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The invention of the Model T
On October 1, 1908, the first production Model T Ford is completed at the company's Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford would build some 15 million Model T cars. It was the longest production run of any automobile model in history until the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it in 1972. -
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. In the event that the United States entered World War I against Germany, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. -
The WWI Armistice
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I between the Allies and their opponent, Germany. -
The 19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women's suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest. -
Charles Lindbergh's Flight
On May 21, 1927, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh was just 25 years old when he completed the trip. -
Black Thursday
Black Thursday refers to October 24, 1929, when panicked sellers traded nearly 13 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange (more than three times the normal volume at the time), and investors suffered $5 billion in losses. -
The New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore prosperity to Americans. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. -
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
The Munich Pact was an agreement between France and Nazi Germany, that France would not provide military assistance to Czechoslovakia in the upcoming German occupation of "Sudetenland", effectively dishonoring the French-Czechoslovak alliance[1] and allowing Nazi Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland -
Hitler invades Poland
An invasion of Poland by Germany that marked the beginning of World War II. -
Pearl Harbor
DescriptionThe Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, led to the United States' entry into World War II -
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. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. -
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
During the final stage of World War II, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. The United States dropped the bombs after obtaining the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. -
The formation of United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization that was tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. -
The Long Telegram
An 8,000-word telegram from George Kennan, an Embassy official. This has become known as 'the Long Telegram', and it said exactly what the American government wanted it to. Kennan hated Communism and the Soviet government. -
The formation of NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Russians acquire the Atomic Bomb
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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. As a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea had been split into two sovereign states. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, with U.S. involvement ending in 1973. -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest on December 1, 1955 sparked the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in 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
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. The first steps by humans on another planetary body were taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. The astronauts also returned to Earth the first samples from another planetary body. -
The Watergate Break-ins
In May 1972, as evidence would later show, members of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President broke into the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters, stole copies of top-secret documents and bugged the office's phones. -
Nixon’s Resignation
On August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. -
The invention of the Internet
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The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. -
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 on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.