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A study showing the Salk polio vaccine to be effective is released. Polio will now virtually disappear.
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In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man and is arrested.
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Eisenhower is elected to a second term as president.
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John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest elected president.
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While riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy is shot and killed. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumes the presidency.
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The USS Maddox reports a second assault by North Vietnamese gunboats. President Johnson orders retaliatory strikes, and the U.S. bombs North Vietnam for the first time.
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Thousands march to the Pentagon to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Republican Richard Nixon is elected President of the United States.
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Five men are caught burglarizing the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C. Their arrests will set into motion the events that will eventually result in President Nixon's resignation.
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Nixon defeats Democratic candidate Senator George McGovern in the presidential election.
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The Vietnam War is officially over for the United States. The last U.S. combat soldier leaves Vietnam, but military advisors and some Marines remain.
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President Nixon resigns amidst the Watergate scandal; his vice president Gerald Ford takes office.