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Joseph McCarthy
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States. These fears came to define–and, in some cases, corrode–the era’s political culture. For many Americans, the most enduring symbol of this “Red Scare” was Republican Senator Joseph P. McCarthy of Wisconsin. Senator McCarthy spent almost five years trying in vain to expose communists and other left-wing “loyalty risks” in the U.S. government. -
2nd Red Scare
As the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare. (Communists were often referred to as “Reds” for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.) The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain is a term that received prominence after Winston Churchill's speech in which he said that an "iron curtain has descended" across Europe. He was referring to the boundary line that divided Europe into two areas. western Europe had political freedom, while Eastern Europe was under comminist Soviet rule. The term also symbolized the way in which the Soviet Union blocked its territories from open contact with the West. Although it seemed as if the Iron Curtain’s restrictions were a -
Truman Doctorine
Truman Doctrine, pronouncement by U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, declaring immediate economic and military aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by Communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War that followed World War II, Great Britain announced that it could no longer afford to aid those Mediterranean countries, which the -
Period: to
Cold War
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Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery program, gathered 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 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 1947. -
Berlin Airlift
After World War II, the Allies partitioned the defeated Germany into a Soviet-occupied zone, an American-occupied zone, a British-occupied zone and a French-occupied zone. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four sections. In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. -
Alger Hiss
The case against Hiss began in 1948, when Whittaker Chambers, an admitted ex-communist and an editor with Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and charged that Hiss was a communist in the 1930s and 1940s. Chambers also declared that Hiss, during his work in the Department of State during the 1930s, had passed him top secret reports. -
Space Race
The space race was a competition between the united states and the soviet union. 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 fire -
Elvis Presley
Elvis was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, 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. -
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. -
Rock 'n' Roll
rock & roll is a style of popular music that originated in the United States in the mid-1950s and that evolved by the mid-1960s into the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known as rock and roll. Rock and roll has been described as a merger of country music and rhythm and blues, but, if it were that simple, it would have existed long before it burst into the national consciousness. The seeds of the music had been in place for decade -
Period: to
1950's
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Korea War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international -
Dr. Jonas Salk
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. -
Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was Harry Truman's domestic policy at the start of his second term. Like the previous ''deals'' of American political history, Truman's focused on social reform, welfare, and an increasing role of the government in people's lives.Truman was one of few American presidents to first enter the Oval Office without being elected to it. In 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died, catapulting his vice president (Truman) into power. -
Earl Warren Supreme Court
Earl Warren was a prominent 20th century leader of American politics and law. Elected California governor in 1942, Warren secured major reform legislation during his three terms in office. After failing to claim the Republican nomination for the presidency, he was appointed the 14th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The landmark case of his tenure was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in which the court determined the segregation of schools to be uncostitutional -
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. For promising eventually to eradicate the disease, which is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated. -
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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Little Richard
Little Richard was a musician who was the owner of many famous rock hits including “Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Send Me Some Lovin’.” With his blood-pumping piano playing and suggestive lyrics, Little Richard, along with the likes of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, established rock as a real musical form and inspired others, most notably the Beatles, to make a go of it. In addition to his records, Little Richard appeared in several early rock films -
Emmett Till Tragedy
Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago and grew up in a middle-class black neighborhood. Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 when the fourteen-year-old was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights protest during where African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5 1955, to December 20 1956, and is regarded as the first time the us shows 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 -
Rosa Parks
By refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955, black seamstress Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States. The leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott lasted more than a year—during which Parks not coincidentally lost her job—and ended only when the U.S. -
G.I Bill
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 existed until 1956, while the Veterans’ Administration offered insured loans until 1962. -
Ike Turner
R&B legend Ike Turner was born on November 5, 1931, 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, including "I Idolize You," "It's Going to Work Out Fine" and "Poor Fool." The duo's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" earned them their first and only Grammy Award -
Albert Sabin
Sabin had developed a live vaccine. Jonas Salk had produced a “killed” vaccine for polio a few years before Sabin's discovery. The problems with Salk's vaccine were twofold. First, it did protect people from contracting polio, but it did not prevent them from infecting others with the virus. Second, Salk's vaccine had to be administered through shots. Sabin's live vaccine eliminated the possibility that someone could remain immune from polio but still transmit the virus. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at an all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957. 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 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students. -
NASA
In October 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world, and particularly the American public, by launching the first satellite into orbit around the earth. Called Sputnik, the small spacecraft was an embarrassment to the United States, which prided itself on its leadership in the field of technology. Sputnik also provided the Soviets with an important propaganda advantage in terms of reaching out to underdeveloped Third World nations that were looking for scientific and technological assistance. -
Hippies
Hippies were popular during the 1960s and 1970s, they were 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, like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who were generally considered to be the precursors of hippies. -
Chicano Mural Movement
In the 1920s, Mexican artists known as 'los tres grandes', José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaros Siqueiros, and Diego Rivera, developed the artistic genre of muralismo, or modern mural painting, that became a definitive Mexican style. Rivera painted Mexican murals throughout the United States as well, and during the Great Depression the American government hired local artists to cover government buildings in murals as part of the Public Works programs. -
LSD
LSD was made famous in the 1960s by individuals such as psychologist Timothy Leary, who persuaded 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 UK and the rest of Europe. Even today, use of LSD in the UK is significantly higher than in other parts of the world. The drug was mostly used by people who at the time were called "hippies" and were a big part of the counterculture. -
Counterculture
The counterculture was a group of people that were against all maintream culture, the people in it would exercise protest against specific ways of doing things. The Counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment culture that spread throughout the Western world in the 1960s and lasting into the mid-1970s. The counter culture movement was inspired by similar movement in Germany from 1896 to 1908. -
Period: to
1960's
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Peace Corps
a federal agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to promote voluntary service by Americans in foreign countries, it provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructire, health care, educational systems, and other aspects of their societies. Part of Kennedy's New Frontier vision, the organization represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence through productive exchanges across the world -
New Frontier
The new frontier was President Kennedy's nickname for his domestic policy agenda. Buoyed by youthful optimism, the program included proposals for the Peace Corps and efforts to improve education and health care -
Lee Harvey Oswald
According to five U.S. government investigations, he was the sniper who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Oswald was a former U.S. Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. He lived in the Soviet Union until June 1962, at which time he returned to the United States. Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, who was killed on a Dallas street approximately 45 minutes after -
'I have a dream' speech
he “I Have a Dream” speech, was given by Martin Luther King Jr. before a crowd of some 250,000 people at the 1963 March on Washington, went down in history asone 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. -
Birmingham Bombing
The Birmingham church bombing happened on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama a church with a predominantly black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. Outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often-dangerous -
Assassination Of JFK
The assassination of the president at the time Mr. John F Kennedy happened on 1963 in Dallas, riding in a parade to drum up support for the upcoming presidential election in 1964, JFK was shot twice by Lee Harvey Oswald and pronounced dead at Parkland hopsital. -
Daisy Girl Ad
a 60 second TV ad changed American politics forever. A 3yearold 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 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was a genocidal maniac who threatened the world’s future. Two months later, President Lyndon Johnson won easily, and the emotional political attack ad -
malcom x
Malcolm x was an activist and the 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.” Born Malcolm Little, he changed his last name to X to signify his rejection of his “slave” name. Charismatic and eloquent, Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam -
Cesar Chavez
Mexican-American Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) was 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 -
Nixons Presidency
Richard Nixon became the 37th U.S. president, is best remembered as the only president ever to resign from office. Nixon stepped down in 1974, halfway through his second term, rather than face impeachment over his efforts to cover up illegal activities by members of his administration in the Watergate scandal. A former Republican congressman and U.S. senator from California, he served two terms as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. -
panama canal
after the failure of a French construction team in the 1880s, the United States started building a canal across a 50-mile stretch of the Panama isthmus in 1904. The project was helped by the elimination of diseasecarrying mosquitoes, while chief engineer John Stevens devised innovative techniques and spurred the crucial redesign from a sea-level to a lock canal. His successor, George Washington Goethals, stepped up excavation efforts of a stubborn mountain range and oversaw. -
The New Right
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. -
Period: to
1970's
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Decline Of The Midwest
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. Nixon took aggressive steps to cover up the crime afterwards, and in August 1974, after his role in th -
Phyllis Schlafly
Mrs. Schlafly is the founder and president of Eagle Forum, a national organization of citizens who participate as volunteers in the public policymaking process. She and all Eagle Forum’s state leaders are volunteers. Eagle Forum maintains offices on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and in Alton, Illinois. She is also the founder and president of Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, a think-tank and library which has its national headquarters at the Eagle Forum Education Center. -
Roe v Wade
Roe v Wade was a court rule that 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 Despite opponents’ characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. -
OPEC
OPEC is an acronym for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries; was a cartel established in 1960 by the Persian Gulf states and oil-rich developing nations; members were allowed to have control over the price of oil; Arab states in the OPEC created an oil embargo in 1973 in response to America's part in helping Israel during the Yom Kippur War; caused gas prices in America to increase by 40% and oil prices for heating to increase by 30%; people had to wait hours in gas lines during the -
Jimmy Carters Presidency
s the 39th president of the United States, 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, but was damaged late in his term by a hostage crisis in Iran. Carter’s diagnosis of the nation’s “crisis of confidence” did little to boost his sagging popularity -
Camp David Accords
A major accomplishment of the Carter presidency, the Camp David Accords were signed by Israel's leader, Menachem Begin, and Egypt's leader, Anwar el Sadat, on Sept. 17,1978, creating a framework for peace in the Middle East. The treaty , however, fell apart when Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981. -
iran host\\\
On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. The immediate cause of this action was President Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow Iran’s deposed Shah, a pro-Western autocrat who had been expelled from his country some months before, to come to the United States for cancer treatment. However, the hostage-taking was about more than the Shah’s medical care: it was a dramatic way for the student revolutionaries to declare -
Ronald Reagan
40th president of the United States, known for his conservative Republicanism and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm. The only movie actor ever to become president, he had a remarkable skill as an orator that earned him the title “the Great Communicator.” His policies have been credited with contributing to the demise of Soviet communism. For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, see presidency of the United States of America. -
Entertainment In The 80's
The 80’s was the decade were entertainment was at its best. The rising technology of television, showing movies to music videos appeared on screen attracting people around the world. MTV started producing music videos in that decade, showing music videos of two great music artists Michael Jackson and Madonna who were on top of the music charts. In addition, movies such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and E.T were some of the classics that influenced Australia’s entertainment on television. -
Iran Contra Affair
In early November 1985, the of the head of the National Security Council, Robert McFarlane Reagan authorized a secret initiative to sell antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Iran in exchange for that country’s help in securing the release of Americans held hostage by terrorist groups in Lebanon. The initiative directly contradicted the administration’s publicly stated policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or to aid countries such as Iran that supported international terrorism. -
Period: to
1980's
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Reagan Doctrine
On January 23, 1980, Reagan's predecessor and then President of the United States Jimmy Carter made it clear that the United States would not hesitate to use military force to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. The statement formed the basis of the Carter Doctrine, which came into being in response to Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. -
Election Of 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent. Reagan, aided by the Iran hostage crisis and a worsening economy at home, won the election in a landslide. Carter, after defeating Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right wing radical. For his part, Reagan, the former Governor of -
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States 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. -
Reagan Presidency
Ronald Reagan, a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. 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 the soviets. -
Space Shuttle
on April 12, 1981, when the first landing happened and the final landing on July 21, 2011, NASA's space shuttle fleet Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour flew 135 missions, helped construct the International Space Station and inspired generations. NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981 and continued to set high marks of achievement and endurance through 30 years of missions. -
AIDS Crisis
On June 5, the U.S. center for disease control and Prevention published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, describing cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, in five young, previously healthy, gay men in Los Angeles. All the men have other unusual infections as well, indicating that their immune systems are not working; two have already died by the time the report is published. This edition of the MMWR marks the first official reporting of what is the AIDS epidemic -
Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson was 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 Musician Robert Johnson was born on May 8, 1911, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. A singer and guitarist, Johnson is considered to be on -
George HW Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-), served as the 41st U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. He also was a two-term U.S. vice president under Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1989. Bush, a World War II naval aviator and Texas oil industry executive, began his political career in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1967. During the 1970s, he held a variety of government posts, including CIA director. In 1988, Bush defeated Democratic rival Michael Dukakis to win the White House. -
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey was born in 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. -
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton was born on October 26, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois, going on to earn her law degree from Yale University. She married fellow law school graduate Bill Clinton in 1975. She later served as first lady from 1993 to 2001, and then as a U.S. senator from 2001 to 2009. In early 2007, Clinton announced her plans to run for the presidency. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, she conceded the nomination when it became apparent that Barack Obama held a majority of the delegate vote. -
Period: to
1990's
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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 United States 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. -
Election of 1992
Democrats chose Bill Clinton (despite accusations of womanizing, drug use, and draft evasion) and Albert Gore Jr. as his running mate. Republicans chose Bush for another election and J. Danforth Quayle as his running mate. Third candidate Ross Perot added color to the election by getting 19.7 million votes in the election (no elecctoral votes though), but Clinton won, 370 to 168 in the Electoral College. Democrats also got control of both the House and the Senate. -
Ross Perot
He was the son of a cotton broker. Perot attended Texarkana Junior College for two years before entering the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1949. He was commissioned in the U.S. Navy in 1953 and served until 1957, after which he worked as a salesman for International Business Machines Corporation (IB
In 1962 Perot quit IBM and formed his own company, Electronic Data Systems, to design, install, and operate. -
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton (1946-), 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 appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney. -
North America Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement established a free-trade zone in North America; it was signed in 1992 by Canada, Mexico, and the United States and took effect on Jan. 1, 1994 immediately lifted tariffs on the majority of goods produced by the signatory nations. It also calls for the gradual elimination, over a period of 15 years, of most remaining barriers to cross-border investment and to the movement of goods and services among the three countries. -
Defence Of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act enacted September 21, 1996 was a United States federal law that, 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. -
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was the largest and 3rd strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in the US.
In New Orleans, the levees were designed for Category 3, but Katrina peaked at a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 175 mph. The final death toll was at 1,836, primarily from Louisiana and Mississippi. More than half of these victims were senior citizens. Keep seniors safe and sound, and help them plan for hurricane season. -
No Child Left Behind 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. -
Undoing of DOMA
The Defense of Marriage Act aka DOMA is a federal law that denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and authorizes states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states. DOMA was passed out of the fear that a lawsuit in Hawaii would force that state to recognize same-sex marriages. Under the U.S. Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause states are expected to recognize the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. -
Ralph Nader
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 candidate for the Green Party in the 2000 election. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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John McCain
is 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 McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and followed his father and grandfather both four-star admirals into the United States Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed. -
George Bush
George W. Bush, America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Bush worked in the Texas oil industry and was an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming governor. In 2000, he won the presidency after narrowly defeating Democratic challenger Al Gore. -
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. -
Al Gore
A native of Tennessee, Al Gore served as vice president of the United States under President Bill Clinton from 1992 to 2000, after a long tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. He lost a presidential bid to George W. Bush in 2000. In 2007, Gore won a Nobel Prize for his work to raise awareness of global warming. -
Barack Obama
Born in Honolulu in 1961, Barack Obama went on to become President of the Harvard Law Review and a U.S. senator representing Illinois. In 2008, he was elected President of the United States, becoming the first African-American commander-in-chief. He served two terms as the 44 president of the United States. -
Sonya 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
