User:Elvrum/McCarthyism

1917

 * November: Bolshevik Revolution.

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led to the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government, the Russian Civil War, and the creation of the Soviet Union. In the United States, it marked the beginning of the first Red Scare, and with the foundation of the American Communist Party in 1919 promptly following a series of bombing attempts on prominent capitalists and politicians, including Alexander Mitchell Palmer, resulted in the controversial Palmer Raids. Anticommunism steadily decreased, particularly with the Communists joining the Allied camp during World War II, but reared its head once again with a series of events that triggered the second Red Scare.

1919

 * July-August: Founding of the American Communist Party.
 * November 7-January 2, 1920: Palmer Raids during Red scare.

1933

 * March: Franklin Delano Roosevelt takes office; New Deal begins.

1935

 * August: Communist International inaugurates Popular Front as antifascist coalition.

1936

 * August: Spanish Civil War begins.

1936-38

 * Through the Moscow purge trials at which Bolshevik leaders were forced to make false public confessions, Stalin liquidated all opposition within the Soviet Communist Party.

The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. They are widely considered to have been show trials in which the verdicts were predetermined. The defendants were accused of conspiring with the western powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union and restore capitalism, according to Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code).

1938

 * August: House Un-American Activities Committee established.

1939
August 24: Nazi-Soviet Pact creates Soviet alignment with Germany until 1941. September 1: World War II begins in Europe.

1940
June 28: Smith Act prohibits teaching or advocating the overthrow of the government.

1941
June 22: Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union returns Communist part to Allied camp. December 7: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

1944
May 20: American Communist party becomes Communist Political Association under Earl Browder.

1945

 * February: At Yalta Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin negotiate postwar settlement for Europe.
 * April: Duclos Letter criticizes American Communists; forces reorganization of American Communist party.
 * April 12: Roosevelt dies; Harry Truman becomes president.
 * May 8: Germany surrenders.
 * June 6: Amerasia case begins with arrest of six journalists and government employees for leaking classified documents.
 * July: American Communist party reorganized; General Secretary Earl Browder expelled. Potsdam Conference settles postwar boundaries of Poland and divides Germany into four Allied zones.
 * August 6: United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
 * August 13: Japan surrenders.
 * September: Igor Gouzenko defects in Canada; reveals Soviet espionage in North America.
 * October 11: Louis Budenz quits Communist party.
 * November: Elizabeth Bentley tells FBI about espionage ring.

1946

 * November: Republicans win majority in Congress.
 * November 25: Truman appoints Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty, which formulates loyalty-security program.

1947

 * March 12: Truman Doctrine proclaimed in presidential request for aid to Greece and Turkey.
 * March 21: Executive Order 9835 creates loyalty-security program for federal employees.
 * June: Marshall Plan proposed for postwar economic in Western Europe.
 * June 18: Taft-Hartley Act curtails unions’ power and Communist leadership of unions.
 * October 27:-30: Hollywood Ten hearings call screenwriters and directors before HUAC.
 * November: Attorney General prepares list of subversive groups.
 * December 3: Waldorf Statement: studios fire Hollywood Ten.

1948

 * January: University of Washington fires three professors.
 * February: Communists take over Czechoslovakia.
 * June: Berlin blockade begins.
 * July 20: Eugene Dennis and 11 other Communist leaders arrested under Smith Act.
 * August: Hiss-Chambers hearings begin HUAC’s pursuit of Communists in government.
 * November: Truman wins reelection.
 * November 17: Chambers reveals stolen government documents.
 * December 2: Chambers gives “Pumpkin Papers” to HUAC.
 * December 15: Alger Hiss indicted for perjury.

1949

 * January 17-October 21: Dennis trial; first Smith Act trial of party leaders results in guilty verdict.
 * January 22: University of Washington regents dismiss three professors for alleged Communist connections.
 * March 4: Judith Coplon arrested on espionage charges.
 * June 12: University of California regents impose loyalty oath on faculty.
 * July: First Hiss trial end in hung jury.
 * Summer: Chinese Communists take over China.
 * August: State Department issues white paper on China.
 * August: Soviet Union detonates atomic bomb.
 * November: CIO convention expels left-led unions.

1950

 * January 21: Hiss convicted of perjury in second trial.
 * February 2: Klaus Fuchs arrested for atomic espionage.
 * February 9: Joseph McCarthy’s speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, alleges presence of Communist agents in State Department.
 * May 23: Harry Gold arrested for atomic espionage.
 * June 15: David Greenglass confesses to espionage and names Julius Rosenberg.
 * June 22: Red Channels blacklists alleged Communists in entertainment industry.
 * June 25: Korean War begins.
 * June-July: Tydings Committee investigates McCarthy’s charges of Communists in government.
 * July 14: Tydings Committee majority report concludes that McCarthy is “a hoax and a fraud.”
 * July 17: Julius Rosenberg arrested for espionage.  (Ethel Rosenberg arrested in August.)
 * August 1: U.S. Court of Appeals upholds convinction of Dennis defendants.
 * September 22: McCarran Act (Internal Security Act) forces registration of Communist organizations; passes over Truman’s veto.

1951

 * February 17: FBI inaugurates Responsibilities Program to weed out communism in state employment.
 * March 6: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial begins.
 * April 5: Judge Irving Kaufman sentences Rosenburgs to death.
 * June 4: Supreme Court upholds convictions in Dennis case.