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The invention of the Model T
Before the Model T, cars were a luxury item: At the beginning of 1908, there were fewer than 200,000 on the road. Though the Model T was fairly expensive at first (the cheapest one initially cost $825, or about $18,000 in today’s dollars), it was built for ordinary people to drive every day. -
The Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. -
The WWI Armistice
the Great War ends. -
The 19th Amendment
The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. -
Charles Lindbergh’s Flight
the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York City to Paris, on May 20–21, 1927. -
Black Thursday
the first day of the stock market crash of 1929. -
New deal
The term was taken from Roosevelt’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency on July 2, 1932. Reacting to the ineffectiveness of the administration of Pres. Herbert Hoover in meeting the ravages of the Great Depression, American voters the following November overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Democratic promise of a “new deal” for the “forgotten man.” -
Hitler becomes chancellor
On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. -
The Munich Pact
British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest -
Hitler Invades Poland
The invasion of Poland, marked the beginning of World War II. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning. -
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. -
The formation of United Nations
The United Nations (U.N.) is a global diplomatic and political organization dedicated to international peace and stability. -
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. -
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
military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. -
Russians acquire the Atomic Bomb
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb. -
The Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat
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. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. -
JFK’s Assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam. -
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. -
The Watergate Break-ins
The Watergate scandal was a major federal political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon -
Nixon’s Resignation
In an evening televised address on this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
East Germany announced an easing of travel restrictions to the west, and thousands demanded passage through the Berlin Wall. Faced with a growing demonstration, East German border guards allowed citizens to cross. -
The invention of the Internet
Unlike technologies such as the light bulb or the telephone, the internet has no single “inventor.” Instead, it has evolved over time. The internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. -
The 9/11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States