THE COLD WAR The Cold War at its Most Intense
LATE 1950s Aerospace-Defense Industry Launched in Orange County
OCTOBER 1957 The Soviet Sputnik in Space
FEBRUARY 1956 Nikita Khrushchev Introduces “De-Stalinization”
JULY 1955 Disneyland Opens in Anaheim
Figure 48. President Eisenhower addresses the nation during a public school integration crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. Image courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration.
MAY 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
Democratic Party in 1952 and elected General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower to the presidency. The architect of Allied victory in Europe during World War II, later army chief of staff, president of Columbia University, and NATO’s first supreme commander, Ike endorsed President Truman’s foreign policy and had originally entered the race for the Republican nomination to prevent Senator Robert Taft and isolationist compatriots from securing control of the party. A moderate critic of the New Deal and Fair Deal, Ike placated conservatives by choosing the outspoken anti-communist Senator Richard M. Nixon of California as a running mate. Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson in November by amassing 55.2% of the popular vote. SEE FIGURE 48 APRIL 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick Identify DNA Structure The science of human genetics was substantially transformed when in April 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick, then of Cambridge University, published a paper describing the structure of the DNA-helix. In the 1940s the American scientist Oswald Avery and several colleagues had demonstrated that genes were made up of nucleic acid and that DNA carries genetic information. Watson and Crick now showed
JUNE 25, 1950 Korean War
MARCH 1954 U.S. Explodes Hydrogen Bomb
The Soviet Union and the United States had forces in Korea when Japan collapsed in 1945, and neither was willing to abandon occupied territories. As a result, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel. Moscow supported a communist regime in the North and Washington backed a nationalist government in the South. On June 25, 1950, North Korea, encouraged by both Russia and China, launched a massive surprise attack across the parallel aimed at seizing control of the country. President Truman asked the United Nations Security Council to authorize a defensive “police action” — which the UN could do because the Soviet Union opted to be absent — and immediately committed American troops. The ensuing military struggle surged up and down the peninsula for more than three years. Together with the earlier fall of China to the communists and the successful testing of a Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, the Korean War led to rearmament of the United States and a more intense phase of the Cold War. NOVEMBER 1952 Dwight Eisenhower Elected President Wearied by two years of bloody struggle in Korea and frustrated with the continuing Cold War, the American public became disenchanted with the
JULY 1953 Conflict in Korea Ends with Armistice
APRIL 1953 James Watson & Francis Crick Identify DNA structure
NOVEMBER 1952 Dwight Eisenhower Elected President
JUNE 25, 1950 Korean War
THE COLD WAR AT ITS MOST INTENSE
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