The Most Historical Moments & News Headlines in the 20th Century That Shaped Boomers’ Lives

The 1940s saw men head off to fight in WWII, return years later, and reunite with wives and girlfriends. The resulting reunions led to a boom in pregnancies. Those babies and children born between 1946 and 1964 comprise the Baby Boomer generation. With boomers now in their 60s and 70s, it stands to reason that they've seen a lot of historical moments take place in their lifetime — for better and for worse. News headlines told tales of war and assassination, unrest and an evolving population of political activists.

Here are 20 historical moments in the 20th century that impacted boomers most. In terms of how the list was cultivated, I polled my boomer husband and his friends as well as social media, and these are the events everyone said impacted their lives the most. I'm focusing on historic events, policy changes, and cultural shifts that impacted this generation. They’re organized in chronological order from oldest to most recent. (Also, read more about how those events impacted Baby Boomers’ lives in “17 Ways Baby Boomers Shaped Modern Society.”)

Before Dr. Spock's parenting guide came out in 1946, parents valued strict schedules and avoidance of affection. The adage "Spare the rod, spoil the child" was often followed. Dr. Spock brought a fresh point of view to parenting all of the Baby Boomers who'd been born following WWII. As a pediatrician, he believed a child's emotional needs were important. He suggested flexible schedules and recognition of each child as a unique individual with individual needs.

LGBTQIA+ organizations have a longer history than some realize. The first gay rights organization appeared in 1951 and called itself the Mattachine Foundation. The organization's Statement of Purpose was drafted in 1951 and a newsletter followed in 1955. Around the same time, the Knights of the Clock was founded by Merton Bird and his partner W. Dorr Legg, a bi-racial couple. These men helped launch a movement that is still prominent today. It's a very important part of 20th-century historical events.

The history of thermonuclear weapons goes back to President Truman's decision to hasten the research and production of them following reports that Russia had detonated an atomic bomb. The first H-bomb test occurred in 1952, and Russia followed with its own thermonuclear weapon launching the nuclear arms race. In 1954, a superbomb that could be delivered by aircraft was tested and ended up exposing people on neighboring islands, servicemen, and Japanese fishermen to radioactive fallout.

The CIA started holding illegal experiments on Americans to study the possibility of using drugs in addition to psychological torture in hopes of forcing people into confessing or revealing information through a form of mind control. LSD was one of the drugs used in these experiments. U.S. Army soldiers and college students volunteered for these tests, but there were also tests performed in secret on citizens, including addicts, mental patients, prisoners, and other Baby Boomers.

Polio killed over 3,000 people in 1952. Baby Boomers were young at this point and this outbreak threatened their quality of life. Polio was the worst recorded outbreak in the U.S. at that point in history. If a person survived, they needed leg braces or crutches or artificial respirators like an iron lung for the rest of their life.

Dr. Jonas Salk developed an inactivated polio vaccine in 1955 that was licensed that same day and the mass polio campaign began as children across the U.S. received the vaccine. By 1957, the number of cases dropped from 58,000 per year to 5,600 by the end of the year. As there were problems with the injection, an oral vaccination was developed and by 1961, The disease was eradicated in the U.S. by 1979.

Rosa Parks was secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, NAACP chapter and well-known for her work in the Civil Rights Movement. When she boarded a bus in Montgomery and sat in the front, something she had every right to do. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 providing equal treatment to all citizens in public accommodations and on public transportation. When she refused to go to the back of the bus, she was forcibly removed and put in jail.

This led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After months of protests, integration on public transportation was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1956 requiring drivers to support integration on public transit.

Thalidomide came out in 1953 and was marketed for anxiety, insomnia, and morning sickness. In countries where it was prescribed, miscarriage rates and fetal deformities like malformed organs and missing limbs increased. It's estimated that around the world around 100,000 babies were impacted and of the 10,000 babies who were born, less than 3,000 are still alive as many babies died in the first six months of their lives.

The first mass-produced Barbara Millicent Roberts doll came out in 1959 and changed many girls' lives in the process. Ruth Handler created Barbie after watching her daughter spend hours playing with paper dolls. She designed a doll that girls could play with over and over without worrying about ripping or tearing it past the point of repair. Over the years, Barbie has helped girls realize they could be astronauts, doctors, and engineers.

Fidel Castro took power in 1959 when the nation's current dictator was overthrown. Because of Castro's ties to Russia's Nikita Khrushchev, the U.S. distrusted him. President John F. Kennedy was about to be inaugurated, so the CIA briefed him on their plan to train Cuban exiles to invade Cuba. Castro learned of the training camps, however.

The newly-elected President Kennedy authorized an invasion known as the Bay of Pigs. The first round of bombers missed their targets, so the president canceled the next air strike. Cuba was prepared for a ground strike and killed or captured many of the Cuban exiles.

Fast-forward a year. An American spy plane observed Russian nuclear missile sites being constructed in Cuba. The president ordered a blockade to surround Cuba and keep Russia from bringing in more supplies. A deal was made for Russia to dismantle its weapon sites and the U.S. agreed not to invade Cuba again This established the long-running ban on travel to Cuba and the exchange of goods between the countries.

White and Black men made up the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights activists who traveled around the Southern U.S. to protest segregation. When they reached Birmingham, Alabama, the Public Safety Commissioner didn't want police protection, but he was determined to meet the protestors with violence. He gathered members of the KKK ordered the use of bats, pipes, and metal bars, attack dogs, and fire hoses to stop the protestors.

When he was ordered by the courts to desegregate public facilities and public transportation, Connor closed dozens of parks rather than do as he was ordered. His actions empowered the KKK to continue acting in violence, culminating in a church bombing that killed four children.

My generation remembers when John Lennon was shot and killed. I remember Reagan's assassination attempt. Boomers remember JFK's assassinations. The charismatic JFK was in his motorcade in Dallas when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him. Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.

The truth about the assassination will never be known. Oswald claimed he'd been set up, and conspiracy theories continue today.

While men in the U.S. had been drafted in other wars, the Vietnam War draft was an especially historic moment in Boomers' lives. Many people didn't understand why the U.S. was in Vietnam fighting a war that had little support back home. Young men didn't want to go into battle, so they had the option of being deferred for having an essential job like farming or being a father. Eventually, too many deferments had been issued.

In 1969, President Nixon implemented a draft lottery and announced that no future deferments would be issued after April 23, 1970. If a young man's number was called, he had to enlist. If he didn't and fled the U.S. to avoid the draft, he became a draft dodger and could be arrested. The draft officially ended in 1973.

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. took place as he spoke to the Reverend Jesse Jackson from his hotel room’s balcony. He was rushed to a hospital, but he died an hour later. MLK’s shooter was arrested in London two months later.

The Sharon Tate murders were nothing short of horrific. Boomers couldn't understand what could make someone so evil. Tate was an aspiring actress seen in "Valley of the Dolls," and wife of Roman Polanski. She was almost nine months pregnant with their child when Charles Manson and his cult murdered her and her unborn son as well as three of Tate's friends.

Apollo 11 left for the moon on July 16, 1969, and landed eight days later. This historic event marked the first time humans would walk on the moon. It completed a goal President John F. Kennedy set eight years earlier, and it put the U.S. as the victor in the world's Space Race.

For three days, Baby Boomers and older generations gathered in a New York farm field for a music festival. Performers were numerous and included big names like CCR, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Santana, and many others. Despite negativity from area residents, the music festival was peaceful and there were only three drugs caused by drug overdoses and a tractor accident. That's impressive given that nearly half a million people attended.

Students gathered at Kent State to protest the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Baby boomers learned of the horrors of war through events like the My Lai Massacre where upwards of 500 Vietnamese villagers were slaughtered by U.S. troops a few months earlier.As students protested, tensions escalated. The response was to use tear gas and eventually bring in the Ohio Army National Guard. As days passed, tensions increased until a sergeant and several guardsmen opened fire on students in the crowd. Nine were injured and four died.

Roe v. Wade ended the law that kept women from seeking a legal abortion when necessary. The path to legalizing abortions wasn't easy, but it did pass and gave women and their doctors the right to make a decision that was best for the mother's safety. Unfortunately, it's also a law that was overturned in 2022, which has led to women having to seek medically necessary abortions in other areas again.

The World Trade Center may have fallen during Millennials' lives, but the towers went up during Boomers' lives. Constructed from 1966 to 1975, the towers were the tallest in the world from 1970 to 1973 and a symbol of U.S. prosperity. Baby Boomers also watched the towers burn in 1975 and become the target of two bombings (1993 and 2001), and a bank robbery in 1998 before the tragic events of September 11th.

My final entry for the most historical moments in the 20th century is that the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975. The one big difference is that Baby Boomers who were either drafted and forced to fight or enlisted didn't receive the same fanfare when they returned. While soldiers in WWII were welcomed home with parades and celebrations, many Vietnam War soldiers returned home to find no one waiting because few supported the war from the start, and it had also gone on a long time and wasn't a war that the U.S. won.

There's one other thing that stands out to me about Baby Boomers. Many Boomer moms learned to make quick, easy meals that balanced the need to care for their families while also holding full-time jobs. Here are some of those vintage 1970s recipes that are treasured by Baby Boomers.