-
The Ford Model T
The Model T was an automobile built by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 until 1927. It was conceived by Henry Ford as a practical and affordable transportation for the common man. It quickly became prized for its low cost, durability, versatility, and ease of maintenance. This car was one of the first cars to be sold for very little money, making it accessible to everyday people. -
The Zimmerman Telegram
A secret message from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the Mexican government, intercepted by British intelligence, that invited an alliance between their nations, and also stating that Germany would help Mexico recover the land they had lost to America in the Mexican-American War. This was the final straw that drew America into the World War I. -
The WWI Armistice
After more than 4 years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives an armistice, a truce, was signed at Le Francport near Compiegne that ended fighting on land between the Allies and Germany. Although fighting continued elsewhere, this armistice was the first step towards ending World War I. -
The Nineteenth Amendment
This amendment prohibited the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. -
Charles Lindbergh's Flight
Taking flight in New York on May 20, 1927 and landing safely in Paris less than 34 hours later, he was the first pilot to solo a nonstop trans-Atlantic flight. -
Black Thursday
Black Thursday is the name given to Thursday, October 24, 1929, when panicked investors sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging 11% at the open in very heavy volume. Black Thursday began the Wall Street crash of 1929, which lasted until October 29, 1929. -
The New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. -
Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945. -
The Munich Agreement
A settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia. -
Hitler invades Poland
On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and from the air. World War II had begun. -
The Attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. -
D-day
During World War II, the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. The battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. -
The Formation of the United Nations
On January 1, 1945, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. -
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. It remains as the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict. -
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. Kennan’s analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America’s Cold War policy of containment. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. -
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. They also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals. It destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals. -
The Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the support of the United Nations, principally from the United States). The war began on June 25, 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and insurrections in the south. The war ended unofficially on July 27, 1953 in an armistice. -
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. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975 -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to vacate a row of four seats in the "colored" section in favor of a white passenger, once the "white" section was filled. -
The Invention of the Internet
The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 1 month, 4 days (October 16 – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union which escalated into an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. Kennedy’s motorcade was turning past the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza with crowds lining the streets—when shots rang out. The driver of the president’s Lincoln limousine, with its top off, raced to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital, but after being shot in the neck and head, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is of historic significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia. -
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC (14:17 CST). -
The Watergate Break-ins
On June 17, 1972, police arrested burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Evidence linked the break-in to President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. -
Nixon's Resignation
Nixon's resignation was the culmination of what he referred to in his speech as the "long and difficult period of Watergate", a 1970s federal political scandal stemming from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Office Building by five men during the 1972 presidential election and the Nixon administration's subsequent attempts to cover up its involvement in the crime. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete between East and West Berlin. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself. -
9/11
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Wahhabi terrorist group Al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed, respectively. -
Period: to
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease. It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020 and a pandemic in March 2020. As of 6 January 2021, more than 86.7 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 1.87 million deaths attributed to COVID-19.
