From Emmett Till to Barack Obama

Little Rock, 1957
Guided by the US Supreme Court's 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education declaring segregation in the public schools to be unconstitutional, civil rights activists registered nine black students at Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School for the academic year beginning in September, 1957. After Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the state national guard to deny the "Little Rock Nine" entry to the school, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to escort them into the building.

• TIME's 2008 Person of the Year
• The Assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr.