Jacqueline Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Old Man and the Sea.
Frank Sinatra wins a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity.
Earl Warren chosen as U.S. chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Poll rates Gary Cooper box office king.
1954
Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour is first TV show broadcast in color.
Joe DiMaggio weds Marilyn Monroe.
To celebrate turning nineteen, a young singer named Elvis Presley pays $4 to a Memphis recording studio to record “Casual Love” and “I’ll Never Stand in Your Way.”
Cigarette smoking is linked to lung cancer.
Bill Haley and the Comets record “Rock Around the Clock.”
Supreme Court orders school integration, setting aside the “separate but equal” doctrine.
In the Hernández v. Texas decision, the Supreme Court recognizes Hispanics as a separate class of people who are suffering profound discrimination.
Over the next four years, Operation Wetback deports more than 3.8 million Mexican Americans, most without deportation hearings.
Elvis records “That’s All Right.”
Marilyn Monroe files for divorce from Joe DiMaggio.
Disney airs first episode of Davy Crockett TV series.
IBM demonstrates NORC computer.
William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is published.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is published.
Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Senate censures McCarthy for conduct unbecoming a senator.
1955
United States gives $216 million in aid to South Vietnam.
No-iron Dacron, a knit fabric, debuts.
Con Edison announces plans to build the first nuclear power plant.
Bebop jazz great Charlie Parker dies at 34, as a result of years of drug abuse.
Albert Einstein dies at the age of 76.
USSR establishes permanent commission on interplanetary communication.
Presbyterian Church votes to accept women as ministers.
Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.
Chuck Berry records “Maybellene.”
James Dean dies in a car accident.
Pop Artist Jasper Johns’s Target with Four Faces is exhibited.
1956
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, and is arrested.
Whites attack Nat King Cole as he sings to a white audience in Birmingham, Alabama.
U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation on public transportation is unconstitutional.
Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank in Bridgeport, Connecticut, opens first drive-up window.
Elvis performs on Ed Sullivan’s TV show and breaks audience record with 54 million viewers.
Abstract painter Jackson Pollock dies in a car accident.
Atlantic City report ties lung cancer to air pollution.
John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, which goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize, is published.
1957
General Electric Corporation announces that it has created a manmade material as hard as a diamond.
Track star Bruce Dean quits the University of Pennsylvania team rather than cut his “Elvis” sideburns.
Pat Boone, wearing his white buck shoes, sells 3 million records.
African-American tennis star Althea Gibson wins Wimbledon.
Youth crime explodes. In New York, persons under twenty-one make up 50 percent of those arrested for robbery and 60 percent of those arrested for burglary.
President Eisenhower sends troops to Arkansas when the state defies integration in its schools.
Soviets surprise the world with the launching of Sputnik, the world’s first manmade satellite.
Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat is published.
1958
Linus Pauling presents a petition of 9,000 scientists to the United Nations asking to ban nuclear tests.
Elvis is drafted into the army.
U.S. has two thirds of the world’s TV sets.
Vanguard satellite reaches orbit. This is America’s first successful launch.
American piano virtuoso Van Cliburn, twenty-three years old, wins the Soviet Union’s international Tchaikovsky competition.
Arnold Palmer wins Masters golf tournament.
NASA created by bill, allotting millions for U.S. space program.
Pop singer Michael Jackson is born.
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is published.
Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested for loitering in Alabama and is fined $14.
World’s deepest oil well reaches 25,340 feet before being abandoned in Pecos County, Texas.
1959
Fidel Castro’s forces conquer Cuba.
United States launches first weather station in space, Vanguard II satellite.
Dalai Lama flees Tibet in front of Chinese occupying forces.
Hawaii becomes fiftieth state.
First telephone cable linking United States to Europe is completed.
Scandal erupts over discovery that TV quiz shows have been fixed for years.
Two American soldiers, killed by the Vietcong at Bien Hoa, are the first Americans to die in Vietnam during this era; by the end of the year, there will be 760 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam.
1960
Four black students at North Carolina A&T College in Greensboro stage first lunch counter sit-in at local Woolworth’s store.
Cuba seizes U.S. assets.
Food and Drug Administration approves first public sale of birth control pills.
New York Circuit Court of Appeals rules that D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is not obscene.
San Francisco police battle student protesters outside House Un-American Activities Committee hearings.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded.
Nixon-Kennedy debate is watched by largest TV audience ever, 75 million.
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson defeat Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge in the closest presidential election since 1884.
“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” tops the song charts.
Pepsi begins its “For those who think young” campaign.
During the decade, Mexican-American immigration will increase to 13.9 percent of the total number of immigrants to the United States.
1961
United States breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.
President John F. Kennedy challenges the nation in his inaugural speech to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
President Kennedy creates the Peace Corps with an executive order; 13,000 young Americans apply as volunteers over the next six months.
About 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban rebels make a disastrous attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Yuri Gagarin (USSR) becomes first human in space (orbiting for 1 hour, 49 minutes).
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 are published.
Henry Miller’s previously banned Tropic of Cancer is published in the United States and reaches the bestseller list.
President Kennedy sends another 100 American military advisers and 400 Special Forces troops to South Vietnam.
President Kennedy urges Americans to set a goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
Two busloads of Freedom Riders leave Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to protest segregated bus facilities; in Anniston, Alabama, a bomb hospitalizes twelve passengers.
Alan B. Shepard makes a successful fifteen-minute flight in the Mercury capsule, reaching an altitude of 116.5 miles in a 302-mile suborbital arc; said he had “about 30 seconds to look out the window.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairm
an Newton Minow describes television programming as a “vast wasteland.”
The Soviet Union and East Germany begin erecting a wooden and barbed-wire fence along the 25-mile border between East and West Berlin; within three days they will build the Berlin Wall, which will seal off access and become a Cold War symbol.
Advisers recommend that President Kennedy increase military aid and commit 6,000 to 8,000 troops to South Vietnam.
President Kennedy sends his first military personnel, 400 helicopter crewmen, to South Vietnam.
President Kennedy establishes the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt.
The postwar Baby Boom crests with a record 4.27 million births.
The Supremes sign with Motown and release their first records.
Ray Kroc buys out the McDonald brothers for $14 million and founds the McDonald’s chain with 200 restaurants.
Movies Splendor in the Grass and Raisin in the Sun premiere.
Coca-Cola introduces the no-return glass bottle.
1962
President Kennedy announces that American noncombatant troops in Vietnam have been ordered to fire if fired upon.
John H. Glenn Jr. is the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, circling it three times.
Pentagon verifies reports that American pilots are flying combat missions in Vietnam.
Secretary of Defense Robert J. McNamara confirms that American soldiers are exchanging fire with the Vietcong.
Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown publishes Sex and the Single Girl.
Students for a Democratic Society hold national convention at Port Huron, Michigan.
In Engel v. Vitale Supreme Court decides, 6-1, that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional.
César Chávez founds United Farm Workers union.
After riots that resulted in two deaths and hundreds of injuries, James Meredith is the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi, under federal guard.
American pilots in Vietnam shoot first despite orders to fire only in defense.
Soviets back down from U.S. blockade of Cuba to end the missile crisis.
Rachel Carson warns of environmental pollution in Silent Spring.
Dr. No, the first James Bond film, premiers.
After losing the California gubernatorial race, Richard Nixon tells reporters, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”
Dulles Airport opens in Washington, D.C., and is the first airport designed for jets in the United States.
The last of the Bay of Pigs survivors are ransomed from Castro.
Reports confirm 11,000 American advisers and technicians are aiding South Vietnam.
1963
United Press International reports that thirty Americans have been killed in Vietnam combat.
Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique, a critique of the cultural, social, and economic limits imposed on middle-class women.
Civil rights groups conduct Mississippi voter-registration drive.
Supreme Court rules that indigents are entitled to free counsel in Clarence v. Gideon.
Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested after leading assault against segregation in Alabama, where he writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Demonstrations against discrimination in schools, employment, and housing are held through the country; nearly 14,000 persons are arrested in seventy-five Southern cities.
Harvard University fires research psychologists Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary for experimenting with LSD.
Buddhist monk dies from self-immolation protesting religious persecution in South Vietnam.
Charles Schultz’s Happiness Is a Warm Puppy makes the bestseller list.
During his swearing-in ceremony, Alabama Governor George Wallace pledges “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
Medgar Evers, field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Mississippi, is murdered entering his home in Jackson; two trials end in hung juries.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech before a crowd of 200,000 to conclude the March on Washington.
In Crystal City, the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations and local Teamsters unite to take over the city council for two years.
A direct telephone link, called the “Hotline,” between Soviet Union and the United States is installed.
Four young girls are killed when the 16th Street Baptist Church is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama; the last bomber was finally convicted in 2002.
With the CIA’s knowledge, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are killed in a coup.
American military personnel in Vietnam number 16,800.
La Alianza Federal de Mercedes (The Federal Land Grant Alliance) is incorporated by Reies López Tijerina.
President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas; Lee Harvey Oswald is charged.
Jack Ruby kills Oswald.
Newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate Kennedy’s assassination.
Hit songs include “Puff (the Magic Dragon),” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”
1964
The U.S. Surgeon General’s special committee report, Smoking and Health, links cigarette smoking with cancer and calls for federal regulation of cigarettes.
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution, forbidding poll or other taxes used to qualify voters in federal elections, takes effect.
President Johnson appoints Lieutenant General William C. Westmoreland to replace General Paul Harkins as head of the United States Military Assistance Command in South Vietnam.
After ending a seventy-five-day filibuster, the Senate passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination in education, employment, and public places; President Johnson signs the bill July 2.
Food Stamp program begins.
Three civil rights workers participating in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s movement to encourage voter registration are arrested for speeding in Mississippi, held for six hours, and are not seen again; their bodies are found buried in a dam on August 4.
The Federal Trade Commission announces that cigarette packages must carry a health warning label beginning in 1965.
The movies Dr. Strangelove, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, and The Pink Panther premiere.
Lester Maddox, later elected governor of Georgia in January 1967 on a segregationist platform, encourages the use of ax handles against black persons entering his restaurant.
Since December, American casualties in Vietnam have totaled 1,387.
Rioting begins in New York City after a police officer shoots and kills a fifteen-year-old black male during a disturbance, touching off riots in many northern cities; this would be the first of several “long, hot summers.”
The United States increases its troop commitment in Vietnam to 21,000.
President Johnson announces on national television that the North Vietnamese have attacked two U.S. destroyers in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin.
The House of Representatives approves by a vote of 416-0 the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, approving “all necessary measures by the President to repel any armed attack against U.S. forces”; only two members of the Senate, Wayne Morse (R-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK), oppose the resolution.
A special seven-member commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, unanimously concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he assassinated President Kennedy.
At age thirty-five, Martin Luther King Jr. is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for the “furtherance of brotherhood among men.”
With 43.13 million votes to Republican candidate Barry Goldwater’s 27.8 million votes, President Johnson wins the election by the greatest popular vote landslide in American history.
The braless look becomes fash
ionable.
Beatles tour the United States and are met by 10,000 fans at JFK airport in New York.
The Free Speech Movement of the University of California at Berkeley ends when police arrest 796 student demonstrators.
The FBI arrests twenty-one white men on conspiracy charges related to the deaths of the three civil rights workers; a week later the charges are dismissed on a technicality.
1965
In his State of the Union Address, President Johnson promises a “Great Society” that will improve the quality of life for all Americans; his budget is the greatest expansion of domestic welfare programs since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
President Johnson orders the first air strike against North Vietnam in response to a Vietcong attack against the U.S. military barracks at Pleiku, which killed thirty-two Americans; two weeks later American planes begin dropping napalm, an incendiary chemical.
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles is appointed director of Denver’s War on Poverty Program.
Thirty-nine-year-old black nationalist Malcolm X is shot to death during a rally in Harlem.
In Selma, Alabama, 200 Alabama state troopers using tear gas, whips, and nightsticks stop 525 blacks marching to protest the denial of voting rights; on March 21, after President Johnson mobilizes 4,000 troops, 25,000 people complete the march to Montgomery.
The National Farm Workers Association (César Chávez and Dolores Huerta) meet in a Delano church hall and vote to join the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee strike.
The Supreme Court unanimously decides that conscientious objector status must be granted for those who believe that registering for the draft is contrary to their religious beliefs.
Chávez’s National Farm Workers Association begins the grape boycott, targeting Schenley Industries and DiGiorgio Corp.
The first anti-war “teach-in” takes place at the University of Michigan.
U.S. military personnel in Vietnam increase by 20,000.
Students for Democratic Society organize 15,000 students and others to demonstrate at the White House against American involvement in Vietnam.
President Johnson asks Congress to approve $700 million in addition to the $1.5 billion annual costs already appropriated for the war effort in Vietnam.
Anti-war protests mark Armed Forces Day.
NBC news expands from 15 minutes to 30 minutes; prime-time shows are in color.
The Department of Defense reports that 503 Americans have been killed in Vietnam.
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