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Henry Ford perfects mass production
On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installed the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to one hour and 33 minutes.
While he may not have invented the automobile, he did offer a new way of manufacturing a large number of vehicles. -
Harlem Renaissance Begins
The Harlem Renaissance was a period of rich cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural activity among African Americans between the end of World War I (1917) and the onset of the Great Depression and lead up to World War II (the 1930s). The movement also included musical, theatrical, and visual arts. The Harlem Renaissance was unusual among literary and artistic movements for its close relationship to civil rights and reform organizations. -
The Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. -
Prohibition begins
The Prohibition era was a period in the United States during which a nationwide constitutional law prohibiting the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was enacted. -
Women gain the right to vote
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation and protest. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, as well as two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of a seminal investigation by Senator Thomas J. -
Sacco and Vanzetti are convicted
Sacco and Vanzetti were tried and found guilty in July 1921. During the six years before they were executed, their names became known throughout the world. Their trials for armed robbery and murder occurred in this atmosphere of social tension and turmoil. The trial judge permitted the prosecution to present extensive evidence about their anarchist ideology, immigrant background, and refusal to register for the military draft during World War I. -
Scopes trial
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it illegal for teachers to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. -
Charles Lindberg Crosses the Atlantic
On May 21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in history, flying his Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. -
Kellogg-Briand pact signed
On August 27, 1928, fifteen nations signed the pact at Paris. The first outlawed war as an instrument of national policy and the second called upon signatories to settle their disputes by peaceful means. -
Black Tuesday stock market crash
A crowd of investors gather outside the New York Stock Exchange on "Black Tuesday"—October 29, when the stock market plummeted and the U.S. plunged into the Great Depression. On October 29, 1929, the United States stock market crashed in an event known as Black Tuesday.