| •1940–1960 | Migration to Sun Belt swells region's population |
| •1944 | Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill) |
| •1945–1960 | U.S. gross national product soars 250 percent; 60 percent of Americans achieve middle-class status; union membership reaches new high |
| •1947 | Taft-Hartley Act |
| President's Committee on Civil Rights issues To Secure These Rights |
| Jackie Robinson becomes the first black baseball player to enter the major leagues |
| •1954–1958 | Eisenhower adopts Modern Republicanism and expands domestic programs |
| •1954 | Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court ruling |
| Operation Wetback |
| •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 |
| •1957 | Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers form Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) |
| School desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, enforced |
| Soviet Union launches Sputnik |
| •1960 | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed |