Significant Historical Events by Decade 

1940s

  • President Roosevelt left office and President Truman took office in 1945
  • The defense alliance NATO was established on April 4, 1949
  • The invention of Velcro, Tupperware, the Frisbee, the Slinky and the microwave oven
  • The movie "It's a Wonderful Life"  was released in 1946
  • Orson Welles directed, produced and starred in "Citizen Kane" in 1941
  • “The Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank came out in 1947
  • “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (the book) by George Orwell came out in 1949
  • Trousers slowly replaced dresses and wedges replaced more traditional heels due to shortages in stockings and gasoline
  • Jackie Robinson signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945 signifying the integration of Major League Baseball
  • The 1940 and 1944 Olympic Games were cancelled because of World War II and resumed in the summer of 1948

1950s

  • Truman left office in 1953 and Eisenhower took office
  • Sputnik I, the first artificial Earth satellite, was launched on October 4, 1957
  • In 1959 Alaska (January 3rd ) and Hawaii (August 21st ) became new states of the United States
  • NASA is organized
  • In 1955 Jonas Salk invented a polio vaccine which was given to more than seven million American students
  • By the end of the 50s, most American households owned a TV set
  • “You Belong To Me” was the #1 song of 1952 on the Billboard Top 100 chart
  • The "Golden Era" of 3-D cinematography happened during the 1950s
  • The Chevrolet Corvette becomes the first car to have an all-fiberglass body in 1953
  • In the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll
  • Marilyn Monroe performing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” in 1953

 1960s

  • Kennedy was President from 1961 to 1963; Lyndon Johnson took office after Kennedy was assassinated until 1969 when Nixon became our 37th President
  • Though the war started two years earlier in 1961 substantial (approximately 700) American advisory forces first arrive in Vietnam
  • The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963
  • 1964 – Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This landmark piece of legislation in the United States outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment
  • On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11, the first human spaceflight landed on the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin
  • The compact Ford Mustang, launched in 1964, was one of the decade's greatest successes 
  • 1964 – 8-track tape audio format was developed
  • Woodstock Festival in upstate New York, August 15 – August 18, 1969
  • Motown Record Corporation was founded in 1960
  • The bikini finally came into fashion in 1963 after being featured in the film “Beach Party”

1970s

  • Nixon resigned as President in 1974 while facing charges for impeachment for the Watergate scandal; Gerald Ford was President from 1974 – 1977 and Jimmy Carter was President from 1977 – 1981
  • Microwave ovens and VCR’s became commercially available
  • Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Betty Ford, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Robin Morgan, Kate Millet, Elizabeth Holtzman, amongst many others, led the movement for women's equality
  • Australian-American singer Helen Reddy, recorded a song called "I Am Woman", which became an anthem for the women’s liberation movement. "I Am Woman" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and even won Helen her one and only Grammy Award
  • The mid-1970s also saw the rise of disco music which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the Bee Gees, ABBA, Village People, Donna Summer and KC and the Sunshine Band
  • 1977 brought many high-profile biographical works of literary figures, such as those of Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Some Oscar winning movies of the decade were “The Godfather” (1972), “The Godfather Part II” (1974), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” (1975), “Rocky” (1976), and “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979).
  • HBO launched on November 8, 1972 becoming the nation's first pay-television channel
  • The highest-grossing film of the decade was “Star Wars” (1977)
  • Bell-bottoms and platform shoes remained popular throughout the decade

1980s

  • Ronald Regan was our 40th President from 1981-1989; George H. W. Bush became President in 1989 
  • In 1983 the U.S. led an invasion of Grenada
  • The Reagan Administration accelerated the War on Drugs publicized through anti-drug campaigns including the “Just Say No” campaign of First Lady Nancy Reagan
  • Nintendo  would claim 90% of the American video game market by 1989
  • Popular video games include Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong and Frogger
  • Significant hairstyle trends of the 1980s include the Perm (started popularity in the late 1970s), the Mullet (evolved from the 1970s to a cleaner look using hair gel), the Jheri curl, the Flattop, the Hi-top fade and Big hair
  • Girls wore Jelly Shoes, large crucifix necklaces and brassieres - all inspired by Madonna's "Like a Virgin" video
  • MTV was launched in 1981 and music videos began to have a larger effect on the music industry
  • Madonna and Whitney Houston were regarded as the most ground-breaking female artists of the decade 
  • Oscar winners:  “Ordinary People” (1980), “Chariots of Fire” (1981), “Gandhi” (1982), “Terms of Endearment” (1983), “Amadeus” (1984), “Out of Africa” (1985), “Platoon” (1986), “The Last Emperor” (1987), “Rain Man” (1988) and “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989)
  • "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) was the highest-grossing film of the decade
  • “Seinfeld” premiered on NBC in 1989 and soon thereafter became a commercial success and cultural phenomenon, and one of the most popular sitcoms of all time
  • “The Cosby Show” aired for the first time on September 20, 1984 and became TV's biggest hit in the 1980s; it almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes and still remains one of the most popular sitcoms of all time
  • Basketball player Michael Jordan bursts onto the scene in the NBA during the 1980s, bringing a surge in popularity for the sport and becoming one of the most beloved sports icons of all time
  • On June 8, 1986 the Boston Celtics defeat the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the 1986 NBA Finals to capture a record 16th championship; Larry Bird is named Finals MVP
  • Michael Jackson was considered one of the most successful male Pop and R&B artists of the 1980s

1990s

  • Bill Clinton was president from 1993 through the remainder of the decade
  • The last decade of the 20th century and the 2nd millennium
  • This decade is seen as a time of great prosperity in the United States under the Presidency of Bill Clinton.  The U.S economy experiences its longest period of peace time economic expansion during the decade beginning in 1991.  Personal incomes doubled from the recession in 1990, and there was higher productivity overall
  • Y2K spread fear throughout the United States and eventually the world in the last half of the decade, particularly 1999, about possible massive computer malfunctions on January 1, 2000.  As a result, many people stocked up on supplies for fear of a worldwide disaster.  Eventually no globally significant computer failures occurred when the clocks rolled over into the year 2000
  • Digital cameras became commercially available
  • The World Wide Web had only just been invented, and the first web browser went online in 1993   
  • “Titanic” becomes a cultural phenomenon throughout the world, and eventually becomes the highest grossing film of all time, grossing over $1.8 billion worldwide  
  • “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” was published on June 30, 1997 which was the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard 
  • “The Rachel,” Jennifer Aniston's hairstyle on the hit show “Friends”, became a cultural phenomenon with millions of women copying it worldwide 
  • The Spice Girls became one of the biggest global pop acts of the decade 

2000s

  • George W. Bush remained our 43rd President from January 2001 to January 2009
  • Wireless internet became prominent by the end of the decade, as well as internet access in devices besides computers, such as mobile phones and gaming consoles
  • Email became a standard form of interpersonal written communication, with popular addresses available to the public on Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail
  • The iPod launched
  • February 4, 2004 – Facebook launches; it eventually became the most popular social networking site in the world
  • January 20, 2009 – Barack Obama became the nation’s first African-American President of the United States 


The following information was gathered from Wikipedia and is meant as a general reference for Reunion Weekend only.