Key Events in World
History
1920 - 2020
1920:
Women's Suffrage
1921:
Chinese Communists Rise
1922:
British Empire Shrinks
1923:
Great Kanto Earthquake
1924:
From Lenin to Stalin
1925:
Scopes Monkey Trial
1926:
U.S. Starts Numbered Highway System
1927:
Lindbergh Nonstop to Paris
1928:
Earhart Crosses Atlantic
1929:
Wall Street Crashes
1930:
Ho Chi Minh Rises in Vietnam
1931:
Empire State Building Completed
1932:
Hitler Becomes German
1933:
FDR Elected
1934:
Hitler Consolidates Power
1935:
FDR Launches New Deal
1936:
Owens Flouts Nazis
1937:
UAW Changes Car Industry
1938:
Anti-Semitism Surges
1939:
World War II Starts
1940:
McDonald's Founded
1941:
Pearl Harbor
1942:
GIs Arrive in Europe
1943:
Invention of LSD
1944:
D-Day
1945:
World War II Ends
1946:
Baby Boom Starts
1947:
India Gains Independence
1948:
Birth of Israel
1949:
NATO Founded
1950:
Korean War Starts
1951:
Rosenbergs Sentenced
1952:
First Hydrogen Bomb Test
1953:
The Dawn of DNA
1954:
Brown vs. Board of Education
1955:
Parks Starts a Movement
1956:
Hungary Suppressed
1957:
The Little Rock Nine
1958:
US Launches First Satellite
1959:
Castro Takes Over Cuba
1960:
Lunch Counter Sit-in
1961:
Berlin Wall Built
1962:
Cuban Missile Crisis
1963:
JFK Assassinated
1964:
LBJ's "War on Poverty"
1965:
Civil Rights Turns Violent
1966:
Mao Purges Rivals
1967:
Six-Day War
1968:
King Assassinated
1969:
Landing on the Moon
1970:
War In Asia Widens
1971:
Pentagon Papers
1972:
Nixon Goes To China
1973:
Roe v. Wade
1974:
Nixon Resigns Out
1975:
Saigon Falls
1976:
The Concorde Changes Air Travel
1977:
Rise of the PC
1978:
Cult's Mass Suicide
1979:
Islamic Republic Born in Iran
1980:
Reagan Elected
1981:
AIDS Impacts America
1982:
Mexico Triggers Regional Debt Crisis
1983:
The Internet is Born
1984:
Chemicals Kill Thousands in India
1985:
Reagan, Gorbachev Meet
1986:
Shuttle Tragedy
1987:
Stock Market Tanks
1988:
When the U.S. Armed Iran
1989:
The Berlin Wall Falls / Tiananmen Square
1990:
Democracy in Poland
1991:
American Goes to War in Middle East
1992:
Cold War Ends
1993:
The EU Becomes Reality
1994:
Amazon.com is Born
1995:
Domestic Terror Strikes Oklahoma
1996:
The Dawn of Cloning
1997:
Machine Tops Chess Champ
1998:
The Age of Google Begins
1999:
NATO's First Independent Strike
2000:
International Space Station Opens
2001:
9/11
2002:
Homeland Security
2003:
US Crushes Iraq
2004:
Facebook Founded
2005:
Katrina Overwhelms New Orleans
2006:
Hussein Executed
2007:
The iPhone
2008:
Dow Plunges
2009:
America’s First African American President
2010:
Catastrophic Oil Spill
2011:
Bin Laden Killed
2012:
The "God Particle" Is Discovered
2013:
Snowden Reveals Secrets
2014:
Russian Bear Bites Ukraine
2015:
NASA Flies by Pluto
2016:
Trump Elected
2017:
Hurricane Triple Whammy
2018:
Wildfires
2019:
Hong Kong Protests
2020:
COVID-19