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Rock"n' Roll
"Rock 'n' Roll" was and is a genre of music that originated and developed in the United States during the late 1940's and early 50's. Starting from African roots and styles like gospel, blues, jazz, and much more. Rock 'n' Roll was also referred to a slang for sexual intercourse, in which applied to teenagers in this time period, allowing for Rock 'n' Roll to grow. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was a metaphor that was used to divide Europe into western and eastern Europe. This was used to keep communists from capitalists and also keep specific people in their country of origin -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was enacted by President Harry S. Truman who established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from communist forces. -
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The Cold War
After World War II occurred a long intense rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lasting from 1945-1990 the US and USSR passed through both a political and economic struggle. -
Marshall Plan
Devised by George Marshall in 1948, This plan offered loans to rebuild Western Europe and restore its faith in capitalism. Stalin refused Eastern Europe's participation in this. This plan helped spread American labor, farming, and manufacturing practices to Western Europe. -
Stalin Closes Border
Joseph Stalin did not like propping up Germany, so he decides to seal off the border. Stalin divided Berlin the same way in which Germany was divided, and he wanted the West to quit Berlin. The Berlin Aircraft would help supply west Berlin for up to a year, and Stalin eventually gave up and reopened the border. -
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Berlin Airlit
Lasting from June 24th 1948 to May 12th 1949, the Berlin Airlift was a historical event in which planes flew in food, fuel, and many other supplies to 2 million Berliners during the Berlin Blockade in which cut off west Berlin from anywhere else. -
West Berlin Supplied
The United States responded to the Soviet Blockade by sending a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For almost a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. The constant flow of supplies prevented the ever looming communist presence of the Soviets to completely gain influence over West Berlin. -
Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was domestic reform proposals of the second Truman administration which lasted from 1949-53. It included civil rights, legislation, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, but only extensions of some New Deal programs were enacted. -
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1950s
Abruptly after WWII ended, the United States rose as the strongest military power near the end of the 1950's. 1950's snot only had a vast amount of resources, but also its economy was better than ever. Cars, housing, luxuries were at the hands of consumers more than ever before, Though the 50's was a prosperous time for the United States, it also had its downfalls like communism and as well as Civil Rights. -
North Korea invades South Korea
North Koreans invade into South Korea by crossing the 38th parallel, which was the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south initiating the Korean War. The first armed conflict of the Cold War. -
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Korean War (The Forgotten War)
The first military action of the Cold War. Armed conflict between the Northern Korean forces and the South Korean forces backed up by America. This was a war against communism in a nutshell, Therefore showing just how far America was going to go to prevent communist forced from gaining influence. -
Ike Turner
Ike Turner, a black musician made the first Rock & Roll song "Rocket 88". Ike Turner was born on November 5, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up playing the blues. He debuted many popular singles with his partner Tina Turner and was a major catalyst in the beginning of popular Rock 'n' Roll music. -
Bill Haley and the Comets
Bill Haley & The Comets song “Rock around the Clock Tonight" made Rock 'n' Roll popular, but did not spread it as wide as Elvis did the 1950's. The group was formed in the year 1952 but would only go on to gain much of its popularity between the years of 1954-1956. Bill Haley, was the most popular of the group and later went on to rip off songs of other African American artists taking the credit, and elevating Rock 'n' Roll to a higher popularity. -
Polio Vaccination
On March 26, 1953, an american medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces live on radio that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. in the 1954 clinical trials, Salk's vaccine was used on nearly two million schoolchildren. In April 1955, this vaccine was proven to be safe and effective. -
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Civil Rights
For a decade, civil rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Peaceful protest consisting of "sit-ins", leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court case in which will forever mark history books. This court case declared that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Little Richard
Little Richardis an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. His music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. -
Television's major Introduction to the masses
WWII slowed TV’s introduction to the consumer market, however, after the war, the television spread to the masses of America. By 1955, 75% of American homes had a TV, Televisions are now the way people were entertained and gained their information, the television proved to be vastly influential in all types of campaigns and conflicts in the world. For example, being vastly influential in elections and the news. -
Emmett Till Tragedy
14-year-old Emmett Till, an African-American from Chicago,visits his family in Mississippi. He flirts with a white woman at a store and is brutally murdered for this. Till was dragged out of his home in the middle of the night and then beat to near death by two men, the white woman's husband and her brother shot him in the head, then threw his body, tied to a cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. The brutal events sparked upf the civil rights movement. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a largely peaceful protest towards segregation of African Americans on Buses. The boycott began when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white male and sit at the back of the bus, she was then arrested and fined. On the day of her court hearing, the boycott began and lasted for more than a year. Eventually, the Supreme court ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. -
Little Rock 9
Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white, Central high school testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The Supreme court advocated for schools to integrate “with all deliberate speed”. However, On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called in the state National Guard to bar the black students’ entry into the school. -
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1960's
During the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age. The 1960s was characterized by a large optimism in middle-class society Americans, mainly white, who with Kennedy's confidence had a positive tone set for the era. However, the 1960s were also filled with the ideals of civil rights, the counterculture, equal rights, feminism and the controversy on the war with Vietnam. -
Greensboro, North Carolina Sit-In
Four black students attempted to force the desegregation of a lunch counter in Woolworth's store They staged a sit in which lasted several days By the 4th day, 300 students had joined the sit-in By the end of the week the store had closed rather than desegregated -
Nashville, Tennessee Sit-in
The Nashville Sit-in is recognized as one of the most succesful student led sit-ins in the civil rights era. Contributing to its success was the leadership and organization provided by the noted pacifist, James M. Lawson. Lawson and the Nashville Student Movement launched a large-scale sit-in campaign targeting segregated restaurants and department stores in the city's downtown commercial district. Eventually, the city agreed to desegregate public businesses. -
New Frontier
The term New Frontier was used by liberal Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention.The ideas behind the New Frontier instilled a sense of both confidence and new ambitions in America's society.These promises made by Kennedy was a major catalyst in the positive vibes around the 1960s -
Peace Corps
President Kennedy in 1961 created a federal agency to promote voluntary service by Americans in foreign countries, it provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructure, health care, educational systems, and other aspects of their societies. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom rides were organized mixed-race groups who rode interstate buses deep into the South to draw attention to and protest racial segregation, beginning in 1961.This effort by northern young people to challenge racism proved a political and public relations success for the Civil Rights Movement -
Birmingham Bombing
In September 1963, this was the bombing of a black church that killed four African-American children.The bomb detonated on the church’s east side during the church's Sunday School service.. The bodies of four young girls were found beneath the rubble and injured more.This event in Birmingham only elevated the intensity of the civil rights movement. In the aftermath of the bombing, thousands of angry black protesters gathered at the scene of the bombing. -
JFK Assassination
While driving through Dallas, Texas, the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, wounding Governor Connally and killing Kennedy. JFK was pronounced dead 30 minutes after being transported to Parkland Hospital. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
The presumed assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy from a high window of a building in Dallas on November 22, 1963, as Kennedy rode down the street in an open car. Oswald was captured the day of the assassination but was never tried. A government commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded later that Oswald, though active in communist causes, was not part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Assumed to be working with another organization or person. -
Warren Commision
The Warren Commission was made by LBJ after killing of John F. Kennedy. in order to investigate his predecessor’s death.During its almost yearlong investigation, the Warren Commission reviewed reports by the FBI, Department of State and the attorney general of Texas. The commission concluded that the bullets that killed Kennedy and injured Connally were fired by Oswald from a rifle pointed out of a sixth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. -
Great Society
was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was to completely eliminate poverty and racial injustice that occurred in this era -
Environmental Protection Agency
A governmental organization signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970 designed to regulate pollution, emissions, and other factors that negatively influence the natural environment. The creation of the it marked a newfound commitment by the federal government to actively combat environmental risks and was a significant triumph for the environmentalist movement. -
Equal Rights Amendment
A constitutional amendment originally introduced in Congress in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972, stating that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." Despite public support, the amendment failed to acquire the necessary support from three-fourths of the state legislatures. -
Title IX
Title IX was part of the Education Amendments which prohibited sex discrimination in any educational programs or activities that are funded by the federal government. -
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership. Heritage has since continued to have a significant influence in U.S. public policy making and is considered to be one of the most influential conservative research organizations in the United States. -
Endangered Species Act
President Richard Nixon declared current species conservation efforts to be inadequate and called on the 93rd United States Congress to pass comprehensive endangered species legislation. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was then passed, the act provided and still provides to this day, assistance for the conservation of species that are endangered or threatened throughout all or a significant portion of their range, and the conservation of the ecosystems on which they depends -
Nixson's Resignation
In an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House.Minutes later, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States in the East Room of the White House. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. -
OPEC
The OPEC or The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is international cartel that inflates price of oil by limiting supply; Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and UAE are prominent members -
Camp David Accords
Camp David was a treaty between Israel & Egypt. Israel withdraws from Sinai Peninsula, Gaza and West Bank and Israel stops settling West Bank and the Palestinians promised their own government -
Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island was a Partial nuclear reactor meltdown in 1979 in Eastern Pennsylvania. Nuclear radiation leaked out into nearby town. Luckily, no one was sickened by the leaking. Americans weary of nuclear power after this crucial event -
Space Shuttle Program
NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12,1981, and continued to set high marks of achievement through 30 years of missions. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. -
Music Television
August 1, 1981, MTV goes on air. MTV went on to revolutionize the music industry and become an influential source of pop culture and entertainment in the United States as well as in other parts of the world. In MTV’s early days, its programming consisted of basic music videos that were introduced by video jockeys and provided for free by record companies. -
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman to have a position in the Supreme Court. Sandra was appointed by Ronald Reagan ans was an Associate Justice from 1981 up until 2006. -
SDI
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983, under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
The Reagan Doctrine
In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of “freedom fighters” around the globe. In action, this policy translated into covertly supporting the Contras in their attacks on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua; the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Soviet occupiers; and anticommunist Angolan forces embroiled in that nation’s civil war. -
Iran Contra Affair
Iran Contra Affair was a scandal that erupted during the Reagan administration when it was revealed that US government agents had secretly sold arms to Iran in order to raise money to fund anti- communist "Contra" forces in Nicaragua. -
Challenger Explosion
Also known as the Challenger Disaster, On January 28, 1986, the American shuttle orbiter Challenger broke up 73 seconds after liftoff, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission.The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard, including a school teacher whom taught kids all around the country about space. -
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Climate Change Findings Come Out
The first report of the IPCC finds that the planet has warmed by 0.5°C over the past century. IPCC warns that only strong measures to halt rising greenhouse gas emissions will prevent serious global warming. This provides scientific clout for UN negotiations for a climate convention. Negotiations begin at the Climate Change Convention agrees to prevent “dangerous” warming from greenhouse gasses and sets the initial target of reducing emissions from industrialized countries, from 1990 to 2000. -
Persain Gulf War
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. Frightened by these actions, Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the U.S. and other Western nations to intervene. Hussein defied the UN Security Council's demands to withdraw from Kuwait by mid-January 1991, thus launching the war into full action. Though the Persian Gulf War was initially considered an unqualified success for the international coalition. -
Rodney King
On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was caught by the Los Angeles police after a high-speed chase. After beign pulled over, the officers pulled him out of the car and beat him brutally, while acameraman George Holliday caught it all on videotape. As a result, riots engulfed the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. -
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Balkans Crisis
On June 25, 1991, the parliaments of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, triggering the immediate deployment of the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army towards the affected borders and airports. After a ten-day conflict, the JNA withdrew from ethnically homogenous Slovenia. Croatia's ethnic Serb rebels who opposed independence launched a four-year war. Serbs boycotted the referendum, 60% of Bosnia's citizens voted for independence and Bosnia won international recognition on April 6, 1992 -
World Trade Center Bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, carried out on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb was intended to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower, bringing both towers down. It failed to do so but killed six people and injured a good amount. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property, and interstate transportation of explosives. -
NAFTA
NAFTA, a trade pact between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the three nations. Clinton said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact. The passage of NAFTA was one of Clinton’s first major victories as the first Democratic president in 12 years though the movement for free trade in North America had begun as a Republican initiative. However, it received heavy criticism. -
Contract With America
The “Contract with America” outlined legislation to be enacted by the House of Representatives. Among the proposals were tax cuts, a permanent line-item veto, measures to reduce crime and provide middle-class tax relief, and constitutional amendments requiring term limits and a balanced budget. With the exception of the constitutional amendment for term limits, all parts of the “Contract with America” were passed by the House, under the leadership of the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. -
Welfare Reform
The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and signed by President Bill Clinton on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it". PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which became effective July 1, 1997. The law was heralded as a "reassertion of America's work ethic" by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill's workfare component. -
DOMA
The Defense of Marriage Act, otherwise known as DOMA, was a United States federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. DOMA's passage did not prevent individual states from recognizing same-sex marriage, but it imposed constraints on the benefits received by all legally married same-sex couples. -
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Contemporary Times
The Contemporary World, characterized by a number of events, and the ongoing advent of war in the Middle East. Now in modern times, technology has made a enormous leap in the medical, science, and engineering field. A number of healthcare and economic reforms have also been laid out in the century, as the rate of living has increased all around. However, on the horizon and outwards America's foreign policies and connections will undoubtedly bring about a new era of war and injustices. -
9/11 Attacks
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda hijacked 4 airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. 2 of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. As a result, the American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan began on October 7. -
Patriot Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. With its ten-letter abbreviation expanded, the full title is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
The central focus of No Child Left Behind is to close student achievement gaps by providing all children with a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education. The U.S. Department of Education emphasizes four pillars within the bill, accountability, flexibility, research-based education, parent options., ensures that states and schools boost the performance of certain groups of students, such as students in special education, and poor, minority children. -
Hurricane Katrina
Early in the morning, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States, making it one of the deadliest and costliest natural disaster in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were displaced from their homes, estimated costs in damage were around $100 billion in damage. -
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The Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. This recession is considered as the largest downturn since the Great Depression. The “Great Recession” applies to both the U.S. recession, officially lasting from December 2007 to June 2009, and the ensuing global recession in 2009. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was developed in response to the Great Recession, the ARRA's primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. -
First Hispanic SCOTUS Judge - Sonia Sotomayor
On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his nomination of Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice. The nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68 to 31, making Sotomayor the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history. Her impressive profile from Princeton and Yale gained her the position of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) "Obamacare"
The Purpose of "ObamaCare" was to make affordable health insurance available to more people. The law provides consumers with subsidies that lower costs for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level. Expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the federal poverty level. Support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally. -
Undoing of Doma
The Supreme Court struck down a key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act on June 26th, 2013 and declared that same-sex couples who are legally married deserve equal rights to the benefits under federal law that go to all other married couples -
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Counter Culture
The counter culture of the 1960's consited of a group of people that rejects the values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces them with a new set of cultural patterns, they also rennounced material possesion and used drugs such as LSD, marijuana, and cocaine.
