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Harry S. Truman served as the 33rd president of the United States. He ordered atomic bombs to be dropped on cities in Japan.
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Although Sept. 2, 1945, is known as the end of World War II, the state of war formally ended when the treaty of San Francisco came into force on April 20, 1952. It was a peace treaty with Japan.
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On Sept. 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam from France. The proclamation paraphrased the U.S. Declaration of Independence in declaring, “All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!” -
On March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman presented this address before a joint session of Congress. His message, known as the Truman Doctrine, asked Congress for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Turkey and Greece.
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The Cold War was an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that developed after World War II. The two superpowers continually antagonized each other through political maneuvering, military coalitions, espionage, propaganda, arms buildups, economic aid, and proxy wars between other nations.
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President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe.
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During this airlift, the U.S. and U.K. delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and supplies to West Berlin. This was done via more than 278,000 airdrops.
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Its purpose was to secure peace in Europe, to promote cooperation among its members and to guard their freedom. The Alliance's founding treaty was signed in Washington in 1949 by a dozen European and North American countries.
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The Korean War was the conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in which at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. The war reached international proportions in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower's served as the 34th president of the United States. Eisenhower supported a policy of "modern Republicanism" that occupied a middle ground between liberal Democrats and the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
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Notably liberal in its ideology, issuing some landmark decisions affecting civil rights, separation of church and state, and police arrest procedures. Notable cases from the Warren Court include Brown v. Board of Education (equal protection), Gideon v. Wainwright (criminal trials), Reynolds v.
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The conferees at Geneva come to an agreement, meeting French Prime Minister Pierre Mendés France's timetable. This final agreement of the Geneva Accords establishes a ceasefire in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, officially ending the First Indochina War. -
In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. -
A long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a crowded bus to a white passenger. She was later arrested and fined. -
An era of change in identity, family unit, sexuality, dress, and the arts. It was a time when youth rejected social norms and exhibited their disapproval of racial, ethnic, and political injustices through resistance, and for some subgroups, revolt.
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The Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 was a failed attack launched by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to push Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. Since 1959, officials at the U.S. State Department and the CIA had attempted to remove Castro.
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Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space during a suborbital flight aboard his Mercury capsule named Freedom 7. Three weeks later, based on the success of Shepard’s brief flight, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to achieving a lunar landing before the end of the decade.
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To halt the exodus to the West, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev recommended to East Germany that it close off access between East and West Berlin. East German soldiers then laid down more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin.
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In 1962 the Soviet Union began to secretly install missiles in Cuba to launch attacks on U.S. cities. The confrontation that followed, known as the Cuban missile crisis, brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles.
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The Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons tests or other nuclear explosions under water, in the atmosphere, or in outer space. Allows underground nuclear tests as long as no radioactive debris falls outside the boundaries of the nation conducting the test.
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After taking office, he won passage of a major tax cut, the Clean Air Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After the 1964 election, Johnson passed even more sweeping reforms. The Social Security Amendments of 1965 created two government-run healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid.
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Forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The Act strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools. -
Authorized President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Gave Johnson authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam. -
North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the communist assault.
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A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. More than 500 people were slaughtered in the My Lai massacre, including young girls and women who were raped and mutilated before being killed. -
At 6:05 P.M. on Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. -
Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan; He was pronounced dead a day later, on June 6, 1968. -
Nixon presided over the reorganization of the Bureau of the Budget into the more powerful Office of Management and Budget, further concentrating executive power in the White House. He also created the Domestic Council, an organization charged with coordinating and formulating domestic policy.
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The Stonewall Riots ignited after a police raid took place at the Stonewall Inn. The tension from ongoing harassment galvanized the LGBTQ community to protest through the streets of New York City and be memorialized as the annual Gay Pride parades that are now celebrated around the world.
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A proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would invalidate many state and federal laws that discriminate against women. Its central underlying principle is that sex should not determine the legal rights of men or women. -
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant individual's liberty to have an abortion. -
Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.
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Carter sought reforms to the country's welfare, health care, and tax systems, but was largely unsuccessful, partly due to poor relations with Democrats in Congress. Carter reoriented U.S. foreign policy towards an emphasis on human rights.
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In his first term, Reagan implemented "Reaganomics", which involved economic deregulation and cuts in both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation. He escalated an arms race with the Soviet Union and transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback.
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The fall of the Berlin Wall was the first step towards German reunification. The political, economic and social impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall further weakened the already unstable East German government.
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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990. This is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public. -
The unsuccessful August 1991 coup against Gorbachev sealed the fate of the Soviet Union. This resulted in its constituent republics gaining full independence on December 1991.