The
world's most important event every year 1920 2020
1920: Women's Suffrage
Date: Aug. 26
Location: Washington D.C.
Though the United States was founded
under democratic principles, only a minority of its population in the
beginning only white landowning males over the age of 21 could actually vote. But after the 19th Amendment of the
Constitution was passed, women finally gain a voice and the right to cast their
ballots, though the voting rights fight was far from over for many African
American women, especially in the South.
1921: Chinese Communists Rise
Date: July 1
Location: Beijing
In a prequel to the rise of Mao
Zedong and Red China, the Chinese Communist Party is founded and three weeks
later it convenes its first National Congress that is attended by Mao. It would
take another 28 years before the Republic of China becomes the People's
Republic of China.
1922: British Empire Shrinks
Date: Feb. 28
Location: London
The British Empire was at its peak
toward the end of World War I, commanding a global population estimated to be
as many as 570 million people, or about a fourth of the world's population at
the time. The empire's size began to shrink in 1920, when Britain declared
limited independence for Egypt, which leads to full independence two years
later.
1923: Great Kanto Earthquake
Date: Sept. 1
Location: Tokyo, Yokohama, Japan
The Great Kanto earthquake, also
known as the Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake, strikes the Japanese mainland at noon
on Sept. 1, 1923, with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale. The death toll
is estimated at 140,000 people. The force of the temblor destroys hundreds of
thousands of homes that either collapse or are engulfed in fire. The quake sets
off a tsunami that reaches a height of almost 40 feet at Atami in the Sagami
Gulf, killing 60 people there. The most significant outcome of the catastrophe
is the rebuilt Tokyo would become a modern metropolis.
1924: From Lenin to Stalin
Date: Jan. 21
Location: Moscow
Following the death of Vladimir
Lenin on Jan. 21, the new leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin,
immediately begins a purge of political rivals. Some are simply moved to
different positions, while others, like Leon Trotsky, the presumed successor to
Lenin, are exiled. Stalin's paranoia grows as he takes control of the nation,
and with it the level of violence and killing of anyone perceived to be a
threat to his power and control.
1925: Scopes Monkey Trial
Date: July 10
Location: Dayton, Tennessee
After teaching the theory of
evolution in a Tennessee high school, the state prosecutes science teacher John
Thomas Scopes because state law prohibits such teaching as it runs counter to
biblical beliefs. The trial pits well-known Christian fundamentalist and former
presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan against renowned attorney
Clarence Darrow. The jury rules against Scopes, forcing him to pay a fine of
$100 (about $1,498 in 2020 dollars). It would take another 43 years before the
U.S. Supreme Court would rule that laws punishing people for teaching evolution
violate the First Amendment.
1926: U.S. Starts Numbered Highway
System
Date: Nov. 11
Location: U.S.
In a precursor to the modern
interstate highway system, the federal government introduces a national highway
numbering system in an effort to standardize roadways,
especially local roads and trails with names unfamiliar to outsiders. The U.S.
Numbered Highway System makes it easier for the growing number of car owners to
figure out how to get from one city or town to the next and opens the way for
the great American road-trip tradition.
1927: Lindbergh Nonstop to Paris
Date: May 21
Location: New York to Paris
When the monoplane The Spirit of St.
Louis touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris on the evening of May 21,
Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly over the Atlantic Ocean
nonstop, making him one of the heroes of the age. His feat fires the
imagination of aspiring aviators about the commercial possibilities of flight.
Lindbergh would stay in the news, but for regrettable reasons. A strong
advocate for American isolationism in the 1930s, he is criticized for his
admiration of Nazi Germanys aircraft industry. Also, his infant son would be
killed during a bungled kidnapping attempt in 1932.
1928: Earhart Crosses Atlantic
Date: June 17-18
Location: Wales
Amelia Earhart becomes the first
woman to pilot a plane across the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Wales, making
her an American national heroine and feminist icon who would go on to set
numerous aviation records. She would later set another record as the first
person man or woman to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. Earhart
and her co-pilot Fred Noonan would vanish over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during
Earhart's attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Recent evidence has emerged
indicating Earhart may have sent distress signals after surviving a crash,
possibly on the remote Gardner Island in the western Pacific Ocean.
1929: Wall Street Crashes
Date: Oct. 24-29
Location: New York City
The "Roaring Twenties"
come to a halt on Black Tuesday in October 1929, when stocks take a nosedive,
contributing to the Great Depression. Reasons for the worst economic downturn
in American history include over-lending by weakly regulated banks, excessive
stock price valuation, too many stocks purchased on margin, unrestrained
exuberance that sends millions of people to convert their savings into stocks,
tightening of the credit by the Federal Reserve, and an agricultural drought.
1930: Ho Chi Minh Rises in Vietnam
Date: Feb. 2
Location: Hanoi
In an event that would have
repercussions for U.S. foreign policy decades later, Vietnamese independence
fighter Ho Chi Minh founds the Communist Party of Vietnam as part of his effort
to oust French colonial occupiers. "Uncle Ho," as he was known to his
many supporters, was inspired by the Russian Bolsheviks, who oppose the Tsarist
autocracy, seeing parallels between that struggle and the fight against the
foreign occupiers of his country.
1931: Empire State Building
Completed
Date: May 1
Location: New York City
U.S. President Herbert Hoover
inaugurates the completion of the Empire State Building on May Day. It becomes
the tallest building of the iconic Manhattan skyline until the construction of
the World Trade Center Towers are completed in 1973. Incredibly, the 86-story
office building took only 13 months to build, with construction starting in March
of the previous year.
1932: Hitler Becomes German
Date: Feb. 25
Location: Germany
Seven years after Adolf Hitler
renounces his Austrian citizenship, a fellow member of the Nazi Party gets him
a low-level government job, which comes with automatic citizenship. This opens
the way for him to run for office. Already a well-known party activist, it
takes Hitler only two years from receiving his citizenship status to becoming
the leader of Germany.
1933: FDR Elected
Date: March 12
Location: Washington D.C.
With the Great Depression sending
millions of Americans to soup kitchens and chasing whatever work they can find, newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
begins his weekly "Fireside Chats" as Americans are eager for
guidance and solace during those dark times. FDR's first radio talk explains to
Americans in plain language why he ordered that banks would close temporarily
at different time in different parts of the country. The purpose, he explains,
is to curb panic rushes of withdrawals, which has been hurting efforts to
stabilize the banking system.
1934: Hitler Consolidates Power
Date: June 30
Location: Berlin
Germans, who had been suffering from
a disastrous economic depression in 1929-30, begin to embrace the ideas of the
Nationalist Socialist Workers Party the Nazi Party. It becomes the largest
party after the 1932 elections. In 1933, Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor
of Germany. After President Paul von Hindenburg dies in 1934, Hitler then
purges members of his own party the bloody Night of the Long Knives with
the help of Nazi storm troopers and becomes the unquestioned leader of Germany.
1935: FDR Launches New Deal
Date: Aug. 14
Location: Washington D.C.
President Roosevelt, grappling with
the Great Depression, signs into law his signature Social Security Act, a law
that creates the country's first retirement security system. Earlier that year,
as part of his "New Deal" policy, the president established the Works
Progress Administration, a massive economic stimulus program, putting millions
of Americans to work building the country's public infrastructure.
1936: Owens Flouts Nazis
Date: Aug. 3
Location: Berlin
As the concept of racial purity and
superiority dominates Germany in the 1930s, African-American
sprinter Jesse Owens of Oakville, Alabama, shows them who is the master racer.
During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and under the gaze of Adolf Hitler,
Owens wins four Olympic gold medals for the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints,
the long jump, and the 400-meter relay.
1937: UAW Changes Car Industry
Date: Feb. 11
Location: Flint, Michigan
Nearly two years after the
establishment of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the union scores a major
victory in Flint, Michigan. Workers at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant
Number One lay down their tools and occupy the factory, demanding union
representation, a fair minimum wage, safer working conditions, and not to
outsource labor to non-union plants. Despite efforts by GM and local police to
extricate them from the plant, including shutting off the heat, cutting off
food supply, and attacks that leave 16 workers and 11 police officers injured,
the strike lasts 44 days. The strike leads to an agreement between GM and the
UAW, which includes a 5% pay raise and permission to talk in the lunchroom.
1938: Anti-Semitism Surges
Date: Nov. 9
Location: Germany, Austria, Sudetenland
Growing anti-Semitic scapegoating
amid Germany's crippling economic conditions culminates in the Kristallnacht,
or "Night of Broken Glass," a pogrom sparked by a speech from German
propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Storm troopers and other Nazi groups are
ordered to attack and destroy Jewish businesses, homes, and houses of worship.
In one night of attacks in Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking area of
the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, dozens of Jews are killed and tens of
thousands are rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
1939: World War II Starts
Date: Sept. 1
Location: Westerplatte, Poland
Under the cover of predawn darkness,
a German battleship floats quietly into the center of Danzig Harbor and opens
fire on a Polish stronghold in Westerplatte, the first shots of World War II.
In the following weeks, Nazi forces, including 2,000 tanks and 1,000 aircraft,
would shatter Polish defenses and surround Warsaw, which surrenders 26 days
after the Danzig Harbor attack.
1940: McDonald's Founded
Date: May 15
Location: San Bernardino, California
Brothers Richard and Maurice
McDonald open McDonalds Barbecue Restaurant, offering BBQ ribs, pork
sandwiches, and 23 other menu items. Eight years later, they would restructure
their popular local business to focus on hamburgers, milkshakes, and fountain
sodas, emphasizing speed, a simple menu, and low prices. In the 1950s,
businessman Ray Kroc would buy out the brothers and grow McDonalds into one of
the worlds largest restaurant chains.
1941: Pearl Harbor
Date: Dec. 7
Location: Oahu, Hawaii
Knowing the U.S. is gearing up to
engage them in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Japan deploys a
massive air attack on U.S. Navy ships parked at Pearl Harbor. The surprise
assault by 353 Japanese aircraft leads to the deaths of 2,403 people, including
1,177 sailors aboard the ill-fated USS Arizona, one of 19 vessels that were
damaged or destroyed in the attack. Nearly 330 aircraft were also damaged or
destroyed. The United States declares war on Japan the next day and three days
later against Germany and Italy.
1942: GIs Arrive in Europe
Date: Jan. 26
Location: Northern Ireland
The first U.S. troops destined to
fight in Europe in the world's greatest war arrive in Northern Ireland. It is
the beginning of a military buildup that would culminate in the invasion of
France more than two years later. Before then, the United States was providing
only material support to its ally across the Atlantic, while building up what
President Roosevelt called the "Arsenal of Democracy" in anticipation
for the inevitable entry of the United States into the war in Europe.
1943: Invention of LSD
Date: April 19
Location: Basel, Switzerland
Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman had
been studying the potential medicinal value of lysergic compounds when he
accidentally exposed himself to LSD-25, which he had created years earlier in
his lab. This was the first LSD trip, a quarter-century before the
counterculture endorses the hallucinogenic compound. Hoffman describes the
"not unpleasant" experience as "uninterrupted stream of fantastic
pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of
colors." Hoffman takes a second dose and writes a paper about his
discovery. The U.S. Army tests the drug on soldiers numerous times from 1955 to
1967, briefly toying with the idea of using LSD as a weapon to disorient enemy
soldiers during combat.
1944: D-Day
Date: June 6
Location: Normandy France
The plan for the biggest one-day
military campaign in history, the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces to push
the Nazis out of France, is hatched in extreme secrecy a year earlier. The plan
is conceived during the Quebec Conference by Canadian Prime Minister William
Lyon Mackenzie King, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S.
President Franklin Roosevelt. The invasion starts at 6:30 a.m. on five beaches,
and over the next 24 hours about 4,900 Allied soldiers are killed, many of them
the instant the doors of their Higgins transport boats opened directly into
German machine gun fire.
1945: World War II Ends
Date: Sept. 2
Location: Multiple
The surrender of Japan marks the end
of World War II amid one of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century.
Earlier in the year, leaders of three nations Benito Mussolini, Franklin
Roosevelt, and Adolf Hitler die and Nazi Germany surrenders. Though the
surrender of Japan was inevitable, the prospect of a horrific Allied assault on
the Japanese mainland convinces the United States to drop atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb attacks, along with the entry of the
Soviet Union in the war against Japan, compel the Japanese to surrender.
1946: Baby Boom Starts
Date: Jan. 1
Location: U.S.
More American babies are born 3.4
million in 1946 than in any year in U.S. history up to then. The number of
births grows to 4 million per year from 1954 to 1964, the last year of the baby
boomer generation, the biggest generation at that point in history.
1947: India Gains Independence
Date: Aug. 15
Location: Washington D.C
The sun sets on the British Empire
in India in 1947, as the Asian nation becomes the world's largest democracy.
Independence is the culmination of decades of work by Mahatma Gandhi,
Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indian nationalists committed to throwing off the yoke of
British colonialism. The transition to independence comes at a price. The
subcontinent is partitioned into two nations, Hindu-majority India
and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Violence erupts between Hindus and Muslims as
Hindus migrate to India and Muslims shift to Pakistan. It is estimated that 1
million people die during the migration.
1948: Birth of Israel
Date: May 15
Location: Middle East
After Israel declares its
independence following a UN resolution, neighboring Arab states with troops
from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan (now Jordan), Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia
attack the former British-controlled Palestinian mandate. The Arab-Israeli War ended with an armistice that leaves Israel
with some territories as Egypt and Jordan retains control over the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, respectively.
1949: NATO Founded
Date: April 4
Location: Washington D.C.
With the Cold War worsening, the
Soviet Union detonates its first nuclear bomb and quickly exerts its influence
over Eastern Europe. It attempts to do the same in Western Europe, which is
still recovering from the massive destruction of World War II. To respond to
the Soviet threat, U.S. and Western European allies form the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization. Fundamentally, NATO simply states that an attack on any
NATO member would be considered an attack on all NATO members. Cold War
tensions ratchet up later that year when the communists take over China, the
worlds most populous nation.
1950: Korean War Starts
Date: June 25
Location: Korea
The North Korean People's Army
crosses the 38th parallel into South Korea, eliciting almost an immediate
response from U.S. President Truman, and starting the Korean War a proxy
battle between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Three
years later, a ceasefire would halt the war. The uneasy relations between North
Korea and South Korea last to this day.
1951: Rosenbergs
Sentenced
Date: March 29
Location: New York City
Husband and wife Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their part in passing along atomic
secrets to the Soviet Union during and after World War II. They are executed
two years later. Not everyone is convinced of their involvement in the scheme.
Supporters claim they are scapegoats swept up in the Cold War hysteria of the
time. Documents revealed decades later would show the detailed extent of Julius
Rosenberg's involvement in the spy ring, though Ethel's participation in the
scheme remains inconclusive.
1952: First Hydrogen Bomb Test
Date: Nov. 1
Location: Marshall Islands
The United States successfully
detonates its first hydrogen bomb, a second generation
thermonuclear device, in the Marshall Islands as part of Operation Ivy, one of
a series of nuclear bomb tests. From 1946 to 1958, the United States used the
remote Pacific Marshall Islands as its nuclear weapons testing site, detonating
a total of 67 nuclear tests.
1953: The Dawn of DNA
Date: Feb. 28
Location: Cambridge, England, U.K.
Cambridge University scientists
James Watson and Francis Crick announce they have discovered the fundamental behavior
and double-helix structure of DNA. Though scientists had been aware of DNA
since the 1860s and its role in genetic inheritance since 1943, Watson and
Crick were the first to explain how DNA works to replicate itself and pass on
genes from one generation to the next.
1954: Brown vs. Board of Education
Date: May 17
Location: Washington D.C.
In a landmark case involving Linda
Brown of Topeka, Kansas, who had to cross a railroad track to reach an
all-black elementary school even though an all-white school was closer, the
U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregated school system was unconstitutional
on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the
14th Amendment of the Constitution. The clause would be used again by the
courts to reverse state-level racial segregation practices and ordinances.
1955: Parks Starts a Movement
Date: Dec. 1
Location: Montgomery, Alabama
Rosa Parks makes history by refusing
to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. The arrest of
Parks for insisting to remain seated leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and
the ascent of a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., as a local activist
leader to advance the civil rights cause. A successful federal lawsuit by the
NAACP against the city leads to the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system
on Dec. 21 of the following year.
1956: Hungary Suppressed
Date: Nov. 4
Location: Budapest
Cold War tensions escalate when Hungarians
take to the streets, demanding democratic reforms. Three days later, Red Army
troops invade Hungary, killing thousands. Nine days after the incursion,
Budapest is occupied by the Soviet troops in one of the largest and most
aggressive actions taken by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.
1957: The Little Rock Nine
Date: Sept 24
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
orders federal troops to protect nine African American high school students as
they start classes at the all-white Little Rock Central High School in
Arkansas. This would become one of the first high-profile actions by the
federal government against state-level racial segregation.
1958: US Launches First Satellite
Date: Jan. 31
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida
The United States successfully
launches Explorer 1, three months after the Soviet Union sent its first
satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. The two superpowers would go on to send more
satellites into space, creating a Cold War space race to build ever more
sophisticated orbital communications devices.
1959: Castro Takes Over Cuba
Date: Jan. 1
Location: Havana
U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio
Batista flees Havana as Fidel Castro's forces advance on the Cuban capital.
Days later, rebels led by Chι Guevara and Camilo
Cienfuegos enter the city, followed two days later by Castro's forces, who
quickly consolidate power in Cuba, establishing a communist government in the
Caribbean's largest country.
1960: Lunch Counter Sit-in
Date: Feb. 1
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
When four African American college
students Ezell A. Blair, Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil
and David L. Richmond sit down at a Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina, and ask for service, they are denied. The young men refuse to
leave, leading to a larger six-month protest that results in the desegregation
of the lunch counter by that summer. The Greensboro Woolworths would close in
1993, and a section of the lunch counter be donated to the Smithsonian.
1961: Berlin Wall Built
Date: Aug. 13
Location: Berlin, East and West Germany
By the late summer of 1961, the loss
of skilled workers such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to the West reaches
crisis levels in East Germany. On Aug. 12, 2,400 East Germans cross into West
Berlin, the most in a single day. The next day, with the approval of Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev, East Germany builds a wall that would extend 27
miles through Berlin, dividing families and friends for the next 28 years. The
wall would serve as an enduring symbol of the Cold War, used by presidents John
Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to inspire a divided city.
1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
Date: Oct.16-28
Location: Multiple
When the United States learns that
the Soviet Union is building nuclear missile installations 90 miles south of
Miami in communist Cuba, the Kennedy administration starts a naval blockade
around the island, which is at times tested, and Kennedy demands the removal of
the missiles. The standoff is widely considered to be
the closest the two nuclear superpowers come to direct military confrontation.
Cooler heads prevail. The Soviet Union offers to remove the missiles in
exchange for a guarantee that the United States will not invade Cuba. In
secret, the administration also agrees to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey.
1963: JFK Assassinated
Date: Nov. 22
Location: Dallas
As President John F. Kennedy
prepares for his re-election bid, he embarks on a multi-state tour starting in
September 1963. He is murdered by a sharpshooters bullet fired by Lee Harvey
Oswald at about 12:30 p.m. as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in
Dallas. Oswald himself is murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
1964: LBJ's "War on
Poverty"
Date: Jan. 8
Location: Washington D.C.
Bogged down by the Vietnam War,
President Lyndon B. Johnson struggles constantly to pivot away from the war to
focus on his stated goals of reducing poverty, ending segregation, and
establishing the social programs many Americans rely on to this day, including
the immensely popular Medicare program. During his War on Poverty State of
the Union Address of Jan. 8, 1964, LBJ outlines the need for the country to
reduce poverty, end racial discrimination, attend to the health needs of the
elderly, and other progressive goals. Later achievements during LBJs
administration are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Social Security
Amendments of 1965.
1965: Civil Rights Turns Violent
Date: March 7
Location: Selma, Alabama
The fatal shooting of protester
Jimmy Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper sparks a march from Selma to Montgomery,
Alabama. Hundreds of civil rights activists march in what becomes known as
Bloody Sunday. Police would confront the marchers, led by John Lewis (who
would serve as a House Democrat from Georgia) and others. As the activists
cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police attack the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs, hospitalizing 50. Lewis would pass away in
July 2020.
1966: Mao Purges Rivals
Date: Aug. 13
Location: Beijing
At the end of a weeklong session of
the Communist Party Central Committee of the People's Republic of China,
Chairman Mao Zedong condemns the political elites, calling on China's youth to
rebel against the entrenched political hierarchy. It is the beginning of the
decade-long Cultural Revolution that fundamentally transforms Chinese society.
Intellectuals, members of the former Nationalist government, and people with
ties to Western powers are persecuted, sent to re-education labor camps, or
killed by the factions of Red Guards formed in the wake of Mao's call to
action.
1967: Six-Day War
Date: June 5
Location: Middle East
Amid escalating tensions with its
neighbors, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike that destroys most of Egypt's
air force. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also attack Israel. As the war continues,
Israel takes the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, captures East
Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and in heavy fighting seizes the Golan
Heights from Syria. A ceasefire went into effect on June 10.
1968: King Assassinated
Date: April 4
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is
fatally shot by James Earl Ray as the civil rights icon stands on the balcony
of the Lorraine Motel, a tragedy that sparks race riots nationwide. King's
influence in words and actions touch and move not only the nation, but the
world, and resonate to this day. Two months later, on June 4, Democratic
presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and brother of John F. Kennedy, is
fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan,
an Arab Christian from Jerusalem, who believes Kennedy is
"instrumental" in oppressing Palestinians.
1969: Landing on the Moon
Date: July 20
Location: Moon
President Kennedys goal of a manned
lunar landing before 1970 is realized six years after his assassination. Neil
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins blast off from the Kennedy Space
Center at 9:32 a.m. aboard the Saturn V rocket. After three days of travel, Armstrong and Aldrin land the Eagle module on the lunar
surface as Collins remains in lunar orbit to pilot the module. Upon their
return to Earth, the three astronauts are put in 21-day quarantine to ensure
they do not bring back any lunar contagions.
1970: War In Asia Widens
Date: April 29
Location: Eastern Cambodia
Although the United States should be
scaling back U.S. troop presence in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon approves
an operation with the South Vietnamese to invade Cambodia to oust Northern
Vietnamese forces there. The Cambodian incursion inflames anti-war protests in
the United States as it is perceived to be an escalation of U.S. military involvement
in Southeast Asia.
1971: Pentagon Papers
Date: Feb. 8
Location: Laos
The Pentagon Papers, a study by the
U.S. Department of Defense about the country's involvement in the Vietnam war,
are released and published first in The New York Times, then other newspapers.
The documents expose several missteps and how several administrations have
misled the American public regarding the war in Vietnam. They also reveal an
expanded campaign in Cambodia and Laos, especially clandestine bombing in Laos,
which today is considered the heaviest bombardment in history.
1972: Nixon Goes To China
Date: Feb. 21
Location: Beijing
President Richard Nixon, a virulent
anti-communist earlier in his political career, surprises the American public
by traveling to Beijing, China, for a week of talks in a historic first step
toward normalizing relations between the United States and the Peoples
Republic of China. Until this trip, the United States and communist China were
de facto enemies, fighting proxy wars in the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s and
South Vietnam at the time of Nixons visit.
1973: Roe v. Wade
Date: Jan. 22
Location: Washington D.C.
In a landmark 7-2 decision that will
be known as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court rules that under the Due Process
Clause of the 14th Amendment, states cannot completely bar a woman's decision
to terminate her pregnancy. However, the court adds that as the pregnancy
develops, the state can balance a woman's right to privacy with its interest in
preserving the "potentiality of human life." As a result, states can
ban abortion in the third trimester except in cases where a pregnancy affects a
woman's health.
1974: Nixon Resigns Out
Date: Aug. 8
Location: Washington D.C.
President Richard Nixon announces
his resignation amid impeachment proceedings stemming from the Watergate
scandal and his administration's attempt resist a congressional investigation.
The scandal exposes abuses of power by the White House after five burglars were
busted breaking in to the Democratic National
Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.
Nixon becomes the only president in U.S. history to resign.
1975: Saigon Falls
Date: April 30
Location: South Vietnam
Two years after the last American
troops leave Vietnam, communist troops from North Vietnam capture Saigon,
ending nearly two decades of relentless war in the rice paddies and jungles of
that Southeast Asian nation. The final tally of war dead for the United States
is 58,202.
1976: The Concorde Changes Air
Travel
Date: Jan. 21
Location: London and Paris
Two supersonic Concorde jets take
off simultaneously one from London to Bahrain, operated by British Airways,
and the other from Paris to Rio de Janeiro via Dakar in Senegal, operated by
Air France marking the first time paying passengers
enjoy commercial travel at faster than the speed of sound. Though travel by one
of the 16 Concordes ever put into service could slash travel time from New York
to London in half, the high cost of maintenance, soaring ticket prices, as well
as a fatal accident in 2000, sealed the fate of the narrow, slope-nosed
aircraft.
1977: Rise of the PC
Date: January
Location: Chicago
Personal home computers began to
emerge in the 1970s, but many of the earliest versions resembled calculators
that would plug into televisions sets. By 1977, however, the desktop home
computer begins to resemble their more modern versions with an accompanying
attached or separate computer screen and a magnetic tape or floppy disk storage
device. The Commodore PET is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in
Chicago that year, while the first Apple II and Radio Shack's TRS-80 go on
sale.
1978: Cult's Mass Suicide
Date: Nov. 18
Location: Jonestown, Guyana
More than 900 people die in one of
worst recorded acts of cult-related mass murder-suicide after most of the
victims and perpetrators drink a powdered drink mix dosed with cyanide. Most of
the victims are Americans, devotees of Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones, a
former Methodist-trained preacher who built a following and led the flock to
Guyana. Among the dead are 276 children who drink the poison. A small number of
cult defectors are killed by Peoples Temple gunmen who also slay California
congressman Leo Ryan, who had gone to Guyana to investigate Jonestown.
1979: Islamic Republic Born in Iran
Date: Feb. 11
Location: Tehran
Worsening economic conditions,
increasing discontent with the government, and wide support for religious
leader in exile Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini end the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah
Pahlavi. The shah and his family flee Iran in January 1979. On Feb 11, the
monarchy is dissolved, and on April 1, Khomeini declares Iran an Islamic
republic. With support among the nation's clergy and their many followers, he
begins rebuilding Iranian society based on conservative Shiite religious
principles.
1980: Reagan Elected
Date: Nov. 4
Location: Washington, D.C.
With the United States in an
economic malaise and the Iranian hostage crisis hobbling the presidency of
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan is elected the 40th president in a landslide.
Reagan, who would serve two terms, was the oldest man elected president at the
time. Reagan's election changes the trajectory of American politics, ushering
in an era of conservative leadership. During his tenure, he takes a more
aggressive approach to the Soviet Union and increases defense spending. Reagan
convinces Congress to cut taxes, a move that many economists credit with
triggering an economic boom in the 1980s.
1981: AIDS Impacts America
Date: June 5
Location: Los Angeles
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention publishes a report about five gay men who had been diagnosed by
local physicians with a rare form of pneumonia the first reported U.S. cases
of what would later become known as HIV/AIDS. The autoimmune disease spread so
fast that by the end of 1982, 500 Americans had died from what now the CDC
called acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. An estimated 35 million
people worldwide would die from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the
epidemic.
1982: Mexico Triggers Regional Debt
Crisis
Date: Aug 12
Location: Mexico City
Global economic stagnation in the
1970s and early 1980s, and excessive borrowing among Latin America's biggest
economies, boils over when Mexico's Finance Minister Jesϊs Silva-Herzog tells
the U.S. Federal Reserve his country can no longer service its debt to $80
billion. After the announcement, lenders realize virtually every country in
Latin America, led by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico,
are not able to pay back loans. The crisis would lead to years of eroding
wages, weak-to-negative economic growth, sky-high unemployment, severe
austerity measures, and political instability known as the "lost
decade" in Latin America.
1983: The Internet is Born
Date: Jan. 1
Location: Multiple
The internet as we know it today a
seemingly endless collection of websites hosted on servers scattered across the
globe is still more than a decade away. But at the beginning of 1983, the Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) a small network for academics and
researchers transitions to the standard TCP/IP protocol of the World Wide
Web. The protocol would become the internet's cornerstone and technical
foundation as it allows expanded available address space and decentralizes the
network, thus also expanding accessibility.
1984: Chemicals Kill Thousands in
India
Date: Dec. 2
Location: Bhopal, India
The chemical disaster in Bhopal is
still considered history's worst industrial disaster. About 30 tons of methyl
isocyanate, an industrial gas used to make pesticide, are released at a Union
Carbide Corp. plant. About 600,000 poor residents of nearby shanty towns are
exposed to a highly toxic compound that kills about 15,000 people and countless
farm animals, according to Indian government estimates. The calamity leads to a
generation of birth defects. To this day, locals claim the now-abandoned site
is riddled with toxic materials left behind by Union Carbide, which was
acquired by Dow Chemical in 2001.
1985: Reagan, Gorbachev Meet
Date: Nov. 19
Location: Geneva
Despite his often bellicose
criticisms of the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan agrees to meet with his
counterpart, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, in Geneva in the first
meeting between leaders of the two Cold War foes in nearly a decade. Though the
meeting yields little of substance, it starts a closer relationship between the
two men who both seem committed to scaling back the nuclear arms race between
the two nuclear superpowers.
1986: Shuttle Tragedy
Date: Jan. 28
Location: Off the coast of Florida
The 25th mission of the U.S. space
shuttle program ends with the tragic loss of seven astronauts as space shuttle
Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Among those killed are Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher
in space. The failure is later identified as a problem with the so-called
O-rings used to form a seal in the seams of the shuttle's external fuel tanks.
1987: Stock Market Tanks
Date: Oct. 19
Location: Worldwide
Oct. 19, 1987
is called Black Monday because on that day the Dow Jones Industrial Average
plunges 508 points, or more than 22%. The drop is worse than the crash in 1929.
It is also worse than the market plunge after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and
the 2008 financial crisis. Among the reasons cited for the drop are rising
tensions in the Persian Gulf, concern over higher interest rates, and the
belief that the bull market is ending. Computerized trading, relatively new at
the time, accelerates trade orders, which speeds up the market drop. As a
result of the collapse, exchanges put in place so-called circuit breakers
intended to halt trading when stocks fall too fast. This measure is designed to
provide investors a cooling off period and avoid a panic.
1988: When the U.S. Armed Iran
Date: March 16
Location: Washington D.C.
Lt. Col. Oliver North and Vice Adm.
John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United
States for their involvement in the so-called Iran-Contra affair. The scandal
involved members of the Reagan administration who illegally sold arms to Iran
to help facilitate the release of American hostages, and then transfer the
proceeds of the sale to fund the Nicaraguan contras, a loose affiliation of
right-wing militias. North is convicted, but his conviction is vacated and
reversed, while Poindexter's convictions are also reversed on appeal.
1989: The Berlin Wall Falls / Tieneman's Square
Date: Nov. 9
Location: Berlin, East and West Germany
Cracks in the monolithic Soviet bloc
are starting to appear in the 1980s, and the very symbol of communist
repression comes crashing down in November, when the Berlin Wall is breached,
ending a 28-year division of the city. During the day on Nov. 9, a spokesman for
East Berlin's Communist Party says starting at midnight that day, citizens of
East Germany are free to cross the country's borders. Almost immediately
Berliners start slamming the wall with axes and sledgehammers. By nightfall,
the celebration turns into what one observer calls "the greatest street
party in the history of the world" and the city is reunited. East and West
Germany would reunite one year later.
1990: Democracy in Poland
Date: Jan. 28
Location: Poland
With the hold of the Soviet Union and
communism on East Europe loosening, Poland's ruling communist party votes to
dissolve and become more moderate. In the following elections, Lech Wałęsa, leader of the Solidarity Movement and the
1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wins the election and becomes president.
1991: American Goes to War in Middle
East
Date: Jan. 17
Location: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
After Saddam Hussein's Iraq invades
and occupies Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States sends forces to defend
neighboring Saudi Arabia from being overrun and to protect its vital oil assets
in Operation Desert Shield. With Saudi Arabia secured, U.S. implements
Operation Desert Storm to push Iraqi forces back across the border with Kuwait
in a military operation that lasts until a ceasefire takes effect in April.
1992: Cold War Ends
Date: Feb. 1
Location: Camp David, Maryland
Just weeks after the dissolution of
the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and his
Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, meet at Camp David to formally declare the
end of the Cold War that began shortly after the end of World War II. The
meeting comes days after both countries announce they would stop aiming nuclear
missiles at each other. Russia declares its 11 former communist satellite
republics from Armenia to Uzbekistan independent.
1993: The EU Becomes Reality
Date: Nov. 1
Location: Brussels
The Treaty of the European Union,
also known as the Maastricht Treaty, goes into effect in November, after a
rough series of political wrangling that, among other concessions, allows the
U.K. and Denmark to opt out of the common euro currency. The treaty opens the
way to removing border controls among member states and invites new members to
join the union.
1994: Amazon.com is Born
Date: July 5
Location: Seattle
With an initial aim of becoming an
online bookstore, Jeff Bezos and a handful of angel investors launch
Amazon.com, just as e-commerce is about to take off. In 2020, after expanding
from books to the so-called Everything Store and growing a business selling
cloud services to companies like Netflix and Instagram, Bezos would be the
worlds richest man.
1995: Domestic Terror Strikes
Oklahoma
Date: April 19
Location: Oklahoma City
In the deadliest domestic terrorist
attack in U.S. history, anti-government radicals Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City. They time the truck-bomb attack for a weekday morning in order to maximize casualties. For the murder of at least
168 people, including 19 children who were in a childcare center in the
building, and the injury of hundreds of others, an unremorseful McVeigh is
executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols is serving a life sentence
without the possibility of parole.
1996: The Dawn of Cloning
Date: July 5
Location: Midlothian, Scotland, U.K.
Dolly the Sheep enters the annals of
bioengineering when scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute become the first
to not only successfully clone a mammal, but also the first to do so using an
adult cell rather than an embryonic one. After 277 so-called cell fusions that
created 29 embryos, the teams managed to turn an udder cell into a nearly
complete biological carbon copy of the sheep from which it came.
1997: Machine Tops Chess Champ
Date: May 11
Location: New York City
Artificial intelligence and machine
learning have been serious areas of study (and hype) for over 60 years. In
1997, one of the most significant victories for silicon logic came when IBM's
Deep Blue became the first machine to beat a world chess champion. The the refrigerator-sized computer beat Garry Kasparov twice
and tied him three times in a six-game match.
1998: The Age of Google Begins
Date: Sept. 4
Location: Menlo Park, California
With seed money from Sun
Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim and Amazon
founder Jeff Bezos, among others, Stanford University Ph.D. students Larry Page
and Sergey Brin launch the search engine Google. The digital advertising
behemoth Google Inc., now Alphabet Inc., is a $1.104 trillion company with
several subsidiaries, including video-sharing platform YouTube; autonomous-car
development company Waymo; and X, the companys research
and development division.
1999: NATO's First Independent
Strike
Date: March 24
Location: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
In order to expel Serbian forces from Kosovo during the Kosovo War,
NATO forces initiate their first-ever military campaign against the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (now Montenegro and Serbia) without U.N. Security
Council authorization as Russia and China oppose the attack. The NATO air
strikes are aimed at stopping an onslaught against ethnic Albanians by the government
of Slobodan Miloević. The NATO attacks last
nearly three months, culminating in the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from
Kosovo.
2000: International Space Station
Opens
Date: Nov. 2
Location: Low earth orbit
Commanders Bill Shepherd from the United
States and Yuri Gidzenko of Russia, along with
Russian flight engineer Sergei Krikalev become the
first temporary residents of the International Space Station two years after
the first component of the research center was put into low-Earth orbit about
250 miles above sea level. Since that first crew, there have been 229 other
visitors to the ISS, some of them multiple times, led by 146 from the United
States and 47 from Russia.
2001: 9/11
Date: Sept. 11
Location: Multiple
In the worst attack on U.S. soil
since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, 19 hijackers inspired by
Islamist extremism kill nearly 3,000 people after crashing three
passenger-laden commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center towers in lower
Manhattan and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, United
Airlines 93, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and
crew attempt to regain control of the plane headed Washington D.C.
2002: Homeland Security
Date: Nov. 25
Location: Washington D.C.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush enact the
Homeland Security Act, the biggest government reorganization of national
security efforts since the Department of Defense was created in 1947. The
sweeping legislation creates the massive Department of Homeland Security, which
is responsible for everything from protecting infrastructure from cyber-attacks
to managing the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
2003: US Crushes Iraq
Date: March 19
Location: Iraq
With the help of British and other
allied forces, the United States begins its invasion of Iraq with a rapid
bombing "Shock and Awe" campaign with the intention of destroying
Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction; the weapons are never found. Coalition
forces manage to quickly topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam
Hussein, but have to fight insurgent forces for years afterward.
2004: Facebook Founded
Date: Feb. 4
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Mark Zuckerberg, a 23-year-old
Harvard University student, creates The facebook, a
local social networking site named after the orientation materials that
profiles students and faculty and given to incoming college freshmen. Sixteen
years later, Facebook has become an $843.6 billion digital advertising behemoth
so integral to many peoples lives that it has been criticized for helping
foreign powers and propagandists influence the U.S. political system.
2005: Katrina Overwhelms New Orleans
Date: Aug. 29
Location: U.S. Gulf Coast
After spending four days in the Gulf
of Mexico bulking up to a category 5 hurricane, Katrina slams into New Orleans,
inundating the city and creating a humanitarian crisis that lasts for weeks.
The catastrophe underscores the precarious situation not only in the Big Easy,
but also the surrounding area of the Gulf Coast. At least 1,833 people in the
storm's path are killed, and the storm inflicts $161 billion in damages to the
region, the costliest storm in U.S. history.
2006: Hussein Executed
Date: Dec. 30
Location: Baghdad
Three years after U.S. soldiers
pulled him from a hole in the ground where he had been hiding, Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein is hanged after he was convicted for crimes against humanity,
specifically for ordering the massacre of 148 Shiites in 1982 following a failed
assassination attempt against him.
2007: The iPhone
Date: Jan. 9
Location: San Francisco
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who died in
October 2011, first shows the world one of the most popular branded consumer
electronic devices in history, the iPhone. Since the first
generation phone that Jobs introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show
that year, there have been 18 versions of the mobile device, and more than 1.2
billion units have been sold globally through 2017. Only Samsung's Galaxy
smartphone comes close to that volume.
2008: Dow Plunges
Date: Sept. 29
Location: New York City
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
records an intraday drop of 777.68 points after Congress rejects a massive $700
billion bailout of U.S. banks. The bill would pass days later. The market
reacts also to months of global market turmoil amid the 2008 global financial
crisis spurred by the U.S. subprime mortgage market crash. The Dow fell by more
than half during the 2007-09 Great Recession, tumbling from 14,164 on Oct. 9, 2007 to 6,594 on March 5, 2009.
2009: Americas First African
American President
Date: Jan. 20
Location: Washington D.C.
After defeating Republican Sen. John
McCain of Arizona by amassing 365 electoral votes and 53% of the popular vote,
Barack Obama is sworn in as the first African American president of the United
States. Obama inherits the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,
but with his party holding majorities in both houses of Congress at the time,
the president is able to pass a stimulus package and
his signature Affordable Care Act in March 2010.
2010: Catastrophic Oil Spill
Date: April 20
Location: Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana
Eleven workers die and 17 are
injured after an explosion and fire erupts on the Deepwater Horizon offshore
drilling rig 40 miles from the Louisiana coast. The explosion causes the
largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, spewing 3 million barrels of
crude over the three months it takes to stop the leak. British oil company BP
says costs climbed to $65 billion in claims for the accident, including a $1.7
billion charge it took as recently as the fourth quarter of 2017.
2011: Bin Laden Killed
Date: May 2
Location: Abbottabad, Pakistan
In an intense 40-minute nighttime
firefight, 25 U.S. Navy SEALs hunt down and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in a compound in Abbottabad,
Pakistan. Within hours, bin Ladens body is identified using DNA and then
buried at sea.
2012: The "God Particle"
Is Discovered
Date: July 4
Location: Near Geneva
Nearly 600 feet below the
France-Switzerland border at CERN's Large Hadron Collider Facility, an
international team of scientists discovers a new particle widely believed to be
the elusive Higgs boson, known as the "God Particle," which is
thought to be a fundamental component of the universe. Higgs boson has been an
important element of particle physics theory for decades, but until 2012 there
had been no physical evidence to support its existence.
2013: Snowden Reveals Secrets
Date: June 6
Location: Hong Kong
After surreptitiously leaving his
job at U.S. National Security Agency contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, computer
security consultant Edward Snowden meets secretly in Hong Kong with journalists
Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He reveals the first of a series of secrets
about numerous U.S. and European government surveillance operations. Hailed as
a courageous whistleblower and privacy champion by some, and a traitor that
compromised counterterrorism efforts by others, the American now resides in
exile in Moscow.
2014: Russian Bear Bites Ukraine
Date: March 16
Location: Crimea
Exploiting political unrest in
Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrates the annexation of the
Crimean Peninsula. The action incites peals of condemnation from world leaders
and a raft of economic sanctions against Moscow. This strategically important
and predominantly Russian-speaking region on the Black Sea has been coveted by
the Russians as part of their strategic efforts to check NATO expansion along
Russia's western border.
2015: NASA Flies by Pluto
Date: July 14
Location: 3 billion miles from Earth
NASA spacecraft New Horizons becomes
the first human-made object to fly past and observe the dwarf planet Pluto. New
Horizons sends back stunning photographs of this enigmatic and distant member
of the solar system, including images of a mountain range and massive icebergs
floating in frozen nitrogen. New Horizons is now en
route to the Kuiper Belt, a massive asteroid belt at the far reaches of the
solar system.
2016: Trump Elected
Date: Nov. 8
Location: U.S.
Running on a populist agenda, Donald
Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States and the fifth
president in U.S. history (the second since the 2000) to win despite losing the
popular vote. The real estate developer and television personality ran on a
platform of putting "America First" in global trade and foreign policy
negotiations and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.
2017: Hurricane Triple Whammy
Date: August-September
Location: Multiple
Within just four weeks, three
massive hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria strike Texas, Florida, and the
Caribbean, killing 228 people, inflicting a combined $265 billion in damages,
and displacing millions of homeowners. Hurricane Maria inflicts immense damage
to the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which was already struggling from
economic insolvency.
2018: Wildfires
Date: November
Location: Northern California
Wildfires engulfed northern
California in November, the deadliest in that states history. The catastrophe
cost the lives of 88 people and fire consumed 18,500 homes and businesses.
State and federal officials estimated that it would cost $3 billion to clean up
debris. Climate change activists said the conflagrations were evidence that
global warming is no longer a distant concern and that it is occurring now.
2019: Hong Kong Protests
Date: Beginning in March
Location: Hong Kong
Residents of the small economic
powerhouse of Hong Kong, which was given special administrative region status
as a condition to its handover to China from Great Britain, protested a
proposed extradition bill in March. That led to other mass demonstrations in
Hong Kong throughout the year over concerns China was trying to erode Hong
Kongs autonomy.
People power manifested itself in
protests in other nations as well in 2019, with demonstrations leading to the
ouster of presidents in Algeria and Sudan.
2020: COVID-19
Date: March
Location: Worldwide
A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2,
that causes the disease Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China, in late
2019. The virus spread to Europe and the United States in early 2020 and was
declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11. The outbreak
reached virtually every nation on Earth, leading to countrywide lockdowns,
massive layoffs, business closures, and school shutdowns. As of Aug. 26, the
pandemic claimed more than 820,000 lives worldwide, including about 179,000
people in the U.S. COVID-19 has become the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu
in 1918.
Source:
USA Today