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The Panama Canal Opens
The Panama Canal which took 34 years to build from 1880 - 1914 (and cost over 27,000 workers their lives) provided a connection for shipping from The Atlantic to The Pacific and opened in 1914. -
Small Pox Epidemic
In Kentucky a small pox epidemic was raging with hundreds of people stricken. The mortality rate was 20% and health authorities demanded that every person in the state be vaccinated. -
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Work on the NYC Subway System
Work on the New York subway begins on the first section from City Hall to the Bronx in the year 1900. It was financed by the issue of rapid transit bonds by the City of New York and because no company was willing to take the risk of such a large project. The city decided to build the subways itself by subcontracting with the IRT who ran the elevated railways in the city to equip and operate the subways, sharing the profits with the City and guaranteeing a fixed five-cent fare. -
The First Nobel Prizes are Awarded
Awards are granted in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The Nobel Prizes are funded by a fund created after the death of Alfred Nobel the Swedish inventor of dynamite and other high explosives. In his will, Nobel directed that the bulk of his vast fortune be placed in a fund in which the interest would be "annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." -
Queen Victoria
Has anyone picked up that I have a slight obsession with Queen Victoria? She had nine children, and left Edward as her heir. She presided over the change of government from monarchy to almost pure democracy. Her Prime Ministers had included Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, Henry Temple and John Russell. Queen Victoria passed away in the Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She had become queen when she was 18 and had ruled for nearly 64 years of her life. -
President William McKinley Assassinated
William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States is assassinated by Leon Czolgosz when he is shot at point blank range. He died on September 14th , 1901, eight days after he was shot, from gangrene surrounding his wounds. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th President of the United States on September 14th, 1901. -
Crayola Crayons
Edward Binney and C. Harold Smith introduce the world to Crayola Crayons for school kids. The first boxes consisted of 8 different colors and the boxes were the same trademark color of yellow and green they are today. -
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First World Series of Baseball
The first modern World Series to be played in Major League Baseball matched the Boston American League club (Boston Red Sox) against the Pittsburgh Pirates in a best-of-nine series, with Boston prevailing five games to three, winning the last four. -
San Francisco Earthquake
An earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, shook the town of San Francisco, California and thirty thousand homes were either partially or wholly destroyed and an estimated 3,000 were reported dead. The earthquake caused large parts of the city to burn and it had taken 2 days of constant fire fighting to stop the spread and bring the fires under control. -
Model T Ford
Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company introduces the Ford Model T costing $850.00, this was nearly 1/3 of the price of any other car on the market but still not cheap enough for the masses. Over the next few years he perfected assembly line production bringing the cost down to $368.00 in 1916 making it much more affordable consequently selling hundreds of thousands more cars than any other company. -
NAACP formed
The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell) attended the meeting. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire
A Fire breaks out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in Manhattan. The building was overcrowded with women immigrant workers and poor safety standards including the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked allowing no exit from the fire on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors which meant the women either burned in the fire or took a chance of surviving by jumping from windows one hundred feet above the street. The fire caused the death of 146 garment workers, almost all of them women. -
The Discovery of Machu Picchu
Hiram Bingham finds Machu Picchu in the Andes. He had followed Simón Bolívar's route into Colombia and continued it with a walk from Argentina into Peru. He was a professor of history at Yale, and was performing the expedition as a member of that faculty. He was able to confirm its location on July 24th . He returned to excavate the site in 1912. It is near the western end of the Huatanay valley. -
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The Titanic Sets Sail and Goes Down
The Titanic sets sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The Titanic had been described as the worlds most luxurious floating hotel which is unsinkable, and was only 5 days out when she hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic with the loss of many lives. The crew had boarded on April 10th, and the passengers between 9.30 and 11.30 a.m. She left port at around 2 p.m. She struck an iceberg on Sunday, April 14th, and went down the following day. -
The Mona Lisa Recovered
The Mona Lisa was recovered two years after its theft from the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was found in Florence in Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia's hotel room. -
The Rite of Spring Ballet Debuts
The avant-garde ballet “The Rite of Spring,” created by Igor Stravinsky, premiered in Paris, France on May 29. At the time of its premiere the work was considered scandalous due to the context of the story as it portrayed a Pagan sacrifice, its unusual choreography, and the extravagant costumes featured in the ballet.The audience, watching Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company dance to Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography, was so upset by the modern performance that they nearly rioted. -
The Easter Uprising in Ireland
The Easter uprising began when some 1,600 militant Irish republicans who were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood seize several key sites in Dublin hoping to win independence from British rule. British forces suppressed the uprising after six days, and its leaders were court-Marshalled and executed. -
The Modern-day Mexican Constitution
Mexican President Venustiano Carranza proclaims the establishment of the modern-day Mexican constitution. This constitution consisted of promises made that are similar to the ones outlined by the American constitution. For instance, the constitution of Mexico makes provisions for returning land to native people, and separation of church and state. This constitution also included plans for economic and educational reform. -
Spanish Influenza
The first cases of one of the worst influenza epidemic in history were reported at Fort Riley, Kansas. It would eventually kill more than 1/2 million Americans and more than 20 million people worldwide. In the world's worst flu epidemic (Spanish Flu called because the first major outbreak causing multiple deaths was in Spain) in history an estimated 30 million people died worldwide. -
End of World War I
The Allies sign an armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918, putting an end to the fighting of World War I. It was written by the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch and signed inside of a railroad car near Compiégne, France. The official end to the war did not come until the next year with the Treaty of Versailles in June of 1919. -
Start of World War I
World War I started in August of 2014, initiated by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28. The first major battle was the Battle of Tannenberg between Russia and Germany, Aug. 26–30; and trench warfare was begun in the First Battle of the Marne, Sept. 6–12. -
