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Plessy v. Ferguson:
It allowed 'separate but equal,' also known as segregation, to become law in the United States. After this, Jim Crow laws, which were a system of laws meant to discriminate against African Americans, spread across the U.S. -
CORE was founded
It became one of the leading activist organizations in the early years of the American civil rights movement. In 1955 CORE went into the South and provided nonviolence training to demonstrators during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. -
Jacky Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier when he became the first black athlete to play Major League Baseball in the 20th century. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and was named Rookie of the Year that year, National League MVP in 1949 and a World Series champ in 1955. -
Truman ordered desegregation of the military
Executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces. The executive order eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SATO)
In September of 1954, the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, or SEATO. The purpose of the organization was to prevent communism from gaining ground in the region. -
Rosa Parks got arrested
She was arrested on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to surrender her seat on a bus to a white passenger. The incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which, led by the young Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., brought a renewed urgency to the civil rights struggle. -
National Liberation Front
Vietnamese political organization formed on December 20, 1960, to effect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of North and South Vietnam. -
Civil Rights Act is Passed
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Little Rock Nine
Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling at Central High School.The "Little Rock Nine," as the nine teens came to be known, were to be the first African American students to enter Little Rock's Central High School. Three years earlier, following the Supreme Court ruling, the Little Rock school board pledged to voluntarily desegregate its schools. -
SCLC was founded
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is a civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama's segregated bus system. -
NASA is created
1958, the U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America's activities in space. NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union's October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. -
Castro overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista
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Woolworth's lunch counter sit in
On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. -
SNCC is established
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the major American Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at a May 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
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SDS is formed
Students for a Democratic Society was a national student activist organization in the United States that was one of the main representations of the New Left. Founded in 1960, the organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s, with over 300 chapters recorded nationwide by its last convention in 1969. -
Berlin Wall is built
he wall separated East Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing East Berlin. In many ways it was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that separated the democratic western countries and the communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War. -
Peace Corps was created
Kennedy signed congressional legislation creating a permanent Peace Corps that would “promote world peace and friendship” through three goals: (1) to help the peoples of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women; (2) to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served; and (3) to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. -
Core staged a freedom ride
During the spring of 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Traveling on buses from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi, the riders met violent opposition in the Deep South, garnering extensive media attention and eventually forcing federal intervention from John F. Kennedy’s administration. -
Meredith won court case for desegregation
John F. Kennedy Intervenes in James Meredith Case. In defiance of the Supreme Court ruling that the University of Mississippi desegregate and allow James Meredith to attend, Gov. Ross Barnett physically blocked the African-American student from entering the building to register on September 20, 1962. -
John Glenn: 1st American to orbit Earth
On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, and the fifth person and third American in space. -
SCLC targeted Birmingham
The goal of the local campaign was to attack the city's segregation system by putting pressure on Birmingham's merchants during the Easter season, the second biggest shopping season of the year. -
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter inside the Birmingham jail
The Letter from Birmingham Jail, also known as the Letter from Birmingham City Jail, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider," King writes, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". -
March on Washington
A massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. -
Church was bombed
On Sunday, September 15, 1963, when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.
Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity" the explosion at the church killed four girls and injured 22 others. -
Kennedy was killed
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. Kennedy’s motorcade was turning past the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza with crowds lining the streets—when shots rang out. The driver of the president’s Lincoln limousine, with its top off, raced to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, but after being shot in the neck and head, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: War powers are passed to president
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Freedom Summer Campaign
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24th Amendment put in place
On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. -
Malcolm X formed his own organization
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Economic Opportunity Act
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Beatles come to America
On February 9, the Beatles made their first live US television appearance. 73 million viewers—about two-fifths of the total American population—watched the group perform on The Ed Sullivan Show at 8 pm. -
SDS organized campus “teach-ins”
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Operation Rolling Thunder
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U.S. bombed Vietnam
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Bloody Sunday
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Strong federal voting right law
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National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities
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Malcolm X died
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Elementary and Secondary Education Act
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Immigration and Nationality Act
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Hippie- Counterculture
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Black Panthers is established
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the term “black power” arose
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The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
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Clean Water Restoration Act
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Race Riots: NJ, Detroit, LA
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Air Quality Act
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Haight Ashbury District
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Martin Luther King Jr. died
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Kennedy’s death
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Nixon wins
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Affirmative Action Program is established
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1st To the Moon
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Tinker v. Des Moines School District
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Woodstock I
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Environmental Protection Agency
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26th Amendment was put in place
