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Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. King, both a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist, had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among many efforts, King headed the SCLC. Through his activism, he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and other areas of the nation, -
cold war
The Yalta Conference was held in a resort town called Yalta on February 4th-11th in 1945. The "Big Three" met there to decide the fate of post-war Europe. The United States was represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Great Britain was represented by Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin was there on the Soviet Union’s behalf. The goal of this conference was to discuss many aspects of the time. Among them were: -
Mccarthyism
Joseph McCarthy takes office as a Republican senator from Wisconsin.1 In a primary election, McCarthy had defeated Sen. Robert La Follette Jr., son of one of the icons of American liberalism. Branding himself as “Tail Gunner Joe,” McCarthy had run a vicious, negative campaign against his opponent with accusations that La Follette was a war profiteer.2 -
the korean war
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. -
vietnam war
The eight-year French-Indochinese War concludes with an overwhelming French defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The ensuing peace conference in Geneva divides Vietnam (formerly Indochina) into a communist-controlled North and an allegedly democratic South. -
Brown v. Board of Education, 1954
The Supreme Court held that Blacks, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States. Chief Justice Taney, arguing from the original intentions of the framers of the 1787 Constitution, stated that at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, Black people were considered a subordinate and inferior class of beings, "with no rights which the White man was bound to respect." -
civil rights movement
The U.S. Supreme Court hands down a unanimous 9-0 decision in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, opening the door for the civil rights movement and ultimately racial integration in all aspects of U.S. society. In overturning Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the court rules that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”1 -
Emmett Till's murder
When, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to obey an order to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person, an action that led to a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, she had in mind a murder trial that took place two months earlier in Sumner, Mississippi. A fourteen-year-old boy, Emmett Till, had been brutally murdered and his body thrown in the Tallahatchie River, but despite clear evidence that two white men committed the crime, an all-white jury returned a "Not Guilty" -
The Little rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine, as the teens came to be known, were a group of African-American students who sought to attend Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957. The Supreme Court had ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling; three years later, states in the South finally began to face the reality of federally mandated integration. It was historic, it was dramatic—and for weeks on end, it was profoundly ugly. Read more: http://life.time.com -
George Wallace, Governor of Alabama
On January 14, 1963, George Wallace is inaugurated as the governor of Alabama, promising his followers, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" His inauguration speech was written by Ku Klux Klan leader Asa Carter, who later reformed his white supremacist beliefs and wrote The Education of Little Tree under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter. -
assassination of john F. kennedy
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
On November, 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while traveling in a motorcade. Johnson was only two cars behind Kennedy when the shots rang out. Just a few hours later, Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president aboard Air Force One on its return to Washington, D.C. Over the next year, he endorsed the late president's programs and pushed through Congress a few of his own, including a tax cut and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- the first effective civil rights -
Malcom X
Malcolm X, the activist and outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration championed by Martin Luther King Jr. He urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression "by any means necessary." Born Malcolm Little, he changed his last name to X to signify his rejection of his "slave" name. Charismatic and eloquent, Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam -
Woodstock, 1969
Day Two of the Woodstock Festival
16 Aug 1969 Saturday August 16th, 1969
1. Quill
2. Country Joe McDonald
3. Santana
4. John B. Sebastian
5. Keef Hartley Band
6. The Incredible String Band
7. Canned Heat8. Mountain
9. The Grateful Dead
10. Creedence Clearwater Revival
11. Janis Joplin
12. Sly & The Family Stone
13. The Who
14. Jefferson Airplane -
Disco Music/ culture
23 Jan 1970
New York city was starting to get more open to different people. Black people, Latinos, and gay people were starting to take on going to Discotheque. They started going through the psychedelia phase. The would go to clubs with "trippy" lights, colorful costumes and hallucinogens. -
War protests
If dissident sentiment was slow to develop in Oklahoma during the 1960s, Vietnam War protests quickly reached their zenith during 1970. Pres. Richard Nixon's April 30, 1970, announcement of the war's escalation into neighboring Cambodia and the shooting deaths of four students by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio led to a sharp increase in protest activity. On May 4 minor damage . -
Richard Nixon/watergate scandal
on October 20, Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richards to fire Prosecutor Cox when he refuses to make a deal concerning the Watergate tapes. Attorney General Richards resigns in protest and is replaced by acting Attorney General Robert Bork who complies with Nixon's order and Prosecutor Cox is fired -
HIV/AIDS
In early 1980 through 1981 there were 26 cases of a rare form of cancer called Kaposi Sarcoma – 20 from New York and 6 from California. By May of 1981 there were 5 cases of Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia. Both of these diseases are considered very rare. An extensive review of two hospitals in New York was only able to locate three known previous cases of Kaposi Sarcoma from 1961 to 1979. The majority of these cases were found in young gay men. -
assasination attempt of Ronald Reagan
On March 30, 1981, 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. opened fire on U.S. President Ronald Reagan just outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. President Reagan was hit by one bullet, which punctured his lung. Three others were also injured in the shootingAround 2:25 p.m. on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan emerged via a side door from the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. He had just finished giving a speech to a group of trade unionists at the National Conference of Building -
Technological Advances of the time period
The Internet
1 Jan 1992 Though the internet was in developmental stages from as early as 1958, it became open to the public in 1992. It was not invented by one person, but rather by a few experts over many years.
