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Queen Victoria's Death
Queen Victoria was the longest reigning British monarch in history, ruling the United Kingdom from 1837 to 1901. Her death on January 22, 1901 at age 81 was mourned around the world and signaled an end to the Victorian Era. -
William McKinley Assassinated
On September 6, 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz walked up to U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in New York and shot McKinley at point-blank range. After the shooting, it first appeared that President McKinley was getting better; however, he soon took a turn for the worse and died on September 14 from gangrene. -
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel discovered dynamite in his early years. On December 10th 1901 the first set of Nobel Prizes were awarded. -
The Boer War
From October 11, 1899 until May 31, 1902, the Second Boer War (also known as the South African War and the Anglo-Boer War) was fought in South Africa between the British and the Boers (Dutch settlers in southern Africa). The Boers had founded two independent South African republics (the Orange Free State and the South African Republic) and had a long history of distrust and dislike for the British that surrounded them. -
Ford Motor Company
The Ford Motor Company (commonly referred to as simply Ford) is an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903 -
The Wright Brothers Flew
At 10:35 a.m. on December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew the Flyer for 12 seconds over 120 feet of ground. This flight, conducted on Kill Devil Hill just outside of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was the very first flight by a manned, controlled, heavier-than-air aircraft that flew under it's own power. In other words, it was the first flight of an airplane. -
Albert Einstein
In 1905, Albert Einstein, a 26-year-old patent clerk, wrote a paper that revolutionized science. In his Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein explained that the speed of light was constant but that both space and time were relative to the position of the observer. -
San Francisco
Scientific study of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake led to the formation of the elastic-rebound theory, which helps explain why earthquakes occur. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was also the first large, natural disaster whose damage was recorded by photography. -
Teddy Roosevelt Simplifies Spelling
In 1906, U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt tried to get the government to simplify the spelling of 300 common English words. However, this didn't go over well with Congress or the public. -
Oklahoma
On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, or informally "Okies", and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City. -
The Tunguska Event
At 7:14 a.m. on June 30, 1908, a giant explosion shook central Siberia. Witnesses close to the event described seeing a fireball in the sky, as bright and hot as another sun. Millions of trees fell and the ground shook. Although a number of scientists investigated, it is still a mystery as to what caused the explosion. -
S.O.S Created
July 1, 1908, that the International Morse Code signal "SOS" (three dots, three dashes, and then three dots) became the official distress call around the world. -
The Ford Model T
The Ford Model T was produced and sold to the public from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. -
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft became the 27th President March 4, 1909 and his run ended March 4, 1913. -
Abraham Lincoln On The Penny
Even though no legislation was required for the new design, approval of the Secretary of the Treasury was necessary to make the change. Franklin MacVeagh gave his approval on July 14, 1909, and not quite three weeks later, on August 2, the new coin was released to the public. -
February 8, 1910 - The Boy Scouts of America is founded.
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Triangle Shirt Waist
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City. The 500 workers located on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch building did everything they could to escape, but the poor conditions, locked doors, and faulty fire escape caused 146 to die in the fire. -
Mona Lisa
On August 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, one of the most famous paintings in the world, was stolen right off the wall of the Louvre (famous museum in Paris, France). -
Oreos
Most of us have grown up with Oreo cookies. There are photos of us with chocolaty remnants smeared across our faces. They've caused great disputes as to the best way to eat them - dunking them in milk or twisting off one side and eating the middle first -
Titanic
The world was shocked when the Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912 and sunk just a few hours later at 2:20 am on April 15, 1912. The "unsinkable" ship RMS Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, losing at least 1,517 lives (some accounts say even more), making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. -
Henry Ford/Assembly Line
The creation of the assembly line by Henry Ford at his Highland Park plant, introduced on December 1, 1913, revolutionized the automobile industry and the concept of manufacturing worldwide. -
Crossword Puzzle
On December 12, 1913, the very first crossword puzzle, created by Arthur Wynne, was published in the New York World newspaper. -
Arch Duke Assassinated
On the morning of June 28, 1914, a 19-year-old Bosnian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Sophie and Franz Ferdinand, the future heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary (the second-largest empire in Europe) in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. -
World War 1
World War I was an extremely bloody war that engulfed Europe from 1914 to 1919, with huge losses of life and little ground lost or won. Fought mostly by soldiers in trenches, World War I saw an estimated 10 million military deaths and another 20 million wounded. While many hoped that World War I would be "the war to end all wars," in actuality, the concluding peace treaty set the stage for World War II. -
Battle of the Marne
From September 6-12, 1914, just one month into World War I, the First Battle of the Marne took place just 30 miles northeast of Paris in the Marne River Valley of France. -
Lusitania
On May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, which primarily ferried people and goods across the Atlantic Ocean between the United States and Great Britain, was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk. Of the 1,959 people on board, 1,198 died, including 128 Americans. The sinking of the Lusitania enraged Americans and hastened the United States' entrance into World War I. -
Russian Revolution
In 1917, two revolutions completely changed the fabric of Russia. First, the February Russian Revolution toppled the Russian monarchy and established a Provisional Government. -
Mata Hari
Mata Hari was an exotic dancer and courtesan who was arrested by the French and executed for espionage during World War I. After her death, her stage name, "Mata Hari," became synonymous with spying and espionage. -
The Treaty Of Versailles
The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, was the peace settlement between Germany and the Allied Powers that officially ended World War I. However, the conditions in the treaty were so punitive upon Germany that many believe the Versailles Treaty laid the groundwork for the eventual rise of Nazis in Germany and the eruption of World War II. -
Hitler Joins The Nazi Party
The Nazi Party was a political party in Germany, led by Adolf Hitler from 1921 to 1945, whose central tenets included the supremacy of the Aryan people and blaming Jews and others for the problems within Germany. -
Prohibition In U.S.
Prohibition was a period of nearly 14 years of U.S. history (1920 to 1933) in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquor was made illegal. It was a time characterized by speakeasies, glamour, and gangsters and a period of time in which even the average citizen broke the law. Interestingly, Prohibition, sometimes referred to as the "Noble Experiment," led to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. -
Fatty Arbuckle
At a raucous, three-day party in 1921, a young starlet became severely ill and died four days later. Newspapers went wild with the story: popular silent-screen comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had killed Virginia Rappe with his weight while savagely raping her. Though the newspapers of the day reveled in the gory, rumored details, juries found little evidence that Arbuckle was in any way connected with her death. -
King TuT
Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, spent a number of years and a lot of money searching for a tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings that they weren't sure still existed. On November 4, 1922, they found it. Carter had discovered not just an unknown ancient Egyptian tomb, but one that had lain nearly undisturbed for over 3,000 years. What lay within King Tut's tomb astounded the world. -
Charleston Dance
The Charleston dance became popular after appearing along with the song, "The Charleston," by James P. Johnson in the Broadway musical Runnin' Wild in 1923. -
Hitler Jailed.
Hitler Jailed After Failed Coup (1923): Ten years before Hitler came to power in Germany, he tried to take it by force. On the night of November 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler and some of his confederates stormed into a beer hall and attempted to force the triumvirate, the three men that governed Bavaria, to join him in a national revolution. The men of the tiumvirate disagreed. Hitler was arrested three days later and after a short trial, he was sentenced to five years in prison. -
Balto
Around 5:30 a.m. on February 2, 1925, Gunnar Kaasen and his team of dogs, led by a black Siberian Husky named Balto, finished the final leg of the relay and entered Nome with the serum, becoming instant, world-famous heroes. -
Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, frequently called “the great American novel,” was first published on April 10, 1925. It was not an instant sensation. Although all the copies from the first run of 20,870 sold, many copies from the second run languished in a warehouse until Fitzgerald’s death in 1940 at the age of 44. It wasn’t until the mid-1940s that there was a resurgence of interest in The Great Gatsby. -
Benito Mussolini
At 10:58 a.m. on April 7, 1926, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini was heading back to his car after having just given a speech in Rome to the International Congress of Surgeons when a bullet nearly ended his life. Irish aristocrat Violet Gibson shot at Mussolini, but because he turned his head at the last moment, the bullet went through Mussolini's nose instead of his head. -
Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth Makes Home-Run Record (1927): Babe Ruth was known as the Home Run King and the Sultan of Swat because of his powerful and effective swing. In 1927, Babe Ruth was playing for the New York Yankees. Throughout the 1927 season, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (who was on the same team as Babe Ruth) competed for who was going to end the season with the most home runs. -
The Jazz Singer
When The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, was released as a feature-length movie on October 6, 1927, it was the first movie that included dialogue and music on the filmstrip itself. -
Sliced Bread
The very first loaf of pre-sliced bread went on shelves on July 7, 1928 as "Sliced Kleen Maid Bread." Bench's sales quickly skyrocketed and they knew the invention was a success. -
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1929): On the morning of St. Valentine's Day, February 14, in 1929, seven men of a rival gang were gunned down in cold blood in a garage in Chicago. The massacre, orchestrated by Al Capone, shocked the nation by its brutality and made Capone a national celebrity. -
Roosevelt Hotel
Held on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, this was the very first Academy Awards. More of a fancy dinner than the huge, staged ceremony of today, it was the beginning of a grand tradition. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to the early 1940s, was a severe economic downturn caused by an overly-confident, over-extended stock market and a drought that struck the South -
The Stock Market Crash (Black Tuesday)
When the stock market took a dive on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the country was unprepared. The economic devastation caused by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was a key factor in beginning the Great Depression. -
Pluto Was Discovered
On February 18, 1930, Clyde W. Tombaugh, an assistant at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, discovered Pluto. For over seven decades, Pluto was considered the ninth planet of our solar system. -
Gandhi's Salt March
The much-publicized, 24-day, 240-mile Salt March began on March 12, 1930, when 61-year-old Mohandas Gandhi led an ever-growing group of followers from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea at Dandi, India. Upon arriving at the beach in Dandi on the morning of April 6, 1930, loincloth-clad Gandhi reached down and scooped up a lump of salt and held it high. -
Empire State Building
Yet, why does the Empire State Building appeal to so many? When the Empire State Building opened on May 1, 1931, it was the tallest building in the world - standing at 1,250 feet tall. This building not only became an icon of New York City, it became a symbol of twentieth century man's attempts to achieve the impossible. -
National Anthem
On March 3, 1931, U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed an act that officially made "The Star Spangled Banner" the national anthem for the United States. Before this time, the United States had been without any national anthem. -
Charles Lindbergh's Baby Was Kidnapped
On the evening of March 1, 1932, famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife put their 20-month-old baby, Charles (“Charlie”) Augustus Lindbergh Jr., to bed in his upstairs nursery. However, when Charlie’s nurse went to check on him at 10 pm, he was gone; someone had kidnapped him. News of the kidnapping shocked the world. -
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart flied solo across the Atlantic Ocean solo on May, 21, 1932. While attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world, she disappeared on July 2, 1937 while heading toward Howland's Island. -
Hitler Appointed Chancellor Of Germany
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed as the chancellor of Germany by President Paul Von Hindenburg. This appointment was made in an effort to keep Hitler and the Nazi Party “in check”; however, it would have disastrous results for Germany and the entire European continent. In the year and seven months that followed, Hitler was able to exploit the death of Hindenburg and combine the positions of chancellor and president into the position of Führer, the supreme leader of Germany. -
Assassination Attempt On F.D.R
Statistically, being the president of the United States is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, since four have been assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy). In addition to the presidents that have actually been killed while in office, there have been a myriad of unsuccessful attempts to kill U.S. presidents. One of these happened on February 15, 1933, when Giuseppe Zangara tried to kill President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami, Florida -
Auschwitz
Auschwitz might be the most famous camp in the Nazi system of terror, but it was not the first. The first concentration camp was Dachau, established on March 20, 1933 in the southern German town of the same name (10 miles northwest of Munich). -
Prohibition Ends In U.S.
Prohibition Ends in the U.S. (1933): Prohibition was the period in United States history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors was outlawed. It began officially on January 16, 1920 (exactly a year after the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) and ended with the ratification of the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933. -
Bonny And Clyde
It was during the Great Depression that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow went on their two-year crime spree (1932-1934). The general attitude in the United States was against government and Bonnie and Clyde used that to their advantage. With an image closer to Robin Hood rather than mass murderers, Bonnie and Clyde captured the imagination of the nation. -
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was the name given to an area of the Great Plains (southwestern Kansas, Oklahoma panhandle, Texas panhandle, northeastern New Mexico, and southeastern Colorado) that was devastated by nearly a decade of drought and soil erosion during the 1930s. -
Alcatraz Becomes Federal Prison
Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco Bay, 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a federal prison from 1933 until 1963. -
The Berlin Olympics
In August 1936, the world came together for the quadrennial Summer Olympics in Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Although several countries had threatened to boycott the Summer Olympics that year due to Adolf Hitler’s controversial regime, in the end they put their differences aside and sent their athletes to Germany. The 1936 Olympics would see the first Olympic torch relay and the historic performance of Jesse Owens. -
World War II Begins
World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945, was a war fought primarily between the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States). At 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland -
Yuri Gagarin
On board Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history on April 12, 1961 when he became both the first person in the world to enter space and the first person to orbit the Earth. -
The Berlin Wall - 28 Year History
Erected in the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall (known as Berliner Mauer in German) was a physical division between West Berlin and East Germany in order to keep East Germans from feeling to the West. When the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, its destruction was nearly as instantaneous as its creation. For 28 years, the Berlin Wall had been a symbol of the Cold War and thus when it fell it was celebrated around the world. -
President John F. Kennedy's Assassination
On November 22, 1963, the youth and idealism of America in the 1960s faltered as its young President, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby during a prisoner transfer. -
The Beatles
Although Beatlemania had overtaken Great Britain, the Beatles still had the challenge of the United States. Despite already having achieved one number-one hit in the U.S. and had been greeted by 5,000 screaming fans when they arrived at the New York airport, it was the Beatles' February 9, 1964, appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that ensured Beatlemania in America. -
Muhammad Ali Becomes World Heavyweight Champion
On February 25, 1964, underdog Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali, fought defending champion Charles "Sonny" Liston for the world heavyweight title in Miami Beach, Florida. Although it was nearly unanimously believed that Clay would be knocked out by round two, if not earlier, it was Liston who lost the fight after refusing at the beginning of round seven to continue fighting. This fight was one of the largest upsets in sports history, setting Cassius Clay on a long path of fame and con -
The Assassination of Malcolm X
After spending a year as a hunted man, Malcom X was shot and killed during a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, on February 21, 1965. The assailants, at least three in number, were members of the black Muslim group the Nation of Islam, the group with which Malcolm X had been a prominent minister for ten years before he split with them in March 1964. -
U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam
In response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 2 and 4, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, per the authority given to him by Congress in the subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, decided to escalate the Vietnam Conflict by sending U.S. ground troops to Vietnam. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed near Da Nang in South Vietnam; they are the first U.S. troops arrive in Vietnam. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. The .30-caliber rifle bullet entered King's right cheek, traveled through his neck, and finally stopped at his shoulder blade. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. -
Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot three times by Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan after giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Robert Kennedy died of his wounds 26 hours later. Robert Kennedy's assassination later led to Secret Service protection for all future major presidential candidates. -
First Man on the Moon
For thousands of years, man had looked to the heavens and dreamed of walking on the moon. In 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong became the very first to accomplish that dream, followed only minutes later by Buzz Aldrin. Their accomplishment placed the United States ahead of the Soviets in the Space Race and gave people around the world the hope of future space exploration. -
The Munich Massacre
The Munich Massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Olympic Games. Eight Palestinian terrorists killed two members of Israeli Olympic team and then took nine others hostage. The situation was ended by a huge gunfight that left five of the terrorists and all of the nine hostages dead. Following the massacre, the Israeli government organized a retaliation against Black September, called Operation Wrath of God. -
M.A.S.H T.V. Series Premire
MASH was an extremely popular TV series, which first aired on CBS on September 17, 1972. Based on the real experiences of a surgeon in the Korean War, the series centered upon the interrelationships, stresses, and trauma involved in being in a MASH unit. -
Skylab
Skylab was America’s first space station. Launched unmanned on May 14, 1973 from the Kennedy Space Center, Skylab was built and supplied to hold three separate crews of three astronauts over the course of seven months. However, the whole program was nearly ruined when the micrometeoroid shield broke off during launch and damaged other parts of the Skylab. -
Terracotta Army Discovered in China
In 1974, a life-sized, terracotta army was discovered near Lintong, Xian, Shaanxi, China. Buried in underground pits, the 8,000 terracotta soldiers and horses were part of the necropolis of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, to aid him in the afterlife. While work continues on escavating and preserving the terracotta army, it remains one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century. -
President Nixon
President Nixon Resigned. -
Big Foot Monster Truck
Bigfoot, created and owned by Bob Chandler, was the very first monster truck. It started out as a blue, 1974 Ford F-250 pickup truck; however, Chandler slowly made improvements over the years, making the truck bigger and better. In April 1981, Chandler had the idea to take his huge truck, with 66-inch wheels, out to a field just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and roll over two parked junkyard cars. Thus began the era of monster trucks. -
Pol Plot
As head of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot oversaw an unprecedented and extremely brutal attempt to remove Cambodia from the modern world and establish an agrarian utopia. While attempting to create this utopia, Pol Pot created the Cambodian Genocide, which lasted from 1975 to 1979 and caused the deaths of at least 1.5 million Cambodians out of a population of approximately 8 million. -
Star Wars
First Star Wars Movie Released -
Jonestown Massacre
he Jonestown Massacre, which had a death toll of 918 people, was the most deadly single non-natural disaster in U.S. history until September 11, 2001. The Jonestown Massacre also remains the only time in history in which a U.S. congressman was killed in the line of duty. -
1900-1910
