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Period: to
Forrest Gump
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technological advances of the time period date
During the 50s, television became the dominant media. While television had been invented many years previous, the 50s saw nearly every family buying a television set, and nearly everyone watching television for longer and longer periods of time. Television broadcasts became our number one source of news, information, and entertainment during the 50s. Live news broadcasts were now possible coast to coast, and this has changed our world forever. -
civil rights movement
While the non-violent movement for civil rights started in the 1950s, it was during the early sixties that non-violent techniques began to pay off. Civil rights activists and students across the South challenged segregation, and the relatively new technology of television allowed Americans to witness the often brutal response to these protests. -
The Korean War
When communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Almost immediately, the United States secured a resolution from the United Nations calling for the military defense of South Korea against the North Korean aggression. -
joseph mccarthy mccarthyism
a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not in fact belong to the Communist Party. -
The "Little Rock Nine"
were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower. -
Brown V.Board of Education 1954
was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954 -
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case determined that "separate but equal" was constitutional -
Disneyland Opens
Disneyland opened for a few thousand specially invited visitors; the following day, Disneyland officially opened to the public. Disneyland, located in Anaheim, California on what used to be a 160-acre orange orchard, cost $17 million to build. The original park included Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. -
MLK
The Bus boycott started in 1955 the montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme court ruling that segregation on public busses is unconstituitonal. -
Emmett Till's murder
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied otton-gin into the river. -
Vietnam War
Vietnam War. Vietnam War. a conflict, starting in 1954 and ending in 1975, between South Vietnam (later aided by the U.S., South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and New Zealand) and the Vietcong and North Vietnam. -
The Space Race
the competition between nations regarding achievements in the field of space exploration. -
War Protests
An anti-war movement (also antiwar) is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause -
George Wallace, Governor of Alabama
was an American politician and the 45th governor of Alabama, having served two nonconsecutive terms and two consecutive terms as a Democrat: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. Wallace has the third longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,848 days -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908. He is often known as “LBJ” and was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963-1969. In 1963 Johnson took on the role as the nation's president after president John F Kennedy was assassinated. -
Assassination of John F kennedy
The assassination of President john f. kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, was a shocking event that immediately raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the death of the president. Those questions increased when the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was murdered while in the custody of Dallas police on November 25 by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner. -
malcolm x
Malcolm X, the 39-year-old leader of a militant black nationalist movement, was shot to death yesterday afternoon at a rally of his followers in a ballroom in Washington Heights -
Medicare
Medicare, the government medical program for citizens over the age of 65, begins. -
Edward Brooke
The first black United States Senator in eighty-five years, Edward Brooke, is elected to Congress. Brooke was the Republican candidate from Massachusetts and former Attorney General of that state. -
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall is sworn into office as the first black Supreme Court Justice. -
U.S.S.
The U.S.S. Pueblo incident occurs in the Sea of Japan when North Korea seizes the ship and its crew, accusing it of violating its territorial waters for the purpose of spying. They would release the prisoners on December 22, but North Korea still holds possession of the U.S.S. Pueblo to this day. -
Richard Milhous Nixon
was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office. -
Super Bowl III
The New York Jets win Super Bowl III over the Baltimore Colts after a bold prediction by quarterback Joe Namath. This is the first victory in the National Football League for a former American Football League team. -
Hippies Culture
Hippies represent the counterculture of the 1960’s. Their lifestyle is usually associated with rock music, hallucinogenic drugs, and long, flowy hair and clothing. They were seen by some as disrespectful and dirty and a disgrace to society, but to many they are a reminder of a more peaceful, carefree part of America’s history. -
Woodstock
informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock—was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sq mi) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County. -
Kent State Shootings
Ohio National Guardsmen were on the Kent State college campus to maintain order during a student protest against the Vietnam War. For a still unknown reason, the National Guard suddenly fired upon the already dispersing crowd of student protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. -
Disco Music/Culture
Disco returned dancing to the forefront of pop music, and it did so with a verve and drive fueled, at least in part, on a disregard for many of the conventions held dear by rock enthusiasts. This perceived slight on the part of rock establishment would ultimately elicit a widespread negative reaction sufficient to drive the movement back underground. -
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. -
Jimmy carter/Iran Hostage Crisis
Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days. -
HIV/AIDS
AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). By damaging your immune system, HIV interferes with your body's ability to fight the organisms that cause disease.HIV is a sexually transmitted infection. It can also be spread by contact with infected blood or from mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth or breast-feeding. -
legislation signs
President Carter signs legislation establishing Boston African American National Historic Site, which includes the oldest black church in America and other historic sites of the Black Heritage Trail in Boston, Massachusetts. -
john lennon murder
The Beatles‘ musician John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York City apartment on the night of Dec. 8, 1980. Lennon and wife Yoko Ono were returning from the recording studio to their home at The Dakota when 25-year-old crazed fan Mark David Chapman shot him at close range. Earlier in the day Chapman had been hanging around The Dakota with other fans and asked Lennon for an autograph. -
Ronald/Reganomics
Reaganomics was the most serious attempt to change the course of U.S. economic policy of any administration since the New Deal. "Only by reducing the growth of government," said Ronald Reagan, "can we increase the growth of the economy. -
The inauguration of Ronald Reagan
The inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 40th president of the United States occurs in Washington, D.C. It was followed by the release of the fifty-two Americans still held hostage in Tehran. The Iranian hostage crisis, which lasted four hundred and forty-four days, was negotiated for the return of $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets. -
Assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan
While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. -
Cold War
Growing out of post-World War II tensions between the two nations, the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted for much of the second half of the 20th century resulted in mutual suspicions, heightened tensions and a series of international incidents that brought the world’s superpowers to the brink of disaster. -
Windows operating system
The first version of the Windows operating system for computers is released. -
MLK Day
Martin Luther King Day is officially observed for the first time as a federal holiday in the United States. -
Space Shuttle Explodes
The Challenger Space Shuttle explodes after lift off at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing seven people, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire school teacher. -
Fall Of Communism
The collapse of communism in east central Europe and the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War. The U.S. long-term policy of containing Soviet expansion while encouraging democratic reform in central and eastern Europe through scientific and cultural exchanges, information policy (e.g., Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty), and the U.S. own example, provided invaluable support to the peoples of east central Europe in their struggle for freedom -
The Falling Of The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was both the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to 1989 and the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War. -
Breakup Of Soviet Union
as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II.
