-
MLK Assassination
MLK was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4. He was shot from the balcony of a hotel in Memphis while he was there for a demonstration. His assassination caused the world to grieve. -
Bobby Kennedy Asassination
Robert F. Kennedy was the brother of JFK, a former president who was assassinated in 1963. RFK was a presidential candidate for the upcoming election. In Los Angeles, California, he was shot by an Arab nationalist because he showed support for Israel. With his death and the assassination of MLK two months earlier, the whole country was in a scare. -
Nixon's Resignation
In 1972, President Richard Nixon hired people in his administration to spy on the democratic party in the Watergate building so that he could have inside information on their campaigning plans. The tapes were leaked to the press, and Nixon lied about having anything to do with this scandal while on national television. Because of this, Nixon was caught, and, in order to avoid impeachment, he resigned from office on August 8, 1974. -
Fall of Saigon
Vietnamese refugees were trying to escape from Vietnam to get out of the communist government. U.S. troops were called in to help out, but there were too many people and not enough space. There was total chaos going on, and aircrafts got pushed into the ocean, killing more people. -
John Paul II becomes Pope
John Paul II became the new pope on October 16, 1978. He was the first non-italian pope in over 450 years. He took the name John Paul II to honor his predecessor, John Paul I. -
John Lennon Shot
John Lennon, one of the founders of the British sensation, The Beatles, was shot on Dec. 8, 1980. He was at the entrance of the Dakota builing in NYC where he lived when he was shot by Mark David Chapman. -
U.S. Embassy
The U.S. Embassy in Iran was taken over in 1980. Fifty-two U.S. citizens were held hostage in the embassy for 444 days. They were released on January 20, the very moment that Ronald Reagan completed his inaugural address. -
Reagan Assassination Attempt
While leaving the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. He suffered a punctured lung, but he survived the attack. Hinckley was found not guilty on account of insanity, and he remains in a mental facility to this day. -
Challenger Explosion
The NASA Space Shuttle challenger was launched on January 28, 1986. 73 seconds into the flight, at 11:38 a.m. EST, an O-ring seal in one of the rocket boosters failed, causing an explosion. Christa McAuliffe, the first participant in the Teachers in Space program, was on the shuttle when it exploded. -
Berlin Wall Fell
On November 9, 1989, the border dividing East and West Germany was opened. People from the East and the West helped each other climb on top of the wall and cross over. Citizens danced along the wall and had a huge party, and they started hammering and breaking off pieces of the Berlin Wall. -
Great Flood of '93
Throughout the Midwest, waters from the Mississippi and Misourri Rivers were flooding cities and homes. Everything was getting destroyed, including levees, towns, and buildings. Thousands of people were forced to abandon their homes, and 47 people died beause of the flood. At least 75 towns were entirely inundated by the flood, and some of them were never rebuilt. -
OJ Simpson Trial
On June 17, 1994, OJ Simpson was arrested for the murders of his wife Nicole and her friend. His trial was held in the Los Angeles County, California Superior Court, and his case was described as the most publicised trial in American history. He was aqcuitted after a long trial that lasted over 9 months. -
Columbine Shooting
On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, two high school students marched into Columbine High School in Colorado with guns and the intent to kill. They killed twelve students, one teacher, and then themselves after also injuring twenty-one other students. This was the deadliest high school massacre in American history, and it provoked much discussion on the role of violent movies and video games in American society. -
Y2K Scare
The first day of the new millenium was the day that all of the computers, and other electronic appliances that make our everyday life that much easier, would fail and cause the world to end. Computer memory space at that time was saved by using only 2 digits for the date instead of four. When the year turned "double zero", people thought that computers wouldnt be able to tell the difference between 2000 and 1900, so the world assumed that all computers would then crash after December 31, 1999. -
9/11
On this day was a series of terrorist attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda. 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, and they crashed two of them into the World Trade Center in NYC, one of them into the Pentagon in Arlington, one of them in Pennsylvania. The last of which was targeting Washington, D.C., and some of the passengers died heros as they attempted to retake control of the aircraft.
