-
Homestead Act
The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a "homestead," at no cost -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
The First Transcontinental Railroad was built crossing the western half of America and it was pieced together between 1863 and 1869. It was 1,776 miles long and served for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States to be connected by rail for the first time in history. -
Industrialization Begins to Boom
It was this period that would begin the march towards the technologically advanced and industrial nation that we are today. Much of this, in fact, was due to technology developed during the Civil War and the boom in population caused by soldiers returning home. American society was an ideal vehicle for industrialization. -
Boss Tweed rise at Tammany Hall
Was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century New York City and State. -
Telephone Invented
An early voice communicating device was invented around 1854 by Antonio Meucci, who called it a telettrofono. ... resolution by the US Congress was promptly followed by a Canada legislative motion by Canada's 37th Parliament, declaring Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone. -
Reconstruction Ends
With the compromise, the Republicans had quietly given up their fight for racial equality and blacks' rights in the south. In 1877, Hayes withdrew the last federal troops from the south, and the bayonet-backed Republican governments collapsed, thereby ending Reconstruction -
Period: to
Gilded Age
The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 1930s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding. -
Light Bulb Invented
The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was not “invented” in the traditional sense in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. -
3rd Wave of Immigration
The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law, enacted in 1883, which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry -
Chicago’s Hull House
Hull House was a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. -
Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth
The 'Gospel of Wealth' was an article written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889. Carnegie, a steel magnate, argued that very wealthy men like him had a responsibility to use their wealth for the greater good of society. -
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. -
Influence of Sea Power Upon History
In 1890, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a lecturer in naval history and the president of the United States Naval War College, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, a revolutionary analysis of the importance of naval power as a factor in the rise of the British Empire. -
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act is a landmark federal statute in the history of United States antitrust law passed by Congress in 1890 under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. -
Period: to
Imperialism
Imperialism is an action that involves a country extending its power by the acquisition of territories. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to the 1920s. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were eliminating problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and corruption in government. -
Homestead Steel Labor Strike
Was an industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. -
Homestead Steel Labor Strike
Homestead Steel Labor Strikean industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents -
Pullman Labor Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. -
Pullman Labor Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. -
Annexation of Hawaii
The overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii began on January 17, 1893, with a coup d'état against Queen Liliuokalani on the island of Oahu by foreign residents residing in Honolulu, mostly United States citizens, and subjects of the Kingdom of Hawaii. -
Spanish American War
The Spanish–American War was fought between the United States and Spain in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, as enunciated in Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899 and dispatched to the major European powers. -
Assassination of President Mckinely
On September 6, 1901, William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. He was shaking hands with the public when Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot him twice in the abdomen. -
Period: to
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, and naturalist, who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. -
Wright Brother’s Airplane
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane. The Wrights used this stopwatch to time the Kitty Hawk flights. -
Panama Canal U.S. Construction Begins
Building the Panama Canal, 1903–1914. President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the realization of a long-term United States goal—a trans-isthmian canal. Throughout the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. -
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes. -
Model-T
The Ford Model T is an automobile produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American; some of this was because of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production ... -
NAACP
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. -
Period: to
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft served as the 27th President of the United States and as the tenth Chief Justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices. -
16th Amendment
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act is an Act of Congress that created and established the Federal Reserve System (the central banking system of the United States). -
Period: to
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American statesman and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. -
Assissination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, occurred on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo when they were mortally wounded by Gavrilo Princip. -
Trench Warfare, Poison Gas, and Machine Guns
Chemical warfare first appeared when the Germans used poison gas during a surprise attack in Flanders, Belgium, in 1915. At first, gas was just released from large cylinders and carried by the wind into nearby enemy lines. Later, phosgene and other gases were loaded into artillery shells and shot into enemy trenches. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. -
Period: to
World War I
World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
During the First World War, as Germany waged submarine warfare against the United Kingdom which had implemented a naval blockade of Germany. The ship was identified and torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 and sank in 18 minutes. -
National Parks System
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. -
Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the prior event of the United States entering World War I against Germany. -
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917 which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. -
U.S. entry into WWI
U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. ... The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. -
Battle of Argonne Forest
Was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It was fought from 26 September 1918 until the Armistice of 11 November 1918, a total of 47 days. -
Armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. -
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
President Harding's Return to Normalcy
Return to normalcy, a return to the way of life before World War I, was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding's campaign slogan for the election of 1920. -
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York, spanning the 1920s. During the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement." -
Red Scare
A "Red Scare" is promotion of widespread fear by a society or state about a potential rise of communism, anarchism, or radical leftism. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of gender. -
18th Amendment
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. -
Period: to
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties was the period of Western society and Western culture that occurred during and around the 1920s. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1921 to 1922, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. -
Joseph Stalin Leads USSR
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. -
Mein Kampf published
Mein Kampf is a 1925 autobiographical book by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany. -
Scopes "Monkey" Trial
an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. -
Charles Lindbergh’s Trans-Atlantic Flight
On May 21, 1927, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh was just 25 years old when he completed the trip. -
Stock Market Crashes “Black Tuesday”
The most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. -
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the 1929 murder in Chicago of seven men of the North Side gang during the Prohibition Era. -
Period: to
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, originating in the United States. -
Hoovervilles
A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States of America. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States of America during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. -
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
U.S. legislation that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. -
100, 000 Banks Have Failed
As the economic depression deepened in the early 30s, and as farmers had less and less money to spend in town, banks began to fail at alarming rates. During the 20s, there was an average of 70 banks failing each year nationally. After the crash during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 banks failed – 10 times as many. In all, 9,000 banks failed during the decade of the 30s. It's estimated that 4,000 banks failed during the one year of 1933 alone. -
Agriculture Adjustment Administration (AAA)
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a federal law passed in 1933 as part of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The law offered farmers subsidies in exchange for limiting their production of certain crops. The subsidies were meant to limit overproduction so that crop prices could increase. -
Public Works Administration (PWA)
Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal of 1933 was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. -
Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand-year Reich had started. But it would be another 19 months before Hitler achieved absolute power. -
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a United States government corporation providing deposit insurance to depositors in US banks. -
Period: to
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. -
Period: to
The Holocaust
was a genocide during World War II in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe. -
Period: to
New Deal Programs
A group of government programs and policies established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s,designed to improve conditions for persons suffering in the Great Depression. -
Social Security Administration (SSA)
a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits. -
Dust Bowl
was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s -
Rape of Nanjing
The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. -
Hitler invades Poland
invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. -
Period: to
World War II
World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. -
German Blitzkrieg attacks
Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen is the popular name of a group of African-American military pilots who fought in World War II. -
Navajo Code Talkers
The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater. -
Pearl Harbor
-
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. -
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. -
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March is a challenging march through the high desert terrain of the White Sands Missile Range. -
Invasion of Normandy (D-Day)
The Western Allies of World War II launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they assaulted Normandy, located on the northern coast of France, on 6 June 1944. -
GI Bill
The Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans. -
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
During the final stage of World War II, the United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. -
Victory over Japan/Pacific (VJ/VP) Day
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect ending the war. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Soviet soldiers were the first to liberate concentration camp prisoners in the final stages of the war. -
Victory in Europe (VE) Day
Victory in Europe Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. -
United Nations (UN) Formed
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote international cooperation and to create and maintain international order. -
Germany Divided
As a consequence of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Germany was cut between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division of Germany. Germany was stripped of its war gains and lost territories in the east to Poland and the Soviet Union. -
Period: to
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was an American statesman who served as the 33rd President of the United States, taking the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. -
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals held by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war after World War II. -
Period: to
Baby Boom
The Baby Boom was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate, especially the one following World War II. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion 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 threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Period: to
The Cold War
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin. -
NATO Formed
The North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Kim Il-sung invades South Korea
Korean War. Archival material suggests that North Korea's decision to invade South Korea was Kim's initiative, not a Soviet one. ... By October, UN forces had retaken Seoul and invaded the North to reunify the country under the South. -
UN forces push North Korea to Yalu River- the border with China
In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Incheon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were forced back north. UN forces rapidly approached the Yalu River—the border with China. -
Chinese forces cross Yalu and enter Korean War
In October 1950, Chinese troops under the name of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu River to assist North Korean armies, and engaged in the Korean War in an offensive manner after the U.S. troops crossed the 38th parallel. -
Period: to
1950s Prosperity
The Decade of Prosperity. The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II. -
Period: to
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
Armistice Signed
On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end following the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany that called for a ceasefire effective at 11 a.m.– it was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. -
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Execution
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. -
Period: to
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953- 1961)
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an American Army general and statesman who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. -
Period: to
Warren Court
The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. -
Ho Chi Minh Established Communist Rule in Vietnam
Hồ Chí Minh led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems. -
Hernandez v. Texas
Hernandez v. Texas,was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period." -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Warsaw Pact Formed
The Warsaw Pact was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. -
Polio Vaccine
In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. -
Period: to
Vietnam War
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. ... Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. -
Interstate Highway Act
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, was enacted on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. -
Elvis Presley First Hit Song
On January 27, 1956, the first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel" b/w "I Was the One" was released, giving Elvis a nationwide breakthrough. His reputation as a performer on stage was already growing in the same dimensions. On March 23, 1956, the first album, Elvis Presley, was released -
Sputnik I
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. -
Leave it to Beaver First Airs on TV
Leave It to Beaver ran for six full 39-week seasons (234 episodes). The series had its debut on CBS on October 4, 1957. The following season, it moved to ABC, where it stayed until completing its run on June 20, 1963. -
Kennedy versus Nixon TV Debate
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. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)
On April 17, 1961, 1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Peace Corps Formed
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. -
Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio, was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in state law criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as in federal criminal law prosecutions in federal courts as had previously been the law. -
Period: to
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Kennedy Assassinated in Dallas, Texas
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Gideon v. Wainwright
Gideon v. Wainwright, is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys. -
Period: to
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963- 1969)
Lyndon B. Johnson was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after having served as the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat from Texas, he also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
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. -
Escobedo v. Illinois
Escobedo v. Illinois, was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. -
Miranda v. Arizona
This case represents the consolidation of four cases, in each of which the defendant confessed guilt after being subjected to a variety of interrogation techniques without being informed of his Fifth Amendment rights during an interrogation. -
My Lai Massacre
The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968. It was committed by U.S. Army soldiers.Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of 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 Armed Forces, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. -
Woodstock Music Festival
The Woodstock Festival was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of over 400,000. -
Draft Lottery
366 blue plastic capsules contained the birthdays that would be chosen in the first Vietnam draft lottery drawing on December 1, 1969. The first birth date drawn that night, assigned the lowest number, “001,” was September 14. -
Manson Family Murders
The Manson Family was a commune established in California in the late 1960s, led by Charles Manson. They gained national notoriety after the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others on August 9, 1969 by Tex Watson and three other members of the Family, acting under the instructions of Charles Manson. -
Vietnamization
(in the Vietnam War) the US policy of withdrawing its troops and transferring the responsibility and direction of the war effort to the government of South Vietnam. -
Tinker v. Des Moines
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that defined the constitutional rights of students in U.S. public schools. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. -
Period: to
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only U.S. president to do so. -
Invasion of Cambodia
The Cambodian Campaign was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during 1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. -
Kent State Shootings
The Kent State shootings were the shootings on May 4, 1970 of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a mass protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. -
26th Amendment
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. -
Pentagon Papers
A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. -
War Powers Resolution
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. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam on 30 April 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period to the formal reunification of Vietnam under the Socialist ...
