-
Period: to
American Civil War (1861-1865)
The war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. -
13th Amendment (1865)
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, -
Period: to
Reconstruction (1865-1877)
The term Reconstruction Era, in the context of the history of the United States, has two senses: the first covers the complete history of the entire country from 1865 to 1877 following the American Civil War (1861 to 1865); the second sense focuses on the attempted transformation of the Southern United States from 1863 -
14th Amendment (1868)
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment (1870)
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Jim Crow Laws Start in South (1877)
Jim Crow law, in U.S. history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. -
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Plessy v. Ferguson was an 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. -
Wright Brother’s Airplane (1903)
The Wright Flyer was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft. It was designed and built by the Wright brothers. -
GI Bill (1944)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill, in order to help soldiers secure stability as they returned to civilian life. A broadcast aired shortly after the bill was signed describes a nation preparing to welcome World War II veterans. -
Germany Divided (1945)
As a consequence of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Germany was cut between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. Germany was stripped of its war gains and lost territories in the east to Poland and the Soviet Union.. -
United Nations (UN) Formed (1945)
The Formation of the United Nations, 1945. On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter , pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. -
Period: to
Baby Boom (1946- 1964)
The years 1946 to 1964 define the post-war baby boomer generation, when the United States saw a spike in its birth rate. ... But the boomers' era was also marked by great unrest. Americans born during this period were shaped by a world ravaged by a World War that included unimaginable mass genocide and the atom bomb -
Mao Zedong Established Communist Rule in China (1947)
On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek, 600,000 Nationalist troops, and about two million Nationalist-sympathizer refugees retreated to the island of Taiwan. -
Truman Doctrine (1947)
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Period: to
The Cold War (1947- 1991)
The Cold War began, a long period of rivalry (1947-1991) which pitted the U.S. against the Soviet Union and their respective allies and determined international relations for almost half a century. ... The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. -
Marshall Plan (1948)
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion (nearly $140 billion in 2017 dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II -
Berlin Airlift (1948)
Truman, however, did not want to cause World War III. Instead, he ordered a massive airlift of supplies into West Berlin. On June 26, 1948, the first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. -
NATO Formed (1949)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Kim Il-sung invades South Korea (1950)
Kim Il-sung or Kim Il Sung was the leader of North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Premier from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) from 1949 to 1994 -
UN forces push North Korea to Yalu River- the border with China (1950)
Chinese troops have entered the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, as United Nations forces are pushed steadily back towards South Korea. The North ... Korea. On 19 October Pyongyang was captured and by 24 November, North Korean forces were driven back almost to the Yalu River which marks the border of China. -
Chinese forces cross Yalu and enter Korean War (1950)
In October 1950, Chinese troops under the name of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (CPV) crossed the Yalu River to assist North Korean armies, and engaged in the Korean War in an offensive manner after the U.S. troops crossed the 38th parallel. -
Period: to
Korean War (1950- 1953)
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
Period: to
1950s Prosperity (1950-1959)
1950 - 1959. Share. From the late 40s into the 50s the development of new mass markets for consumer goods - including Africa and Asia - provide opportunities for ... Meanwhile post-war prosperity in Europe, spurred by the start of the European Community, leads to a consumer boom and rising standards of living -
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Execution (1953)
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. -
Armistice Signed (1953)
When the armistice was signed on 27 July 1953, talks had already dragged on for two years, ensnared in testy issues such as the exchange of prisoners of war and the location of a demarcation line. Military commanders from China and North Korea signed the agreement on one side, with the US-led United Nations -
Period: to
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953- 1961)
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an American Army general and statesman who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 -
Period: to
Warren Court (1953- 1969)
Analyzes a particular period in the history of the Court, and explores the interaction and the relationship between the Justices and the society that called them to serve -
Hernandez v. Texas (1954)
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period." -
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Ho Chi Minh Established Communist Rule in Vietnam (1954)
From 1946 to 1954, the communist Viet Minh battled the French in what is often called the First Indochina War. ... With the defeat of the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States became concerned about communist gains in Vietnam. -
Warsaw Pact Formed (1955)
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. -
Polio Vaccine (1955)
In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. -
Period: to
Vietnam War (1955- 1975)
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia -
Interstate Highway Act (1956)
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (Public Law 84-627), was enacted on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. -
Elvis Presley First Hit Song (1956)
February 1956. As "Heartbreak Hotel" makes its climb up the charts on its way to #1, "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" b/w "Mystery Train," Elvis' fifth and last single to be released on the Sun label, hits #1 on Billboard's national country singles chart. His first #1 hit on a national chart. -
Sputnik I (1957)
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses -
Leave it to Beaver First Airs on TV (1957)
The first season of the American television situation comedy Leave It to Beaver premiered on October 4, 1957 and concluded on July 16, 1958. It consisted of 39 episodes shot in black-and-white, each running approximately 25 minutes in length. This was the only season that the show originally aired on CBS -
Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957)
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, Pub.L. 85–315, 71 Stat. 634, enacted September 9, 1957, a federal voting rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. -
Little Rock Nine (1957)
That's what happened in Little Rock, Arkansas in the fall of 1957. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling at Central High School. -
Kennedy versus Nixon TV Debate (1960)
In a closely contested election, Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. ... The 1960 presidential election was the closest election since 1916, and this closeness can be explained by a number of factors -
Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)
abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), or Playa Girón (Girón Beach) to Cubans, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. Within six months of Castro's -
Peace Corps Formed (1961)
On September 22, 1961, Kennedy signed congressional legislation creating a permanent Peace Corps that would “promote world peace and friendship” through three goals: (1) to help the peoples of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women -
Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against -
Affirmative Action (1961)
Affirmative action policies often focus on employment and education. In institutions of higher education, affirmative action refers to admission policies that provide equal access to education for those groups that have been historically excluded or underrepresented, such as women and minorities. -
Period: to
John F. Kennedy (1961- 1963)
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. The crisis was unique in a number of ways -
Kennedy Assassinated in Dallas, Texas (1963)
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza. -
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. -
George Wallace Blocks University of Alabama Entrance (1963)
When African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in June 1963, Alabama's new governor, flanked by state troopers, literally blocked the door of the enrollment office. -
The Feminine Mystique (1963)
The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. It was published on February 19, 1963 by W. W. Norton. -
Period: to
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963- 1969)
36th U.S. President
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after having served -
The Great Society (1964)
As he campaigned in 1964, Johnson declared a "war on poverty." He challenged Americans to build a "Great Society" that eliminated the troubles of the poor. Johnson won a decisive victory over his archconservative Republican opponent Barry Goldwater of Arizona. American liberalism was at high tide under President -
Escobedo v. Illinois (1964)
Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965)
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court. In a 5–4 majority, the Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to -
Thurgood Marshall Appointed to Supreme Court (1967)
Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall as the United States Solicitor General. In 1967, Johnson successfully nominated Marshall to succeed retiring Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. Marshall retired during the administration of President George H. W. -
Tet Offensive (1968)
The Tet Offensive, or officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the NLF, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War -
My Lai Massacre (1968)
In March 1968, a platoon of soldiers called Charlie Company received word that Viet Cong guerrillas had taken cover in the Quang Ngai village of Son My. The platoon entered one of the village's four hamlets, My Lai 4, on a search-and-destroy mission on the morning of March 16. -
Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. -
Vietnamization (1969)
Vietnamization of the war was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops." -
Woodstock Music Festival (1969)
Conceived as "Three Days of Peace and Music," Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang. Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio near the arty New York town of Woodstock. -
Manson Family Murders (1969)
The four victims found inside the Polanski residence had just returned home from dinner at the time of the murder: Polanski's wife, actress Sharon Tate; writer Wojciech Frykowski and his partner; the coffee bean heiress Abigail Folger; and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring -
Apollo 11 (1969)
Lunar Landing Mission. Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. The first steps by humans on another planetary body were taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. The astronauts also returned to Earth the first samples from another planetary body. -
Draft Lottery (1969)
On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War for men born from 1944 to 1950. -
Period: to
Richard Nixon (1969- 1974)
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only U.S. president to do so. -
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (1970)
The Olin Mathieson Alkali Works plant (seen in 1968) in the Appalachian town of Saltville, Va,, for decades dumped its calcium chloride effluent into the North Fork of the Holston River which flowed past the plant. In 1970 the company announced it could not meet the new Environmental Protection Agency -
Invasion of Cambodia (1970)
The Cambodian Campaign was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during 1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War -
Kent State Shootings (1970)
In May 1970, students protesting the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces, clashed with Ohio National Guardsmen on the Kent State University campus. When the Guardsmen shot and killed four students on May 4, the Kent State Shootings became the focal point of a nation deeply divided by the Vietnam War. -
Policy of Détente Begins (1971)
Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev -
Pentagon Papers (1971)
The court held that the government had failed to justify restraint of publication. The Pentagon Papers revealed that the Harry S. Truman administration gave military aid to France in its colonial war against the communist-led Viet Minh, thus directly involving the United States in Vietnam; that in 1954 Pres. -
26th Amendment (1971)
Today in 1971: 26th Amendment gives 18-year-olds the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” -
Nixon Visits China (1972)
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and China. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had -
Watergate Scandal (1972)
The Watergate scandal happened when United States President Richard Nixon, a Republican, was tied to a crime in which former FBI and CIA agents broke into the offices of the Democratic Party and George McGovern (the Presidential candidate). Nixon's helpers listened to phone lines and secret papers were stolen. -
Title IX (1972)
On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. -
Engaged Species Act (1973)
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) was signed on December 28, 1973, and provides for the conservation of species that are endangered or threatened throughout all or a significant portion of their range, and the conservation of the ecosystems on which they depend. -
War Powers Resolution (1973)
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress -
Roe v. Wade (1973)
(CNN) Here's a look at the US Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Facts: January 22, 1973 - The US Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, affirms the legality of a woman's right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. -
United States v. Nixon (1974)
United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which resulted in a unanimous decision against President Richard Nixon, ordering him to deliver tape recordings and other subpoenaed materials to a federal district court. -
Period: to
Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from August 1974 to January 1977. -
Fall of Saigon (1975)
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam on 30 April 1975.
