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Ho Chi MInh
Ho Chi Minh first emerged as a voice for Vietnamese independence while living as a young man in France during WWI. Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, he joined the Communist Party and traveled to the Soviet Union. He founded the ICP in 1930 and the League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh, in 1941. At World War II’s end, Viet Minh forces seized the northern Vietnamese city of Hanoi and declared a Democratic State of Vietnam (or North Vietnam) with Ho as president. -
NAACP
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was one of the earliest and most influential civil rights organization in the United States. During its early years, the NAACP focused on legal strategies designed to confront the critical civil rights issues of the day. The NAACP retained a prominent role within the movement, co-organizing the 1963 March on Washington, and successfully lobbying for legislation in the1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Act. -
Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. Inspired by advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi, King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. -
Domino Theory
The domino theory was a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s, that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. -
Geneva Conference
In an effort to resolve several problems in Asia, including the war between the French and Vietnamese nationalists in Indochina, representatives from the world’s powers meet in Geneva. The conference marked a turning point in the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. -
Brown vs Board of Education
On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down it's ruling in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court’s unanimous decision overturned provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which had allowed for “separate but equal” public facilities. Declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the Brown v. Board decision helped break the state-sponsored segregation, and spark to the American civil rights movement. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long,costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.More than 3.000,000 people were killed in the Vietnam War. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans. Communist forces seized control of South Vietnam in 1975, as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year. -
Rosa Parks
By refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus in 1955, black seamstress Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States. The leaders of the local black community organized a bus boycott that began the day Parks was convicted of violating the segregation laws. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott lasted more than a year -
Montgomery Bud Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. -
Civil War in Vietnam
The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States -
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, Martin Luther King Jr, had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock Nine
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. The court had mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated “with all deliberate speed” in its decision related to the groundbreaking case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On September 4, 1957, they had their first day of classes at Central High. -
Berlin Crisis
On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech in which he demanded that the Western powers pull their forces out of West Berlin in six months. This sparked a three-year crisis over the future of Berlin that culminated in 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall. The division of Germany and its capital city of Berlin among the four victors of the Second World War was frozen in time by the onset of the Cold War despite the postwar agreements to unify the zones. -
Bay of pigs
On January 1, 1959, a young Cuban nationalist named Fidel Castro drove his guerilla army into Havana and overthrew General Fulgencio Batista. Officials at the U.S. State Department and the CIA attempted to push Castro from power. Finally, in April 1961, the CIA launched a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. -
Sit-Ins
On February 1, 1960, a new tactic was added to the peaceful activists' strategy. Four African American college students walked up to a whites-only lunch counter at the local WOOLWORTH'S store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked for coffee. When service was refused, the students sat patiently. Despite threats and intimidation, the students sat quietly and waited to be served.Any violent reprisal would undermine the spirit of the sit-in. -
The Great Debates
In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in the first televised presidential debates in American history. The Kennedy-Nixon debates not only had a major impact on the election’s outcome, but ushered in a new era in which crafting a public image and taking advantage of media exposure became essential ingredients of a successful political campaign. They also heralded the central role television has continued to play in the democratic process. -
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John F Kennedy serves as President of the United States
referred to by his initials JFK, was an American statesman who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Freedom Riders
On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals. The Freedom Riders, who were recruited by CORE, a U.S. civil rights group, and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and drew international attention to their cause. -
The Albany Movement
The Albany Movement challenged all forms of racial segregation and discrimination in the city. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined the movement in December 1961. -
Space Program
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. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, and the space race was on. -
Cuban Missile crisis
Leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba.The U.S. was prepared to use military force to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. -
The Birmingham Campaign
The Birmingham campaign, or 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. -
Malcolm x
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and 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. -
March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, which became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call for racial justice and equality. -
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Lyndon B Johnson serves as President of the United States
referred to as LBJ, was an American politician who served as 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 from 1961 to 1963 -
John F Kennedy Assassination
First lady Jacqueline Kennedy was beside him, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, for a motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. -
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 Wednesday, January 8, 1964. -
24th Amendment
The 24th amendment is important because African Americans in the South faced significant discrimination and could not vote for elected officials that would work to end the discrimination. Although the poll tax was never a large sum of money, it was just enough to stop poor African Americans and whites from voting. -
The Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 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. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the codename for an American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. This massive bombardment was intended to put military pressure on North Vietnam’s communist leaders and reduce their capacity to wage war against the U.S.-supported government of South Vietnam. -
The 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. -
Johnson Doctrine
The Johnson Doctrine, enunciated by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson after the United States' intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, declared that domestic revolution in the Western Hemisphere would no longer be a local matter when "the object is the establishment of a Communist dictatorship". -
Medicaid/ Medicare
On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Medicare, a health insurance program for elderly Americans, into law. At the bill-signing ceremony, former President Harry S. Truman was enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary and received the first Medicare card. Johnson wanted to recognize Truman, who, in 1945, had become the first president to propose national health insurance, an initiative that was opposed at the time by Congress. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson (1908-73) on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. -
Black Power/ Black Panther Party
In 1966, the Black Panther Party offered a list of their wants and beliefs. Drawing from the language of the Declaration of Independence, the document made a powerful statement about the state of race relations in the United States at the time. The Panthers and the police exchanged gunshots on American streets as white Americans viewed the growing militancy with increasing alarm. -
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was a U.S. Supreme Court justice and civil rights, advocate. Marshall earned an important place in American history as legal counsel for the NAACP, he guided the litigation that destroyed the legal underpinnings of Jim Crow segregation, & as an associate justice of the Supreme Court–the nation’s first black justice–he crafted a distinctive jurisprudence & attentiveness to practical considerations beyond the formalities of law. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act signed into law in April 1968–popularly known as the Fair Housing Act–prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex. -
anti war movement protests
Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968 after the successful Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese troops proved that war's end was nowhere in sight. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the attacks, news coverage of the massive offensive shocked the American public and eroded support for the war effort. -
MLK Jr Assassination
In early April 1968, shock waves reverberated around the world with the news that U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of powerful words and non-violent tactics such as sit-ins, boycotts, and protest marches to fight segregation. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning. -
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Richard Nixon serves as President of the United States
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only U.S. president to do so. -
26th Amendment
The long debate over lowering the voting age in America from 21 to 18 began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their country.Amid increasing support for a Constitutional amendment, Congress passed the 26th Amendment in March 1971 -
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. As the Vietnam War dragged on, with more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam by 1968, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg—who had worked on the study—came to oppose the war, and decided that the information contained in the Pentagon Papers should be available to the American public -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) 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.