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Dwight D. Eisenhower
He was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. -
Ray Kroc
He was an American businessman and philanthropist. He joined McDonald's in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
He was the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after serving as the 37th Vice President of the United States under President John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963 -
Richard Nixon
He 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 -
Jonas Salk
American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful polio vaccine. -
John F. Kennedy
He was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Betty Friedan
She was an American writer, activist, and feminist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. -
Roy Benavidez
He was a member of the United States Army Special Forces and retired United States Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions in combat near Lộc Ninh, South Vietnam on May 2, 1968. -
Abbie Hoffman
He was an American political and social activist and anarchist who co-founded the Youth International Party. -
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
It was created to investigate disloyalty and subversive organizations. Its first chairman, Martin Dies, set the pattern for its anti-Communist investigations. -
War Powers Act
It was an American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. -
G.I. Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act 1944)
It was known informally as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans. -
Iron Curtain
The imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas -
Baby Boom generation
Baby boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. -
Truman Doctrine
It was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical hegemony during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Containment Policy
It was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. -
Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc and powers in the Eastern Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but 1947–91 is common. -
Marshall Plan
It was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War 2. -
Berlin Airlift
At the end of the Second World War, U.S., British, and Soviet military forces divided and occupied Germany. Also divided into occupation zones, Berlin was located far inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. -
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. -
1950s culture
During the Fifties, mass culture began to dominate in the United States. This accounted for much of the blandness that critics lamented. Television network executives in particular wanted to cater to the largest audience possible, so they shaped their programs to offend the least number of viewers. -
McCarthyism
It is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence -
Rock n' Roll
A type of popular dance music originating in the 1950s, characterized by a heavy beat and simple melodies. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. -
Domino Theory
A theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s, that speculated that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. -
Interstate Highway Act
An act to amend and supplement the Federal Aid Road Act approved July 11, 1916, to authorize appropriations for continuing the construction of highways. -
Space Race (Sputnik and Moon landings)
On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. -
Beatniks
Beatnik was a media stereotype prevalent throughout the 1950s to mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s. -
1960s culture
The Sixties, as they are known in both scholarship and popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counterculture and revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling; and in others pejoratively to denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess, flamboyance, and decay of social order. -
Rosenberg Trial
The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Playa Girón, was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missiles deployment in Cuba. -
Miranda v. Arizona
On March 13, 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested in his house and brought to the police station where he was questioned by police officers in connection with a kidnapping and rape. After two hours of interrogation, the police obtained a written confession from Miranda. -
Great Society
The 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 the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
It was authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Tet Offensive 1968
It was 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 the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian commands and control centers throughout South Vietnam. -
Vietnamization
It was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops. -
1970s culture
The hippie culture, which started in the latter half of the 1960s, waned by the early 1970s and faded towards the middle part of the decade, which involved opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to nuclear weapons, the advocacy of world peace, and hostility to the authority of government and big business. -
Anti-War Movement
The anti-war movement began mostly on college campuses, as members of the leftist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) began organizing “teach-ins” to express their opposition to the way in which it was being conducted. Though the vast majority of the American population still supported the administration policy in Vietnam, a small but outspoken liberal minority was making its voice heard by the end of 1965. -
26th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age -
Rust Belt and Sun Belt
In 1947 the city harbored 3,272 manufacturing firms, which employed approximately 338,400 people; in 1977 the number of firms had withered to 1,954 employing 153,300 people. As manufacturing companies increasingly sought cheaper labor and resources abroad, the region previously known as the heartland of American industry was transformed into America's Rust Belt. -
1980s culture
Everything was neon and ugly. Color combinations were the worst. Fashion was weird, music was over-digitized and commercialism consumed everyone. -
Veitnam War
Occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies and the government of South Vietnam supported by the United States, Philippines and other anti-communist allies -
1950s Prosperity
Historians use the word “boom” to describe a lot of things about the 1950s. The booming economy, the booming suburbs and most of all the so-called “baby boom.” This boom began in 1946, when a record number of babies 3.4 million babies were born in the United States. About 4 million babies were born each year during the 1950s. In all, by the time the boom finally tapered off in 1964, there were almost 77 million “baby boomers.”
