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G.I. Bill of Rights
(The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) -
World War II Ends
The United States emerged from World War II as one of the foremost economic, political, and military powers in the world. Wartime production pulled the economy out of depression and propelled it to great profits. In the interest of avoiding another global war, for the first time the United States began to use economic assistance as a strategic element of its foreign policy and offered significant assistance to countries in Europe and Asia struggling to rebuild their shattered economies. -
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Baby Boomers being born
After the Vietnam war, there was an increase of the number of children being born. This era of children being born was named the Baby Boomers. They Social Security Department is worried that the retirement of this era may "break" the Social Security Department. -
The Truman Doctrine
With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. -
NATO Established
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
the Chinese Revolution
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920’s. -
U.S. Join Korean War
The Korean War began as a civil war between North and South Korea, but the conflict soon became international when, under U.S. leadership, the United Nations joined to support South Korea and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entered to aid North Korea. The war left Korea divided and brought the Cold War to Asia. -
Korean War Ends
On July 27, 1953, the DPRK, PRC and UN signed an armistice (the ROK abstained) agreeing to a new border near the 38th parallel as the demarcation line between North and South Korea. Both sides would maintain and patrol a demilitarized zone (DMZ) surrounding that boundary line. The armistice also established a commission of neutral nations to oversee the voluntary repatriation of POWs. -
Russia Sends Sputnik
Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2. -
Kennedy is Elected President
His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Russians now sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail. -
John F. Kennedy is Assassinated
Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza.
Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was also hit in the chest.
A grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office. Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. -
U.S Sends troops to South Vietnam
At the White House, President Johnson authorizes sending two more Marine battalions and up to 20,000 logistical personnel to Vietnam. The President also authorizes American combat troops to conduct patrols to root out Viet Cong in the countryside. His decision to allow offensive operations is kept secret from the American press and public for two months. -
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Assination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy
"Perhaps if Robert Kennedy's murder hadn't occurred so hard on the heels of Dr. King, the sense of national desperation would not have been so acute," says Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker. "Here were two men committed to change within the system and who were killed for their effort. The two killings seemed to make a compelling argument to many that the peaceful path was a dead end and that the resort to violence was now acceptable. -
The Berlin Wall Has Fallen
he building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 divided families and neighbourhoods in what had been the capital of Germany. The Wall represents a uniquely squalid, violent, and ultimately futile, episode in the post-war world. -
The Soviet Union is "Abolished"
December 8 1991, heads of three of the Soviet Union's 15 republics, led by Russia's Boris Yeltsin, met there to sign documents abolishing that 74-year-old state.
