1964

Surgeon General Luther Terry’s report on tobacco and health initiates a sustained government effort to reduce smoking.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination in public accommodation.

Civil rights workers James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are murdered near Meridian, Mississippi.

The National Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964 is signed into law; its purpose is to set aside large, federally owned tracts of land to be left undeveloped.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution outlaws poll taxes.

In Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, the Supreme Court rules unconstitutional discrimination in the provision of services to anyone based on race.

Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union, is found guilty of fraud and other charges.

Climatologists Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wether-ald predict the rise in global temperatures that comes to be known as the greenhouse effect.

The U. S. Supreme Court decision Escobedo v. Illinois establishes that a suspect in police custody has a right to consult counsel during an interrogation.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, which registers thousands of blacks to vote.

Cassius Clay wins the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship by beating Sonny Liston; the next day, Clay announces he has converted to Islam and taken the name Muhammad Ali.

Republican presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater’s “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty” speech blames the Democratic Party for communist gains in Cuba, Europe, and Southeast Asia, as well as for violence and corruption in the United States.

Lyndon B. Johnson wins the presidential race against Republican Barry Goldwater in a landslide.

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” speech outlines a plan for the most comprehensive social reform since the New Deal.

U. S. Congress passes The Gulf of Tonkin Resolu-tion, which authorizes the president to take military action in Vietnam; U. S. aircraft begin bombing raids in North Vietnam.

The Mississippi Freedom Party challenges the right of the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegates to represent the state in the Democratic National Convention.

The Warren Commission Report states that President Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed; it prohibits discrimination at the polls, in federally assisted programs, and in public accommodations.

The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 establishes VISTA, the Job Corps, Head Start, and the Community Action Program (CAP).

Seventy-three million people watch the Beatles’ U. S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 establishes a system of subsidies for farmers who retire land from cultivation on a long-term basis.

U. S. Congress passes the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, providing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Black civil rights leader Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City; later that year, Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X is published, inspiring young black radicals.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leads the Selma-Mont-gomery March; two white demonstrators are killed, and other marchers are brutally beaten. Dr. King threatens an economic boycott of Alabama.

A race riot in the Watts section of Los Angeles kills 34 people and results in the arrest of 3,400.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is established to investigate claims of employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The House Un-American Activities Committee opens a public investigation of the Ku Klux Klan.

Students at the University of California at Berkeley sponsor rallies, sit-ins, and strikes demanding the right to organize politically on campus; the protests are the forerunners of the nationwide student revolution.

Author and playwright Leroi Jones, known after 1968 as Amiri Baraka, founds the Black Arts Repertory in Harlem.

U. S. Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, mandating that the federal government closely monitor voter registration in each state.

U. S. Congress passes the Water Quality Act of 1965, which requires the states to set standards of quality for streams within their borders.

Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic; the United States sends troops. The crisis produces the Johnson Doctrine, which states that an American president can use military force whenever communism threatens the Western Hemisphere.

U. S. Congress passes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which improves educational opportunities by providing $1.3 billion in federal aid to schools with large numbers of children from low-income families.

U. S. Congress passes the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which provide federally funded health insurance for the elderly (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid).

U. S. Congress passes the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 to rehabilitate existing housing stock and create new public housing units.

U. S. ground troops land in South Vietnam; they engage in combat against North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas.

U. S. Congress passes the Appalachian Regional Development Act as the centerpiece of President Johnson’s War on Poverty.

U. S. Congress passes the Immigration Act of1965, which sets annual limits of 120,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere, but no national quotas, and sets annual limits of 170,000 immigrants from the rest of the world.

Activist Ralph Nader publishes Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of automotive safety in America.

The American Association of Advertising releases a study finding that TV ads exert more influence over consumer behavior than do print advertisements.

U. S. Congress passes the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act to reduce smog.

1966

In Miranda v. Arizona, the U. S. Supreme Court extends federal constitutional protections to defendants in state criminal trials.

James Meredith is shot and wounded during his Freedom March.

Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panthers in Oakland, California.

Organized by Cesar Chavez, two unions merge to form the United Farm Workers.

The Alianza Federal de Mercedes occupies Kit Carson National Forest, asserting land rights granted to Mexican Americans by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

The federal minimum wage is extended to farmworkers.

The National Organization for Women is founded with Betty Friedan as president.

Truman Capote publishes his “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood; it is the first of its genre.

Stokely Carmichael, chair of SNCC, rallies demonstrators at a march in Mississippi around the demand for “Black Power.”

U. S. Congress passes the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966.

In Reynolds v. Sims, the Supreme Court holds that legislative districts must be apportioned on the basis of population.

1967

The Young Lords, a militant Puerto Rican group, is established in Chicago for community self-defense.

Muhammad Ali refuses to be drafted and urges other blacks to resist induction into the military.

Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American justice on the U. S. Supreme Court.

Sixty countries sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Young Chicanos for Community Action forms in Los Angeles to fight against injustice in Mexican-American communities.

U. S. Congress passes the Air Quality Act of 1967, which establishes a regional system for the enactment and enforcement of federal and state air quality standards.

Three U. S. astronauts are killed when their Apollo spacecraft bursts into flames in a test prior to launching.

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales publishes the epic poem Yo Soy Joaquin (I am Joaquin), which inspires thousands of young Chicanos to demand their civil rights.

1968

The American presence in Vietnam peaks at 550,000 troops.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is founded in Minneapolis by Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, Eddie Benton Banai, and George Mitchell.

The National Trails Act establishes the National Trails System as part of an extended effort to preserve the U. S. landscape.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; riots erupt in more than 100 U. S. cities.

In Epperson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court overturns an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution.

President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that he will not run for reelection.

Robert F. Kennedy, former U. S. attorney general and brother of John F. Kennedy, is assassinated during his presidential campaign.

Street battles break out between police and protesters outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 gives Native Americans the right to form tribal governments and limits states’ ability to govern Native American lands.

In his presidential nomination acceptance speech, Richard Nixon attacks Johnson’s “Great Society” program and lays out his foreign policy goals.

Republican Richard Nixon is elected president over Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey.

Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launch surprise attacks on U. S. and South Vietnamese units during the Tet holiday; the attacks are beaten back, but the Tet Offensive increases antiwar sentiment in the United States.

J. Edgar Hoover names the Black Panthers the most dangerous black extremist organization in America.

Under threat of federal antitrust litigation, IBM divides its programming and hardware operations.

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 seeks to preserve America’s wild waterways.