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The Model T
The Model T, sold by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927, was actually affordable and it became so popular at one point that a majority of Americans owned one, directly helping rural Americans become more connected with the rest of the country and leading to the numbered highway system. -
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World War One
World War I began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan, and the United States (the Allied Powers). World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people. -
Zimmermann Telegraph
On January 16, 1917, British code breakers intercepted an encrypted message from Zimmermann intended for Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador to Mexico. The missive gave the ambassador a now-famous set of instructions: if the neutral United States entered the war on the side of the Allies, Von Eckardt was to approach Mexico’s president with an offer to forge a secret wartime alliance. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution by the proclamation of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. -
Charles Lindenberg's flight
American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first-ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before. -
Black Tuesday
he Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred on October 29, 1929, when Wall Street investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of that event, sometimes called “Black Tuesday,” America spiraled downward into the Great Depression, the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor
After WWI, the Germans suffered from the consequences of WWI. Hitler said that he would destroy anyone who supported their cause. -
The New Deal
The New Deal was an attempt to end the Great Depression and instead proved that Government spending only leads to more trouble. -
The Munich Pact
British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. -
Hitler Invades Poland
Hitler had made a previous arrangement with the USSR and had a Non-Aggression pact that split Poland down the Middle. This is one of my favorite events in WWII because there is an interesting broadcast that will touch your heart. Look for Poland is Not Lost broadcast on Youtube to see what I mean. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese carried out an unprovoked attack on the island state of Hawaii. Over 2,000 people were injured or killed -
Formation of the United Nations
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the “United Nations.” The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization. -
D-Day
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. -
Hiroshima and Nagaski
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two cities that were eradicated by nuclear weapons. -
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
In 1949, the prospect of further Communist expansion prompted the United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). -
Russians aquire atomic Bomb
At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name “First Lightning.” -
Korean War
The Korean war began on June 25, 1950, when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
Rosa Parks
In Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. -
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Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuba allowed IRBMs and long-range Russian bombers such as the Tu-22M and Tu-95 to stay in Cuba in preparation for war. However, the United States Navy blockaded Cuba Russia packed its bombers and missiles, and sent them back to Moscow. -
JFK's Assassination
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. -
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Vietnam War
SS Maddox on an espionage mission is attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack on the Maddox and another U.S. ship in the Gulf is alleged, but likely never occurred, according to National Security Agency documents declassified in 2005. The incidents lead President Johnson to call for air strikes on North Vietnamese patrol boat bases and the start of the Vietnam War -
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam. It was passed on August 7, 1964, by the U.S. Congress after an alleged attack on two U.S. naval destroyers stationed off the coast of Vietnam. -
Apollo 11 Landing
At 9:32 a.m. EDT, Apollo 11, the first U.S. lunar landing mission, is launched on a historic journey to the surface of the moon. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. -
The Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal began early in the morning of June 17, 1972, when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings 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 wiretapping phones and stealing documents. -
Nixion's resignation
In an evening televised address on August 8, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
After almost 70 years of fear, the Soviet Union collapses and the Berlin Wall falls. -
The invention of the Internet
Unlike technologies such as the light bulb or the telephone, the internet has no single “inventor.” Instead, it has evolved over time. -
The 9/11 Attacks
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out attacks. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. -
Covid-19 Pandemic
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 virus was officially a pandemic after barreling through 114 countries in three months and infecting over 118,000 people.