5000 Years of History. Wisdom. Heritage. Vision.
IMPORTANT DATES AND EVENTS IN THE MODERN AGE 1946 – 1965 1946 Beginning of the “cold war” and the modern age. 1947 NATO is formed; Berlin blockade; Tito defies Stalin; Russian purge trials. 1949 US. Spy trials initiated; communists gain control of China. 1950 War breaks out in Korea. 1952 Eisenhower elected President . 1953 Death of Stalin; he is succeeded by Malenkov; East Berlin revolt put down by Russian troops; a truce is signed in Korea. 1954 The French withdraw from Indochina; the Army-McCarthy hearings mark McCarthv’s decline in influence: the U.S. Supreme Court rules that school segregation is unconstitutional. 1955 Bulganin succeeds Malenkov. 1956 Martin Luther King leads Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott; Gomulka becomes premier of Poland; Khrushchev severely criticizes Stalin; the Suez crisis in Egypt; Hungarian revolt suppressed by Russian troops; President Eisenhower is re-elected. 1957 Russia launches Sputnik I, first successful space satellite. 1958 Khrushchev succeeds Bulganin as premier of Soviet Union; first American satellite is launched; Castro ousts Batista from Cuba. 1960 Belgians leave the Congo, causing turmoil; John F. Kennedy is elected President. 1961 Cuban exiles land at Bay of Pigs but are defeated; Kennedy increases role of U.S. in Vietnam; Berlin crisis; civil rights demonstrations in the U.S.; Russia puts a man into space. 1962 Kennedy confronts Khrushchev in Cuban missile crisis; East Germans build Berlin wall; Pope John calls Ecumenical Council; U.S. sends astronaut into space. 1963 The U.S. and Russia sign a test ban treaty; President Kennedy is assassinated and is succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson. 1964 The Civil Rights Act is passed by the U.S. Congress; Johnson is elected President by a huge majority; Khrushchev is deposed. 1965 Russian cosmonaut floats in space; Civil Rights voting act is passed in U.S.; President Johnson advances the concept of the “Great Society.”
AS THE SKY darkened over Moscow on the evening of March 5, 1953, thousands of people waited in line before a building called the Hall of Columns. Some of them wept; some carried flowers. Moving slowly and silently toward the…
Stalin had left behind him a world of suspicion, distrust and fear. Suspicion, distrust and fear were as great in his own country as anywhere else, for he had ruled as a dictator and had never set up a definite…
One of the sources of trouble was Cuba. In 1956 a small group of revolutionaries, led by a 29-year-old lawyer named Fidel Castro, rose up against the government of Fulgencio Batista. Batista was perhaps the most brutal dictator in all…
All times are, more or less, times of change, but the changes that took place in the 1950’s and 1960’s were extraordinary. This was particularly true in the part of the world dominated by the Soviet Union. During Stalin’s rule,…
On May 17, 1954, all was quiet and solemn, as it usually is, in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. on that day the Court handed down a decision in the case of Brown…
In the United States election campaign of 1964, President Johnson was the candidate of the Democratic party. His Republican opponent was Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who was known for his controversial stand on many issues. Goldwater called for a…
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union announced to an astonished world that its scientists had launched into orbit an artificial satellite of the earth. The Russians called the satellite “Sputnik,” or little moon. With the invention of the air…