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 comments about using nuclear weapons on China
• 1952 - ANZUS Treaty enters into force
• 1952 - Immigration and Nationality Act
• 1952 - United States presidential election, 1952
• 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 - The CIA organises the overthrow of Guatemala's democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (Operation PBSUCCESS)
• 1954 - Saint Lawrence Seaway Act
• 1954 - Baghdad Pact
• 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education
• 1954 - SEATO alliance
• 1954 - Fall of Dien Bien Phu; End of French rule in Indochina
• 1954 - Geneva Conference (1954)
• 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
• 1955 - Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine
• 1956 - Interstate Highway Act
• 1956 - US refuses to support the Hungarian Revolution
• 1956 - United States presidential election, 1956
• 1957 - Eisenhower Doctrine
• 1957 - Civil Rights Act of 1957
• 1957 - Soviets 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
• 1958 - The integrated circuit created
• 1959 - Cuban Revolution
• 1959 - Landrum-Griffin Act
• 1959 - Alaska and Hawaii become states

1960s

• 1960 - U-2 incident
• 1960 - Greensboro sit-in
• 1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960
• 1960 - National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam formed
• 1960 - United States presidential election, 1960
• 1961 - US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
• 1961 - Eisonhower gives celebrated "Military Industrial Complex" address
• 1961 - John F. Kennedy becomes President
• 1961 - 23rd Amendment
• 1961 - Peace Corps
• 1961 - Alliance for Progress
• 1961 - Bay of Pigs Invasion
• 1961 - Alan Shepherd becomes the first American to ride a missile, getting over a hundred miles in altitude.
• 1961 - Trade embargo on Cuba
• 1961 - Berlin Crisis
• 1961 - Vietnam War officially begins with 900 military advisors landing in Saigon
• 1961 - OPEC formed
• 1962 - Trade Expansion Act
• 1962 - John Glenn orbits the Earth, becoming the first American to do so.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1962 - Baker v. Carr
• 1962 - Engel v. Vitale
• 1962 - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• 1964 - John F. Kennedy assassinated
• 1964 - Lyndon Johnson becomes President
• 1963 - Atomic Test Ban Treaty
• 1963 - March on Washington; Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream" speech
• 1963 - The Feminine Mystique published
• 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
• 1964 - Canal Zone riots
• 1964 - United States presidential election, 1964
• 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
• 1967 - American Samoa becomes self-governing under new constitution
• 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
• 1968 - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
• 1968 - The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive
• 1968 - Civil Rights Act of 1968
• 1968 - U.S. signs Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• 1968 - United States presidential election, 1968
• 1969 - Richard Nixon becomes President
• 1969 - "Vietnamization" begins
• 1969 - Stonewall riots
• 1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, Earth's only natural satellite
• 1969 - Warren E. Burger appointed Chief Justice of the United States to replace Earl Warren
• 1969 - U.S. bombs North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia and Laos