Timeline of American History since the Civil War (for History 213 Online)

A Brief History

This article presents a timeline of American history since the Civil War for History 213 Online.  Please click on any of the dates to learn more about that date’s events and please feel welcome to post a comment using the Disqus commenting system on any article you click on to let us know your thoughts about that historic event.

Digging Deeper

Module #1: Reconstruction and the Expansion of American Civilization, 1865-1890

1. On May 9, 1865, the American Civil War ended, or did it?
2. On July 21, 1865, a real life showdown resulting in face to face gunplay happened for the first time, the first of the classic duels we have come to know as a Wild West gunfight.
3. On November 10, 1865, the long sad saga of the Camp Sumter prisoner of war camp located in Andersonville, Georgia finally came to a conclusion of sorts when the Camp Commandant, Confederate Major Henry Wirz was hanged for the crimes of conspiracy and murder for his terrible treatment of Union soldiers held captive at the camp popularly known as “Andersonville.”
4. On December 24, 1865, 6 former Confederate veterans of the recently concluded US Civil War formed the first known chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization largely founded on the principles of White Supremacy and violence against African Americans and those not in agreement with Klan beliefs.
5. On May 16, 1866, the United States congress authorized the elimination of the “half-dime” coin and the minting of a new 5 cent piece, the “nickel.”
6. On February 25, 1870, history was made when Hiram Rhodes Revels, an African American man from Mississippi, was sworn in as a US Senator, the first African American member of the US Congress.
7. On November 10, 1871, Welsh-American journalist Henry Morton Stanley finally met the man he had come so far to see, the missionary Rev. David Livingstone, prompting Stanley to blandly state, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
8. On December 9, 1872, P. B. S. Pinchback became the first ever African American governor of Louisiana, and in fact the first ever African American governor of any US State.
9. On July 1, 1874, E. Remington and Sons placed the first successful typewriter on the market, a model also known as the Remington No. 1 and invented by Christopher Sholes, Samuel Soule, and Carlos Glidden.
10. On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his invention he called the “telephone.”
11. On November 23, 1876, a public cry for justice was answered when W. M. “Boss” Tweed was turned over to legal authorities in New York city after having been captured in Spain.
12. On October 29, 1877, former Confederate States of America Army General Nathan Bedford Forrest died, but despite being an early member of the infamous racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan and serving as the first Grand Wizard of the notorious hate group, he had changed his tune, denying involvement with the Klan and denouncing the racism and violence associated with the KKK
13. On February 15, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a Bill allowing women attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
14. On January 27, 1880, Thomas Edison patented the incandescent light bulb, the first truly commercially viable electric light bulb, but certainly not the first light bulb!
15. On January 25, 1881, 2 of the great names in the annals of inventions teamed up to form the Oriental Telephone Company.
16. On April 28, 1881, the notorious outlaw and gunman known as Billy the Kid escaped from his jail cell where he was being held after he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
17. On October 26, 1881, Tombstone, Arizona saw the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday faced off with the Clantons and  the Cowboys in perhaps the most famous gunfight in US history, The Gunfight at The O.K. Corral.
18. On April 4, 1883, Peter Cooper died at the age of 92 in New York City, the same city he was born in.
19. On November 26, 1883, at the age of 86 Sojourner Truth, perhaps the greatest African-American woman advocate of Civil Rights died of natural causes, ending one of if not the greatest life of fighting for African-American rights.
20. On April 24, 1885, Phoebe Ann Moses, better known as Annie Oakley, joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and was a star attraction for the next 16 years.
21. On April 24, 1885, Annie Oakley joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and went on to become America’s first female superstar.
22. On September 2, 1885, the Wyoming Territory was the scene of a terrible racially motivated riot that resulted in the deaths of a minimum of 28 Chinese immigrants, and possibly as many as 50.
23. On June 2, 1886, President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, aged 49, married 21 year old Frances Folsom in the White House, a wedding that today may well draw negative comments, but received no particular censure at the time.
24. On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World), that great beacon of freedom welcoming immigrants into New York Harbor, for many, the gateway to a better life in the United States.
25. On September 4, 1888, George Eastman patented the first camera that used rolls of film and with it, the trade name Kodak.
26. On March 8, 1889, the anniversary date of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the clash of ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, the inventor of the Monitor died.
27. On July 3, 1890, Idaho was admitted to the Union as the 43^rd US State.
28. On December 15, 1890, legendary Hunkpapa Lakota (aka, Teton Sioux) leader and holy man, Sitting Bull, was killed by Indian Agency Police at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Grand River area of South Dakota.
29. On December 29, 1890, the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army perpetrated a massacre Native Americans of the Lakota People near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.
30. On December 29, 1890, the United States Army 7^th Cavalry Regiment conducted a massacre of about 200 Native Americans at a place called Wounded Knee in South Dakota, (see our article “Wounded Knee Massacre”).

Module #2: America’s Appearance on the World Stage, 1890-1918

1. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, an African-American, was arrested for refusing to vacate his seat in a “Whites Only” railroad car.
2. On September 20, 1893, Charles Duryea and his brother, J. Frank Duryea, tested their gasoline powered automobile, the first gasoline powered car in the United States.
3. On November 5, 1895, an unlikely candidate from Rochester, New York, became the first American to patent an automobile.
4. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court of the US ruled that “separate but equal” was a legal doctrine for segregating Caucasian Americans from Americans of sub-Saharan African descent, especially regarding school children.
5. On November 22, 1896, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., the inventor of the Ferris Wheel, died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Typhoid Fever.
6. On August 21, 1897, Ransom Eli Olds founded the car company that bore his name, Oldsmobile.
7. On November 2, 1898, the day recognized as the “birth of cheerleading,” University of Minnesota student Johnny Campbell became the first cheerleader in history, directing fans in cheering on the Golden Gophers football team.
8. On June 14, 1900, the United States expanded by officially adding the territory of Hawaii to is growing empire.
9. On February 1, 1901, Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, and would go on to movie greatness earning the nickname, “The King of Hollywood.”
10. On January 4, 1903, Thomas Edison filmed the execution of Topsy the Elephant, the largest casualty in the “War of the Currents”!
11. On February 23, 1903, Cuba made a deal with the United States to lease 45 square miles of land and sea for a period of time with no expiration, virtually forever!
12. On February 26, 1903, Michael Joseph Owens was granted a patent for a glass blowing machine, one of five inventions he patented for the mass production of glass objects such as light bulbs and bottles.
13. On February 16, 1904, African American movie actor and singer James Franklin Baskett was born in Indianapolis.
14. On May 5, 1904, Denton “Cy” Young of the Boston Americans pitched an historic American League game against the Philadelphia Athletics, not allowing any base runners in the first major league “Perfect Game” of the modern baseball era.
15. On February 20, 1905, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states have the authority to require mandatory vaccinations against disease, well over a century before the controversy over the Covid vaccine in 2020 and 2021.
16. On January 29, 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas was sworn in a United States Senator, the first US Senator of Native American heritage.
17. On February 5, 1909, New Yorker Leo Baekeland presented his invention of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, to the American Chemical Society.
18. On October 11, 1910, with aviation still in its infancy, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt took a flight in a Wright Brothers airplane piloted by Archibald Hoxsey, a former auto mechanic from Illinois.
19. On October 15, 1910, the non-rigid airship, America, set off from Atlantic City, New Jersey on the first attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by humans in a powered aircraft.
20. On November 3, 1911, one of the most iconic American companies was founded when Louis Chevrolet teamed up with former General Motors William Durant to form the Chevrolet Motor Car Company.
21. On November 16, 1914, The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opened as a series of 12 banks serving 12 Federal Reserve Districts with each bank tasked with implementing the monetary policy of the United States as set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee, all being authorized by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
22. On January 25, 1915, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call spanning the continental United States, placing a call from New York to his assistant, Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
23. On October 16, 1916, Margaret Sanger (nee Higgins), nurse, writer, and sexual educator opened the first family planning (birth control) clinic in the United States.
24. On February 5, 1917, the Congress of the United States overrode a veto by President Woodrow Wilson and enacted the Immigration Act of 1917, a law that targeted Asians to prevent their immigration to the US.
25. On July 12, 1917, the local sheriff deputized 2000 men as a posse to do the dirty work for the local mining company, called Phelps Dodge Corporation, and forcibly and illegally “deported” 1300 people to New Mexico.
26. On January 9, 1918, in Southern Arizona near the border with Mexico at a place called Bear Valley, one of the last battles of the American Indian Wars (1540-1924) was fought.
27. On February 5, 1918, American US Army soldier Stephen W. Thompson while flying as a machine gunner in a French airplane shot down a German aircraft, the first ever air to air combat victory by an American member of the US Military.
28. On October 8, 1918, United States Corporal Alvin C. York killed 28 German soldiers and captured 132 in France’s Argonne Forest during World War I making York one of America’s most decorated soldiers of the war.
29. On October 8, 1918, 2^nd Lt. Ralph Talbot of Massachusetts earned the coveted Medal of Honor, the highest American military honor.
30. On November 11, 1918, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France, officially ending fighting at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day in the eleventh month, but fighting did not actually end at that exact time and nor did the war!

Module #3: The Interwar Years, 1918-1941

1. On February 13, 1919, American football legend Eddie Robinson was born in Jackson, Louisiana.
2. From October 2, 1919 and for some weeks afterwards, First Lady Edith Wilson (October 15, 1872 — December 28, 1961) unofficially ran the U.S. government following her husband’s (then President Woodrow Wilson’s) life-changing stroke.
3. On October 2, 1919, First Lady of the United States, Edith Wilson, the wife of President Woodrow Wilson, unofficially ran the U.S. government following her husband’s (then President Woodrow Wilson’s) life-changing stroke.
4. On October 28, 1919, The U.S. Congress passed the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January and setting the stage for the eventual production of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
5. On January 20, 1920, a new organization devoted to the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution of the United States (and its amendments) was formed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau, an organization formed in 1917 to protect the Freedom of Speech, mainly by those Americans opposed to the US joining in World War I.
6. On February 13, 1920, the Negro National League of professional baseball was founded, not the first all African American baseball league, but the first to last more than one season and the foundation for African American professional baseball in the United States.
7. On September 16, 1920, years before the great stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008, some unknown, disaffected malcontents showed the fat cats of Wall Street some serious financial terrorism of their own by setting off a bomb in a horse-drawn wagon in front of J.P. Morgan Bank in New York’s financial district.
8. On May 3, 1921, the state legislature of West Virginia enacted the first Sales Tax in the United States, although problems in creating the mechanism to administer the tax precluded enforcement for several years.
9. On May 19, 1921, the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 became effective, a law also called The Emergency Quota Act, a law specifically designed to limit the immigration of certain people to the United States.
10. In December 1922, “Winter Dreams”, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first appeared in Metropolitan Magazine.
11. On June 18, 1923, an American legend was born when the first Checker Taxi Cab hit the street in Chicago, the product of a Russian American Jewish immigrant named Morris Markin.
12. On January 30, 1925, Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon.
13. On November 28, 1925, a one hour “barn dance” radio show began in Nashville, Tennessee broadcast on WSM that became known as The Grand Ole Opry.
14. On September 5, 1927, long before he became famous for his feature film cartoons and amusement parks, Walt Disney’s production of Trolley Troubles, an animated cartoon featuring the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was released by Universal Pictures.
15. On November 21, 1927, the grossly inappropriately named Serene, Colorado, failed to live up to its idyllic name and was witness to a massacre of unarmed coal miners by the Colorado State Militia, an event usually called the “Columbine Mine Massacre” and alternatively called simply “The Columbine Massacre.”
16. On October 24, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange suffered the catastrophic day of losses known as Black Thursday, the day that for all intents and purposes started the Great Depression.
17. On March 31, 1930, censorship came to Hollywood!
18. On September 8, 1930, 3M, the better known name of what was the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, began selling their Scotch brand of household and office pressure sensitive tape, the transparent stuff no self-respecting school kid, office worker, or housewife would do without!
19. On October 11, 1932, in the heart of Depression Era Tennessee, little Dorothy Marie Marsh, better known to Country Music fans as “Dottie” West, was born.
20. On December 5, 1933, history was made that would change the United States (back) forever!
21. On May 23, 1934, waiting policemen ambushed notorious robbers and murderers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, filling them and their stolen car full of holes.
22. On May 23, 1934, bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down by law enforcement.
23. On October 22, 1934, US FBI agents shot and killed infamous bank robber Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd in East Liverpool, Ohio.
24. On July 24, 1935, the heat wave aspect of the Great Dust Bowl hit its high point, with temperatures soaring in the Midwest and on the Plains, cities such as Chicago reaching 109 °F and Milwaukee hitting 104 °F.
25. On August 3, 1936, James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens  won the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics and blazed into the record books.
26. On December 12, 1937, the USS Panay, a gunboat afloat on the Yangtze River near the city of Nanking (now called Nanjing) was attacked by Japanese military aircraft and sunk, with the loss of 3 American lives.
27. On September 1, 1939, US Army General George C. Marshall, Jr., was appointed as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
28. On January 24, 1940, The Grapes of Wrath, a  drama film directed by John Ford, was released in theaters in the United States of America.
29. On February 29, 1940, for her portrayal of Mammy in the classic motion picture, Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award, better known as an Oscar.
30. On August 19, 1940, the B-25 Mitchell was flown for the first time.
31. On November 5, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his third term as US President, and would win yet another presidential election in 1944, ending up serving a record 12+ years as US President.
32. On December 14, 1940, at the University of California at Berkeley, atomic scientists first isolated the element Plutonium, a radioactive element with a designation of Pu-238 on the atomic chart of the elements (also known as the Periodic Chart), Element #94 for those keeping track.

Module #4: America’s Rise to World Leadership, 1941-1968

1. On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) delivered perhaps his greatest speech, known as the “Four Freedoms Speech.”
2. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a massive aerial surprise attack against U.S. military forces on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, mainly at Pearl Harbor.
3. On December 7, 1941, a date that US President Franklin Roosevelt said “would live in infamy,” the Japanese navy attacked the naval and air bases on Oahu, Hawaii, most notably at Pearl Harbor, in a surprise attack (sneak attack in the vernacular of the time) that devastated the American Pacific Fleet.
4. On December 20, 1941, the American Volunteer Group, better known by its nickname, the Flying Tigers, engaged in its first air-to-air combat when its fighters encountered 10 Japanese “Sally” bombers.
5. On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led one of the most famous bombing raids in aviation history when he led 16 B-25 medium bombers over Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya and Yokohama, Japan.
6. On May 12, 1942, the German Kriegsmarine submarine, U-507, a Type IXC boat, sank an American tanker, the SS Virginia, with one of its deadly torpedoes while the tanker was in the mouth of the Mississippi River, an affront to the United States bringing deadly danger to shipping right to America’s doorstep.
7. On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on an island few Americans had ever heard of, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
8. On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands chain, initiating the first US ground offensive of World War II.
9. On September 9, 1942, the mainland of the United States was bombed by a Japanese military aircraft when a float plane dropped incendiary bombs on Oregon near Brookings.
10. On January 14, 1943, the Japanese Navy successfully evacuated the remaining Japanese land forces from the Island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands of the Pacific Ocean.
11. On February 19, 1943, the Battle of Kasserine Pass started, the first major American engagement of ground forces with the Axis forces in the Western Theater of World War II.
12. On June 20, 1943, World War II came to the American heartland when a massive race related riot broke out in Detroit.
13. On August 2, 1943, the US Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands.
14. On August 31, 1943, the Buckley Class destroyer, USS Harmon DE-678 was commissioned, the first American Navy ship named after an African-American person.
15. On October 14, 1943, the United States Army Air Force conducted one of the most catastrophic bombing raids in history, catastrophic for the bombers, that is!
16. On October 19, 1943, the antibiotic drug, Streptomycin, was isolated by researchers at the esteemed Rutgers University.
17. On January 3, 1944, America’s leading fighter Ace of that time, Marine Major Pappy Boyington, was shot down and taken captive by the Japanese.
18. On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces stormed the heavily defended beaches of Normandy, France, signaling the doom of the Third Reich.
19. On February 19, 1945, the most cracked battle in history of the United States Marine Corp (USMC) began with 30,000 Marines hitting a beach.
20. On February 19, 1945, 30,000 US Marines landed on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, part of the Volcano Islands chain.
21. On March 19, 1945, the Essex class aircraft carrier USS Franklin while on station off the coast of Japan, was struck by a Japanese dive bomber flying  virtually suicidal mission through intense defenses, causing massive damage, but not sinking the ship.
22. On May 2, 1945, an American Artillery Battalion intercepted a death march of concentration camp inmates being taken from the Dachau concentration camp to the Austrian border, in turn saving the lives of hundreds of the starving inmates.
23. On July 26, 1945, the leaders of the major Allied countries fighting Japan in World War II met in Potsdam, Germany to issue the conditions by which the Japanese were to surrender to the Allies.
24. On August 9, 1945, a Boeing B-29 bomber named “Bockscar” dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan, incinerating 39,000 people within seconds.
25. On March 5, 1946, while speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, uttered the term “Iron Curtain” in reference to the divide between the Soviet led Communist Bloc and the democratic/capitalist Western group of nations led by the United States.
26. On May 10, 1946, at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico the US Army made the first successful launch of a German designed V-2 rocket, the same sort of weapon the Germans had used to terrorize England and Holland during World War II.
27. On January 20, 1947, only 3 months before Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” and became the first African American major league baseball player, the famous catcher and slugger from the Negro Leagues of baseball, Josh Gibson, died at the young age of 35 of a stroke brought on by a brain tumor.
28. On November 25, 1947, the United States was in the glow of having decisively won World War II and stepping up to become the major economic and military power in the world, the only nation with nuclear bombs.
29. On January 7, 1948, a Kentucky National Guard pilot, a World War II veteran, attempted to intercept a UFO along with 3 other US F-51 Mustang fighters.
30. On July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which ordered the desegregation of the US military, a move many Americans thought was long overdue.
31. On September 15, 1948, a North American F-86 Sabre flew at a world record 671 miles per hour.
32. On March 2, 1949, The Old Lamplighter became a memory and a song, but not an occupation, as automatic street lights start to shine, adding to the list of “Famous Inventions by Ohioans”!
33. On September 4, 1949, after a concert by African American singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson, riots broke out in the Peekskill, New York location of the concert.
34. On August 24, 1950, Edith Spurlock Sampson, an attorney of African American heritage, became the first African American of either gender to become a United States delegate to the United Nations.
35. On May 26, 1951, Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles, California.
36. On November 1, 1951, the US Army conducted nuclear tests in the Nevada desert that included a diabolical exercise in which 6500 US Army troops were exposed to the effects of a nearby nuclear detonation and its associated radiation.
37. On December 25, 1951, Civil Rights activists Harry T. Moore and Harriette V. S. Moore were killed by a bomb explosion at their home in Sanford, Florida.
38. On January 14, 1952, the Today Show, also simply called Today, made its debut on NBC television, the first daily morning television talk show.
39. On March 21, 1952, disc jockey Alan Freed (inventor of the term “rock and roll”) and record store owner Leo Mintz staged the first rock concert in Cleveland, Ohio!
40. On May 3, 1952, the Kentucky Derby, probably the most famous and prestigious horse racing event in the United States, was first broadcast on television.
41. On September 30, 1954, the American submarine, USS Nautilus, was commissioned for service as the first ever nuclear powered warship.
42. On December 2, 1954, the United States and the Republic of China, known to us today more familiarly as “Taiwan,” signed a mutual defense treaty that was really just the US promising to ensure the integrity of the island of Taiwan which claimed to be the “legitimate” government of China against any invasion or aggression from mainland/Communist China or perhaps the USSR.
43. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, the celebrated civil rights pioneer, triggered the “Montgomery Bus Boycott” in Alabama by refusing to sit in the back of the bus as decreed by segregation laws of that time.
44. On November 3, 1956, future New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms was born, and while he played in the NFL from 1979 to 1993, it is unlikely he would recognize the NFL from the year of his birth!
45. On February 6, 1959, an engineer at Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby, filed for the first patent for the “integrated circuit,” a small piece of silicon with many circuits called MOSFETs integrated on it, a device we know as the “microchip.”
46. On February 28, 1959, a Thor-Agena A rocket was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying a spy satellite designated Discoverer 1, the first in a spy satellite program of the American military and intelligence network.
47. On May 9, 1960, the Searle manufactured drug, Enovid, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States as a birth control measure, making Enovid the first oral contraceptive pill approved for use by any nation.
48. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy made a bold announcement to Congress that the US “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
49. On September 25, 1961, the State of Wisconsin first required any new automobile made starting in 1962 to be equipped with front seat safety belts.
50. On May 24, 1962, an American Atlas LV-3B rocket blasted off, carrying astronaut Scott Carpenter in his Project Mercury space capsule he had named Aurora 7, the 6^th manned space flight in history.
51. On July 9, 1962, the United States Defense Atomic Support Agency and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) launched a rocket from a remote Pacific Ocean island called Johnston Island (Or Johnston Atoll), a rocket carrying a thermonuclear bomb (aka, Hydrogen Bomb) into space.
52. On November 4, 1962, the US conducted the last event of Operation Fishbowl, a series of nuclear blasts conducted at high altitude.
53. On December 25, 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird, an American drama film directed by Robert Mulligan, opened in theaters.
54. On June 11, 1963, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama stood in the doorway to the University of Alabama in a vain attempt to block 4 newly admitted African-American students from entering the school.
55. On September 7, 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened to the public in Canton, Ohio, the birthplace of American professional football.
56. On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers were kidnapped and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, an event commemorated in the 1988 feature film, Mississippi Burning.
57. On August 28, 1964, the City of Philadelphia erupted into a race riot when the predominantly African American neighborhoods of North Philadelphia in the Columbia Avenue area broke out into a full blown riot between the police and African American residents that had long complained of police brutality.
58. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam officer and African American nationalist, Malcom X, was gunned down prior to making a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
59. On November 9, 1965, 22 year old American Roger Allen LaPorte, a former Catholic seminarian, sat down calmly, poured gasoline over himself,  and burned himself to death in front of the United Nations in New York in a protest of the Viet Nam War.
60. On December 16, 1965, General William Westmoreland, the American commander in Viet Nam requested an additional 243,000 US troops to go with the 184,300 US military men already in South Viet Nam.
61. On July 4, 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted, with an effective date one year later, July 4, 1967.
62. On October 9, 1966, the war torn nation of South Viet Nam was the scene of not one, but two notable massacres you may never have heard of.
63. On January 15, 1967, the NFL Champion Green Bay Packers faced off with the American Football League Champion Kansas City Chiefs, defeating the Chiefs 35-10 in a game later called “The First Super Bowl.”
64. On February 10, 1967, the United States adopted the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution, a new national law that deals with the succession to the Presidency of the United States, and a topic of recent debate during the Trump Administration.
65. On December 12, 1967, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, an American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose, was released in the United States of America.

Module #5: Modern America, 1968-Present

1. On February 11, 1968, African-American garbage collection and sewer workers in Memphis, Tennessee went on strike, prompted by the horrible death of two garbage men crushed in the back of a garbage truck.
2. On February 25, 1968, South Korean Marines fighting against the communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army alongside Americans and the South Vietnamese committed a terrible atrocity in the town of Hà My in South Vietnam.
3. On August 28, 1968, the profession of policing in the United States reached one of its lowest points when the Chicago Police Department under the direction of dictatorial Mayor Richard Daley moved to violently put down protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention (August 26-29, 1968), resulting in what has been described as a “police riot.”
4. On May 20, 1969, the Battle of Hamburger Hill came to an end.
5. The summer of July 1969 was unlike any other summer.
6. On July 20, 1969, the promise by President John F. Kennedy that the USA would put men on the Moon came true when Apollo 11’s Lunar Module, the Eagle, landed on the surface of the Moon, with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
7. On February 9, 1971, baseball pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first player from the Negro Leagues so honored.
8. On December 13, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard arguments in a lawsuit by Norma McCorvey (known as “Jane Roe” for the purposes of the lawsuit) against the Dallas County (Texas) Attorney, Henry Wade in the landmark American court case about the subject of a woman’s right to seek an abortion, ending an unwanted pregnancy.
9. On January 5, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program, an American space exploration system that would go on to make 135 trips to space over 3 decades, carrying astronauts from 16 different countries.
10. On March 22, 1972, the US Supreme Court decided that unmarried Americans were allowed to have sex!
11. On October 11, 1972, a race riot took place not in a city, but at sea!
12. On January 27, 1973, the United States, North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam signed a treaty in Paris, France, effectively ending direct American involvement in the Viet Nam War.
13. On September 3, 1976, an American Viking 2 spacecraft landed on the surface of Mars.
14. On January 21, 1977, newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter created perhaps the biggest controversy of his presidency by pardoning Viet Nam War era draft dodgers.
15. On September 13, 1977, American automotive giant General Motors made one of the epic blunders of its long business history when it introduced the Oldsmobile Diesel engine, a lame attempt to quickly gain an advantage in the race to improve the miles per gallon performance of its cars in order to compete with more fuel-efficient foreign cars.
16. On September 16, 1979, the Rap music trio The Sugarhill Gang was formed, and they released their groundbreaking hit, “Rapper’s Delight,” the first Rap song to land in the Billboard Top 40 as a mainstream hit song.
17. On April 3, 1981, the Osborne Computer Corporation unveiled it latest creation, the Osborne 1, the first portable computer to be commercially viable.
18. On September 21, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed by the Senate as the first ever female Justice of the Supreme Court.
19. On June 21, 1982, John Warnock Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in March of 1981.
20. On November 30, 1982, Michael Jackson, known as “The King of Pop” for good reason, released his 6th solo album, the “monster” hit “Thriller.”
21. On September 17, 1983, Syracuse University student Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America, the first African American woman to win the coveted title.
22. On February 7, 1984, two astronauts from the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-41-B made space exploration history by taking the first untethered space walk outside of their space ship.
23. On October 30, 1985, the American Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off on its 9^th mission, a successful flight that lasted over 7 days and was notable for having taken the first Dutch astronaut into space.
24. On March 21, 1986, Debra Janine Thomas made athletic history by becoming the first African American woman to take the Gold Medal at the World Figure Skating Championships.
25. On September 23, 1986, Houston Astros’ pitcher Jim Deshaies set a record, striking out the first eight batters he faced.
26. On April 18, 1988, the US Navy retaliated against the Navy of Iran in response to the USS Samuel Roberts being damaged by a mine.
27. On July 21, 1989, Do the Right Thing, an American comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee, who also played the part of Mookie in the film, was released in the United States of America.
28. On February 11, 1990, Iron Mike Tyson went into his match against James “Buster” Douglas as a 42 to 1 favorite.
29. On January 22, 1992, NASA launched mission STS-42, the space shuttle Discovery, into space with a crew that included Ukrainian Canadian Dr. Roberta Bondar, a neurologist.
30. On September 25, 1992, NASA launched a probe known as the Mars Observer, alternately known as Mars Geoscience/Climatology Orbiter, an unmanned spacecraft sent to study the surface, atmosphere, climate, and magnetic field on Mars.
31. On November 11, 1993, a sculpture honoring the women that served in the Vietnam War was dedicated at the site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C..
32. On August 24, 1994, an extraordinary American warrior was posthumously commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
33. On May 17, 1995, San Diego, California was the scene of one of the oddest and perhaps the scariest police chase of a stolen vehicle in the annals of motor vehicle theft.
34. On March 1, 1998, the movie industry reached a new milestone when the James Cameron epic film Titanic passed the magical $1 billion mark, the first movie to do so.
35. On August 17, 1998, US President Bill Clinton admitted in a taped deposition that he had am “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a lie that led to his impeachment.
36. On September 4, 1998, a pair of Stanford University students founded what has become the premier internet search engine, Google, although Google is also heavily involved in other areas, such as software, AI, electronics, advertising, and cloud computing.
37. On May 3, 1999, the state of Oklahoma experienced a catastrophic weather event known as the “1999 Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak.”
38. On June 12, 1999, the next day after the end of the Kosovo War, some 250 Russian peacekeeping troops occupied the Pristina International Airport ahead of the arrival of NATO troops and were to secure the arrival of reinforcements over the air.
39. On February 14, 2000, the American spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker orbited asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft from Earth to orbit an asteroid.
40. On August 8, 2000, the remains of Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley were raised to the surface 136 years after this pioneering vessel was sunk, probably by itself during the US Civil War.
41. On May 15, 2001, a 47-car freight train in Walbridge, Ohio took off away from the train station sans engineer who had dismounted to set a switch.
42. On September 11, 2001, the fanatical Islamist terror group,  al-Qaeda, carried out coordinated attacks against the United States, resulting in the crashing of a fully occupied jetliner into the Pentagon, the hijacking and subsequent crash of another jetliner, and the crashing yet another 2 jetliners into the World Trade Center, taking down 2 of the tallest buildings in the world.
43. On January 29, 2002, US President George W. Bush coined a new phrase in his State of the Union Address to Congress, labeling Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil.”
44. On May 24, 2002, emissaries of the United States and Russia signed a treaty to reduce each country’s nuclear arsenal to between 1700 and 2200 warheads.
45. On June 11, 2002, the House of Representatives of the United States Congress officially recognized Italian American inventor Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone.
46. Because the Northeast blackout of August 14–16, 2003 came only two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the first thought in the minds of many people was that a terrorist attack had occurred.
47. On September 30, 2004, the AIM-54 Phoenix air to air missile was retired from service with the US Navy, having been the prime air to air weapon of the F-14 Tomcat swing wing fighter plane, the king of naval aviation from 1974 to 2006.
48. On January 12, 2005, the American space exploration agency known as NASA launched a mission called Deep Impact, a probe designed to violently impact the comet Tempel 1.
49. On February 10, 2007, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in the 2008 Presidential election.
50. On August 16, 2008, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois, topped out, and immediately became the tallest residence above ground level of any building in the world.
51. On August 17, 2008, 6 foot 4 inch tall American swimmer Michael Phelps broke the previous record held by American swimmer Mark Spitz by winning his 8^th Olympic Gold Medal at a single Olympic Games.
52. On September 28, 2008, the history of space exploration reached a new milestone when SpaceX, a private company, launched their Falcon 1 unmanned spacecraft, the first private spacecraft launched into orbit.
53. On January 26, 2009, a single California woman gave birth to 8 babies at one time, becoming the first mother of octuplets that survived infancy.
54. On May 2, 2011, American military Special Forces carried out a surprise raid on the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound where Al Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden, had been hiding.
55. On January 17, 2013, renowned American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted on Oprah’s Next Chapter, a prime time television show, that he was, as suspected and accused, a cheater that won 7 consecutive Tour de France bicycle races through the assistance of banned drugs.
56. On September 12, 2013, the American space agency, NASA, reported that its spacecraft, Voyager 1, had become the first ever man-made object to leave our solar system.
57. On May 28, 2017, Japanese race car driver, Takuma Sato, won the Indianapolis 500 motor race, making history as the first Asian, and the first Japanese driver to take the big prize.
58. On August 8, 2017, country and pop music superstar Glen Campbell passed away.
59. On October 31, 2017, an Uzbek immigrant to the United States deliberately drove a rented truck into a New York City bicycle and jogging path, killing 8 people and injuring another 11 in a terrorist mass killing that proves bad people do not need guns to commit terrible crimes.
60. On May 9, 2020, the unemployment rate in the United States hit the staggering number of 14.9%, the worst employment number since the Great Depression in 1939.
61. On January 18, 2021, the United States celebrates the birthday of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., an icon in the Civil Rights Movement and an African American man of historic importance.
62. On August 30, 2021, the United States of America suffered one of its all-time worst humiliations when the last of the American forces were flown out of Afghanistan, a country the US had invaded in 2001 and was the scene of the longest armed conflict in American history.
63. On January 2, 2022, the Omicron variant of the Covid virus was on the rise, but that was minor news compared to the top stories of 2022.
64. On January 13, 2022, the National Shooting Sports Foundation warned American firearms enthusiasts of an online scam targeting those looking to buy a new firearm.
65. On August 2, 2022, US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was on a trip to Asian countries, including Taiwan, an island that officially considers itself to be the true and legitimate government of China.
66. On August 26, 2022, we all celebrate National Dog Day, a day invented by Colleen Paige in 2004.
67. NASA’s planned launch of a new gigantic rocket called Artemis scheduled for August 29, 2022 has been scrubbed due to a problem with an engine, with a new launch date scheduled for September 2, 2022.
68. On September 6, 2022, we celebrate National Read a Book Day, one of the truly worthwhile “days” of the year, when we are all reminded that there is more to life than television and the internet.
69. On January 3, 2023, we at History and Headlines just want to send out some positive thoughts to actor Jeremy Renner and athlete Damar Hamlin, both of whom have experienced potentially life-threatening accidental injuries on January 1st and January 2nd, respectively.
70. On January 4, 2023, the United States House of Representatives struggled to elect a new Speaker of the House to succeed Nancy Pelosi.
71. On January 18, 2023, Americans celebrate another National Thesaurus Day, a day to be thankful for that reference book that helps us find other ways to say the same thing.
72. On January 24, 2023, Americans celebrate National Peanut Butter Day, a day when we can savor the flavor of our favorite bread spread that lends itself to making cookies, pies, candies, and other foodstuffs.
73. On January 24, 2023, the nominations for the Academy Awards, better known as the “Oscars,” had been released!
74. On January 24, 2023, the dreaded Doomsday Clock that charts the danger of nuclear war was moved to within 90 seconds of “Midnight,” the ominous harbinger of nuclear disaster.
75. February 1^st, 2023 is the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
76. On February 2, 2023, while the US celebrated Groundhog Day, more serious Americans were celebrating a much more important “national day,” namely National Heavenly Hash Day!
77. On February 3, 2023, we asked some questions about notable news stories from this first week of February 2023.
78. On February 5, 2023, Americans were flooded with a variety of opinions about the Chinese “spy” balloon that had crossed much of the US and was shot down by a US fighter plane off the coast of South Carolina the previous day.
79. On February 5, 2023, America was abuzz with partisan bickering over the way President Biden handled the alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down on February 4^th.
80. An article, published on February 5, 2023, presents a compilation of our three recent videos that in some way mention the 2023 China balloon incident.
81. On February 7, 2023, US President Joe Biden gave his second State of the Union Address.
82. On February 18, 2023, the USA celebrated another National Battery Day!
83. On March 5, 2023, Americans celebrated yet another of those strange “National Days” that you may not be aware of, this time, honoring that fabled alcoholic beverage, Absinthe, known as “The Green Fairey.”
84. On March 8, 2023, Dr. Zar, wished all of his family, friends, colleagues, students, and subscribers who are women a Happy International Women’s Day!
85. On March 11, 2023, Americans celebrate another National Worship of Tools Day, a day in which professional craftsmen and do it yourselfers alike can glory in the inventions of their favorite tools.
86. On April 4, 2023, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was arraigned in New York City on charges of falsifying records.
87. On May 13, 2023, Americans can celebrate the annual National Train Day, a day invented by Amtrak back in 2008, but cancelled for 2016 due to budget cuts!
88. On May 16, 2023, Americans celebrate National Barbecue Day, something that means different things in different parts of the country.
89. On May 29, 2023, Americans celebrated National Paperclip Day, possibly the single most useful implement ever devised.

Questions for students: What was the most interesting event in American history since the Civil War and why?  Please let us know in the comments section below this article.

If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!

Your readership is much appreciated!

Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Foner, Eric.  Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Seagull Fourth Edition) (Vol. 2).  W. W. Norton & Company, 2013).

The featured image in this timeline, an 1872 painting by John Gast titled American Progress depicting Columbia as the “Spirit of the Frontier” carrying telegraph lines across the Western frontier to fulfill Manifest Destiny, is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or less.  This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsca.09855.