U.S. Capitol Historical Society

1774-1799 | 1800-1824 | 1825-1849 | 1850-1874 | 1875-1899 | 1900-1924 | 1925-1949 | 1950-1974 | 1975-Modern

1950	February	9	Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin addressed a crowd in Wheeling, West Virginia stating that he held a list containing 205 names of known communist working in the State Department: "It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer - the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in government we can give."
	June	1	Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine spoke in opposition to McCarthy's statements. "I think that it is high time we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation."
	June	25	Ambassador Muccio told the United States State Department that the North Korean army had invaded South Korea. President Truman soon intervened without seeking Congressional approval.
	August		Senator Estes Kefauver's Subcommittee to Investigate Interstate Crime began to hold hearings on government corruption which attracted nationwide attention.
	September	23	Congress passed the McCarran Act over President Truman's veto, providing for the registration of Communist and Communist-front organizations and for the internment of Communists during national emergencies.
1951	February	27	The 22^nd Amendment limited the presidency to two terms.


1953	January	20	Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican, was inaugurated the 34th President, having defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. Richard M. Nixon became vice president.
	February	9	Joseph McCarthy chaired a special Senate subcommittee designed to hold highly publicized investigations of communist influence in the government.
	February	9
	October	1	The Mutual Defense Treaty between the US and the Republic of Korea was signed.
1954	March	1	Five Congressmen were shot on the floor of the House of Representatives by Puerto Rican nationalists.
	May	17	Army-McCarthy hearing: Chief Attorney for the Army Joseph N. Welch "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?"
	December	2	The Senate voted 67-22 to condemn Senator McCarthy for "conduct contrary to senatorial traditions."
1957	January	20	President Eisenhower was inaugurated for a second term as president, having once again defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
1957	August	30	Senator Strom Thurmond set a record for the longest speech in Senate history, speaking for 24 hours, 27 minutes in a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which allowed federal intervention in court cases involving voting rights.
1960	April	8	The Senate passed the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which survived a filibuster, but only somewhat strengthened the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
1961	January	20	John F. Kennedy, Democrat, was inaugurated as the 35th President, the youngest man to be elected president, having defeated Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy's vice president was Lyndon B. Johnson.
	March	29	The 23^rd Amendment gave the District of Columbia the right to appoint a delegate to the House of Representatives.
	April	17	The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba occurred.
1963	August	28	Dr. Martin Luther King led 200,000 demonstrators in a march down the Mall in Washington to advocate the passage of a civil rights bill by Congress. King gave his famous speech, "I Have a Dream" speech.
1963	November	22	President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, by Lee Harvey Oswald. Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th President.
1964	January	23	The 24^th Amendment gave the right to vote to all citizens regardless of "failure to pay any poll tax or other tax;" it combated the Jim Crow laws of the South.
	June	10	Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader, addressed the Senate supporting the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. "America grows. American changes. And on the civil rights issue, we must rise with the occasion. That calls for cloture and for the enactment of the civil rights bill." By a vote of 71 to 29, the Senate invoked cloture on the bill, ending a 75 day filibuster, the longest in Senate history.
	June	19	Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed Congress; it was the most comprehensive civil-rights bill in the history of the nation.
	August	7	Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing the president to take measures to prevent further communist aggression in Vietnam. It passed unanimously in the House, and with only two dissenting votes in the Senate.
	November	3	President Johnson was elected to a full term as president in a landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater. Hubert H. Humphrey was elected vice president.
1965	February	27	State Department sent the White House a report on the "Aggression from the North" regarding Vietnam.
1965	December	1	The Immigration Act abolished the national quota system.
1966	November	8	Republican Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts became the first African-American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction.
1967	January	10	The 25^th amendment designated specific rules "in case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President," and allowed the president to appoint a new vice president, to be confirmed by Congress, in case of the vice president's death or removal.
1967	January	10
1968	January	23	North Korea seized the U.S.S. Pueblo and its crew of 83 Americans.
		25	President Johnson, acting under the authority of a 1966 amendment to the defense appropriations bill ordered 14,000 Air Force and Navy Air Reserve personnel along with 56,000 military troops to South Korea. It took the Johnson administration eleven months to win the release of the 83 American hostages.
		25
	April	4	Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, TN. His death propelled riots in more than 60 major cities across the nation. Forty-three people died and more than 3,000 were injured.
	April	11	Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which made housing discrimination illegal.
1969	January	20	Richard M. Nixon, Republican was inaugurated the nation's 37th President, having defeated Vice President Humphrey, Democrat, and the segregationist American Independent candidate George C. Wallace. Spiro T. Agnew became vice president.
1971	April	1	The 26^th Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen.
		23	John Kerry delivered a statement to Congress from Vietnam Veteran's against the war.
		25	Dellums Committee Hearings on war crimes in Vietnam started in the House of Representatives.
1972	May	22	The Equal Rights Amendment, establishing equality and forbidding discrimination based on sex, religion, nationality, and color, passed the Senate, but the necessary three-fourths of the states failed to ratify the amendment.
1972	November	7	President Nixon won a landslide re-election over Democrat George McGovern.
1973	January	27	Representatives from the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong met to sign an agreement to end the Vietnam War. However, the agreement failed to restore peace and the war resumed.
1973	October	10	Vice President Agnew, facing indictment for taking bribes while governor of Maryland, was forced to resign. He was replaced by Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan.
1974	August	9	Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th President after Nixon resigned his office, facing impeachment for his involvement in the Watergate Scandal. Congress soon confirmed Nelson A. Rockefeller as Ford's successor as vice president.