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The invention of the Model T
Model T Ford is completed at the company’s Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit. The car had a removable crank in front and the operator had to crank the engine to start it...that was the ignition! -
The Zimmerman Telegram
A message from the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmerman, to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in the case of war between the United States and Germany. -
The WWI Armistice
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was an armistice during the First World War between the Allies and Germany. It included the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of German troops to behind their own borders, the preservation of infrastructure, the exchange of prisoners, a promise of reparations, the disposition of German warships and submarines, and conditions for prolonging or terminating the armistice. -
The 19th Amendment
Amendment to the US Constitution that gave women the legal right to vote. -
Charles Lindbergh’s Flight
On May 20, 1927, 25-year-old pilot Charles Lindbergh strapped into his famous airplane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” and took off on the first ever non-stop flight from New York to Paris. The 33.5-hour crossing vaulted Lindbergh to international stardom. -
Black Thursday
October 24, 1929. On this date, a then-record number of shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange by panicked investors, marking the onset of the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. -
The New Deal
President Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, and he acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering from losses in the Stock Market. The government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. -
Hitler becomes chancellor
Anxious to regain power in Germany, von Papen struck a deal to make Hitler Chancellor, with himself as Vice-Chancellor. The moderate parties would hold all but three of the government posts, which would go to the Nazis; one of these would be Hitler as Chancellor. -
The Munich Pact
Thus agreement averted the outbreak of war, but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
Hitler Invades Poland
German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. -
Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but the Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. -
D-Day
Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” -
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. -
The formation of United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 -
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. -
The formation of NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. -
Russians acquire the Atomic Bomb
The Soviets had been looking into the design of a fission bomb as early as 1942. A Soviet physicist named Georgi Flerov noticed the absence of papers on fission and concluded that the British and/or Americans were working on a fission weapon, and wrote a letter about it to Stalin. A Soviet nuclear weapons program couldn't command a lot of resources at the time, but Stalin allocated the resources that were available. With Lavrenti Beria taking charge of the project it moved remarkably quickly. -
The Korean War
june 25 1950- july 27 1953 -
Brown v Board of Education
In Education, Separate is not Equal. African Americans may attend no-segregated schools. -
The Vietnam War
november 1sr 1955 - april 30th 1975 -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat
Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. -
The invention of the Internet
The Internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. For years, scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data with one another. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis
In October 1962 President John F. Kennedy was informed of a U-2 spy-plane’s discovery of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. The President resolved immediately that this could not stand. Over an intense 13 days, he and his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev confronted each other “eyeball to eyeball,” each with the power of mutual destruction. A war would have meant the deaths of 100 million Americans and more than 100 million Russians. -
JFK’s Assassination
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was shot twice, and an hour after his death Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the crime. -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans, who were Americans, on the Moon. -
The Watergate Break-ins
Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, several burglars were arrested inside the office of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), located in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. This was no ordinary robbery: The prowlers were connected to President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, and they had been caught while attempting to wiretap phones and steal secret documents. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Nixon’s Resignation
The scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. -
The 9/11 Attacks
a group of Islamic terrorists, widely believed to be part of the Al Qaeda network, hijacked three commercial airliners in midair, took over the controls, and deliberately crashed them into the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.