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After the Japenese attacked Pearl Harbor, United States declared war on Japan and therefore World War II.
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The development of the first atomic bomb is signed into agreement between the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York.
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The riots cause forty deaths and seven hundred injuries.
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Americans received word that three years of concerted war efforts had finally culminated in D-day--military jargon for the undisclosed time of a planned British, American, and Canadian action. During the night, over 5,300 ships and 11,000 planes had crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy.
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The greatest continental U.S. tragedy of World War IIThe greatest continental U.S. tragedy of World War II occurs when two ships loading ammunition at Port Chicago Naval Weapons Station in California explodes. The accident killed three hundred and twenty people.
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President Roosevelt succumbs to a brain hemorrhage; Vice President Harry S. Truman assumes the presidency and role as commander in chief of World War II.
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The first atomic bomb, the Trinity Test, is exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico, after its production at Los Alamos.
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Bombing of Hiroshima. Three days later, the second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito of Japan surrenders.
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Microwave oven invented by American inventor Percy Spencer, while working for the Raytheon Company.
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Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States military in signed into effect by President Harry S. Truman.
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The military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area.
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The first color televisions go on sale.
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Racial segregation in public schools is declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
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Refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, prompting the boycott and NAACP protect that would lead to the declaration that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional by a federal court.
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Interstate highway system begins with the signing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for his second term in office.
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The first attempt by the United States to launch a satellite into space fails when it explodes on the launchpad.
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Explorer I, the first U.S. space satellite, is launched by the Army at Cape Canaveral. It would discover the Van Allen radiation belt.
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Alaska is admitted to the United States as the 49th state to be followed on August 21 by Hawaii.
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The St. Lawrence Seaway is opened along the Canada and United States borders, allowing increased ship traffic between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.
