Cold War and Civil Rights Movement

  • Creation of Israel

    Creation of Israel
    After WW2, the UN felt that Jewish people needed a safe place for them to reside. They took some land from Palestine and Arab land to make Israel. The UN let this appointed land to be the Jewish peoples land.
  • Creation of NATO

    Creation of NATO
    Stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was created to help prevent further Communist expansion throughout the world. The Communists created the Warsaw Pact to oppose this organization.
  • Domino Theory

    Domino Theory
    It was the belief that if one country fell to Communism, then the others around it would fall too. It originated around the start of the Vietnam war when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. It was part of the reason that the US went into the war to stop North Vietnam.
  • Korean War

    Korean War
    Korea was split into North and South Korea in August 1945 at the 38th parallel, with the Soviet Union given control of the North and the south to the US. It started when communists from the North crossed over and invaded the South. It was a defensive war at first, with US and South Korean troops fighting to prevent communism from spreading south. Eventually, the war reached a stalemate and US officials worked an armistice to prevent the war from spreading out of control. It is still split today.
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    A little girl, Linda Brown, wasn't aloud into an all white school that was closer to her house than the school she was going. The event was taken to the Supreme Court, and the ruling from it declared that the past ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson of facilities being "separate but equal" to be unconstitutional. it aloud for schools to be integrated.
  • Creation of Warsaw Pact

    Creation of Warsaw Pact
    Was created in retaliation to NATO. It was a group of communists who met together for protection. It lasted until 1991.
  • Vietnam War

    Vietnam War
    In May of 1949, Vietnam was split along the 17th parallel by treaty negotiations at Geneva. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union took control over North Vietnam and then in 1955, the North crossed over the parallel and into South Vietnam, starting a war and influencing the US to help out the South to try and stop the spread of Communism. Around the late 1960s, early 1970s, we withdrew from Vietnam and stopped further battles.
  • MontGomery Bus Boycott

    MontGomery Bus Boycott
    To protest unfair and segregated seating, African-American citizens of Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride on buses. This boycott of the buses took a toll on the cities economy until a law was passed that aloud bus to have the ability to sit wherever on the bus. The whole event was viewed as the first large scale demonstration against segregation in the US.
  • Little Rock Nine

    Little Rock Nine
    9 African-American students weren't aloud into Little Rock High School, a previously all-white school, because of the Arkansas governor. Later on that month, president Eisenhower sent the National Guard to allow the access into the school. The Guard were to prevent any violent situations.
  • Launching of Sputnik

    Launching of Sputnik
    The Soviet Union started the space race with the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. It had a diameter of 22in and weighed 184lbs. Its technology was viewed by the US as strides ahead of anything we were working on at the time.
  • Greensboro Sit-Ins

    Greensboro Sit-Ins
    Four African-American students sat at an all white lunch counter. They sat their until they were either served or arrested. This led to a wide spread event of sit-ins all across the country.
  • U-2 Incident

    U-2 Incident
    President Eisenhower met with the new Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev to create peace among the two powers, but Eisenhower didn't entirely trust him so he sent a spy plane to investigate. It was shot down, and the pilot was captured. Eisenhower exchanged him with a Soviet spy in the first ever "spy exchange." This event made it unable for the two powers to create peace.
  • Bay of Pigs Invasion

    Bay of Pigs Invasion
    A dictator by the name of Fidel Castro took over Cuba. With its close proximity to the US, president Kennedy ordered an invasion that would be later known as The Bay of Pigs Invasion. The US's attempt to overthrow Castro from power that ultimately failed. After the failed attack, Castro looked to the leader of the USSR for assistance for fear of future attacks.
  • Freedom Riders

    Freedom Riders
    A group of 13 African-Americans and whites civil rights activists e on buses down through the American south to protest segregation. They started in D.C. and ended in the "deep-south." While doing this, supporters of segregation and white supremacists attacked the freedom riders to show that they were against what they were doing.
  • Berlin Wall

    Berlin Wall
    The communist government of the Soviet Union over the eastern half of Germany and eastern half of its capital, Berlin, while the US oversaw the western half of them. People from east Berlin kept fleeing the communist rule by escaping to west Berlin. To prevent more of these from happening, the government built a wall around west Berlin, effectively cutting it of from its surroundings. It was maned by armed gunmen who had orders to shoot anybody who attempted to cross over.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    Cuban Missile Crisis
    The Soviet Union set up missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from US shores, leading to rising tensions. Kennedy set up a blockade around Cuba and was prepared to use military force if needed. The whole thing was ended once the US agreed to the Soviet Unions offer to removing the missiles if the US promises not to invade Cuba. Also, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.
  • "I Have a Dream" Speech

    "I Have a Dream" Speech
    Martin Luther King, JR. delivered his famous speech on Lincoln Memorial. In his speech, he spoke of his dream that U.S. would become a desegregated society. He challenged his listeners to envision with him one day when whites and blacks would live peacefully.
  • JFK Assassination

    JFK Assassination
    While driving in Dallas, Texas, President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. He was on a political outing with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally. Later that day, Vise-President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn into office as the 36th president.
  • 24th Amendmenet

    24th Amendmenet
    It prohibited the use of poll taxes when electing executive officials. It aloud poor African-Americans to vote since before then, they were charged to do so. It worked with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to allow voting.
  • Freedom Summer

    Freedom Summer
    When hundreds of students were invited down south around Mississippi to help with a voter-registration project. One day, three students were reported missing, and though their badly beaten bodies were found 6 weeks later, they were believed dead the next day and the repercussions from the event shook the whole project. People were outraged because of it and it helped precipitate passage of a long pending civil-rights bill in Congress.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    It was first proposed by President Kennedy but he was unable to see it take light due to his assassination. It was later brought before Congress by President Johnson. After it was passed, it ended segregation by race, gender, religion, or national origin.
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
    After the US destroyer Maddox was reported to be under attack from North Vietnamese gunships, President Johnson submitted a resolution. The resolution authorized him to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. It was later revealed once more information came to light that Johnson had mislead Congress into supporting the expansion of the war.
  • Malcolm X Assassination

    Malcolm X Assassination
    He was a Civil Rights activist who countered MLKs believe in civil disobedience with his views of equality by any means necessary. He was a Muslim and during his Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, he was affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims. Because of this, he changed his views on how to achieve equality, which led to his assassination by rival Black Muslims.
  • Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama

    Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama
    Protesters advocating equality marched through Selma in a nonviolent protest. They marched across the bridge over the Alabama River, they were met with armed troopers. The troopers attacked the marchers clubs and tear gas to stop them from crossing the bridge.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Voting Rights Act of 1965
    Lyndon B. Johnson urged congress to pass laws that JFK started to honor the late president. One of these laws include the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This aloud the president to suspend the literacy tests that prevented African-Americans from voting.
  • Loving v. Virginia

    Loving v. Virginia
    Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were married for a few weeks, but with him being of Irish and English decent and her being of African American and Native American decent, their marriage was illegal under Virginia's Racial Integrity Act. They were arrested and were later released at different times. Their case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, which the decision was that banning interracial marriages was unconstitutional.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination

    Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination
    MLK was a civil rights activist that believed in nonviolent protests. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel. His death shocked the whole of the civil rights movement.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1968

    Civil Rights Act of 1968
    Prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, renting, and financing on a house based on race, religion, national origin, and race. It was intended to follow the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the day of the Senate vote, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It wasn't entirely effective for years after it was passed.
  • Woodstock

    Woodstock
    A music festival that lasted 3 days long. People who were involved in the event did things that most of the society of the time deemed immoral and bad including drugs and premarital sex. But the festival itself was a representation of the counterculture of the time, with the people within this counterculture referred to as "hippies."
  • Kent State Protest

    Kent State Protest
    On April 30, President Nixon announced on national television that an invasion on Cambodia and that we needed to draft more soldiers. This sparked massive protests throughout the country, including one at Kent State University in Ohio. The violent protest on campus led to the Ohio governor sending 900 National Guardsmen, 28 of which opened fire on the crowd of students, killing 4 and injuring 9.