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    ›› Eras and Sub-Eras : The Fifties

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Showing results 41 – 50 of 130

Glossary Term – Event

Dwight D. Eisenhower re-elected

Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected over Democratic nominee Adlai E. Stevenson, with 457 electoral votes to Stevenson’s 73.

Glossary Term – Event

Earl Warren appointed chief justice

President Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as chief justice of the United States. Warren presided over groundbreaking Supreme Court cases, including Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona.

Glossary Term – Event

Federal Highway Act

Congress passed the Federal Highway Act, allocating $32 billion to build 41,000 miles of interstate highways. Interstate construction was enacted not only because of Americans’ growing dependence on automobiles but also as a national defense measure, creating a nationwide transportation network for the US military.

Glossary Term – Event

Federal troops sent to Little Rock

President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students enrolling in the previously segregated Central High.

Glossary Term – Event

Fidel Castro took power in Cuba

Fidel Castro led a successful rebellion to overthrow the Cuban government. In 1960 Castro signed an economic pact with the Soviet Union, dashing US hopes for a pro-American government in Cuba.

Glossary Term – Event

First Levittown

Entrepreneur William J. Levitt began building the largest housing project in American history. On a thousand acres on Long Island, Levitt built 17,000 homes to accommodate approximately 82,000 people. Levitt soon began constructing houses using assembly-line techniques to produce many more “Levittowns,” a model for suburban planning that proliferated throughout the United States in the 1950s.

Glossary Term – Event

First “fast food” restaurant

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, California. McDonald’s used an assembly-line-type process in its “Speedee Service System,” creating a new model for fast and cheap restaurant food production.

Glossary Term – Event

Hawaii became a state

President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Hawaii to the Union and revealed the new fifty-star American flag.

Glossary Term – Event

A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway to great success and interest. The play told the story of a black Chicago family trying to move out of the city and into an all-white neighborhood.

Glossary Term – Event

Southern Manifesto

Ninety-six members of the House and Senate signed the “Southern Manifesto” condemning the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and declaring that the decision would have the effect of “destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through ninety years of patient effort by the good people of both races.”