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This section of thetimeline of United States history concerns events from1950 to 1969.

• 1950 – SenatorJoseph McCarthy gains power, andMcCarthyism (1950–1954) begins
• 1950 –McCarran Internal Security Act
• 1950 –Korean War begins
• 1950 – The comic stripPeanuts, byCharles M. Schulz, is first published
• 1950 –NBC airsBroadway Open House a late-night comedy, variety, talk show through 1951. Hosted byMorey Amsterdam and Jerry Lester andDagmar, it serves as the prototype forThe Tonight Show
• 1950 –Failed assassination attempt by two Puerto Rican nationals on PresidentHarry S. Truman while he was living atBlair House.
• 1951 –22nd Amendment, establishing term limits for president.
• 1951 –Mutual Security Act
• 1951 – GeneralDouglas MacArthur fired by President Truman for comments about using nuclear weapons on China
• 1951 – The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California from theJapanese Peace Treaty Conference. One month later, the situation comedyI Love Lucy premieres onCBS, sparking the rise of television in the American home and theGolden Age of Television.
• 1951 –See It Now, an Americannewsmagazine anddocumentary series broadcast byCBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created byEdward R. Murrow andFred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show.
• 1951 –The Catcher in the Rye is published byJ. D. Salinger and invigorates the rebellious youth of the period, eventually earning the title of a Classic with its profound impact.
• 1952 – The debut of theToday show onNBC, originally hosted byDave Garroway is thefourth longest running talk show on television.
• 1952 –ANZUS Treaty enters into force
• 1952 –Immigration and Nationality Act
• 1952 – In theUnited States presidential election,Dwight D. Eisenhower elected as president,Richard Nixon elected as vice president

• January 20, 1953 – Eisenhower becomes the 34th president and Nixon becomes the 36th vice president
• 1953 –Rosenbergs executed
• 1953 –Korean Armistice Agreement
• 1953 –Shah of Iran returns to power inCIA-orchestrated coup known asOperation Ajax
• 1954 – TheTournament of Roses Parade becomes the first event nationallytelevised in color
• 1954 – Detonation ofCastle Bravo, a 15 megaton Hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons, it vaporized three islands, displaced the islanders and caused long lasting contamination
• 1954 – Joseph McCarthy discredited inArmy-McCarthy hearings
• 1954 – Censure or formal disapproval on Senator Joseph McCarthy after the Army-McCarthy hearings. He died three years later in 1957.
• 1954 – President Eisenhower proposes theDomino theory: If South Vietnam fell to communism, so too would all nations of Southeast Asia, and eventually worldwide.
• 1954 – First Indochina War ends after the U.S. kept sending aid to the French. France was defeated by Ho Chi Minh and his army at theBattle of Dien Bien Phu.
• 1954 – TheCIA overthrowsGuatemala's presidentJacobo Arbenz Guzmán (Operation PBSuccess)
• 1954 –Saint Lawrence Seaway Act, permitting the construction of the system of locks, canals and channels that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the North American Great Lakes, is approved
• 1954 –Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court, declares state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students and denying black children equal educational opportunities unconstitutional
• 1954 – The U.S. becomes a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (orSEATO) alliance
• 1954 –Geneva Conference. U.S. rejects the French decision to recognize Communist control of North Vietnam. U.S. increases aid to South Vietnam.
• 1954 – ThePeople's Republic of China lays siege onQuemoy andMatsu Islands; Eisenhower sends in Navy to demonstrate an invasion of Taiwan would not be permitted
• 1954 – TheDow Jones Industrial Average closes at an all-time high of 382.74, the first time the Dow has surpassed its peak level reached just before theWall Street Crash of 1929
• 1954 –NBC airsThe Tonight Show, the first late-night talk show, originally hosted bySteve Allen
• 1954 – The Democrats retake both houses of Congress in theMidterms. Will keep the Senate until 1981 and the House until 1994.
• 1955 –Ray Kroc opens aMcDonald's fast food restaurant and, after purchasing the franchise fromits original owners, oversees its national (and later, worldwide) expansion
• 1955 – Murder ofEmmett Till
• 1955 –Rosa Parks remains seated on a bus, the incident which evolves into theMontgomery bus boycott
• 1955 –AFL andCIO merge in America's largest labor union federation
• 1955 –Warsaw Pact, which establishes a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe (including the USSR)
• 1955 –Disneyland opens atAnaheim, California
• 1955 –Jonas Salk developspolio vaccine
• 1955 –Rock and roll music enters the mainstream, with "Rock Around the Clock" byBill Haley & His Comets becoming the first record to top theBillboard pop charts.Elvis Presley also begins his rise to fame around this same time.
• 1955 – ActorJames Dean is killed in a highway accident
• 1956 – The controversial1956 Sugar Bowl takes place. Georgia's pro segregationist governor publicly threatens Georgia' Tech's president to not allow the game to take place, as students riot.
• 1956 – President Eisenhower secures passages ofInterstate Highway Act, which will construct 41,000 miles (66,000 km) of theInterstate Highway System over a 20-year period
• 1956 – The U.S. refuses to provide military support theHungarian Revolution
• 1956 –Elvis Presley appears onThe Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
• 1956 –Marilyn Monroe marries playwrightArthur Miller.
• 1956 –Jackson Pollock dies in a car crash
• 1956 –1956 United States presidential election:Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected president,Richard Nixon reelected vice president
• 1956 – "In God We Trust" adopted as national motto
• January 20, 1957 – President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon begin second terms
• 1957 –Eisenhower Doctrine, wherein a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state
• 1957 –Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, becomes the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress since Reconstruction
• 1957 – Soviets launchSputnik; "space race" begins
• 1957 –Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S., goes into service

• 

• 1957 –Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation. Eisenhower recruits the U.S. National Guard to escort theLittle Rock Nine
• 1958 –National Defense Education Act
• 1958 -The Affluent Society written by John Galbraith
• 1958 –NASA formed as the U.S. begins ramping up efforts to explore space
• 1958 –Jack Kilby invents theintegrated circuit
• 1959 – The NBC westernBonanza becomes the first drama to be broadcast in color
• 1959 –Cuban Revolution
• 1959 –Landrum–Griffin Act, a labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers, becomes law
• 1959 –Alaska andHawaii became the 49th and 50th U.S. states; as of January 2025^[update], they are the final two states admitted to the union.
• 1959 –Buddy Holly,Ritchie Valens, andThe Big Bopper are killed inClear Lake, Iowa in a plane crash.

• 1960 –U-2 incident, wherein a CIA U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace
• 1960 –Greensboro sit-ins, sparked by fourAfrican American college students refusing to move from a segregated lunch counter, and theNashville sit-ins, spur similar actions and increases sentiment in the Civil Rights Movement.
• 1960 – AuthorHarper Lee publishesTo Kill A Mockingbird
• 1960 –Civil Rights Act of 1960, establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls and penalties for those attempting to obstruct someone's attempt to register to vote or actually vote
• 1960 –National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam formed
• 1960 – John Fitzgerald Kennedy defeats vice president under the Eisenhower administration, Republican Richard Milhous Nixon. The campaign included the first televised United States presidential debate.
• 1960 –1960 United States presidential election:John F. Kennedy elected president,Lyndon B. Johnson elected vice president
• 1961 –US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
• 1961 – Eisenhower gives celebrated "military–industrial complex" farewell address

• January 20, 1961 – Kennedy becomes the 35th president, Johnson becomes the 37th vice president
• 1961 –23rd Amendment, which grants electors to the District of Columbia
• 1961 –Peace Corps established
• 1961 –Alliance for Progress
• 1961 –Bay of Pigs Invasion
• 1961 –Alan Shepard pilots theFreedom 7 capsule to become the first American in space
• 1961 –Trade embargo on Cuba
• 1961 –Berlin Crisis of 1961
• 1961 –Vietnam War officially begins with 900 military advisors landing inSaigon
• 1961 –OPEC (The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) formed
• 1962 –Trade Expansion Act
• 1962 –Andy Warhol becomes famous for hisCampbell's Soup Cans painting
• 1962 –John Glenn orbits the Earth inFriendship 7, becoming the first American to do so
• 1962 –Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest nuclear confrontation involving the U.S. and USSR
• 1962 –Baker v. Carr, enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases
• 1962 –Engel v. Vitale, determines that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools
• 1962 –Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• 1962 – The comic-book superheroSpider-Man debuts inAmazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) byMarvel Comics
• 1962 –Marilyn Monroe dies of apparent acutebarbiturate poisoning at 36
• 1963 –Bob Dylan andColumbia Records releaseThe Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (his second studio album), which becomes a classic
• 1963 –Civil rights activistMedgar Evers assassinated outside his home byByron De La Beckwith
• 1963 –Atomic Test Ban Treaty
• 1963 - TheBirmingham campaign and its Children's Crusade focus attention on the civil rights movement
• 1963 –March on Washington;Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech
• 1963 –The Feminine Mystique byBetty Friedan published, sparking thewomen's liberation movement
• 1963 –Community Mental Health Act signed byKennedy

• November 22, 1963 –President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas; Vice President Johnson becomes the 36th president.
• 1963 – The man accused of assassinating President Kennedy,Lee Harvey Oswald, is shot and killed by Dallas nightclub ownerJack Ruby. The assassination marks the first 24-hour coverage of a major news event by the major networks.
• 1964 -Ghetto riots (1964–1969), beginning with theHarlem riot of 1964
• 1964 –The Beatles arrive in the U.S., and subsequent appearances onThe Ed Sullivan Show, mark the start of theBritish Invasion (or, an increased number of rock and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular around the world, including the U.S.)
• 1964 –Tonkin Gulf incident;Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• 1964 –24th Amendment, 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
• 1964 – President Johnson proposes theGreat Society, whose social reforms were aimed at the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched later in the 1960s.
• 1964 –Economic Opportunity Act
• 1964 –Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of legalized discrimination against blacks and women, and ended legalizedracial segregation in the United States
• 1964 –Panama Canal Zone riots
• 1964 - TheFord Mustang is introduced
• 1964 – In the election, President Johnson won by one of the largest victories in U.S. history, defeating Arizona Republican SenatorBarry Goldwater
• 1964 –1964 United States presidential election:Johnson elected president for a full term,Hubert H. Humphrey elected vice president
• January 20, 1965 – President Johnson begins full term, Humphrey becomes the 38th vice president
• 1965 – President Johnson escalates the United States military involvement in theVietnam War

• 1965 –Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), acivil rights activist group, led thefirst of several anti-war marches in Washington, D.C., with about 25,000 protesters
• 1965 – President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice
• 1965 - TheSelma to Montgomery marches bring attention to the civil rights movement's call for voting rights
• 1965 –Immigration Act of 1965
• 1965 –Voting Rights Act
• 1965 –Medicaid andMedicare enacted
• 1965 –Higher Education Act of 1965
• 1965 –Malcolm X, anAfrican-American Muslim minister, public speaker, andhuman rights activistis assassinated inHarlem, New York
• 1965 – TheWatts riots in theWatts neighborhood of Los Angeles, lasts six days and is the first of several major urban riots due to racial issues.
• 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 established "Miranda rights" for suspects
• 1966 –Feminist groupNational Organization for Women (NOW) formed
• 1966 – The three major American television networks—NBC,CBS andABC—have full color lineups in their prime-time schedules.
• 1966 – Heavyweight boxing championMuhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay)declared himself aconscientious objector and refused to go to war. In 1967 Ali was sentenced to five years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years.
• 1967 –Jack Ruby died of apulmonary embolism, secondary tobronchogenic carcinoma (lung cancer), on January 3, 1967 atParkland Hospital, where Oswald had died and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.
• 1967 – The firstSuper Bowl is played, with theGreen Bay Packers defeating theKansas City Chiefs 35–10.
• 1967 –Detroit race riot precipitates the "Long Hot Summer of 1967", when race riots erupt in 159 cities nationwide.
• 1967 –The Outsiders published by S.E. Hinton
• 1967 – Glassboro Summit Conference between U.S. president Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin
• 1967 – The "Summer of Love" embodies the growingcounterculture, with theMonterey Pop Festival andScott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" among the highlights.
• 1967 –25th Amendment establishes succession to the presidency and procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the vice president
• 1967 –American Samoa becomesself-governing under a newconstitution
• 1968 – On March 31, incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation on television that he will not seek re-election. Opposition toward him and the Democratic Party was growing. The escalation of Vietnam was one of these issues.
• 1968 –Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1968 – TheNational Front for the Liberation of Vietnam launches theTet Offensive
• 1968 –Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act
• 1968 – A New York Senator and a leading1968 Democratic presidential candidate,Robert F. Kennedy, isassassinated in Los Angeles after winning the California primary for the Democratic Party's nomination for president, bySirhan Sirhan.
• 1968 –Police clashes with anti-war protesters in Chicago during the1968 Democratic National Convention
• 1968 – U.S. signsNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• 1968 –1968 United States presidential election:Richard Nixon elected president,Spiro T. Agnew elected vice president;Shirley Chisholm becomes first black woman elected to U.S. Congress
• 1968 –East L.A. walkouts, or Chicano Blowouts
• 1968 –Apollo 8 and its three-astronaut crew orbit the Moon,Earthrise photograph taken
• 1968 – Music groupSimon and Garfunkel release "Mrs. Robinson" from their albumThe Graduate.
• 1968 – President Johnson awards medals of honor to soldiers from Vietnam.

• January 20, 1969 – Nixon becomes the 37th president, Agnew becomes the 39th vice president
• 1969 – "Vietnamization" begins
• 1969 – AuthorMaya Angelou publishesI Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
• 1969 –Stonewall riots inNew York City marks the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
• 1969 –Chappaquiddick incident, where Sen.Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger,Mary Jo Kopechne
• 1969 –Neil Armstrong andBuzz Aldrin walk on the Moon on theApollo 11 mission
• 1969 – TheWoodstock Festival inWhite Lake, New York, becomes an enormously successful musical and cultural gathering; a milestone for thebaby-boom generation
• 1969 –Warren E. Burger appointedChief Justice of the United States to replaceEarl Warren
• 1969 – U.S. bombs North Vietnamese positions inCambodia andLaos
• 1969 –Sesame Street premieres onNational Educational Television.
• 1969 – Secret peace talks with Vietnam begin
• 1969 - Although 100-1 shots at the beginning of the season, theNew York Mets win theWorld Series.

• History of the United States (1945–1964)
• History of the United States (1964–1980)
• Timeline of 1960s counterculture

• Kutler, Stanley L., ed.Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century (4 vol, 1996)
• Morris, Richard, ed.Encyclopedia of American History (7th ed. 1996)
• Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M.The Almanac Of American History (1983)

• Timelines of United States history by period
• 1950s in the United States
• 1960s in the United States

• Articles with short description
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