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Stock Market Crashes
1929, the Stock Market crashes. Fortunes of investors around the world are destroyed. President Herbert Hoover, an Iowa native, is President of the United States. Many eventually blame him for the plight of Americans. Unemployed and homeless people live in shantytowns they name "Hoovervilles." -
First female to fly across the Atlantic
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1937 she is lost over the Pacific on a round-the-world flight. Her plane and the bodies of Earhart and her navigator are never found. -
Roosevelt introduces "New Deal"
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a democrat from New York, defeats Hoover for the presidency. In his first 100 days in office, Roosevelt launches the New Deal including dozens of federal programs to help agriculture. FDR calls for social security, a more fair tax system and a host of federal jobs programs to get people back to work.1932 also sees the first lunch program developed for schools. -
Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany. Italian prime minister and dictator Benito Mussolini invades Ethiopia in 1935. Japan invades China in 1937. And Hitler marches into Austria in 1938. Germany, Japan, and Italy withdraw from the League of Nations. -
Olympics held in Berlin
In the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, a black Alabama native educated at Ohio State University, Jesse Owens, wins four gold medals. He breaks Olympic and world records, but German dictator Aldoph Hitler refuses to recognize the American's achievements. Hitler had declared that the superior German Aryan race would dominate the games. Germany earned 89 medals and America came in second with 56 medals. -
King Edward VIII Gives up Throne
King Edward VIII of England gives up his throne to marry Wallace W. Simpson, "the woman I love." Simpson cannot become England's Queen because she's American and a divorcée. -
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 29 U.S.C. § 203
Congress passes the Fair Labor Standards Act, at first, creating a 44-hour workweek. Later, the act moved to a 40-hour week. Minimum wages start at 25 cents an hour and increase to 40 cents per hour within six years. -
Oil is Discovered in Nebraska
Oil is discovered in southeastern Nebraska helping to feed the growing demand for gasoline as more and more Americans buy cars. -
Germany Invades Poland
Germany invades Poland. Great Britain declares war on Germany. Soon, all of Europe is fighting. The U.S. enters the war in December, 1941, although FDR is supplying Britain and the allies with guns and material before that date. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt Elected for 3rd Term
November 5: President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term. -
Buggs Bunny and Elmer Fudd Debut
While Porky's Hare Hunt was the first Warner Bros. cartoon to feature a Bugs Bunny-like rabbit, A Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery and released on July 27, 1940 -
German Blitzkrieg Attack on London
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and is the German word for 'lightning' -
Japanese Attack Peal Harbor
By far the biggest event for Americans in 1941 was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, a day that would indeed, as FDR said, live in infamy. -
Royal Navy Sinks German Bismarck
On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France. The German death toll was more than 2,000. -
F.D.R. Sends Japanese-Americans to Interment Camps
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an Executive Order commanding the relocation of Japanese Americans families from their homes and businesses to internment camps. -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
German troops and police entered the Warsaw Ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. The Jews refused to surrender, and the Germans ordered the burning of the ghetto, which lasted until May 16 and killed an estimated 13,000 people. -
D-Day Allies Land in Normandy
June 6, 1944 was momentous: D-Day, when the Allies landed in Normandy on the way to liberate Europe from the Nazis. -
Attack on London
June 13: The first V-1 flying bomb attack was carried out on the city of London, one of two Vergeltungswaffen (retaliatory weapons) used in the campaign against Britain in 1944 and 1945. -
Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 6 and 8: The United States detonates two nuclear weapons above the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first and (so far only) use of such a weapon against an enemy people. -
Adolf Hitler Dies by Suicide
April 30: Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide by cyanide and pistol, in an underground bunker under his headquarters in Berlin. -
WWII Comes to an End
World War II ended in Europe and the Pacific in 1945, and those two events dominated this year. -
The Bikini Hits Beaches
July 5: Bikini swimsuits made their debut on a Paris beach but quickly spread to beaches everywhere. Named after Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, where the first of 23 Nuclear detonations took place by the United States between 1946 and 1958. -
Jackie Robinson Becomes First African-American in MLB
April 15: Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African-American baseball player in the Major Leagues. -
George Orwell Writes 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 -
Post-War Baby Boom Begins
Birthrate rises dramatically. -
Korean War Begins
June 25th, the Korean War began with the invasion of South Korea. -
First Organ Transplant
On June 17th, Dr. Richard Lawler performed the first organ transplant, a kidney in an Illinois woman with polycystic kidney disease. -
Color TV is Introduced
On June 27,1951, the first regularly-scheduled color TV program was introduced by CBS, "The World Is Yours!" with Ivan T. Sanderson, eventually bringing life-like shows into American homes -
King George VI Dies Queen Elizabeth II Takes The Throne
On February 6, 1952, Britain's Princess Elizabeth took over the responsibility of ruling England at age 25 after the death of her father, King George VI. She would be officially crowned Queen Elizabeth II the next year. -
Polio Vaccine
July 2, Jonas Salk and colleagues at the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh began testing for a successful polio vaccine. They tried their refined vaccine on children who had recovered from polio and discovered that it successfully produced antibodies for the virus. -
Stalin Dies
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5 in Kutsevo Dacha -
Brown v. Board of Education
In a landmark decision on May 17, and after two rounds of argument, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation was illegal in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. -
Murder of Emmett Till Sparks Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement began with the August 28 murder of Emmett Till, the refusal on December 1 by Rosa Parks to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott. -
Soviet Satellite "Sputnik" Launched
The year 1957 is most remembered for the October 4 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, which orbited for three weeks and began the space race and the space age. -
Alaska Becomes part of U.S
On Jan. 3, 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state
