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World War One Begins
After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. This then leads to Germany and Russia declaring war on one another, which led to the World War. Then France mobilized its troops as well. -
The sinking of the Lusitania
A German U-boat fires without warning onto a British boat which was carrying many American passengers. This angers many Americans and leads to a deal where the Germans where they have to limit submarine usage. There were military supplies on the boat, -
The Zimmerman Telegram
This telegram from Germany to Mexico brought America into the war. This was an encrypted telegram that the British had decoded, and it stated that Germany would give Mexico American land after they had won the war. America immediately declared war. -
World War One Ends
One the 11th day of the 11th hour on the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ended. This would later become known as Veteran's Day in America. The war ended when Germany signed an armistice to end the war. This deal occurred in France. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor
The seeds of WWII are sown as Adolf Hitler takes power in Germany. He promises to make Germany great again by expanding their military prowess. He spreads messages of hate and fear for the Jewish people. He has gone from a disenfranchised WWI veteran to the leader of Germany in the matter of a decade. -
World War 2 begins in Europe
World War 2 begins as Germany invades Poland on the west side and Russia invades in the west of Poland. Britain and France declare war on Germany after deciding to be done appeasing them. America decides to not join the war. -
Pearl Harbor, Pacific Theatre beings
Japanese launches a surprise attack on Hawaii after America refuses to supply Japan with oil anymore since they are allied with Germany. This is a declaration of war and all the allies also declare war on Japan. This was payed back to the Japanese in the Doolittle Raid. -
Bataan Death March
When American soldiers are surrendered in the Phillipines to the Japanese in the early part of the Pacific Theatre, the Japanese soldiers force them to make a 60 mile walk in the hot jungle. They execute anyone who stops moving. -
Doolittle's Raid
This was when Americans got to payback the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. This was the first attack on Japanese mainland in WWII. The raid was planned and carried out by James Doolittle and included many bombing runs on mainly Tokyo. This is why the raid is also referred to as the Tokyo Raid. -
D-Day
This was when Allied forces invaded Northern France, called Normandy. This invasion was slower than expected, but worked out for the Allies. At certain beaches such as Omaha, U.S. soldiers were mowed down as they attempted to exit their boats. This was the largest amphibian assault in recorded history. -
World War II end in Europe
World War II ends in Europe on V-E Day. Celebration is everywhere in Europe including Britain, France, and America. As the war ends, Hitler kills himself as Germany falls. The Soviets take over Berlin to end the war with Germany. -
Victory in Japan Day
The battles of the Pacific Theatre ended of V-J Day, or Victory in Japan Day. This occurred after America dropped atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was Truman's doing, and it terrified the Japanese into surrender. -
Korean War begins
North Korean troops storm into South Korea on this day and the Korean War begins. This war was mostly about how North Korea was communist while South Korea were capitalists. -
Battle of Inchon
General Douglas MacArthur ordered an amphibious landing at Inchon, which was at the northern part of South Korea deep in enemy territory in order to secure the Pusan Perimeter which was the holding point for the South Koreans. -
China enters the war
After the U.S. and U.N. forces began to push deep into North Korea and began to make major advances, China had some emergency meetings with both Russia and North Korea. The Russian government agreed that it wasn't going to be involved in the war, but China decided to help North Korea and renamed the North Korean Army as the PVA of China. -
Battle of Bloody Ridge
This ground battle took place at the 38th parallel between the U.S., South Koreans, and the U.N. and the North Koreans. As peace talks began in the summer of 1951, both armies were moving around the 38th parallel to secure more land. This led to many clashes like this one for some hills. About 2,700 U.N. forces and 15,000 communists forces died in the battle. -
Korean War ends
An armistice is agreed upon by both sides, and a line is drawn at the 38th parallel to split the two countries. A zone is set in between them that neither side owns called the demilitarized zone. The armistice was only a cease fire, and fighting between the sides occurs even today. -
U.S. forces began to fight in Vietnam War
The U.S. has sent aid and advisers to South Vietnam in order to maintain the Democracy there to stop the North Vietnamese Communists from taking over, but now we need to send troops over to secure this after President Diem died in South Vietnam. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
The bombing of North Vietnam and surrounding countries begins in order to stop supplies from North Vietnam from reaching the communist fighters called the Vietcong in South Vietnam. The bombing is mostly on the Ho Chi Minh trail where most of the supplies are moving through. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major coordinated attack by the Vietcong in South Vietnam over the course of the Tet Holiday in Vietnam, which is the new year celebration. This meant that it was unexpected, and it came at a time when the U.S. finally believed it was going to end the war. Although the U.S. won and defeated this offensive, it led to the U.S. public no longer supporting the war. -
My Lai Massacre
This was when a group of soldiers led by William Calley slaughtered an entire village of innocent Vietnamese people for no reason. They were eventually stopped by a man named Hugh Thompson, Jr. He threatened to kill them if they didn't stop. They murdered women and babies all over the town. After one year the story broke out into the United States public and people now viewed all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam as evil. -
Hamburger Hill
Hamburger Hill was a battle for Hill 937. This was the U.S. invading a hill to try and secure it while the North Vietnamese had a huge advantage. The U.S. eventually claimed the hill with a high amount of deaths and casualites, but then a few weeks later abandoned the hill and let the North Vietnamese have it again. This obviously made the soldiers wonder what they were really fighting for. It was called Hamburger Hill because men died like going into a grinder for hamburgers. -
Woodstock
This was a huge 3 day music festival which actually ended up lasting four days because of the amount of people. Four men organized the music festival in order to get money to build a recording studio, but ended up deeply in debt. The four men were John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Michael Lang. After a lot of confusion the festival became free and the expected amount of 100,000 people became 500,000 people at the festival. Luckily nothing terrible happened to any mass of people. -
Vietnamization
This was the process of moving U.S. forces out of Vietnam and giving responsibility of fighting the North Vietnamese and Vietcong to the South Vietnamese because the U.S. public no longer wanted to be involved in the war. This process took many years and ultimately didn't work as the North Vietnamese defeated the South. -
Kent State University Shooting
This was when four students at Kent State University were killed by members of the National Guard after some rioting. The people were upset because of Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia, and this outrage led to riots and eventually the National Guard being at colleges. This made the students mad and they threw strones at the National Guardsmen, and at one point they fired upon the crowd. This made people hate the war and the government even more. -
Jackson State University Shooting
This was when local police and state police shot at a group of students from Jackson State University and killed two people while injuring twelve more. This was also due to rioting at the university due to Nixon's decision to enter Cambodia. This led to even more distrust of the police and government right after Kent State. -
Operation Lam Son 719
This was the first big push by the South Vietnamese(ARVN) as American troops were starting to leave South Vietnam. We wanted the South Vietnamese to hold their own against the North, and this invasion was specifically into a southeast part of Laos. -
26th Amendment
The 26th Amendment made it so that people that were 18 could vote, rather than people who were 21 or older. This was done because people were being drafted at age 18 for the Vietnam War, so they felt like they deserved to be able to vote as well. -
Operation Homecoming
This was when North Vietnam released 591 U.S. soldiers back to us in exchange for some peace dealings. This led to lots of happiness on the homefront as the war was finally winding down. All of the families were overjoyed to see their soldiers finally back home. -
Saigon Falls
The capital of South Vietnam during the Vietnamese War, Saigon, fell into the North Vietnamese's hands on this day. They then renamed this city Ho Chi Minh City and unified Vietnam into a singular communist nation. As the place fell, many important officers of South Vietnam were escorted out by helicopter by the U.S. -
Josip Tito dies
This was the date of Josip Tito's death, the previous ruler of Yugoslavia. He kept the different ethnic groups in check and kept everybody from murdering one another. Things get out of hand in Yugoslavia once he died and republics formed. -
Operation Desert Shield
This date was when Iraq invaded Kuwait officially and a buildup of troops began outside of Kuwait. This would eventually lead to Operation Desert Storm. -
Persian Gulf War
The UN and US give Iraq several months to leave Kuwait peacefully and they refuse to. Their leader, Saddam Hussein, claimed that Kuwait was taking crude oil from them and said that Kuwait was not a real country, and was a part of Iraq. -
Rwandan Civil War begins
In 1990 the battle between the Hutu government of Rwanda and a group of mainly Tutsis called the RPF began. This eventually led to the Rwandan genocide. The RPF then had joint control of the government, which led to fear that the Tutsis wanted to take over and enslave the Hutus, which led to the genocide of the Tutsis. -
Operation Desert Storm begins
The military offensive to take out Iraqis from Kuwait begins. This force is spear-headed by the U.S. and involved tons of countries from all over the world. This force is led by Norman Schwarzkopf and utilizes stealth bombers and cruise missles. -
Operation Desert Sabre
This was the ground offensive in Kuwait and Iraq that took four days to end. Iraq realized that it was not going to win the Persian Gulf War and quickly retreated from Kuwait. -
The End of the Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War officially ends, and Saddam Hussein is left in power in Iraq. He does, however, sign a treaty saying that recognize Kuwait as a country and get rid of all WMDs that he possesses. Over time Saddam would not cooperate with this treaty and lead to the Iraq war. -
Bosnian Genocide Begins
In April of 1992 the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina separated from Yugoslavia and began to target Muslims within the country to attack them -
Operation Provide Relief begins
Humanitarian efforts go into Somalia to help people. This is due to people noticing how warlords in Somalia is leading to hundreds of thousands of people dying of famine. The world works together to try to help these people. -
UN Resolution 751 is passed
This resolution is passed which authorizes humanitarian relief efforts to begin in Somalia from the UN. This establishes UNOSOM in Somalia to help, no military action is involved. -
Operation Restore Hope
38000 troops from a ton of different countries arrive in Somalia to deal with the warlords. U.S. marine and navy seals comes into Mogadishu(capital of Somalia) in order to secure the area. Everything goes well and General Aidid is the head warlord that we want to deal with. -
Aidid becomes aggresive
General Aidid with his base setup in Mogadishu begins to attack soldiers across the country. These skirmishes continue for a while and eventually the U.S. attacked an Aidad compound which made him made and he killed 4 western journalists. -
U.S. raid on Bakara Market goes terribly
The U.S. launches an attack in Bakara Market in Mogadishu in order to try to find General Aidid which fails terribly. The battle was supposed to take 30 minutes and ending up taking one full day and 19 U.S. soldiers died along with 1000 Somalis. A black hawk went down so soldiers had to save the survivors, which led to most of the issues. -
U.S. leaves Somalia
U.S. troops were ordered by President Clinton to leave Somalia after the raid went so terribly. This is widely disapproved by the people since we didn't catch Aidid and left early. -
Sarajevo incident
On this day Sarajevo was attacked viciously by the Bosnian Serbs and an international outcry was created. There were 68 killed and over 200 wounded on this day, and images of the murders were all over the place. -
Rwandan Genocide Begins
Moderate Hutus and Tutsis began being murdered for their ethnicity. This began when Cyprien Ntaryamira was killed in a plane crash and only hours later the Prime Minister was killed by the Presidential Guard, Rwandan Armed Forces, and other Hutu militia groups. This led to an interim government that slaughtered the Tutsis in the country and any moderate Hutus. -
People flee from Rwanda
Around 250,000 people fled from Rwanda to Tanzania in this time with almost all of them being Tutsis. This was after around 20 days of the Hutus beginning their massacre of the Tutsi people. -
The RPF takes control of Rwanda
On this date the RPF took control of the presidential palace. This led to the end of the genocide, but it would be several months before it actually concluded. The RPF had won the military victory, but the native Hutus in the country had not given up murdering the Tutsis. -
The Rwandan Genocide ends
This was the date when the Rwandan Genocide was officially considered over. The old Rwandan government was completely defeated by this date so that they would stop murdering Tutsis. -
UN safe zone attacked
The UN came into Bosnia and established safe zones in order to protect the people there. This seemed effective until the Srebrenica massacre where the Serbs took over a safe zone and murdered over 8000 people there. -
NATO bombing begins
After the genocide of thousands of people by the Serbs, NATO stepped in to stop them by bombing them. This was the international coming together to help the people being attacked that was much too late. -
The Bosnian Genocide Ends
Milosevic sits down for peace talks. He goes to Ohio to agree to democratic elections in Bosnia and two main portions of the country split by the ethnic groups that live there. Then there are 30 men persecuted for war crimes due to the genocide.
