Timeline of United States history (1950-1969)

1950s

• 1950 - Senator Joseph McCarthy gains power, and McCarthyism (1950-1954) begins
• 1950 - McCarran Internal Security Act
• 1950 - Korean War begins
• 1950 - National Security Council Memo 68
• 1951 - 22nd Amendment
• 1951 - Mutual Security Act
• 1951 - General Douglas MacArthur fired by Truman for invading China
• 1952 - ANZUS Treaty
• 1952 - Immigration and Naturalization Act
• 1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes President
• 1953 - Rosenbergs executed
• 1953 - Armistice in Korea
• 1953 - Shah of Iran returns to power in CIA-orchestrated coup known as Operation Ajax
• 1954 - Joseph McCarthy discredited in Army-McCarthy hearings
• 1954 - Saint Lawrence Seaway Act
• 1954 - Baghdad Pact

Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," illustrating the struggle to integrate American schools

• 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education
• 1954 - SEATO alliance
• 1954 - Fall of Dien Bien Phu; French lose control of Vietnam
• 1954 - Geneva Conference
• 1954 - The People's Republic of China lays siege on Quemoy and Matsu Islands; Eisenhower sends in navy
• 1955 - Rosa Parks incites Montgomery bus boycott
• 1955 - AFL and CIO merge in America's largest labor union
• 1955 - Warsaw Pact
• 1956 - Interstate Highway Act
• 1956 - US refuses to support the Hungarian Revolution
• 1956 - US installs Diem as leader of South Vietnam
• 1957 - Eisenhower Doctrine
• 1957 - Civil Rights Act of 1957
• 1957 - Russians launch Sputnik; "space race" begins
• 1957 - First nuclear power plant goes into service
• 1957 - Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation
• 1958 - National Defense Education Act
• 1958 - NASA formed
• 1959 - Cuban Revolution
• 1959 - Landrum-Griffin Act
• 1959 - Alaska and Hawaii become states

• 1960 - U-2 incident
• 1960 - Greensboro sit-in
• 1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960
• 1960 - Viet Cong formed
• 1961 - John F. Kennedy becomes President
• 1961 - 23rd Amendment
• 1961 - Peace Corps
• 1961 - Alliance for Progress
• 1961 - Bay of Pigs
• 1961 - Trade embargo on Cuba
• 1961 - Berlin Crisis
• 1961 - Diem assassinated
• 1961 - OPEC formed
• 1962 - Trade Expansion Act
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1962 - Baker v. Carr
• 1962 - Engel v. Vitale
• 1962 - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Kennedy's motorcade on November 22, 1963

• 1963 - John F. Kennedy assassinated
• 1963 - Lyndon Johnson becomes President
• 1963 - Atomic Test Ban Treaty
• 1963 - March on Washington; Martin Luther King, Jr "I have a dream" speech
• 1964 - Tonkin Gulf incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• 1964 - 24th Amendment
• 1964 - Great Society proposed
• 1964 - Economic Opportunity Act
• 1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
• 1964 - Full Employment Act
• 1965 - Immigration Act of 1965
• 1965 - Voting Rights Act
• 1965 - Medicaid and Medicare enacted
• 1965 - Higher Education Act - Federal Scholarships
• 1965 - Watts Riot; Detroit race riot; "long hot summer"
• 1966 - Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) established
• 1966 - Department of Transportation created
• 1966 - National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
• 1966 - Miranda v. Arizona establishes "Miranda rights"
• 1966 - Feminist group National Organization for Women (NOW) formed
• 1967 - 25th Amendment
• 1968 - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
• 1968 - Viet Cong launch Tet Offensive
• 1968 - Civil Rights Act of 1968
• 1969 - Richard Nixon becomes President
• 1969 - "Vietnamization" begins
• 1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, Earth's only natural satellite
• 1969 - Conservative Warren E. Burger appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to replace Earl Warren
• 1969 - U.S. bombs North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia and Laos