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Harry Truman wins the election by over 2 million votes, in one of the greatest upsets in presidential election history. The CHICAGO TRIBUNE, against Truman and confident he will lose, published "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" before all votes were counted. -
Republican Joe McCarthy, for many Americans, the most enduring symbol of the "Red Scare". He spent almost five years trying in vain to expose communists and other left-wing "loyalty risks" in the U.S. government. -
"under the leadership of the Communist Party of China", Mao Zedong announces that the new Chinese government will be under. -
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II. It was one of the most sensational trials in American history. -
Peace talks began between the U.N. and North Korea in the village of Panmunjom. At the center of the talks would be the question of prisoners of war. -
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at the age 27 after King George VI of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dies in his sleep after a long illness. -
He was named the National League MVP for the second time. -
It was the first rock'n'roll record heard by millions of people worldwide. -
The French-held garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam fell after a four month siege led by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh. After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the French pulled out of the region -
Walt Disney opens Disneyland. -
The Montgomery bus boycott started when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white man and was arrested and fined. -
The crisis began when Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal. The canal was a valuable waterway that controlled two-thirds of the oil used by Europe. -
National League owners vote to allow the (New York) Giants and the (Brooklyn) Dodgers to move to San Francisco and Los Angeles at the mid-season. -
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled in Central High School (formerly all-white school) in Little Rock, Arkansas. They were blocked by the Arkansas National Guard on the first day, but the President sent federal troops to escort the group into the school later that month. -
The "Space Age" is started by the Soviet Union with the launch of the world's first satellite, Sputnik. -
The invention of the Hula Hoop caused a huge fad. The sale of the 100 millionth hula hoop by Wham-O is sold. -
The U.S. launched two monkeys to the altitude of 300 miles, this experiment would lead the way to manned space travel. -
The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) shot down a U-2 (a American spy plane) in Soviet air space and captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. This caused a international diplomatic crisis to erupted. -
It was a failed attack launched by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to push Fidel Castro (The Cuban leader) from power. -
Riots in Oxford Mississippi over an attempt of desegregation. An African American student, Meredith, is escorted onto the Mississippi University campus by U.S. Marshals. Two men were killed due to racial violence before 3,000 federal soldiers suppress it. Meredith successfully enrolled and attend classes. -
During the March on Washington after Martin Luther King's (Michael King Jr.) "I Have A Dream" speech, Malcolm says "Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing ‘We Shall Overcome’ … while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against?" -
6.5 million American women are on the pill after five years the FDA approval. It became the most popular form of birth control. -
Half a million people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day Woodstock Music Festival to start. -
The Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran in triumph after 15 years of exile. Jubilant Iranian revolutionaries were eager to establish a fundamentalist Islamic government under Khomeini's leadership. -
Dr. Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to travel into space on board the shuttle Challenger on its second mission. -
Between 1985 and 1989 the crack usage surge, the number of regular cocaine users jumped from 4.2 million people to 5.8 million. -
In the center of Beijing, Chinese troops storm through Tienanmen Square, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters.