For ease of traversing this page, the following color codes are used:
1954
*Brown v Board of Education... Supreme Court orders desegregation of public schools
1955
* Rosa parks arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama
* NAACP sponsors boycott of Montgomery, Alabama bus line
* Martin Luther King, Jr. organizes the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
1956
* South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem cancels UN sponsored elections for Vietnamese unification. Viet Cong resistance initiated.
*?? Dr. Humphry Osmond coins the word "psychedelic"
1957
* Federal military intervention used to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
* Civil Rights Act of 1957 creates the Civil Rights Commission
1958
1959
*Allen Ginsberg tried LSD for the first time
1960
*January - Civil rights demonstrations in Atlanta
*May 6 - Civil Rights Act of 1960 signed by Eisenhower imposes legal penalties for interference with the right to vote
*Greensboro, N.C. becomes the site of the first lunch-counter demonstration by students at N.C.A&T College
*Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee organized in Raleigh, N.C.
*August 9 - Timothy Leary, 39, tries psilocybin mushrooms
*Dec. - Birth Control Pills go on sale in the U.S.
1961
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April 11 - Bay of Pigs, Cuba U.S. planned invasion defeated
*May 4 - Freedom Riders leave DC for tour to test integration in bus stations
1962
*Feb. 16 - SANE & fledgling SDA hold first anti-nuclear march on Washington, DC
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Oct. 22 - Cuban Missile Crisis - Soviet missle bases in Cuba, Kennedy orders naval blockade
1963
*Jan. - Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivers "Segregation Forever" speech at inauguration
*June 12 - Civil rights activist Medgar Evers assassinated.
*July 26-28 - Newport Folk Festival features Bob Dyland, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs & Pete Seeger
*Aug. 28 - Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered in Washinton, DC
*Nov. 22 - President JFK assassinated in Dallas, Texas
*Nov 29 - Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" Released.
*Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert fired from Harvard
*1964
a Stanley Kubeck film classic, a comic parody on the Cold War opens.
*Berkeley Free Speech Movement begins
*Jan. 8 - LBJ declares "War on Poverty" in State of the Union address
*Feb. 7 - Beatles arrive in New York to begin US tour
*Feb. 9 - Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan Show: 74 million people watch, the largest audience in the history of TV
*Freedom Summer begins
*Aug. 2-4 - Tonkin Gulf incident leads to direct U.S. military action in Vietnam
*Oct. 24 - Martin L. King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peace Prize
*Secret bombing of Laos authorized by President Johnson
1965
*first contingent of U.S. marines land at Da Nang, March 8
*Civil Rights Act enacted
*Watts riot in Los Angeles ushers in the "long, hot, summer."
*U.S. troop strength in S. Vietnam reaches 85,000
*1966
*Jan 3 - The Psychedelic Shop (head shop) opens on Haight St., S.F.
*Mar 11 - Timothy Leary sentenced in Texas to 30 years for trying to cross into Mexico with marijuana *May 1. Anti-war demonstration in N.Y. brings out 25,000. Other protests in 7 U.S. cities
* May 15 - Antiwar protest in DC, 10,000 attend *August - Red Guard initiates "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China.
*Black Panther Party formed
*1967
*Apr 5 - Grayline starts hippie tours of Haight/Ashbury
*Apr 10 - Vietnam Week starts. Draft card burnings and anti-draft demonstrations
* Apr 15 - Anti-Vietnam War protest. 400,000 march from Central Park to U.S.
* May 19 - First U.S. air strike on Hanoi
Jun 2 - "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by Beatles released
*Summer of Love highlights Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco
*U.S. forces besieged as Battle of Khe Sanh begins
* Summer of Rioting in U.S. Blacks take to the streets in Chicago, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Baltimore and Newark
*Oct 3 - Woodie Guthrie dies
*Oct 8 - Che Guevarra killed in Bolivia
*Oct 21-22 - Anti-war protesters storm the Pentagon
* Dec 5 - 1000 antiwar protesters try to close NYC induction center. 585 arrested
*
Dec 31 - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, Dick Gregory, & friends pronounce themselves "Yippies"
*1968
*Jan 31 - Tet Offensive launched by Viet Minh
*My Lai Massacre, U.S. troops kill S. Vietnamese civilians
*General Westmoreland replaced as commander in Vietnam *Mar 31 - President Johnson announces he will not run for President
*Apr 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
*Apr - The week following death of MLK, Jr., sees uprisings in 125 cities across the US *Apr 23 - SDS lead students take over 5 buildings at Columbia Univ. 700 arrested.
*May 10 - Vietnam peace talks begin in Paris
*Jun 5 - Bobby Kennedy assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan
*Aug 1 - US troops strength in Vietnam reaches 541,000
*Aug 25-29 - Mass demonstrations/police riot in Chicago at Democratic National Convention
*1969
*Charles Manson and Family initiate "Helter Skelter" murders
*25,00 U.S. troops withdrawn from S. Vietnam, initiation of President Richard M. Nixon's "Vietnamization" program.
*Operation "Phoenix" initiated in S. Vietnam
*President Nixon secretly orders U.S. bombing of Cambodia *Woodstock Music Festival draws 300,000
*Altamont rock festival - nadier of the youth movement
*1970
*President Nixon orders U.S. ground forces into Cambodia
*Cambodian invasion sparks renewal of campus riots across U.S.
*Kent State Massacre
*Jackson State Massacre
*U.S. Congress repeals Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
* U.S. Congress passes "Cooper-Church" Resolution: U.S. forces to be confined to S. Vietnam 1971
1972
*U.S. troop strength in S. Vietnam down to 6,000
*Break-in at Democratic Party Headquarters at Watergate complex.
1973
*Paris Accords between US, N. Vietnam and S. Vietnam signed. Final U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam
Blue - Civil Rights
Green-Vietnam War
Red=Student Movement
Purple=Other Social Movements
Teal=Music
Political-Black