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Period: to
60's and 70's
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Kenndy's inauguration
Kennedy gave his inaugural address in 1961. He was the youngest president ever elected. -
Vietnam
Kennedy sent troops to South Vietnam late in 1961. This was part of his "flexible response". His plan was to send troops to help then gradually take them away so South Vietnam would have to fight its own battles. Kennedy couldn't take the troops out because South Vietnam was not as skilled at fighting and the United States was not winning. -
Bay of Pigs
Twelve hundred exiles landed in Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Kennedy kept a hands off policy for this event. Most of the invaders were held captive and ransomed for $62 million in pharmaceutical drugs. This event pushed Castro further into the Soviet Unions arms. Khrushchev started putting nuclear weapons in to Cuba after this event. -
Freedom Ride
A white mob torched a Freedom Ride bus near Anniston, Alabama. In another riot Robert Kenedy's personal representative was beaten unconcious. In other peacful movements the people fighting for equlity would be hosed down with a powerful waterhose. -
The pressident meets the premier
Kennedy went to Vienna to meet the Soviet premier Khrushchev. This coversation was a series of threats from the Soviet Union to create a treaty with East Germany. If the threats were acted on then they would cut off access to West Berlin. They backed off for a while then suddenly started constructing the Berlin Wall. -
Berlin Wall
The Soviets and the East Germans started to build the Berlin Wall in 1961. They used barbed wire and concrete to build the wall. The wall stood for almost three decades and it looked like the wall of a concentration camp. This wall was created to stop East Germans from going to West Germany. -
Nuclear Weapons
In response to nuclear weapons in Cuba the Kennedy ordered a naval "quarantine" for Cuba. The Soviets surronded the U.S. around Cuba. The weapons in Cuba were fully functional and were ready to go. A compromise was reached Khrushchev took weapons out of Cuba and the U.S took its weapons out of Turkey. -
Resolution
Kennedy went on tv and gave a speech saying how he was going to help fix the problem of racial inequality. He said that he was going to devote his presidency to solving the problem. He all so called this problem a "moral issue". -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. launched a campaign against dicrimination in Birmingham, Alabama. This was the most segregated big city in America. The black community only made up 15 percent of voters even though they constituted half of the population. This was also the time when MLK Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Kennedy Shot
While riding in a limo in Dallas, Texas Kennedy was shot. He was shot by a concealed gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was shot to death by a self-appointed avenger named Jakc Ruby. The cameras caught the brutal murder of Oswald and after these shotings Lyndon Baines Johnson was put into the presidency. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act banned racial discrimination in most private facilities such as theaters, hospitals, and restaurants. This all so stregthened the federal governments power to desegregate schools. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created to help stop disgrimination in the work force. -
Tonkin Resolution
This authorized the president to take action against North Vietnam. This was after North Vietnamese boats attacked two U.S. destroyers five days earlier. -
MLK Jr.
King spoke at a civil rights rally at the Alabama State Capitol. This rally ended in Montgomery, Alabama. This march was for voting rights. In Montgomery blacks made up fifty percent of the population, but only one percent were voters. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This outlawed the required literacy for potential voters. This all so provided the provision of federal registration of voters in areas with less than 50 percent of all voters reistered. This was signed into law by Johnson. -
Race Riots
After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created civil rights movements ended and the Watts race riots began. In Los Angeles this was a five day riot. This riot killed thirty-four people and caused property damage in excess of $200 million. -
Hanoi
The U.S. began thier boming raids Hanoi and Haiphong, North Vietnam. By December the United States had 385,300 troops stationed in South Vietnam. There was all so sixty thousand additional troops of shore and even had thirty-three thousand in Thailand. -
Parks created
President Johnsonn created the San Juan Islan National Historical Park. This park was to built in Washington State unfrotunatly this place was claimed by both the U.S. and Britain. Both nations had army camps on the island. The National Historic Preservation Act was created so that the U.S. could created the park. -
Edward Brooke
Edward Brooke was elected as the first black senator in 85 years. Brooke was a Republican Canidate from Massachsetts. He was all so a former Attorney General of the state of Massachusetts. -
Black Riots
In New Jersey 26 people are killed and fifteen hundred were injured. One thousand poeple were all so arrested from July 12-17. A week later in Detroit forty people are killed, two thousand were injured, and fivr thousand were left homeless. It took 12,500 troopers and National Guardsmen to stop the riots. -
North Korea
North Korea seized U.S.S Pueblo ship and crew in the Sea of Japan. The Pueblos were accused of violating territorial waters. The North Koreans believed the Pueblos violated the territorial waters for the purpose of spying. The North Koreans released the prisoners on December 22, but have still not returned some of the U.S.S possessions. -
Ford theatre reopened
Fords Theatre was reopened to the public in 1968. This was the site where President Abraham Lincoln was assinated in 1865 in Washington. At that time it had been restored to be used as a theatre. Today it is now the Ford's Theatre National Historic Stie. -
Nixon
Richard M. Nixon recaptured the White House vote from the democratic party. He beat Humphery and Wallace. Nixon captured 301 elctoral college votes. Humphery captured 191 and Wallace got 46. -
Space
The Apollo program completed its mission. Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon four days after the launch. His Apollo 11 colleague Aldrin Jr. accompanied him on this trip to the moon. -
Vietnam Policy
Nixon creates the Nixon Doctrine that said the Asian allies would take care of their own military defense. This policy was protested heavily through the rest of the year. In November more than 250,000 anti-Vietnam war demonstrators went to Washington to peacefully protest. -
Advanced research
The internet was invented by the Advanced resaerch Projects Agency at the U.S Department of Defense. The first packet swithcing netwirk was deployed connecting the IMP at UCLA and the Stanford Research institute. By December it included the entire four node system. -
Earth Day
The first Earth Day celebration was held with millions of American participating in anti-pollution demonstrations. These demonstrations included school children walking to school instead of riding the bus. -
Students Killed
Four students from Kent State University in Ohio were killed and nine wounded by National Guardsmen during a protest against the Vietnam War spread into Cambodia. -
Post Office
The United States Postal Service is made independent in a postal reform measure for the first time in almost two centuries. -
26th amendment
The Senate approves a Constitutional Amendment, the 26th, that would lower the voting age from 21 to 18. House approval came on March 23. It was ratified by the states by June 30 and received certification by President Richard M. Nixon on July 5. -
Court
The United States Supreme Court upholds the right of the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish classified Pentagon papers about the Vietnam War, under the articles of the First Amendment to the Constitution. -
Calculator
The advent of the microprocessor age at Texas Instruments includes the introduction of the 4-bit TMS 1000 with a calculator on the chip; on November 15, 1971, Intel released the 4-bit 4004 microprocessor developed by Federico Faggin. -
Peace
The "journey for peace" trip of the U.S. President to Peking, China begins. The eight day journey by Richard M. Nixon and meetings with Mao Zedong, unprecedented at the time, began the process for normalization of relations with China -
North Vietnam
The largest attacks by North Vietnam troops across the demilitarized zone in four years prompts bombing raids to begin again by United States forces against Hanoi and Haiphong on April 15, ending a four year cessation of those raids. -
Watergate
The Watergate crisis begins when four men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C. on the same day that Okinawa is returned from U.S. control back to Japan. -
Peace in Vietnam
Four part Vietnam peace pacts, the Paris Peace Accords, were signed in Paris, France. The announcement of the military draft ending also occurred on that date. The last U.S. military troops would leave the war zone on March 29. -
Watergate Trial
Two defendants in the Watergate break-in trial are convicted. The remaining five defendants had pleaded guilty to the crime two weeks earlier. On April 30, the Watergate affair widens when four members of the Nixon administration; aides H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman, John W. Dean, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign under suspicion of obstructing justice. During Senate hearings on June 25, Dean would admit that the administration had conspired to cover up facts about the case, -
Oil Embargo
The Arab Oil Embargo: Oil imports from Arab oil-producing nations are banned to the United States after the start of the Arab-Israeli war, creating the 1973 energy crisis. They would not resume until March 18, 1974. -
Impeachment
Impeachment hearings are begun by the House Judiciary Committee against President Richard M. Nixon in the Watergate affair. On July 24, the United States Supreme Court rules that President Nixon must turn over the sixty-four tapes of White House conversations concerning the Watergate break-in. -
Avoiding impeachment
President Richard M. Nixon resigns the office of the presidency, avoiding the impeachment process and admitting his role in the Watergate affair. He was replaced by Vice President Gerald R. Ford, who, on September 8, 1974, pardoned Nixon for his role. Nixon was the first president to ever resign from office. -
Patty Hearst
Heiress Patty Hearst is kidnaped in San Francisco. She would be recovered by FBI agents on September 8 and subsequently indicted for bank robbery. Hurst would be convicted of the crime two years later. -
Communism
Communist forces complete their takeover of South Vietnam, forcing the evacuation from Saigon of civilians from the United States and the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam. -
Viking 1
The Viking 1 space probe successfully lands on Mars. It would be followed by a second unmanned Viking II on the Utopia Plains on September 3. The first color photos of the surface of Mars are taken on these flights. -
Bacteria
Twenty-nine people attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia are killed by a mysterious ailment, one year later discovered as a bacterium. -
Jimmy Carter
Challenger Jimmy Carter, a relatively unknown former Democratic governor from Georgia, bests Gerald Ford in a closely contested election. Carter received a slight majority of the popular vote, as well as an Electoral College victory of 297 to 240. -
Blackout
The New York City blackout results in massive looting and disorderly conduct during its twenty-five hour duration. -
Nuclear end
Fifteen nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a nuclear-proliferation pact, slowing the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. -
Panama Canal
The United States Senate votes to return the Panama Canal back to Panama on December 31, 1999. A treaty for the return had been signed on September 7 of the previous year, pending approval by the U.S. Congress. -
Camp David
The Camp David Peace Agreement between Israel and Egypt is formulated in twelve days of secret negotiations at the Camp David retreat of the President. President Jimmy Carter witnessed the signing of the agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House. -
Three Mile Island
An accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania occurs. when a partial core meltdown is recorded. A tense situation ensued for five days until the reactor was deemed under control. It is the largest accident in U.S. nuclear power history and considered the worst until the Soviet Chernobyl accident seven years later. -
Iran Hostage
The Iran Hostage Crisis begins when sixty-three Americans are among ninety hostages taken at the American embassy in Tehran by three thousand militant student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, who demand that the former shah return to Iran to stand trial. -
Works Cited
n.p. "America's Best History". 2012. web. 27 May 2013 Kennedy M David, Cohen Lizabeth, Bailey A Thomas. "The American Pagent". Wadswoth. book. 27 May 2013