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Nixon signs sixty bills, one of which provides more than $5 billion in benefits for the aged, blind, and disabled, while also increasing Social Security taxes.
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Chinese Communist Air Force raid the Chinese nationalist-controlled Tachen Islands and seize Ichiang Island.
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The first filming of a presidential press conference.
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Eisenhower announces that the United States would use atomic weapons in the event of war with Communist China.
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The Geneva Conference opens, attended by the heads of state of Britain, France, the U.S.S.R, and the United States. This was the first meeting between the “Big Four” since the end of World War II. While few tangible accomplishments emerged from this summit, the meeting inaugurated a new, less hostile phase of the Cold War.
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Eisenhower makes his “open skies” proposal at Geneva, calling for the Unites States and the Soviet Union to share maps indicating locations of military installments. Though this particular proposal is not accepted, it lays the foundation for Reagan’s future “trust, but verify” policy.
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Plans for the first artificial satellites, scheduled to be launched in 1957, are announced by the United States.
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14-year old black boy Emmett Till is kidnapped and brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi. After a local white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused Till of having whistled at her in a grocery store, Till is kidnapped by Bryant’s husband Roy and Roy’s half-brother J.W. Milam. Till’s mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days later.
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The Interstate Commerce Commission bans racial segregation on interstate trains and buses.
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Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks, at 42, is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger in compliance with segregation laws. Her actions and subsequent arrest sparked a bus boycott in Montgomery which lasts for more than a year.
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The merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) is ratified.
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The Supreme Court orders Autherine Lucy admitted to the University of Alabama on October 10, 1955. She is officially admitted in January 1956.
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Eisenhower releases $1 billion worth of Uranium-235 for peaceful atomic purposes.
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Nineteen white senators and eighty-one white representatives sign the “Southern Manifesto,” promising to use “all lawful means” to resist racial integration and to reverse the Brown desegregation decisions.
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Eisenhower approves U-2 spy flights over the Soviet Union.
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Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, providing federal funding for the construction of a system of interstate highways for transportation and national defense.
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Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.
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The recently discovered Salk Polio Vaccine is sold on the open market.
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Eisenhower signs the Social Security Act 1956, permitting women to retire at age sixty-two and disabled workers at age fifty.
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The Hungarian Revolution, or Hungarian Uprising of 1956, begins as a nationwide revolt against the Soviet policies of the communist Hungarian People's Republic. It lasts until November 10 of the same year.
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Israel, Britain, and France attack Egypt; Eisenhower condemns the attack.
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The Soviet Union crushes the Hungarian Revolution via armed intervention.
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A cease-fire is established in Egypt.
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Eisenhower defeats Stevenson by nine million votes to win a second term. Congress remains in the hands of the Democratic Party.
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott successfully comes to an end and racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama is ordered by the Supreme Court to cease.
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Eisenhower proposes the “Eisenhower Doctrine” regarding the
defense of the Middle East. -
Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term as President.
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The civil rights organization known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is organized in New Orleans. Martin Luther King, Jr., is elected president of the organization.
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Congress sanctions the “Eisenhower Doctrine.”
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John F. Kennedy wins a Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage.
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The Surgeon General reports that scientific research has established a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
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Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957, mainly a voting rights legislation, which was the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction.
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Eisenhower orders federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to end white supremacist violence and protest against the desegregation of local schools.
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The Soviet Union launches Sputnik, heightening American anxieties and increasing American desires to get ahead in the “space race.”
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Eisenhower asks Congress for federal aid for education.
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Eisenhower signs legislation he hopes will stimulate housing construction and help combat a developing economic recession.
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Eisenhower recommends the formation of a civilian agency to direct space exploration.
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Eisenhower meets with civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Granger, who have been critical of Eisenhower’s slow pace of progress and lack of strong support for Civil Rights legislation.
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Eisenhower signs a bill making Alaska the forty-ninth state.
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Eisenhower orders the U.S. Marines into Lebanon.
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Eisenhower signs the National Defense Education Act, which increased funding to improve schools and to promote secondary education.
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Eisenhower orders the withdrawal of the last U.S. Marines from Lebanon.
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Eisenhower signs a bill admitting Hawaii as the fiftieth state.
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Eisenhower asks Nikita Khrushchev for a partial nuclear test ban agreement.
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Eisenhower, with Queen Elizabeth, dedicates the St. Lawrence Seaway.
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Nixon and Khrushchev have their “kitchen debate” in Moscow, where the two enter an impromptu debate on communism versus capitalism in the middle of a model kitchen set up for the American National Exhibition being held in Moscow.
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Eisenhower signs the Landrum-Griffin Act, legislation meant to combat growing corruption in labor organizations.
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Khrushchev visits the United States and meets with Eisenhower at Camp David on September 25 and 26.
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The Steelworkers strike ends with a settlement.
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Civil rights sit-ins begin in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the local Woolworth department store lunch counter. Protestors, resisting taunts and violence from disgruntled patrons, quietly sat side by side, black and white, in a show of support for desegregation. These peaceful protests led the Woolworth department store chain to desegregate its stores.
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Eisenhower authorizes the CIA to begin training exiles to invade Cuba.
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The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an initially student-led civil rights group born out of the sit-in demonstrations, organizes in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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The Soviet Union announces that is has shot down an American U-2 spy plane. Pilot Francis Gary Powers ejected from the plane and survived. The Soviets quickly took Powers prisoner and recovered the remains of the U-2 plane. Hoping to embarrass the United States, the Soviets kept the capture of Powers secret only announcing that an American plane had been shot down.
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Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960; like the Civil Rights Act of 1957, this act mainly concerns voting rights.
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Eisenhower acknowledges that the United States has been conducting U-2 spy flights over the Soviet Union. Khrushchev announces that Francis Gary Powers, a downed U-2 pilot, has admitted to spying on the Soviet Union.
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The Paris Summit between the Soviet Union and the United States ends when Eisenhower refuses to apologize for the U-2 flights and Khrushchev refuses to meet with the President.
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John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon held the first televised presidential debate.
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Kennedy defeats Nixon in the presidential election.
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Eisenhower severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
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Eisenhower's farewell address warns the nation of the growing power of the American “military industrial complex.”
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John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the thirty-fifth President of the United States.
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Kennedy, fulfilling a campaign pledge, issues an executive order creating a temporary Peace Corps and asks Congress to authorize the program permanently. He appoints Sargent Shriver to head the organization.
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Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space.
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A U.S.-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fails. With inadequate support and facing an overwhelming force, the CIA-trained brigade of anti-Castro exiles is defeated in a few days. Kennedy takes responsibility for the disaster.
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Black and white youths supported by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) set out on the first of several “freedom rides” to challenge the lack of enforcement of ICC rules against racial discrimination in interstate travel. The "Freedom Riders" traveled together from Washington, D.C., passing through several southern states on the way to New Orleans, Louisiana. Their efforts exposed the unlawful nature of the enforcement of segregation in bus travel and inspired efforts to rectify injustice.
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Alan Sheppard Jr. becomes the first American in space.
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East Germany, supported by the Soviet Union, begins construction of the Berlin Wall, halting the flow of refugees to the West.
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The Geneva conference, with the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom participating, adjourns without reaching an agreement on a nuclear test ban.
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Kennedy halts virtually all trade with Cuba.
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Astronaut John Glenn aboard the Mercury craft Friendship 7 became the first American to orbit the earth. In a five-hour flight, Glenn orbited the Earth three times and landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean. Both President John Kennedy and the American people celebrated Glenn's space flight. The United States had equaled the Soviet Union in scientific accomplishment.
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in transportation facilities is unconstitutional.
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Kennedy announces the reduction of U.S. import duties as part of an agreement to promote international trade.
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Tom Hayden presents the “Port Huron Statement” to the annual convention of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Port Huron, Michigan.
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The U.S. Supreme Court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James H. Meredith, its first African-American student. After Governor Ross Barnett attempts to block the admission, U.S. Marshals escort Meredith to campus while Federalized national guardsmen maintain order.
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Kennedy addresses the American people in a nationally televised address about the situation in Cuba and orders a naval quarantine of Cuba to prevent further shipments of weapons.
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After thirteen days, the Cuban Missile Crisis is resolved. The United States will pledge not to invade Cub (and secretly agrees to remove missiles from Turkey), in exchange for the removal of the Soviet weapons.
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Kennedy lifts the naval blockade of Cuba.
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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) begins a movement in (with notable participant Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) to highlight the efforts being made by black Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, to integrate public spaces in the city. Importantly, activists worked to expose the violent nature of Birmingham's law enforcement, led by the notorious Eugene "Bull" Connor, who met activists' nonviolent, peaceful protest with high-pressure firehoses and police dogs.
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President John Kennedy gives a commencement address at American University. In it, he addressed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and a nuclear test ban treaty.
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Speaking in West Berlin, Kennedy demonstrates his solidarity with the city, declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
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The "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," or simply "March on Washington," attracted 250,000 demonstrators to the nation's capital in support of civil and economic rights for black Americans. The march was organized by principle Civil Rights activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin but is most often remembered for being the event where Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
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Four African-American girls are killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, when at least 15 sticks of dynamite planted by four members of the KKK blow a 7-foot hole in the basement of the church. More than twenty others were injured; the blast also destroyed the basement lounge, several nearby parked cars, windows two blocks away and all but one of the church's stained glass windows. The FBI closed their investigation without convicting any of the four suspects.
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Kennedy signs a limited nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
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Kennedy is assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested and accused of the crime. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as the thirty-sixth President of the United States following the assassination.
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Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as the thirty-sixth President of the United States following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
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The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, abolishing poll taxes.
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The Beatles arrive in New York for their first U.S. tour.
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In a speech at the University of Michigan, Johnson announces his intention to create a Great Society by extending American prosperity to all its citizens.
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Johnson signs The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing discrimination based on race or color, sex, religion or national origin. This act also prohibits discrimination in voter registration as well as segregation in schools, employment and public accommodations.
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Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President power to pursue military action in Vietnam.
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Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, creating the Office of Economic Opportunity and beginning the War on Poverty.
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Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Nikita Khrushchev is forced to resign as leader of the Soviet Union and is replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
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Lyndon B. Johnson is elected President of the United States.
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Johnson is inaugurated President of the United States.
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Nine American soldiers are killed in an attack on U.S. barracks in Pleiku, Vietnam. Johnson begins the bombing of North Vietnam.
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Black power activist Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam, an organization to which Malcolm X had belonged. Tensions between X and NOI leadership led to his suspension from the group and subsequent assassination.
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Johnson calls for voting rights legislation, leading to the Voting Rights Act. In a moving oration, Johnson called on white Americans to make the cause of African Americans their cause too. Together, he explained, echoing the anthem of the civil rights movement, “we shall overcome.”
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Led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., thousands of peaceful protesters marched over several days from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in reaction to the police murder of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson and to highlight civil rights efforts in the state. This was the third attempt to complete the March. The first ended in the notorious “Bloody Sunday” attack of protesters by Alabama state troopers, and the second, “Turnaround Tuesday,” ended when MLK led the crowd back in compliance with a court order.
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Johnson signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
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Johnson sends U.S. Marines to the Dominican Republic to protect U.S. citizens after a military coup and resulting Dominican Civil War.
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Martin Luther King Jr. leads a demonstration in Chicago in an effort to extend the Civil Rights Movement to the North.
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Johnson signs legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid.
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Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law.
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The Watts Riots break out in the Watt neighborhood of Los Angeles. Incited by an altercation between law enforcement and a drunk driver, the situation escalated until nearly 4,000 California Army National Guard members, 16,000 law enforcement officials, and 30,000 residents became involved over six days, resulting in 34 deaths, 3,438 arrests and $40 million in property damage.
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Fearing that American involvement in Vietnam will draw France into a world war, French president Charles de Gaulle announces that France will withdraw from NATO.
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The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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A launch pad fire during tests for the Apollo program kills three astronauts.
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The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, providing rules of succession upon the death or incapacitation of the President, and enabling the President to appoint a new vice-president in the case of a vacancy.
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The Six Day War breaks out between Israel and several Arab nations.
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Riots break out in Newark, New Jersey, after racial tensions in the city were escalated by the police beating of a cab driver. The riots lasted 5 days leaving 26 dead and hundreds injured.
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Racial tensions in the city of Detroit came to a head after a police raid of an unlicensed bar led to confrontations between police and patrons and escalated to 5 days of riots; the Michigan Army National Guard and two airborne divisions were sent in, 7,200 arrests were made, 43 people died and 1,189 were injured.
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Anti-war demonstrators march to the Pentagon in an attempt to shut it down.
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North Korean forces capture the U.S.S. Pueblo.
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North Vietnamese troops surprise South Vietnamese and American troops by attacking during the Tet holiday. While the Tet Offensive is not a military loss for the United States, it leads to a loss of confidence in the Johnson administration's prosecution of the war.
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U.S. forces in Vietnam commit a massacre in the hamlet of My Lai; hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children are killed. News of the event would not reach the public until November 1969.
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Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) begins the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D.C. to demand economic and human rights for poor Americans.
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Senator Robert Kennedy is assassinated after winning the Democratic primary in California.
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The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia to end the movement toward greater freedom and independence.
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Leonid Brezhnev announces that the Soviet Union has the right to intervene anywhere in its sphere of influence. This “Brezhnev Doctrine” becomes central to Soviet foreign policy.
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Nixon is sworn into office as the thirty-seventh President of the United States.
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Following an attack on a U.S. plane on April 15, Nixon orders that reconnaissance flights off of North Korea be resumed.
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Nixon asks that Congress be granted authority to consolidate federal assistance programs to states and cities, giving locals greater control over the use of federal funds.
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Nixon proposes a plan whereby the United States and North Vietnam would agree to withdraw forces from South Vietnam.
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Nixon asks that Congress make the Post Office Department a public corporation.
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Nixon announces a plan to withdraw 25,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam by August 31.
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Nixon orders cuts in overseas government personnel by 10 percent.
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Nixon affirms his desire to withdraw U.S. troops from southeast Asia and declares that individual nations will bear a larger responsibility for their own security. Initially referred to as the “Guam Doctrine,” this statement later becomes known as the “Nixon Doctrine.”
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Nixon discloses his program for welfare reform, which includes the Family Assistance Plan.
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Nixon declares that Latin America must be responsible for its own social and economic progress.
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Nixon reveals that North Vietnam has rejected the administration's secret peace offers. He proposes a plan for the gradual and secretive withdrawal of troops.
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Nixon signs the Selective Service Reform bill aimed at calming conscription anxieties; this bill ensured that draftees are selected by a lottery system, that the prime eligibility of draftees be reduced from seven years to one, and that draftees aged 19 would be selected at highest priority.
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Nixon addresses the nation through television, asking for wage and price restraint.
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Nixon puts forth a plan to reorganize federal environmental agencies, leading to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Nixon approves a plan to form an Interagency Committee on Intelligence to coordinate operations against domestic targets, namely anti-war leftists and suspected communists.
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Nixon approves and signs the Postal Reorganization Act, which establishes an independent United States Postal Service.
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In a televised address, Nixon proposes a five-point peace plan for Indochina. The plan includes a “cease-fire in place” and the negotiated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
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Nixon signs the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970, which gives the secretary of labor the responsibility of setting workplace safety standards for jobs in the United States.
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Nixon signs a clean air bill which mandates that car manufacturers reduce certain pollutants by 90 percent.
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Nixon tells an ABC news commentator that he is now a “Keynesian,” or one who subscribes to the ideal (of Keynesian economics) that government spending could break a recession. This was unusual for a Republican president.
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Taping systems are activated in the White House. The Oval Office is outfitted with a voice-activated system and the Cabinet Room with a manual system.
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Nixon signs a Wage-Price Controls Bill, extending his authority to impose restraints on wages, prices, salaries, and rents for another year.
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The New York Times begins to publish secret internal documents referred to as the “Pentagon Papers,” a development which leads the White House to become increasingly fearful of further disclosures. Within a week, a special unit named the “Plumbers” is created to stop the leaks.
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Nixon signs an Emergency Employment Act, earmarking $2.25 billion for the creation of public service jobs at state and local levels.
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Nixon declares a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, known as Phase One of his economic program.
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Nixon announces Phase Two of his economic plan, placing a ceiling on food prices.
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Nixon signs an extension of the Economic Stabilization Act, allowing himself another year in which to right the economy.
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President and Mrs. Nixon arrive in China. A joint communique, later known as the Shanghai Communique, is released by the United States and China. It calls for both countries agree to increase their contacts, and for the United States to withdraw gradually from Taiwan.
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Nixon enacts legislation devaluing the dollar in order to stabilize the economy.
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The taping system attached to the telephone on the Camp David study table becomes operational.
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Nixon endorses a bill which calls for revenue sharing with the states and grants over $30 billion to state and local governments over the course of five years.
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Nixon enhances the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the sale and use of pesticides.
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Nixon wins the presidential election in a landslide, but Congress remains in Democratic hands.
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Nixon asks for the resignation of all agency directors, federal department heads, and presidential appointees.
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Phase Three of the economic plan is announced, in which wages and price controls will be ended in all but a few industries.
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President Nixon is inaugurated for his second term.
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Paris Peace Accords are signed by all parties at war in Vietnam, officially ending the conflict.
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The voice-activated taping system at Camp David ceases operation, as does the system attached to the desk telephone in the Camp David study.
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Nixon declares a freeze on all prices for sixty days, with the exception of raw agricultural products and rents.
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Phase Four of the economic program is revealed, in which the freeze is lifted on all foods except beef and health-care products.
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The manual taping system in the Cabinet Room ceases operation, as do those attached to telephones in the Oval Office, the EOB, and the Lincoln Sitting Room.
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Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigns, pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion.
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President Richard Nixon offers Gerald Ford the nomination for vice president. Ford accepts.
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Nixon addresses the nation regarding the energy crisis.
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Ford is sworn in as vice president in the House chamber. Ford remarks that he is a “Ford, not a Lincoln.”
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Nixon increases Social Security benefits.
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Nixon increases the minimum wage to $2 with the likelihood of future increases and broader coverage.
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The Supreme Court ruled in an 8-0 decision that President Richard Nixon had to turn over sixty-four tapes, which disclosed his knowledge and participation in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary. The conversations on the tapes implicated Nixon and led to his resignation, the first time in United States history a President had resigned.
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President Richard M. Nixon announced to a national television audience that he was resigning from the office of the presidency effective noon the following day. Nixon's resignation came less than a month after the House Judiciary Committee voted for three articles of impeachment relating to Nixon's illegal involvement in the Watergate scandal and his use of government agencies to cover up that involvement.
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Nixon asked all Americans to back the new President, Gerald R. Ford, himself in office due to the resignation of former Vice President Spiro Agnew.
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Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as the thirty-eighth President of the United States.
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Ford grants Richard Nixon a full pardon; his approval rating slips to 49 percent.
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Ford forms the Economic Policy Board, which will oversee all aspects of economic policy.
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Ford speaks to a joint session of Congress. He calls for a temporary 5 percent tax hike, cuts in federal spending, and the creation of a voluntary inflation-fighting organization, named “Whip Inflation Now” (WIN).
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Ford signs the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1974, the most significant attempt at campaign finance reform since the 1920s.
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The President announces his “WIN” campaign (Whip Inflation Now).
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The Freedom of Information Act is passed over Ford's veto. It provides expanded access to government files and allows secrecy classifications to be challenged in court and justified by the appropriate federal authorities.
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Ford signs the Privacy Act of 1974, ensuring the right of Americans to individual privacy.
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Ford announces the creation of a presidential commission, known as the “Rockefeller Commission,” to review abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency, including mail opening and domestic surveillance.
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Ford tells the nation he will reluctantly sign the Tax Reduction Act of 1975, which calls for a $22.8 billion tax cut.
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Cambodia falls to communist Khmer Rouge.
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Unemployment reaches its highest point at 9.2 percent.
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First Lady Betty Ford shocks the nation when on the “60 Minutes” television show, she speaks candidly on topics such as extra-marital affairs and marijuana and admits to strongly favoring the Supreme Court's ruling making abortion legal.
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Egypt and Israel sign the second-stage Sinai withdrawal agreement.
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Ford refuses to give federal economic aid to New York City. Instead, he advises the city to use financial restraint. The next day, the headline of the New York Daily News reads: "Ford to City—Drop Dead."
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In what is dubbed by the press as the “Sunday Morning Massacre,” Henry Kissinger gives up his position as National Security adviser but retains the post of Secretary of State; William Colby is fired as director of Central Intelligence, and James Schlesinger is fired as Secretary of Defense.
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Following a tax increase by the New York state legislature and an agreement by banks and teachers unions preventing New York City from falling into default, Ford requests $2.3 billion in U.S. loans for the city.
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Ford signs the Energy Policy Conservation Act.