Vietnam War to Present

• In 1954, the Supreme Court decision—Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka—ruled that segregation laws were unconstitutional. Despite this ruling African Americans faced discrimination.
• The Civil Rights movement was a social movement in the 1950s and 1960s that was meant to fight and end social and government discrimination in the American society.
• Not all Civil Rights leaders believed in integration and non-violence. 
• The legislative successes of the Civil Right movement included the banning of poll taxes (1964, Twenty-Fourth Amendment) and the 1965 Civil Rights Act, which removed unfair barriers to African American voting.
• The Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decreed that the legislation of two separate societies—one Black and one white—was permitted as long as the two were seen as equal.
• Jim Crow laws reestablished white supremacy after it had diminished during the Reconstruction Era. Blacks and whites dined at separate restaurants, swam in separate swimming pools, and drank from separate water fountains.
• Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964.
• The Black Panther Party aided their Black communities and resisted police brutality.
• In 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize.
• The followers of Wallace Fard became known as Black Muslims.
• After World War II, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh opposed French colonial rule in Vietnam and would later oppose United States involvement in Vietnam.
• When France gave up control of Vietnam, it divided the nation into North Vietnam, under the control of Communist Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam, which was heavily supported by the United States. 
• The traditional US military intervention in Vietnam began in 1964 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where a US naval vessel was allegedly fired upon by North Vietnamese ships.
• It was hard for American troops to fight the Viet Cong in the South because the Viet Cong hid among the people of South Vietnam who supported them.
• In 1973, a cease-fire was put in place, followed closely by the withdrawal of the US troops. Soon after, the South of Vietnam fell to communist control.
• Indochina comprises the modern-day countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
• On August 2, 1964, gunboats of North Vietnam allegedly fired on ships of the US Navy stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin. They had been sailing 10 miles off the coast of North Vietnam in support of the South Vietnamese navy.
• By December 1972, Nixon decided to escalate the bombing of North Vietnamese cities, including Hanoi.
• In 1971, the New York Times published excerpts from The Pentagon Papers, a top-secret overview of the history of government involvement in Vietnam. 
• As late as January 1968, only a few weeks before Tet, only 28 percent of the American public labeled themselves “doves”, or people who opposed the war. But by April 1968, six weeks after the Tet Offensive, “doves” outnumbered “hawks,” people who were for the war, 42 to 41 percent.
• In February 1965, the United States began a long program of sustained bombing of North Vietnamese targets known as Operation Rolling Thunder. At first, only military targets were hit, but as months turned into years, civilian targets were pummeled as well.
• By the end of 1967, there were 500,000 American troops stationed in Vietnam.
• American diplomats subscribed to the domino theory. A communist victory in Vietnam might lead to communist victories in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
• The "New Frontier" refers to Kennedy's social reform and scientific advancement initiatives.
• Kennedy was killed in 1963, making Vice President Lyndon Johnson the next president. Johnson was successful in several legislative areas, including healthcare, education, and programs to combat poverty, where Kennedy struggled.
• • Support for Johnson’s "Great Society" fell as poverty-related issues were not resolved quickly, and the expense and unpopularity of the Vietnam War caused problems for Johnson’s goals back home in the United States.
• The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy and the events surrounding the Vietnam war in the late 1960s seemed to put an end to the optimism of the early 1960s.
• • Richard Nixon won the 1968 election on a promise to fight the Vietnam War successfully and return the nation to law and order after the turmoil of urban riots and the anti-war movement.
• Kennedy’s Peace Corps initiative allowed Americans to volunteer two years of service to a developing nation.
• The Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit in 1957.
• The American government encouraged rebellion in Cuba because it wanted to unseat Fidel Castro from power. This had failed.
• n February 1972, Nixon went to China to meet Mao Zedong. This meeting cleared the way for China's admission to the United Nations
• The modern environmental movement came to the forefront in the 1960s and 1970s partially inspired by the 1962 book, Silent Spring.
• In the mid to late 1960s the counterculture movement known as hippie culture rose to challenge societal norms.
• A new feminist movement emerged in the 1960s pressing for modern reforms.
• In the 1960s, the first baby boomers entered college. Called baby boomers because they were born during the post-WWII "baby boom," these students were the largest class of young Americans ever to enter the halls of ivy.
• The Green Activists demanded regulation over activities which caused environmental disruption.
• In 1963, Betty Friedan published a book called The Feminine Mystique that identified “the problem that has no name.” The problem was that many women didn’t like the traditional role society prescribed for them.
• In 1966, Friedan and others formed an activist group called the National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW was dedicated to the “full participation of women in mainstream American society.”
• The catalyst for the LGBTQ rights movement came when New York City police officers raided the Stonewall Inn in May 1969.