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Domino Theory
The Domino Theory was a prominent belief during the Cold War that if one country fell under the influence of Communism then surrounding countries would follow. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. -
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The Great Society, The Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam War
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The Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference was a conference which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, whose purpose was to attempt to find a way to settle outstanding issues on the Korean peninsula and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina. -
Brown V. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. -
Rosa Parks
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation. -
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, which is closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock Nine
In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. -
Sit-in movement
In the days after February 1, 1960, the sit-ins spread like wildfire throughout the South. Within three months, sit-ins were taking place in more than 55 cities in 13 states. Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities inspired legions of protestors of every race and gender to join the movement. -
The Great Debate
On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts. He was young and Catholic, neither of which helped his image, and facing off against an incumbent. But by the end of the evening, he was a star. -
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John F. Kennedy's Presidential Term
John F. Kennedy was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Notable events that occurred during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps, the Space Race by initiating Project Apollo, the building of the Berlin Wall, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam War. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. -
Freedom Riders
The first Freedom Ride took place on May 4, 1961 when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia, which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. -
Space Program Begins
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy began a dramatic expansion of the U.S. space program and committed the nation to the ambitious goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. -
The Vienna Conference
The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President John F. Kennedy of the United States and Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed numerous issues in the relationship between their countries. -
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. -
The Albany Movement
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, on November 17, 1961, by local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, The Missile Scare, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. -
The Birmingham Campaign
The Birmingham campaign, or 1963 Birmingham movement, was a movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C..Thousands of Americans headed to Washington on Tuesday August 27, 1963 -
Kennedy Assassinated
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
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Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential term
He ran for Vice President with John F. Kennedy heading the ticket for the 1960 presidential election. After their election, Johnson succeeded Kennedy following his assassination on November 22, 1963; he completed Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right in the 1964 election, winning by a large margin over Republican opponent Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. -
The Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. -
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. -
Twenty Fourth Amendment
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified on January 23, 1964, was passed to address one particular injustice that prevented numerous citizens from voting, the poll tax, that is, a state fee on voting. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Antiwar Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small–among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses–but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained US 2nd Air Division, US Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War. -
Vietnam War
The first American combat troops the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade waded ashore at China Beach north of Da Nang. There had already been limited U.S.naval action, and the bombing of North Vietnam had commenced. There were also 23,000 military advisors already on the ground. -
Johnson Doctrine
In May 1965, when U.S. troops landed in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon Johnson pronounced his “Johnson Doctrine,” declaring that the United States would never again permit the establishment of a Communist regime in the Western Hemisphere. -
Medicaid and Medicare
On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments which established Medicare and Medicaid, promising that they would "improve a wide range of health and medical services for Americans of all ages." -
Thurgood Marshall
Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that desegregated public schools. He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after being appointed by President John F. Kennedy and then served as the Solicitor General after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. President Johnson nominated him to the United States -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
The Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party or BPP was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with its only international chapter operating in Algeria from 1969 until 1972. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act signed into law in April 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American clergyman and civil rights leader who was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm that evening. -
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Richard Nixon's presidential term
Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974 when he became the only U.S. president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a U.S. representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. -
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. -
Twenty Sixth Amendment
National Constitution Center - Centuries of Citizenship - States ratify Twenty-sixth Amendment, extending voting rights to citizens over 18 years of age. -
War Powers Act
Is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.