January 20, 1953 - President Eisenhower delivers first
live coast-to-coast inauguration address.
February 11, 1953 - President Eisenhower refuses
clemency appeal for Rosenberg couple.
March 5, 1953 - Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (born
Isoeb Dzhugashvili in Georgia, part of the old Russian empire)
died at age 73 after 29 years in power. 1912 -
Stalin's first big break came, when Lenin, in exile in
Switzerland, named him to serve on the first Central Committee of
the Bolshevik Party-now a separate entity from the Social
Democrats. 1913 - Stalin (finally dropping
Dzugashvili and taking the new name Stalin, from the Russian word
for "steel") published a signal article on the role of Marxism in
the destiny of Russia. 1917 - escaping from an exile
in Siberia, he linked up with Lenin and his coup against the
middle-class democratic government that had supplanted the czar's
rule. Stalin continued to move up the party ladder, from commissar
for nationalities to secretary general of the Central Committee-a
role that would provide the center of his dictatorial takeover and
control of the party and the new USSR. He is remembered as the man
who helped save his nation from Nazi domination-and as the mass
murderer of the century, having overseen the deaths of between 8
million and 10 million of his own people.
March 6, 1953 - Georgi Malenkov is named premier and
first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Called
for cuts in military spending and eased up on political repression
in the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc nations. Malenkov's
tenure was extremely brief, and within a matter of weeks he was
pushed aside by Nikita Khrushchev who had organized a coalition of
political and military leaders against Malenkov and took over as
first secretary. February 1955, this same group voted Malenkov out
as premier and a Khrushchev puppet, Nikolai Bulganin, took over.
Malenkov seethed at this action and in 1957 joined in a plot to
overthrow Khrushchev. When the attempt failed, he was dismissed
from his government positions and expelled from the Communist
Party. Instead of imprisonment, Malenkov faced the disgrace of
being sent to Kazakhstan to serve as the manager of a
hydroelectric operation. He died in 1988.
March 20, 1953 - Soviet government announces that
Nikita Khrushchev has been selected as one of five men named to
the new office of Secretariat of the Communist Party (Stalin died
on March 5, 1953). Khrushchev's selection was a crucial first step
in his rise to power in the Soviet Union; September 1953
- Khrushchev named secretary of the Communist Party; 1958
- named premier.
March 31, 1953 - Department of Health, Education and
Welfare (HEW) established.
April 7, 1953 - The U.N. General Assembly elected
Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden to be secretary-general; son of Hjalmar
Hammarskjýld, a former prime minister of Sweden; September
18, 1961 - killed with 15 others in a plane crash in
Northern Rhodesia on his fourth mission to the Republic of the
Congo; posthumously awarded the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize.
April 8, 1953 - Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan
independence movement, is convicted by Kenya's British rulers of
leading the extremist Mau Mau in their violence against white
settlers and the colonial government. An advocate of nonviolence
and conservatism, he pleaded innocent in the highly politicized
trial. He played little part in the Mau Mau uprising of 1952 but
was imprisoned for nine years along with other nationalist
leaders. 1961 - Released in 1961, Kenyatta
became president of the Kenya African National Union and led
negotiations with the British for self-rule. 1963 -
Kenya won independence. 1964 - Kenyatta was elected
president. He served in this post until his death in 1978.
April 21, 1953 - Roy Cohn (chief counsel to the
McCarthy Senate subcommittee devoted to investigating communism in
the U.S. government) and David Schine (one of Cohn's close
friends), two of Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief aides, return to
the United States after a controversial investigation of United
States Information Service (USIS) posts in Europe; reported that
over 30,000 books in the libraries were by "pro-communist" writers
and demanded their removal. The authors they targeted included
crime novelist Dashiell Hammett, African-American intellectual
W.E.B. Du Bois, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, and Henry
Thoreau. The State Department, which oversaw the operations of
USIS, immediately ordered thousands of books removed from the
libraries. Upon their recommendation, thousands of books were
removed from USIS libraries in several Western European countries.
May 2, 1953 - Hussein I installed as king of Jordan.
May 2, 1953 - Feisal II installed as king of Iraq.
May 29, 1953 - Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund
Hillary of New Zealand and sherpa Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became
the first climbers to reach the summit. Named for Sir George
Everest, a 19th-century British surveyor of South Asia. The summit
of Everest reaches two-thirds of the way through the air of the
earth's atmosphere--at about the cruising altitude of jet
airliners--and oxygen levels there are very low, temperatures are
extremely cold, and weather is unpredictable and dangerous.
June 2, 1953 - Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was
crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her
father, King George VI.
June 8, 1953 - The Supreme Court ruled that
restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve
blacks.
June 10, 1953 - During a speech at the National
Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting in Minneapolis President
Eisenhower characterized the Cold War as a battle "for the soul of
man himself." He rejected Senator Robert Taft's idea that the
United States should pursue a completely independent foreign
policy, or what one "might call the 'fortress' theory of defense."
Eisenhower enunciated two major points of what came to be known at
the time as his "New Look" foreign policy: 1) advocacy of
multi-nation responses to communist aggression in preference to
unilateral action by the United States; 2) idea that came to be
known as the "bigger bang for the buck" defense strategy. This
postulated that a cheaper and more efficient defense could be
built around the nation's nuclear arsenal rather than a massive
increase in conventional land, air, and sea forces.
June 19, 1953 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a
married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in
1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked
the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of
the Cold War; accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret
information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
March 1951 - convicted; April 5, 1951 -
judge sentenced them to death; President Dwight D. Eisenhower
spoke for many Americans when he issued a statement declining to
invoke executive clemency for the pair. Both refused to admit any
wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of
their deaths. Two sons, Michael and Robert, survived them.
July 26, 1953 - Fidel Castro began a revolt against
Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks
in eastern Cuba.
July 27, 1953 - The Korean War armistice was signed
at Panmunjom
by Communist and United Nations
delegates;
signed in a roadside hall the Communists built specially for
the occasion; took precisely eleven minutes. Then the respective
delegations walked from the meeting place without a word or
handshake between them. Under the truce terms, hostilities in the
three-year-old Korean war are to cease at 10 o'clock tonight;
providing for an exchange of prisoners, establishment of a neutral
zone for the cease-fire and a later political conference that
would attempt to settle the tragic Korean questions, unsolved by
three years of fighting that caused hundreds of thousands of
casualties. Latest figures, revealed July 21 by the Department of
Defense, the United States has suffered a total of 139,272
casualties. This included 24,965 dead, 101,368 wounded, 2,938
captured, 8,476 missing and 1,525 previously reported captured or
missing, but since returned to military control.
July 30, 1953 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower
signed the Small Business Act into law. Created the U.S. Small
Business Administration (SBA). The law said the federal government
should "aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible,
the interests of small business concerns." The charter also
stipulated that the SBA would ensure small businesses a "fair
proportion" of government contracts and sales of surplus property.
Counseling small business in management practices was written into
law. 1958 - The Investment Company Act of 1958
established the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program,
under which SBA licensed, regulated and helped provide funds for
privately owned and operated venture capital investment firms.
July 31, 1953 - Department of Health, Education and
Welfare created.
August 4, 1953 - Speaking before the Governor's
Conference in Seattle, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns that
the situation in Asia is becoming "very ominous for the United
States." In the speech, Eisenhower made specific reference to the
need to defend French Indochina from the communists. He
specifically noted the communist threat in French Indochina, where
the French military was battling Vietnamese revolutionaries for
control of Vietnam. Eisenhower defended his decision to approve a
$400 million aid package to help the French in their effort as
"the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurrence that would be
of most terrible significance to the United States." According to
Eisenhower, communist victory in Indochina would have far-reaching
consequences. "Now let us assume that we lose Indochina. If
Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malay
Peninsula, that last little bit of land hanging on down there,
would be scarcely defensible. The tin and tungsten that we so
greatly value from that area would cease coming." One by one,
other Asian nations would be toppled. "So you see, somewhere along
that line, this must be blocked and it must be blocked now."
Eisenhower's speech marked the first appearance of what would come
to be known as the "domino theory"--the idea that the loss of
Indochina to communism would lead to other Asian nations following
suit, like a row of dominos.
August 8, 1953 - The United States and South Korea
initialed a mutual security pact.
August 13, 1953 - U.S. Gen Omar Bradley's becomes
chief of staff.
August 13, 1953 - President Eisenhower establishes
Government Contract Compliance Committee.
August 19, 1953 - Iranian military, with the support
and financial assistance of the United States government,
overthrows the government of Premier Mohammed Mosaddeq and
reinstates the Shah of Iran (Mohammed Reza Pahlevi). Military,
backed by street protests organized and financed by the CIA,
overthrew Mossadeq. The Shah quickly returned to take power and,
as thanks for the American help, signed over 40 percent of Iran's
oil fields to U.S. companies. Mossadeq was arrested, served three
years in prison, and died under house arrest in 1967. The Shah
became one of America's most trusted Cold War allies, and U.S.
economic and military aid poured into Iran during the 1950s,
1960s, and 1970s. In 1978, however, anti-Shah and anti-American
protests broke out in Iran and the Shah was toppled from power in
1979.
September 12, 1953 - Six months after the death of
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union.
October 5, 1953 - Earl Warren was sworn in as the
14th chief justice of the United States, succeeding Fred M.
Vinson.
October 30, 1953 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower
formally approves National Security Council Paper No. 162/2 (NSC
162/2); top secret document made clear: 1) that America's nuclear
arsenal must be maintained and expanded to meet the communist
threat and 2) the connection between military spending and a sound
American economy; definite sign of his so-called "New Look"
foreign policy that depended on more cost efficient nuclear
weapons to fight the Cold War.
October 30, 1953 - George C. Marshall, who, as
secretary of state following World War II, engineered a massive
economic aid program for Europe, was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize.
November 9, 1953 - The Supreme Court upheld a 1922
ruling that major league baseball did not come within the scope of
federal antitrust laws.
November 12, 1953 - David Ben-Gurion, resigns as
premier of Israel.
December 8, 1953 - President Dwight Eisenhower
gave "Atoms for Peace" speech in an address before the General
Assembly of the United Nations; proposed establishment of the
International Atomic Energy Agency to devise "methods whereby this
fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful
pursuits of mankind ... to apply atomic energy to the needs of
agriculture, medicine and other peaceful activities. A special
purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the
power-starved areas of the world"; U.S. Congress passed the 1954
Atomic Energy Act which permitted, for the first time, the wide
use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
January 12, 1954 - In a speech at a Council on
Foreign Relations dinner in his honor, Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles announces that the United States will protect its
allies through the "deterrent of massive retaliatory power." The
policy announcement was further evidence of the Eisenhower
administration's decision to rely heavily on the nation's nuclear
arsenal as the primary means of defense against communist
aggression. The speech was a reflection of two of the main tenets
of foreign policy under Eisenhower and Dulles: 1) belief,
particularly on the part of Dulles, that America's foreign policy
toward the communist threat had been timidly reactive during the
preceding Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman.
Dulles consistently reiterated the need for a more proactive and
vigorous approach to rolling back the communist sphere of
influence; 2) President Eisenhower's belief that military and
foreign assistance spending had to be controlled. Eisenhower was a
fiscal conservative and believed that the U.S. economy and society
could not long take the strain of overwhelming defense budgets. A
stronger reliance on nuclear weapons as the backbone of America's
defense answered both concerns--atomic weapons were far more
effective in terms of threatening potential adversaries, and they
were also, in the long run, much less expensive than the costs
associated with a large standing army.
March 1, 1954 - Four members of an extremist Puerto
Rican nationalist group fire more than 30 shots at the floor of
the House of Representatives from a visitors' gallery, injuring
five U.S. representatives. Alvin Bentley of Michigan, George
Fallon of Maryland, Ben Jensen of Iowa, Clifford Davis of
Tennessee, and Kenneth Roberts of Alabama all eventually recovered
from their gunshot wounds and returned to their seats in Congress.
Three of the Puerto Rican terrorists were detained immediately
after the shooting, and the fourth was captured later. The group
was protesting the new constitution of Puerto Rico, which granted
the U.S. Congress ultimate authority over the commonwealth's
affairs.
March 9, 1954 - Republican Senator Ralph Flanders
(Vermont) verbally blasted Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), charging
that he was a "one-man party" intent on "doing his best to shatter
that party whose label he wears." Flanders sarcastically declared,
"The junior Senator from Wisconsin interests us all, no doubt
about that, but also he puzzles some of us. To what party does he
belong? Is he a hidden satellite of the Democratic Party, to which
he is furnishing so much material for quiet mirth?" In addition to
Flanders' speech, Senate Republicans acted to limit McCarthy's
ability to conduct hearings and to derail his investigation of the
U.S. Army. McCarthy's days as a political force were indeed
numbered. During his televised hearings into the U.S. Army later
in 1954, the American people got their first look at how McCarthy
bullied witnesses and ignored procedure to suit his purposes. By
late 1954, the Senate censured him, but he remained in office
until his death in 1957. His legacy was immense: during his years
in the spotlight, he destroyed careers, created a good deal of
hysteria, and helped spread fear of political debate and dissent
in the United States.
March 20, 1954 - A force of 60,000 Viet Minh with
heavy artillery surrounded 16,000 French troops, news of Dien Bien
Phu's impending fall reached Washington; Eisenhower decided that
the situation was too far gone and ordered no action to be taken
to aid the French; May 7, 1954 - Viet Minh overran
the last French positions; France, already plagued by public
opposition to the war, granted independence to Vietnam at the
Geneva Conference in 1954.
April 7, 1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower coined one of
the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of
French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect
in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated U.S.
thinking about Vietnam for the next decade; spent much of the
speech explaining the significance of Vietnam to the United
States: 1) economic importance, "the specific value of a locality
in its production of materials that the world needs" (materials
such as rubber, jute, and sulphur), 2) "possibility that many
human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the
free world", 3) broader considerations that might follow what you
would call the 'falling domino' principle" (lead to disintegration
in Southeast Asia, with the "loss of Indochina, of Burma, of
Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following." Eisenhower
suggested that even Japan, which needed Southeast Asia for trade,
would be in danger).
April 22, 1954 - The televised Senate
Army-McCarthy hearings began, investigating the United States
Army, which he charges with being "soft" on communism. These
televised hearings gave the American public their first view of
McCarthy in action, and his recklessness, indignant bluster, and
bullying tactics quickly resulted in his fall from prominence.
McCarthy was indignant because David Schine, one of his former
investigators, had been drafted and the Army, much to McCarthy's
surprise, refused the special treatment he demanded for his former
aide. The hearings were a fiasco for McCarthy. He constantly
interrupted with irrelevant questions and asides; yelled "point of
order" whenever testimony was not to his liking; and verbally
attacked witnesses, attorneys for the Army, and his fellow
senators. The climax came when McCarthy slandered an associate of
the Army's chief counsel, Joseph Welch. Welch fixed McCarthy with
a steady glare and declared evenly, "Until this moment, Senator, I
think I never really gauged your cruelty or your
recklessness...Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" A
stunned McCarthy listened as the packed audience exploded into
cheers and applause. McCarthy's days as a political power were
effectively over. A few weeks later, the Army hearings dribbled to
a close with little fanfare and no charges were upheld against the
Army by the committee. In December 1954, the Senate voted to
censure McCarthy for his conduct. Three years later, having become
a hopeless alcoholic, he died.
April 26, 1954 - Representatives from the United
States, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, France,
and Great Britain convened in Geneva in an effort to resolve
several problems in Asia, including the war between the French and
Vietnamese nationalists in Indochina. The conference marked a
turning point in the United States' involvement in Vietnam. One of
the most troubling concerns was the long and bloody battle between
Vietnamese nationalist forces, under the leadership of the
communist Ho Chi Minh, and the French, who were intent on
continuing colonial control over Vietnam. Since 1946 the two sides
had been hammering away at each other. Discussions on the Vietnam
issue started at the conference just as France suffered its worst
military defeat of the war, when Vietnamese forces captured the
French base at Dien Bien Phu. July 1954 - the Geneva Agreements
were signed. French agreed to withdraw their troops from northern
Vietnam. Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th
parallel, pending elections within two years to choose a president
and reunite the country. During that two-year period, no foreign
troops could enter Vietnam. Within a year, the United States had
helped establish a new anti-communist government in South Vietnam
and began giving it financial and military assistance, the first
fateful steps toward even greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
May 1954 - French defeated by the Viet Minh at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu; United States takes over the fight
against the Communists in Vietnam. United States had been
providing military aid to the South Vietnamese through the French
since 1951.
May 13, 1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed
legislation authorizing the US-Canadian construction of the St.
Lawrence Seaway.
May 17, 1954 - Supreme Court issued its landmark
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka ruling; declared that
racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal,
unanimously outlawed today racial segregation in public schools in
twenty-one states and the District of Columbia where segregation
is permissive or mandatory. The opinions set aside the 'separate
but equal' doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court on
May 18, 1896
( Plessy vs. Ferguson - court then held that segregation
was not unconstitutional if equal facilities were provided for
each race). The court's opinion does not apply to private schools.
It is directed entirely at public schools. It does not affect the
"separate but equal doctrine" as applied on railroads and other
public carriers entirely within states that have such
restrictions. High court held that school segregation deprived
Negroes of "the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment" (provides that no state shall "deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws").
May 18, 1954 - European Convention on Human Rights
goes into effect.
May 20, 1954 - Chiang Kai-shek becomes president of
Nationalist China.
June 2, 1954 - Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that
communists have infiltrated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
and the atomic weapons industry. Although McCarthy's accusations
created a momentary controversy, they were quickly dismissed as
mere sensationalism from a man whose career was rapidly slipping
away.
June 4, 1954 - French Premier Joseph Laniel and
Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc initialed treaties in Paris according
independence to Vietnam.
June 9, 1954 - Army counsel Joseph N. Welch
confronted Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy during the Senate-Army Hearings
over McCarthy's attack on a member of Welch's law firm, Frederick
G. Fisher. Said Welch: ``Have you no sense of decency, sir? At
long last, have you left no sense of decency?''.
June 14, 1954 - first nationwide civil defense drill
held (organized and evaluated by the Civil Defense Administration;
lasted about 10 minutes) - basic premise of the drill was that the
United States was under massive nuclear assault from both aircraft
and submarines, and that most major urban areas had been targeted;
citizens were supposed to get off the streets, seek shelter, and
prepare for the onslaught.
June 14, 1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower
signed an order adding the words ''under God'' to the Pledge of
Allegiance.
June 14, 1954 - Over 12 million Americans "die" in a
mock nuclear attack, as the United States goes through its first
nationwide civil defense drill. Organized and evaluated by the
Civil Defense Administration, and included operations in 54 cities
in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, and
Hawaii. Canada also participated in the exercise. he basic premise
of the drill was that the United States was under massive nuclear
assault from both aircraft and submarines, and that most major
urban areas had been targeted. Though American officials were
satisfied with the results of the drill, the event stood as a
stark reminder that the United States--and the world-was now
living under a nuclear shadow.
June 29, 1954 - Atomic Energy Commission, by a vote
of 4 to1 decided against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's
access to classified information. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946
required consideration of "the character, associations, and
loyalty" of the individuals engaged in the work of the Commission.
Substantial defects of character and imprudent and dangerous
associations, particularly with known subversives who place the
interests of foreign powers above those of the United States, were
considered reasons for disqualification. The Commission regarded
his associations with persons known to him to be Communists
exceeded tolerable limits of prudence and self-restraint, and
lasted too long to be justified as merely the intermittent and
accidental revival of earlier friendships.
July 8, 1954 - Col. Carlos Castillo Armas is elected
president of the junta that overthrew the administration of
Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in late June 1954. The
election of Castillo Armas was the culmination of U.S. efforts to
remove Arbenz and save Guatemala from what American officials
believed to be an attempt by international communism to gain a
foothold in the Western Hemisphere. The CIA established a
multifaceted covert operation (code named PBSUCCESS). Beginning in
June 1954, the CIA saturated Guatemala with propaganda over the
radio and through leaflets dropped over the country, and also
began small bombing raids using unmarked airplanes. It also
organized and armed a small force of "freedom fighters"--mostly
Guatemalan refugees and mercenaries--headed by Castillo Armas.
This force, which never numbered more than a few hundred men, had
little impact on subsequent events. June 27, 1954 -
Arbenz resigned. The new regime rounded up thousands of suspected
communists, and executed hundreds of prisoners. Labor unions,
which had flourished since 1944, were crushed, and United Fruit's
lands were restored. Castillo Armas, however, did not long enjoy
his success. He was assassinated in 1957. Guatemalan politics then
degenerated into a series of coups and countercoups, coupled with
brutal repression of the country's people.
July 21, 1954 - France surrendered North Vietnam to
the Communists; agreed to independence of North and South Vietnam.
August 11, 1954 - A formal peace took hold in
Indochina, ending more than seven years of fighting between the
French and the Communist Vietminh.
August 18, 1954 - Assistant Secretary of Labor,
James E. Wilkins, became the first black to attend a meeting of a
president's Cabinet as he sat in for Labor Secretary James P.
Mitchell.
August 24, 1954 - The Communist Control Act went
into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United
States.
September 1, 1954 - Social Security Act amended;
Social Security rolls swelled by another seven million people,
most of whom were self-employed farmers.
September 8, 1954 - Having been directed by
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to put together an alliance to
contain any communist aggression in the free territories of
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, or Southeast Asia in general,
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles forges an agreement
establishing a military alliance that becomes the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO). Signatories, including France, Great
Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan,
Thailand, and the United States, pledged themselves to "act to
meet the common danger" in the event of aggression against any
signatory state. June 30, 1977 - SEATO expired.
September 25, 1954 - Francois "Doc" Duvalier wins
Haitian presidential election.
September 30, 1954 - The U.S. Navy commissioned the
first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus.
October 19, 1954 - Egypt and Britain signed a pact
on the Suez Canal, ending 72 years of British military occupation.
Britain agreed to withdraw its force within 20 months and Egypt
agreed to maintain freedom of canal navigation.
October 22, 1954 - West Germany joined the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
October 24, 1954 - President Eisenhower pledges
support to President Ngo Dinh Diem's government and military
forces.
November 10, 1954 - The Iwo Jima Memorial was
dedicated in Arlington, VA.
November 12, 1954 - Ellis Island closed after
processing more than 20 million immigrants since opening in New
York Harbor in 1892; 3.3-acre island located in New York Harbor
off the New Jersey coast and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who
owned the land in the 1770s; September 1990 - the
Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened to the public and today is
visited by almost 2 million people each year.
November 27, 1954 - After 44 months in prison,
former government official Alger Hiss is released and proclaims
once again that he is innocent of the charges that led to his
incarceration. Hiss was convicted in 1950 of perjury for lying to
a federal grand jury, judged to have lied about his complicity in
passing secret government documents to Whittaker Chambers, who
thereupon passed the papers along to agents of the Soviet Union.
Upon his release, Hiss immediately declared that he wished to
"reassert my complete innocence of the charges that were brought
against me by Whittaker Chambers." He claimed that his conviction
was the result of the "fear and hysteria of the times," and stated
that he was going to "resume my efforts to dispel the deception
that has been foisted on the American people." He was confident
that such efforts would "vindicate my name."
December 2, 1954 - Joseph McCarthy, senator from
Wisconsin who was trying to find Communists in the government and
entertainment industries, was condemned and silenced by the U.S.
Senate.
February 2, 1955
- First presidential news conference on network TV, Eisenhower on
ABC.
February 12, 1955
- President Eisenhower sends first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.
February 23, 1955
- In the first council meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declares the
United States is committed to defending the region from communist
aggression. The meeting, and American participation in SEATO, set
the stage for the U.S. to take a more active role in Vietnam; U.S.
established SEATO primarily in response to what it viewed as a
deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia; formally ceased
operations in 1976.
April 5, 1955
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who
guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World
War II, retires as prime minister of Great Britain; 1953
- knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the Nobel Prize in
literature. After his retirement as prime minister, he remained in
Parliament until 1964, the year before his death.
May 5, 1955
- The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a
sovereign state when the United States, France, and Great Britain
end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this
action, West Germany was given the right to rearm and become a
full-fledged member of the western alliance against the Soviet
Union. Under the terms of an agreement reached earlier, West
Germany would now be allowed to establish a military force of up
to a half-million men and resume the manufacture of arms, though
it was forbidden from producing any chemical or atomic weapons.
May 9, 1955
- Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West
Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet
expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West
Germany's integration into the Western European defense system;
also the final nail in the coffin as far as any possibility of a
reunited Germany in the near future. For the next 35 years, East
and West Germany came to symbolize the animosities of the Cold
War. In 1990, Germany was finally reunified; the new German state
remained a member of NATO.
May 14, 1955
- Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites (Albania,
Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria)
sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense
organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces
of the member states; called on the member states to come to the
defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a
unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet
Union; March 1991 - military alliance component of
the pact was dissolved; July 1991 - last meeting of
the political consultative body took place.
June 7, 1955
- Eisenhower becomes first President to appear on color TV.
July 6, 1955 - South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem declares in a broadcast that
since South Vietnam had not signed the Geneva Agreements, South
Vietnam was not bound by them. Although Diem did not reject the
"principle of elections," he said that any proposals from the
communist Viet Minh were out of the question "if proof is not
given us that they put the higher interest of the national
community above those of communism.
July 9, 1955
- E. Frederic Morrow joined Eisenhower's White Hose as
Administrative Officer for Special Projects from 1955 to 1961;
first black executive on White House staff.
July 11, 1955
- Congress authorizes all U.S. currency to say "In God We Trust".
July 21, 1955
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents his "Open Skies" plan at
the 1955 Geneva summit meeting with representatives of France,
Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The plan, though never
accepted, laid the foundation for President Ronald Reagan's later
policy of "trust, but verify" in relation to arms agreements with
the Soviet Union.
July 22, 1955
- Richard Nixon became first Vice President to preside over
cabinet meeting.
August 4, 1955
- Eisenhower authorizes $46 million for construction of CIA
headquarters.
August 12, 1955
- President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour.
September 8, 1955
- United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New
Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed the mutual
defense treaty that established the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO).
August 28, 1955 - While
visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an
African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting
with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white
woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound
cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered
him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to
death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw
his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the
river. Three days later, his corpse was recovered but was so
disfigured that Mose Wright could only identify it by an initialed
ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly, but Till's
mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago. After
seeing the mutilated remains, she decided to have an open-casket
funeral so that all the world could see what racist murderers had
done to her only son. Jet, an African American weekly magazine,
published a photo of Emmett's corpse, and soon the mainstream
media picked up on the story. Less than two weeks after Emmett's
body was buried, Milam and Bryant went on trial in a segregated
courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. There were few witnesses
besides Mose Wright, who positively identified the defendants as
Emmett's killers. On September 23, the all-white jury deliberated
for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of "not guilty,"
explaining that they believed the state had failed to prove the
identity of the body. Many people around the country were outraged
by the decision and also by the state's decision not to indict
Milam and Bryant on the separate charge of kidnapping. The Emmett
Till murder trial brought to light the brutality of Jim Crow
segregation in the South and was an early impetus of the African
American civil rights movement.
September 16, 1955
- Effective date of the coming into force in the United States of
the Universal Copyright Convention as signed at Geneva,
Switzerland, on September 6, 1952. Proclaimed by President
Eisenhower.
September 19, 1955
- President Juan Domingo Peron of Argentina was ousted after a
revolt by the military;
1943 - he was a leader of a group of military
conspirators that overthrew Argentina's ineffectual civilian
government. Requesting for himself the seemingly minor cabinet
post of secretary of labor and social welfare, he began building a
political empire based in the labor unions; 1945 -
he was also vice president and minister of war in the military
regime. October 9, 1945 - arrested by enemies in the
navy; October 17 - released;
October 21 - marries Eva
Duarte (Evita); 1946 - won a narrow, but complete, election victory;; came to power with
the backing of the working classes, became increasingly
authoritarian as Argentina's economy declined in the early 1950s; Evita served an important role in the government, unofficially
leading the Department of Social Welfare and taking over her
husband's role as caretaker of the working classes. She was called
the "First Worker of Argentina" and "Lady of Hope," and was
instrumental in securing passage of a woman suffrage law;
1950 - Argentina's postwar export boom tapered off, and
inflation and corruption grew; 1951 - reelected,
came more conservative and repressive and seized control of the
press to control criticism of his regime. July 1952
- Evita died of cancer, and support for President Per n among the
working classes became decidedly less pronounced. June 1955
- Church leaders excommunicated him or trying to force the
separation of church and state, encouraging a clique of military
officers to plot his overthrow. September 19, 1955 -
the army and navy revolted, and Peron was forced to flee to
Paraguay. 1960 - he settled in Spain. 1972
- Peron was allowed to visit Argentina. March 1973 -
Peronists won control of the government in national elections, and
Peron returned in June amid great public excitement and fighting
among Peronist factions. October 1973 - Peron was
elected president in a special election; his wife, Isabel Peron,
an Argentine dancer he married in 1961, was elected vice
president. July 1, 1974 - Peron died, his wife
became president of a nation suffering from inflation, political
violence, and labor unrest. March 1976 - she was
deposed in an air-force-led coup, and a right-wing military junta
took power that brutally ruled Argentina until 1982.
October 26, 1955
- Ngo Dinh Diem declares that pursuant to the wishes of the South
Vietnamese people, as evidenced in a national referendum a few
days before, the Republic of Vietnam is now in existence and that
he will serve as the nation's first president. The referendum
balloting was an embarrassment to all concerned (except Diem).
Diem received 98.2 percent of the vote. (Just a short time
earlier, President Eisenhower had criticized elections in Iron
Curtain countries, claiming that no one receives over 90 percent
of the vote in a truly free election.) Charges of corruption were
immediately raised, and it was soon discovered that the 400,000
voters in Saigon cast over 600,000 ballots. Nevertheless, Diem
succeeded. Bao Dai was out, and Diem's rule was complete. The
United States, despite some qualms about exactly how "democratic"
Diem's government would be, recognized the new president. The
nation of South Vietnam was now a reality, and the United States
had committed itself to its new government and leader. The event
marked a crucial step in the deepening U.S. involvement in
Vietnam, and gave evidence of some troubling aspects that would
characterize Diem's eight years in power.
October 26, 1955
- The U.S. Air Force officially proclaimed that there were no such
things as flying saucers.
November 2, 1955
- David Ben-Gurion forms Israeli government.
December 1, 1955
- Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defied the law by refusing to
give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus.
Ms. Parks was arrested, setting off a yearlong boycott of the
buses by blacks. December 20,
1956 - Montgomery's buses
were desegregated and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was called off
after 381 days. Rosa Parks was among the first to ride the newly
desegregated buses.
December 5, 1955
- Two of the nation's largest labor organizations, the American
Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations decided to join forces. AFL president George Meaney
ascended to the top spot of the newly formed AFL-CIO.
February 16, 1956
- Britain abolishes death penalty.
February 25, 1956
- Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late
Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in
Moscow.
March 23, 1956
- Pakistan became an independent republic within the British
Commonwealth.
May 20, 1956
- United States conducts the first airborne test of an improved
hydrogen bomb, dropping it from a plane over the tiny island of
Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The successful test
indicated that hydrogen bombs were viable airborne weapons and
that the arms race had taken another giant leap forward. The
Limited Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963 by the United States, the
Soviet Union, and Great Britain, prohibited open-air and
underwater nuclear testing.
June 23, 1956
- Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt which became a
one-party socialist state with Islam as the official religion. One
month later, President Nasser faced a major crisis when the United
States and Great Britain reversed their decision to finance a high
dam on the Nile River in light of an Egyptian arms agreement with
the USSR. In response, Nasser nationalized the British and
French-owned Suez Canal, intending to use tolls to pay for his
high dam project. At the end of October 1956, Israel, Britain, and
France attacked Egypt in a joint operation. The Suez Canal was
occupied, but Soviet and U.N. pressure forced Israel, Britain, and
France to withdraw, and the Suez Canal was left in Egyptian hands
in 1957. The episode greatly enhanced Nasser's prestige in the
Arab world, and in 1958 he oversaw the unification of Egypt and
Syria as the United Arab Republic, of which he became president.
1961 - Syria withdrew from the entity following a
military coup, leaving Egypt alone. Nasser was a consistently
popular leader during his 18 years in power. His economic policies
and land reforms improved the quality of life for many Egyptians,
and women were granted many rights during his tenure. His
ascendance ended 2,300 years of rule by foreigners, and his
independent policies won him respect not just in Egypt but
throughout the world.
June 29, 1956
- President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law the Highway Revenue
Act of 1956 (June 26, 1956 - Senate approved the bill by a vote of
89 to 1; House approved the bill by a voice vote); outlined a
policy of taxation with the aim of creating a fund for the
construction of over 42,500 miles of interstate highways; plan
called for $50 billion over 13 years (total federal budget
approached $71 billion). To pay for the project a system of taxes,
relying heavily on the taxation of gasoline, was implemented
(consumers pay 18.3¢ per gallon today). Eisenhower thought of the
Federal Interstate System as his greatest achievement. 1919
- push for a national highway system began when the privately
funded construction of the Lincoln Highway began.
July 26, 1956
- Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez
Canal. hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a
massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late
October, and British and French troops landed in early November,
occupying the canal zone. Under Soviet, U.S., and U.N. pressure,
Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces
departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the
canal and reopened it to commercial shipping.
July 30, 1956
- Two years after pushing to have the phrase "under God" inserted
into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
signs a law officially declaring "In God We Trust" to be the
nation’s official motto. The law, P.L. 84-140, also mandated that
the phrase be printed on all American paper currency. The phrase
had been placed on U.S. coins since the Civil War when, according
to the historical association of the United States Treasury,
religious sentiment reached a peak. Eisenhower’s treasury
secretary, George Humphrey, had suggested adding the phrase to
paper currency as well. The first paper money with the phrase "In
God We Trust" was not printed until 1957.
August 16, 1956
- Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago.
August 22, 1956
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon
were nominated for second terms by the Republican National
Convention in San Francisco.
October 15, 1956
- William J Brennan, Jr. appointed to Supreme Court.
October 23, 1956 -
Conference on the Statute of the International Atomic Energy
Agency passed the Statute of the IAEA;
July 29, 1957
- International Atomic Energy Agency established within the United
Nations.
October 23, 1956
- Thousands of Hungarians erupt in protest against the Soviet
presence in their nation and are met with armed resistance.
protests erupted into violence as students, workers, and even some
soldiers demanded more democracy and freedom from what they viewed
as an oppressive Soviet presence in Hungary. Hungarian leader Erno
Gero, an avowed Stalinist, only succeeded in inflaming the crowds
with praise for the Soviet Union's policies. Furious fighting
broke out in Budapest between the protesters and Hungarian
security forces and Soviet soldiers. In the next few days,
hundreds of protesters in Budapest and other Hungarian cities were
killed in these battles. Gero appealed for additional Soviet
assistance and this was forthcoming in the form of an armored
division that rolled into Budapest. Street fighting escalated in
response to the Russian show of force. In an attempt to quell the
disturbances, Communist Party officials in Hungary appointed Imre
Nagy (who had earlier fallen out of favor with Party members) as
the new premier. Nagy asked the Soviets to withdraw their troops
from the capital so that he could restore order. Russian forces
complied and withdrew from Budapest by November 1, but tensions
remained high.
October 26, 1956
- The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency was formed.
October 29, 1956
- Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the Suez Canal
crisis; initiated the Suez Crisis. October 31 -
French and British forces joined them in the canal zone, took
control of the area around the Suez Canal, creating a serious Cold
War problem in the Middle East. The catalyst for the joint
Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt was the nationalization of
the Suez Canal by Egyptian leader General Gamal Abdel Nasser in
July 1956. The Israelis struck first, but were shocked to find
that British and French forces did not immediately follow behind
them. Instead of a lightening strike by overwhelming force, the
attack bogged down. The United Nations quickly passed a resolution
calling for a cease-fire. The Soviet Union began to issue ominous
threats about coming to Egypt's aid. A dangerous situation
developed quickly, one that the Eisenhower administration hoped to
defuse before it turned into a Soviet-U.S. confrontation. Soviet
leader Khrushchev railed against the invasion and threatened to
rain down nuclear missiles on Western Europe if the
Israeli-French-British force did not withdraw. The Eisenhower
administration's response was measured. It warned the Soviets that
reckless talk of nuclear conflict would only make matters worse,
and cautioned Khrushchev to refrain from direct intervention in
the conflict. However, Eisenhower also gave stern warnings to the
French, British, and Israelis to give up their campaign and
withdraw from Egyptian soil. Eisenhower was personally furious
with the British, in particular, for not keeping the United States
informed about their intentions. The United States threatened all
three nations with economic sanctions if they persisted in their
attack. The threats did their work. The British and French forces
withdrew by December; Israel finally bowed to U.S. pressure in
March 1957. While the U.S. action helped to avoid an escalation of
the conflict in the Middle East, the damage to relations with
France, Britain, and Israel took years to repair.
November 4, 1956
- Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to stop Hungary's movement
away from the communist bloc. Vicious street fighting broke out,
but the Soviets' greater power insured the doom of the rebels.
After the deaths and injuries of thousands of Hungarians, the
protests were finally put down. Nagy was captured shortly
thereafter and was executed two years later. The Soviet action
stunned many people in the West. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
had pledged a retreat from the Stalinist policies and repression
of the past, but the violent actions in Budapest suggested
otherwise. Inaction on the part of the United States angered and
frustrated many Hungarians. Voice of America radio broadcasts and
speeches by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles had recently suggested that the United States
supported the "liberation" of "captive peoples" in communist
nations. Yet, as Soviet tanks bore down on the protesters, the
United States did nothing beyond issuing public statements of
sympathy for their plight.
November 5, 1956
- Britain and France landed troops in Egypt during fighting
between Egyptian and Israeli forces around the Suez Canal.
November 6, 1956
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected; beat Democrat
Adlai E. Stevenson.
November 13, 1956
- United States Supreme Court declared Alabama and Montgomery
laws requiring segregated buses illegal; ended the Montgomery Bus
Boycott.
December 5, 1956
- Under pressure from the United States and the United Nations,
British and French forces occupying the Suez Canal in Egypt began
their withdrawal from Egypt.
December 18, 1956
- Japan was admitted to the United Nations.
January 5, 1957
- In response to the increasingly tense situation in the Middle
East, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a proposal to
Congress that calls for a new and more proactive U.S. policy in
the region. The "Eisenhower Doctrine," as the proposal soon came
to be known, established the Middle East as a Cold War
battlefield; Egypt leader Gamal Nasser - anti-western nationalism,
increasingly close relations with the Soviet Union; July
1956 - Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal, prompted
coordinated attack by French, British, and Israeli military on
Egypt; Eisenhower did not ask for a specific appropriation of
funds at the time; nevertheless, he indicated that he would seek
$200 million for economic and military aid in each of the years
1958 and 1959; summer 1958 - civil strife in Lebanon
led that nation's president to request U.S. assistance; nearly
15,000 U.S. troops were sent to help quell the disturbances (first
action taken in name of Eisenhower Doctrine).
January 10, 1957
- Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Great Britain
following the resignation of Anthony Eden.
March 6, 1957
- The former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and
Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.
March 8, 1957
- Egypt took over control of the Suez canal and reopened it to
international commercial shipping, following Israel's withdrawal
from occupied Egyptian territory under pressure from the United
Nations, Britain and France; canal was so littered with wreckage
from the Suez Crisis that it took weeks of cleanup by Egyptian and
United Nations workers before larger ships could navigate the
waterway. July 1956 - Egyptian President Gamal Abdel
Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would
pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In
response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French
troops landed in early November, occupying the canal and other
Suez territory. 1967 - Egypt shut down the canal
again following the Six Day War and Israel's occupation of the
Sinai peninsula.1975 - Egyptian President Anwar
el-Sadat reopened it in 1975 after peace talks with Israel.
February 17, 1957
- Andre Gromyko was installed as Soviet Foreign Minister.
March 25, 1957
- France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and
Luxembourg signed two treaties in Rome. One created the European
Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for the common and peaceful
development of Europe's nuclear resources. The other created the
EEC. In the Common Market, trade barriers between member nations
were gradually eliminated, and common policies regarding
transportation, agriculture, and economic relations with nonmember
countries were implemented. Eventually, labor and capital were
permitted to move freely within the boundaries of the community.
The EEC, the ECSC, and Euratom were served by a single council of
ministers, representative assembly, and court of justice. In 1967,
the three organizations were fully merged as the European
Community (EC).
June 30, 1957
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation closed following Eisenhower's
1953 signing of the RFC Liquidation Act into law; effectively
stripped the organization of its duties as a lender. Formed in
1931 by President Hoover to prop up the nation's struggling banks
and businesses, blossomed under FDR - made disbursements to
America's burgeoning defense industry, as well as cash-strapped
foreign governments. 1951 - riddled with corruption.
July 3, 1957
- Nikita Khrushchev takes control in the Soviet Union by
orchestrating the ouster of his most serious opponents from
positions of authority in the Soviet government. Removed the three
main challengers to his authority: Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgi M.
Malenkov, and Lazar Kaganovich were voted off the presidium and
relegated to minor government positions. Khrushchev's action
delighted the United States, which viewed him as a more moderate
figure in the communist government of Russia. Following Stalin's
death in 1953, the Soviet Union was ruled by a 10-member
presidium. Khrushchev was only one member of this presidium, but
during the following four years he moved steadily to seize total
control.
August 1, 1957
- The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the
North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
August 29, 1957
- Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., ended the longest filibuster in
Senate history after talking for 24 hours, 18 minutes against a
civil rights bill.
August 29, 1957
- Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1957.
September 4, 1957
- Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to
prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in
Little Rock, AR. Fully armed, the troops kept the Negroes from the
school grounds while an angry crowd of 400 white men and women
jeered, booed and shouted, "go home, niggers." Several hundred
militiamen, with guns slung over their shoulders, carrying gas
masks and billy clubs, surrounded the school. In a news conference
in his office, Governor Faubus said he would not permit Negroes to
enter white schools in this city, despite the order from the
Federal District Court. He insisted that he was not flouting the
court's orders, but acting to preserve peace and to prevent
bloodshed. The Governor declared that he would not cooperate with
the Federal agents now investigating his use of troops to block
integration here. Meanwhile, Mayor Woodrow W. Mann of Little Rock,
the capital of Arkansas, denounced Governor Faubus for having sent
the militia into the city. The open defiance of a Federal Court
order by the Governor is the first time that the issue of Federal
versus state authority has been reached on the integration
problem. This action set the stage for the first major test of the
United States Supreme Court's decision of May, 1954, that racial
segregation in schools is unconstitutional.
September 9, 1957
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the first civil
rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction.
September 19, 1957
- The United States conducted its first underground nuclear
test, in the Nevada desert; detonated in a horizontal tunnel,
about 47 meters (1600 feet) into the mesa and 274 meters (900
feet) beneath the top of the mesa.
September 21, 1957
- Olav V, becomes king of Norway.
September 25, 1957
- Under escort from 300 troops from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne
Division, nine black children were escorted to Central High School
in Little Rock, Arkansas, days after unruly white crowds had
forced them to withdraw. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor
Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops
to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration. The
President's decision to send troops to Little Rock was reached at
his vacation headquarters in Newport, R.I. It was one of historic
importance politically, socially, constitutionally. For the first
time since the Reconstruction days that followed the Civil War,
the Federal Government was using its ultimate power to compel
equal treatment of the Negro in the South. During the day and
night 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne Division were flown to
Little Rock. Charles E. Wilson, Secretary of the Defense, ordered
into Federal service all 10,000 members of the Arkansas National
Guard.
October 4, 1957
- The Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik
(Russian word for "satellite"), the first man-made satellite, into
orbit from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic.
Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and
circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000
miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point
from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143
miles. January 1958 - Sputnik's orbit deteriorated, as expected,
and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. Soviet space
program went on to achieve a series of other space firsts in the
late 1950s and early 1960s: first man in space, first woman, first
three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon,
first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to
soft-land on the moon.
October 10, 1957
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to Komla Agbeli
Gbdemah, the finance minister of Ghana, after the official had
been refused service in a Dover, DE restaurant.
October 21, 1957
- President Eisenhower decided to embark on a speaking tour in an
effort to bolster the nation's sagging economic spirit and
generate support for his economic and defense policies. Ike called
on Americans to "cast aside any morbid pessimism" about the
nation's fiscal future and to reaffirm their faith in private
enterprise.
November 3, 1957
- The Soviet Union launched into orbit Sputnik 2, the second
manmade satellite; a dog on board named Laika was sacrificed in
the experiment.
November 7, 1957
- The final report from a special committee called by President
Dwight D. Eisenhower to review the nation's defense readiness,
headed by Ford Foundation Chairman H. Rowan Gaither, indicates
that the United States is falling far behind the Soviets in
missile capabilities, and urges a vigorous campaign to build
fallout shelters to protect American citizens. Report concluded
that the United States was in danger of losing a war against the
Soviets. Only massive increases in the military budget,
particularly an accelerated program of missile construction, could
hope to deter Soviet aggression. It also suggested that American
citizens were completely unprotected from nuclear attack and
proposed a $30 billion program to construct nationwide fallout
shelters. President Eisenhower was less impressed with the report.
Intelligence provided by U-2 spy plane flights over Russia
indicated that the Soviets were not the mortal threat suggested by
the Gaither Report. Eisenhower, a fiscal conservative, was also
reluctant to commit to the tremendously increased military budget
called for by the committee. He did increase funding for the
development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and for civil
defense programs, but ignored most of the other recommendations
made in the report. Democrats instantly went on the attack,
charging that Eisenhower was leaving the United States open to
Soviet attack. By 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F.
Kennedy was still hammering away at the supposed "missile gap"
between the United States and much stronger Soviet stockpiles.
December 6, 1957
- America's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit blew
up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
December 17, 1957
- The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas
intercontinental ballistic missile.
January 1, 1958
- Treaties establishing the European Economic Community went into
effect.
January 31, 1958
- The United States entered the Space Age with its first
successful launch of a satellite into orbit, Explorer I.
February 5, 1958
- Clifton R. Wharton confirmed as first U.S. black foreign
ambassador (Romania).
February 5, 1958
- Gamel Abdel Nasser was nominated to become the first president
of the new United Arab Republic.
March 17, 1958
- The U.S. launched its first object into space from Cape
Canaveral, Florida; developed from scratch in only 2 years, 6
months, and 8 days, three-pound Vanguard I satellite carried a
radio transmitter, orbited every 107.9 minutes; still in orbit as
a complete high-performance three-stage launching vehicle, a
highly accurate worldwide satellite tracking system, an adequate
launching facility and range instrumentation.
March 27, 1958
- Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev ( 63-year-old former mine mechanic
before joining the Soviet Communist Party in 1918) became Soviet
premier in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party
(first leader since Joseph Stalin to simultaneously hold the
USSR's two top offices); elected Mr. Khrushchev chairman of the
Council of Ministers- the Premier- to succeed Marshal Nikolai A.
Bulganin, who submitted his resignation; Supreme Soviet was told
at once that the new Premier would remain First Secretary and
therefore leader of the ruling Communist party; acknowledged
architect of all Soviet foreign and domestic policies but the
leader of the disciplined party ranks and the extensive
ministerial apparatus that administers and enforces the policies.
April 2, 1958
- The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics was renamed
NASA.
April 28, 1958
- Vice President Richard Nixon begins goodwill tour of Latin
America.
May 1, 1958
- President Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law
in the creation of the United States of America. Three years
later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution
establishing May 1 as Law Day. The American Bar Association
defines Law Day as: "A national day set aside to celebrate the
rule of law. Law Day underscores how law and the legal process
have contributed to the freedoms that all Americans share." The
language of the statute ordaining May 1 calls it "a special day of
celebration by the American people in appreciation of their
liberties and… rededication to the ideals of equality and justice
under law…." Law Day celebrates the legal construct for the
determination of rights that the revolutionary leaders of the
1770s, hoping to prevent the sort of class warfare that went on to
rack Europe form 1789 to 1917, were so eager to create.
May 8, 1958
- Vice President Richard Nixon was shoved, stoned, booed and spat
upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru.
May 13, 1958
- During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President
Richard Nixon's car is attacked by an angry crowd in Caracas,
Venezuelaand and nearly overturned. The incident was the dramatic
highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some
of America's Cold War policies. In the next few months, the United
States increased both its military and economic assistance to the
region. However, it was not until communist Fidel Castro's rise to
power in Cuba beginning in 1959 that the United States truly
realized the extent of discontent and rebelliousness in Latin
America.
May 19, 1958
- The United States and Canada formally established the North
American Air Defense Command.
June 1, 1958
- During a French political crisis over the military and civilian
revolt in Algeria, Charles de Gaulle is called out of retirement
to head a new emergency government. Considered the only leader of
sufficient strength and stature to deal with the perilous
situation, the former war hero was made the virtual dictator of
France, with power to rule by decree for six months. April 28,
1969 - Charles de Gaulle, at 79 years old, retired permanently.
June 16, 1958
- Imre Nagy, a former Hungarian premier and symbol of the nation's
1956 uprising against Soviet rule, is hanged for treason by his
country's communist authorities. 1953 - became
premier of communist Hungary, Nagy enacted a series of liberal
reforms and opposed Soviet interference in his country's affairs.
1955 - removed from office; 1956 -
expelled from the Hungarian Communist Party. October 23,
1956 - in response to the communist backlash against Nagy
and his reforms, Hungarian students and workers took to the
streets of Budapest in anti-Soviet demonstrations. Within days,
the uprising escalated into a full-scale national revolt, and the
Hungarian government fell into chaos. Nagy joined the revolution
and was reinstated as Hungarian premier, but his minister Janos
Kadar formed a counter-regime and asked the USSR to intervene.
November 4, 1956 - a massive Soviet force of 200,000
troops and 2,500 tanks entered Hungary. Nagy took refuge in the
Yugoslav embassy but was later arrested by Soviet agents after
leaving the embassy under a safe-conduct pledge. Nearly 200,000
Hungarians fled the country, and thousands of people were
arrested, killed, or executed before the Hungarian uprising was
finally suppressed. Nagy was later handed over to the regime of
Janos Kadar, who convicted and executed him for treason.
June 16, 1989 - as communism crumbled in Hungary, Nagy's
body was officially reburied with full honors. Some 300,000
Hungarians attended the service.
July 3, 1958
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Rivers and Harbors
Flood Control Bill, which allocates funds to improve flood-control
and water-storage systems across the country. Eisenhower had sent
back two earlier bills to Congress, but was pleased with the
revisions included in Senate Bill 3910. The bill was introduced in
the wake of disastrous and deadly floods caused by Hurricanes
Connie and Diane, which hit the northeastern United States in
August 1955. Bill contained specific provisions for hurricane
flood protection.
July 7, 1958
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill.
July 14, 1958-
Saddam Hussein and Iraqi army
overthrew the monarchy; General Abdul K Kassem formed military
government.
July 29, 1958
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics
and Space Act, which created NASA (from the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics and other government agencies), a
civilian agency responsible for coordinating America's activities
in space. NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union's
October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The
183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited the earth in 98
minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by surprise and
sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending
missiles with nuclear weapons from Europe to America.
November 3, 1957 - the Soviets launched Sputnik II, which
carried a dog named Laika. December 1957 - America
attempted to launch a satellite, called Vanguard, but it exploded
shortly after takeoff. January 31, 1958 - U.
S. launched Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite to successfully
orbit the earth.
September 2, 1958
- National Defense Education Act was signed;
purpose : to ensure a sufficient supply of
scientists, mathematicians, engineers and foreign linguists to
meet the national security mission of the Department of Defense;
established to educate, train, recruit and retain US Citizens in
skills and disciplines considered critical to the national
security mission.
September 22, 1958
- Sherman Adams, assistant to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
resigned amid charges of improperly using his influence to help a
businessman.
October 2, 1958
- Former French colony of Guinea declares its independence with
Sekou Toure as the new nation's first leader. Guinea was the sole
French West African colony to opt for complete independence,
rather than membership in the French Community, and soon
thereafter France withdrew all aid to the new republic. He was
fiercely nationalistic and anti-imperialist, and much of his wrath
and indignation was aimed at the United States for its alliances
with colonial powers such as Great Britain and France and its
refusal to openly condemn the white minority government of South
Africa. Openly courted Soviet aid, money and military assistance.
December 9, 1958
- The anti-Communist John Birch Society was formed in
Indianapolis.
December 18, 1958
- The first communications satellite broadcast was made when
President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Christmas message.
December 21, 1958
- Three months after a new French constitution was approved,
Charles de Gaulle is elected the first president of the Fifth
Republic by a sweeping majority of French voters. The previous
June, France's World War II hero was called out of retirement to
lead the country when a military and civilian revolt in Algeria
threatened France's stability. In 1958, however, a revolt by
French colonists in Algeria led to a severe political crisis in
France, and de Gaulle agreed to head a new emergency government.
Considered the only leader of sufficient strength and stature to
deal with the perilous situation, he was made the virtual dictator
of France, with power to rule by decree for six months. A new
constitution of his design was approved in a national referendum
in September, and on December 21 he was elected president of the
Fifth Republic. During the next decade, President de Gaulle
granted independence to Algeria and attempted to restore France to
its former international stature by withdrawing from the
U.S.-dominated NATO alliance and promoting the development of
French atomic weapons. Student demonstrations and workers' strikes
in 1968 eroded his popular support, and in 1969 his proposals for
constitutional reform were defeated in a national vote. On April
28, 1969, Charles de Gaulle, at 79 years old, retired permanently.
He died the following year.
January 1, 1959
- Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries (popular movement
spearheaded by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement) to victory
over Fulgencio Batista (strong man of Cuban politics for most of
the period since 1933, came to power in 1952) who resigned as
President of rebellion-torn Cuba and fled to exile in the
Dominican Republic. The rebel forces of Fidel Castro moved swiftly
to seize power throughout the island.
January 3, 1959
- President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to
the Union as the 49th state (an anti-climactic end to a
forty-two-year struggle for statehood); President Williams Howard
Taft signed the forty-eighth statehood proclamation--on
Arizona--on February 14, 1912; 1741 - Europeans
discovered Alaska when a Russian expedition led by Danish
navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland; 1860s
- a nearly bankrupt Russia decided to offer Alaska for sale to the
United States, which earlier had expressed interest in such a
purchase; March 30, 1867 - Secretary of State
William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of
Alaska for $7.2 million (though roughly two cents an acre, Alaskan
purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's
folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar
bear garden."); 1898 - discovery of gold brought a
rapid influx of people to the territory.
January 7, 1959
- The United States recognized Fidel Castro's new government in
Cuba; six days after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista
dictatorship in Cuba; despite fears that Fidel Castro, whose rebel
army helped to overthrow Batista, might have communist leanings,
the U.S. government believed that it could work with the new
regime and protect American interests in Cuba; new government,
temporarily headed by provisional president Manuel Urrutia;
February 16, 1959 - Fidel Castro, who was sworn in as the
premier of Cuba; relations between Cuba and the United States
almost immediately deteriorated as U.S. officials realized that
Castro wielded the real power; his policies concerning the
nationalization of American-owned properties and closer economic
and political relations with communist countries convinced U.S.
officials that Castro's regime needed to be removed.
February 6, 1959
- The United States successfully test-fired for the first time a
Titan intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral.
February 16, 1959 - Fidel Castro was sworn in as
prime minister of Cuba.
February 19, 1959
- An agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting
Cyprus its independence.
March 18, 1959
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill.
April 9, 1959
- NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts
for project Mercury: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn,
Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.
April 15, 1959
- Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived in Washington, DC, to begin a
goodwill tour of the United States; four months after leading a
successful revolution in Cuba; became clear that President Dwight
D. Eisenhower had no intention of meeting with Castro; met with
Vice President Richard Nixon. In less than a year, President
Eisenhower ordered the CIA to begin arming and training a group of
Cuban exiles to attack Cuba (the disastrous attack, known as the
Bay of Pigs invasion, was eventually carried out during the
Kennedy administration). The heated Cold War animosity between
America and Cuba would last for over 40 years.
April 25, 1959
- The St Lawrence Seaway was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth
II and President Eisenhower, linking the Atlantic with ports on
the Great Lakes.
May 20, 1959
- Japanese-Americans regain their citizenship.
June 17, 1959
- Eamon de Valera elected President of Ireland.
June 26, 1959
- St. Lawrence Seaway officially opened in a ceremony presided
over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth
II; created a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all
the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks,
and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles,
from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to
Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior. 1954 - Work on
the massive project was initiated by a joint U.S.-Canadian
commission.
July 4, 1959
- America's 49-star flag, honoring Alaskan statehood, was
officially unfurled.
July 5, 1959
- David Ben-Gurion's Israeli government resigns.
July 24, 1959
- During a visit to the Soviet Union, Vice President Richard M.
Nixon got into a discussion at a U.S. exhibition with Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev that was dubbed the ''kitchen debate.''
Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev
debated in public today the merits of washing machines,
capitalism, free exchange of ideas, summit meetings, rockets and
ultimatums. Mr. Nixon cut a symbolic red ribbon and formally
opened the American National Exhibition. He said the fair was
representative of the American way of life and called for peaceful
competition, spiritual as well as material, between the United
States and the Soviet Union. The exchanges started in Mr.
Khrushchev's quiet offices in the Presidium Building of the
Kremlin. They reached a high point in an hour-long debate in the
kitchen of a model house at the exhibition, and they wound up with
laughs, finger-shakings and more argument at the formal opening of
the exhibition. In the course of the discussion, Mr. Khrushchev
accused Mr. Nixon of trying indirectly to threaten the Soviet
Union. Mr. Nixon rejoined that Mr. Khrushchev, by saying that the
Soviet Union had better weapons than the United States, was also
making an indirect threat. But both agreed that each nation wants
peace.
July 28, 1959
- In preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first
Chinese-American, Hiram L. Fong, to the Senate and the first
Japanese-American, Daniel K. Inouye, to the House of
Representatives.
August 21, 1959
- President Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming
Hawaii the 50th state of the union.
August 24, 1959
- Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in
as the first Chinese-American U.S. senator, while Daniel K. Inouye
was sworn in as the first Japanese-American U.S. representative.
September 4, 1959
- Congress passed The Labor Reform Act; move to reign in the
nation's unions.
September 11, 1959
- Congress authorized the first U.S. food stamps.
September 14, 1959
- Soviet space vehicle Lunik 2 became the first manmade object to
reach the moon when it impacted with the lunar surface;
October 7, 1959 - Lunik 3 flew around the moon and
transmitted back to Earth the first images of the dark side of the
moon.
September 15, 1959
- Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet head of state to
visit the United States. Khrushchev announced that he had arrived
in America "with open heart and good intentions. The Soviet people
want to live in friendship with the American people."
September 19, 1959
- Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev explodes with anger when he
learns that he cannot visit Disneyland. The incident marked the
climax of Khrushchev's day in Los Angeles, one that was marked by
both frivolity and tension. Government authorities feared that the
crowds would pose a safety hazard for the premier. Khrushchev,
still fuming about the debate with Twentieth Century Fox President
Spyros P. Skouras, exploded. "And I say, I would very much like to
go and see Disneyland. But then, we cannot guarantee your
security, they say. Then what must I do? Commit suicide? What is
it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have
gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me?" Khrushchev
left Los Angeles the next morning.
October 21, 1959
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order
transferring the brilliant rocket designer Wernher von Braun and
his team from the U.S. Army to the newly created National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). on Braun oversaw
construction of the large Saturn launch vehicles that kept the
United States abreast of Soviet space achievements in the early
and mid 1960s.
December 1, 1959 -
Representatives of 12 countries, including the United States,
unanimously signed the Antarctica Treaty in Washington; set
aside Antarctica (region equal in area to Europe and the United
States combined) as a scientific preserve, free from military
activity; banned military activity and weapons testing; first
arms control agreement signed in the Cold War period.
January 2, 1960
- Sen. John F.
Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
February 1, 1960
- Four black college students (freshmen at North Carolina
Agricultural and Technical College) began a sit-in protest at a
lunch counter at a downtown variety store in Greensboro, NC, where
they'd been refused service. About 4:45 P.M. they entered the F.
W. Woolworth Company store on North Elm Street in the heart of
Greensboro. Mr. Joseph said he bought a tube of tooth paste and
the others made similar purchases. Then they sat down at the lunch
counter. The students then asked a white waitress for coffee. "I'm
sorry but we don't serve colored here," they quoted her. The four
students sat, coffee-less, until the store closed at 5:30 P. M.
Then, hearing that they might be prosecuted, they went to the
executive committee of the Greensboro N.A.A.C.P. to ask advice.
April 23, 1960
- Brazil inaugurated its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the
seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro.
May 1, 1960
- The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane
conducting espionage over the Soviet Union near Sverdlovsk and
captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. The incident derailed an
important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower
and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later
that month. The CIA assured President Eisenhower that the Soviets
did not possess anti-aircraft weapons sophisticated enough to
shoot down the high-altitude planes. The CIA reassured the
president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was
equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any
wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill
himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the U.S.
government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather
plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in
the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev
pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by
producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but also
the captured pilot-very much alive. A chagrined Eisenhower had to
publicly admit that it was indeed a U.S. spy plane. May 16, a
major summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great
Britain, and France began in Paris. Issues to be discussed
included the status of Berlin and nuclear arms control. As the
meeting opened, Khrushchev launched into a tirade against the
United States and Eisenhower and then stormed out of the summit.
The meeting collapsed immediately and the summit was called
off. Eisenhower considered the "stupid U-2
mess" one of the worst debacles of his presidency. The pilot,
Francis Gary Powers, was released in 1962 in exchange for a
captured Soviet spy.
May 6, 1960
- President Eisenhower signs Civil Rights Act of 1960.
May 7, 1960
- Leonid Brezhnev, one of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's most
trusted proteges, is selected as Chairman of the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet--the Soviet equivalent to the presidency (replaced
Marshal Kliment Voroshilov). This was another important step in
Brezhnev's rise to power in Russia, a rise that he later capped by
taking control of the Soviet Union in 1964. Brezhnev held that
post for 18 years until his death in 1982.
May 10, 1960 - John F. Kennedy wins primary in West
Virginia.
May 16, 1960
- Eisenhower and Khrushchev arrived in Paris to begin a summit
meeting. In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American (CIA)
U-2 spy plane and capturing of the pilot, Gary Francis Powers, on
May 1 (United States issued public denials that the aircraft was
being used for espionage, claiming instead that it was merely a
weather