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• Construction of the Berlin Wall
After World War II, the dividing line between East Germany and West Germany was
established by the closure of the intracity border in 1953. One of the most well-known
symbols of the cold war, the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and stood until it was dismantled in
1989.

The Struggle for Equality

The struggle for equality is an ongoing issue in American life. For the descendants of Africans brought
forcibly to the American colonies, the struggle for civil rights has produced some the country’s most
notable events and figures such as:

• Thurgood Marshall
Appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, Marshall was the first African American
on the Supreme Court. He served for more than twenty years until he retired in 1991.
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
This 1954 Supreme Court decision ended the idea of “separate but equal” education for
African Americans and declared segregation in schools illegal. The court ruled that “separate
educational facitlities are inherently unequal.”
• Civil Rights Act
This landmark legislation made discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national
origin illegal. It put new protections in place for African Americans and signaled the end of
the Jim Crow laws in the South. President Johnson signed the act into law in early July
1964.

Review

• The post–Reconstruction era in the United States was one of industrial and economic
growth. Huge waves of immigrants swelled the country’s population.
• World War I fueled this industrial growth as American industries supplied their own army
and the armies of European allies with equipment, munitions, and vehicles.
• After WWI, the United States became one of the world's most powerful nations.
Throughout the 1920s, people invested heavily in the stock market.
• The stock market crash in 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, which led to high
unemployment rates, inflation, and the closing of thousands of banks and businesses.
• Beginning with FDR’s New Deal, the U.S. economy began to rise out of the Depression.
The recovery was complete when the United States entered World War II; a wartime
economy revitalized American fortunes.
• The cold war was a decades-long conflict between the capitalist United States and its
allies and the communist Soviet Union and its allies.
• The Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, or
national origin.

U.S. History Wrap-Up

While the United States of America is a comparatively young nation, it’s an impossible task to compress
the events and figures of the country into a handful of pages. This review has provided an annotated time
line of events from the colonies through the latter half of the twentieth century. It is recommended that you
use outside readings if more in-depth coverage of certain events or eras is needed.

The following section will review America's government and civic life.