US History B Timeline

  • The invention of the Model T

    The Model T was introduced to the world in 1908. Henry Ford wanted the Model T to be affordable, simple to operate, and durable. The vehicle was one of the first mass-production vehicles, allowing Ford to achieve his aim of manufacturing the universal car.
  • The Zimmerman Telegram

    The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. With Germany's aid, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
  • The 19th Amendment

    Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation and protest.
  • The WWI Armistice

    The armistice on the Western Front. On Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Although fighting continued elsewhere, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was the first step to ending World War I.
  • Charles Lindbergh’s Flight

    On May 21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in history, flying his Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France.
  • Black Thursday

    Black Thursday is the name given to an infamous day in stock market history: Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929, when the market opened 11% lower than the previous day's close, and panicked selling ensued throughout a day of heavy trading.
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    The New Deal

    The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939.
  • Hitler becomes chancellor

    Following several backroom negotiations – which included industrialists, Hindenburg's son, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and Hitler – Hindenburg acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as Germany's new chancellor.
  • The Munich Pact

    The Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.
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    Hitler Invades Poland

    The invasion of Poland was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union; which marked the beginning of World War II.
  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941.
  • D-Day

    The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
  • Hiroshima & Nagasaki

    The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the detonation of two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 by the United States.
  • The formation of United Nations

    Four months after the San Francisco Conference ended, the United Nations officially began, on 24 October 1945, when it came into existence after its Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories.
  • 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.
  • Russians acquire the Atomic Bomb

    The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
  • The formation of NATO

    The foundations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were officially laid down on 4 April 1949 with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, more popularly known as the Washington Treaty. The Washington Treaty – or North Atlantic Treaty – forms the basis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – or NATO.
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    The Korean War

    The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea
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    Brown v Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.
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    The Vietnam War

    The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
  • Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat

    She refused on principle to surrender her seat because of her race, which was required by the law in Montgomery at the time. Parks was briefly jailed and paid a fine. But she was also a long-time member of the NAACP and highly respected in her community.
  • JFK’s Assassination

    John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure.
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    The Cuban Missile Crisis

    The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
  • The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

    Apollo 11 was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969.
  • The Watergate Break-ins

    The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building.
  • Nixon’s Resignation

    The following morning, August 9, Nixon submitted a signed letter of resignation to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, becoming the only U.S. president to resign from office. Vice President Gerald Ford succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation.
  • The invention of the Internet

    January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other. A new communications protocol was established called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP).
  • The Fall of the Berlin Wall

    On November 9, 1989, 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.
  • The 9/11 Attacks

    The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001
  • Covid-19 Pandemic

    An awful pandemic killing millions, also causing people to go into isolation and quarantine.