Partition of Germany into the Soviet socialist (East) and German Democratic Republic (West).
1949 CE
Partition of Kashmir.
1949 CE
People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong established.
1949 CE
The Republic of China relocates to Taiwan. The exodus of the remnants of the Kuomintang-ruled government of the Republic of China to the island of Taiwan in December 1949, at the end of the Chinese Civil War.
1949 CE
On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union secretly detonates its first atomic bomb.
1950 CE
North Korea invaded South Korea, June 1950. At least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. The Korean War (1950-1953).The Colombo Plan, a multilateral fund, to boost Asian economic and social development.
1952 CE
Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II, in 1952, at the age of 25.  |
| Photo of Queen Elizabeth II in Royal Dress. c1953 |
1952 CE
A hydrogen bomb, a type of nuclear bomb, was detonated on November 1, 1952, by the United States. 1952 CE
First effective polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk.
1953 CE
DNA was first identified in the late 1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher and many other scientists added to the information about the DNA molecule. James Watson and Francis Crick were able to use these findings to determine the three-dimensional double helix structure of DNA in 1953.
1953 CE
Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, 29 May 1953.
1954 CE
Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional.
1955 CE
Nikita Khrushchev in control of the Soviet Union.
1955 CE
The first antiprotons were created by Berkeley Lab's Bevatron in 1955, at the energy particle accelerator.
1955 CE
Warsaw Pact, a collective defense treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955.1955 CE
The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. The communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
1956 CE
The Hungarian Revolution.
1957 CE
Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, world's first artificial satellite.
1957 CE
The Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (or EEC).
1958 CE
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established in 1958.
1959 CE
The Great Chinese Famine, between the years 1959 and 1961.
1959 CE
Independence of Cyprus.
1959 CE
World population reaches 3 billion.
1959 CE
World population reaches 3 billion.
1960 CE
The combined oral contraceptive pill, first approved for contraceptive use in the United States, in 1960. |
| A combined oral contraceptive pill that includes a combination of Gestodene (79%) and Ethynylestradiol (21%). |
1960 CE
The independence of seventeen African nations.1960 CE
European Free Trade Association formed.
1960 CE
The Sino-Soviet split.
1961 CE
Mao's Great Leap ends after tens of millions of deaths, with estimates ranging between 18 million and 45 million deaths.
1961 CE
Construction of the Berlin Wall.
1962 CE
The Cuban Missile Crisis. A dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
1962 CE
Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the first American orbital spaceflight, which took place on February 20, 1962.
1963 CE
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington.
1963 CE
Assassination of John F. Kennedy.
1964 CE
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, USA.
1964 CE
Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface.
1965 CE
Joseph Mobutu becomes dictator of the Congo.
1965 CE
Indonesia's anti-communist purge, kills hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.
1965 CE
Singapore separated from Malaysia, 9 August 1965, to become an independent and sovereign state.
1965 CE
Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of the Philippines. He ruled as a dictator under martial law from 1972 until 1981.
1965 CE
The Indonesian army destroyed Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI), after a group calling themselves the “30th September Movement”, kidnapped six generals in a mismanaged attempt to weaken the army.
1966 CE
The Cultural Revolution, in China under Mao, from 1966 until 1976; purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. The Guangxi Massacre (cannibalism also occurred) and many were persecuted or died during the Cultural Revolution. Chinese paintings were torn apart, and Chinese temples were desecrated.
1967 CE
A social phenomena, the summer of 1967, when thousands of young supporters of the counterculture flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.
1967 CE
Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria.
1968 CE
Assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
1967 CE
Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria.
1968 CE
Assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
1968 CE
Leonid Brezhnev sent a massive invasion force to crush the Prague Spring.
May 1968 protests in France.
The three-decade conflict between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British or Protestant), called the Troubles begins in Ireland.
1969 CE
The Stonewall riots, a series of violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community against a police raid on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City.
1969 CE
Muammar Gaddafi overthrows King Idris of Libya in a Coup d'état.
1969 CE
Woodstock music festival was held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York.
1969 CE
The Boeing 747 revolutionized air travel.
1968 CE
Followers of Charles Manson's cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski's Beverly Hills, California, home,
1970 CE
1970 CE
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1971 CE
1971 CE
1972 CE
1972 CE
1973 CE
More than a million people died in Nigeria as a result of the civil war.
1970 CE
The Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the bombing in neutral Cambodia by United States military forces.
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan.
Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda.
Mass shooting occur on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, dubbed Bloody Sunday, when British soldiers shoot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment, without trial.
First Sudanese Civil War.
Chilean coup d'état.
1973 CE
Arab–Israeli War.
1973 CE
Watergate break-in and coverup led to the impeachment of President Nixon for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.
1973 CE
Skylab was the first space station operated by the United States.
1973 CE
Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.
1974 CE
Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Many Greek-Cypriots became internally displaced people.
 |
| Greek Cypriot prisoners taken to Adana camps in Turkey |
1974 CE
Portugal begins transition to democracy.
1974 CE
Discovery of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) in Tanzania.
World population reaches 4 billion in 1974.
1975 CE
The Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War.
1975 CE
Victory for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More than a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime. Khmer Rouge regime overthrown, 1979.
1976 CE
First outbreak of the Ebola virus.
1976 CE
Steve Wozniak invented the Apple I computer and sells it to Steve Jobs. In the following year, the introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers.
1977 CE
Launch of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts,
1978
Artificial insulin is invented.
1978 CE
900 members of James Jones cult die in a mass murder-suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch.
1978 CE
First test-tube baby.
1978 CE
Cambodian-Vietnamese War begins. Uganda–Tanzania War begins. War in Afghanistan (1978–present).
1978 CE
China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, implemented a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms. In the following year, implementation of China's One-child policy.
1978 CE
China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, implemented a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms. In the following year, implementation of China's One-child policy.
 |
| Deng Xiaoping, 6 April 1976 |
1979 CE
Smallpox eradicated.
1979 CE
Soviet–Afghan War begins.
1979 CE
The Iran hostage crisis, a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran.
1979 CE
A partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and radiation leak, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
1980 CE Rhodesia, becomes Zimbabwe and gains independance.
1980 CE
Iran–Iraq War.
1980 CE
Azaria Chamberlain goes missing from a tent in a campground near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory, Australia.
1980 CE Rhodesia, becomes Zimbabwe and gains independance.
1980 CE
Iran–Iraq War.
1980 CE
Azaria Chamberlain goes missing from a tent in a campground near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory, Australia.
1980 CE
John Lennon is fatally shot in front of his New York City home by crazed fan.
1981 CE
First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle.
1981 CE
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place on Wednesday 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK.
1981 CE
The AIDS epidemic officially begins.