Curtis 1950-2000

Front 1

UN enters war with Korea

Back 1

1950

Front 2

Sen. McCarthy charges that communists have infiltrated the State Dept. McCarthy will eventually accuse many prominent Americans of assisting the Soviet Union, including Gen. George Marshall.

Back 2

1950

Front 3

Dennis v. US: SC upholds several Smith Act convictions. The plurality opinion uses the "gravity of the evil discounted by its improbability" test.

Back 3

1951

Front 4

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted for transferring atomic secrets to Soviet Unions. Executed two years later.

Back 4

1951

Front 5

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: (The steel seizure case) The SC prevents the President from seizing control of the steel industry during the Korean War.

Back 5

1952

Front 6

Beauharnais v. Illinois: The SC, in a 5-4 decision, upholds Ill. group libel law.

Back 6

1952

Front 7

Dwight Eisenhower, Republican and WW II hero, is elected President. He captures several Southern states.

Back 7

1952

Front 8

Francis Crick and James Watson publish an article explaining the structure of DNA.

Back 8

1953

Front 9

Pres. Eisenhower appoints Warren to be Chief Justice, replacing Vinson (____ -___). The Warren Court, which lasts until ____, will expand protection for free speech and the rights of those accused of crimes and will strike down gov't-imposed racial discrimination. The SC will also apply most of the still unincorporated BOR guarantees to the states.

Back 9

1953;

Vinson: (1946-1953)

Warren Court lasts until 1969.

Front 10

Korean War ends with a truce that retains the division of Korea between a Communist North and pro-western south.

Back 10

1953

Front 11

US Senate censures McCarthy

Back 11

1954

Front 12

Pres. Eisenhower appoints John Harlan to SC, replacing Jackson (____-___)

Back 12

1954

Jackson: (1941-1954)

Front 13

Brown v. BOE: The SC unanimously holds that racial segregation of public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The SC repudiates Plessy's "Seperate but Equal" standard for education.

After the Brown decision is announces, White Citizen's Council are organized in much of South to oppose school desegregation. Pres. Eisenhower takes no public position on Brown.

Back 13

1954

Front 14

The Montgomery bus boycott begins when Rose Parks refuses to comply with a local segregation ordinance.
Martin Luther King leads the boycott which eventually succeeds and helps trigger a broader civil rights movement.

Back 14

1955

Front 15

Williamson v. Lee Optical: The SC unanimously rejects heightened Equal Protection scrutiny for most purely economic regulation.

Back 15

1955

Front 16

Pres. Eisenhower appoints Brennan to the SC, replacing Minton (____-___)

Back 16

1956
Minton: (1949-1956)

Front 17

A drug company patents the birth control pill.

Back 17

1956

Front 18

92 of 106 southern members of Congress sign a "Southern Manifesto" which labels the Brown decision a "clear abuse of judicial power" and commends those "states which have declared the intention to resist forced integration"

Back 18

1956

Front 19

Congress enacts legislation that inaugurates the interstate highway system.

Back 19

1956

Front 20

Pres. Eisenhower sends federal troops to help desegregate the public schools in Little Rock, AK.

Back 20

1957

Front 21

Roth v. US: The SC holds that obscenity is not protected by the First AMendment b/c it is "utterly w/o redeeming social value." However, all sexual content is not deemed to be obscene.

Back 21

1957

Front 22

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first earth satellite.The US launches its first satellite, Explorer I, three months later.

Back 22

1958

Front 23

Pres. Eisenhower appoints Potter Stewart to the SC, replacing Horold Burton (____-____)

Back 23

1958

Burton: (1945-1958)

Front 24

The microchip is invented. Xerox introduces the plain paper copier.

Back 24

1959

Front 25

Kennedy, age 43, is elected President, defeating incumbent VP, Pres. Richard Nixon

Back 25

1960

Front 26

The "Sit In" Movement begins when 4 black college students in Greensboro, NC refuse to move from a Woolworth lunch counter when denied service. By the next year, more than 70,000 students, whites and blacks, have participated in sit-ins to protest racial discrimination at lunch counters.

Back 26

1960

Front 27

The SC rules that most of the remaining provisions of the BOR (these not yet incorporated) limit the states.

Back 27

19060s

Front 28

Mapp v. OH: the SC holds in 5-4 decisions that federal exclusionary rule, by which evidence seized in violation of the 4th Amendment is typically deemed inadmissible, limits the states. For all practical purposes, this begins a process through which the SC federalized much state criminal procedure by nationalizing nearly every criminal procedural provision of the BOR by 1969. The right to indictment by a grand jury is a notable exception.

Back 28

1961

Front 29

US sends advisors to S.Vietnam, becoming involving in a war between North and South Vietnam that will claim 58,000 Americans lives by 1973.

Back 29

1961

Front 30

The first humans travel in outer space.

Back 30

1961

Front 31

The publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" helps to launch the environmental movement.

Back 31

1962

Front 32

Pres. Kennedy appoints Byron White to SC, replacing Charles Wittaker (____-____). Appoints Arthur Goldberg, replacing Frankfurter (___-___)

Back 32

1962

Whittaker (1957-1962)
Goldberg (1939-1962)

Front 33

The first microcomputer appears.

Back 33

1962

Front 34

Baker v. Carr: The SC recognizes that an Equal Protection challenge to the mal-apportioned state legislative districts is justiciable, holding that the issue is not a "political question." Two years later, the SC announces its "one man vote" standard in Reynolds v. Sims.

Back 34

1962

Front 35

Engel v. Vitale: The SC invalidates a state sponsored school prayer as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Constitutional amendments to reverse the Engel decision are proposed in Congress, but fail.

Back 35

1962

Front 36

The US assumes an ever larger role in Vietnam War (___-___)

Back 36

1963-1973

Front 37

Photos of the use of fire hoses and police dogs on black citizens in Birmingham, AL, many of whom are children, outrage much of the nation and lead to growing support for federal civil rights legislation. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a March on Washington in support of such legislation and delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Back 37

1963

Front 38

Lyndon Johnson assumes the presidency following the assassination of Pres. Kennedy.

Back 38

1963

Front 39

The publication of Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" contributes to the rise of women's rights movement

Back 39

1963