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Alaska becomes a state
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. -
Beginning of Korea
The Korean Peninsula was inhabited from the Lower Paleolithic about 400,000-700,000 years ago. The earliest known Korean pottery dates to around 1000 BC, and the Neolithic period began before 6000 BC, followed by the Bronze Age by 800 BC, and the Iron Age began around 400 BC. Korea is considered to be one of the oldest countries in the world. -
Creation of United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions. -
Ending of WW2
The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over the Axis in 1945. The war in Asia ended on 15 August 1945 when Japan agreed to surrender. -
Elvis records first song "King of Rock and Roll"
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. In August 1953, Presley walked into the offices of Sun Records. He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". -
Rosa Parks refused to move
On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, Rosa Parks boards a city bus to go home. The bus continues along its route. After several more stops the bus is full. The driver notices that all the seats in the "Whites Only" section are now taken, and that more white people have just climbed aboard. He orders the people in Mrs. Parks's row to move to the back of the bus, where there are no open seats. No one budges at f -
Sputnik
It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1's success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age. -
Hawaii becomes a state
Hawaii is the most recent of the 50 U.S. states (August 21, 1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a thirteen-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other in October 1962, during the Cold War. -
Assassination of Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m.on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline. -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or the USS Maddox Incident, are the names given to two separate confrontations, one actual and one now recognized as non-existent, involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched on January 30, 1968. Regular and irregular forces of the People's Army of Vietnam fought against the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the United States, and their allies. The purpose of the offensive was to utilize the element of surprise and strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed to take place. -
MLK's assassination
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. -
Election of Nixon
On November 5, 1968, the Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon won the election over the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Nixon ran on a campaign that promised to restore law and order to the nation's cities, torn by riots and crime. -
Fist Man on the Moon
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight which landed the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr, on Earth's Moon on July 20, 1969, at 20:17:39 UTC. The United States mission is considered the major accomplishment in the history of space exploration. -
President Nixon visits China
U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Occurring from February 21 to 28, 1972, the visit allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades. -
Ending of Vietnam
In October 1972, Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, concluded a secret peace agreement with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho. After reviewing the agreement, President Thieu demanded major alterations to the document. In response, the North Vietnamese published the details of the agreement and stalled the negotiations. Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in late December 1972. On January 15, 1973, after pressuring South Vietnam to accept the peace deal, -
Watergate
The President of the United States, on August 9, 1974, the only resignation of a U.S. President. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and incarceration of 43 people, including dozens of top Nixon administration officials. -
Beginning of Vietnam
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. -
Mao Zedong comes to power
Mao Zedong and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949, and held control over the nation until his death in 1976.
