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Polio Vaccine
A study showing the Salk polio vaccine to be effective is released. Mass inoculations will follow and the disease, which has been a serious threat for generations, will virtually disappear. -
Rosa Parks Arrested
In Montgomery, Alabama, the Black seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man and is arrested. The ensuing boycott, coordinated by a young Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., will mark an important turning point in the African-American freedom struggle. -
Little Rock Desegregation
Eisenhower sends federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the court-ordered desegregation of the city's public schools. As a result, nine Black students are allowed to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School. -
John F. Kennedy is Assassinated
While riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy is shot and killed. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumes the presidency. -
USS Maddox
Responding to raids on northern ports, North Vietnamese gunboats attack the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin; the Maddox suffers little damage and no casualties are reported. The U.S. declares that its destroyer was on routine patrol in international waters and that it did nothing to provoke the attack, nor did it play any part in the South Vietnamese raids. Four years later, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara will admit that the U.S. had in fact cooperated with the South. -
March on the Pentagon
Thousands march to the Pentagon to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam. -
Martin Luther King Jr. is Assassinated
Thousands march to the Pentagon to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam. -
Nixon is Elected President
Republican Richard Nixon is elected President of the United States. -
Watergate
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. -
Richard Nixon is Reelected
Nixon defeats Democratic candidate Senator George McGovern in the presidential election. McGovern has run on an anti-war platform that would grant amnesty to draft evaders who have left the country, and would exchange American withdrawal from Vietnam for the return of American prisoners of war (POWs). -
Vietnam War Officially Ends
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. Over 3 million Americans have served in the war, nearly 60,000 are dead, some 150,000 are wounded, and at least 1,000 are missing in action.