Contemporary History

WWI 

- new style of warfare

Relativism - idea of multiple reality or seeing several facets of reality at the same time

 

1920 - Prohabition begins in the United States

1920 - Waren G. Harding elected President of the United States

1923 - Warren G. Harding dies, Calvin Coolidge sworn in as President of the United States

1925 - Scopes Trial 

1925 - WSM first broadcast the Grand Ole Opry.

1926 - The broadcast network NBC was founded.

1927 - Charles Lindbergh made the first trans-Atlantic flight

1927 - The Jazz Singer

1928 - Herbert Hoover elected President of United States

1928 - Disney's animated feature Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse, opened

1929 - Wall Street Crash of 1929

1929 - The Museum of Modern Art opened to the public in New York City

1931 - The Empire State Building opened in New York City

1932 - Franklin D. Roosevelt elected President of the United States

1934 - Dust Bowl

1935 - The FBI was established, with J. Edgar Hoover as its first director

1935 - The Works Progress Administration was established

1935 - The Social Security Act was signed into law; establishing the Social Security Administration

1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco

1937 - Hindenburg disaster

1938 - Orson Welles performed a broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

1938 - first superman comics

1938 - Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first full length animated film

1939 - Invasion of Poland (1939): Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

1940 - The cartoon characters Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry debuted

1940 - Billboard publishes its first music popularity chart.

1941 - American Nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, with fellow U.C. Berkeley researchers, discovered the chemical element plutonium

1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor leads to the United States to entering into World War II

1942 - The Manhattan Project, leading to the development of the first atomic bomb, began

1943 - The Broadway musical Oklahoma! opened

1944 - The G.I. Bill was signed into law

1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt dies; Harry S. Truman sworn in as President of the United States

1945 - Operation Downfall: The United States conducted the only two atomic bombings during a war on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1945 - The United Nations was founded, replacing the League of Nations.

1945-1949 - Nuremberg Trials

1947- Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers broke the color line in Major League Baseball.

1947 - Christian Dior introduces the New Look

1948 - The Polaroid camera was first offered for sale

1949 - Allied-occupied Germany was divided into East and West Germany.

1949 - NATO founded

1949 - First Lightning: The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb.

1950 - Korean War begins

1950 - The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, was first published

1952 - Dwight D. Eisenhiser elected President of the United States

1953 - Molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick published their paper on the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA

1954 - Tournament of Roses Parade: The parade was the first national color television broadcast

1954 - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

1954 - The first successful kidney transplant on a human was performed in Boston

1955 - The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) began

1955 - the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk

1955 - Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's fast food restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois

1955 - The Warsaw Pact was signed, establishing a mutual defense arrangement subscribed to by eight Communist states in Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union

1955 - Disneyland opened at Anaheim, California.

1955 - actor James Dean was killed in a highway collision in Salinas, California

1955 - Vietnam War begins

1955 - Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama 

1955 -  Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

1956 - Hungarian Revolution of 1956

1957 - Space race: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik

1957 - European Common Market established

1957 - The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial nuclear power plant, went into service

1958 - Explorer 1: The first U.S. satellite was launched into space

1958 - Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit.

1959 - The First Grammy Awards was held

1959 - Castro comes to power in Cube

1960 - John F. Kennedy elected President of the United States

1962 - John Glenn orbited the Earth

1962 - Marilyn Monroe died of an apparent overdose from acute barbiturate poisoning at age thirty-six

1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 - Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech

1963 -  John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas; Lyndon B. Johnson sworn in as President of the United States

1964 - British Invasion: The Beatles arrived in the United States

1967 - Super Bowl I

1968 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated

1968 - Richard Nixon elected President of the United States

1968 - American designer Ken Scott introduces “hippie-gypsy look"

1968 - Apollo 8: The first manned spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit occurred

1969 - The Stonewall riots

1969 - Apollo 11 lands on the moon

1969 - The Woodstock Festival

1969 - Sesame Street premiered on National Educational Television.

1970 - Kent State shootings

1972 - Nixon visit to China 

1972 - Watergate burglaries 

1973 - Roe v. Wade court decision

1973 - the Sears Towers opened in Chicago, becoming the World's tallest building.

1974 - Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves broke Babe Ruth's home run record by hitting his 715th career home run

1974 - Richard Nixon resigns; Gerald Ford sworn in as President of the United States

1976 - Steve Jobs founded Apple Inc.

1976 - Jimmy Carter elected President of the United States

1977 - Elvis Presley dies at his home in Graceland

1977 - Fans of “punk rock” introduce punk fashion

1979 - Three Mile Island accident

1980 - Eruption of Mount St. Helens

1980 - CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel, was founded

1980 - Ronald Reagan elected President of the United States

1980 - Musician John Lennon was assassinated outside of The Dakota in New York City

1981 - MTV, the first 24-hour cable network dedicated to airing music videos, was launched

1984 - PG-13 Movie rating created

1985 - first internet domain name

1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

1986 - The Fox Broadcasting Company was founded

1986 - Iran–Contra affair

1988 - George H. W. Bush elected President of the United States

1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill

1989 - Berlin Wall falls

1990 - unification of Germany

1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope was launched during a mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery.

1991 - Operation Desert Storm

1991 - collapse of the Soviet Union

1992 - Bill Clinton elected President of the United States

1993 - World Trade Center bombing

1995 - Oklahoma City bombing

1998 - U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya

1988 - Gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered near the University of Wyoming.

1999 - Euro introduced as the New European Currency

2000 - U.S.S. Cole bombing

2001 - September 11 terrorist attacks

2001 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan; beginning the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

2002 - 605.6 million computers connected to the internet

2003 - The United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invade Iraq

2003 - deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein captured by United States special forces

2005 - Hurricane Katrina

2008 - Barack Obama elected President of the United States

2009 - Pop icon Michael Jackson died

2011 - Al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden was killed by United States forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan