Timeline Unit 13-14

West Virginia	National
1940-1970 West Virginia loses 13 % of its population during the Great Appalachian Outmigration	1940-1968 American population increased over 50%
1944 Clarence Meadows elected governor	1944 Franklin Roosevelt wins his fourth and last presidential election
	1945 FDR dies; World War II ends; United Nations is founded; American union membership reaches an all time high of 35.5% of the workforce
1947-1954 West Virginia coal production decreased 35%	1947 Taft-Hartley Act is passed seen by labor leaders as a direct assault on union power; HUAC begins its investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood; Jackie Robinson integrates major league baseball
1948 Okey Patteson elected governor	1948 Harry S Truman elected president
1950 During a president’s day speech in Wheeling, Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy declares that he has a list of Communists employed by the Federal Government	1950 Korean Conflict begins; over 50,000 American soldiers die in three years of fighting; The "McCarthy hearings" begins, McCarthy’s anti-communist "witch hunt" last until 1954
1952 William C. Marland elected governor	1952 Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower elected president
1953 Governor Marland declaring that "extractive industries have waged war on the children of West Virginia," urges the legislature to pass a severance tax; the legislature refuses and Marland’s speech is considered an act of political suicide	1953 Korean Conflict ends in a stalemate
1954 at a meeting of Southern state governors, Governor Marland is the sole proponent of compliance with the Brown decision; Marland orders West Virginia schools to begin immediate integration and threatens to use troops with disturbances break out in several cities	1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education, declares segregated education "inherently unequal" and orders integration of all U.S. public schools; after the French withdrawal from Indochina, U.S. brokers an agreement to hold popular elections in a "temporarily" divided Vietnam--thus begins U.S. open involvement in Vietnamese affairs
	1955 AFL and CIO merge
1956 Marland’s unpopular actions leads to the election of Cecil Underwood, the first West Virginia Republican governor in 24 years; Underwood is only 34 years old when elected	1956 Eisenhower reelected
1957 Farmington/Mannington disaster kills miners	1957 In Little Rock, Arkansas integration requires the assistance of federal force; Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded with Martin Luther King Jr. as its leader, the guiding spirit of the Civil Rights movement is to be nonviolent resistance to political and economic inequity; Soviet Union launches Sputnik and begins the "space race"
1950s recession and mechanization wreak havoc on West Virginia’s economy, it is listed as one of the poorest states in the U.S., the average income of a West Virginian is only 75% of an average U.S. citizen’s
	1959 Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states; Landrum-Griffin Act passed to help combat corrupt union practices
1960 an article "The Strange Case of West Virginia," in the Saturday Evening Post contrasts the great disparity between wealth and poverty in the state; John F. Kennedy defeats the leading Democratic presidential hopeful, Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia primary, forcing Humphrey out of the race. JFK promises that if elected he will help impoverished West Virginians; Democrat "Wally" Barron	1960 a study finds that 20% of Americans thirty years after the beginning of the Great Depression still live in poverty; JFK defeats Republican Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history
1961 West Virginia creates a Department of Natural Resources	1961 Bay of Pigs invasion embarasses the Kennedy administration; Berlin Wall erected
	1962 Cuban Missile Crisis forces the world to confront the threat of nuclear war
	1963 after a series of self-immolations by Vietnamese monks, the U.S. with JFK’s approval allows the overthrow of South Vietnamese dictator Diem; less than two months later JFK assassinated
1964 Hulett C. Smith elected governor; during Smith administration the rampant corruption of the Barron administration is revealed, 13 high officials of the Barron and Smith administrations go to jail, including former governor Barron	1964 Lyndon "LBJ" Johnson elected president and commits his administration to fulfilling the goals of the Kennedy administration; between 1964 and 1967 Johnson launches the "War on Poverty" and the "Great Society" a series of federal acts and federally funded initiatives designed to address the needs of America’s poor and disenfranchised ex. Economic Opportunity Act; U.S. legislature responds to an incident off the coast of Vietnam with the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution," effectively empowering the U.S. president to wage war without declaring it or seeking Congressional approval; Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, making discrimination in public places illegal
mid-60s VISTA (Volunteers In Service to America) and other reformers arrive in West Virginia and Appalachia to help start local grassroots efforts to fight poverty, illiteracy, political corruption, and industrial pollution	1965 Important social reform acts passed: Voting Rights Act, Medicare Act, Appalachian Development Act; Malcolm X assassinated; Vietnam and social conflicts in America escalate, the long hot summers of 1964-1967 are labeled "Riot Summers"
1966 inspired by the Civil Rights movement the Associations of Disabled Miners and Widows launch a grassroots campaign to fight UMW leadership’s pension gutting policies, and to force recognition of pneumoconiosis or "black lung" as a work related and compensable disease	1966 Clean Rivers Restoration Act passed; National Organization of Women (NOW) founded; in Miranda v. Arizona, U.S. Supreme Court affirms the obligation of police to inform criminal suspects of their rights
1968 Farmington disaster kills 78 men less than 10 miles from the 1957 disaster site. For the first time Americans watch rescue efforts on television, they also see the callous discregard of company and union officials; Arch Moore elected governor	1968-1969 the reaction of UMW president Tony Boyle inspires Joseph A. "Jock" Yablonski to challenge Boyle for Union presidency; Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are assassinated; Richard Nixon elected president
1969 West Virginia has 43,000 working and 51,000 disabled miners; under pressure from the Black Lung Association, West Virginia recognizes "black lung" as a compensable illness under workers’ compensation laws	1969 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act passed; the U.S. is first nation to land men on the moon; Jock Yablonski, his wife and daughter are found murdered; despite promising to end the war, the Nixon administration expands the war into Laos and Cambodia
1970 Governor’s Succession Amendment passed, allowing the governor to succeed himself	1970 4 people are killed when National Guard attempts to control a demonstration at Kent State, Ohio, ten days later at Jackson State University in Mississippi, police kill to African American students
	1971 after 21 years, People’s Republic of China finally awarded "China’s" seat on the UN Security Council
1972 a containment dam breaks in Buffalo Creek, Logan County killing 125 people; Arch Moore reelected governor	1972 Watergate break-in; Nixon reelected
	1973 Arab Oil embargo; Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigns and is succeeded by Gerald Ford; War Powers Act rescinds the broad powers of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and limits the power of the president to commit troops without Congressional approval
	1973-1975 worst recession since World War II hits U.S.
1974 Study finds that 25 corporation owns 44% of land in 14 main coal producing counties	1974 President Nixon becomes first U.S. President to resign, Ford succeeds him
	1975 South Vietnam falls, Vietnam war ends with 58,000 U.S. dead
1976 "Jay" Rockefeller elected governor	1976 U.S. celebrates bicentennial; "Jimmy" Carter elected president
1977 "100 year" flood devastates southern West Virginia; one-third of buildings in Matewan, Mingo county destroyed	1977 Alaskan pipeline completed; Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act passed
	1978 Comprehensive National Energy Act passed, requiring all new electricity plants to be fueled with coal
	1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident; Environmental Protective Agency created, Shah of Iran toppled, over 50 American Embassy personnel taken hostage
1980 Rockefeller wins reelection	1980 Ronald Reagan elected president
	1981 On inauguration day Iranian hostages are set free
1982 Judge Arthur Recht issues decision asserting that state legislature had failed to meet its educational obligations to the children of West Virginia
1984 Arch Moore elected governor; state’s economy in worst shape since the Great Depression; Jay Rockefeller wins U.S. Senate seat	1984 President Reagan reelected
1985 unemployment at 15%, the highest in the nation; legislature passes Business and Job Expansion Act to stimulate outside capital investment	1985 United States become a debtor nation
1986 "Super Tax Credits" offered to promote new investment now extended to businesses already in state --coal companies garner 90% of the benefit of the tax break	1986 union membership now at 17.5% of American workforce
1988 Gaston Caperton elected governor	1988 George Bush elected president
	1989 Berlin Wall dismantled
1990 U.S. reports 2.7 million U.S. citizens born in West Virginia but 1.3 million no longer live here; former governor Arch Moore becomes second West Virginia governor to serve jail time	1990 Soviet Union strips Communist party of its political monopoly; Nelson Mandela released from prison in South Africa
	1991 Gulf War
1992 Governor Caperton reelected	1992 "Bill" Clinton elected president
1994 only 22,000 West Virginia miners, down from a peak over almost 150, 000 less than 50 years before
1996 Cecil Underwood, now 74 elected governor of West Virginia	1996 President Clinton reelected, first Democratic president to do so in 52 years (since FDR last election in 1944)