-
Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refuses to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger and is arrested.
-
The Soviet Union announces the first launch of their intercontinental ballistic missile.
-
The Soviet Union launches the first man made satellite into space.
-
John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon in the presidential election, becoming the youngest elected president to date.
-
1,500 Cuban exiles land at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow the Castro regime.
-
President Kennedy is shot in Dallas, TX, where he dies of his wounds.
-
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is shot at the Loraine Motel in Memphis, TN where he dies of his wounds.
-
Richard M. Nixon is elected as president.
-
Five men were caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
-
The Vietnam War is official declared over for the United States.