1940 |
Booker T. Washington, who died in 1915, becomes the first African American on a postage stamp. He is also placed on the half dollar in 1946. |
1940 |
Surgeon Dr. Charles Drew opens the first blood bank, but can’t give his own blood because he is an African American. |
1940 |
"Bop" music, along with artists Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and Charlie Parker, can be heard in Harlem. |
1941 |
Japanese pilots attack Pearl Harbor and draw the United States into World War II. |
1941 |
Navy messman Dorie Miller shoots down four Japanese fighter planes during the attack, having had no weapons training. |
1941 |
Yankee Joe DiMaggio hits safely in 56 consecutive games. |
1941 |
Ted Williams finishes the season with a .406 batting average, the last time anyone has hit over .400 in a season. |
1942 |
Roosevelt orders 110,000 Japanese Americans to be placed in internment camps. |
1942 |
On July 21, in one of the most famous moments in the history of the Negro leagues, Satchel Paige strikes out Josh Gibson on three pitches with the bases loaded, fulfilling a prediction he had made years earlier. |
1942 |
The Congress Of Racial Equality is founded at the University of Chicago, where students learn to fight racial injustice using Gandhi’s nonviolent methods. It stages its first sit-in a year later. |
1942 |
A riot in Detroit occurs when 1,200 armed white residents try to prevent three black families from moving into a federally designated black housing settlement. |
1943 |
East-West All Star Game draws record crowd of 51,723. The West wins 2-1. |
1943 |
340 Major League players serve in the military, and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League is formed in their absence. |
1944 |
The Allied troops invade Normandy on June 6. |
1945 |
The United States drops atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to end World War II. |
1946 |
Abe Manley dies, making widow Effa Manley sole owner of their Newark Eagles. |
1946 |
The Newark Eagles, led by war veterans Larry Doby and Monte Irvin, defeat the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League World Series in seven games. |
1947 |
Kansas City Monarch Jackie Robinson and Newark Eagle Larry Doby break the color barrier in both the American and National Baseball Leagues. |
1947 |
Willie Mays joins the Birmingham Black Barons. |
1947 |
Only 12% of African Americans living in the South are eligible to register to vote. CORE Freedom Riders test compliance with the desegregation of interstate buses. |
1947 |
The World Series is televised for the first time. |
1948 |
President Truman ends racial segregation in the armed forces. |
1948 |
Baseball legend and Negro Leagues hero Satchel Paige makes his Major League debut, at 42 years of age. He becomes the first black pitcher to throw in the World Series when he starts Game 5 for the Cleveland Indians. |
1948 |
Television hits the mainstream reaches one million homes, as opposed to the 5,000 only 3 years before. |
1949 |
Jackie Robinson wins the National League batting title (.342) and Most Valuable Player. |