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From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, McCarthyism—the hunt for Communists in the government and public life, a period most closely associated with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy
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Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam
Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional
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A young black boy, Emmett Till, is brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. Two white men charged with the crime are acquitted by an all-white jury
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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group, is established by Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth
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Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter
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Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. Several of the groups of "freedom riders,"
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James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi (Oct. 1). President Kennedy sends 5,000 federal troops after rioting breaks out.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala. He writes "Letter from Birmingham Jail," which advocated nonviolent civil disobedience
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction
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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. -
Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is assassinated
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The Black Panthers
are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale -
The African-American Civil Rights Movement were social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them
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Major race riots take place in Newark
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Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins the phrase "black power" in a speech in Seattle
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Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing
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The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18
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Nixon makes historic visit to Communist China
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U.S. and Soviet Union sign strategic arms control agreement known as SALT IRead more: 1950–1999 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903597.html#ixzz2U2FwhJ1T
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Patty Hearst kidnapped by radicals. Henry Aaron hits record 714 home runs.Charles Lindbergh and Duke Ellington die. President Nixon resigns.
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Great Britain enters Common Market. U.S. Supreme Court permits abortions.Pablo Picasso dies.
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Virtnam War
The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States -
.S. and Soviet spacecrafts link up. Jaws first film to top $100 million at box office.Generalissimo Francisco Franco and Chiang Kai–shek die
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Anwar Sadat visits Israel. Star Wars launches space age epic. Charlie Chaplin dies.United States tests "clean" neutron bomb.
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On June 5, 1981, the virus that would become known as HIV was mentioned for the first time in a medical publication
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•Michael Jackson Releases Thriller
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•Indira Gandhi, India's Prime Minister, Killed by Two Bodyguards
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January, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, isolates a retrovirus that kills T-cells from the lymph system of a gay AIDS patient. In the following months, she would find it in additional gay and hemophiliac sufferers. This retrov
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New York Stock Exchange Suffers Huge Drop on "Black Monday"
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Berlin Wall Falls
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O.J. Simpson Arrested for Double Murder
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•Official End of the Cold War
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Oklahoma City Bombing
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Mad Cow Disease Hits Britain
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Princess Diana Dies in Car Crash
