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Jun 15, 1215
The Sealing Of Magna Carta
The Magna Carta was a document signed by King John after negotiations with his barons and their French and Scots allies at Runnymede, Surrey, England in 1215. It is one of the most celebrated documents in the History of England. It is recognised as a cornerstone of the idea of the liberty of citizens. -
Aug 3, 1492
Christopher Columbus discovers the New World
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who stumbled upon the Americas and whose journeys marked the beginning of centuries of transatlantic colonization. He did not really “discover” the New World, millions of people already lived there, his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of transatlantic conquest and colonization. -
The American Revolution
Without the American Revolution that happened between 1775 and 1781, the United States would not be. If America was under British rule for much longer, who knows how the world might have looked today. -
Louisiana Purchase
The U. S. paid 60 million francs, and canceled French debts totaling another 18 million, for a grand total of 78 million francs, or about $15 million. Today, that would be worth about $220 million, which is an extraordinarily good sale price for 828,800 square miles. -
The Civil War
The American Civil War was the most deadly and arguably the most important event in the nation's history. Sectional tensions enshrined in the Constitution erupted into a brutal war that cost over 600,000 lives -
Abraham Lincoln Reminds America of Its Founding Principles
Abraham Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery for the soldiers who had died at Gettysburg, four months after that central battle of the American Civil War, he was not the principal speaker. But no other speech that day has been remembered the way Lincoln’s words are. -
The Great Migration Begins (1915)
The vast majority of time that African Americans have been on this continent, they’ve been primarily Southern and rural. That changed with the Great Migration, a mass relocation of 6 million African Americans from the Jim Crow South to the North and West, starting in 1915. -
The Dust Bowl Hits Its Most Infamous Day
When people think about the Dust Bowl, they tend to consider it as a discrete event, something that happened once and will never happen again. It was unique: 1934 was the worst drought in a thousand years of North American history, a time when “rolling dusters” swept across the country -
FDR Accepts the 1936 Democratic Presidential Nomination
The government no longer belonged to the people but had been taken hostage by “privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsty for power.” Deep in the Great Depression, Roosevelt promised that his New Deal would re calibrate the balance of power between the people and the “economic royalists.” -
Truman Replaces Wallace
President Roosevelt had a secret plan for how he would work things out with Stalin, but he died before sharing it. Truman entered the White House with almost no experience in foreign policy. The State Department told him that action must be taken on the Russian threat. -
The Manhattan Project / Atomic Bomb
One of the most devastating weapons of war was built and used by Americans. Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb on civilians in Japan is still debated today, its effect was immediate. The bomb ended WW2, the largest war the world has ever experienced, and the devastating effect of these bombs has made countries all over the world very hesitant to ever get involved in a world war again. -
President Truman Orders Racial Equality in the Military
The order declared that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin,” started the slow process of integrating the military at a time when every other national institution save Major League Baseball remained rigidly segregated. -
Barbara Johns Walks Out
Sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns led a walkout by four hundred black students to protest inadequate facilities at segregated Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. -
The U.S. Begins Mass Deportation of Mexican Migrants
the federal government carried out one of its first mass deportations of Mexican immigrants from the U.S. Operation Wetback, as it was known, ended up separating parents from their children, stranding deportees in the deserts of northern Mexico without food or water, and damaging the U.S.’s reputation at home and abroad. It is crazy how it ended up happening again. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a product of decades of lousy politics, not just American, but including the global spread of Communism. Communism works on paper, but when you add human desires to it, it fails. But America entered the Vietnam conflict largely because it felt threatened by Communism’s spread into democratic South Vietnam, and has sworn to defend democracy. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Is Assaulted in Chicago
Martin Luther King Jr. had turned his sights toward contesting racial inequality in the North. King saw that millions of black Southerners who had migrated to northern cities like Chicago in search of opportunity had found “not a land of plenty but a lot replete with poverty.” He had been assaulted two years before being assassinated. -
California Passes Proposition 13
In June of 1978 the voters of California overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13, limiting local property taxes and making it harder for communities to raise them in the future.This anti-tax reorientation has decreased the amount and quality of public services; led to increases in alternative, regressive sources of taxation such as the sales tax; and encouraged new kinds of inequalities such as between old and new homeowners. -
The fall of the Berlin Wall/end of the Cold War
The 1989 event that marked the end of the Cold War was listed by 13% of respondents, and was named most commonly by Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. -
The Gulf War
The war was of particular importance to Generation X respondents, who were the only generational group to list the event. Gender-wise, the survey showed that 12% of men placed the war in their lists, compared to just 8% of women. -
9/11
September 11, 2001 marks one of the most horrible moments in American history when two of four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and killed thousands of Americans. This event instigated a “war on terror” that continued for the next decade and resulted in the elimination of Osama Bin Laden.
