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Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th US states, respectively.
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Democratic Party candidate John F Kennedy elected president, narrowly defeating his rival Richard Nixon.
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Bay of Pigs invasion: an unsuccessful attempt to invade Cuba by Cuban exiles, organised and financed by Washington.
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US compels Soviet Union to withdraw nuclear weapons from Cuba in what has become known as the Cuban missile crisis.
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Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech before a crowd of 200,000 during the civil rights march on Washington, DC.
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President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Tex.
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First U.S. combat troops arrive in South Vietnam.
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Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, Jr., become the first men to land on the Moon.
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President Nixon resigns in the Watergate scandal over a 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters.
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South Vietnamese government surrenders to North Vietnam; U.S. embassy Marine guards and last U.S. civilians are evacuated.
