20th Century Timeline

1940- Franklin D. Roosevelt Elected third term

Katyn Forest Massacre

Leon Trotsky Assassinated

1941- Ho Chi Minh Founds the Communist Viet Minh in Vietnam

Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor

1942-Battle of Midway

Battle of Stalingrad

Japanese-Americans Held in Camps

Manhattan Project Begins

1944- DDay

1945-Division of Korea Into North and South

First Computer Built (ENIAC)

Germans Surrender

Hitler Commits Suicide

United Nations founded

US drops bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1947- Marshall Plan

1948- Israel State founded

Apartheid begins

1949- China Becomes Communist

NATO Established

1920- women granted the right to vote in the USA

League of Nations established

1921- Irish free state declared

1922- insulin discovered

Mussolini marches on Rome

1923- Teapot Dome scandal

1961-Berlin Wall Built

Freedom Riders Challenge Segregation on Interstate Buses

JFK Gives "Man on the Moon" Speech

Peace Corps Founded

Soviets Launch First Man in Space

1962- Cuban Missile Crisis

1963- JFK Assassinated

Martin Luther King Jr. Makes His "I Have a Dream" Speech

1965- Malcolm X Assassinated

U.S. Sends Troops to Vietnam

1967-Che Guevara Killed

1968- Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated

My Lai Massacre

1969- Neil Armstrong Becomes the First Man on the Moon

Rock-and-Roll Concert at Woodstock

20th Century Timeline

1900- Boxer Rebellion in China

1901- Australia becomes a commonwealth

First Trans-Atlantic Radio Signal

Queen Victoria Dies

U.S. President McKinley Assassinated

1903-First Message to Travel Around the World

First Silent Movie, The Great Train Robbery

The Wright Brothers Make the First Flight

1904- Panama Canal built

1905- "Bloody Sunday" and the Russian Revolution

Einstein Proposes His Theory of Relativity

1906- Finland is the first European country to give women the right to vote

1908-Turks Revolt in the Ottoman Empire

1909- NAACP founded

World War I

Referred to as "The Great War" and "The War To End All Wars," WW1 was the bloodiest and most global war up to that point. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is the catalyst that sets off the war, and prompts "The Allies," the British Empire, France, and Russia to join forces against the "Central Powers," Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, and later the Ottoman Empire. Advanced war technologies like machine guns and techniques like trench warfare make WW1's death count more than 38 million. The Allies won the war, and Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles which made them pay reparations and start WW2 years later.

Moon Landing

Russian Revolution

9/11

The Discovery and Development of Penicillin

World War II

Industrial Revolution

When the World Trade Center at the Twin Towers are bombed on September 11th, 2001 by the terrorist organization Al-Quaeda, it leaves virtually no aspects of life in the United States left unchanged. The US sends troops to the MIddle East less than a month after the attacks. The Patriot Act is enacted, prioritizing national security over personal freedom. The government agency ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is created, and deportations increase dramatically. Airports increase security, prohibiting liquids, knifes, lighters, and other carry-ons that were typical before.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the first of many communist revolutions. Vladimir Lenin dies in 1924, and eventually Joseph Stalin replaces Leon Trotsky as the virtual leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin concentrates on "socialism in one country" instead of and embarkes on a bold plan of collectivization and industrialization. The majority of socialists and even many communists grow tired of Stalin's rule, his purges and assassinations of his "enemies", and the news of famines he imposes on his people. This revolution and the ones that follow have lasting effects on the relationship between people and their governments forever.

The "Antibiotic Age" is ushered in by Samuel Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin, leading to the eventual development of vaccines and antibiotics. Before penicillin many people died from infections and diseases that are easily treatable today, and even preventable, like polio. Today's modern medicine would be inconceivable without penicillin.

When NASA sends the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, they are relieved, because they want to be the first to send a man to the moon. The USA is competing in a "space race" with the Soviet Union, each trying to make the most advances in aeronautics first. Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon, saying the famous words, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Another thing the moon landing gives humanity is a "God's eye view" of Earth, making many realize how urgent it is we protect and preserve the Earth. The first earth day is celebrated nine months later.

The rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany is what starts WWII, as well as its subsequent invasions of other countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. The Axis Powers (Italy, Germany, and Japan) fight the Allied Powers (The United States, France, Britain), for six years in Europe, eight in the Pacific.The Nazis have a Holocaust and put millios of Jewish people, gay people, gypsies, disabled people, and other minorities, in ghettos and concentration camps, killing over six million. About 80 million people die total. The war ends when the USA drops two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Effects of WWII are the Cold War and Occupation of territories.

The Industrial Revolution took place between 1820 and 1840. The development of the steam engine in 1769, (invented by James Watson), first revolutionize textile industry, and thousands of factories are built starting in Europe. Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin in 1794, which makes the industry far more efficient and profitable. Industrialization leads to urbanization. This changes the work structure from in-home work done on spinning wheels and similar machines to assemble lines and specialized labor in factories. New developments are made in transportation, (trains, steam engines, etc.), banking, communication, (the telegraph), and many more.

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1960

1900

Apple Creates First Personal Computer

The Great Depression

Chinese Revolution of 1911

When the American stock market crashes on "Black Tuesday," it sets off years worth of suffering and strife for the American People. Savings, jobs, and stability are lost. This period leads to increased interest in alternative ideologies like fascism and communism. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt takes over, he instates public works projects, a welfare state, and helps restore the country's economy. Effects of the Great Depression are also felt in countries where American companies do business. This decade brings innovative policies forward that are still in existence today.

China's Qing Dynasty is overthrown in 1911 by a group of revolutionaries. The Republic of China is established, abolishing the dynastic system of ruling that had been in existence in China since the 20th Century B.C.E. Sun Yat-Sen is the leader of the revolutionaries. The establishment os China as Republic is the first step of making it one of the dominant world pow

When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak create and sell the first personal computers, they become accessible. Before then, only large offices had computers, and large ones at that. This innovation puts computers at the hands of not only individual employees, but also people in their homes. Devices only continue to get more personal, and now fit in our hands.

1983-Sally Ride Becomes the First American Woman in Space

1985-Mikhail Gorbachev Calls for Glasnost and Perestroika

1986-Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

1989- Berlin Wall Falls

Students Massacred in China's Tiananmen Square

World Wide Web Invented

1911- Ernst Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom

1912- Titanic sinks

1914- Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; start of WWI

1915- Armenian Genocide

1917- US enters WW1

1950- Korean War Begins

Senator Joseph McCarthy Begins Communist Witch Hunt

1951-Truman Signs Peace Treaty With Japan, Officially Ending WWII

1953- DNA discovered

1954- segregation ruled illegal in the USA

1955- Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus

1956- Hungarian revolution

1958- NASA founded

1959- Castro Becomes Dictator of Cuba

1930- Gandhi's Salt March

1932- Amelia Earhart flies solo across the Atlantic

1933-Adolf Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany

Assassination Attempt on FDR

FDR Launches New Deal

First Nazi Concentration Camp Established

1934- The Great Terror Begins in the Soviet Union

Mao Zedong Begins the Long March

1935-Spanish civil war begins

1938- Kristallnacht

1939- WWII begins

1990-Germany Reunited

Hubble Telescope Launched Into Space

Lech Walesa Becomes First President of Poland

Nelson Mandela Freed

United States Invades Nicaragua

1991- Collapse of the Soviet Union

Apartheid ends

1992-Bosnian Genocide Begins

Official End of the Cold War

1994- Nelson Mandela Elected President of South Africa

Rwandan Genocide

1970- Kent State shootings

1973-Roe vs Wade Legalizes Abortion in the U.S.

U.S. Pulls Out of Vietnam

1975- Civil war in Lebanon

1978-First Test-Tube Baby Born