United States of America Timeline

1900's continued

(1932) Amelia Earhart was the first woman to complete a solo non-stop transatlantic flight
(1933) New Deal recovery programs were enacted; Prohibition was repealed
(1935) Social Security Act was passed; the Bureau of Investigation became the Federal Bureau of Investigation led by J. Edgar Hoover
(1939) World War II began. The U. S. declared neutrality
(1941) U.S. declared war on Japan after attacks at Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines; Germany and Italy declared war on the U. S. and the U. S. reciprocated
(1945) U. S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered; the United Nations was established
(1947) The Central Intelligence Agency was established; the U.S. established a policy of aid for countries threatened by Communism, known as the Truman Doctrine; the Cold War with the Soviet Union began
(1949) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established
(1950) The Korean War began. U. S. armed forces played a leading role against North Korean and Chinese troops
(1951) President Truman spoke in the first live television broadcast, coast-to-coast
(1952) First hydrogen bomb detonated by the U. S.
(1953) The Armistice Agreement was signed, ending the Korean War
(1961) The Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, an unsuccessful attempt to invade Cuba by Cuban exiles
(1962) The U.S. forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear weapons from Cuba (the Cuban Missile Crisis); Lt. Col. John Glenn was the first U. S. astronaut to orbit the earth
(1963) President John F. Kennedy assassinated
(1964) North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer in The Gulf of Tonkin; Civil Rights Act becomes a law
(1965) U. S. planes began bombing raids of North Vietnam; U.S. combat troops arrived in South Vietnam
(1968) American soldiers killed 300 Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai massacre; civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, was assassinated; Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated
(1969) U.S. astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, Jr., were the first people to walk on the moon
(1970) U. S. troops invaded Cambodia
(1972) Five employees of President Richard Nixon were caught breaking into the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D. C. (the Watergate scandal)
(1973) A cease fire agreement was executed by North and South Vietnam, the Viet Cong and the U. S.; the U. S. troops left Vietnam; the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy in the Roe v. Wade case; hearings began in the investigation of the Watergate scandal; Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned over charges of income tax evasion and corruption
(1974) President Nixon resigned
(1979) U. S. established diplomatic ties with mainland China; a nuclear reactor malfunction at Three Mile Island caused a near meltdown; Iranian students invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the employees as hostages