Jamaal Interactive Timeline

1950-1970 Historical Events

 In the year 1950 the Korean war which was called the Cold War, broke out between North Korean and South Korea.  It is said that his war lasted for three years.  In North Korea the Chinese armies and the Soviet Union helped, while The U.S. came to aid South Korea.  The reason for this war was that North Korea wanted to take over the South.  Another concern was that they did not want the spread of communism.  (communism is a political system in which the government controls all the production of food and goods and there is no privately owned property)  In 1951, they began talks for  peace between the North and South but the fight continued.

John F Kennedy often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his death in 1963.  John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m.  Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly sounded in the plaza.  Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.  Kennedy was fatally shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade.  Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was also hit in the chest.   

On July 20th 1969 an American Astronaut by the name of Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon and uttered the immortal words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  Neil Alden Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.  On July 16th 1969, Apollo 11 Launched from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 in Merritt Island, Florida carrying Neil A. Armstrong , 

 Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience.  In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.  King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. 

On April 4, 1968  Dr King was shot dead in the southern US city of Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions  He was shot in the neck as he stood on a hotel balcony and died in hospital soon afterwards.

On September 26, 1960 in Chicago the first Presidential debate was held between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.  The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th  presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. The Republican Party nominated  Vice-President Richard Nixon, while the Democratic Party nominated John F. Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts.  John F. Kennedy, a democratic and his home state was  Massachusetts.  Richard Nixon was a republican and his home state was California.  It is said that, that night about 70 million Americans watched as Nixon and Kennedy met on stage.  This was history in the making.  They both had eight minute openings statements and in addition reporters who questioned them