Unit 2 Timeline Project

  • Domino Theory

    President Eisenhower first introduced the idea of a "Domino Theory:" In 1953. He warned that if Vietnam fell to communism, other Southeast Asian countries would quickly follow.
  • NAACP

    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored Popele was formed in 1909. It became to be a powerful voice in the struggle to improve the legal rights of African Americans, and fought to bring an end to racial violence.
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered by that body. This landmark decision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and social policy. It essentially ended social segregatinon in public schools.
  • Period: to

    Chapters 17-19

  • Geneva Conference

    Representatives from France, Vietnam, Cambodia, Great Britain, Laos, China, The Soviet Union, and the U,S, gathered in Geneva, Switzerland. The goal of the conference was to work out a peace agreement and arrange for Indochina's future.
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    African Americans endured unfair treatment on city busses in Montgomery. The NAACP organized a one-day bus boycott of the city bus system. Its success encouraged community leaders to continue, what became the Montgomery bus boycott.
  • Martin Luther King Jr.

    An American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who first rose to prominence as leader of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott challenging segregated public transportation.
  • Vietnam War

    The Vietnam War lasted from Novemeber 1955 to April 1975. The U.S. declared war on Vietnam in attempt to stop the spread of communism.
  • Ho Chi Minh

    A Vietnamese Communist leader during the Vietnam War. He came to believe that a Communist revolution was a way Vietnam could gain freedom from foreign rulers.
  • Rosa Parks

    A black seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama, who, in 1955, refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white person, as she was legally required to do.
  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference

    Represenatives of the Montgomery Improvement Association and several other groups met in Atlanta, Georgia. The goal was to form a new group that would organize protest activtties taking place all across the region, this became known as the SCLC.
  • The Little Rock Nine

    Nine African AMericans attempted to attend an all white school. For nearly three weeks, the Guard prevented the African American children from entering the school. Eventually, President Eisenhower sent U.S. soliders with fixed bayonets to protect the Little Rock Nine, they then were able to enter Central High School.
  • Civil War in Vietnam

    By the late 1950s, Diem's opponents in South Vietnam were in open revolt. Vietcong was then formed to overthrow Diem's regime. President Eisenhower decided to intervene and sent money and weapons to South Vietnam.
  • Sit in Movement

    Four college students ordered coffee at a lunch counter in a woolworth's store and were denied service because of their service, so they conducted a small sit in movement. The sit ins eventually attracted hundreds of suporters. Protesters in about 50 southern cities began to use the sit in tactic.
  • The Great Debates

    70 million Americans watch Vice President Rich Nixon& Senator John Kennedy in the first televised presidential debate. The hour long debate was broadcast on both radio and television. Three more debates took place, later called the Great Debates by reporters.
  • Space Program

    Kennedy's foreign policy crisis helped to create the program that came to symbolize the new frontier- the space program. The soviets lead in space, Khrushchev claimed this exemplified the superiority of communism.
  • Bay of Pigs Invasion

    The CIA assured Kennedy that the invasion would succeed, so he approved of it. It was a disaster, A bomber damaged in the attack landed at key west Florida instead of Nicaragua. The U.S. was then exposed, and additional air strikes on Cuba had been canceled.
  • Freedom Riders

    Bus stations serving interstate travelers was to be open to all passangers, but this order was not being enforced. Members of CORE decided to draw attention to the situation by sending a group of people on a bus trip through the South. At each stop, the African American riders would go into the whites only waiting rooms and try to use facilities and lunch counters. This group later became known as the Freedom Riders.
  • Berlin Crisis- Vienna Conference

    Khrushchev was encouraged to press the United States in Berlin. Kennedy initially sought to ease tensions with the Soviet Union, instead Khrushchev demanded that the U.S. recognize Communist East Germany as an independant nation, and the U,S, withdraw from West Berlin.
  • The Berlin Wall

    Khrushcev had Communist forced close the crossing points between East and West Berlin in response to Kennedy calling troops to active duty.
  • Albany Movement

    In late 1961, Albany, Georgia became a battle ground in the civil rights movement. The Albany Movement was the first mass movement in the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community, and it resulted in the jailing of more than 1,000 African Americans in Albany and surrounding rural counties.It was a major defeat for Martin Luther King.
  • Twenty Fourth Amendment

    This amendment banned states from taxing citizens to vote.
  • Birmingham Campaign

    After the Albany Movement, king decided to focus on Birmingham, an area known for its strict enforcement of segregation. He began his efforts with sit ins and marches. Children began to participate in the campaign, who were sent to jail. The police broken up the African American crowd with firehoses and police dogs. This became one of the most influential campaigns in the civil rights movement.
  • March on Washington

    The largest civil rights demonstration ever held in the United States. More than 200,000 people of all races covered the National Mall.
  • Cuban Missle Crisis

    The United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba.
  • Kennedy Assasination

    President Kennedy rode in an open car of a motorcade through the city of Dallas where he was suppose to deliver a speech. He was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald and died within hours of the incident.
  • John F. Kennedy

    President Kennedy served a two year term before he was assisnated, beginning from January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963. He devised the "New Frontier", played a large role in creating the Space Program, and approved of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
  • Voting Rights Reform

    It was standard practice for states not to redraw the boundaries of their legislative districts to reflect changes in the population. Legislatures did not grow with the population, the court declared that this situation denied urban voters for the equal protection of law required by the 14th Amendment.
  • War on Poverty

    Kennedys staff worked on antipoverty programs that Kennedy wanted to present as part of his 1964 re-election campaign. President Johnson carried out these plans and declared an unconditional war on poverty in America.
  • The Great Society

    President Johnson wanted to do more than follow in Kennedy's footsteps, so he made an ambitious plan of his own, which he called "Great Society". The Great Society was his domestic programs of his administration.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    President Johnson supported passage of a strong civil rights bill. Although some southerners in Congress fought hard to eliminate it, Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964. It banned discriminatino in employment and in public accomodations.
  • Tonkin Gulf Resolution

    This resolution enabled the president to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States. This allowed President Johnson to expaned the war in Vietnam.
  • Antiwar Movement - Protests

    As opposition to the war grew, a large antiwar movement developed. Much of the antiwar activity took place on college campuses. One of the most vocal antiwar groups was Students for a Democractic Society.
  • Johnson Doctrine

    Johnson was fully committed to stop the spread of communism. He sent 22,000 U,S. troops in 1965 to end a revolt in the Dominican Republic, and justified his actions by declaring that revolutions in Latin American were not just local concerns when the object is the establishment of a communist dictatorship. This guideline for intervention became known as the Johnson Doctrine.
  • Malcom X

    Malcolm X offered a message of hope, defiance and black pride. He was initially critical of King's principals of nonviolence. He later began cooperating with cival rights leaders and called for racial harmony. In February of 1965, he was assassinated.
  • Operation Rolling Thunder

    President ordered this campaign to bomb over North Vietnam. He sought to weaken the enemy's ability and will to fight and assure South Vietnam of his commitment to its independence.
  • Medicaid/Medicare

    Medicaid was a program that provides free hleath care for poor people. At the same time Congress created Medicare, a health care program for people over age 65.
  • Voting Rightts Act of 1965

    SLLC shifted its focus to voting from African Americans. King began a campagin to gain voting rights for African Americans by organizing marches in Selma Alabama, later called the Selma Campaign. Soon after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed in Congress. The law proved to be one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation ever passed.
  • Black Power/ Black Panther Party

    Stokely Carmichael invented the term "Black Power", which he further explanined to be a term to describe African Americans' dependance on themselves to solve problems. The Black Panther Party was formed in Oakland, California. The Panthers rejected nonviolence and called for violent revolution as a means of African American liberation.
  • Thurgood Marshall

    Marshall understood firsthand the effects of discrimination in education, and was once denied admission to the University of Maryland law school because of his race. Under Houton and Marshall, NAACP lawyers began to chip away at 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1968

    President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
  • Tet Offensive

    A series of massive coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam, which came to be a critical year in the Vietnam war.
  • MLK Jr. Assassination

    King led a march to city hall on March 28 and then remained in Memphis to speak at a rally on April 3. The next day James Earl Ray, shot and killed King as he stood on the balcony of his motel.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson

    President Johnson served a six year term, beginning on November 22, 1963 to January 20 1969. He was appointed president after the assissination of John F. Kennedy. He designed the "Great Society", signed the civil rights act of 1964 and 1968, and appointed Thurgood Marshall as the first African American Supreme Court Justice.
  • Pentagon Papers

    Papers thay revealed that government officals had been misleading the American people about the war for years.
  • Twenty Sixth Amendment

    The amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
  • War Powers Act

    This law reaffirms Congress' constitutional right to declare war. It sets a 60 day liit on the presidential commitment of U,S, troops foreign conflicts without a specific authorizatino by Congress or a declaration of war.
  • Richard Nixon

    Richard Nixon served a five year presidential term from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974. Initially escalated America's involvement in the Vietnam War, but subsequently ended US involvement by 1973 through the Paris Peace Accords, Established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and signed into law the Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act, and Became embroiled in the Watergate Scandal shortly after election to his