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The Humphrey School of Public Affairs is the University of Minnesota's school of policy and planning.


The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert H. Humphrey grew up and lived during an important period in American history.

Suggested resources:
C-SPAN archives of Hubert Humphrey
Minnesota Historical Society
U.S. Senate historical office

1911

  • Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr., born in Wallace, South Dakota

    Photo of Humphrey grew up in Doland, South Dakota
    Humphrey grew up in Doland, South Dakota

1917

  • U.S. enters WWI
  • Humphrey family moves to Doland, South Dakota, to open a drugstore

1920

  • 19th Amendment grants women the right to vote
  • First national radio broadcast takes place

    Photo of Humphrey played on the Doland High School football team
    Humphrey played on the Doland High School football team

1929

  • Stock Market crashes; Great Depression begins
  • Herbert Hoover becomes 31st president
  • Humphrey begins his studies at the University of Minnesota  

1932

  • Humphrey leaves the U of M to help in the family’s drugstore  

1933

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes 32nd president  

1937

  • Events in Europe lead to WWII
  • Humphrey returns to the University of Minnesota  

1939

  • Humphrey graduates from the U of M and starts graduate school at Louisiana State University  

1940

  • First U.S. peacetime draft starts
  • Humphrey earns his master’s degree in political science from LSU

1941

  • Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; U.S. declares war  

1943

  • Humphrey runs for mayor of Minneapolis and loses
  • Starts teaching at Macalester College  

1945

  • Harry Truman becomes president after death of FDR
  • U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan; WWII ends
  • Humphrey elected mayor of Minneapolis in landslide victory  

1947

  • Humphrey re-elected mayor

    Photo of Humphrey in his Minneapolis mayor's office, 1947
    Humphrey was mayor of Minneapolis from 1945 until his election to the U.S. Senate

1948

  • Humphrey gives civil rights speech at Democratic National Convention
  • Humphrey elected U.S. Senator from Minnesota  

1949

  • Humphrey sponsors his first bill, which becomes law in 1965 as Medicare  

1951

  • 22nd Amendment is passed, limiting president to two consecutive terms  

1953

  • Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes 34th president  

1954

  • U.S. Supreme Court rules against segregation in public schools
  • Humphrey wins re-election to the senate
  • Humphrey’s Food-for-Peace program begins

1955

  • Rosa Parks’s actions start the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama

1957

  • Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first space satellite  

1958

  • Humphrey proposes a treaty to ban nuclear weapons tests  

1960

  • Humphrey is re-elected senator
  • Humphrey loses the Democratic nomination for president to John F. Kennedy

    Photo of Senator Humphrey with John F. Kennedy during the Wisconsin primary election, 1960
    Senator Humphrey with John F. Kennedy during the Wisconsin primary election in 1960

1961

  • JFK becomes 35th president
  • Berlin Wall is built
  • Peace Corps, sponsored by Humphrey, begins  

1962

  • U.S. astronaut John Glenn becomes first man to orbit earth  

1963

  • Martin Luther King, Jr., leads March on Washington
  • JFK is assassinated; Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president
  • Senate approves Humphrey’s nuclear test ban treaty  

1964

  • Important laws passed: Civil Rights Act; Job Corps Act; Food Stamp Act; Wilderness Preservation Act
  • LBJ is elected president with Humphrey as vice president

    Photo of Vice President Humphrey and civil rights leader martin Luther King Jr., 1965
    Vice President Humphrey and civil rights leader martin Luther King Jr., 1965

    Photo of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, 1965
    Vice President Hubert Humphrey and President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, 1965

1967

  • Vietnam War protests take place across the U.S.
  • Thurgood Marshall becomes first black Supreme Court Justice  

1968

  • Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated
  • Humphrey is nominated as Democratic candidate for president
  • Nixon beats Humphrey in one of the closest elections in history  

1969

  • U.S. astronauts land on the moon  

1970

  • Humphrey is re-elected to senate  

1971

  • 26th Amendment lowers the voting age to 18  

1973

  • U.S. withdraws from Vietnam
  • Humphrey is diagnosed with cancer and begins treatment  

1974

  • President Nixon resigns; Gerald Ford becomes 38th president  

1976

  • Jimmy Carter elected 39th president
  • Humphrey re-elected senator for a 5th term
  • Humphrey undergoes surgery for cancer  

1978

  • Humphrey dies at his home in Waverly, Minnesota