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| 1939 |
 Eleanor defies segregation laws when she sits between whites and blacks at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama; She arranges for Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday.
Hitler invades Poland and war breaks out in Europe. |
| 1940 |
July 17: Eleanor makes an impromptu speech at the Democratic National Convention which helps FDR to win an unprecedented third term in office. |
| 1941 |
December 7: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and the U.S. enters the war in Europe. |
| 1943 |
 Eleanor tours the South Pacific to boost the soldiers' morale.
The Detroit Race Riot occurs as a result of mounting tensions between black and white residents of the city. |
| 1945 |
Eleanor influences the Army Nurse Corps to open its membership to black women; She joins the NAACP board of directors.
April 12: Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies while convalescing in Warm Springs, Georgia.
September 2: Japan surrenders to the Allies, World War II ends. |
| 1946 |
 Eleanor is elected as head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission; She begins to draft the Declaration of Human Rights; She initiates the creation of Americans for Democratic Action, a group which focuses on domestic social reform and resistance against Russia and the developing Cold War. |
| 1948 |
 Eleanor speaks on "The Struggles for the Rights of Man" at the Sorbonne during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in Paris; She threatens her resignation from the UN if Truman does not recognize the newly formed state of Israel; She joins her daughter, Anna, for a radio discussion program on ABC.
December 10: The Human Rights Declaration is passed by the United Nations. |
| 1950 |
Eleanor joins her son, Elliott, for a television and radio show on NBC. |
| 1952 |
Eleanor resigns from the United Nations; She campaigns for Adlai Stevenson for the presidency. |
| 1953 |
The Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee is abolished and its members are integrated into the existing Democratic party structure. |
| 1954 |
The Brown v. Board of Education decision outlaws segregation in public schools. |
| 1957 |
Eleanor visits the Soviet Union as a representative of the New York Post and meets Nikita Khrushchev.
The Civil Rights Act is passed by Congress. |
| 1958 |
Eleanor speaks at a civil rights workshop at Highlander Folk School in Tennessee despite threats from the Ku Klux Klan. |
| 1960 |
 Eleanor supports John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. |
| 1961 |
 Kennedy re-appoints Eleanor to the United Nations and appoints her as chair of the President's Commission on the Status of Women. |
| 1962 |
Eleanor spearheads an ad hoc Commission of Inquiry into the Administration of Justice in the Freedom Struggle; She monitors and reports on the efforts and progress of the fight for civil rights in the United States.
November 7: Eleanor dies at the age of seventy-eight of tuberculosis. |
