Census Timeline

By ravenw

  • 1910

    1910
    U.S. Resident Population: 92,228,496 Between 1918 and 1919, a deadly Influenza strain kills 20 to 40 million people. The Panama Canal opens to shipping on August 15, 1914. Fire kills 146 workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, on March 25, 1911.

  • 1920

    1920
    U.S. Resident Population: 106,021,537 Robert Goddard fires his first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. William Faulkner publishes The Sound and the Fury in 1929. F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby in 1925.

  • 1930

    1930
    U.S. Resident Population: 123,202,624 The Mickey Mouse comic strip debuts in the January 13, 1930, edition of the New York Mirror Shirley Temple makes her film debut in 1932's Kid's Last Stand. Jesse Owens wins four gold medals during the 1936 Summer Olympics.

  • 1940

    1940
    U.S. Resident Population: 132,164,569 Marvel Comics introduces superhero Captain America in March 1941. Thirteen stations begin broadcasting commercial television in 1947. Gas rationing limits personal consumption to three gallons per week in 1942.

  • 1950

    1950
    U.S. Resident Population: 151,325,798 On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to vacate her seat aboard a Montgomery, AL, bus. Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea receives a 1953 Pulitzer Prize. In 1954, the author is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Susan Hayward wins the 1958 Best Actress Academy Award for the movie, "I Want to Live."

  • 1960

    1960
    U.S. Resident Population: 179,323,175 On October 1, 1962, James H. Meredith becomes the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. The Beatles make their U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 9, 1964. Apollo astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee die during a simulated launch exercise on January 27, 1967.

  • 1970

    1970
    U.S. Resident Population: 203,302,031 William P. Blatty's 1971 book The Exocist is a bestseller. Recording artist Elvis Aaron Presley dies on August 16, 1977. The television series The Dukes of Hazzard premiers on January 26, 1979.

  • 1980

    1980
    U.S. Resident Population: 226,542,199 MTV airs its first music video ("Video Killed the Radio Star") on August 1, 1981. The stock market loses 22.6 percent of its value on "Black Monday," October 19, 1987. Driving Miss Daisy wins the 1989 Academy Award for "Best Picture."

  • 1990

    1990
    U.S. Resident Population: 248,709,873 Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne, John Grisham's The Pelican Brief, and Danielle Steel's Mixed Blessings, are 1992 Bestsellers. Celine Dion's Falling Into You wins the 1996 Album of the Year Grammy. Diana Princess of Wales dies in a Paris car accident, August 31, 1997.

  • 2000

    2000
    U.S. Resident Population: 281,421,906 Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer to hold all four major golf titles simultaneously by winning the Master's tournament in April 2001. Hijacked airliners crash into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, PA, September 11, 2001. Senator Barack Obama elected president on November 4, 2008.