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The invention of the Model T
The Model T was introduced to the world in 1908. Henry Ford wanted the Model T to be affordable, simple to operate, and durable. The vehicle was one of the first mass production vehicles, allowing Ford to achieve his aim of manufacturing the universal car. -
The Zimmerman Telegram
British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. -
The WWI Armistice
On Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. -
The 19th Amendment
Approved by the Senate on June 4, 1919, and ratified in August 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment marked one stage in women's long fight for political equality. This timeline features key moments on the Senate's long road to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. -
Charles Lindbergh’s Flight
Charles A. Lindbergh in the Spirit of St. Louis just before takeoff from Roosevelt Field, NY. May 20, 1927. -
Black Thursday
Black Thursday refers to Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929, when panicked selling sparked the first day of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. -
Hitler becomes chancellor
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. -
The New Deal
Roosevelt's New Deal sought to reinvigorate the economy by stimulating consumer demand. The New Deal embraced federal deficit spending to promote economic. -
The Munich Pact
Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement, by which Czechoslovakia must surrender its border regions and defenses to Nazi Germany. -
Hitler Invades Poland
On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler invade Poland, beginning World War II. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. -
D-Day
June 6, 1944, is the day when more than 160,000 Allied forces landed in Nazi-occupied France as part of the biggest air, land and sea invasion ever executed. -
Hiroshima
At 8:15 in the morning of 6th August 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was devastated by the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon of war. -
Nagasaki
Three days later, just after 11 on the morning of 9th August, a second atomic bomb named `Fat Man’ exploded above Nagasaki. -
The formation of United Nations
Four months after the San Francisco Conference ended, the United Nations officially began, on 24 October 1945, when it came into existence after its Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories. -
The Long Telegram
George Kennan, the American charge d'affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. -
The formation of NATO
The Alliance's founding treaty was signed in Washington in 1949 by a dozen European and North American countries. It commits the Allies to democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law, as well as to peaceful resolution of disputes. -
Russians acquire the Atomic Bomb
It would only be a matter of months before the U.S.S.R. exploded its own atomic bomb. -
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The Korean War
North Korea aimed to militarily conquer South Korea and therefore unify Korea under the communist North Korean regime. -
Brown v Board of Education
Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. -
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The Vietnam War
The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnam's government and military since Vietnam's partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. Tensions escalated into armed conflict between the two sides, and in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy chose to expand the military aid program. -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat
In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. -
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The Cuban Missile Crisis
For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. -
JFK’s Assassination
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
This joint resolution of Congress (H.J. RES 1145), dated August 7, 1964, gave President Lyndon Johnson authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam. -
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The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
The trio of career astronauts launched on 16 July 1969 from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It took them four days to travel the 55,200 miles to the surface of the moon. -
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The Watergate Break-ins
Early on June 17, 1972, police apprehended five burglars at the office of the DNC in the Watergate complex. -
Nixon’s Resignation
President Richard Nixon made an address to the American public from the Oval Office on August 8, 1974, to announce his resignation from the presidency. -
The invention of the Internet
Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea of a 'web of information' in 1989. It relied on 'hyperlinks' to connect documents together. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Although changes in the GDR leadership and encouraging speeches by Gorbachev about nonintervention in Eastern Europe boded well for reunification, the world was taken by surprise when, during the night of November 9, 1989, crowds of Germans began dismantling the Berlin Wall. -
The 9/11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 terrorists associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil; nearly 3,000 people were killed. -
Covid-19 Pandemic
The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Alex Azar, declares the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak a public health emergency.