1960: Lunch Counter Sit-in
• Date: Feb. 1
• Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
When four African American college students – Ezell A. Blair, Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil and David L. Richmond – sit down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ask for service, they are denied. The young men refuse to leave, leading to a larger six-month protest that results in the desegregation of the lunch counter by that summer. The Greensboro Woolworth’s would close in 1993, and a section of the lunch counter be donated to the Smithsonian.
1961: Berlin Wall Built
• Date: Aug. 13
• Location: Berlin, East and West Germany
By the late summer of 1961, the loss of skilled workers such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to the West reaches crisis levels in East Germany. On Aug. 12, 2,400 East Germans cross into West Berlin, the most in a single day. The next day, with the approval of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, East Germany builds a wall that would extend 27 miles through Berlin, dividing families and friends for the next 28 years. The wall would serve as an enduring symbol of the Cold War, used by presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to inspire a divided city.
1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
• Date: Oct.16-28
• Location: Multiple
When the United States learns that the Soviet Union is building nuclear missile installations 90 miles south of Miami in communist Cuba, the Kennedy administration starts a naval blockade around the island, which is at times tested, and Kennedy demands the removal of the missiles.The standoff is widely considered to be the closest the two nuclear superpowers come to direct military confrontation. Cooler heads prevail. The Soviet Union offers to remove the missiles in exchange for a guarantee that the United States will not invade Cuba. In secret, the administration also agrees to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey.
1963: JFK Assassinated
• Date: Nov. 22
• Location: Dallas
As President John F. Kennedy prepares for his re-election bid, he embarks on a multi-state tour starting in September 1963. He is murdered by a sharpshooter’s bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald at about 12:30 p.m. as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Oswald himself is murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
1964: LBJ's "War on Poverty"
• Date: Jan. 8
• Location: Washington D.C.
Bogged down by the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson struggles constantly to pivot away from the war to focus on his stated goals of reducing poverty, ending segregation, and establishing the social programs many Americans rely on to this day, including the immensely popular Medicare program. During his “War on Poverty” State of the Union Address of Jan. 8, 1964, LBJ outlines the need for the country to reduce poverty, end racial discrimination, attend to the health needs of the elderly, and other progressive goals. Later achievements during LBJ’s administration are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Social Security Amendments of 1965.
1965: Civil Rights Turns Violent
• Date: March 7
• Location: Selma, Alabama
The fatal shooting of protester Jimmy Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper sparks a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Hundreds of civil rights activists march in what becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” Police would confront the marchers, led by John Lewis (who would serve as a House Democrat from Georgia) and others. As the activists cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police attack the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs, hospitalizing 50. Lewis would pass away in July 2020, his body crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the last timein a horse-drawn carriage.
1966: Mao Purges Rivals
• Date: Aug. 13
• Location: Beijing
At the end of a weeklong session of the Communist Party Central Committee of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong condemns the political elites, calling on China's youth to rebel against the entrenched political hierarchy. It is the beginning of the decade-long Cultural Revolution that fundamentally transforms Chinese society. Intellectuals, members of the former Nationalist government, and people with ties to Western powers are persecuted, sent to re-education labor camps, or killed by the factions of Red Guards formed in the wake of Mao's call to action.
1967: Six-Day War
• Date: June 5
• Location: Middle East
Amid escalating tensions with its neighbors, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike that destroys most of Egypt's air force. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also attack Israel. As the war continues, Israel takes the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, captures East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and in heavy fighting seizes the Golan Heights from Syria. A ceasefire went into effect on June 10.
1968: King Assassinated
• Date: April 4
• Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is fatally shot by James Earl Ray as the civil rights icon stands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a tragedy that sparks race riots nationwide. King's influence in words and actions touch and move not only the nation, but the world, and resonate to this day. Two months later, on June 4, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and brother of John F. Kennedy, is fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab Christian from Jerusalem, who believes Kennedy is "instrumental" in oppressing Palestinians.
1969: Landing on the Moon
• Date: July 20
• Location: Moon
President Kennedy’s goal of a manned lunar landing before 1970 is realized six years after his assassination. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins blast off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. aboard the Saturn V rocket. After three days of travel, Armstrong and Aldrin land the Eagle module on the lunar surface as Collins remains in lunar orbit to pilot the module. Upon their return to Earth, the three astronauts are put in 21-day quarantine to ensure they do not bring back any lunar contagions.
1970: War In Asia Widens
• Date: April 29
• Location: Eastern Cambodia
Although the United States should be scaling back U.S. troop presence in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon approves an operation with the South Vietnamese to invade Cambodia to oust Northern Vietnamese forces there. The Cambodian incursion inflames anti-war protests in the United States as it is perceived to be an escalation of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.
SOURCE: 24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY
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