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Women suffrage
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 -
FDR Launches New Deal
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. -
World II starts
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 -
Pearl Harbor
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 -
First Hydrogen Bomb Test
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 -
Parks Starts A Movement
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 advancing the civil rights cause -
Berlin Wall Built
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 -
King assassinated
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 -
Chemicals kill thousands in 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 -
9/11
19 hijackers inspired by Islamist extremism kill nearly 3,000 people after crashing three passenger-laden commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center towers