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Voting Rights Act
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"On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote. The bill made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks." -
Martin Luther King Opposes War
Link "The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivers a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam” in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City. In it, he says that there is a common link forming between the civil rights and peace movements." -
Robert Kennedy Asassinated
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"At 12:50 a.m. PDT, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate, is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. The shooter, Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was promptly arrested." -
First Email Message
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"Exactly 45 years ago -- on October 29, 1969 -- the first electronic message was sent between two computers. The exchange took place over ARPANET, one of the world's first computer networks and the precursor to what we know as the Internet today." -
The movie Star Wars
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"On this day in 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas’ blockbuster Star Wars movies hits American theaters." -
Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident
Link"In March 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors at the "Three Mile Island nuclear generating plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, resulted in an accident that profoundly affected the utility industry. A combination of stuck valves, misread gauges and poor decisions led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core and the release of radioactive gases into the atmosphere." -
Iran Hostage Crisis
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"On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans hostage. "From the moment the hostages were seized until they were released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as president 444 days later," wrote historian Gaddis Smith, "the crisis absorbed more concentrated effort by American officials and had more extensive coverage on television and in the press than any other event since World War II."" -
The inauguration of Ronald Reagan
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"To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every 4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."
