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Bill Clinton Elected President
Clinton won the 1992 presidential election by 370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush 168 electoral votes and billionaire populist Ross Perot zero electoral votes, who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. -
Jimmy Carter Elected President
Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in 1980. -
Star Wars Movie Premier
Star Wars, first released on May 25, 1977, was one of the defining motion pictures in cinema history, and, for many people who lived during the era of bewilderment and cynicism following U.S. Pres. -
Three Mile Island Meltdown
The Three Mile Island nuclear plant had two pressurized light-water reactors. On March 28, 1979, a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in Reactor 2. -
Mount. St. Helens Eruption
Forty years ago, after two months of earthquakes and small explosions, Mount St. Helens cataclysmically erupted. A high-speed blast leveled millions of trees and ripped soil from bedrock. The eruption fed a towering plume of ash for more than nine hours, and winds carried the ash hundreds of miles away. -
Iran Hostages Released
The hostages were held for 444 days, from November 4, 1979, to their release on January 20, 1981. The crisis is considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran United States relations. -
Assassination Attempt on President Reagan
John Hinckley Jr. Reagan was seriously wounded by a revolver bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding. -
Iran/ Contra Affair
The Iran-Contra Affair was a U.S. political scandal that took place during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. -
Challenger Shuttle Explosion
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. -
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
What caused the Chornobyl accident? On April 26, 1986, the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chornobyl, Ukraine, went out of control during a test at low power, leading to an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building and released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. -
George H.W. Bush Elected President
Bush, a Republican from Texas and the incumbent vice president for two terms under President Ronald Reagan took office following his victory over Democrat nominee Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
At a press conference on 9 November, East German spokesman Günter Schabowski announced that East Germans would be free to travel into West Germany, starting immediately. -
Start of the Persian Gulf War
What incident triggered the Persian Gulf War? The Persian Gulf War, also called Gulf War (1990–91), was an international conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. -
Original U.S.A. Olympic Basketball Dream Team
The 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team, nicknamed the "Dream Team", was the first American Olympic team to feature active professional players. -
Rodney King Decision & L.A. Riots
On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force. -
Launch of Google
Alphabet Inc. Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. -
Bill Clinton Impeached by the House of Representatives
Clinton was the second U.S. president to face a Senate impeachment trial, after Andrew Johnson. An impeachment inquiry was opened into Clinton on October 8, 1998. -
World Trade Center/Pentagon/Shanksville, PA Attacks
On the morning of 11 September 2001, 19 terrorists from the Islamist extreme group al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft and crashed two of the twin towers.