-
Period: to
William McKinley
-
Period: to
1900 - 2012
-
Max Planck Formulates Quantum Theory
For several decades, physicists had been trying to understand the surprising results they continued to get from heating black bodies (a surface that absorbs all frequencies of light that hits it). Try as they might, scientists could not explain the results using classical physics. In 1900, German theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) discovered an equation that explained the results of these tests. The equation is E=Nhf, with E=energy, N=integer, h=constant, f=frequency. -
Italy's King Assassinated
On the evening of July 30, anarchist Angelo Bresci shot the king of Italy, King Umberto I, three times. The assassination was in retaliation for a violently crushed 1898 labor revolt. His son, Victor Emmanuel III, succeeded him. -
Period: to
Theodore Roosevelt
-
Period: to
Russian Revolution
-
Typhoid Mary Captured
Mary Mallon worked as a domestic cook when there was a knock on her door in 1907. A man explained to her that she was a carrier of typhoid and had caused numerous people to become sick and even a few to die. The man also wanted blood and stool samples to prove it. After tests that proved she was a "healthy carrier" of typhoid, health officials banished Mallon ("Typhoid Mary") to live in an isolated home -
Period: to
William Taft
-
Mona Lisa Stolen
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. The crime was inconceivable and the police had no leads. The Mona Lisa turned up in Italy two years later -
Period: to
Woodro Wilson
-
Income tax introduced in US
At first, income taxes were considered a temporary tax to help raise money for war. The first time an income tax was enacted was in 1799 in Great Britain to help the British pay for troops and supplies to defeat the French forces led by Napoleon.
By the 1890s, the U.S. government was hoping to find a way to more evenly distribute the federal tax burden and thus looked at creating a permanent income tax. However, until the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified n 1913. -
Period: to
World War 1
-
Lusitania Sunk by German U-boat
At 1:40 p.m. on May 7, 1915, the German U-boat, U-20 launched a torpedo at the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, off the coast of Southern Ireland. Within 18 minutes, the Lusitania had sunk. The sinking of the Lusitania heightened tensions between the U.S. and Germany and helped sway American opinion in favor of joining World War I. -
The Spanish Flu Pandemic
In 1918, the garden-variety flu mutated into a deadly virus. This new, lethal virus, which became known as the Spanish flu, swept around the world in three waves, killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people (the equivalent to 2.7 to 5.5 percent of the world's population). -
Period: to
Warren Harding
-
Insulin Discovered
Medical researcher Frederick Banting and research assistant Charles Best studied the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas of dogs at the University of Toronto. Banting believed that he could find a cure for the "sugar disease" (diabetes) in the pancreas. In 1921, they isolated insulin and successfully tested in on diabetic dogs, lowering the dogs' blood sugar level. On January 11, 1922, Leonard was given insulin which saved his life. -
Period: to
Calvin Coolidge
-
St. Valentines Massacre
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. -
Period: to
Herbert C. Hoover
-
stock market crashed
The enthusiasm and optimism of the 1920s in the United States led many people to invest their savings into the stock market. As the bull market (when stock prices are rising) continued throughout 1927 and 1928, even more everyday people were enticed to invest.
Then panic struck on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. Prices began to plummet. Although there was rally in the afternoon, investors had become frightened. On October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed -
Empire State Building complted
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. -
Assassination Attempt on FDR
On February 15, 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt had just sat down after giving a speech at the Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida when five shots rang out. Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian immigrant and unemployed bricklayer, had emptied his .32 caliber pistol while aiming the best he could at FDR while standing on a wobbly chair about 25 feet away. Although none of the shots hit FDR, Chicago's Mayor Anton Cermak was mortally hit in the stomach and four others received minor injuries. -
Period: to
Franklin Delanor Roosevelt
-
Period: to
Spanish Civil War
-
Hindenburg disaster
After a three-day trip across the Atlantic from Frankfurt, Germany to New Jersey, the Hindenburg (a large, rigid airship) was in the process of landing when it broke into flames at 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937. Within 34 seconds, the entire airship was consumed by fire. -
Period: to
World War 2
-
Leon Trotsky assassinated
Around 5:30 p.m. on August 20, 1940, Trotsky was sitting at his desk in his study, helping Ramon Mercader (known to him as Frank Jackson) edit an article. Mercader waited until Trotsky started to read the article, then snuck up behind Trotsky and slammed a mountaineering ice pick into Trotsky's skull. Trotsky fought back and even remained standing long enough to say his murderer's name to those coming to his aid. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise air attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. After just two hours of bombing, more than 2,400 Americans were dead, 21 ships* had either been sunk or damaged, and more than 188 U.S. aircraft destroyed. The attack at Pearl Harbor so outraged Americans that the U.S. abandoned its policy of isolationism and declared war on Japan the following day -- officially bringing the United States into World War II -
D-Day
During World War II, the Allied powers planned to create a two-front war by continuing the Soviet Union's attack of Nazi-occupied lands from the east and by beginning a new invasion from the west. In June 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom (with help from many other western countries) began the long-awaited attack from the west, the Normandy Invasion (Operation Overlord). -
Period: to
Harry S. Truman
-
Period: to
First Indochina War
-
Period: to
Cold War
-
Period: to
Arab - Israeli War
-
Period: to
Korean War
-
Period: to
Dwight David Eisenhower
-
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
In 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case determined that "separate but equal" was constitutional. The opinion of the Supreme Court stated, "A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. -
Emmett Till Murdered
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was visiting his relatives in Mississippi when he was snatched from his great-uncle's home on the night of August 28. He was then beaten, shot in the head, and then thrown into Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days later. Ostensibly, the murderers killed Till because he whistled at a white woman. This is only one event that sparked the civil rights movement. -
fidel castro becomes dictator
Ever since General Fulgencio Batista's successful coup in 1952, Fidel Castro had worked to oust Batista from Cuba. Arriving back in Cuba on December 2, 1956, Castro and his group of trained rebels landed on Cuban soil with the intention of starting a revolution. Met by heavy opposition forces, nearly all of the rebels died. Castro, his brother, and Che Guevara escaped into the mountains.Castro succeeded in taking power of the new Cuban government by July 1959. -
Period: to
Joh Fitzgerald Kennedy
-
The Berlin Wall Built
Just past midnight during the night of August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers and construction workers headed to the border of West and East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, the workers quickly constructed a barrier made of concrete posts and barbed wire along the border. -
Period: to
Lyndon Baines Johnson
-
US 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. -
First Heart Transplant
On December 3, 1967, South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard conducted the first heart transplant on 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky. The surgery was a success. However, the medications that were given to Washkansky to prevent his immune system from attacking the new heart also supressed his body's ability to fight off other illnesses. Eighteen days after the operation, Washkansky died of double pneumonia. -
Period: to
Richard Milhous Nixon
-
Terrorists Attack at the Olympic Games in Munich
Early in the morning on September 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Black September, snuck into the Olympic Village at the XXth Olympic Games which were held in Munich, Germany. The Black September members raided the building housing the Israeli athletes. Two Israeli athletes were killed during the raid and nine others were taken hostage. Unfortunately, the rescue attempt failed and all nine of the Israeli hostages were killed -
Period: to
Gerald R. Ford
-
Ebola Outbreaks in Sudan and Zaire
On July 27, 1976, the very first person to contract the Ebola virus began to show symptoms. Ten days later he was dead. Over the course of the next few months, the first Ebola outbreaks in history occurred in Sudan and Zaire*, with a total of 602 reported cases and 431 deaths. The first victim to contract Ebola was a cotton factory worker from Nzara, Sudan. Soon after this first man came down with symptoms, so did his co-worker. Then the co-worker's wife became sick. The outbreak quickly spread -
Period: to
James Earl Carter Jr.
-
Jonestown Massacre
On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones instructed his followers to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced fruit punch. At the Jonestown compound in Guyana, 912 Peoples Temple members (276 of whom were children) drank the punch and died. Jim Jones died the same day from a gunshot wound to the head. -
Reagan Assassination Attempt
On March 30, 1981, 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. opened fire on U.S. President Ronald Reagan just outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. President Reagan was hit by one bullet, which punctured his lung. Three others were also injured in the shooting. -
Period: to
Ronald Wilson Reagan
-
First Women on the Supreme Court of the United States
On July 7, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. On September 21, the United States Senate confirmed O'Connor in a vote of 99 for and zero against. Sandra Day O'Connor was officially sworn in and took her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court on September 25, 1981. -
Period: to
Falklands war
-
Period: to
Invasion of Grenada
-
Period: to
George H.W. Bush
-
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
In the evening of November 9, 1989, East German government official Günter Schabowski stated during a press conference that travel through the border to the West was open. People who heard the broadcast were shocked. They went to the border to see if it was true. The border guards, who had no explicit instructions as to what to do, let them through. As the news spread on both sides of the Wall, huge numbers of people flocked to the Berlin Wall and celebrated. -
Period: to
Gulf War
-
Period: to
William Jefferson Clinton
-
Oklahoma City Bombing
On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove a truck containing a home-made bomb up to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. When the bomb exploded at 9:02 a.m., the building was decimated and 168 people were left dead. -
Princess Diana Dies in Car Crash
On August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died after being involved in a car accident. Diana had been riding in the Mercedes-Benz with her boyfriend (Dodi Al Fayed), bodyguard (Trevor Rees-Jones), and chauffer (Henri Paul) when the car crashed into a pillar of the tunnel under the Pont de l'Alma bridge in Paris while fleeing from paparazzi. -
Killing Spree at Colmbine High School
On April 20, 1999, two students of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado planted bombs and opened fire on students within their school. The boys, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, planned on killing hundreds during their killing spree and didn't succeed in killing such large numbers only because their bombs did not explode. However, before the boys killed themselves, they had murdered twelve students and one teacher. This first mass school shooting in the US shocked th country. -
Period: to
George W. Bush
-
Period: to
Afghanistan War
-
Period: to
War on Terror
-
9/11 terrorist attack
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hijack four U.S. airliners and crash them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack of two planes levels the World Trade Center and the crash of one plane inflicts serious damage to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, causing nearly 3,000 deaths. The fourth plane is heroically crashed by passengers into a Shanksville, Pennsylvania cornfield when they learn of the plot, preventing destruction of another structure in Washington, -
Space Shuttle Columbia explodes
A tragedy at NASA occurs when the Space Shuttle Columbia explodes upon reentry over Texas. All seven astronauts inside are killed. -
Period: to
Iraq War
-
Barack Obama Becomes First African American President
Barack Obama, Democratic Senator from Illinois, the land of Abraham Lincoln, wins a landslide margin in the Electoral College, 365 to 173 in the election for the 44th President of the USA over John McCain, making him the first African-American president in the history of the United States of America. -
Period: to
Barack Obama
-
Haiti Hit By Earthquake
7.0-magnitude earthquake devastates Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It is the region's worst earthquake in 200 years. The quake levels many sections of the city, destroying government buildings, foreign aid offices, and countless slum. -
Julian Assange Arrested
Julian Assange, the Australian-born co-founder of WikiLeaks, is arrested in England on a Swedish warrant in connection to accusations made in August: two women in Sweden accused him of sexual assault. He is denied bail by a London court -
Osama Bin Laden killed
U.S. troops and CIA operatives shoot and kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a city of 500,000 people that houses a military base and a military academy