential Visit to Moscow
-lead to a strategic arms pact, SALT I
-White House would announce the sale of American wheat to the Soviet Union -
Watergate Scandal Begins
Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex. -
Terrorists Attack at the Olympic Games in Munich
-eight members of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Black September, snuck into the Olympic Village at the XXth Olympic Games -
Roe v. Wade decided
-Legalizes Abortion in the U.S.
-Harry Blackmun wrote the Court’s opinion.
-The Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny -
U.S. Pulls Out of Vietnam
-A cease-fire went into effect
-fighting soon resumed between North and South Vietnam -
Paul Getty Kidnapped
-kidnapped at 16
-Getty was tethered to a stake and tortured
-took five months and the slicing off of the young man's ear, (without anaesthetic) before Paul's grandfather paid a ransom -
U.S. Vice President Resigns
-Spiro Agnew becomes the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace
-he pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of charges of political corruption
-fined $10,000, sentenced to three years probation -
Patty Hearst Kidnapped
-a group of men and women beat up her fiancé, threw her in the trunk of their car and drove off
-kidnappers already shot two Oakland school officials with cyanide-tipped bullets, killing one and seriously wounding the other -
Terracotta Army Discovered in China
three farmers were drilling holes in the hopes of finding water to dig wells when they came upon some ancient terracotta pottery shards -
President Nixon Resigns
-first president in American history to resign
-"I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." -
Civil War in Lebanon
gunmen killed four Phalangists during an attempt on Pierre Jumayyil's life -
Ebola Outbreaks in Sudan and Zaire
total of 602 reported cases and 431 deaths -
Tangshan Earthquake
-Kills Over 240,000
-magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit the Chinese city of Tangshan -
South African Anti-Apartheid Leader Steve Biko Tortured to Death
-Biko was driven to Pretoria, naked and manacled to the floor of a Land Rover
-was given an intravenous drip by a newly qualified doctor who had no information about him other than that he was refusing to eat -
John Paul II Becomes Pope
-ordained in 1946
-first non-Italian pope in more than 400 years -
Jonestown Massacre
-Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones instructed his followers to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced fruit punch
-912 Peoples Temple members drank punch and died -
Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island
-America’s worst commercial nuclear accident
-accident was the result of both mechanical and human error
-public fear over the release of radioactive gases after accident -
Margaret Thatcher First Woman Prime Minister of Great Britain
-shored up a Conservative-led government
-favored privatization rather than government expansion
-led the country through the Falklands War with Argentina -
Mother Teresa Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
-internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless
-won India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 -
Sony Introduces the Walkman
The original Sony Walkman, the first personal stereo tape deck, which made its debut in 1979.
