In office

March 4, 1873 – March 3, 1879

In office

March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1873

In office

January 10, 1866 – January 13, 1869

Know-Nothing

Democratic

A decision in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge reversed a decision in Dartmouth College v. Woodward

and affirmed that property rights can be overridden by public need.

The forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from the Southeastern United States along

the Trail of Tears led to over four thousand Native American deaths.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed, permanently

outlawing slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, second of

the Reconstruction Amendments, was ratified.

Women’s suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the

National Woman Suffrage Association.

The Treaty of Washington, 1871 was signed with the British Empire regarding the

Dominion of Canada.

Wild Bill Hickok was killed by a shot to the back of the head by Jack McCall while

playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota.

U.S. presidential election, 1876: The election produced an unclear, result with twenty

Electoral College votes disputed.

Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company was decided, striking down part of

the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act.

The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution, moving the beginning and end of the terms

 of elected federal officials to January 20, was ratified.

Giuseppe Zangara assassinated Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in an attempt on President-elect

 Franklin Delano Roosevelt‘s life.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins United States Secretary of Labor,

becoming the first woman to hold a cabinet level position.

New Deal: The Agricultural Adjustment Act, Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps,

Farm Credit Administration, Home Owners Loan Corporation, Tennessee Valley Authority,

Public Works Administration, National Industrial Recovery Act were all established or brought into force.

Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States: The Supreme Court ruled that the National Industrial Recovery Act,

a central piece of President Roosevelt’s New Deal program, was unconstitutional.

United States v. Butler: The Supreme Court ruled that the processing taxes instituted under the 1933

 Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional.

United States presidential election, 1936: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected

to a second term, defeating Kansas Governor Alf Landon.

Hindenburg disaster: The LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire, crashing at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station

in Lakehurst, New Jersey after departing from Frankfurt, Germany; killing thirty-five passengers

and one ground crewman.

Panay incident: A Japanese attack was made on the United States Navy gunboat USS Panay while

it was anchored in the Yangtze River outside of Nanjing; killing three Americans.

The Hatch Act, aimed at corrupt political practices, was signed into law, preventing federal civil

servants from campaigning.

In response to the Poland Campaign, President Roosevelt requested a cash and carry policy to

 replace the Neutrality Acts.

U.S. presidential election, 1940: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a third term,

defeating corporate lawyer Wendell Willkie of Indiana.

American Nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, with fellow U.C. Berkeley researchers,

discovered the chemical element plutonium.

World War II: Lend-Lease, which supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France

and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material, began.

World War II: The Atlantic Charter was drafted by Britain and the United States to serve as a

 blueprint for the postwar world.

Attack on Pearl Harbor: The Empire of Japan declares war on the United States and Britain,

attacking the U.S. Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Sinking six U.S. ships, including the USS Arizona,

and destroying 188 aircraft, the attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in the deaths of 2,402 Americans, leaving

1,247 wounded.

Japanese American internment: Internment and seizure of property began, per Executive Order 9066 issued by

President Roosevelt.

The U.S. surrenders to Japan in the Battle of Bataan, beginning the three year occupation of the

Commonwealth of the Philippines by Japanese forces.

The Detroit Race Riot occurred; resulting in the deaths of 34 Whites and African-Americans and

 leaving 670 injured.

Armistice of Cassibile: General Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy

to the Allied Powers; with Italy later declaring war on Germany one month later.

United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference: Delegates from 44 nations met to discuss

a new post-WWII monetary policy.

The Dumbarton Oaks Conference began, starting the first talks between world

leaders on the establishment of the United Nations.

U.S. presidential election, 1944: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected to a fourth term,

defeating New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey.

The Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s final major offensive of World War II, began;

being the deadliest military battle for the United States during World War II.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia; with

Vice President Harry S. Truman succeeding him, becoming the 33rd President.

July 17 –

August 2

Operation Downfall: The United States conducted the only two atomic bombings during a war on

 Hiroshima and Nagasaki; killing between an estimated 150,000-246,000 people.

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed between the Empire of Japan, the

United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, Republic of China, France, Netherlands, Canada,

Australia and New Zealand, on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay; marking the end of World War II.

The United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was signed into law; establishing the

 United States Atomic Energy Commission.

The Truman Doctrine was declared, establishing “the policy of the United States to support

 free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

President Truman signed executive order 9835; establishing the

Federal Employee Loyalty Program to search out the “infiltration of disloyal persons” in the U.S. Government.

U.S. presidential election, 1948: President Harry S. Truman was reelected to a second term, defeating

New York Governor and 1944 Presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, and

 South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, in what is regarded as one of the

 biggest upsets in American political history.

In the 1949 State of the Union Address, President Truman proposed

the unsuccessful Fair Deal; his administration’s agenda for economic and domestic policy.

The National Security Amendments of 1949 was signed into law by President Truman, renaming

the Department of War the Department of Defense.

Second Red Scare: McCarthyism, the term to describe “the practice of making unfair allegations or

using unfair investigative techniques, especially of pro-Communist activity” of Senator Joseph McCarthy,[317]

began after heightened fears of Communist influence in America.

A grand jury found former State Department official and President of the

 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Alger Hiss guilty on two

counts of perjury in connection with charges that he was a Soviet spy.

Senator McCarthy came to national prominence after claiming to have a list

of 205 State Department employees who were members of the Communist Party

and “helping to shape [the U.S.’s] foreign policy.”

President Truman ordered U.S. air and naval support to aid South Korea against the Northern

lead invasion; prompting the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Korean War.

The McCarran Internal Security Act was enacted, with the House and Senate overriding

President Truman’s veto of the bill.

Truman assassination attempt: Two Puerto Rican nationals attempted to assassinate

President Harry S. Truman while he stayed at Blair House.

The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing term

limits for President, was ratified.

President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his commands after criticizing

the limited war efforts of the Truman administration, and starting unauthorized talks with China in the

 Korean war.

The McCarran–Walter Act was enacted, with the House and Senate overriding

President Truman’s veto of the bill.

United States presidential election, 1952: Five-Star General and former

Chief of Staff of the United States Army Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected

 President, defeating Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II.

Molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick published their paper on the discovery

of the molecular structure of DNA.

April 26 –

July 20

Geneva Conference (1954): A conference was held where the United States attempted

to find a way to unify Korea and restore peace in Indochina.

Brown v. Board of Education: The Supreme Court declared that state laws establishing

separate public schools for black and white students, and denying black children equal

educational opportunities, were unconstitutional.

Army-McCarthy hearings: Senator McCarthy was nationally discredited after failing to provide

credible evidence supporting accusations of communist activity in the U.S. government

amid the two months of televised hearings.

Operation PBSUCCESS: The CIA organized the overthrow of Guatemala‘s democratically

elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at an all-time high of 382.74, the first time it

closed above its peak set before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

The United States and the Republic of China signed the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty,

amid the First Taiwan Strait Crisis.

The announcement that the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was found to be

 “safe, effective and potent” was made by the University of Michigan.

The Warsaw Pact was signed, establishing a mutual defense arrangement subscribed

 to by eight Communist states in Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union.

Emmett Till was kidnapped, beaten and murdered in Money, Mississippi after

reportedly flirting with a white woman; with the pictures of his open casket funeral,

and the acquittal of his captors, the public reaction of Till’s death helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.

Vietnam War: President Eisenhower deploys the first American personnel from the

 Military Assistance Advisory Group to South Vietnam after the First Indochina War.

Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama after refusing to give up her bus

 seat to a white passenger, inciting the 386-day Montgomery Bus Boycott led

by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations merged

 into the AFL-CIO, becoming the largest labor union in the United States.

The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, authorizing the construction of 41,000 miles of

the Interstate Highway System over a 20-year period, was signed into law.

United States presidential election, 1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower was reelected to

 a second term, defeating 1952 Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II in the rematch election.

The Eisenhower Doctrine, wherein a country could request American economic

assistance or military aid if threatened by outside armed aggression, was proclaimed.

Dr. King, Rustin, Lowrey, Shuttlesworth and Abernathy founded the

 Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC).

Little Rock Integration Crisis: Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed members

 of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African-American students from

integrating in the Little Rock Central High School.

President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent members

of the 101st Airborne Division to escort the Little Rock Nine to their classrooms in

 response to Governor Faubus’ efforts preventing school desegregation.

Atoms for Peace: The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial

nuclear power plant, went into service.

The National Aeronautics and Space Act was signed into law; establishing

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The Day the Music Died: Musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens,

J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and pilot, Roger Peterson, were killed in a plane accident.

U.S. Army Master Sargent Chester Ovnand and Major Dale M. Buis were killed in South Vietnam,

being the first two official American casualties of the Vietnam War.

The Greensboro sit-ins, sparked by the refusal of four African American college students to move

from a segregated lunch counter, began similar widespread acts of civil disobedience to protest Jim Crow laws.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960, establishing federal inspection of local voter

registration polls and penalties for those attempting to obstruct the right to vote, was signed into law.

The first ever general election debate between presidential candidates was held between

Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon.

United States presidential election, 1960: Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was elected President,

 defeating Vice President Richard M. Nixon and becoming the youngest person

to be elected to the office of the Presidency.

Boynton v. Virginia: In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans

 were protected from racial segregation on buses by the Interstate Commerce Act.

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which

granted electors to the District of Columbia, was ratified.

April 17 –

19

Bay of Pigs Invasion: The failed U.S. led invasion and attempted coup

 d’état of Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro took place.

The Freedom Rides began in Washington D.C. after the failure of to enforce

 the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton.

President Kennedy proposed the Apollo program, with the goal

 of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

Vietnam War: President Kennedy deployed an additional 400

U.S. military advisors (900 total) to South Vietnam; totaling 3,200 American troops

by 1963, and more than 11,000 by mid-1964.

Birmingham campaign: The nonviolent led protests

against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama was launched by the SCLC.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Dr. King was arrested amid the Birmingham campaign,

writing an open letter defending the strategy nonviolent protest.

NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated at his home in Mississippi by white

supremacists, hours after President Kennedy gave his Civil Rights Address.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among other notable civil

rights leaders, spoke on the Lincoln Memorial, giving his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the

march that drew over 200,000 demonstrators.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, carried out by a KKK splinter group, killed four

African-Americans girls in what was seen as a turning point for the Civil Rights Movement.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper in Dallas, Texas while traveling in an open

 presidential motorcade with Texas Governor John Connally, who was injured in the incident.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President, hours after the assassination of

President John F. Kennedy.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the sniper who assassinated President Kennedy,

was killed after being fatally shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

The Warren Commission was established by President Johnson to investigate

the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting both Congress

and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or

other types of tax, was ratified.

President Johnson proposed the Great Society, a set of social reforms aimed at the elimination

of poverty and racial injustice.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing both segregation and major forms of discrimination

 against blacks and women, was signed into law.

Tonkin Gulf incident, a false flag operation with ‘deliberately skewed’ intelligence

to expand U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, occurred.

Mississippi civil rights workers’ murders: The bodies of three missing civil

rights activists, working to register voters as a part of the Freedom Summer, were found near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Dr. King became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for his

‘nonviolent campaign against racism’.

Vietnam War: Johnson escalates United States military involvement in the war,

with the number of U.S. troops totaling more than 184,000.

African American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated

at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York.

The Selma to Montgomery marches, known as “Bloody Sunday”, drew national

outrage after Alabama State Troopers severely beat and used tear gas against the nonviolent demonstrators.

In a third attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, 3,200 civil rights

demonstrators reached the Alabama State Capitol, where they were joined with a crowd

 of 25,000, after four days of marching.

March Against the Vietnam War: The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the SNCC

led the first major anti-war demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C.,

with over 25,000 protesters.

The Social Security Amendments of 1965 was signed into law,

establishing Medicaid and Medicare in the United States.

August 11 –

17

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was established,

after the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Johnson.

Robert C. Weaver was sworn in as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,

becoming the first African American to hold a cabinet-level position.

Miranda v. Arizona: The Supreme Court ruled that not informing suspects held in custody

 on their right to counsel and silence violated protection against self incrimination, establishing

what later became known as “Miranda Rights“.

Jack Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism at Parkland Hospital, where Oswald had died

 and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.

Operation Cedar Falls, the largest ground operation of the Vietnam War,

began; with over 500,000 with the number of U.S. troops totaling more than 500,000 by the end of 1967.

Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by a sniper at the

 Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 4 –

May 29

King assassination riots: The assassination of Dr. King prompted mass

riots in Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Kansas City and Louisville; leaving 36 people dead.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles

 by Sirhan Sirhan, after winning the California primary while campaigning for President.

United States presidential election, 1968: Former Vice President Richard Nixon was elected

President, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Alabama Governor George Wallace.

Operation Menu: The United States began its covert bombings of North Vietnamese positions in

Cambodia and Laos.

The Stonewall riots took place, beginning after police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City,

which would mark the start of the modern gay liberation movement in the United States.

Chappaquiddick incident: Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove off a bridge on his way home from a

 party on Chappaquiddick Island, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.

Apollo 11: Americans astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins became the first

 men to land on the moon, with Armstrong becoming the first man to walk on the moon’s surface.

Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam: Over 500,000 peaceful demonstrators protested the

Vietnam War in Washington D.C., being the largest anti-war protest in U.S. history.

President Nixon announces the withdrawal of 50,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam; reaching

the peak level of U.S. troops in Vietnam at 541,000.

Kent State shootings: Shootings occurred during anti-war, student protests that grew violent,

resulting in the deaths of four demonstrators by the Ohio National Guard.

Charles Manson is sentenced to death (with his sentence later commuted to life in prison)

 for his involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders.

The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act was signed into law, banning cigarette

advertisements on radio and television and issuing a Surgeon General‘s warning on tobacco products.

Pentagon Papers: The New York Times publishes its first story on the classified 7,000 page Department of

Defense study, leaked by study participant Daniel Ellsberg, on the U.S.’s political-military involvement

 in Vietnam since 1945.

New York Times Co. v. United States: The Supreme Court ruled that the

 Pentagon Papers may be published, rejecting government injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution,

lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, was ratified.

Attica Prison riot: After four days of holding 39 prison staff members hostage,

a raid that led to a riot at the Attica Correctional Facility was launched by

New York State Police; leaving 43 staff and prisoners dead and being the deadliest prison riot in U.S. history.