- 1894
| Aug 02 | Westbrook Pegler, is born. 1940s journalist, columnist: anti-communist McCarthyist newspaper man and syndicated columnist: awareded Pulitzer Prize for expose on union racketeering [1940]. | Ref: 4 |
- 1927
| Feb 20 | Roy Cohn lawyer, "grand inquisitor" (for Senator Joseph McCarthy), is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1947
| Mar 21 | President Truman signs Executive Order 9835 established the Federal Employees Loyalty Program. Upon agency request, the FBI investigated when derogatory information was found regarding government employees. | Ref: 14 |
| Oct 20 | The House Un-American Activities Committee opens public hearings on alleged communist infiltration in Hollywood. Among those denounced as having un- American tendencies are: Katherine Hepburn, Charles Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson. Among those called to testify is Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan, who denies that leftists ever controlled the Guild and refuses to label anyone a communist. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 24 | A group of writers, producers and directors that became known as the "Hollywood Ten" was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 25 | Movie studio executives meeting in NY agreed to blacklist the "Hollywood 10," who were cited a day earlier and jailed for contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. | Ref: 70 |
- 1948
| Jan 17 | Trial of 11 US Communist party members begins in New York City NY. | Ref: 5 |
- 1949
| Oct 14 | 14 US Communist Party leaders convicted of sedition. | Ref: 5 |
- 1950
| Feb 07 | Senator Joe McCarthy finds "communists" in US Ministry of Foreign Affairs. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | Joseph McCarthy, a relatively obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, announces during a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he had in his hand a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. The unsubstantiated declaration, which was little more than a desperate publicity stunt. | Ref: 3 |
| Feb 12 | Senator Joe McCarthy claims to have list of 205 communist government employees. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | Senator Joe McCarthy names Owen Lattimore, an ex-State Department adviser, as a Soviet spy. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 30 | President Harry S Truman denounces Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 24 | President Harry Truman denies there are communists in US government. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 27 | General Foods blacklists Jean Muir of Aldrich Family as a communist. | Ref: 5 |
- 1951
| Jan 23 | President Truman creates the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 13 | After meeting with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, President Harry S Truman vows to purge all disloyal government workers. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 17 | Dutch Communist Party members forbidden to be civil servants. | Ref: 5 |
- 1953
| Oct 14 | Ike promises to fire as Red any federal worker taking 5th amendment. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 20 | Legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow found himself in a unique situation. On the CBS program, See It Now, Murrow focused on Lt. Milo Radulovich and sought to disprove the “guilty by association” position of Radulovich during the McCarthy hearings. The network and the program’s sponsors refused to promote the show because of the controversy. As a result, Murrow purchased his own ads to promote the program. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 03 | Eisenhower criticizes McCarthy for saying communists are in Republican party. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 09 | General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired. | Ref: 5 |
- 1954
| Jan 08 | President Dwight Eisenhower proposes stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 09 | This was the day that critics called “TV’s coming of age.” Edward R. Murrow presented his report on the controversial Wisconsin Senator, Joseph R. McCarthy. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 10 | President Dwight Eisenhower calls Senator Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 11 | The US Army charged that Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his subcommittee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Private G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee. (The confrontation culminates in the famous Senate Army-McCarthy hearings.) | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin. They are broadcast on television. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 23 | The start of the Army-McCarthy hearings were conducted by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, did much to end the anticommunist witch hunt led by McCarthy. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 02 | Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that there are communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 09 | Army counsel Joseph N. Welch confronted Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy during the Senate-Army Hearings over McCarthy's attack on a member of Welch's law firm, Frederick G. Fisher. Said Welch: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 17 | The conclusion of the Army-McCarthy hearings were conducted by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, did much to end the anticommunist witch hunt led by McCarthy. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 24 | The Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 02 | The U.S. Senate votes sixty-five to twenty-two to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy for misconduct unbecoming to a senator, due to McCarthy's investigation of thousands of suspected Communists in U.S. government, military, and society. | Ref: 3 |
- 1955
| Jan 03 | The U.S. government announces that over 3,000 persons designated security risks had been discharged from federal employment between June of 1953 and October of 1954, a period regarded as the height of "McCarthyism" in America. | Ref: 3 |
- 1957
| May 02 | Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the controversial Republican senator from Wisconsin, dies at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland at age 47. | Ref: 68 |
- 1958
| Jun 19 | Nine entertainers refuse to answer a congressional committee's questions on communism. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 09 | In Indianapolis, Indiana, Massachusetts businessman Robert H. Welch, Jr., establishes the John Birch Society, a right-wing organization dedicated to fighting what it perceives to be the extensive infiltration of communism into American society. | Ref: 3 |
- 1969
| Jun 24 | Westbrook Pegler, 1940s journalist, columnist: anti-communist McCarthyist newspaper man and syndicated columnist: awareded Pulitzer Prize for expose on union racketeering [1940]; dies. | Ref: 4 |
- 1970
| Jan 19 | UCLA fires Angela Davis for being a communist. | Ref: 5 |
- 1993
| Jan 03 | Peter Brocco blacklisted in the 1950's, dies of heart attack at 89. | Ref: 5 |
- 2002
| Jan 17 | Harvey Mantusow, the former aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was imprisoned for lying in 1952 testimony before the House Un-America Activities Committee, at age 75. (XDG, p 8A, 1/01/2003) | Ref: 83 |
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McCarthyism Chronology