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Period: to
Cold War
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Berlin Airlift
In June 1948, the Russians–who wanted Berlin all for themselves–closed all highways, railroads and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. This, they believed, would make it impossible for the people who lived there to get food or any other supplies and would eventually drive Britain, France and the U.S. out of the city for good. Instead of retreating from West Berlin, however, the U.S. and its allies decided to supply their sectors of the city from the air. -
Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. the most important proposals were aid to education, universal health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. -
2nd red scare
The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, investigated allegations of subversive elements in the government and the Hollywood film industry. The climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease by 1950's. -
Ike Turner
In the 1950's, he formed his first group as a teenager in high school, called Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm. In 1956, he hired two sisters named Anna Mae Bullock and Aillene Bullock. He renamed Anna Mae Bullock as Tina Turner, married her and they had their first hit in 1960 with "A Fool In Love". Ike has frequently been referred to as a "great innovator" of rock and roll and has left a lasting mark in music history. -
Beat Generation
Its adherents, self-styled as “beat” and derisively called “beatniks,” expressed their alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting an almost uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary borrowed from jazz musicians. Generally apolitical and indifferent to social problems, they advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. -
Korean War
War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. -
Period: to
1950's
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Little Richard
In 1951 Richard caught his first major break when a performance at an Atlanta radio station yielded a record contract with RCA. Richard’s career failed to take off as he'd hoped it would. In 1955 Richard hooked up with Specialty Records producer Art Rupe, who’d been hunting for a piano-pounding frontman to lead a group of musicians in New Orleans. In September, Richard stepped into the recording studio and pumped out “Tutti-Frutti,” an instant Billboard hit that reached No. 17. -
Polio Vaccine
On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952–an epidemic year for polio–there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease.It is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time. -
Domino Theory
The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. government used the now-discredited domino theory to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War and its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam. -
Elvis Presley
Elvis began attracting attention with his music in 1954, when he was 19. He infused Black rhythm-and-blues songs with his distinctive style, which came to include dance moves that were considered quite sexually suggestive for the time. In 1956, "Heartbreak Hotel" became his first number one hit and Elvis suddenly became a national sensation. Crowds of screaming teenagers packed his shows. At the end of 1957, Elvis received his draft notice, serving as an ordinary GI in the U.S. military until. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
Bill Haley and the Comets
One of the first major rock ‘n roll songs of the 1950s – and still ranked among the world’s all-time Top Ten best-selling singles – is “Rock Around The Clock.” The song was made popular by the American group, Bill Haley and His Comets, initially a Country & Western band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that morphed into a rock `n roll leader after discovering new potential in rhythm & blues music -
Emmett Till Tragedy
14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after a white woman said she was offended by him in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. -
G.I. Bill
the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It established hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. From 1944 to 1949, nearly 9 million veterans received close to $4 billion from the bill’s unemployment compensation program. The education and training provisions existed until 1956, -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. -
Eisenhower Interstate System
President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.” -
Albert Sabin
He determined that the virus infected a person through his or her digestive tract. Further research led Sabin to realize that some people had resistant antibodies in their blood to polio, suggesting that they had been infected with a weak strain of the virus that had left them resistant to more powerful versions of the illness. Sabin immediately began to seek out weaker strains of the virus, believing it could help with the stronger virus. By 1957, Sabin had developed a live vaccine. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students’ entry into the high school. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. It also established a federal Civil Rights Commission with authority to investigate discriminatory conditions and recommend corrective measures. The final act was weakened by Congress due to lack of support among the Democrats. -
Politics (Kennedy and Nixon)
John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in the first televised presidential debates in American history. The Kennedy-Nixon debates not only had a major impact on the election’s outcome, but ushered in a new era in which crafting a public image and taking advantage of media exposure became essential ingredients of a successful political campaign. They also heralded the central role television has continued to play in the democratic process. -
Space Race
After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle pitted the world’s two great powers–the democratic, capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union–against each other. Beginning in the late 1950s, space would become another dramatic arena for this competition, as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower and–by extension–its political-economic system. -
Peace Corps
President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. It proved to be one of the most innovative and highly publicized Cold War programs set up by the United States. During the course of his campaign for the presidency in 1960, Kennedy floated the idea that a new “army” should be created by the United States. This force would be made up of civilians who would volunteer their time and skills to travel to underdeveloped nations to assist them in any way they could. -
LSD
During the Cold War, the CIA conducted clandestine experiments with LSD (and other drugs) for mind control, information gathering and other purposes. Over time, the drug became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture, eventually joining other hallucinogenic and recreational drugs at rave parties. -
Period: to
1960's
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Period: to
Civil Rights
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Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
President John Kennedy notified and explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. -
Birmingham March
Activists in Birmingham, Alabama launched one of the most influential campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement: Project C, better known as The Birmingham Campaign. It would be the beginning of a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in the city. Over the next couple months, the peaceful demonstrations would be met with violent attacks using high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs on men, women and children alike -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. -
Assassination of JFK
Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. -
Ascendancy of Lyndon Johnson
he was sworn into office following the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Upon taking office, Johnson launched an ambitious slate of progressive reforms aimed at creating a “Great Society” for all Americans. Many of the programs he championed—Medicare, Head Start, the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act—had a profound and lasting impact in health, education and civil rights. Despite his impressive achievements, however, -
Warren Commission
Lyndon Johnson, established a commission to investigate Kennedy’s death. After a nearly yearlong investigation, the commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating America’s 35th president and that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, involved.Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report proved controversial and failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event. -
Great Society
The Great Society was an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the main goals of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment. In May 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson laid out his agenda for a “Great Society” during a speech at the University of Michigan.With his eye on re-election that year, Johnson set in motion his Great Society, the largest social reform plan in modern history. -
Daisy Girl Ad
was a controversial political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign. Though only aired once (by the campaign), it is considered to be an important factor in Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater and an important turning point in political and advertising history. It remains one of the most controversial political advertisements ever made. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Selma March
The Selma march was part of a series of civil-rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. As the world watched, the protesters, under the protection of federalized National Guard -
Counter Culture
As the 1960s progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s. -
Anti-War Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small–among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses–but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968 after the successful Tet Offensive. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
Earl Warren Supreme Court
After failing to claim the Republican nomination for the presidency, he was appointed the 14th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The landmark case of his tenure was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), in which the Court unanimously determined the segregation of schools to be unconstitutional. The Warren Court also sought electoral reforms, equality in criminal justice and the defense of human rights before its chief justice retired in 1969. -
Apollo 11
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he set took his first step, Armstrong famously said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John Kennedy announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. -
Silent Majority’s involvement in politics
President Richard Nixon goes on television and radio to call for national solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to gather support for his policies; his call for support is an attempt to blunt the renewed strength of the antiwar movement.The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a November 3, 1969, -
Period: to
1970s
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Watergate Hotel
Several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings in Washington, D.C. This was no ordinary robbery: The prowlers were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, and they had been caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. Nixon took aggressive steps to cover up the crime afterwards, and in August 1974, after his role in the conspiracy was revealed, Nixon resigned. -
Federal Election Commission
the primary United States federal law regulating political campaign spending and fundraising. The law originally focused on increased disclosure of contributions for federal campaigns. The S. 382 legislation was passed by the 92nd U.S. Congressional session and signed by the 37th President of the United States Richard Nixon on February 7, 1972. In 1974, the Act was amended to place legal limits on the campaign contributions and expenditures. -
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Act is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. Among other restrictions, the law requires that presidents notify Congress after deploying the armed forces and limits how long units can remain engaged without congressional approval. Enacted in 1973 with the goal of avoiding another lengthy conflict such as the Vietnam War -
Nixon Tapes
The Nixon White House tapes are audio recordings of conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Nixon administration officials, Nixon family members, and White House staff, produced between 1971 and 1973. he tapes' existence came to light during the Watergate scandal of 1973 and 1974, when the system was mentioned during the televised testimony of White House aide Alexander Butterfield before the Senate Watergate Committee. -
Endangered Species Act
one of the few dozens of US environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).[1] Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation", the ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. -
Warren Burger Supreme Court
Burger wrote unanimous court in United States v. Nixon, which rejected Nixon's invocation of executive privilege in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The ruling played a major role in Nixon's resignation. Burger joined the majority in Roe v. Wade in holding that the right to privacy prohibited states from banning abortions. He later abandoned Roe v. Wade in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. His majority opinion in INS v. Chadha struck down the legislative veto. -
The Moral Majority
he Moral Majority was a prominent American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s. -
Camp David Accords
Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The accords were negotiated during 12 days of intensive talks at President Jimmy Carter’s Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. The final peace agreement–the first between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors–was signed in March 1979. -
Three-mile Island
Three Mile Island is the site of a nuclear power plant in south central Pennsylvania. In March 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors at the plant caused the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, resulting in a partial meltdown that released dangerous radioactive gasses into the atmosphere. Three Mile Island stoked public fears about nuclear power—no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States since the accident. -
Iran Hostage Crisis
a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. The immediate cause of this action was President Jimmy Carter’s decision to allow Iran’s deposed Sha to come to the United States for cancer treatment. However, the hostage-taking was about more than the Shah’s medical care: it was a dramatic way for the student revolutionaries to declare a break with Iran’s past and an end to American interference in its affairs -
Election of 1980
featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent. Reagan, aided by the Iran hostage crisis and a worsening economy at home, won the election in a landslide. Carter, after defeating Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing radical. For his part, Reagan, repeatedly ridiculed Carter, and won a decisive victory -
Reagan Doctrine
was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to overwhelm the global influence of the Soviet Union in an attempt to end the Cold War. The doctrine was the centerpiece of United States foreign policy from the early 1980s until the end of the Cold War in 1991.In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” -
Robert Johnson
an American entrepreneur, media magnate, executive, philanthropist, and investor.He is the co-founder of BET, which was acquired by Viacom in 2001. He also founded RLJ Companies, a holding company that invests in various business sectors. Johnson is the former majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats He became the first black American billionaire. Johnson's companies have counted among the most prominent African-American businesses in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. -
Jimmy Carter
Carter's unpopularity and poor relations with Democratic leaders encouraged an intra-party challenge by Senator Ted Kennedy, a younger brother of former President John F. Kennedy. Carter defeated Kennedy in the majority of the Democratic primaries, but Kennedy remained in the race until Carter was officially nominated at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. The Republican primaries were contested between Reagan and Carter -
Reaganomics
These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics, referred to as trickle-down economics or voodoo economics by political opponents, and free-market economics by political advocates. The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation. -
Space Shuttle Program
During the 1980s, Kennedy Space Center made a critical shift in focus. Instead of moving relatively quickly from one human spaceflight program to another. Kennedy was tasked with the vital role of maintaining the "processing flow" -- refurbishing and preparing each vehicle between flights, launching it safely, ensuring the safety of orbiter and crew after landing, and returning it to Kennedy's orbiter processing facility to begin the process again -
Period: to
1980s
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Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) “Star Wars”
proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons . The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan on 23 March 1983.[1] Reagan was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact", and he called upon the scientists and engineers of the United States to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. -
Iran Contra Affair
political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration.The Iran-Contra Affair was a secret U.S. government arms deal that freed some American hostages held in Lebanon but also funded armed conflict in Central America. In addition, the controversial dealmaking—and the ensuing political scandal—threatened to bring down the presidency of Ronald Reagan. -
Sandra Day O’Connor
first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. A moderate conservative, she was known for her dispassionate and meticulously researched opinions. For 24 years, Sandra Day O’Connor was a pioneering force on the Supreme Court and will always be remembered as acting as a sturdy guiding hand in the court’s decisions during those years—and serving a swing vote in many important cases. In 2009 her accomplishments were acknowledged by President Obama who honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. -
Challenger Explosion
Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after liftoff, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire who would have been the first civilian in space. It was later determined that two rubber O-rings, which had been designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin. -
Persian Gulf War / 1st Iraq War
I Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. Hussein defied United Nations Security Council demands to withdraw from Kuwait by mid-January 1991, and the Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm. After 42 days of relentless attacks by the allied coalition in the air and on the ground, U.S. President George H.W. Bush declared a cease-fire on February 28. -
Period: to
1990s
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Election of 1992
Bush had alienated much of his conservative base by breaking his 1988 campaign pledge against raising taxes, the economy was in a recession, and Bush's perceived greatest strength, foreign policy, was regarded as much less important following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the relatively peaceful climate in the Middle East after the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War. -
George H.W. Bush
U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. He also was a two-term U.S. vice president under Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1989. Bush, a World War II naval aviator and Texas oil industry executive, began his political career in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1967. During the 1970s, he held a variety of government posts, including CIA director. In 1988, Bush defeated Democratic rival Michael Dukakis to win the White House. In office, he launched successful military operations against Panama and Iraq -
Balkans Crisis
In April 1992, the government of the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Over the next several years, Bosnian Serb forces, with the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, perpetrated atrocious crimes against Bosniak and Croatian civilians, resulting in the deaths of some 100,000 people by 1995. It was the worst act of genocide since the Nazi regime’s destruction of some 6 million European Jews during World War II. -
World Trade Center Attack - 1993
At 12:18 p.m., a terrorist bomb explodes in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast. Although the terrorist bomb failed to critically damage the main structure of the skyscrapers, six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. The World Trade Center itself suffered more than $500 million in damage. -
Bill Clinton Presidency
the 42nd U.S. president, Prior to that, the Arkansas native and Democrat was governor of his home state. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates and a budget surplus. Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones and laying the foundations for strong economic growth and rising prosperity for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Since then, NAFTA has demonstrated how free trade increases wealth and competitiveness, delivering real benefits to families, farmers, workers, manufacturers, and consumers. -
Welfare Reform
with the goals of reducing the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, keeping the welfare systems affordable, and assisting recipients to become self-sufficient. generally argue that welfare and other tax-funded services reduce incentives to work, exacerbate the free-rider problem, and intensify poverty. Socialists, on the other hand, generally criticize welfare reform because it usually minimizes the public safety net, and strengthens the capitalist economic system. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, 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. Until Section 3 of the Act was struck down in 2013, DOMA, in conjunction with other statutes, had barred same-sex married couples from being recognized as "spouses" for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them from receiving federal marriage benefits. -
Election of 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was the 54th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the Governor of Texas and the eldest son of the 41st President George H. W. Bush, narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Al Gore, the incumbent vice president. It was the fourth of five presidential elections in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote. -
Bush v. Gore (SCOTUS case)
was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election. The ruling was issued on December 12, 2000. On December 9, the Court had preliminarily halted the Florida recount that was occurring. Eight days earlier, the Court unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000). The Electoral College was scheduled to meet on December 18, 2000, to decide the election. -
George W. Bush Presidency
America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush, the oldest son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Bush worked in the Texas oil industry and was an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming governor. In 2000, he won the presidency after narrowly defeating Democratic challenger Al Gore. -
9/11 Attacks
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. -
PATRIOT ACT
On this day in 2001, President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The USA PATRIOT Act, Bush hoped the bipartisan legislation would empower law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent future terrorist attacks on American soil. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
An act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. To receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students -
2nd Iraq War
The protracted war between these neighboring Middle Eastern countries resulted in at least half a million casualties and several billion dollars’ worth of damages, but no real gains by other side. Started by Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein in September 1980, the war was marked by indiscriminate ballistic-missile attacks, extensive use of chemical weapons and attacks on third-country oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. -
Hurricane Katrina Disaster
Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale–it brought sustained winds of 100–140 miles per hour–and stretched some 400 miles across. The storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding, and many people charged that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the people affected by the storm. -
Election of 2008
The U.S. presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, a Senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, a long-time Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Obama became the first African American ever to be elected as president, and Joe Biden became the first Catholic to ever be elected as vice president. -
Obama Presidency
On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected president of the United States over Senator John McCain of Arizona. Obama became the 44th president, and the first African American to be elected to that office. He was subsequently elected to a second term over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Great Recession, the ARRA's primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy.
