Timeline of United States history (1950–1969)

This section of the Timeline of United States history concerns events from 1950 to 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 Laostimeline
before=1930-1949
title=Timeline of United States history
years=1950–1969
after=1970-1989