The life and times of Strom Thurmond

Strom Thurmond is born in Edgefield, South Carolina.

The Wright Brothers make the first human-carrying, powered flight.

The Ford Model T goes into production.

World War I

Radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, launches the first regular radio broadcast.

Thurmond earns a bachelor of science degree in horticulture from Clemson College (now Clemson University) and starts work as a farmer, teacher and coach.

Thurmond joins the U.S. Army Reserve as a second lieutenant.

The stock market crash triggers the Great Depression.

Thurmond is admitted to the South Carolina Bar and serves as Edgefield's town and county attorney.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president. Thurmond, then a Democrat, is elected to South Carolina's state Senate.

Thurmond is elected to a state appellate judgeship.

World War II

Thurmond parachutes into France on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division.

Thurmond is elected governor of South Carolina. Commercial television broadcasting begins.

Thurmond marries Jean Crouch.

Southern delegates quit the Democratic National Convention over the issue of civil rights. Thurmond runs for president as a segregationist "Dixiecrat" nominee, winning 39 electoral votes from Southern states.

Korean War

Thurmond loses election for senator.

Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president, ending 20 years of Democratic presidents.

Thurmond wins a U.S. Senate seat as a write-in candidate.

The modern civil rights movement begins with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.

Thurmond filibusters a civil rights bill for 24 hours and 18 minutes -- a Senate record.

Wife Jean Thurmond dies.

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act. Thurmond switches to the Republican Party.

The Tet Offensive hardens opposition to the Vietnam War. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy are killed. Richard Nixon is elected president. Thurmond marries Nancy Moore, a 22-year-old former Miss South Carolina.

President Richard Nixon resigns amid the Watergate scandal.

The Vietnam War ends with the fall of Saigon.

Ronald Reagan is elected president.

A Republican majority in the Senate makes Thurmond president pro tempore, placing him third in presidential succession.

The Persian Gulf War rolls back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Soviet Union dissolves December 31. Thurmond and second wife Nancy separate.

Thurmond wins his eighth six-year Senate term.

At 94, Thurmond becomes the oldest Senate member ever.

President Bill Clinton is impeached. At age 95, Thurmond gives up chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Thurmond turns 100 on December 5, the oldest person to serve as senator in U.S. history. Shortly thereafter, his retirement from the Senate becomes official. Thurmond served 47 years and five months in the Senate, longer than any other senator in history.

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