TIMELINE

1963

  • John F. Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon B. Johnson assumes presidency

1964

  • Civil Rights Act

  • Economic Opportunity Act inaugurates War on Poverty

  • Free Speech Movement at Berkeley

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

1965

  • Immigration Act abolishes national quota system

  • Medicare and Medicaid programs established

  • Operation Rolling Thunder escalates bombing campaign (March)

  • First U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam

1967

  • Hippie counterculture’s “Summer of Love”

  • 100,000 march in antiwar protest in Washington, D.C. (October)

1968

  • Tet offensive begins (January)

  • Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated

  • Women’s liberation protest at Miss America pageant

  • Riot at Democratic National Convention in Chicago (August)

  • Richard Nixon elected president

1969

  • Stonewall riots (June)

1970

  • National Women’s Strike for Equality

1971

  • Swan v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg approves countywide busing

1972

  • Nixon visits China (February)

  • Nixon wins a second term (November 7)

1973

  • Paris Peace Accords end Vietnam War

1974

  • Milliken v. Bradley limits busing to school district boundaries

1975

  • Vietnam reunified under Communist rule