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U.S. President 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 appeared that President McKinley was getting better. Howevr he soon took a turn for the worse and died on September 14 from gangrene. -
The First Nobel Prizes
On the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, December 10, 1901, the first set of Nobel Prizes were awarded. -
First Silent Movie: The Great Train Robbery
The first silent movie was produced by Thomas Edison but directed and filmed by Edison Company. The Great Train Robbery was a 12-minute-long silent film. As well it was the first narrative movie, one that told a story. The Great Train Robbery's popularity led directly to the opening up of permanent movie theaters. It grew the possibility of a future film industry for silent movies. -
San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, an estimated magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit San Francisco, lasting for approximately 45 to 60 seconds. The wooden and brick buildings of San Francisco had been completely destroyed. 50 fires had erupted from broken gas pipes, downed power lines, and overturned stoves. This earthquake and subsequent fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left over half of the city's population homeless. -
NAACP Is Founded
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed on February 12, 1909. After a race riot in Springfield, Illinois in 1908, "The Call" went out to Northerners to find a way to create social equality. In 1909, a group of multi-racial activists held a conference in New York City in response to "The Call" and decided to form the NAACP. The founders were W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Henry Moscowitz, Oswald G -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
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. -
The 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. It was such an inconceivable crime, that the Mona Lisa wasn't even noticed missing until the following day. -
Sinking of the Titanic
The world was shocked when the Titanic hit an iceberg at and sunk just a few hours later . The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, losing at least 1,517 lives, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. After the Titanic sank, safety regulations were increased to make ships safer, including ensuring enough lifeboats to carry all on board and making ships staff their radi -
World War I Begins
The spark that started World War I was the assassination of Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The assassination occurred on June 28, 1914 while Ferdinand was visiting the city of Sarajevo in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. -
The Panama Canal Opens
The Panama Canal, a man-made waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, officially opened to traffic. This day marked the culmination of one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken by the United States. The $400 million dollar project began in 1909 on the Isthmus of Panama and was actually completed ahead of schedule, despite the challenges faced by the construction crews. -
First Transcontinental Telephone Call
Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell was given the honor of making the first transcontinental telephone call. While in New York, Bell called his old assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco, calling out, "Hoy! Hoy! Mr. Watson, are you there? Do you hear me?" It was the first time a call was made across the United States. -
Radio
At this time the radio was considered the most powerful way of communication. After a couple of years nearly 60% of American homes had a radio. They used the radio to listen in on current events right as they were happening. -
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 diabetes in the pancreas. In 1921, they isolated insulin and successfully tested in on diabetic dogs, lowering the dogs' blood sugar level. -
The 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. In the 1950s, The Great Gatsby became widely popular, deemed a masterpiece of Ameri -
The First Feature-Length Talkie
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. -
The Stock Market Crash
In the 1920s,many people felt that they could make a fortune from the stock market. Forgetting that the stock market was volatile, they invested their entire life savings. Many people bought stocks on credit. 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 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. -
The Empire State Building
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, just over two weeks before Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as President of the United States, FDR arrived at the Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida to give a speech from the back seat of his light-blue Buick. FDR finished his speech and had begun talking to some supporters who had gathered around his car when when five shots rang out. Giuseppe "Joe" Zangara, an Italian immigrant and unemployed bricklayer, had emptied his .32 caliber pisto -
The Nuremberg Laws
On September 15, 1935, the Nazi government passed two new racial laws at their annual NSDAP Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, Germany. These two laws became collectively known as the Nuremberg Laws. -
World War II
ONSeptember 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. Hitler sent in 1,300 planes of his german air force as well as more than 2,000 tanks and 1.5 million well-trained, ground troops. The Polish military, on the other hand, consisted mostly of foot soldiers with old weapons and cavalry. Needless to say, the odds were not in Poland’s favor. -
Leon Trotsky Assassinated
August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was sitting at his desk in his study, helping Ramon Mercader 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. -
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. -
D-Day
June 6, 1944, the Allies launched an attack by sea, landing on the beaches of Normandy on the northern coast of Nazi-occupied France. The first day of this major undertaking was known as D-Day; it was the first day of the Battle of Normandy in World War II. -
July Plot
On July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, was the target of an attempted assassination. The attempt took place at his Prussian command post and getaway, the Wolf’s Lair, and was led by several high-ranking German officials who were convinced that Hitler’s regime was destroying Germany. The codeword “Valkyrie” was to signal the beginning of the coup that followed the assassination. -
Hitler Commits Suicide
Hitler also shot himself in the head with his personal pistol. -
First Modern Credit Card Introduced
In 1949, Frank X. McNamara thought of a way for customers to have just one credit card that they could use at multiple stores. McNamara discussed the idea with two colleagues and the three pooled some money and started a new company in 1950 which they called the Diners Club. -
Color TV Introduced
On June 25, 1951, CBS broadcast the very first commercial color TV program. -
Segregation Ruled Illegal in U.S.
On May 17, 1954, the law was changed. In the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by ruling that segregation was "inherently unequal." Although the Brown v. Board of Education was specifically for the field of education, the decision had a much broader scope. -
Disneyland Opens
On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened for a few thousand specially invited visitors; the following day, Disneyland officially opened to the public. Disneyland, located in Anaheim, California on what used to be a 160-acre orange orchard, cost $17 million to build. The original park included Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. -
Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Bus Seat
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man while riding on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. For doing this, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined for breaking the laws of segregation. Rosa Parks' refusal to leave her seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and is considered the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock Nine
President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the Arkansas National Guard to protect nine black students attempting to integrate Little Rock Central High School. They were bashed and taunted for going but this lead to future sucess of combining all the students. -
The Berlin Wall
Erected in the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall was a physical division between West Berlin and East Germany in order to keep East Germans from feeling to the West. -
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. After researching all the available evidence about Kennedy’s assassination, the Warren Commission officially ruled in 1964 that Oswald acted alone; a point still greatly contested by conspirac -
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 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. -
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. -
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. -
Kent State Shootings
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen were on the Kent State college campus to maintain order during a student protest against the Vietnam War. For a still unknown reason, the National Guard suddenly fired upon the already dispersing crowd of student protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. -
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. -
Abortion Legal
Each year, the Supreme Court reaches over one hundred decisions that impact the lives of Americans, yet few have been as controversial as the Roe v. Wade decision announced on January 22, 1973. The case concerned the right of women to seek an abortion, which was largely banned under Texas state law where the case originated in 1970. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in a 7 to 2 vote that a woman’s right to seek an abortion is protected under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. This decision, h -
Ebola
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. -
First Test-Tube Baby
On July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world's first successful "test-tube" baby was born in Great Britain. Although the technology that made her conception possible was heralded as a triumph in medicine and science, it also caused many to consider the possibilities of future ill-use. -
The Assassination of John Lennon
John Lennon founding member of the Beatles, and one of the most beloved and famous music legends of all time — died on December 8, 1980, after being shot four times by a crazed fan in the carriageway of his New York City apartment building. Many of the events that led to his tragic and untimely death remain unclear and decades after his murder, people still struggle to understand what motivated his killer, 25-year-old Mark David Chapman, to pull the trigger on that fateful night. -
The First American Woman in Space
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 18, 1983 on board space shuttle Challenger. A pioneer of the final frontier, she charted a new course for Americans to follow, not only into the country’s space program, but by inspiring young people, especially girls, to careers in science, math, and engineering. -
Huge Poison Gas Leak in Bhopal, India
During the night of December 2-3, 1984, a storage tank containing methyl isocyanate at the Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked gas into the densely populated city of Bhopal, India. Killing an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people, the Bhopal Gas Leak was one of the worst industrial accidents in history. -
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. As the world watched on TV, the Challenger soared into the sky and then, shockingly, exploded just 73 seconds after take-off. All seven members of the crew, including social studies teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, died in the disaster. An investigation of the accident discovered that the O-rings of the right solid rocket booster had malfunctioned. -
Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 Over Lockerbie
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board as well as 11 on the ground. Though it was almost immediately evident that a bomb had caused the disaster, it took more than eleven years to bring anyone to trial. -
Otzi the Iceman
September 19, 1991, two German tourists were hiking in the Otzal Alps near the Italian-Austrian border when they discovered Europe's oldest known mummy sticking out of the ice. Otzi, as the Iceman is now known, had been naturally mummified by the ice and kept in amazing condition for approximately 5,300 years. Research on Otzi's preserved body and the various artifacts found with it continues to reveal much about the life of Copper Age Europeans. -
Rwandan Genocide
Beginning on April 6, 1994, Hutus began slaughtering the Tutsis in the African country of Rwanda. As the brutal killings continued, the world stood idly by and just watched the slaughter. Lasting 100 days, the Rwandan Genocide left approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers dead. -
Oklahoma City Bombing
April 19, 1995, a 5,000-pound bomb, hidden inside a Ryder truck, exploded just outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion caused massive damage to the building and killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children. Those responsible for what became known as the Oklahoma City Bombing were home-grown terrorists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. This deadly bombing was the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil until the September 11, 2001 World Trade Cen -
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, bodyguard, and chauffer when the car crashed into a pillar of the tunnel under the Pont de l'Alma bridge in Paris while fleeing from paparazzi. -
Columbine Massacre
On April 20, 1999, in the small, suburban town of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, enacted an all-out assault on Columbine High School during the middle of the school day. The boys' plan was to kill hundreds of their peers. With guns, knives, and a multitude of bombs, the two boys walked the hallways and killed. When the day was done, twelve students, one teacher, and the two murderers were dead; plus 21 more were injured. -
The Russian Submarine That Sank in the Barents Sea
On August 12, 2000, the Russian Oscar-II class nuclear submarine, the Kursk, sank in the Barents Sea during naval exercises. The world watched and waited to find out if any of the 118 crew were still alive. -
9/11
Terrorist hijacked planes and crashed them into the Twin Towers, one of the worst Terrorist Attacks in history. -
Olympics in the USA
In 2002 the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, Utah. -
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans causing much devastation in the city. -
First African American President
Obama elected as first african-american president.
