1900
U.S. population: 75,994,575.Under a
"Gentleman's Agreement" between Japan and the United States,
Japan agrees to limit emigration of laborers to the United
States.
1901
Robert LaFollette takes office as Wisconsin's government, and
puts into effect the "Wisconsin Idea," which serves as a model
for "progressive government." This provided for a direct primary
in 1903 and a railroad commission in 1905.
January 10: Oil is discovered at
Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas.
March 2: Under the Platt Amendment, Cuba
authorizes the United States to maintain law and order and
agreed to sell or lease the U.S. land to serve as naval
stations.
Mar 3: U.S. Steel is organized, becoming
the country's first billion dollar corporation.
September 6: President William McKinley is
shot in Buffalo, N.Y. by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. The
president died on September 14, and is succeeded by Theodore
Roosevelt.
1902
The federal government files anti-trust suits against North
Securities, a railroad holding company, and the beef trust in
Chicago. Both suits were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
May 12: The United Mine Workers stage a
strike against anthracite coal mine operators. President
Roosevelt appointed a commission to mediate the settlement.
June 2: Oregon becomes the first state to
institute the initiative and referendum, through which the
people can initiate legislation.
July 17: Under the Newlands Reclamation
Act, the federal government will build dams in sixteen western
lands.
1903
November 3: Panama revolts against Colombia rule, clearing the
way for construction of an American canal.
December 17: With Orville Wright on board,
and lasting just 12 seconds, the Wright brother make the first
successful flight by a powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
1904
December 6: President Theodore Roosevelt announces the Roosevelt
Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
1905
April 17: The Supreme Court strikes down a New York law that
prohibited a banker from employing anyone more than 60 hours a
week or 10 hours a day, ruling that it interfered with freedom
of contract.
June 27: Socialists and labor radicals
form the International Workers of the World (the IWW or the
Wobblies) in Chicago. Big Bill Haywood, a representative from
the Western Federation of Miners proclaims this meeting "the
Continental Congress of the working class. The aims and objects
of this organization shall be to put the working class in
possession of economic power...without regard to the capitalist
masters." Unlike the AFL, which restricted its membership to
skilled craftsmen, the IWW opened membership to any wage earner
regardless of occupation, race, or sex.
1906
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle, an expose of working
conditions in Chicago's meatpacking houses. Sinclair had hoped
to generate sympathy for the working class, but wound up making
the public concerned about adulterated food. "I aimed at the
public's heart," he quipped, "but by accident hit it in the
stomach."
April 18: The Great San Francisco
Earthquake kills 400 people and causes $500 million worth of
damage.
June 30: The Pure Food and Drug Act bars
the sale of adulterated foods and drugs. That same day, to
address the problems of contaminated and mislabeled meat,
Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act providing for
enforcement of sanitary regulations in the meat-packing
industry.
September 22: An anti-black riot in
Atlanta results leaves 21 people dead, including 18 African
Americans.
October 11: The San Francisco school board
orders the segregation of all Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
children. On March 13, 1907, under pressure from the President,
San Fransico rescinds the action.
1907
In his seventh annual message to Congress, President Theodore
Roosevelt said: "We are prone to speak of the resources of this
country as inexhaustible; this is not so." During his
presidency, 148 million acres were set aside as national forest
lands and 80 million acres of mineral lands were withdrawn from
public sale.
December 16: "The Great White Fleet,"
consisting of sixteen battleships, sets sail for an around the
world cruise.
1908
In its decision in Muller v. Oregon, the Supreme Court
acknowledged the need for facts, not just legal arguments, to
establish the reasonableness of social legislation. Louis
Brandeis, chief counsel for the State of Oregon, used social
science data to prove the reasonableness of Oregon's law to
restrict the hours that a woman could work.
August 14-15: During two days of
anti-black rioting in Springfield, Ill., two thousand African
Americans are forced out of the city, two were lynched, and six
others were killed.
December 24: New York City revokes the
licenses of the city's movie theaters and returns them only when
the theaters agree not to show immoral films.
December 26: Black boxer Jack Johnson
knocks out Canadian Tommy Burns to become the heavyweight
champion. White promoters searched for a "Great White Hope" to
defeat Johnson. In 1915, he was defeated by Jess Willard in a
fight that many believed was fixed.
1909
Henry Ford introduces his Model T. Priced originally at $850,
the Model T's price had fallen to $240 by 1924.
April 7: Explorers Robert Peary and
Matthew Henson reportedly reach the North Pole. Henson, who was
African American, trained the dog teams, build the sledges, and
spoke the language of the Eskimos.
May 31-June 1: The Niagara Movement. A
biracial group of religious leaders and humanitiarians
incorporates as the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. The organization demanded equal civil,
political, and educational rights, and enforcement of the 14th
and 15th Amendments.
1910
U.S. population: 91,972,266.
The publication The Fundamentals
spells out the basic precepts of fundamentalist religious
belief: the literal accuracy of Scripture and the reality of the
Virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ, vicarious
atonement, and the physical second coming of Christ.
June 18: The Mann-Elkins Act extends the
authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to include
telegraph and telephone companies and gives it the power to
suspend railroad rate increases pending investigation and court
rulings.
June 25: White Slavery. The Mann Act makes
it illegal to transport women acros state lines, or bring them
into the United States, for immoral purposes. Red light
districts in ten cities are closed.
August 10: In his New Nationalism speech,
Theodore Roosevelt lays out his commitment to conservation, a
graduated income tax, regulation of trusts, and the rights of
labor.
November: The Mexican Revolution begins
when Francisco Madero leads an uprising against President
Porfirio Diaz.
1911
Dissident Republicans bolt the party and form the Progressive
Party, which endorses anti-trust enforcement, collective
bargaining, and conservation of national resources.
March 25: 146 Jewish and Italian immigrant
women are killed in a fire at New York's Triangle Shirtwaist
Company.
1912
January: 25,000 textile workers go on strike against the
American Woolen Co. of Lawrence, Mass.
April 14-15: On its maiden voyage, the
Titanic sinks south of Newfoundland; about 1,500 of 2,200
passengers and crew members drown.
October 14: Theodore Roosevelt is shot in
a Milwaukee hotel during a campaign tour. Roosevelt delivered a
speech before going to a hospital.
1913
February 17: An exhibition of avant garde, post-Impressionist
art works opens at New York's 69th Regiment Armory.
February 25: The 16th Amendment permits an
income tax. The federal income tax levies a tax of 1 percent on
incomes above $3,000 for single individuals and above $4,000 for
married couples. A 1 percent surtax is imposed on incomes above
$20,000 rising to 6 percent on those above $500,000.
Summer: Henry Ford introduces the assembly
line, allowing him to produce a thousand Model T's daily. Ford
also institutes a $5 work day.
August 27: "Watchful waiting." President
Wilson refuses the recognize the Mexican government of Gen.
Victoriano Huerta, whose agents had assassinated President
Francio Madero in February.
December 23: The Federal Reserve System is
established, providing central control over the nation's
currency and credit.
1914
Edgar Rice Burroughs publishes Tarzan of the Apes, the
story of a baby of English nobility who is raised by a band of
African apes.
April 20: Company guards and National
Guard troops attack striking coal miners at John D.
Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. in Ludlow, Colo. When the
Ludow War is over, 74 people had died, including eleven
children.
April 21: After the arrest of American
sailors in Tampico, Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson orders
American sailors and marines to occupy Vera Cruz. In November,
after Mexican President Huerta fled the country, the president
withdrew the troops.
June 28: The assassination of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austo-Hungarian throne, by a
Serbian nationalist, ignites a chain of events that results in
World War I.
August 15: The Panama Canal officially
opens.
September 26: The Federal Trade Commission
is established to prevent monopolies and unfair business
practices.
1915
Margaret Sanger, who coined the term "birth control," is
arrested in New York for distributing contraceptive information.
In October 1916, she opened the nation's first birth control
clinic in Brooklyn.
February 8: D.W. Griffith's luridly racist
film Birth of a Nation provides a sympathetic treatment of the
Ku Klux Klan.
February 23: Nevada grants divorces after
six months' residence.
July 6: Erich Muenter, a German instructor
at Cornell University, commits suicide after detonating a bomb
in the U.S. Senate reception room and shooting financier J.
Pierpont Morgan.
May 7: The British ship the Lusitania is
torpedoed and sinks off the Irish coast; 1,198 passengers drown,
including 114 Americans.
August 17: Leo Frank, a Jew, is lynched in
Atlanta, for allegedly murdering an employee at the National
Pencil Company.
November: Labor leader Joe Hill, who had
been convicted of murdering an ex-police officer, is executed in
Utah. His last words were, "Don't mourn for meorganize!"
December 4: Henry Ford charters a "Peace
Ship," in an effort to end World War I.
1916
March 9: Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, along with 1,500
men, crosses the U.S. border to attack Columbus, N. Mex. Pres.
Wilson orders Brig. Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing to capture
Villa.
July 22: A bomb explodes at a pro-war
preparedness parade in San Francisco, killing ten.
September 13: To prevent a nationwide
railroad strike, the Adamson Eight-Hour Act mandates an 8-hour
work day in the railroad industry.
1917
Revolution topples the Czarist government in Russia. In March,
Czar Nicholas II abdicates and a provisional government follows.
In November, the Bolsheviks overthrow the provisional
government.
March 7: The Associated Press publishes
the "Zimmermann Telegram," which proposed a German alliance with
Mexico and promised Mexico recovery of lost territory in
Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
April 2: In a speech asking Congress to
declare war against Germany, President Wilson says, "The world
must be made safe for democracy."
April 6: The United States declares war on
the Central Powers. Six Senators and 50 Representatives vote
against the declaration.
April 14: The president creates Committee
on Public Information to censor newspapers and magazines.
May 18: The United States institutes a
military draft. All men 21-30 are required to register.
June 15: Congress passes the Espionage
Act, providing for a $10,000 fine and 20 years in prison for
anyone who encourages disloyalty or interferes with the draft.
Over 1,500 people were charged with violations of the law.
July 28: The War Industries Board is
established to mobilize industry and ration goods to support the
war effort.
September 5: Federal agents raid IWW
headquarters in 24 cities. Ten leaders are arrested including
"Big Bill" Haywood.
November: The British Foreign Office
issues the Balfour Declaration, pledging support for the
"establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people."
1918
January 8: President Woodrow Wilson issues his 14 Point plan for
a lasting peace. It calls for open peace treaties without secret
agreements; freedom of the seas; arms reductions, and
establishment of a League of Nations. French Prime Minister
Clemenceau responds: "Even God Almighty has only ten."
June 3: The Supreme Court invalidates a
law prohibiting the interstate shipment of goods made by under
aged children.
September 14: Socialist party leader
Eugene Debs is sentenced to ten years in prison for violating
the Espionage Act. He was pardoned by President Warren Harding
in 1921.
October: A deadly influenza epidemic
reaches its height. Altogether, the epidemic killed nearly
500,000 Americans.
1919
January 18: The Versailles Peace Treaty ending World War I
strips Germany of land and natural resources; mandates steep
reductions in the size of the Germany army and navy; and levies
punitive reparations later set at $32 billion.
January 29: The 18th Amendment to the
Constitution bans "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of
liquors." At the time the amendment was adopted, prohibition was
already in effect in all southern and western states except
California and Louisiana.
September: 350,000 steelworkers strike,
following by 400,000 miners 40 days later. Altogether, 4 million
workers went on strike during the year.
September 25: President Wilson collapses
from a stroke.
November 7: Palmer Raids. Under orders
from Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Department of Justice
agents raid the headquarters of leftist organizations in a dozen
cities.
November 19: The Senate fails to ratify
the Versailles Peace Treaty. The Senate voted 55-9, nine votes
short of the required two-thirds majority.
1920
U.S. population: 105,710,620.
Life expectancy had risen to 54 years from
49 years in 1901.
January 2: Government agents arrest
members of the IWW and Communist Party in 33 cities. 556 aliens
are deported for their political beliefs.
March 19: The Senate votes 49-35 to join
the League of Nations, seven votes short of the two-thirds vote
necessary for ratification. Defeat became certain when President
Wilson instructed his supporters to vote down a League bill with
Republican amendments attached.
August 18: The Woman's Suffrage Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
September 28: A Chicago grand jury indicts
8 players on the Chicago "Black Sox" for throwing the 1919 World
Series. The players were acquitted but were later banned from
baseball.
1921
May 19: Congress institutes a quota system that limits
immigration to 3 percent of a nationality's number in the 1910
Census.
November 12: At the Washington Conference
for Limitation of Armaments, conferees agree to restrict future
construction of warships.
1924
May: Congress reduces immigration to approximately 150,000
people a year limiting each nationality to 2 percent of the
number of persons in the U.S. in 1890.
May: "The Crime of the Century." Prodigies
Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb confess to kidnapping and
killing 13-year-old Bobby Franks for "the thrill of it."
November: Two states, Wyoming and Texas
elected women governors.
1925
July: At the "Monkey" Trial in Dayton, Tenn., schoolteacher John
Scopes is tried for violating a Tennessee law prohibiting the
teaching of evolution. Scope's defense attorney Clarence Darrow
called prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan to the stand,
and ridiculed Bryan's fundamentalist religious beliefs. Scopes
was found guilty of violating the law and fined $100. The
sentence was later overturned.
1926
Henry Ford introduces the 49-hour work week in the auto
industry.
1927
May 21: 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh flies from Long Island to
Paris in 33 hours and 29 minutes.
August 23: Anarchists Nicola Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed in Massachusetts for the 1920
killing of a factory guard, despite protests that they were
being punished for their radical beliefs.
October 6: The Jazz Singer, the first
"talkie," premieres. The first words: "You ain't heard nothing
yet."
1928
August 27: Fifteen nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which
renounces war "as an instrument of national policy." Eventually
sixty nations ratified that agreement, which lacked any
enforcement mechanism.
1929
February 14: St. Valentine's Day Massacre. 14 members of a
Chicago gang are shot to death in a Chicago warehouse on orders
from Al Capone.
October 29: Black Tuesday. The bull market
of the late 1920s comes to a crashing end. Between September 3
and December 1, stocks declined $26 billion in value.
1930
U.S. population: 123,203,000
June 17: The Smoot-Hawley Tariff raises
duties on agricultural and manufactured goods, triggering
foreign retaliation.
1931
March 3. President Herbert Hoover signs an act making the
"Star-Spangled Banner" the national anthem.
March 25: Nine black youths, the
"Scottboro Boys, are charged with rape. The case established the
right of African Americans to serve on juries.
September: A bank panic leads 305 banks to
close in September and another 522 in October.
1932
Jan 22: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation is established to
provide loans to banks, railroads, and insurance companies.
March 1: The son of aviator Charles
Lindbergh is kidnapped.
July 2: Democratic presidential candidate
Franklin Roosevelt promises a "New Deal" for the American
people.
July 28: Bonus Army. President Herbert
Hoover orders the army to remove 15,000 WWI veterans who had
been camped in Washington for two months demanding early payment
of a bonus due in 1945.
1933
January 30: Adolf Hitler, leader of Germany's Nazi party, is
appointed Chancellor.
March 4: Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes
President and launches the New Deal. In his inaugural address,
he says: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." During
his first hundred days in office, Congress enacts the AAA, which
provides farmers with payments for restricting production;
establishes the Civil Works Administration and the Public Works
Administration; and creates the Civilian Conservation Corps, the
Tennessee Valley Authority, the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the
Federal Bank Deposit Insurance Corporation.
December 5: Prohibition is repealed.
1934
January 1: Dr. Francis Townsend, a 66-year-old retired dentist,
proposes federally-funded pensions for the elderly.
July 22: Public Enemy Number 1, bank
robber John Dillinger, is shot and killed by the FBI while
leaving a movie theater in Chicago.
September 15: The Nuremberg Laws strip
German Jews of and prohibit intermarriage with non-Jews.
1935
May 27: The Supreme Court declares the national industrial
Recovery Act unconstitutional, suggesting that any federal
effort to legislate wages, prices, and working conditions was
invalid.
June 10: Alcoholic Anonymous is organized
in New York City.
July 5: The Wagner Act guarantees workers'
right to bargain collectively.
August 14: President Roosevelt signs the
Social Security Act.
September 8: Huey Long is assassinated in
Louisiana's state capitol.
October 18: The Committee for Industrial
Organization is formed with John L. Lewis, president of the
United Mine Workers, as its head. In 1938, it became the
Congress of Industrial Organizations. Unlike the AFL, it did not
limit membership to skilled workers.
1936
March 7: In violation of the Versailles Treaty ending WWI, 4,000
German troops occupy the Rhineland.
Summer: Jesse Owens wins four medals at
the Olympics in Berlin, rebutting Hitler's claims about the
superiority of the Aryan race.
July 17 Civil War erupts in Spain, ending
the country's five year experiment with democracy. Adolf Hitler
and Benito Mussolini provide arms to Gen. Francisco Franco, who
defeats the Loyalists in 1939 and imposes a dictatorship.
1937
February 5: President Roosevelt proposes his "court packing"
scheme.
February 11: After a 44-day occupation of
General Motors factories, GM recognizes the United Automobile
Workers.
March 18: A school fire in New London,
Texas, kills 294.
March 29: The Supreme Court upholds a
minimum wage law for women.
April 12: The Supreme Court upholds the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
May 1: A Neutrality Act prohibits the
export of arms and ammunition to belligerents.
May 24: The Supreme Court upholds the
constitutionality of the Social Security Act.
December 12: Japanese planes sink the U.S.
gunboat Panay in Chinese waters, killing two. The Japanese
government apologizes and pays reparations.
1938
May 26: The House of Representatives creates
September 29: Munich Pact: To avert war,
Britain and France give in to Hitler's claim to the Sudetenland,
the German-populated part of Czechoslovakia. Critics denounce
the agreement as "appeasement."
1939
April 9: Denied use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the
American Revolution, contralto Marian Anderson sings at the
Lincoln Memorial before 75,000 people.
August 23: Germany and the Soviet Union
sign a non-aggression pact. The two countries agree to divide
Poland.
September: World War II begins following
Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1.
1940
U.S. population: 131,669,275.
April 9: Norway and Denmark fall to the
Nazis.
May 10-29: Germany captures Holland,
Belgium, and Luxemburg.
May 26-June 4: 338,000 Allied forces,
mainly British, evacuate the continent at Dunkerque.
June 28: The Smith Act outlaws
organizations advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.
August-November: Battle of Britain. The
Royal Air Force repels the Luftwaffe.
September 3: The U.S. provides Britain
with 50 aging destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases on eight
military bases in Newfoundland and the West Indies.
1941
January 13: President Roosevelt calls on Congress to defend four
essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
March 11: Lend-Lease. The U.S. provides
Britain with arms and supplies.
April 11: The Office of Price
Administration is established with power to set production
priorities and prices and institute rationing.
Summer: President Roosevelt freezes
German, Italian, and Japanese assets and embargoes shipments of
gasoline and scrap metal to Japan.
June 22: Germany invades Russia in
violation of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
December 7: Japanese planes and submarines
attack the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The
surprise attacked heavily damaged or sank 19 ships and killed
3,457 soldiers, sailors, and civilians.
1942
January 20: Wansee Conference. The Nazis plan the "final
solution" to the Jewish problem.
February 19: President Roosevelt
authorizes the internment of 112,000 Japanese-Americans living
along the Pacific coast. Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were not
interned. More than 17,000 Japanese-Americans served in the U.S.
armed forces during the war.
April 10: The Bataan Death March begins.
10,000 U.S. and 45,000 Filipino prisoners of war are forced to
march 120 miles to Pampanga Province. 5,200 Americans and
thousands of Filipinos died during the forced march.
April 18: "30 Seconds Over Tokyo." Col.
Jimmy Doolittle's carrier-based aircraft bomb Tokyo.
May 15: Gas rationing is put into effect,
limiting drives to three gallons a week.
June 3-6: The Battle of Midway. U.S.
aircraft repel a Japanese assault in the Central Pacific,
sinking 17 Japanese ships and shooting down 250 airplanes.
July 25: British and American forces
invade French North Africa.
November 28: A fire at Boston's Coconut
Grove nightclub kills 491.
December 2: A research team led by
physicist Enrico Fermi produces the first successful atomic
chain reaction at the University of Chicago.
1943
May 9-10: Some 250,000 German troops surrender in Tunisia,
abandoning the last Nazi stronghold in Africa.
June 5-8: Zoot Suit Riots. Sailors in Los
Angeles attack Mexican Americans.
June 10: The United States institutes a
withholding tax.
June 20: An anti-black riot in Detroit
results in the deaths of 25 blacks and nine whites.
July 10: 150,000 British, American, and
Canadian forces land in Sicily, conquering the island in five
weeks.
July 25: Benito Mussolini is forced to
resign as head of Italy's government after 21 years of rule.
September: British and American forces
advance into Italy.
1944
Publishers introduce the "paperback" book.
June 6: D-Day. Over a 48-hour period,
156,000 Allied troops storm the beaches of Normandy in France,
while 8000 Allied planes provide air cover.
June 22: President Roosevelt signs the GI
Bill of Rights, providing educational and vocational benefits
for returning veterans.
October 22-27: The Battle of Leyte Gulf.
At the largest naval battle in history, 166 U.S. ships and 1280
planes destroy five Japanese aircraft carriers, four
battleships, 14 cruisers, and 43 other ships, and destroy 7000
aircraft.
December 16: The last German counter
offense of the war, the Battle of the Bulge, begins.
1945
April 25-June 26: Representatives from 50 nations draft the
United Nations charter in San Francisco.
April 30: Adolf Hitler commits suicide in
an underground bunker in Berlin.
May 7: V-E Day. German forces surrender to
the Allies. Germany is divided into four zones.
June 26: Delegates from 50 nations draft
the United Nations Charter in San Francisco.
August 6: The Enola Gay, a B-29, drops an
atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9, a
second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.
September 2: Japan formally surrenders in
a ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
November 20: The Nuremberg tribunal
convenes to hear cases of 22 high-ranking Nazis charged with war
crimes. Twelve were given the death sentence, three received
life terms, four were given 10-20 year prison terms, and three
were acquitted. A war crimes trial in Tokyo in 1948 resulted in
the hanging of Premier Tojo and six others.
1946
March: Speaking in Fulton, Mo., Winston Churchill announces that
"an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" of Europe.
1947
Financier Bernard Baruch declares that "We are in the midst of a
cold war."
28-year-old Jackie Robinson becomes the
first African American in baseball's major leagues.
March 22: President Truman orders loyalty
investigations of all federal employees.
October 14: Air Force Captain Charles
Yeager becomes the first pilot to exceed the speed of sound.
1948
March 8: Congress authorizes the Marshall Plan.
May: The United States formally recognizes
the state of Israel.
June 24: Berlin Blockade. After Joseph
Stalin imposes a land blockade on West Berlin, President Truman
mounts an airlift; 277,000 flights carry over 2.5 million tons
of supplies to the city.
1949
April 4: The United States joins the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), and pledges to resist aggression against
member nations.
October 1: Mao Tse-tung proclaims the
People's Republic of China. On December 8, China's Nationalist
government flees to Taiwan.
October 21: Eleven U.S. Communist party
leaders are sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000.
1950
U.S. population: 150,697,361.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Rep. Wisc.) tells
Wheeling, W. Va.'s Women's Republican Club: "I have here in my
hand a list of 205...names that were known to the Secretary of
State as being members of the Communist party and who
nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the
State Dept."
May: A special Senate committee, chaired
by Sen. Estes Kefauver, conducts televised hearings on organized
crime.
June 25: The Korean War begins when North
Korean forces cross the 38th parallel into South Korea.
President Truman wins a UN mandate to drive communist forces
from South Korea because the Soviet delegation is absent.
September 15: UN forces land behind enemy
lines at Inchon, while other UN troops drive northward up the
Korean peninsula.
September 23: The McCarran Internal
Security Act requires Communist-front organizations to register
with the Subversive Activities Control Board.
October 7: U.S. forces cross the 38th
parallel into North Korea.
November 29: After UN forces approach the
Yalu River, Chinese troops intervene,, pushing the U.S. and its
allies out of North Korea.
1951
February 26: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution stipulates
that no person may be elected president more than two times.
April 5: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are
sentenced to death for their alleged role in passing U.S. atomic
secrets to the Soviet Union.
April 11: President Truman dismisses Gen.
Douglas MacArthur for publicly challenging the policies of his
civilian superiors. MacArthur had advocated an invasion of
China.
1952
September 23: Checkers Speech. On nationwide television, Richard
M. Nixon, the Republican vice presidential candidate, explains
that an $18,000 private fund set up by wealthy backers was for
"necessary political expenses" and "exposing communism." He
added that he had received another gift, a cocker spaniel that
his daughters had named Checkers.
1953
June 19: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg become the only American
civilians executed for espionage.
July 27: An armistice formally ends the
Korean War, which killed three million people and cost the U.S.
54,000 lives and $22 billion.
August 19: The CIA engineers a coup
overthrowing Iran's Prime Minister Mohammed Mossaegh and placing
the Shah in power.
1954
March 1: Five members of Congress are shot on the floor of the
House of Representatives by Puerto Rican nationalists.
April 22: The Army-McCarthy hearings
begin. Sen. McCarthy had charged that the Secretary of the Army
had interfered with his investigations of communists in the
military. The Army counter charged that McCarthy had sought
favors for an aide who was in the service. In December, the
Senate censured McCarthy 67-22.
May 8: The French garrison at Dien Bien
Phu in Vietnam falls to insurgent forces, the Viet Minh, led by
Ho Chi Minh.
May 17: In Brown v. Board of Education,
the Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregated schools were
unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren writes: "We conclude
that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate
but equal' has no place. Separate education facilities are
inherently unequal."
June 18: The CIA sponsors a coup in
Guatemala overthrowing the government of Jacobo Arbenz, which
had nationalized property owned by the United Fruit Company.
1955
The United States provides $216 million in aid to South Vietnam.
August 28: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old
African American from Chicago, was kidnapped from his uncle's
home in LeFlore County, Miss. His mutilated body was recovered
four days later from the Tallahatchie River. Till had been
accused of acting disrespectfully toward a white woman. An
all-white jury acquired the two men accused of the crime.
December 1: Seamstress Rosa Parks refuses
to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white
man, leading to a year-long black bus boycott.
December 5: The American Federation of
Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge.
1956
October: Soviet troops crush a revolt in Hungary.
October 30: Israeli forces invade the
Sinai Peninsula after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser
nationalizes the Suez Canal and excludes Israeli shipping. The
next day, Britain and France begin to bomb Egypt.
1957
The Senate's McClellan Committee investigates corrupt union
practices. The committee's counsel was Robert F. Kennedy.
September 24: President Eisenhower sends a
thousand army paratroopers to Little Rock, Arkansas's Central
High School, to permit nine black children to enroll in the
previously all-white school.
October 4: The Soviet Union launches
Sputnik, the first artificial satellite.
1959
January 1: Fidel Castro marches into Havana, having defeated the
regime of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.
1960
U.S. population: 179,323,175.
U.S. scientists Charles H. Townes and
Arthur L. Schawlow patent the laser.
The first retirement community opens in
Sun City, Arizona, outside Phoenix.
A House subcommittee reports that 207 disk
jockeys in 42 cities had received over $260,000 in payola to
play records on the air.
February 1: The "sit-in" movement begins
when four African American studies sit down at a Charlotte, N.C.
Woolworth's to protest segregated lunch counters.
May 5: A U-2 spy plane with Francis Gary
Powers at the controls is shot down over Sverdlovsk, Russia,
aborting a scheduled summit meeting between Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev and President Dwight Eisenhower.
May 9: The Food and Drug Administration
approves the birth control pill. By 1962, 1.2 million American
women were taking it.
June 30: Belgium grants independence to
the Congo.
September 26-October 17: Presidential
candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon face off in four
televised debates.
1961
January: In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warns:
"In the council of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
March 1: President John Kennedy creates
the Peace Corps. By September, over 1000 volunteers are
providing assistance in underdeveloped countries.
April 12: Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
becomes the first human to orbit the earth.
April 17: 1500 Cuban refugees, trained at
a secret CIA base in Guatemala, land at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
The attempt to topple the regime of Castro regime is a failure.
On Christmas, 1962, Castro exchanged 1,113 captured invaders and
922 of their relatives for $53 million worth of medicine and
food.
May: FCC Commission Chairman Newton Minow
calls television "a vast wasteland."
May 4: The "Freedom Riders" leave
Washington, D.C. to desegregate public transportation facilities
in the South.
May 5: The U.S. launches its first
astronaut, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Alan Shepard, Jr., into space.
August 13: East German troops install
barricades in Berlin to stem the flow of East Germans to the
West. Four days later, East Germany begins to erect the concrete
Berlin Wall.
December 11: The first two U.S. military
companies arrive in South Vietnam. In October, President Kennedy
had written: "The United States is determined to help Vietnam
preserve its independence, protect its people against communist
assassins and build a better life."
1962
Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, which documents
that damaged caused by pesticides.
June 25: The Supreme Court declares the
use of a non-denominational prayer in New York State schools
violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.
October 1: James Meredith becomes the
first African American student at the University of Mississippi.
An ensuing riots leaves two dead and 375 injured.
October 13: Pope John XXIII convenes the
Second Vatican Council to break down barriers separating
Christians of different denominations and overhaul the Catholic
Church's structure.
October-November: The Cuban Missile
Crisis. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. come close to nuclear war when the
U.S. learns that the Soviet Union is installing offensive
nuclear weapons in Cuba. The crisis ended when Moscow dismantles
the launch sites in exchange for President Kennedy's pledge not
to invade Cuba again.
1963
The U.S. and U.S.S.R. sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and
install a "hot line" to speed communications between the White
House and the Kremlin.
January 14: At his inauguration, Alabama
Gov. George Wallaces states: "I draw the line in the dust and
toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say
segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
August 5: The U.S., the Soviet Union, and
Britain sign a treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere,
outer space, and underwater.
August 28: 200,000 civil rights
demonstrators in Washington, marching in support of the Civil
Rights Act, hear the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his
"I Have a Dream" speech.
September 15: A black church is
Birmingham, Ala. is bombed, killing four girls.
November 1: South Vietnamese President
Diem is killed in a military coup.
November 22: President John Kennedy is
assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Two days later, his alleged
assassin was shot to death in a Dallas jail.
1964
January 23: The 24th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits a
poll tax in federal elections.
February 17: The Supreme Court rules that
congressional districts had to be approted according to the
principle of "one man, one vote."
July 2: President Lyndon Johnson signs the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, integrating public accommodations and
prohibiting job discrimination.
August 2: The U.S. announces that North
Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf
of Tonkin in international waters, 30 miles off the North
Vietnamese coast. By a vote of 502-2, Congress approved the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president "to take all
necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces
of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
September 27: The commission established
by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination of
President Kennedy concludes that he died at the hands of a
single assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
1965
Ralph Nader publishes Unsafe at Any Speed, which calls for auto
safety regulations.
February 7-8: The United States bombs
North Vietnam in retaliation for a National Liberation Front
attack on U.S. troops in South Vietnam.
February 21: Followers of Black Muslim
leader Elijah Muhammad shoot black nationalist leader Malcolm X
as he prepares to deliver a speech in a Manhattan ballroom.
March 7: Alabama state police attack
voting rights demonstrators with clubs and gas as they prepare
to march from Selma for the capital of Montgomery.
August 11-16: Arson and looting erupt in
the Watts district of Los Angeles, resulting in 34 deaths and
3,900 arrests.
November 9-10: A power blackout affects
over 30 million people from Pennsylvania to southern Canada.
1967
April 28: Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is arrested
for refusing induction after being denied conscientious objector
status. Boxing officials strip him of his title.
June 5: A Chicano group led by Reis
Tijerina seizes a county courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, N. Mex.,
to dramatize their claim to lands granted their ancestors by
Spain.
June 5-11: Israel defeats Egypt, Jordan,
Syria, and the United Arab Republic in the "Six-Day War,"
resulting in Israeli occupation of territories five times the
country's pre-war size.
Summer: The Summer of Love in San
Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.
July 12-17: A riot in Newark, N.J., leaves
26 dead and over 1,500 injured.
July 23-30: A riot in Detroit, sparked by
a police raid on an after hours club, leaves 43 dead and over
2000 injured.
October 2: Thurgood Marshall is sworn in
as the first African American Supreme Court justice.
1968
January 23: North Korean gunboats capture the U.S. intelligence
ship Pueblo.
January 30: The North Vietnamese and Viet
Cong launch the Tet Offensive against major cities in South
Vietnam, shattering faith that the United States was on the
verge of military victory.
March 16: My Lai Massacre.
March 31: President Johnson announces that
he will not seek reelection and orders a halt to most U.S.
bombing of North Vietnam.
April 4: The Rev. Martin Luther King is
assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., where he is supporting a
sanitation workers' strike.
April 23-24: Students at New York's
Columbia University seize five buildings to protest the
university's ties to the military and its plan to build a
gymnasium in a nearby ghetto area.
June 5: Democratic presidential candidate
Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated after delivering his victory
speech in the California primary.
August 20-21: Soviet tanks suppress the
liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia.
August 25-29: Police club demonstrators at
the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1969
July 20: Astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to
walk on the moon. His first words from the lunar surface were:
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for all
mankind."
August 16: Half a million gather at a rock
concert near Woodstock, New York.
November 16: The first reports of the My
Lai massacre are published.
November 20: 89 American Indian activists
occupy Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to dramatize the
plight of Native Americans.
1970
U.S. population: 203,211,926.
April 30: American troops begin an
incursion into Cambodia.
May 4: National Guard troops kill four
students at Kent State University in Ohio during protests
against the Cambodia invasion.
May 14: Two black students at Jackson
State University in Mississippi are killed by police firing on a
dormitory.
1971
June 13: The New York Times prints the first installment of the
Pentagon Papers, a classified history of U.S. involvement
in the Vietnam War. The U.S. Justice Department sued to suppress
publication of the documents on grounds of national security.
June 30: The 26th Amendment gives 18 year
olds the right to vote.
September 3: The Plumbers, a secret
investigative unit set up by the Nixon White House, burglarizes
the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsburg, in order to
find discredit the man who released the Pentagon Papers.
September 9: Inmates take over New York
State's Attica Prison. On September 13, state troopers,
sheriff's deputies, and prison guards stormed the penitentiary;
31 prisoners and nine guards being held hostage died.
October 25: President Nixon announces he
will visit China.
1972
May 15: Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace is shot
in Laurel, Md.
June 17: Five burglars are caught
installing eavesdropping equipment in the offices of the
Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in
Washington, D.C.
September 5: At the Olympic Games in
Munich, eight armed Palestinian guerrillas storm the Israeli
athletes dormitory, killing one Israeli athlete and taking nine
hostages. During a shoot-out, the nine Israeli hostages were
killed and five of the eight Palestinians.
December 18: The Christmas Bombing.
President Nixon orders the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong,
apparently in order to obtain the acquiescence to a peace
agreement by President Thieu of South Vietnam.
1973
January 28: The United States and North Vietnam sign a treaty
ending direct American intervention in Vietnam.
February 27: The American Indian movement
occupies a trading post and church in Wounded Knee, S.D., the
site of the 1890 massacre of the Sioux, to draw attention to the
grievances of Native Americans.
March 19: Watergate burglary defendant
James McCord informs the judge in the case that perjury had been
committed in the trial and that Administration officials had
pressured defendants to maintain silence and plead guilty.
March 21: President Nixon orders the
payment of $75,000 in hush money to defendant E. Howard Hunt.
The next day, Nixon told an aide, "I want you all to stonewall
it, let them plead the 5th Amendment, cover-up or anything else,
if it'll save itsave the plan...."
May 17: A Senate committee opens hearings
on the Watergate Affair.
July 16: A former White House aide reveals
to Senate Watergate investigators that President Nixon
maintained a secret tape-recording system in the White House.
Sept. 11: Chilean President Salvador
Allende is killed in a military coup. A junta led by Gen.
Augusto Pinoche takes over.
October 10: Vice President Spiro Agnew
resigns and pleads no contest to a charge of tax evasion. Agnew
had received kickbacks and bribes over a ten-year period while
serving as governor and county executive in Maryland. House
Republic leader Gerald Ford replaced Agnew as Vice President.
October 17: Arab countries impose an oil
embargo against the U.S. to raise oil prices and retaliate for
U.S. support for Israel.
October 20: The Saturday Night Massacre.
President Nixon orders his Attorney General Elliot Richardson to
fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Rechildson refuses and
resigns. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also
refuses and is fire.
1974
February: Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is
expelled from the Soviet Union
July 24: A unanimous Supreme Court orders
President Nixon to release 64 tapes to the Watergate special
prosecutor, ruling that he may not withhold evidence from a
criminal case.
July 27: The House Judiciary Committee
votes 27-11 to recommend President Nixon's impeachment.
August 8: Richard Nixon becomes the first
president to resign his office. Gerald Ford becomes the 38th
president, declaring "Our long national nightmare is over."
September 8: President Ford pardons
Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as president.
The pardon contributes to Ford's defeat in the 1976 presidential
election.
1975
Portugal grants independence to Angola and Mozambique.
April 30: The Vietnam War ends when North
Vietnamese troops occupy Saigon and rename it Ho Chi Minh City.
May 12: Cambodia seizes a U.S. merchant
ship, the Mayaguez and its 39-member crew in the Gulf of Siam.
U.S. troops recover the ship and crew, but suffer 38 dead.
1977
January 17: The United States ends a ten year moratorium on
capital punishment, when Utah executed convicted murderer Gary
Gilmore.
June: Spain holds its first free elections
since the Spanish Civil War ended 41 years before.
November 19: Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt
becomes the first Arab leader to visit Israel since the nation's
founding in 1948. |