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Brown V. Board of Education
Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 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. -
Montgomery bus boycott begins
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
Period: to
Civil Rights
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Suez Canal crisis occurs in Egypt
Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal in July of that same year, initiating the Suez Crisis. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected
The popular incumbent President, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, successfully ran for re-election. The election was a re-match of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier. -
School desegregation crisis occurs in Little Rock, Arkansas.
At the end of the school year, Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Central High School. King attended his graduation ceremony. In honor of their momentous contributions to history and the integration of the Arkansas public school system. -
African nation of Ghana wins independence
Gold Coast (Ghana) gains independence. On 6 March 1957, the Gold Coast (now known as Ghana) gained independence from Britain. Ghana became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and was led to independence by Kwame Nkrumah who transformed the country into a republic, with himself as president for life. -
Fidel Castro assumes power in Cuba
After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. ... Adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. -
John F. Kennedy is elected president
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. In a closely contested election, Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. -
South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela is imprisoned
A Xhosa, Mandela was born to the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, British South Africa. ... Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. -
Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination
Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th president of the United States; he was sworn into office following the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. ... After an unsuccessful run for a U.S. Senate seat in 1941, Johnson became the first member of Congress to volunteer for active duty in the military.
