–ß‚é(Backward)
–ß‚é(Index)
the Post-Wars Era
| 1940s | 1945-1946 | Nuremberg war crimes trials in Germany |
| 1946 | Employment Act creates Council of Economic Advisers | |
| Iran crisis | ||
| Winston Churchill delivers his "iron curtain" speech | ||
| Coal miners' strike. | ||
| More than a million GIs enroll in college. | ||
| Inflation soars to more than 18 percent. | ||
| Republicans win control of Congress. | ||
| ENIAC, the first electronic computer begins operation. | ||
| Dr. Benjamin Spock, "Baby and Child Care". | ||
| 1946-1948 | Tokyo war crimes trials | |
| 1947 | Truman Doctrine | |
| Marshall Plan | ||
| Taft-Hartley Act | ||
| National Security Act creates Department of Defense, National Security Council (NSC), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) | ||
| Truman orders Federal Employee Loyalty Program | ||
| President's Committee on Civil Rights issues To Secure These Rights. | ||
| Levittown, New York, development started. | ||
| 1948 | United States officially recognizes state of Israel; State of Israel founded. | |
| "Voice of America" begins radio broadcasts behind iron curtain | ||
| Hiss case begins | ||
| Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. | ||
| Soviet Union begins blockade of Berlin; United States begins airlift. | ||
| Congress approves Marshall Plan. | ||
| Truman orders an end to segregation in the armed forces. | ||
| Communist leaders put on trial under the Smith Act. | ||
| Bell Labs develops the transistor. | ||
| Truman defeats Dewey for presidency | ||
| 1948-1949 | Berlin crisis | |
| 1949 | North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established. | |
| Communists defeat Nationalists in China | ||
| East and West Germany founded as separate nations. | ||
| Soviet Union detonates an atomic bomb. | ||
| 1950s | 1950 | American economy begins postwar growth |
| Joseph McCarthy launches anticommunist crusade | ||
| McCarran Internal Security Bill passed by Congress over Truman's veto | ||
| Truman authorizes building a hydrogen bomb. | ||
| Soviet spy ring at Los Alamos uncovered. | ||
| Alger Hiss convicted of perjury. | ||
| Korean War begins. | ||
| Julius and Ethel Rosenberg arrested as atomic spies. | ||
| 1950-1953 | Korean War | |
| 1951 | Douglas MacArthur dismissed from his Korean command. | |
| Supreme Court upholds Smith Act. | ||
| Rosenbergs convicted of espionage. | ||
| 1952 | United States explodes first hydrogen bomb | |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president | ||
| 1953 | CIA-engineered coup installs shah of Iran | |
| Korean War truce signed. | ||
| Earl Warren appointed U.S. chief justice. | ||
| House Concurrent Resolution 108. | ||
| 1954 | Fall of Dienbienphu; French defeated in Vietnam; Geneva Conference. | |
| Army-McCarthy hearings | ||
| SEATO formed | ||
| CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala | ||
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka | ||
| 1955 | Geneva summit meeting | |
| Warsaw Pact signed | ||
| Salk polio vaccine developed. | ||
| AFL-CIO merger | ||
| Montgomery bus boycott by blacks begins; emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr | ||
| James Dean stars in "Rebel Without a Cause". | ||
| 1956 | Soviets crush Hungarian revolt | |
| Suez crisis | ||
| Interstate Highway Act. | ||
| Eisenhower defeats Stevenson for presidency | ||
| Allen Ginsberg, "Howl". | ||
| 1957 | Postwar peak of U.S. birthrate | |
| Little Rock school desegregation crisis | ||
| Civil Rights Act (first since Reconstruction). | ||
| Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) formed | ||
| Eisenhower Doctrine | ||
| Soviet Union launches Sputnik satellites | ||
| Peak of "baby boom" (4.3 million births). | ||
| Jack Kerouac, "On the Road". | ||
| 1958 | U.S. troops sent to Lebanon | |
| National Defense Education Act(NDEA) authorizes loans and grants for science and language education | ||
| United States and Soviet Union halt atomic tests. | ||
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) founded. | ||
| 1958-1959 | Berlin crisis | |
| 1959 | Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba. | |
| Landrum-Griffin Act | ||
| Alaska and Hawaii attain statehood | ||
| Khrushchev and Eisenhower meet at Camp David. | ||
| 1960s | 1960 | Sit-in movement for civil rights begins |
| U-2 incident sabotages Paris summit | ||
| OPEC formed | ||
| National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) established. | ||
| Kennedy defeats Nixon for presidency | ||
| Second Civil Rights Act. | ||
| Birth-control pill marketed. | ||
| 1961 | Eisenhower notes military-industrial complex. | |
| Berlin crisis and construction of the Berlin Wall | ||
| Alliance for Progress | ||
| Bay of Pigs | ||
| Kennedy sends "military advisers" to South Vietnam | ||
| Peace Corps and Alliance for Progress created. | ||
| Freedom rides. | ||
| 1962 | Pressure from Kennedy results in a rollback of steel prices | |
| Trade Expansion Act | ||
| Laos neutralized | ||
| Cuban missile crisis | ||
| Rachel Carson, "Silent Spring". | ||
| Michael Harrington, "The Other America". | ||
| 1963 | Civil-rights demonstrations in Birmingham. | |
| Test-Ban Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States. | ||
| Civil rights march in Washington, D.C. | ||
| Anti-Diem coup in South Vietnam | ||
| Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president. | ||
| Betty Friedan, "The Feminist Mystique". | ||
| 1964 | Twenty-fourth Amendment (abolishing poll tax in federal elections) ratified | |
| Civil Rights Act | ||
| Tonkin Gulf Resolution | ||
| Economic Opportunity Act initiates War on Poverty. | ||
| Johnson defeats Goldwater for presidency | ||
| "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi. | ||
| Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM). | ||
| 1965 | Great Society legislation | |
| Bombing of North Vietnam and Americanization of the war begin. | ||
| Assassination of Malcolm X. | ||
| Civil-rights march from Selma to Montgomery. | ||
| U.S. troops occupy Dominican Republic | ||
| Voting Rights Act | ||
| Watts riot in Los Angeles. | ||
| Teach-ins to question U.S. involvement in War in Vietnam begin. | ||
| Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters stage first "acid test." | ||
| Race riots in U.S. cities | ||
| 1965-1968 | Escalation of the Vietnam War | |
| 1966 | Stokely Carmichael calls for Black Power. | |
| Black Panthers formed. | ||
| National Organization for Women (NOW) founded. | ||
| Abolition of automatic student deferments from the draft. | ||
| 1967 | Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt | |
| Massive antiwar demonstrations. | ||
| Race riots in Newark, Detroit, and other cities. | ||
| March on the Pentagon. | ||
| 1968 | Pueblo incident | |
| Tet offensive in Vietnam | ||
| President Lyndon Johnson announces that he will not seek reelection. | ||
| Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated; race riots sweep nation. | ||
| Students take over buildings and strike at Columbia University. | ||
| Vietnam peace talks open in Paris. | ||
| Robert F. Kennedy assassinated. | ||
| Violence mars Democratic convention in Chicago. | ||
| Nixon defeats Humphrey and Wallace for presidency | ||
| 1969 | Nixon begins withdrawal of U.S. troops. | |
| Apollo 11 lands first Americans on the moon. | ||
| Woodstock festival. | ||
| March Against Death in Washington, D.C. | ||
| Lieutenant William Calley charged with murder of civilians at My Lai. | ||
| 1970s | 1970 | Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created |
| Students killed at Kent State and Jackson State universities. | ||
| Nixon orders invasion of Cambodia | ||
| Nixon proposes Huston Plan. | ||
| OSHA created. | ||
| Earth Day first celebrated. | ||
| Clean Air Act | ||
| 1971 | Twenty-sixth Amendment lowers voting age to eighteen | |
| New York Times publishes Pentagon Papers. | ||
| United States invades Laos. | ||
| Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. | ||
| Nixon institutes wage-and-price freeze. | ||
| 1972 | Nixon visits China and the Soviet Union | |
| Equal Rights Amendment passed by Congress. | ||
| ABM and SALT I treaties ratified | ||
| Break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Watergate complex. | ||
| Clean Water Act | ||
| Nixon reelected in landslide victory | ||
| Christmas bombing of North Vietnam. | ||
| 1973 | Vietnam cease-fire and U.S. withdrawal | |
| Senate establishes Special Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities to investigate Watergate. | ||
| Trial of Watergate burglars. | ||
| Arab-Israeli war and Arab oil embargo | ||
| Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns; Gerald Ford appointed vice president. | ||
| War Powers Act | ||
| U.S. birthrate falls below replacement level | ||
| Roe v. Wade. | ||
| President Salvador Allende ousted and murdered in Chile. | ||
| Saturday Night Massacre. | ||
| 1973-1974 | Watergate hearings and investigations | |
| 1974 | First OPEC oil-price increase | |
| International Energy Agency formed | ||
| Supreme Court orders Nixon to release Watergate tapes. | ||
| House Judiciary Committee votes to impeach Nixon. | ||
| Richard Nixon resigns presidency; Gerald Ford sworn in. | ||
| Whip Inflation Now (WIN) program. | ||
| Indian Self Determination Act. | ||
| Ford-Brezhnev meeting. | ||
| 1975 | Mayaguez incident. | |
| Helsinki accords | ||
| South Vietnam falls to communists | ||
| 1976 | Resource Conservation and Recovery Act | |
| Carter defeats Ford for presidency | ||
| 1977 | Panama Canal treaties ratified. | |
| Introduction of Apple II computer. | ||
| 1978 | Egyptian-Israeli Camp David agreement | |
| 1978-1980 | Double-digit inflation and soaring interest rates. | |
| 1980 | Iranian revolution and oil crisis | |
| SALT II agreements signed (never ratified by Senate) | ||
| Soviet Union invades Afghanistan | ||
| Menachem Begin and Anwar el-Sadat sign peace treaty at White House. | ||
| Second round of OPEC price increases. | ||
| Accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant. | ||
| Carter restores full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. | ||
| 1979-1981 | Iranian hostage crisis | |
| 1980s | 1980 | Carter withdraws SALT II agreement from Senate after Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. |
| Iran hostage crisis preoccupies nation. | ||
| Reagan defeats Carter for presidency | ||
| 1981 | Iran releases American hostages | |
| "Reaganomics" spending and tax cuts passed | ||
| United States imposes sanctions on martial-law regime in Poland | ||
| Sandra Day O'Connor appointed to Supreme Court | ||
| Major cuts in taxes and domestic spending, coupled with large increases in military budget. | ||
| 1981-1983 | Severe recession (late 1981-early 1983). | |
| 1981-1991 | United States aids antileftist forces in Central America | |
| 1982 | Recession hits U.S. economy | |
| Equal Rights Amendment dies. | ||
| CIA organizes contra war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government. | ||
| 800,000 rally in Central Park for nuclear-weapons freeze. | ||
| Stock-market boom begins. | ||
| 1983 | U.S. deploys Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe. | |
| Reagan proposes Strategic Defense Initiative (``Star Wars''). | ||
| 239 U.S. marines killed in Lebanon | ||
| U.S. invasion of Grenada | ||
| U.S.-Soviet arms-control talks break off | ||
| Soviets down Korean airliner, killing 269. | ||
| 1984 | Geraldine Ferraro chosen as vice-presidential running mate on Democratic ticket. | |
| Reagan defeats Walter Mondale in landslide | ||
| 1984-1986 | Congress bars military aid to contras. | |
| 1985 | Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in Soviet Union | |
| First Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Geneva | ||
| Rash of airline hijackings and other terrorist acts by Palestinians. | ||
| 1986 | Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act | |
| Fall of Marcos in Philippines; Reagan administration backs Aquino | ||
| U.S. bombing raid on Libya | ||
| Iran-contra scandal revealed | ||
| Second Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland | ||
| Immigration Reform and Control Act. | ||
| Congress passes South African sanctions. | ||
| William Rehnquist becomes chief justice of the United States. | ||
| Antonin Scalia joins Supreme Court. | ||
| 1987 | Senate rejects Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork | |
| U.S. naval escorts begin in Persian Gulf | ||
| 508-point stock-market plunge | ||
| Third Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Washington, D.C.; INF Treaty signed | ||
| Congressional hearings on Iran-contra scandal. | ||
| Stock-market crash. | ||
| Trade deficit reaches $170 billion. | ||
| 1988 | Fourth Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Moscow | |
| U.S. warship Vincennes, shoots down Iranian passenger plane, killing 290, in Persian Gulf. | ||
| Oliver North, John Poindexter, and other Iran-contra figures indicted. | ||
| Reagan signs INF Treaty in Moscow. | ||
| George Bush defeats Michael Dukakis for the presidency | ||
| Anthony Kennedy joins Supreme Court. | ||
| 1989 | Supreme Court tightens affirmative-action rules and relaxes protection of abortion rights | |
| Chinese government suppresses prodemocracy demonstrators | ||
| Webster v. Reproductive Health Services | ||
| Eastern Europe throws off communist regimes | ||
| United States invades Panama to capture dictator and drug lord Manuel Noriega | ||
| Berlin Wall torn down | ||
| Oliver North convicted for Iran-contra role. | ||
| Massive Alaskan oil spill by Exxon Valdez. | ||
| 1990s | 1990 | Sandinistas voted out of power in Nicaragua |
| Nelson Mandela freed from South African prison after twenty-seven years | ||
| Germany reunified; Soviet troops start withdrawal from East Germany and rest of Eastern Europe | ||
| Iraq invades Kuwait | ||
| Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) | ||
| Federal Clean Air Act passed. | ||
| President Bush and Congress agree on five-year budget-deficit reduction package. | ||
| David H. Souter joins Supreme Court. | ||
| 1991 | Persian Gulf War begins with the aerial bombing of military targets in Iraq and Kuwait by United States and its U.N. allies | |
| Persian Gulf War ends after "Hundred-Hour War" on the ground routs Iraqi forces | ||
| Attempted coup to oust Gorbachev fails | ||
| Clarence Thomas appointed to Supreme Court despite allegations of his sexual harassment of former employee Anita Hill | ||
| Rodney King is beaten by police ... on video | ||
| Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president | ||
| United States and U.S.S.R. sign treaty reducing strategic nuclear arms by 25 percent. | ||
| Soviet Union dissolves; republics form Commonwealth of Independent States | ||
| 1992 | Peace comes to El Salvador | |
| Twenty-seventh Amendment (prohibiting congressional pay raises from taking effect until an election seats a new session of Congress) ratified | ||
| Planned Parenthood v. Casey | ||
| Johnny Carson left The Tonight Show | ||
| Recession recovery is slow, joblessness remains high. | ||
| Supreme Court approves Pennsylvania restriction on abortion but upholds Roe v. Wade. | ||
| Clinton defeats Bush and Perot for presidency | ||
| 1993 | World Trade Center in NYC bombed. | |
| Janet Reno, First Female Attorney General. | ||
| Israel and PLO sign peace accord. | ||
| Civil war errupts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. | ||
| North American Free Trade Agreement passed. | ||
| 1994 | Nelson Mandela becomes first black President of South Africa. | |
| Paula C. Jones agaisnt Clinton charging "sexual harrasment" | ||
| 1995 | O. J. Simpson, not guilty of double homicide murder. | |
| A. P. Murrah building in Okalahoma City bombed. | ||
| 1996 | TWA flight 800 crashed just after takeoff. | |
| Clinotn is re-elected. |