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.  You can click on any of the dates below to be taken to an article covering that date’s event to learn more.  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.  To my students, commenting on these articles is entirely optional and doing so is not worth any points toward your course grade.

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 September 7, 1876, the infamous James-Younger gang attempted to pull off a bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, but an alert and irate group of citizens quickly armed themselves and foiled the robbery, killing three of the robbers and wounding others.
12. 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.
13. On November 25, 1876, the US Army took revenge for the Little Bighorn massacre of George Custer and his 7^th Cavalry, by sacking a peaceful Cheyenne village led by Chief Dull Knife, a translation of his Lakota Sioux name.
14. 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
15. 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.
16. 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!
17. On January 25, 1881, 2 of the great names in the annals of inventions teamed up to form the Oriental Telephone Company.
18. 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.
19. On July 4, 1881, Tuskegee Institute opened, beginning a glorious history of educating mostly African American students.
20. 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.
21. On June 30, 1882, the assassin of President Garfield, Charles J. Guiteau, was executed by hanging in Washington, D.C.
22. On September 4, 1882, the Pearl Street Station opened for business in New York City, the first commercial provider of electric power to customers.
23. On April 4, 1883, Peter Cooper died at the age of 92 in New York City, the same city he was born in.
24. 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.
25. On December 6, 1884, the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was completed.
26. 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.
27. On April 24, 1885, Annie Oakley joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and went on to become America’s first female superstar.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. On July 6, 1887, the King of Hawaii, David Kalākaua, was forced to sign off on The 1887 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, thus ceding his monarchical powers to the legislature, effectively giving power to American and European wealthy traders along with the Hawaiian upper crust.
32. On November 19, 1887, Emma Lazarus, the author of “The New Colossus,” a sonnet that appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, died in New York city at the age of 38, possibly of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
33. On September 4, 1888, George Eastman patented the first camera that used rolls of film and with it, the trade name Kodak.
34. 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.
35. On July 3, 1890, Idaho was admitted to the Union as the 43^rd US State.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38. 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 June 5, 1893, the murder trial of Lizzie Borden began.
3. 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.
4. On January 7, 1894, Ohio born uber-inventor Thomas Edison made and demonstrated a kinetoscope, a sort of device using multiple photos or drawings to show the illusion of movement, in this case of a man sneezing.
5. On November 5, 1895, an unlikely candidate from Rochester, New York, became the first American to patent an automobile.
6. 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.
7. On November 22, 1896, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., the inventor of the Ferris Wheel, died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Typhoid Fever.
8. On August 21, 1897, Ransom Eli Olds founded the car company that bore his name, Oldsmobile.
9. 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.
10. On February 4, 1899, a war broke out between the First Philippine Republic and the US, called the Tagalog Insurgency, the Filipino-American War, and other names, that lasted until July of 1902, and continued as the Moro Rebellion until 1913.
11. On June 14, 1900, the United States expanded by officially adding the territory of Hawaii to is growing empire.
12. On November 6, 1900, William McKinley was re-elected President of the US with Teddy Roosevelt as his running mate.
13. 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.”
14. On January 4, 1903, Thomas Edison filmed the execution of Topsy the Elephant, the largest casualty in the “War of the Currents”!
15. 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!
16. 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.
17. On October 13, 1903, the American League’s Boston Americans won the 8^th and decisive game of the first modern World Series of major league baseball by defeating the National League’s Pittsburg Pirates 3-0.
18. On February 16, 1904, African American movie actor and singer James Franklin Baskett was born in Indianapolis.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. On April 1, 1906, the Chicago Tribune, a major American newspaper, reported that prehistoric monsters, also known as dinosaurs, allegedly invaded Chicago, wreaking havoc and destruction upon the city.
22. On January 29, 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas was sworn in a United States Senator, the first US Senator of Native American heritage.
23. On February 5, 1909, New Yorker Leo Baekeland presented his invention of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, to the American Chemical Society.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. On November 14, 1910, self-taught aviator Eugene Ely took off from the deck of the USS Birmingham, near Norfolk, Virginia.
27. 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.
28. On December 24, 1913, someone, either as a prank or as an evil way of messing with the crowd, yelled, “Fire!” in the crowded Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. On August 29, 1915, US Navy salvage crews raised the submarine, F-4, from the seabed off Honolulu where she had sunk with all hands on March 25, 1915, the first USN sub lost and another in a long list of Naval “Oops Moments.”
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. On April 13, 1917, Diamond Jim Brady died at the age of 60, not surprisingly of a heart attack.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38. On June 22, 1918, a passenger train carrying US military troops plowed into the rear end of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train that had stopped on the tracks for repairs.
39. 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.
40. On October 8, 1918, 2^nd Lt. Ralph Talbot of Massachusetts earned the coveted Medal of Honor, the highest American military honor.
41. 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. On May 31, 1921, one of the saddest examples of racial hatred in American history occurred when White Oklahomans attacked a wealthy Black neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma known as the Greenwood District, or just “The Black Wall Street.”
11. On November 23, 1921, Warren Harding signed a law to prohibit doctors from prescribing alcoholic beverages to patients, closing a loophole in the 18^th Amendment, which since 1920 had outlawed alcoholic beverages in the US.
12. On May 10, 1922, the US annexed an atoll in the North Pacific, an unoccupied, mostly underwater formation called Kingman Reef.
13. On November 13, 1922, the United States Supreme Court decision called Zucht v. King, upheld the discretion that allowed a Texas school board to require mandatory vaccination of school children against smallpox.
14. In December 1922, “Winter Dreams”, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first appeared in Metropolitan Magazine.
15. 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.
16. On January 30, 1925, Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon.
17. 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.
18. On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off on his non-stop, solo trans-Atlantic flight, a flight into aviation history.
19. 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.
20. 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.”
21. On December 2, 1927, Henry Ford revealed the successor to his iconic Model T, the Ford Model A.
22. 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.
23. On March 31, 1930, censorship came to Hollywood!
24. 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!
25. 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.
26. On December 18, 1932, the first NFL Championship game was played between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans.
27. On February 25, 1933, the USS Ranger was launched at Newport News, Virginia, as the first American aircraft carrier built for the purpose of carrying aircraft.
28. On December 5, 1933, history was made that would change the United States (back) forever!
29. 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.
30. On May 23, 1934, bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down by law enforcement.
31. On October 22, 1934, US FBI agents shot and killed infamous bank robber Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd in East Liverpool, Ohio.
32. On January 11, 1935, American aviatrix Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California, one of her many aviation firsts.
33. 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.
34. On September 3, 1935, Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah was the scene of an historic automobile event, the first ever car to achieve a documented speed of over 300 mph.
35. On December 9, 1935, muckraking journalist, Walter Liggett, was gunned down in front of his wife and children by a Minneapolis, Minnesota mobster with a Tommy Gun.
36. On August 3, 1936, James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens  won the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics and blazed into the record books.
37. On January 20, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first US president to be sworn in on January 20^th, a date changed from the previous inauguration day of March 4^th by the 20^th Amendment of 1933.
38. 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.
39. On May 23, 1939, the submarine USS Squalus demonstrated the dangers faced by submarine sailors even in peacetime.
40. On September 1, 1939, US Army General George C. Marshall, Jr., was appointed as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
41. 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.
42. 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.
43. On August 19, 1940, the B-25 Mitchell was flown for the first time.
44. 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.
45. 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 September 11, 1941, aviator Charles Lindbergh delivered a speech for the America First Committee in Des Moines, Iowa, in which he claimed the US was being coerced into World War II, alleging, “…pressing this country toward war; the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration.”
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. On August 7, 1942, U.S. Marines landed on an island few Americans had ever heard of, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. On November 26, 1942, the classic movie, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered in New York City.
12. On January 5, 1943, African American agricultural scientist George Washington Carver died at the age of 79 after a fall.
13. 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.
14. On January 15, 1943, the largest “office” building in the world was dedicated in Arlington County, Virginia, the Pentagon, a building that would become the symbol of the American military.
15. 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.
16. On June 20, 1943, World War II came to the American heartland when a massive race related riot broke out in Detroit.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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!
20. On October 19, 1943, a French cargo ship that had been seized by Germany in 1942, was sunk by USAAF North American B-25 Mitchell and RAF Bristol Beaufighter bombers near Crete, taking 2,098 Italian soldiers being held as POWs to a watery grave.
21. On October 19, 1943, the antibiotic drug, Streptomycin, was isolated by researchers at the esteemed Rutgers University.
22. 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.
23. On April 22, 1944, the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II (CBI) was the scene of the first ever use of a helicopter in a combat zone.
24. On April 22, 1944, an Allied “sledge patrol” attacked a German Bassgeiger weather station in Greenland, as part of the ongoing and important, although often overlooked, North Atlantic Weather War during World War II.
25. On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces stormed the heavily defended beaches of Normandy, France, signaling the doom of the Third Reich.
26. 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.
27. On February 19, 1945, 30,000 US Marines landed on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima, part of the Volcano Islands chain.
28. On March 16, 1945, the battle for the island of Iwo Jima supposedly was won by the US, although fighting would continue for another two weeks.
29. On March 17, 1945, the Ludendorf Bridge over the Rhine River fell 10 days after the US Army seized the span allowing them to cross the Rhine into Germany.
30. 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.
31. 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.
32. On May 5, 1945, a rare circumstance arose when German SS troops fought alongside US Army troops against an attack by the German 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division.
33. On May 29, 1945, the Consolidated B-32 Dominator, an American heavy bomber, made its first combat flight.
34. 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.
35. On August 9, 1945, a Boeing B-29 bomber named “Bockscar” dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan, incinerating 39,000 people within seconds.
36. 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.
37. On May 4, 1946, the US Marine Corps was called to assault and secure an island, this time in San Francisco Bay!
38. 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.
39. On January 20, 1947, only three 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.
40. On April 16, 1947, the SS Grandcamp, a French freighter carrying 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up at the dock in Texas City, Texas, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
41. On September 30, 1947, the “fall classic” of the “great American pastime” kicked off, the 1947 MLB Championship known as The World Series.
42. 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.
43. On December 17, 1947, the Boeing B-47 Stratojet made its first flight.
44. 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.
45. 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.
46. On September 15, 1948, a North American F-86 Sabre flew at a world record 671 miles per hour.
47. On September 22, 1948, USAF pilot Lt. Gail Halvorsen began dropping candy via parachute to the children of Berlin.
48. 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”!
49. On June 24, 1949, NBC premiered the first Western themed TV show, an adaptation of a character created by Clarence E. Mulford in 1904, Hopalong Cassidy.
50. 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.
51. 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.
52. On May 26, 1951, Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles, California.
53. 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.
54. 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.
55. On January 14, 1952, the Today Show, also simply called Today, made its debut on NBC television, the first daily morning television talk show.
56. 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!
57. 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.
58. On February 2, 1954, the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League played the first ever outdoor hockey game in the history of the NHL in Marquette, Michigan, up North in the Upper Peninsula.
59. On September 30, 1954, the American submarine, USS Nautilus, was commissioned for service as the first ever nuclear powered warship.
60. 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.
61. On April 12, 1955, the Polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was declared safe and effective for use in the United States, ending the epidemic that killed or crippled mass numbers of children in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.
62. On April 15, 1955, McDonald’s hamburger and fast-food chain claims their founding by Ray Kroc in Illinois when he opened a franchise restaurant of the hamburger stand brand founded by Richard and Maurice McDonald in California.
63. 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.
64. On July 16, 1956, the last “Big Top” circus produced by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ended its run in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and all subsequent circus productions would be held in arenas instead of the giant tents.
65. 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!
66. On August 5, 1957, the iconic pop music show American Bandstand made its debut, starting a 37-season run of 3002 episodes and making host Dick Clark a national icon.
67. 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.”
68. 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.
69. On June 8, 1959, the US Navy teamed up with the United States Post Office Department to attempt to resurrect the concept of sending mail via rocket or missile.
70. On January 28, 1960, the NFL expanded from 12 to 13 teams with the addition of the Dallas Cowboys.
71. On April 25, 1960, the nuclear powered US Navy submarine, Triton, completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth while underwater.
72. 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.
73. On June 19, 1960, the first auto race under the NASCAR banner was run at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
74. 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.”
75. On August 10, 1961, the US began Operation Ranch Hand, a ten year program of using chemical herbicides against the flora of Vietnam and surrounding countries to both deprive the Viet Cong of food crops and of foliage for cover.
76. On September 17, 1961, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was the site of the first retractable roof arena in the world, although its purpose may surprise you!
77. 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.
78. On December 13, 1961, renowned American painter known as Grandma Moses died at the age of 101.
79. 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.
80. 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.
81. On July 22, 1962, the US space agency, NASA, launched Mariner 1, the first in a series of probes designed to visit other planets in our solar system.
82. On September 27, 1962, the book, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson was published.
83. On October 27, 1962, US Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down and killed while flying his U-2 spy plane over Cuba.
84. On November 4, 1962, the US conducted the last event of Operation Fishbowl, a series of nuclear blasts conducted at high altitude.
85. On December 25, 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird, an American drama film directed by Robert Mulligan, opened in theaters.
86. 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.
87. On June 11, 1963, on the same day that Alabama Governor George Wallace tried to block two Black students from entering the University of Alabama, President John F. Kennedy made a speech telling the country about his plan for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law that would end segregation and provide equal access to all aspects of American life for people of any race.
88. On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy addressed Germans in Berlin and made his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.
89. On September 2, 1963, CBS Evening News made TV history by becoming the first major nightly news show to be 30 minutes long instead of only 15 minutes.
90. On September 7, 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened to the public in Canton, Ohio, the birthplace of American professional football.
91. On February 9, 1964, Beatlemania hit the US when the Fab Four made their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, snagging 73 million American viewers.
92. On March 14, 1964, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby was convicted of killing the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald.
93. 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.
94. 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.
95. 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.
96. On April 11, 1965, the Mid-Western and Southern US experienced a deadly rash of tornadoes infamous as the “Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak.”
97. On November 8, 1965, a North Vietnamese force of 1,200 soldiers ambushed 400 of the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade West of the Dong Nai River and paid dearly for their disregard of American military prowess.
98. 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.
99. 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.
100. On July 4, 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted, with an effective date one year later, July 4, 1967.
101. 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.
102. 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.”
103. 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.
104. On April 29, 1967, heavyweight boxing champ, Muhammad Ali, was stripped of his crown when he refused induction into the US military.
105. On July 18, 1967, little Mark Sinclair was born in Alameda County, California, a baby that would become one of the highest grossing film actors, Vin Diesel.
106. On August 25, 1967, US Navy World War II pilot, George Lincoln Rockwell, was shot and killed by a former member of his hateful group.
107. 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 January 30, 1968, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong guerillas launched surprise attacks all over South Vietnam during a supposed “cease fire” period to celebrate the Asian Lunar New Year, known as Tet.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.”
5. On November 15, 1968, the Cleveland Transit System of Cleveland, Ohio linked downtown with the metro airport, becoming the first city in the western hemisphere to link its downtown and its main airport by rapid transit.
6. On January 12, 1969, the New York Jets of the AFL beat the Baltimore Colts of the NFL, a monumental upset that spurred a merger of the two major pro football leagues.
7. On January 14, 1969, we were once again reminded how navies around the world manage to make mistakes that cost lives and even entire ships.
8. On May 20, 1969, the Battle of Hamburger Hill came to an end.
9. The summer of July 1969 was unlike any other summer.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. On March 22, 1972, the US Supreme Court decided that unmarried Americans were allowed to have sex!
15. On September 9, 1972, an exploration team mapping the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky discovered that the Mammoth Cave system was linked to the Flint Ridge cave network, making it the longest cave passageway in the world.
16. On October 11, 1972, a race riot took place not in a city, but at sea!
17. On December 28, 1972, the last day for inductees to be sworn in to the US armed forces due to the draft, most induction centers were closed due to President Nixon declaring the day a National Day of Mourning due to the death of former President Truman.
18. 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.
19. On June 9, 1973, Secretariat, often called “Big Red,” won the final round of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, by an unprecedented and unequaled 31 lengths!
20. On June 21, 1973, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in Miller v. California, establishing a way to determine if something is “free speech” guaranteed by the 1^st Amendment or if it is obscene.
21. On October 12, 1973, soon to be disgraced President Richard Nixon nominated US Representative Gerald Ford to replace Vice President Agnew who had resigned due to a criminal scandal.
22. On February 22, 1974, US Army veteran Samuel Byck failed miserably in his attempt to assassinate President Richard Nixon, when he was unable to successfully hijack a DC-9 jetliner in order to crash it into the White House.
23. On December 19, 1974, former governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, was sworn in as Vice President of the US.
24. On July 15, 1975, the United States and the USSR simultaneously launched manned spacecraft, an American Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz capsule, bound for a rendezvous in space, the first ever international space effort.
25. On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, taking the 29 men aboard to a watery grave.
26. On December 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford ordered a national stockpile of oil, or petroleum if you prefer, be created in underground storage located in Texas and Louisiana.
27. On June 5, 1976, the Teton Dam on the Teton River in Idaho collapsed, a catastrophic failure while it was filling for the first time!
28. On September 3, 1976, an American Viking 2 spacecraft landed on the surface of Mars.
29. On August 1, 1977, former USAF and CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers, died when his news helicopter crashed in Encino, California.
30. 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.
31. On July 19, 1977, the first ever Global Positioning System, GPS, signal was received in Cedar Rapids, Iowa courtesy of Navigation Technology Satellite 2, ushering in an era that prevents fumbling around with intricately folded maps while trying to drive a car.
32. 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.
33. On August 7, 1978, President Jimmy Carter recognized the toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently into a residential area canal as a federal emergency.
34. On August 17, 1978, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman made ballooning history by becoming the first to pilot a manned balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Maine to France in the Double Eagle II, a Helium balloon.
35. On September 15, 1978, the self-proclaimed “Greatest” boxer, Muhammad Ali, won a decision on points against former US Marine, Leon Spinks, winning back the heavyweight boxing championship he had held twice before.
36. On July 11, 1979, America’s first space station, Skylab, reentered Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
37. 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.
38. On June 3, 1980, the long history of the Statue of Liberty was threatened by a bomb that exploded at the base of the statue, although luckily no one was killed and damage was minimal.
39. On July 24, 1980, a quartet of Australian swimmers took the Olympic Gold Medal in the Men’s Swimming 4 by 100-meter medley relay race, the only time an American team failed to win this particular event.
40. On April 3, 1981, the Osborne Computer Corporation unveiled it latest creation, the Osborne 1, the first portable computer to be commercially viable.
41. On June 12, 1981, movie goers were treated to a film of action, adventure, romance, supernatural, and comedy, when Raiders of the Lost Ark was released, the first of the Indiana Jones movie franchise that now includes four complete films and the upcoming The Dial of Destiny, due for release in the US on June 30, 2023.
42. On September 21, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed by the Senate as the first ever female Justice of the Supreme Court.
43. 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.
44. On October 1, 1982, Disney’s latest and greatest attraction opened at their Orlando, Florida Walt Disney World location, EPCOT Center, now known as EPCOT.
45. On November 1, 1982, Honda Motor Company of Japan started making cars in the United States.
46. On November 30, 1982, Michael Jackson, known as “The King of Pop” for good reason, released his 6th solo album, the “monster” hit “Thriller.”
47. On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H.
48. On May 17, 1983, the US government was obligated to release information due to a newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act request about the largest Mercury pollution source in history, the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, home of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, nuclear facilities first constructed during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project.
49. On September 17, 1983, Syracuse University student Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America, the first African American woman to win the coveted title.
50. On September 26, 1983, Australian 12-metre-class yacht, Australia II, finally won an America’s Cup yacht race, the first time in 132 years that the Cup was lost by an American sailboat representing the New York Yacht Club.
51. On November 7, 1983, the United States Capitol building was bombed by a female left wing group calling themselves the Armed Resistance Unit.
52. 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.
53. On September 14, 1984, retired USAF Colonel Joseph Kittinger made aviation history by becoming the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic.
54. On December 1, 1984, a joint operation between NASA and the FAA conducted a “Controlled Impact Demonstration,’ a fancy way of saying purposely crashing an unoccupied jetliner.
55. 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.
56. 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.
57. On September 23, 1986, Houston Astros’ pitcher Jim Deshaies set a record, striking out the first eight batters he faced.
58. On October 3, 1986, Vince DiMaggio died, the eldest of the three DiMaggio brothers of major league baseball, the others being Dom and the most famous, Joltin’ Joe.
59. On November 3, 1986, a Lebanese magazine reported that the US had been selling weapons to Iran as part of a negotiation to get seven Americans released in Lebanon.
60. On March 9, 1987, Chrysler Corporation, then maker of Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth cars and trucks, announced the absorption of American Motors under the Chrysler banner.
61. On August 4, 1987, the Federal Communications Commission officially removed any obligation of television and radio media to present controversial issues in an even and “fair” manner when they rescinded the Fairness Doctrine.
62. 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.
63. On January 4, 1989, two Libyan pilots made the massive blunder of attempting to engage a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcat fighters over the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast, with the entirely predictable result of both MiG-23 “Flogger” fighters being promptly shot down.
64. 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.
65. On February 11, 1990, Iron Mike Tyson went into his match against James “Buster” Douglas as a 42 to 1 favorite.
66. On August 6, 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, a professor with ties to the University of Oxford and MIT, announced his invention, plans for what he called the “World Wide Web.”
67. 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.
68. On May 7, 1992, the State of Michigan ratified the 27^th Amendment after a two century struggle to pass this “common sense” law, namely that Congress cannot give itself a raise during a current term.
69. On July 7, 1992, the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York, ruled that women in that state have every bit as much a right to go bare breasted as men do.
70. On September 12, 1992, NASA launched mission STS-47, an historic flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour.
71. 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.
72. 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..
73. On August 24, 1994, an extraordinary American warrior was posthumously commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
74. On March 31, 1995, American singer and “Queen of Tejano Music,” Selena, was murdered, incredibly by the president of her fan club!
75. 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.
76. On June 13, 1996, after a tense 81 day standoff with the FBI, a group of Americans in the area of Jordan, Montana that had declared themselves “sovereign citizens” not subject to the laws of the United States, finally surrendered.
77. On July 20, 1997, the famous American warship, the USS Constitution, better known as “Old Ironsides,” celebrated 200 years of service by embarking on a cruise under her own sails for the first time in 116 years!
78. On September 6, 1997, two to two and a half billion people worldwide were glued to their TV sets watching the funeral of Princess Diana, a similar number of TV viewers that watched the 2009 funeral of pop rocker Michael Jackson.
79. On February 3, 1998, a bizarre aircraft accident occurred on the ski slopes of Italy when a USMC EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare jet flew below allowable altitude and cut the cable to a cable car carrying skiers.
80. 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.
81. 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.
82. 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.
83. On May 3, 1999, the state of Oklahoma experienced a catastrophic weather event known as the “1999 Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak.”
84. 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.
85. On February 14, 2000, the American spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker orbited asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft from Earth to orbit an asteroid.
86. 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.
87. On September 23, 2000, journalist, author, government official, and gun control advocate, Carl Rowan, died at the age of 75.
88. 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.
89. On May 25, 2001, American mountain climber, adventurer, author, and speaker, Erik Weihenmayer, became the first blind person to reach the top of Mt. Everest in Nepal.
90. 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.
91. On September 20, 2001, US President George W. Bush addressed congress and the American people and declared a “War on Terror.”
92. On October 11, 2001, Polaroid Corporation filed for bankruptcy and a year later went out of business.
93. On October 28, 2001, the indie movie, Donnie Darko, was released.
94. On January 23, 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped in downtown Karachi, Pakistan by Islamist militants.
95. 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.”
96. 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.
97. On May 26, 2002, Interstate highway I-40 in Oklahoma was the scene of a disaster when barges towed on the Arkansas River struck a support pier on a bridge, crashing it to the water and killing 14 people.
98. 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.
99. 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.
100. On October 14, 2003, Chicago’s Wrigley Field was the scene of a baseball play that fit right in with the “Curse of the Billy Goat.”
101. On August 8, 2004, Chicago’s Little Lady, a tour boat carrying 120 passengers, was bombed by a tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band.
102. 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.
103. 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.
104. On May 21, 2005, Six Flags Great Adventure became home to the tallest roller coaster in the world.
105. On June 19, 2005, the United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis, Indiana, suffered a mass exodus when 14 cars running on Michelin tires withdrew from the race due to tire failures by the French tire giant.
106. On February 10, 2007, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in the 2008 Presidential election.
107. 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.
108. 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.
109. 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.
110. On October 16, 2008, Ohio handyman Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher was all the rage among supporters of Senator John McCain’s bid for the presidency.
111. On January 22, 2009, only a couple days after being sworn in, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected terrorists were being held.
112. 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.
113. On January 29, 2009, Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich was successfully impeached by the state legislature and booted from office for the crime of soliciting appointment as the replacement as US senator for President-elect Obama.
114. On June 4, 2010, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster made its first flight, and since then has been used as the launch booster for well over 200 launches, only one of which was a failure and one other a partial failure.
115. 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.
116. On July 31, 2012, Ukrainian gymnast, Larisa Latynina, was passed as the most prolific Olympic Medal winner, when American swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19^th Olympic medal.
117. On August 9, 2012, Shannon Eastin became the first woman to referee an NFL football game.
118. 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.
119. 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.
120. On May 28, 2016, animal lovers were subjected to the horror of a zoo worker from the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden shooting a beloved adult male gorilla named Harambe to death.
121. On September 8, 2016, NASA launched its OSIRIS-Rex mission to near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu with the goal of returning to Earth with a sample of the asteroid.
122. On November 2, 2016, the Chicago Cubs broke the “Curse of the Billy Goat,” a championship drought of 108 years, by beating the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series.
123. On April 6, 2017, President Trump ordered an attack against Shayrat Airbase in Syria.
124. On April 9, 2017, Dr. David Dao, age 69, found out how bad flying on commercial airlines can be when he was forcibly dragged off of a United Express jet to make room for United employees.
125. 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.
126. On June 27, 2017, a massive cyber attack began on Europe, the USA, and Australia, with Ukraine being the main target.
127. On August 8, 2017, country and pop music superstar Glen Campbell passed away.
128. On October 24, 2017, rock and roll and New Orleans jazz pioneer Antoine “Fats” Domino died.
129. 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.
130. On December 14, 2017, the Walt Disney Company continued a trend of corporate mergers and acquisitions that are killing competition in many markets when they announced the deal to acquire the 20th Century Fox movie studio for over $52 billion.
131. On January 24, 2018, defrocked medical doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 175 years in prison for molesting American female gymnasts over the course of his career as the gymnastic team’s doctor.
132. On March 6, 2018, founder and former boss of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, was named by Forbes as the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $112 billion.
133. On June 13, 2018, Volkswagen was fined a whopping billion Euros by the EU in conjunction with an emissions tricking scheme hatched by VW to beat clean air requirements in Europe and the US.
134. On November 21, 2019, cutting edge technology and electric vehicle producer, Tesla, proudly demonstrated their latest gem, the Cybertruck, and its alleged unbreakable windows.
135. On December 20, 2019, the United States Space Force became a branch of the US Military, a military that far exceeds any current competitor.
136. On February 29, 2020, the American Trump administration and the Afghan Islamist group known as The Taliban, met in Doha, Qatar, and signed an agreement by which the US would pull out military forces and bring an end to the longest war in US history.
137. On March 4, 2020, Nik Wallenda of the famous acrobat and daredevil family, became the first person to walk on a wire above the crater of the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.
138. 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.
139. On May 30, 2020, the Crew Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida courtesy of a Falcon 9 booster rocket from the private firm of SpaceX.
140. On December 7, 2020, fighter ace and aviation record breaker, Chuck Yeager, Brigadier General US Air Force, died at the age of 97.
141. 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.
142. On April 2, 2021, a 25 year old African American “Black Nationalist,” Noah Green, murdered a US Capitol police officer and injured another when Green drove his car into the officer and a vehicle barricade at the US Capitol.
143. On April 19, 2021, the aptly named Ingenuity became the first man-made aircraft to fly on any planet other than Earth.
144. On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the law that made “Juneteenth,” the 19^th day of June each year, a National Holiday, the first designated as such since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1983.
145. 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.
146. On November 5, 2021, the Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas, a rap fest, went horribly wrong when a crowd fueled by drugs and alcohol overwhelmed insufficient concert security and created a “crowd crush” that cost eight lives and injured over 300 people.
147. 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.
148. 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.
149. On June 15, 2022, Microsoft retired its iconic internet browser, Internet Explorer, in favor of its new system, Microsoft Edge.
150. 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.
151. On August 26, 2022, we all celebrate National Dog Day, a day invented by Colleen Paige in 2004.
152. 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.
153. 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.
154. 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.
155. On January 4, 2023, the United States House of Representatives struggled to elect a new Speaker of the House to succeed Nancy Pelosi.
156. 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.
157. 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.
158. On January 24, 2023, the nominations for the Academy Awards, better known as the “Oscars,” had been released!
159. 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.
160. February 1^st, 2023 is the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
161. 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!
162. On February 3, 2023, we asked some questions about notable news stories from this first week of February 2023.
163. 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.
164. 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.
165. 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.
166. On February 7, 2023, US President Joe Biden gave his second State of the Union Address.
167. On February 18, 2023, the USA celebrated another National Battery Day!
168. 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.”
169. 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!
170. 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.
171. On March 20, 2023, whether we celebrated it or not, the Vernal Equinox marked the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
172. On April 4, 2023, Finland became the 31^st member of the NATO alliance, a pact originally meant to counter the threat from the USSR, consisting of 12 European and North American nations.
173. On April 4, 2023, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was arraigned in New York City on charges of falsifying records.
174. 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!
175. On May 16, 2023, Americans celebrate National Barbecue Day, something that means different things in different parts of the country.
176. On May 29, 2023, Americans celebrated National Paperclip Day, possibly the single most useful implement ever devised.
177. On June 3, 2023, the world celebrates Chimborazo Day, a day to admire and adore the highest mountain on Earth.
178. On June 3, 2023, Dr. Matt Zar thanked the first 30,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel (a milestone reached on June 1, 2023) and also shared with you that two of our favorite history themed YouTube channels also happen to be run by authors named Matt.
179. On June 16, 2023, Warner Brothers and DC Studios released yet another big budget superhero movie, in this case, The Flash.
180. On June 18, 2023, we celebrated National Turkey Lovers’ Day, and yes, we too love Turkey!
181. On June 23, 2023, Americans celebrated National Detroit Style Pizza Day, a day to honor perhaps America’s favorite food in a unique style.
182. On July 6, 2023, we sadly and gladly watched the final Harrison Ford version of Indiana Jones, this time in the blockbuster film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the exciting action series.
183. On August 3, 2023, as with every First Thursday in August, Americans celebrated National IPA Day.
184. As September 23, 2023 marked the ten-year anniversary of the debut of our website in September of 2013, we presented our YouTube channel’s ten most popular adaptations of our articles in their historical chronological order.
185. On October 2, 2023, Americans celebrated National Name Your Car Day.
186. On October 9, 2023, the second Monday in October, we once again celebrated National Kick Butt Day, a day not for kicking other people but for kicking yourself into gear to accomplish some personal or professional achievement.
187. On November 29, 2023, we celebrated National Package Protection Day, an annual event since 2016, founded by Ring.com, a company known for doorbell cameras.
188. On February 16, 2024, we celebrated another National Do a Grouch a Favor Day.
189. On March 1, 2024, American sci-fi movie fans were treated to the opening of the latest of the movies based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Dune. 
190. On March 7, 2024, the 46th president of the United States of America, 81-year-old Joe Biden, a Democrat currently running for reelection, gave the 2024 State of the Union Address in the House Chamber at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
191. On April 3, 2024, Americans celebrated National Walking Day, a day celebrated only since 2007 in spite of being an activity people have been doing since proto-humans came down from the trees.
192. On April 8, 2024, Dr. Zar, along with his miniature dachshund, watched the solar eclipse from within the zone of totality that included his home in Ashland, Ohio.

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.

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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.