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Civil Rights Movement
Following the American Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed, including the 13th Amendment (1865) that ended slavery; the 14th Amendment (1868) that gave African Americans citizenship, adding their total population of four million to the official population of southern states for Congressional apportionment; and the 15th Amendment (1870) that gave African-American males the right to vote (only males could vote in the U.S. at the time). From 1865 to 1877, the United States underw -
Baseball
Most of the strongest clubs remained those based in the northeastern part of the country. For professional baseball's founding year, MLB uses the year 1869—when the first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was established. -
Telephone
Telephones have changed dramatically since Alexander Graham Bell spoke the first words into a telephone on March 10, 1876. Overall, they’ve improved since then, but the road wasn’t always smooth. Here’s a look back at the most important advances in telephone technology and some of the worst. -
Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola history began in 1886 when the curiosity of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, led him to create a distinctive tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains. He created a flavored syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed “excellent” by those who sampled it. Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, is credited with naming the beverage “Coca‑Cola” as well as designing the trademarked, distinct -
Pepsi Company
Created and developed in 1893 and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola on August 28, 1898, then to Pepsi in 1961, and in select areas of North America, "Pepsi-Cola Made with Real Sugar" as of 2014. -
Joseph McCarthy
(November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War -
Ronald Reagan
February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and conservative spokesman who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he served as the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975, following a career as an actor and union leader in Hollywood. -
Malcom X
Malcolm X May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz[A] (Arabic: الحاجّ مالك الشباز), was an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. -
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. -
M&M's
Forrest Mars, Sr., son of the founder of the Mars Company Frank C. Mars, copied the idea for the candy in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating chocolate pellets called Smarties, with a hard shell of tempered chocolate surrounding the inside, preventing the candies from melting. Mars received a patent for his own process on March 3, 1941.Production began in 1941 in a factory located at 285 Badger Avenue in Clinton Hill, Newark, New Jersey. When the company was or -
The Korean War
25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards. -
Brown v. Board of Education
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. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region stretched back to the mid-1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and continued against the backdrop of an intense Cold War between two global superpowers: the United States -
McDonald's
Since 1955, we’ve been proud to serve the world some of its favorite food. And along the way, we’ve managed not just to live history, but create it: from drive-thru restaurants to Chicken McNuggets to college credits from Hamburger U and much more. It’s been quite the journey, and we promise this is just the beginning-we’ve got our hearts set on making more history. -
The Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century (1955–1972) competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. -
Pizza Hut
izza Hut was founded in 1958 by two Wichita State University students, Frank and Dan Carney, as a single location in Wichita, Kansas. The oldest continuously operating Pizza Hut in the world is in Manhattan, Kansas, in a shopping and tavern district known as Aggieville near Kansas State University. The first Pizza Hut restaurant east of the Mississippi was opened in Athens, Ohio in 1966 by Lawrence Berberick and Gary Meyers -
Hippie Culture
The hippie subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world. Its origins may be traced to European social movements in the 19th and early 20th century such as Bohemians, and the influence of Eastern religion and spirituality. From around 1967, its fundamental ethos — including harmony with nature, communal living, artistic experimentation particularly in music, and the widespread use of recreational drugs. -
The Berlin Wall
Was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were "fascists. -
Assassination of JFK
"Kennedy assassination" redirects here. For the assassination of John's brother Robert, see Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas -
Nike
Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), was founded by University of Oregon track athlete Philip Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman in January 1964. The company initially operated as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger (now ASICS), making most sales at track meets out of Knight's automobile.1971 (as Nike, Inc.) -
Disco Culture
he heyday of disco fashion blossomed from the music played at gay underground New York clubs such as the Loft, Tenth Floor,and 12 West in the early 1970s. Other clubs such as Infinity, Flamingo, the Paradise Garage, Le Jardin, and the Saint launched a disco culture that brought with it an anything-goes attitude and all-night dancing. -
Oakley
Oakley was started by James Jannard in 1975 out of his garage with an initial investment of $300. The name "Oakley" came from a combination of Oakland and Berkeley, the two cities in California that Jannard frequently visited as a child. Jannard began by selling what he called 'The Oakley Grip' out of the back of his car at motocross events. His motorcycle grips were unlike other grips available at the time, using a patented material known as 'Unobtanium', a unique creation by Jannard. -
HIV/AIDS
At the beginning of the 1980s various reports began to emerge in California and New York of a small number of men who had been diagnosed with rare forms of cancer and/or pneumonia. The cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, normally only affected elderly men of Mediterranean or Jewish heritage and young adult African men. The pneumonia, Pneumocystis Pneumonia Carinii (PCP), is generally only found in individuals with seriously compromised immune systems. -
Assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan
The attempted assassination of United States President Ronald Reagan occurred on March 30, 1981, 69 days into his presidency. 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. The most seriously wounded victim, James Brady, died decades later of complications related to his injuries. Brady's death was subsequently ruled a homicide. -
NIke Air Jordan
As legend has it, the legendary sneaker series almost never lifted off. Soon after Michael Jordan debuted the Air Jordan I, the NBA stepped in and banned the shoe because they featured "non-regulation" colors. Suffice it to say, Jordan didn't listen and thusly, the great basketball shoe boom began. -
Snickers
In 1930[5] Mars introduced Snickers, named after the favorite horse of the Mars family. The Snickers candy bar consists of nougat, peanuts, and caramel with a chocolate coating. The bar was marketed under the name "Marathon" in the UK and Ireland until 19 July 1990, when Mars decided to align the UK product with the global Snickers name (Mars had marketed and discontinued an unrelated bar named Marathon in the United States during the 1970s). There are also several other Snickers products suc -
Breakup of Soviet Union
In December of 1991, 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.
