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Earl Warren
14th US Supreme Court justice who was known for his liberal decisions which outlawed serration in public schools and transformed many areas of American law especially regarding the rights of the accused. -
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Albert Sabin
Albert Sabin was one of the doctors, along with Dr. Jonas Salk, to develop the first vaccines for polio. Dr. Sabin developed the oral vaccine and played a major role in eradicating the disease (for the most part). -
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Warren E. Burger
15th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. He was a conservative justice who made liberal decisions about abortion, capital punishment and school desegregation. -
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Barry Goldwater
Goldwater was a 5 term senator from Arizona and he was the Republican Party nominee for president in the 1964 election. He lost but was credited for sparking the resurgence of the Conservative party. He also sparked the libertarian movement. -
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Orval Faubus
Governor of Arkansas from 1955-1967. He is best known for his 1957 stand against desegregation of the Little Rock School District. He defied a Supreme Court order and ordered the Arkansas Nation Guard to prevent black students from attending Little Rock Central High School. -
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Ronald Reagan
Reagan was the 40th President of the US. He was a former governor of California who began his career as an actor. He implemented sweeping new policies including Reaganomics. He is view as an icon among conservative republicans. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994. -
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Jack Rudy
American night club owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald after he assassinated JFK while in police custody. He was convicted and given the death sentence but got ill and died in a prison cell of lung cancer. -
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Lester Maddox
75th Governor of Georgia from 1967-1971. He was a racist segregationist who refused to serve black customers in his Atlanta Restaurant in defiance of the Civil Rights Act. He said he would rather close his restaurant than serve black customers, which he did. -
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George Wallace
45th Governor of Alabama. Held a Jim Crow racist position during the Civil Rights Movement declaring “segregation now, Segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” during his 1963 inaugural address. He also stood at the entrance of the University of Alabama and attempted to stop the enrollment of black students. -
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George H.W. Bush
He was the 41st Republican president of the US from 1989 to 1993. Prior to this he was a congressman and the Director of the CIA. He is the oldest living President and Vice President. He is distinguished from his son with a similar name who was the 43rd president. He defeated Michael Dukakis to win the presidency. -
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Phyllis Schlafly
Lawyer and conservative activist best known for her opposition to feminism and abortion and her campaign against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. She told Time Magazine in an interview: “I have cancelled speeches whenever my husband thought that I had been away from home too much.” -
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Malcolm X
Hustler turned Muslim who was a member of the Nation of Islam. He rejected Civil Rights and integration and wanted the races separated and promoted Black Supremacy. He left the NOI in 1964 and was murdered by 3 of their members in February 1965. -
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Bill Haley
Bill Haley was a musical icon in the 50s popular for his group Bill Haley and The Comets. They were formed in 1952 and are credited with being one of the first musicians of the Rock N' Roll sound all though not all of their music was original. They go in the same boat as Elvis, as some of the white people to steal music from black people as we all know. -
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Cesar Chavez
American labor leader and Civil rights activist who along with Delores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. Worked mostly for Latino American civil rights and worked to improve work conditions for Hispanic field workers. -
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Sandra Day O'Connor
She is the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court. She was appointed in 1981 by Ronald Reagan and stayed on the court until 2006. She was a federalist and a moderate republican. -
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Ross Perot
He was an American business man and politician who ran for president as an independent in 1992. He received 18.9 percent of the vote which gave him the highest percentage of votes for an independent candidate since 1912. -
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Ralph Nader
He is a political activist, lecturer, and attorney, best known for his involvement in consumer protection and environmentalism and government reform. He has run for president several times but his claim to fame has always been consumer protections. -
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Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was a famous Rock N' Roll musician that gained the majority of his popularity in the 50's. He is one of the biggest icons of the 20th century, which is hilarious considering he stole the majority of what he was known for but THAT's none of my business. -
News
The first news broadcast on television was in 1930 and the first regularly scheduled set of broadcasts in 1940. The first broadcast was hosted by Lowell Thomas and was on the NBC network. -
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John McCain
He is an American politician who is a senior US Senator fro Arizona. He was the republican nominee for the 2008 US presidential election and had Sarah Palin as his running mate. He lost the race to Barack Obama. -
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Lee Harvey Oswald
Former US Marine who assassinated the 35th president of the US John F. Kennedy on 11/22/1963. He killed hi. While he traveled in a motorcade with his wife and governor and Mrs. John Connelly. He was later killed by Jack Ruby when in police custody being transferred. The entire time he said he was just a patsy and did not kill the president. -
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Lionel Sosa
He is a Mexican American advertising and marketing executive. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas and as a Republican, he helped many republicans win elections with his Hispanic vote, including George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. -
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Emmett Till Tragedy
Black teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14 for falsely flirting with a white woman while at a neighborhood store. His body was put on public display by his mother so the world would see how brutally he was murdered. The two killers were acquitted by an all-white jury and this case was a beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. -
G.I. Bill
The G.I. Bill, or the The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a bill passed to benefit returning veterans from World War II. It was structured by the American Legion and was designed to provide immediate rewards for veterans. Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 22, 1944 providing numerous benefits as well as peacetime service. -
Trinity Test
The Trinity Test was the code name for the detonation of the very first nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945 and was apart of the Manhattan Project. The event took place in the Jornada del Muerto desert, and it was 35 miles away from the nearest city. -
Little Boy
"Little Boy" is the name of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It was the first bomb to be used during warfare, and the specs of it are quite interesting: 15 kilotons of TNT, a temperature of 6,000 degrees Celsius, a fireball 1,200 feet wide in diameter, all while being only 10 feet long and 28 inches wide. It did a great deal of damage to the city of Hiroshima and is credited with killing between 90,000 and 166,000 people in the time period following the explosion. -
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Robert Johnson
Johnson is a black entrepreneur and media magnate who founded Black Entertainment Television in 1980. BET was the first cable television network aimed at African-Americans. In 2001 he sold BET to Viacom and became the first black billionaire. -
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George W. Bush
He is the 43rd President of the US from 1995 to 2000. He won the election when the Supreme Court ruled that a Florida recount of votes was not valid. His father was also president. -
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Bill Clinton
Clinton was the 42nd Democratic president of the US from 1993 to 2001. Prior to this he was the Governor of Arkansas. In 1998, he was impeached for perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice because of an affair he had with Monica Lewinsky. He was acquitted and served his complete term of office. -
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TV Shows
Television became a staple in America in the late 1940s. The monopoly took off when individual stations started to gain popularity in larger cities. When the 1950s hit, televisions were the primary source for everything. -
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Al Gore
He was the 45 Vice President of the US under Bill Clinton. He was picked to be the democratic nominee for the 2000 election but lost to George Bush. He lost due to a recount of Florida votes in which the US Supreme Court had to rule that a vote recount was not valid. -
The Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was a set of acts put into congress by Harry S. Truman in January of 1949. It goes over the agenda of Truman's administration during his presidency. It was apart of his State of the Union address, and it touches on a wide arrange of topics including education and the economy. -
The Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary moment in the 50s started by a group of authors who influenced the culture at the time.They gained the majority of their popularity throughout the 1950s due to their published work which became insanely popular. -
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss was a high-ranking U.S. official who played a vital role in establishing the United Nations. Hiss was accused of being a Soviet Spy in 1948, and was eventually convicted of perjury in 1950. He was tried twice, the second time being sentenced to five years in prison. -
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Oprah Winfrey
Is an American media mogul best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the highest rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. She is currently the first and only multi-billionaire black person in the US. -
Polio Vaccine
Polio is an incredibly infectious disease that attacks your nervous system and causes your bones and muscels to go weak. The virus is most popular with children and can be transmitted through DNA, and contaminated water among other instances. The first vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk, and the very first dose was given to a group of children in the year of 1954. -
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Sonya Sotomayor
Nominated by Barack Obama, Judge Sotomayor was the first Hispanic to be nominated to the Supreme Court. She is the third female judge and the 12th Roman Catholic. She is Puerto Rican born in The Bronx. -
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (otherwise known as Little Richard) is an African American musician and singer who gained the majority of his popularity in the mid-1950s. He is one of the first major pioneers of the Rock N' Roll sound, and his song Tutti Frutti was his first major hit. It was recorded in September of 1955, and is famous for its opening cry of "a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom." -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on the city bus. She was arrested and along with Martin Luther King, a 381 day boycott of the Montgomery city bus system continued until the bus segregation rules were abolished. Bus companies were crushed by losing 75 percent of their riders. This was considered as one of the most successful uprisings against racial segregation. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957, This marked the first time since Reconstruction that the federal government undertook legislative action to protect civil rights. This was also a show of support for the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision which eventually led to desegregation of public schools. -
Sputnik
On October 4, 1957, Sputnik I was the first satellite to be launched into space. It was created by the Soviet Union, and was around the size of a beach ball. The event pushed the U.S. to engage in a bit of competition with the Soviet, creating the well-known Space Race. Some believe that the U.S. won, as America was the first to land on the moon. -
NASA
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is the national branch of the government responsible for all things space. They were originally created in 1958, as a product of the Space Race between the Soviet and the U.S. and are the main guys for science and technology related to air and space. -
New Frontier
Term used by Democratic presidential candidate John Kennedy I. His acceptance speech of the presidency of 1960. Its was the slogan that inspired America to support him. -
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the US government to provide technical assistance help people outside the US to understand American culture and understand cultures of other countries. It's also related to social and economic development. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs was a code name for the failed invasion of Cuba conducted by the CIA. A group of CIA trained Cuban refugees landed in April of 1961, planning to overthrow a Fidel Castro led communist government. The attack was a clear failure, and the around 1,200 people sent by the U.S. were no match. -
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Barack Obama
He is the 44th president of the US the and first African American. He served from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He signed many landmark bills including Obamacare, Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform and was responsible for killing Osama bin Laden who masterminded 911. He left office with an approval rate of 60 percent. -
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The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a geographical divider put in place to keep East Germans from fleeing to the West during the early years of the Cold War. It was constructed overnight in August of 1961 by the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and lasted 28 years until the East Berlin Communist Party decided to let things go on the division. -
John F. Kennedy's Speech at Rice University
In September of 1962, John F. Kennedy gave an important speech on the Space Race between America and the U.S.S.R. The speech was crucial due to the fact that before Kennedy was elected, many Americans feared that we were losing the race. With this speech, he made sure that we had nothing to worry about, and that we were going to surpass the Soviet with ease. -
MLK Letter from Birmingham Jail
Letter written by Martin Luther King while in jail after he was arrested during the SCLC nonviolent campaign against racism and racial segregation. The letter was written in response to “A Call to Unity” statement made by 8 white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods. The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but that the fight should be in the courts, not in the streets. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the US was in Dallas, Texas when he was assassinated by Lee H. Oswald while traveling in a motorcade travel g downtown. Texas governor John Connelly was also injured. -
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Warren Commision
A commission established to investigate the assassination of JFK that took place on 11/22/1963 by an executive order 11130 by President LB Johnson. It concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that he acted alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald 2 days later. -
Daisy Girl Ad
It was a controversy political advertisement that aired only once on TV during the 1964 presidential election by incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign. It was the deciding g factor in LBJ's win over Barry Goldwater. It made advertising history for its controversy. -
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Selma March
March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama by demonstrators to demand the right to vote for black people. On March 7th on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state and local police attack the marchers with clubs and tear gas and push them back to Selma. -
Hippies
The Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love and eventually the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. -
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was a mass killing of between 350 and 500 civilians in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The killings were conducted by our very own U.S Soldiers, and it included everybody. Men, women, children, were all murdered and some females were even raped. The situation was terrible, and only one soldier was convicted. Lieutenant William Calley Jr. was given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years. -
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Nixon's Presidency
Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the US. He is the only president to resign from office when the Watergate scandal occurred. He directed break-ins to the Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel and lied about it. Tapes installed in the white house confirmed his role in the break-in. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was a space mission conducted by the U.S. to land the first two humans on the moon. On July 20, 1969 commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar model 'Eagle' on the moons surface. The spaceflight was apart of the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet, and was an important part in American history. -
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Roe v. Wade
It is the landmark decision decided by the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court ruled 7-2 that a right to privacy under Due process of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman decision to have an abortion. This decision made abortion legal. -
The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C. It was inspired by the Powell Memorandum in opposition to Richard Nixon’s embrace of the liberal consensus. The mission statement is to formulate and promote conservative public policies. -
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OPEC
1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when member of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed ab oil embargo. At the end of the embargo in March 1974 the price of oil had risen from 3 to 12 dollars. -
Camp David Accords
Agreements between Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin following 12 days of secret negotiations at Camp David, during the Carter presidency. Sadat and Begin shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize due to the signing of this peace treaty. -
Three-Mile Island
Accident occurring at a nuclear power plant in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. It occurred due to human error and failures in the non-nuclear secondary system and was the most significant accident in US commercial nuclear power plant history. Cleanup started in August 1979 and ended in December 1993 costing 1 billion dollars. President Carter toured the facility after the accident and mounted an investigation into the crises. -
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Iran Hostage Crisis
Hostage crises where 52 Americans were held captive for 444 days. A group of Iranian students took over the US Embassy in Tehran during President Carter’s presidency. Negotiations to release the hostages by Carter failed and it was a major reason why he wasn’t re-elected. The hostages were released just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office with the signing of the Algiers Accords. -
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Black Entertainment Television
American cable TV channel that caters primarily to black views. The programming consists primarily of stand –up comedy, news and current affair programs, along with television series and music videos. It was started by Robert Johnson who later sold the company to Viacom. -
Election of 1980
Election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. This was the 49th presidential election. Reagan won by a landslide due to the Iran hostage crisis and a worsening economy by the current president Carter. -
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Reaganomics
During the campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a recipe to fix the nation’s economic mess. He claimed an undue tax burden; excessive government regulation and social spending stopped growth. He phased a 30 percent tax cut for the rich to offset this. -
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MTV (Music Television)
MTV is an American cable and satellite television channel which was originally launched to play rock music videos. It catered to young people and used video jockeys to narrate the music played. The first video played was the Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”. -
Strategic Defense initiative (SDI) "Star Wars"
This was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the US from attack by nuclear weapons. Reagan did not like the previous defense plan MAD and used the SDI to replace MAD. It was thought that SDI would restart an offensive arms race and was dubbed Star Wars after a popular movie. -
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Reagan Doctrine
Part of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy, this doctrine served as the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of freedom fighters around the globe. -
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Iran Contra Affair
This affair was a political scandal in the US that occurred during the second term of Ronald Reagan presidency. Whitehouse officials sold guns to Iran so that they could fund the Contras and negotiate the release of 7 hostages held by Hezbollah. -
Challenger Explosion
The NASA space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight killing all 7 crew members. The explosion occurred when the O-ring seal in the solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. 17 percent of Americans watched the launch live and saw it explode because a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was going to be the first teacher in space. -
Rodney King Incident
On this day, George Holliday videotaped a beating and tasering of Rodney King by LA police officers during a traffic stop. When the case went to trial, the officers were acquitted of all charges. Within hours of the acquittals, six-days of riots began in what was called the 1992 LA Riots. 53 people were killed and 7,000 fires were started at a cost to the city of 1 billion dollars. -
World Trade Center Attack 1993
This bombing was a terrorist attack carried out at the World Trade Center when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower in New York City. The 1,336 pound bomb was intended to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower. It didn’t happen but 6 people were killed and a thousand injured. 6 terrorists were convicted who carried out the attack because of the US support for Israel against Palestine. -
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Don't Ask, Don't Tell
DADT was the official US policy on service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians in the military instituted by the Clinton administration. It was met to prohibit military personnel from discriminating against or harassing gays who were in the closet, while barring openly gay people from military service. Since DATA ended in 2011, persons who are openly homosexual and bisexual have been able to serve. -
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Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
DOMA was a US federal law that defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same sex-marriages granted under the laws of other states. Section 3 of the act was struck down in 2013 and was ruled as unconstitutional. -
9/11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of 4 coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaddafi on the US. The attacks killed 2,996 people and injured over 6,000. It caused 10 billion in property damage and 3 trillion in the overall costs. 4 passenger planes were hijacked and flown into the Pentagon, the North and South Towers of the World Trade Centers and the 4th plane crashed on the way to the White House. -
P.A.T.R.I.O.T A.C.T
Signed into law by George W. Bush, this is an act of Congress with an abbreviation that means "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001." -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
US Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elemebtary and Secondary Education Act. It included Title 1 provisions applying to disadvantaged students. it supported standards-based education reform and requires states to develop assessments in basic skills. -
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Hurricane Katrina Disaster
This was the costliest natural disaster and one of the 5 deadliest hurricanes in the history of the US. It affected Cuba, Alabama Georgia but the greatest affected state was Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. Overall at least 1,245 people died and the property damage was $108 billion dollars. -
Title IX
Portion of the US Education Amendments of 1972 introduced by Senator Birch Bayh that states that no person shall be excluded from any federally funded program or activity based on their gender. Title IX is an extension of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 met to include women. It is best known for its impact on high school and college sports.
