TIMELINE OF EVENTS
| 1940–1960 | Migration to Sun Belt swells region’s population |
| 1945–1960 | U.S. gross national product soars 250 percent; 60 percent of Americans achieve middle-class status; union membership reaches new high |
| 1951–1954 | Alan Freed promotes rock ’n’ roll with radio show and concerts |
| 1953 | CIA coup puts Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in power in Iran |
| 1954–1958 | Eisenhower adopts Modern Republicanism and expands domestic programs |
| 1954 | CIA plot results in a military takeover of Guatemala |
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court ruling | |
| 1955–1956 | Montgomery bus boycott |
| 1955 | Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine Emmett Till murdered |
| 1956 | Grace Metalious publishes Peyton Place |
| National Interstate and Defense Highway Act passed | |
| U.S. begins supporting anti-Communist government of South Vietnam | |
| 1957 | Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers form Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) |
| Eisenhower uses federal troops to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas | |
| Soviet Union launches Sputnik | |
| Congress approves Eisenhower Doctrine | |
| 1958 | Eisenhower sends U.S. marines into Lebanon |
| 1959 | Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba |
| 1960 | U-2 spy plane shot down over Soviet Union |
| Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed | |
| 1960–1961 | U.S. intervenes in civil war in Congo |