1945 to 1974
Secret programs
Radiation and germ tests on people who were not told, MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and the end of the gold standard.
Key facts
- The government injected patients with plutonium, infected 1,308 people in Guatemala, and sprayed bacteria over San Francisco, none with consent.
- The Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed 416 to 0 and 88 to 2. The NSA's historian later found the second attack did not happen.
- COINTELPRO became public in 1971 after files were taken from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania.
Timeline
27 events, oldest first
- 1945April 10, 1945Health, Food & Regulators
First plutonium injection, Ebb Cade, Oak Ridge
Eighteen patients in all, none told.
- 1947September 23, 1947CIA, War & Covert Operations
General Twining tells the Army Air Forces the flying discs are something real and not visionary or fictitious
Air Materiel Command's opinion, three months into the reports; Project Sign followed in December.
- 19481946 to 1948Health, Food & Regulators
U.S. Public Health Service doctors deliberately infect 1,308 people in Guatemala with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid
Only 678 of those exposed were documented as treated; at least 83 subjects died.
- 1950September 20, 1950Health, Food & Regulators
Navy sprays bacteria over San Francisco for a week
Eleven hospitalized, one dead; 239 such tests by 1969.
- 19511951 to 1962Health, Food & Regulators
Nearly 100 atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada
Fallout over every county; 49,000 thyroid cancers by the government's central estimate.
- 1953January 1953CIA, War & Covert Operations
A CIA scientific panel recommends a public program of debunking to reduce interest in flying saucers
The Robertson Panel: television, motion pictures, and popular articles, to reduce the public's gullibility.
- 1953CIA, War & Covert Operations
Frank Olson dies a week after the CIA doses him with LSD
Made public in 1975.
- 1955May 5, 1955CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Air Force's statistical study of 3,201 UFO reports finds 689 unknown, a third of its best-rated reports
Blue Book Special Report No. 14; the summary's 3 percent came from 131 reports of early 1955.
- 19561956 to 1976Housing & Private Equity
Interstates built through Black neighborhoods
More than 475,000 households displaced, by the Transportation Department's estimate.
- 19601960 to 1965CIA, War & Covert Operations
CIA plots to kill Castro, with the help of organized crime
Found by the Senate in 1975.
- 1961September 26, 1961Energy, Utilities & Data Centers
Congress extends the sabotage law to any line the military might use
Public Law 87-306 amended 18 U.S.C. 1362 four months after two men bombed three AT&T stations in Utah. A general had testified that the military had a requirement for all of the network.
- 19621962 to 1971Health, Food & Regulators
19 million gallons of herbicide sprayed over Vietnam
11 million of it Agent Orange.
- March 13, 1962CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Joint Chiefs of Staff send the Secretary of Defense a list of incidents the United States could stage and blame on Cuba to justify an invasion
Three days later the President, told the military had plans for creating plausible pretexts, said they were not discussing the use of military force; the memorandum stayed classified until 1997.
- 1963March 18, 1963Police, Courts & Prisons
Supreme Court: a person too poor to hire a lawyer cannot get a fair trial unless the state provides one
Gideon v. Wainwright, decided unanimously.
- 1964August 7, 1964CIA, War & Covert Operations
Tonkin Gulf Resolution passes 416 to 0 and 88 to 2
Authorizes all necessary measures on the report of an attack the NSA's historian later found did not happen.
- November 21, 1964Surveillance & Privacy
FBI mails Dr. King a surveillance tape and a note
Two days after the Nobel announcement; an agent called it an attempt to destroy his marriage.
- 1969December 4, 1969Surveillance & Privacy
Fred Hampton killed in a raid planned with an FBI informant's floor plan
More than 80 police shots to at most one; a $1.85 million settlement in 1983; no one convicted.
- December 17, 1969CIA, War & Covert Operations
The Air Force closes Project Blue Book with 701 of 12,618 cases unidentified
No threat to national security, no evidence of technology beyond present knowledge, no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
- 1970May 4, 1970Police, Courts & Prisons
Ohio National Guard fires 61 to 67 shots in 13 seconds at Kent State
Four dead, nine wounded; no one convicted.
- September 1970Police, Courts & Prisons
President's commission: unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable
The Kent State shootings.
- 1971March 8, 1971Surveillance & Privacy
Burglars take the files from the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania office
The documents reach the press; COINTELPRO is terminated on April 27.
- August 15, 1971Wall Street & Banking
Nixon ends the dollar's convertibility into gold
A 90 day price and wage freeze, a 10 percent import surcharge, and the assurance that the dollar would be worth just as much tomorrow.
- 1972July 25, 1972Health, Food & Regulators
Associated Press exposes the Tuskegee study
Settled for $10 million; apologized for in 1997.
- 19731973CIA, War & Covert Operations
CIA director authorizes destruction of the MKULTRA records
Seven boxes of invoices survive by a filing error.
- November 7, 1973CIA, War & Covert Operations
War Powers Resolution enacted over a veto
Report in 48 hours, withdraw in 60 days. Treated as a formality since.
- 1974August 14, 1974Wall Street & Banking
Owning gold made legal again after 41 years
Public Law 93-373, effective December 31, 1974.
- September 8, 1974Congress, Elections & Speech
Ford pardons Nixon for anything he may have done in office
A full, free, and absolute pardon; no charge had been filed.
Stories (6)
- 1961 to 1997Operation Northwoods (1962): The Joint Chiefs' Top-Secret Plan to Stage Terror Attacks as a Pretext to Invade CubaOn March 13, 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a top secret memorandum, signed by their chairman, Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, that listed incidents the United States could stage and blame on Cuba to justify invading it. They included staged attacks on the Guantanamo base by friendly Cubans in uniform, blowing up a U.S. ship and blaming Cuba, a "Communist Cuban terror campaign" in Miami and Washington, sinking a boatload of Cuban refugees "real or simulated," and faking the shootdown of a charter airliner by flying an empty drone in its place. The Joint Chiefs wrote it in answer to a request from the head of the administration's covert Cuba program, Operation Mongoose, who said he was asking "in response to direction." Three days later Lemnitzer told President Kennedy that the military had plans for "creating plausible pretexts to use force." Kennedy said "bluntly" that they were not discussing the use of military force, and he approved guidelines saying the program's Cuban resources would be used "to prepare for and justify" an American intervention. The memorandum stayed classified until the Assassination Records Review Board brought it out in 1997.CIA, War & Covert Operations
- 1964 to 2005The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident: How the NSA Faked the Pretext for the Vietnam WarOn August 4, 1964 the government told the country that North Vietnamese boats had attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Three days later Congress passed a resolution, 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate, authorizing the president to take all necessary measures. The National Security Agency's own historian concluded that no attack happened that night, that about 90 percent of the intercepts were left out of the reports sent to the White House, and that what remained was presented so as to fit the claim. The agency kept his study secret until 2005 because officials feared comparisons with Iraq. 58,220 Americans died in the war.CIA, War & Covert Operations
- 1970 to 1979The 1970 Kent State Shootings: 67 National Guard Shots Fired in 13 Seconds and Four Students KilledOn May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard fired between 61 and 67 shots in 13 seconds into a crowd of students at Kent State University. Four were killed, the nearest 270 feet from the guardsmen and the farthest 390. Nine were wounded, one of them nearly 750 feet away. The president's own commission called the shooting unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable. A federal judge dismissed the criminal case against eight guardsmen in 1974. A civil jury found no guardsman responsible in 1975. In 1979 the state paid $675,000 to the wounded and the families, and the guardsmen signed a statement saying they wished a means had been found to avoid it.Police, Courts & Prisons
- 1956 to 1976COINTELPRO: How the FBI Secretly Spied On and Disrupted 500,000 Americans (1956–1971)A Senate committee found in 1976 that the FBI had built more than 500,000 files on Americans, kept a list of 26,000 people to be rounded up in an emergency, and run a fifteen year program, approved at headquarters, to break up lawful political groups by anonymous letters, planted stories, and informants. The CIA indexed 300,000 Americans, the Army kept files on 100,000, and the NSA read millions of private telegrams. The program was stopped only because burglars took the files from an FBI office and mailed them to the press.Surveillance & Privacy
- 1913 to 2026The Purchasing Power of the US Dollar (1913–2026) and the End of the Gold StandardThe Bureau of Labor Statistics' own price index puts the cost of what $1 bought in 1913 at $33.73 in July 2026. The dollar was tied to gold at $20.67 an ounce until 1933, at $35 until 1971, and to nothing since. In 2012 the Federal Reserve adopted a policy of making prices rise 2 percent every year. In 2020 it doubled the money it had created, and prices rose 9.1 percent in a year.Wall Street & Banking
- 1932 to 1995Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Human Radiation Injections, and US Army Bacteria Tests on American CitiesFor forty years the Public Health Service watched 399 Black men in Alabama die of syphilis it could have cured, so it could study the disease. Between 1944 and 1974 federal agencies sponsored nearly 4,000 radiation experiments on people, including plutonium injected into 18 hospital patients who were not told, and radioactive iron and calcium fed to boys at a state school in their breakfast. Between 1949 and 1969 the Army sprayed bacteria over American cities 239 times to see how far they would spread; one test over San Francisco put eleven people in the hospital with the same bacteria, and one of them died. Each program was secret until a reporter, a hearing, or a committee found it.Health, Food & Regulators