102 YEARS!!
/On this day in history in the year of our Lord, 1909, my grandmother, Margaret Ostrander, was born. 102 years. Wow. She still lives independently and is as sharp as a tack. I started thinking about all the changes that must have occurred in her life ... and so "googled" it. Taking from a couple of lists on Wikipedia, I put together the following:
1900s
1909 - The U.S. penny is changed to the Abraham Lincoln design
1909 - William Howard Taft becomes President
1909 - Robert Peary claims to have reached the North Pole
1909 - NAACP founded by W. E. B. Du Bois
1909 - Payne-Aldrich tariff
1909 - Taft implements Dollar Diplomacy
1909 - Pinchot-Ballinger controversy
1909 - Independence of Panama.
1909 - United States troops leave Cuba.
1910s
1910 - Boy Scouts of America chartered
1910 - Mann-Elkins Act
1910 - Mann Act
1910 - Beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
1910 - George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India.
1910 - Union of South Africa created.
1910 - Portugal abolishes its Monarchy.
Imperial Japan annexes Korea.
1911 - Supreme Court breaks up Standard Oil
1911 - First ever Indianapolis 500 is staged; Ray Harroun is the first winner
1911 - Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole.
1911 - New Delhi becomes the capital of British India.
1911 - Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus
1912 - RMS Titanic sinks
1912 - New Mexico and Arizona become states
1912 - Girl Scouts of the USA was started by Juliette Gordon Low
1912 - Theodore Roosevelt shot, but not killed, while campaigning for the Bull Moose Party
1912 - Republic of China established and ends the Chinese Empire.
1912 - The African National Congress is founded.
1912 - Morocco becomes a protectorate of France.
1912 - Balkan Wars begin.
1912 - Woodrow Wilson is elected 28th President of the United States.
1912 - Arizona becomes the last state to be admitted to the continental Union.
1913 - Woodrow Wilson becomes President
1913 - Federal Reserve Act
1913 - 16th Amendment, establishing an income tax
1913 - End of the Philippine-American War
1913 - The Armory Show opens in New York City introducing Modern art both American and European to the American public.
1913 - 17th Amendment, establishing direct election of U.S. Senators.
1913 - Underwood tariff
1913 - Henry Ford develops the modern assembly line
1913 - Niels Bohr formulates the first cohesive model of the atomic nucleus, and in the process paves the way to quantum mechanics.
1913 - Balkan Wars end.
1913 - George I of Greece is assassinated.
1914 - Mother's Day established as a national holiday
1914 - Federal Trade Commission created
1914 - Clayton Antitrust Act
1914 - ABC Powers
1914 - Gavrilo Princip assassinates the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, triggering World War I.
1914 - Panama Canal opens.
1914 - Benedict XV becomes Pope.
1915 - The Birth of a Nation opens
1915 - RMS Lusitania sunk
1915 - The United States occupation of Haiti begins.
1915 - Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
1916 - U.S. acquires Virgin Islands
1916 - Jeannette Rankin first woman elected to U.S. congress
1916 - Louis Brandeis appointed to Supreme Court
1916 - Adamson Railway Labor Act
1916 - Federal Farm Loan Act
1916 - Jone Act
1916 - Easter Rising in Ireland.
1916 - The implementation of daylight savings time.
1916 - Warlord Era begins in China.
1916 - David Lloyd George becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1916 - The Gallipoli Campaign fails.
1916 - Battle of the Somme.
1916 - Grigory Rasputin is assassinated by H.H. Prince Felix Youssoupov
1917 - Zimmermann telegram
1917 - Espionage and Sedition Acts
1917 - Lansing-Ishii Agreement
1917 - U.S. Virgin Islands purchased from Denmark
1917-1920 - First Red Scare, marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism
1917 - Russian Revolution; beginning of Russian Civil War.
1917 - USA join the Allies for the last 17 months of World War I.
1917 - Independence of Poland recognised.
1917 - The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded.
1918 - President Wilson's Fourteen Points, which assures citizens that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe
1918 - End of World War I;
1918 - Spanish flu pandemic.
1918 - Murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.
1918 - Poland, Ukraine and Belarus are among a number of states to declare independence from Russia.
1918 - Finnish Civil War.
1918 - Mehmed VI becomes last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
1918 - The Kingdom of Iceland and The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs are established.
1918 - The British occupy Palestine.
1919 - Treaty of Versailles ends World War I
1919 - United States Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations
1919 - 18th Amendment, establishing Prohibition
1919 - Black Sox Scandal during the that year's World Series, wherein the fallout lasts for decades
1919 - Treaty of Versailles redraws European borders and establishes the Weimar Republic in Germany.
1919 - Victory for Estonia in the Estonian War of Independence.
1919 - League of Nations founded in Paris.
1919 - Polish-Soviet War begins.
1919 - The Italian National Fascist Party is established by Benito Mussolini.
1919 - Comintern established.
1919 - Egyptian Revolution of 1919.
1919 - Turkish War of Independence begins.
1919 - The International Labor Organisation is established.
1919 - Ernest Rutherford discovers the proton.
1919 - First experimental evidence for the General theory of relativity obtained by Arthur Eddington.
1920s
1920 - 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote
1920 - Sacco and Vanzetti arrested
1920 - First radio broadcasts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Detroit, Michigan
1920 - Volstead Act
1920 - Esch-Cummins Act
1920 - Mexican Revolution ends.
1920 - Greece restores its monarchy after a referendum.
1921 - Warren G. Harding becomes President
1921 - Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921
1921 - Emergency Quota Act
1921 - Irish Free State is established, while the Province of Northern Ireland is created within The United Kingdom.
1921 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party as hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic begins.
1921 - Russia invades Georgia.
1921 - End of Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War.
1921 - Coup brings the Pahlavi dynasty to power in Iran.
1922 - Fordney-McCumber tariff
1922 - The Italian reconquest of Libya begins.
1922 - The union of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is dissolved.
1922 - Egypt gains independence.
1922 - March on Rome brings Benito Mussolini to power in Italy.
1922 - Howard Carter discovers Tutankhamen's tomb.
1922 - The Irish Civil War begins.
1922 - Ottoman Empire is abolished.
1922 - Gabriel Narutowicz, President of Poland is assassinated.
1922 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is formed.
1922 - Pius XI becomes Pope.
1922 - James Joyce publishes Ulysses.
1923 - President Warren G. Harding dies; Calvin Coolidge succeeds him
1923 - Teapot Dome Scandal
1923 - Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic ends with the introduction of the Rentenmark.
1923 - Time Magazine is first published.
1923 - Irish Civil War ends.
1923 - The Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic, ends in failure and brief imprisonment for Adolf Hitler but brings the Nazi Party to national attention.
1923 - A military coup ousts and kills Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski.
1923 - The Great Kantō earthquake kills at least 105,000 people in Japan.
1923 - Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey, while Kemal Atatürk becomes the first President of the newly established Republic of Turkey.
1923 - The Walt Disney Company is founded.
1924 - Immigration Act Basic Law
1924 - J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation — predecessor to the FBI.
1924 - Death of Vladimir Lenin.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation founded under J. Edgar Hoover.
1924 - The August Uprising in Georgia against Soviet rule.
1924 - George Gershwin composes Rhapsody In Blue.
1925 - Scopes trial, whose outcome found that the teaching of evolution in the classroom "does not violate church and state or state religion laws but instead, merely prohibits the teaching of evolution on the grounds of intellectual disagreement"
1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross elected governor of Wyoming
1925 - WSM broadcasts the Grand Ole Opry for the first time.
1925 - Benito Mussolini gains dictatorial powers in Italy. Mein Kampf is published. First televisual image created by John Logie Baird. Locarno Treaties are signed.
1926 - NBC founded as the U.S.'s first major broadcast network
1926 - Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan.
1926 - Coups in Greece, Poland and Portugal install new dictatorships.
1927 - Sacco and Vanzetti executed, seven years after they were convicted of murdering two men during an armed robbery in Massachusetts
1927 - Charles Lindbergh makes first trans-Atlantic flight
1927 - The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie" (motion picture with sound) is released
1927 - U.S. citizenship granted to inhabitants of U.S. Virgin Islands
1927 - Columbia Broadcasting System (later called CBS) becomes second national radio network in the U.S.
1927 - Joseph Stalin becomes leader of the Soviet Union.
1927 - World population reaches 2 billion.
1927 - Australian Parliament convenes in Canberra for the first time.
1927 - The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland officially becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
1927 - Saudi Arabia gains independence.
1927 - The BBC is granted a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom.
1928 - Disney's Steamboat Willie opens, the first animated picture to feature Mickey Mouse
1928 - Kellogg-Briand Pact
1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1928 - Discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming.
1928 - Warlord Era ends in China. Malta becomes a British Dominion.
1928 - King Zog I is crowned in Albania.
1928 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed in Paris.
1928 - Haile Selassie becomes king of Abyssinia.
1928 - The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is established.
1929 - Herbert Hoover becomes President
1929 - St. Valentine's Day massacre
1929 - Immigration Act
1929 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets a record 68 points over a two-day period, setting off the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and triggering the Great Depression
1929 - The Museum of Modern Art opens to the public in New York City
1929 - American Samoa officially becomes a U.S. territory
1929 - First people sent to the gulag in the Soviet Union.
1929 - Pope Pius XI signs the Lateran Treaty with Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
1929 - Vatican City is recognised as a sovereign state.
1929 - The first Academy Awards are presented.
1930s
1930 - Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," an iconic image of the Great Depression in the United States
1930 - The Motion Picture Production Code becomes set of industry censorship guidelines governing production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios; is effective for 38 years
1930 - Frozen vegetables, packaged by Clarence Birdseye, become the first frozen food to go on sale
1930: The Nazi Party, aided by the effects of the Great Depression, comes second in the September federal elections, increasing its share of the vote from 2.6% to 18.3%.
1930 - Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.
1930 - Salt March by Mohandas Gandhi and the official start of civil disobedience in British India.
1930 - Military coups replace governments in Peru and Brazil.
1931 - Empire State Building opens in New York City.
1931 - Japanese invasion of Manchuria
1931 - The Whitney Museum of American Art opens to the public in New York City.
1931 - Floods in China kill up to 2.5 million people.
1931 - Independence of South Africa.
1931 - Construction of the Empire State Building.
1931 - "The Star-Spangled Banner" is adopted as the United States's national anthem.
1931 - The Second Spanish Republic is declared.
1931 - The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed by Mao Zedong.
1931 - Statute of Westminster creates the British Commonwealth of Nations.
1931 - Japan invades Manchuria, China and occupies it until the end of World War II.
1932 - Stimson Doctrine
1932 - Norris-La Guardia Act
1932 - Hans Hofmann - influential artist and teacher emigrated to the United States from Germany.
1932 - Bonus Army marches on DC
1932 - Reconstruction Finance Corporation
1932 - Ford introduces the Model B, the first low-priced car to have a V-8 engine
1932 - Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes President of the United States.
1932 - Éamon de Valera becomes President of the Executive Council (prime minister) of the Irish Free State.
1932 - The Nazi party becomes the largest single party in the German parliament.
1932 - Military coup in Chile.
1932 - BBC World Service starts broadcasting.
1932 - The Neutron is discovered.
1933 - 20th Amendment, establishing the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices on January 20.
1933 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt sworn in as President; he is the last president to be inaugurated on March 4.
1933 - President Roosevelt establishes the New Deal, a response to the Great Depression, and focusing on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform
1933 - Sweeping new programs proposed under President Roosevelt take effect: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Civil Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, Farm Credit Administration the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Public Works Administration, the National Industrial Recovery Act
1933 - Giuseppe Zangara assassinates Chicago mayor Anton Cermak; the intended target was President-elect Roosevelt, who was not wounded.
1933 - Frances Perkins appointed United States Secretary of Labor
1933 - 21st Amendment, ending Prohibition
1933 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
1933 - New Deal begins in America.
1933 - Japan and Germany announce they are going to leave the League of Nations.
1934 - Glass–Steagall Act
1934 - U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission established
1934 - Dust Bowl begins, causing major ecological and agricultural damage to the Great Plains states; severe drought, heat waves and other factors were contributors.
1934 - Federal Housing Administration
1934 - Johnson Act
1934 - Philippine Commonwealth established
1934 - Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
1934 - Tydings-McDuffie Act
1934 - John Dillinger killed
1934 - Indian Reorganization Act
1934 - Share the Wealth society founded by Huey Long
1934 - Dictatorships begin in Brazil and Bolivia.
1934 - Mao Zedong begins the Long March.
1934 - United States occupation of Haiti ends.
1934 - United States grants more autonomy to the Philippines.
1934 - Adolf Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany.
1935 - Works Progress Administration
1935 - The F.B.I. is established with J. Edgar Hoover as its first director.
1935 - Neutrality Act
1935 - Motor Carrier Act
1935 - Social Security Act
1935 - Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
1935 - National Labor Relations Act
1935 - Huey Long assassinated
1935 - Congress of Industrial Organizations formed
1935 - Alcoholics Anonymous founded
1935 - Revenue Act of 1935
1935 - Second Italo-Abyssinian War concludes with the exile of Haile Selassie and the conquest of Abyssinia by Benito Mussolini.
1935 - Persia becomes Iran.
1935 - William Lyon Mackenzie King is elected Prime Minister of Canada.
1936 - Robinson-Patman Act
1936 - Life magazine publishes first issue
1936 - United States v. Butler, which ruled that the processing taxes instituted under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were unconstitutional
1936 - Second London Naval Treaty
1936 - Beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
1936 - Great Purge begins under Stalin.
1936 - Edward VIII becomes King of the British Commonwealth and Emperor of India, before abdicating and handing the throne to his brother, George VI.
1936 - Hoover Dam is completed.
1936 - Arab Revolt in Palestine against the British begins to oppose Jewish immigration.
1936 - Italy annexes Ethiopia.
1936 - "Benjamin", the last known thylacine, dies in Hobart Zoo.
1937 - Neutrality Acts
1937 - Hindenburg disaster, killing 35 people and marking an end to airship travel
1937 - Panay incident, a Japanese attack on the United States Navy gunboat USS Panay while anchored in the Yangtze River outside of Nanjing
1937 - Golden Gate Bridge completed in San Francisco
1937 - Japanese invasion of China, and the beginning of World War II in the Far East.
1937 - Rape of Nanking.
1937 - Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1937 - The Irish Republican Army attempts to assassinate King George VI of the United Kingdom.
1937 - Deaths of George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel.
1938 - Wheeler-Lea Act
1938 - Fair Labor Standards Act
1938 - Munich agreement hands Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.
1938 - Great Purge ends after nearly 700,000 executions.
1938 - Kristallnacht in Germany, while Time Magazine declares Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year.
1939 - Hatch Act, aimed at corrupt political practices and prevented federal civil servants from campaigning
1938 - Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds broadcast
1939 - Nazi Germany invades Poland; World War II begins
1939 - Cash and carry proposed to replace the Neutrality Acts
1939 - President Roosevelt, appearing at the opening of the 1939 New York World's Fair, becomes the first President to give a speech that is broadcast on television. Semi-regular broadcasts air during the next two years
1939 - End of Spanish Civil War; Francisco Franco becomes dictator of Spain.
1939 - Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.
1939 - Nazi invasion of Poland triggers the beginning of World War II in Europe. Palestinian revolt against the British ends.
1939 - Pius XII becomes Pope.
1940s
1940 - The USS Arizona, aflame and sinking, on December 7, 1941
1940 - Selective Service Act, establishing the first peacetime draft in U.S. history
1940 - Alien Registration (Smith) Act
1940 - Oldsmobile becomes the first car maker to offer a fully automatic transmission
1940 - Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry make their cartoon debuts
1940 - Billboard magazine publishes its first music popularity chart, the predecessor to today's Hot 100
1940 - U.S. presidential election, 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection to a record third term
1940 - Nazis invade France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.
1940 - Katyn massacre in Poland. Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland.
1940 - Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1940 - Battle of Britain as the British Empire fights alone against the Axis Powers. The Blitz begins.
1941 - Regular commercial television broadcasting begins; NBC television launched.
1941 - Lend-Lease, which supplies the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material during World War II
1941 - Attack on Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II by declaring war on Japan the next day on December 8; and three days later against Germany and Italy.
1941 - Atlantic Charter, drafted by the UK and U.S., to serve as the blueprint for the postwar world after World War II
1941 - Beginning of the Holocaust.
1941 - Hitler commences the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union
1942 - Japanese American internment begins, per executive order by President Roosevelt; the order also authorizes the seizure of their property.
1942-1945 - Automobile production in the United States for private consumers halted.
1942 - Casablanca released
1942 - Office of Price Administration
1942 - Cocoanut Grove fire kills 492 people, leads to vast reforms in fire codes and safety standards
1942 - Congress of Racial Equality
1942 - Revenue Act of 1942
1942 - U.S.-controlled Commonwealth of the Philippines conquered by Japanese forces
1942 - Battle of Midway.
1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea.
1942 - First and second Battles of El Alamein.
1942 - Guadalcanal Campaign begins.
1942 - Manhattan Project begins.
1943 - Office of Price Administration established
1943 - Detroit, Michigan race riots
1943 - Cairo Conference
1943 - Casablanca Conference
1943 - Tehran Conference
1943 - Battle of Stalingrad ends with surrender of the German Army.
1943 - Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
1943 - Green Revolution begins.
1944 - Dumbarton Oaks Conference
1944 - G.I. Bill
1944 - Bretton Woods Conference
1944 - Battle of the Bulge
1944 - 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection
1944 - D-Day landings.
1944 - Baltic states are annexed by the Soviet Union.
1944 - First operational electronic computer, Colossus, comes online
1945 - Yalta Conference
1945 - Battle of Okinawa
1945 - United Nations Conference on International Organization; United Nations established
1945 - Nationwide labor strikes due to inflation; OPA disbanded
1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt dies; Harry S. Truman becomes President
1945 - Germany surrenders, end of World War II in Europe
1945 - Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Days later, Japan surrenders, ending World War II
1945 - UN founded after World War II replacing the League of Nations
1945–1949 - Nuremberg Trials and Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
1945 - Bombing of Dresden.
1945 - Battle of Berlin.
1945 - Deaths of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 1945 - Potsdam Conference divides Europe into Western and Soviet blocs.
1945 - Chinese Civil War begins.
1945 - Independence of Korea.
1945 - Deaths of Anne Frank and Béla Bartók.
1946 - Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech
1946 - Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care published
1946 - Employment Act
1946 - United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946
1946 - President's Committee on Civil Rights
1946 - Philippines regain independence from the U.S.
1946 - Independence of Jordan.
1946 - First Indochina War begins.
1946 - First images taken of the Earth from space.
1947 - Presidential Succession Act
1947 - Taft Hartley Act
1947 - U.F.O. crash at Roswell, New Mexico
1947 - National Security Act of 1947
1947 - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
1947 - The Marshall Plan
1947 - Polaroid camera invented
1947 - Truman Doctrine establishes "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures"
1947 - Federal Employee Loyalty Program
1947 - Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier in baseball
1947 - Studebaker becomes the first automobile manufacturer to introduce a "post-war" model; most automakers wait until 1948 or 1949
1947 - Jackson Pollock begins painting his most famous series' of paintings called the drip paintings in East Hampton, New York
1947 - Independence of India and Pakistan and beginning of First Indo-Pakistani War.
1947 - Breaking of the sound barrier.
1947 - Creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
1948 - The Texaco Star Theater, starring Milton Berle, becomes the first major successful U.S. television program; The Toast of the Town also debuts
1948 - Berlin Blockade
1948 - President Truman re-elected
1948 - Truman desegregates armed forces
1948 - Selective Service Act of 1948: Passed after first such act expired
1948 - Organization of American States: Alliance of North America and South America
1948 - Alger Hiss Case
1948 - Arab-Israeli War;
1948 - Berlin Airlift;
1948 - Marshall Plan
1948 - Assassination of Mohandas Gandhi;
1948 - the independence of Burma;
1948 - beginning of apartheid in South Africa;
1948 - division of North and South Korea.
1948 - First Indo-Pakistani War ends.
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed
1949 - In China, Communists under Mao Zedong force Chiang Kai-shek's KMT government to retreat to Taiwan
1949 - Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb
1949 - Department of War becomes Department of Defense
1949 - Germany divided into East and West
1949 - Truman attempts to continue FDR's legacy with his Fair Deal, but most acts don't pass
1949 - Partition of Germany and Kashmir; creation of NATO;
1949 - end of the Chinese Civil War and establishment of the People's Republic of China;
1949 - independence of Indonesia.
1950s
1950 - Senator Joseph McCarthy gains power, and McCarthyism (1950-1954) begins
1950 - McCarran Internal Security Act
1950 - Korean War begins
1950 - The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, is first published
1950 - NBC airs Broadway Open House a late-night comedy, variety, talk show through 1951. Hosted by Morey Amsterdam and Jerry Lester and Dagmar, it serves as the prototype for the Tonight Show
1950 - Failed assassination attempt by two Puerto Rican nationals on President Harry S. Truman while the President was living at Blair House.
1950 - Lhamo Dondrub becomes the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
1951 - 22nd Amendment, establishing term limits for President.
1951 - Mutual Security Act
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur fired by President Truman for comments about using nuclear weapons on China
1951 - The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. One month later, the situation comedy I Love Lucy premieres on CBS, sparking the rise of television in the American home and the Golden Age of Television.
1951 - See It Now, an American newsmagazine and documentary series broadcast by CBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show.
1951 - Colombo Plan comes into effect.
1952 - The debut of the Today show on NBC, originally hosted by Dave Garroway is the fourth longest running talk show on television.
1952 - ANZUS Treaty enters into force
1952 - Immigration and Nationality Act
1952 - United States presidential election, 1952 (Dwight D. Eisenhower elected)
1952 - Detonation of the hydrogen bomb;
1952 - first scheduled flight by commercial jet.
1952 - Development of the first effective polio vaccine by Jonas Salk;
1952 - Mau Mau Uprising begins in Kenya.
1952 - Queen Elizabeth II becomes Monarch of the Commonwealth realms.
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower inaugurated as President
1953 - Rosenbergs executed
1953 - Armistice in Korea
1953 - Shah of Iran returns to power in CIA-orchestrated coup known as Operation Ajax
1953 - Independence of Cambodia.
1953 - Discovery of DNA.
1953 - First ascent of Mount Everest;
1953 - Mohammed Mossadeq deposed in Iran;
1953 - end of the Korean War.
1953 - Death of Joseph Stalin.
1954 - The Tournament of Roses Parade becomes the first event televised nationally in color
1954 - Joseph McCarthy discredited in Army-McCarthy hearings
1954 - The CIA organizes the overthrow of Guatemala's democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (Operation PBSUCCESS)
1954 - Saint Lawrence Seaway Act, permitting the construction of the system of locks, canals and channels that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the North American Great Lakes, is approved
1954 - Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court, declares state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students and denying black children equal educational opportunities unconstitutional
1954 - The U.S. becomes a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (or SEATO) alliance
1954 - Geneva Conference, with the U.S. attempting to find a way to unify Korea, and to discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina
1954 - The People's Republic of China lays siege on Quemoy and Matsu Islands; Eisenhower sends in Navy
1954 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at an all-time high of 382.74, the first time the Dow has surpassed its peak level reached just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929
1954 - NBC airs the The Tonight Show the first late-night talk show is originally hosted by Steve Allen
1954 - Supreme Court of the United States decides Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools.
1954 - Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets, brings rock and roll to the American mainstream.
1954 - The Soviet Union generates first electricity by nuclear power.
1954 - First Indochina War ends;
1954 - Algerian War begins.
1955 - Ray Kroc opens a McDonald's fast food restaurant and, after purchasing the franchise from its original owners, oversees its national (and later, worldwide) expansion
1955 - Rosa Parks incites the Montgomery Bus Boycott
1955 - AFL and CIO merge in America's largest labor union
1955 - Warsaw Pact, which establishes a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe (including the USSR)
1955 - Disneyland opens at Anaheim, California
1955 - Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine
1955 - Rock and roll music enters the mainstream, with "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets becoming the first record to top the Billboard magazine pop charts. Elvis Presley also begins his rise to fame around this same time.
1955 - Actor James Dean is killed in a highway collision on his way to a racetrack in Salinas, California, while driving his racing Porsche 550 Spyder.
1955 - Signing of the Warsaw Pact.
1955 - First Sudanese Civil War begins.
1955 - Antimatter first produced.
1956 - Interstate Highway Act, which would provide the construction of 41,000 miles (66,000 km) of the Interstate Highway System over a 20-year period
1956 - The U.S. refuses to support the Hungarian Revolution
1956 - Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
1956 - Marilyn Monroe marries playwright Arthur Miller.
1956 - Jackson Pollock dies in a car crash in Springs, New York
1956 - United States presidential election, 1956 (Eisenhower re-elected)
1956 - Independence of Sudan and Tunisia and full independence of Pakistan.
1956 - The Hungarian uprising;
1956 - the Suez crisis.
1956 - Brasilia constructed.
1957 - Eisenhower Doctrine, wherein a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state
1957 - Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, becomes the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress since Reconstruction
1957 - Soviets launch Sputnik; "space race" begins
1957 - Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S., goes into service
1957 - Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation
1957 - Independence of Ghana;
1957 - Treaty of Rome, which would eventually lead to the European Union;
1957 - First prescription of the combined oral contraceptive pill.
1958 - National Defense Education Act
1958 - NASA formed as the U.S. begins ramping up efforts to explore space
1958 - Jack Kilby invents the integrated circuit
1958 - Great Leap Forward begins in China.
1958 - NASA, the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) founded.
1958 - CND's symbol, the peace sign, is first used.
1958 - Invention of the optical disc and the cassette tape.
1959 - The NBC western Bonanza becomes the first drama to be broadcast in color
1959 - Cuban Revolution
1959 - Landrum-Griffin Act, a labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers, becomes law
1959 - Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th U.S. states; to date, they are the final two states admitted to the union.
1959 - Cuban Revolution;
1959 - Independence of Cyprus and Singapore;
1959 - Admission of Alaska and Hawaii into the United States;
1959 - Dalai Lama exiled from Tibet;
1959 - First documented AIDS cases;
1959 - Beginning of the Vietnam War;
1959 - First images of the far side of the Moon.
1959 - By this time, the gulag has been effectively disbanded, after over a million recorded deaths.
1960s
1960 - U-2 incident, wherein a CIA U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace
1960 - Greensboro sit-ins, sparked by four African American college students refusing to move from a segregated lunch counter, spurs similar actions and increases sentiment in the Civil Rights Movement.
1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960, establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls and penalties for those attempting to obstruct someone's attempt to register to vote or actually vote
1960 - National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam formed
1960 - United States presidential election, 1960 (John F. Kennedy elected president)
1960 - Year of Africa.
1960 - Independence of Somalia, Togo and the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
1960 - Congo Crisis.
1960 - Mau Mau Uprising ends;
1960 - first (and to date only) manned descent to the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench;
1960 - construction of the first laser;
1960 - World population reaches 3 billion.
1960 - FLQ seizes hostages, causing Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau of Canada to issue the War Measures Act
1960 - US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
1961 - Eisenhower gives celebrated "military–industrial complex" farewell address
1961 - John F. Kennedy becomes President
1961 - 23rd Amendment, which grants electors to the District of Columbia
1961 - Peace Corps established.
1961 - Alliance for Progress
1961 - Bay of Pigs Invasion
1961 - Alan Shepard pilots the Freedom 7 capsule to become the first American in space
1961 - Trade embargo on Cuba
1961 - Berlin Crisis of 1961
1961 - Vietnam War officially begins with 900 military advisors landing in Saigon
1961 - OPEC formed
1961 - Great Leap Forward ends in China after the deaths of roughly 20 million people.
1961 - Building of the Berlin Wall
1962 - Trade Expansion Act
1962 - John Glenn orbits the Earth, becoming the first American to do so
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis, which becomes the closest nuclear confrontation (as of 2010) involving the U.S. and USSR
1962 - Baker v. Carr, enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases
1962 - Engel v. Vitale, which determines that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools
1962 - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
1962 - Marilyn Monroe dies of an apparent overdose from acute barbiturate poisoning at 36.
1962 - Algerian civil war ends with the independence of Algeria;
1962 - The Beatles' first record.
1963 - Kennedy's motorcade on November 22, 1963
1963 - Bob Dylan and Columbia Records release The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (his second studio album), which becomes a classic
1963 - Atomic Test Ban Treaty
1963 - March on Washington; Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream" speech
1963 - "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan published, sparking the women's liberation movement
1963 - President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas; Lyndon Johnson becomes President. The man accused of assassinating President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, is shot and killed as he is led to jail by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The assassination marks the first 24-hour coverage of a major news event by the major networks.
1963 - Independence of Kenya;
1963 - creation of Malaysia;
1963 - Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a Dream" speech
1963 - launch of the first geostationary satellite.
1964 - The Beatles arrive in the U.S., and subsequent appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, mark the start of the British Invasion (or, an increased number of rock and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular around the world, including the U.S.)
1964 - Tonkin Gulf incident; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
1964 - 24th Amendment, prohibiting both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax
1964 - President Johnson proposes the Great Society, whose social reforms were aimed at the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched later in the 1960s.
1964 - Economic Opportunity Act
1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, and ended racial segregation in the United States
1964 - Panama Canal Zone riots
1964 - United States presidential election,
1964 - Independence of Malta, Malawi and Tanzania;
1964 - Colombian armed conflict begins.
1964 - First close-up images of Mars
1965 - President Lyndon B. Johnson escalates the United States military involvement in the Vietnam War
1965 - Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington, D.C., with about 25,000 protesters
1965 - Immigration Act of 1965
1965 - Voting Rights Act
1965 - Medicaid and Medicare enacted
1965 - Higher Education Act of 1965
1965 - Malcolm X an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist is assassinated in Harlem, New York
1965 - Watts Riot in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, lasts six days and is the first of several major urban riots due to racial issues.
1965 - Deaths of Winston Churchill and Malcolm X.
1965 - Anti-Communist purge in Indonesia kills up to 500,000 people.
1965 - Second Indo-Pakistani War.
1966 - Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) established
1966 - Department of Transportation created
1966 - National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
1966 - Miranda v. Arizona establishes "Miranda rights" for suspects
1966 - Feminist group National Organization for Women (NOW) formed
1966 – The three major American television networks—NBC, CBS and ABC—have full color lineups in their prime-time schedules.
1966 - Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to go to war. According to a writer for Sports Illustrated, the governor of Illinois called Ali "disgusting" and the governor of Maine said that Ali "should be held in utter contempt by every patriotic American."[1] In 1967 Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years.
1966 - China's Cultural Revolution begins.
1966 - Independence of Lesotho, Botswana and Barbados
1967 - Jack Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism, secondary to bronchogenic carcinoma (lung cancer), on January 3, 1967 at Parkland Hospital, where Oswald had died and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.
1967 – The first Super Bowl is played, with the Green Bay Packers defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.
1967 – Detroit race riot precipitates the "long hot summer", when race riots erupt in 159 cities nationwide.
1967 - The "Summer of Love" embodies the growing counterculture, with the Monterey Pop Festival and Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" among the highlights.
1967 - 25th Amendment establishes succession to the Presidency and procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President
1967 - American Samoa becomes self-governing under a new constitution
1967 - Summer of Love;
1967 - Six Day War
1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated two months apart
1968 - The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive
1968 - Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known as the Fair Housing Act
1968 - Shirley Chisholm becomes first black woman elected to U.S. Congress
1968 - Police clashes with anti-war protesters in Chicago, outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 - U.S. signs Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
1968 - United States presidential election, 1968 (Richard Nixon elected president)
1968 - Prague Spring.
1968 - May 1968 protests in France.
1968 - The Troubles begin in Northern Ireland.
1969 - Richard Nixon is inaugurated as President
1969 - "Vietnamization" begins
1969 - Stonewall riots in New York City marks the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
1969 - Chappaquiddick incident, where Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne
1969 - Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon
1969 - The Woodstock Festival in White Lake, New York becomes an enormously successful musical and cultural gathering; a milestone for the baby-boom generation
1969 - Warren E. Burger appointed Chief Justice of the United States to replace Earl Warren
1969 - U.S. bombs North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia and Laos
1969 - Sesame Street premieres on National Educational Television.
1969 - Creation of ARPANET, the earliest incarnation of the Internet.
1970s
1970 - The Watergate scandal causes Nixon to be the first U.S. president to resign from office.
1970 - Kent State and Jackson State shootings occur during student protests which grow violent
1970 - The first Earth Day is observed.
1970 - Environmental Protection Agency created
1970 - American Top 40, hosted by radio personality Casey Kasem, becomes the first successful nationally syndicated radio program featuring a weekly countdown.
1970 - The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) begins operations, succeeding National Educational Television (NET).
1970 - The Occupational Safety and Health Act, or OSHA, is signed into law.
1970 - Ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
1970 - Containerisation adopted globally, massively boosting global trade.
1970 - Maiden flight of the Boeing 747.
1970 - Bhola Cyclone kills 500,000 people in East Pakistan.
1970 - Deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin
1971 - President Richard Nixon ends the United States Gold standard monetary policy known as the Nixon Shock
1971 - A ban on radio and television cigarette advertisements goes into effect in the United States
1971 - The landmark situation comedy, All in the Family, premieres on CBS.
1971 - 26th Amendment ratified, allowing 18-year-olds to vote!!!
1971 - In New York Times Co. v. United States, The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Pentagon Papers may be published, rejecting government injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint.
1971 - Bangladesh Liberation War ends in independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan and precipitates Third Indo-Pakistani War.
1971 - Invention of the microchip.
1971 - Idi Amin comes to power in Uganda
1972 - President Richard Nixon visits China, an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and China.
1972 - Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed with USSR
1972 - Watergate scandal: Five men arrested for the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.
1972 - U.S. presidential election, 1972 (President Nixon re-elected)
1972 - Apollo 17 flies to the Moon, and becomes the last manned mission there (as of 2011)
1972 - Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday;
1972 - First Sudanese Civil War ends.
1972 - Martial law declared in the Philippines by President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
1973 - Paris Peace Accords ends direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War
1973 - Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling overturns state laws against abortion
1973 - The Senate Watergate hearings begin, highlighted by Fred Thompson's discovery of Nixon's secret tapes
1973 - Skylab launched as the USA's first space station
1973 - Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigns in disgrace as part of a plea bargain. Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan becomes the first person to be appointed Vice President under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution
1973 - Watergate scandal: President Nixon fires three Attorneys General over disposition of the secret tapes and the actions of the Special Prosecutor.
1973–1974 - The United States is affected by the Arab Oil Embargo; gasoline prices skyrocket as supplies of gasoline and heating oil are in short supply. In response, Daylight Savings Time is started in January (nearly four months earlier than usual), and the national speed limit is lowered to 55 mph.
1973 - Death of Pablo Picasso.
1973 - First close-up images of Jupiter
1974 - The Super Outbreak, the largest series of tornadoes in history (at 149), hits 13 U.S. states and one Canadian province; 315 people are killed and more than 5,000 are injured.
1974 - Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves breaks Babe Ruth's home run record by hitting his 715th career home run.
1974 - Watergate scandal: The House Judiciary Committee votes to impeach the President
1974 - President Nixon resigns, becoming the first (and as of 2011, the only) President to step down. Vice president Ford becomes President, the first to do so by succession rather than election. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York becomes the second person to be appointed Vice President under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution
1974 - Watergate scandal: Ford pardons Nixon for any crimes he may have committed against the United States while President, believing it to be in the "best interests of the country"
1974 - Restrictions removed on holding private gold within the United States
1974 - Turkish occupation of Cyprus.
1974 - Carnation Revolution in Portugal begins transition to democracy.
1974 - First close-up images of Mercury.
1974 - Discovery of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) in Ethiopia's Olduvai Gorge.
1974 - World population reaches 4 billion.
1975 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
1975 - Fall of Saigon
1975 - Bill Gates founds Microsoft, which in time will dominate the home computer operating system market.
1975 - The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, where an American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock in orbit, marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
1975 - President Ford survives two assassination attempts in a 17-day time span.
1975 - The television series Wheel of Fortune and Saturday Night Live premiere on NBC.
1975 - Sony's Betamax becomes the first commercially successful home video recording unit
1975 - End of the Vietnam War;
1975 - Deaths of Francisco Franco and Dmitri Shostakovich.
1975 - Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia begins.
1976 - The Copyright Act of 1976 makes sweeping changes to United States copyright law
1976 - Americans celebrate the Bicentennial
1976 - U.S. presidential election, 1976 (Jimmy Carter of Georgia defeats President Ford)
1976 - First outbreak of the Ebola virus.
1976 - Death of Mao Zedong.
1976 - End of Cultural Revolution
1977 - Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as President
1977 - The first home personal computer, Commodore PET, released for retail sale
1977 - The television miniseries Roots is aired on ABC, to critical acclaim and gaining record audiences
1977 - The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder
1977 - Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll dies in his home in Graceland at age 42. 75,000 fans lined the streets of Memphis for this funeral
1977 - Atari 2600 becomes the first successful home video game system, popularizes the use of microprocessor based hardware and cartridges containing game code
1977 - Introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers;
1977 - Launch of the Voyager spacecraft, currently the most distant man-made objects in the universe.
1977 - Queen Alia of Jordan is killed in helicopter crash.
1978 - Volkswagen becomes the second (after Rolls-Royce) non-American automobile manufacturer to open a plant in the United States, commencing production of the Rabbit
1978 - Camp David Accords, where Menachem Begin (Israel) and Anwar Sadat (Egypt) begin the peace process at Camp David, Maryland.
1978 - Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act signed into law, adjusting the government's economic goals to include full employment, growth in production, price stability, and balance of trade and budget
1978 - The Senate votes to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999
1978 - Harvey Milk is assassinated by Dan White in San Francisco on November 27.
1978 - Invention of artificial insulin;
Discovery of Pluto's moon Charon;
1978 - Independence of Tuvalu;
1978 - birth of the first test-tube baby.
1978 - Afghan Civil War begins.
1978 - Deng Xiaoping commences Economic reform in the People's Republic of China.
1978 - Spanish transition to democracy is completed.
1978 - John Paul II becomes Pope.
1979 - Three Mile Island nuclear accident, which is America's most serious nuclear power plant accident in its history.
1979 - Iran hostage crisis begins. In the aftermath, a second energy crisis develops, tripling the price of oil and sending gasoline prices over $1 per gallon for the first time.
1979 - American Airlines Flight 191 crashes after takeoff from O'Hare International Airport killing all 271 aboard and 2 on the ground, making it the deadliest aviation incident on U.S. soil
1979 - Facing bankruptcy, Chrysler receives government loan guarantees upon the request of CEO Lee Iacocca to help revive the company
1979 - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan;
1979 - Shah Reza Pahlavi forced into exile.
1979 - Arrival of Pope John Paul II in Poland, eventually sparking the Solidarity movement.
1979 - First space station, Skylab, is launched.
1979 - First close-up images of Saturn.
1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1979 - 1979 - Implementation of China's One child policy.
1979 - Idi Amin exiled from Uganda.
1979 - Smallpox eradicated.
1979 - Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia ends; 1.4 million people known to have been murdered in The Killing Fields.
1979 - Nicaraguan Revolution.
1980s
1980 - President Ronald Reagan was the face of the United States during the 1980s
1980 - U.S. boycotts Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, also announces grain embargo against the Soviet Union with the support of the European Commission.
1980 - Refugee Act, which reformed United States immigration law and admitted refugees on systematic basis for humanitarian reasons
1980 - Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington kills 57
1980 - U.S. presidential election, 1980
1980 - John Lennon assassinated
1980 - Independence of Zimbabwe and Vanuatu.
1980 - Beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, Salvadorian Civil War and Contra War
1981 - Ronald Reagan becomes President, inaugurated on the same day Iran releases hostages
1981 - Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley
1981 - Kemp-Roth Tax Cut
1981 - MTV signs on, becoming the first 24-hour cable network dedicated to airing music videos.
1981 - A hotel walkway collapses in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 and injuring over 200; it is the deadliest structural collapse to occur in the United States
1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched, marking America's first return to space since 1975
1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor becomes first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court
1981–1982 - The killing of 7-year-old Adam Walsh (1981), and the disappearance of Johnny Gosch, a 12-year-old newspaper carrier from Des Moines, Iowa (1982), raise awareness of missing children cases in the United States.
1982 - First Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Falklands War.
1981: Independence of Palau. First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle.
1983 - 241 U.S. Marines killed by suicide bomb in Lebanon
1983 - United States invades Grenada
1983 - Chrysler unveils its minivans - the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager (as 1984 models) - to the public
1983 - End of 1982 Lebanon War.
1983 - GPS becomes available for civilian use.
1983 - Independence of Brunei.
1983 - End of dictatorship in Argentina.
1983 - Second Sudanese Civil War begins.
1984 - Most of Eastern Bloc boycotts Summer Olympics in Los Angeles
1984 - U.S. presidential election, 1984 (Ronald Reagan is re-elected)
1984 - The drug problem intensifies as crack (a smokeable form of cocaine) is first introduced into the Los Angeles area
1984 - Awareness of child sexual abuse by pedophiles raised through high-profile media coverage on programs such as 60 Minutes and 20/20.
1984 - Beginning of the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia
1985 - Bernhard Goetz is indicted in New York on charges of attempted murder after shooting four young men whom he claimed were intent on mugging him
1985 - Professional wrestling hits the mainstream with the World Wrestling Federation's first WrestleMania and the debut of Saturday Night's Main Event, and the WWF's flagship star, Hulk Hogan, becoming a cultural icon.
1985 - World awareness of famine in Third World countries spark "We Are the World" and Live Aid. Also, awareness of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is raised with the death of actor Rock Hudson.
1985 - Country music singer Willie Nelson organizes the first Farm Aid, to raise money for family farmers facing financial crisis
1985 - The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable (as 1986 models), Nintendo Entertainment System are released to the public.
1985 - Live Aid.
1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
1985 - First use of DNA fingerprinting. End of dictatorship in Brazil
1986 - Iran-Contra scandal breaks
1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger accident, killing all seven aboard (inclduing school teacher Christa McAuliffe) and grounding the nation's space program for 2½ years.
1986 - Tax Reform Act of 1986
1986 - Gramm Rudman Hollings Balanced Budget Act
1986 - Marshall Islands become independent
1986 - Fox Broadcasting Company launched, becomes the first network since DuMont to offer nightly programming
1986 - Challenger and Chernobyl disasters.
1986 - Launch of the space station Mir.
1986 - First close up images of the planet Uranus.
1986 - End of dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.Corazon Aquino succeed to presidency.
1986 - Iran-Contra becomes public.
1987 - Assorted scandals involve popular televangelists, including Jim Bakker, Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart.
1987 - During a visit to Berlin, Germany, President Reagan challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" (referring to the Berlin Wall).
1987 - Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 22.6% in single session on Black Monday
1987 - Dennis Conner onboard "Stars & Stripes" returns the America's Cup to America.
1987 - First Intifada between Israel and Palestine begins.
1987 - World population reaches 5 billion
1988 - Drunk driving awareness raised after a drunk driver's car crashes into a church bus near Carrollton, Kentucky, killing 27.
1988 - Severe droughts and massive heat wave grip the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states. The crisis reaches its peak with the Yellowstone fires of 1988.
1988 - Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, becomes the last Major League Baseball park to add lights for night games.
1988 - Discovery launched as first post-Challenger space shuttle flight
1988 - U.S. presidential election, 1988 (Vice president George H. W. Bush is elected)
1988 - Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty goes into effect
1988: Perestroika begins. End of the Iran-Iraq War. End of dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Pan Am Flight 103 falls over Lockerbie, Scotland. Myanmar Armed Forces launch a military coup. Construction of the Channel Tunnel begins.
1989 - George H. W. Bush inaugurated as President.
1989 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound
1989 - Awareness of stalking is raised with the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by an obsessed fan
1989 - Hurricane Hugo strikes the East Coast, causing $7 billion in damage.
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake kills 63 in greater San Francisco Bay Area
1989 - President Bush declares a "War on Drugs."
1989 - The animated comedy The Simpsons debuts
1989 - President Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end. Symbolic elsewhere around the world was the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany
1989 - Fall of the Berlin Wall;
1989 - 1989 revolution and collapse of Communism in Europe.
1989 - Tiannanmen Square Massacre in China.
1989 - End of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
1989 - End of dictatorship in Paraguay and first direct Presidential election in Brazil since 1960.
1989 - Death of Emperor Hirohito.
1989 - Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie.
1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill.
1989 - First close up pictures of Neptune.
1989 - First Liberian Civil War begins.
\
1990s
1990 - Hubble Space Telescope launched during Space Shuttle Discovery mission.
1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait leading to the Gulf War.
1990 - Sir Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
1990 - Reunification of Germany.
1990 - Contra War ends. Myanmar Armed Forces place Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1991 - The Gulf War is waged in the Middle East, by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations, led by the U.S. and United Kingdom, against Iraq.
1991 - Supreme Court candidate Clarence Thomas and former aide Anita Hill are interviewed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee following sexual harassment allegations by Hill. Thomas is eventually confirmed and seated on the Supreme Court.
1991 - Cold War ends as the USSR dissolves.
1991 - Dissolution of the Soviet Union and independence of 15 former Soviet republics.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin becomes the first democratically elected leader of Russia.
1991 - Ten-Day War in Slovenia begins the Yugoslav Wars.
1991 - Beginning of the Somali, Sierra Leonian and Algerian Civil Wars.
1991 - Final end of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
1992 - Los Angeles riots result in over 50 deaths and $1 billion in damage, spurred by the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King
1992 - 27th Amendment, prohibiting changes to Congress members' salaries from taking effect until after an election of representatives.
1992 - U.S. presidential election, 1992 (Bill Clinton defeats President George H. W. Bush)
1992 - Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane, kills 65 people and causes $26 billion in damage to Florida and other areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast, and will be the costliest natural disaster until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
1992 - Maastricht Treaty creates the European Union.
1992 - End of dictatorship in Albania and South Korea.
1992 - End of Salvadorian Civil War
1993 - Truck Bomb explodes in the parking garage, under the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 6 people and injuring thousands.
1993 - Branch Davidians standoff and fire in Waco, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 76 people including their leader, David Koresh.
1993 - The "Storm of the Century" strikes the Eastern Seaboard, with blizzard conditions and severe weather, killing 300 people and causing $6 billion in damage.
1993 - Massive flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers kill 50 people and devastate the Midwest with $15 billion in damage
1993 - President Clinton signs 'Don't ask, don't tell' into law which prohibits openly gay or bisexual people from serving in the military.
1993 - Velvet divorce between Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1993 - Independence of Eritrea.
1993 - Oslo accords end First Intifada between Israel and Palestine.
1994 - North American Free Trade Agreement goes into effect.
1994 - 1994 Northridge earthquake kills 72 and injures 9,000 in the Los Angeles area and causes $20 billion in damage.
1994 - End of apartheid in South Africa and election of Nelson Mandela.
1994 - First Chechen War begins.
1994 - Rwandan genocide occurs.
1994 - Opening of the Channel Tunnel.
1995 - Following the 1994 elections, Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1955.
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing kills 168 and wounds 800. The bombing is the worst domestic terrorist incident in U.S. history, and the investigation resulted in the arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols
1995 - Retired professional football player O. J. Simpson is acquitted of two charges of first-degree murder in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. The trial, which lasts nine months, receives worldwide publicity.
1995 - A heat wave kills 750 in Chicago, bringing to attention the plight of the urban poor and the elderly in extreme weather conditions.
1995 - Establishment of the World Trade Organization.
1995 - Srebrenica massacre; NATO bombing raids in Bosnia;
1995 - Dayton Accords signed.
1995 - Assassination of Yitzak Rabin.
1995 - North Korean famine begins.
1995-1996 - A budget crisis forces the federal government to shutdown for several weeks.
1996 - A snowstorm along the East Coast kills 150 people and causes $3 billion in damage
1996 - TWA Flight 800 explodes off Long Island killing all 230 aboard.
1996 - Khobar Towers bombing leaves 19 U.S. servicemen dead in Saudi Arabia
1996 - Centennial Olympic Park bombing at Summer Olympics in Atlanta kills 1 and injures 111
1996 - First Congo War begins. First Chechen War ends.
1996 - First Liberian Civil War ends.
1996 - End of dictatorship in Taiwan.
1996 - Dolly the sheep becomes first successful cloned mammal.
1996 - The Taliban government takes control of Afghanistan.
1997 - President Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
1997 - Sparked by a global economic crisis scare, the Dow Jones Industrial Average follows world markets and plummets 554.26, or 7.18%, to 7,161.15
1997 - Des Moines, Iowa resident Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies are born alive, and the first in which all survive infancy
1997 - Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1997 - Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from UK to China. Lottery Uprising in Albania.
1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car accident in Paris.
1998 - Former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones accuses President Clinton of sexual harassment
1998-1999 - Lewinsky scandal: President Clinton is accused of having a sexual relationship with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This leads to the impeachment of Clinton later in the year by the U.S. House of Representatives. Clinton is acquitted of all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial
1998 - 224 killed in 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya
1998 - Gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered near the University of Wyoming. He becomes a symbol of gay-bashing victims and sparking public reflection on homophobia in the U.S.
1998 - Osama Bin Laden publishes a fatwa against the West.
1998 - Kenya and Tanzania bombings.
1998 - Second Congo War begins.
1998 - Good Friday Agreement brings an end to The Troubles in Northern Ireland. 1998 - North Korean famine kills an estimated 2.5 million people by this point.
1999 - Dennis Hastert of Illinois becomes Speaker of the House, a position he will hold until 2007, making him the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House
1999 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark for the first time, at 10,006.78
1999 - Two teenage students murder 13 other students and teachers at Columbine High School. It is the deadliest mass murder at a high school in U.S. history, and sparks debates on gun control and bullying.
1999 - A violent tornado outbreak in Oklahoma kills 50 people and becomes the first to produce a tornado that causes $1 billion in damage.
1999 - The first officer deliberately crashes EgyptAir Flight 990 south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing 217.
1999 - Along with the rest of the world, the U.S. prepares for the possible effects of the Y2K bug in computers, which was feared to cause computers to become inoperable and wreak havoc.
1999 - Euro is introduced.
1999 - Kosovo War ends the Yugoslav Wars.
1999 - Hugo Chavez becomes President of Venezuela.
1999 - Second Chechen War and Second Liberian Civil War begin.
1999 - Fourth Indo-Pakistani War.
1999 - Crisis in East Timor leads to 1400 deaths.
1999 - World population reaches 6 billion.
2000s
2000 - The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Cole (DDG-76) is bombed in Yemeni waters, killing seventeen U.S. Navy sailors.
2000 - U.S. presidential election, 2000; incumbent Texas governor George Walker Bush wins by 537 votes in Florida in a highly contested election against the incumbent Vice President Al Gore. He is thus elected 43rd President of the United States.
2000 - End of Israeli occupation of Lebanon.
2000 - Second Intifada begins.
2000 - Vincente Fox becomes the first opposition President of Mexico.
2000 - Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia.
2000 - British Army launch Operation Palliser which effectively ends the Sierra Leone Civil War.
2000 - International Space Station begins operations.
2000 - First Inter-Korean Summit.
2001 - George W. Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States.
2001 - Democrats gains narrow control of Senate after James Jeffords defects from the Republican Party.
2001 - No Child Left Behind Act education reform bill passed.
2001 - Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 institutes the largest tax cut in U.S. history.
2001 - September 11th terrorist attacks; 19 terrorists hijack four planes and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring over 6,000. All civilian air traffic is suspended for 3 days, the first time an unplanned suspension had occurred in U.S. history.
2001 - Congress passes an emergency bailout package for the airline industry as a result of the attacks.
2001 - Afghan War begins.
2001 - Wikipedia founded.
2001 - President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines impeached.
2001 - Anthrax attacks kill 5 and infect a further 17 through the U.S. Mail system.
2001 - The United States launches the invasion of Afghanistan marking the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
2001 - Patriot Act, increasing law enforcement agencies' ability to conduct searches in cases of suspected terrorism. Agencies were enforced.
2001 - American Airlines Flight 587 crashes in Queens, New York, killing 265.
2002 - The Department of Homeland Security is created in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
2002 - The United States withdraws from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2002 - 10 people are killed and 3 are injured in the Beltway sniper attacks around the Washington D.C. area.
2002 - Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established.
2002 - 2002 Bali bombings.
2002 - Algerian Civil War ends.
2002 - Rose Revolution in Georgia.
2002 - Independence of East Timor.
2003 - Republicans retake narrow control of the Senate following 2002 elections.
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates upon re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, killing all 7 astronauts and resulting in a 29-month suspension of the space shuttle program.
2003 - A series of incidents occur that institute a crackdown on building, fire, and safety code violations across the United States, including the E2 nightclub stampede which killed 21, The Station nightclub fire which killed 100, and a porch collapse which killed 13.
2003 - The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invades Iraq marking the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
2003 - U.S. forces continue fighting an insurgency in Iraq while helping the Iraqis build a new army of their own and develop a democratic form of government
2003 - In Iraq, deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. special forces.
2003 - 2003 Invasion of Iraq begins, triggering worldwide protests.
2003 - War in Darfur begins.
2003 - The Human Genome Project is completed.
2003 - Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead.
2003 - Second Liberian Civil War ends.
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia is destroyed on re-entry.
2004 - The social networking website Facebook is launched.
2004 - The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season produces four deadly and damaging hurricanes which impact Florida, Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne, which kill a combined 100 people in the U.S. and produce over $50 billion in damage
2004 - Massachusetts becomes the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, this in compliance with a ruling from the state's Supreme Court ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health
2004 - Former U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan dies from complications resulting from Alzheimer's Disease. He lies in state at the U.S. Capitol building before being interred.
2004 - U.S. presidential election, 2004; George W. Bush re-elected to second-term; Republicans solidify control in both houses of Congress.
2004 - Madrid train bombings.
2004 - Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in Indian Ocean.
2004 - Orange Revolution in Ukraine
2005 - George W. Bush is inaugurated to his second-term
2005 - Hurricane Katrina devastates the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coastlines killing at least 1,836 people and causing $81 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Weeks later, Hurricane Rita causes $10 billion damage along the Louisiana and Texas coastlines. In October, Hurricane Wilma kills 35 and causes $20 billion in damage in Florida.
2005 - Second Intifada ends.
2005 - Second Sudanese Civil War ends.
2005 - 7/7 attacks on London Underground.
2005 - Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.
2005 - 80,000 are killed in an earthquake in Kashmir.
2005 - The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect.
2005 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran.
2005 - Benedict XVI becomes Pope.
2006 - The Democratic Party retakes control of both houses of Congress, and gains a majority of state governorships (28-22).
2006 - Independence of Montenegro.
2006 - Second invasion of Lebanon. Mumbai bombings.
2006 - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia, and thus Africa's first elected female head of state.
2006 - Saddam Hussein is executed in Iraq.
2007 - Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
2007 - George W. Bush orders a troop surge which substantially increases the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and ultimately leads to reductions in casualties and major victories for coalition and Iraqi forces, against the insurgency.
2007 - A South Korean student shoots and kills 32 other students and professors in the Virginia Tech massacre before killing himself. It is the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history and spurs a series of debates on gun control and journalism ethics.
2007 - The I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapses, killing 13 people. The bridge collapse brings to national attention the need to rehabilitate the aging U.S. infrastructure system.
2007 - The late-2000s recession officially begins in December.
2007 - Anti-government protests in Myanmar crushed by ruling junta.
2007 - Spike in food prices and subprime crisis help trigger the Great Recession.
2008 - The Super Tuesday tornado outbreak kills over 60 people and produces $1 billion in damage across Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama.
2008 - A student kills 5, injures 21, and then kills himself in the Northern Illinois University shooting. After this incident, calls are made for more focus on mental health services and interest grows substantially in the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
2008 - Hurricane Ike kills 100 people along the Texas coast, produces $31 billion in damage, and contributes to rising oil prices.
2008 - U.S. oil prices hit a record $147 per barrel in the wake of—among other factors—international tensions and the falling U.S. dollar vs. the Euro.
2008 - Global financial crisis in September 2008 begins as the stock market crashes. In response, U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law to create a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets.
2008 - U.S. presidential election, 2008; Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States.
2008 - End of Monarchy in Nepal.
2008 - Cyclone Nargis kills 133,000 in Myanmar.
2008 - Gaza War begins. 2008 - 2008 South Ossetia war.
2008 - Kosovo declares independence, to mixed reaction.
2009 - Barack Hussein Obama II is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. He is also the first African-American to hold the office.
2009 - The first of a series of Tea Party protests are conducted across the United States, focusing on smaller government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedoms and conservative views of the Constitution.
2009 - U.S. President Barack Obama obtains Congressional approval for the $787 billion stimulus package, the largest since President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
2009 - Pop icon Michael Jackson dies, creating the largest public mourning for an entertainer since the death of Elvis Presley.
2009 - Nidal Malik Hasan kills 12 servicemen and injures 31 in the Fort Hood shooting
2009 - Nick Saban wins The University of Alabama's award
2009 - Gaza War ends; Gaza blockade continues.
2009 - Election protests begin in Iran.
2009 - Second Chechen War ends.
2009 - Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper, is completed.
2009 - Great Recession officially ends.
2010s
2010 - The controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is passed by razor-thin margins in Congress.
2010 - The Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico explodes, sending millions of gallons of oil into the sea. The spill becomes the worst oil spill in American history.
2010 - Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
2010 - A surge of suicides among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual teenagers occurs across the U.S. The It Gets Better Project is created and dedicated to teens suffering from bullying. Speeches are made by several celebrities including U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Gunn, Canadian singer Justin Bieber, and American singer Lady Gaga.
2010 - Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives and reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate.
2010 - A series of measures pass through an historic lame-duck session of Congress including an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, the ratification of the New START II treaty with Russia, signing of an agreement to repeal the don't ask don't tell policy concerning gays and lesbians openly serving in the US military, and passage of a 9/11 first responders health-care bill.
2010 - A 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000.
2010 - Flooding in Pakistan kills nearly 2,000 and leaves roughly a million homeless.
2010 - Greece defaults on its debts, triggering the European sovereign debt crisis and Ireland's bankruptcy.
2010 - Tensions rise between North and South Korea, culimating in the shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong.
2010 - The website Wikileaks releases thousands of classified US documents.
2010 - Self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia triggers the Arab Spring.
2011 - U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords is targeted in an assassination attempt, when a gunman went on a shooting spree, critically injuring Giffords, killing federal judge John Roll and five other people, and wounding at least 13 others, at a "Congress on Your Corner" event Giffords was hosting in suburban Tucson, Arizona.
2011 - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives caught dealing several thousand guns to mexico.
2011 - The U.S. launches Operation Odyssey Dawn as part of a United Nations military intervention in the Libyan civil war.
2011 - A series of tornadoes cause heavy damage in the South, Alabama being the hardest hit. 344 people are killed in the deadliest natural disaster in the US since Hurricane Katrina.
2011 - Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the September 11 attacks, is killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by sailors from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
2011 - Flooding devastates the Mississippi River valley causing $2 to $4 billion in damage.
2011 - A tornado devastates Joplin, Missouri, killing 154 and injuring 1,000, making it the deadliest single U.S. tornado since the advent of modern weather forecasting
2011 - STS-135: The Space Shuttle Atlantis touches down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, ending the 30 year shuttle program, which began with the launch of shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981.
2011 - Hurricane Irene strikes the Atlantic coast causing heavy flooding from North Carolina to eastern Canada, killing 49 and causing over $13 billion in damage.
2011 - After a manhunt that lasted more than two years, during a U.S. military operation in northern Yemen's al-Jawf province, American drones carried out a targeted killing of al-Qaida's leader in the Arabian Peninsula Anwar al-Awlaki while he traveled in a convoy together with his senior aides.