KIM'S
TIMELINE OF (MAINLY) AMERICAN HISTORY, Part 2: from 1861 to 1941
CIVIL WAR TO WORLD WAR II
(Click here for Part 1: 1000 to 1860)
(Click here for Part 3: 1941 to present)
1861................Abraham
Lincoln inaugurated as 16th US President
.......................Civil War: SC secedes from the Union, followed by MS,
FL, AL, GA, LA,and TX;
..................................formation of the
Confederate States of America; Jefferson Davis, President;
..................................VA, AR, NC secede;
Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates; Confederate
..................................victory at Bull
Run
.......................1st transcontinental telegraph line completed; end of
the Pony Express
.......................US introduces passport system
.......................Archeopteryx skeleton discovered in Germany, link between
reptile and bird
.......................Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills;
Linda Brent, Incidents in the Life of a
...................................Slave Girl;
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
1862................Civil War: Union defeats at Second Bull Run and Fredericksburg;
1st sea battle of ironclad
............................... warships between
the Monitor and the Merrimack
.......................Pacific Railroad Act: authorizes transcontinental rail
line along 42nd parallel
.......................Homestead Act: allows citizens to settle up to 160 acres
of unclaimed public land in the
...................................west and receive
title after making improvements and residing on the land for 5
...................................years
.......................Congress outlaws polygamy, targeting Mormons; the law
is ignored in UT
.......................US Congress frees all slaves in DC
.......................Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No.
11, blaming Jews "as a class" for
...................................inflation and
ordering their expulsion from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi;
...................................hundreds are
forced to leaves their homes and businesses. Pres. A. Lincoln
...................................rescinds the
order 3 weeks later
.......................Second Confiscation Act passed by US Congress, permits military to enlist African Americans
.......................President Lincoln's son Willie dies of typhoid fever
in the White House
.......................Julia Ward Howe writes “"The Battle Hymn of
the Republic"
.......................1st practical machine for milking cows (using rubber
cups and suction), patented by Leighton
...................................O. Colvin
.......................James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Sympony in White,
No. 1: The White Girl
.......................Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and Other Poems;
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
1863................WV admitted as 35th state
.......................AZ and ID organized as territories
.......................Civil War: Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation,
granting freedom to enslaved people in
...................................Rebel states;
Union defeats at Chancellorsville, VA and Chickamauga GA; victories at
...................................Gettysburg PA,
Vicksburg MS, and Chattanooga TN; Lincoln delivers Gettysburg
...................................Address at dedication
of military cemetery, stating "Government of the people, by the
...................................people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth"
.......................NYC draft riots to protest the practice of hired substitutes
and commutation fees available
...................................to upper class
men; mobs of working class men and new immigrants vandalize
...................................homes and businesses
for 3 days and kill 105 people in the worst civil disturbance in US
...................................history. Free
African Americans, Republican party blgs., and army recruiting stations are
...................................singled out for
attacks.
.......................National Academy of Sciences founded in DC
.......................University of MA founded in Amherst as MA Agricultural
College
.......................Frederick Douglass is 1st African American to have a
formal meeting with a US President inside
...................................the White House;
meets with Lincoln in July to discuss treatment of black soldiers in the
...................................Union army
.......................1st paper dress patterns developed by Ebenezer Butterick
.......................Roller skating introduced to America
.......................Pres. Lincoln declares the last Thursday of November
to be Thanksgiving Day
.......................Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountains, "Lander's
Peak"
.......................Walt Whitman moves to Washington DC and begins work as
volunteer Civil War nurse
.......................Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn;
Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches
1864................NV admitted as 36th state
.......................Organization of territory of MT
.......................Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant secedes Gen. Halleck as Commander-in-Chief
of Union armies; Gen
...................................Sherman marches
his army from Chattanooga through GA; defeats Confederate army at
...................................Atlanta and occupies
Savannah
.......................Congress passes a bill calling for equal pay, equipment,
arms, and health care for African-American
...................................Union troops
.......................Lincoln vetoes the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill, proposing
harsh penalities on the South if a
...................................Union victory
is achieved
.......................Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek,
CO by US soldiers. Up to 500 Indians,
...................................mostly women
and children, are murdered, while under the promised protection of Fort
...................................Lyon
......................."In God We Trust" 1st appears on US coins
.......................New Orleans Tribune begins publication, one
of 1st daily newspapers produced by African Americans
.......................Karl Marx founds 1st International Workingmen's Assn.
in London and NY
1865................Lincoln assassinated by John Wilkes Booth April 14
.......................Andrew Johnson inaugurated 17th US President
.......................Civil War: Union fleet takes Charleston; Richmond surrenders
to Grant; Jefferson Davis appoints Robert
...................................E. Lee General-in-Chief
of the Confederate Army; Robert E. Lee formally surrenders to U.S.
...................................Grant at Appomattox
Courthouse, VA April 9; Surrender of last Confederate Army in Shreveport,
...................................LA on May 26
.......................1st African American to addres the US House of Representatives:
Abolitionist minister Henry Highland
...................................Garnet preaches
a Sunday morning sermon against slavery to a packed chamber
.......................1st African American lawyer licensed to practice before
the US Supreme Court, Dr. John Sweat Rock
.......................13th Amendment to US Constitution abolishes slavery in
the US
.......................Establishment of the Freedman's Bureau to treat, feed,
shelter, and house 4 million formerly enslaved
...................................people of the
Confederacy
.......................Founding of Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, TN
.......................Founding of Purdue, Cornell, the University of Maine,
the University of Kentucky, and the Massachusetts
...................................Institute of
Technology
.......................Opening of Vassar College to women; 1st woman professor
hired (of astronomy), Maria Mitchell
.......................1st train holdup at North Bend, OH
.......................1st railroad sleeper cars appear in US, designed by George
Pullman
.......................The Capitol dome is completed in Washington, DC
.......................Union Stockyards open in Chicago
.......................1st oil pipeline in PA (6 miles)
.......................1st professional baseball players; Baseball Convention
held in NY, representing 91 clubs
.......................Yale University opens 1st Dept. of Fine Arts in US
.......................Walt Whitman, Drum Taps; Lewis Carroll, Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
1866................14th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits voting discrimination,
denies government office to certain
...................................Civil War rebels,
and repudiates Confederate war debts
.......................Pres. Johnson vetoes New Freedman's Bureau Bill, which
would have given the Bureau the power to
...................................accuse anyone
denying African Americans their rights
.......................Gen. Philip Sheridan commands US forces in the Indian
Wars, advocates extermination of tribes:
...................................“"Kill
the buffalo and you kill the Indians"
.......................Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving drive 2,000 longhorn
cattle from TX to NM, blazing the 1st cattle
...................................trail
.......................1st Ku Klux Klan chapter organized in TN, with the goal
of preserving white supremacy throughout the
...................................South
.......................Memphis Massacre: white civilians and police murder 46
African Americans and burn Black-owned
...................................property
.......................Alfred Nobel invents dynamite
.......................National Labor Union forms to call for a mandatory 8-hour
workday; they are unsuccessful
.......................Andrew Carnegie begins endowing public libraries throughout
the US (through 1917); eventually 1,689
...................................library buildings
would be built in 1,421 communities
.......................John Greenleaf Whittier, Snow-Bound
1867................NE admitted as 37th state
.......................Reconstruction begins
.......................Russia sells AK to US for $7,200,000
.......................British North American Act establishes Dominion of Canada
.......................Gold discovered in WY
.......................DC residents granted suffrage
.......................Howard University granted charter from Congress for higher
education of African Americans
.......................1st cattle drive from TX to KS on the Chisholm Trail
.......................Medicine Lodge Treaty: Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho
and other southern Plains tribes forced to
...................................give up lands
on the Plains for reservations in OK to remove Indians from the path of white
...................................settlement
.......................Mass production of barbed wire by Washburn & Moen
of Worcester, MA
.......................1st bicycles manufactured in France by Pierre Michaux
1868................Pres. Johnson dismisses his Secretary of War without consent
of Congress; impeachment proceedings
...................................charge Pres.
with “"high crimes and misdemeanors" but is acquitted by a single
vote by Senate
.......................14th Amendment grants citizenship to any person born
or naturalized in the US
.......................John W. Menard elected to the House of Representatives,
but the House Committee on Elections refuses
...................................to seat him because
he is African American
.......................Opelousas Massacre in LA: approx. 300 African Americans
killed
.......................Fort Laramie Treaty ends war along the Bozeman Trail;
US abandons forts and grants lands in WY,
...................................MT, and SD to
the Lakota Indians
.......................Washita Massacre of Cheyenne in OK by Gen. George Armstrong
Custer's 7th US Cavalry; 30
...................................Cheyenne, mostly
women and children, are murdered
.......................AL introduces a segreagated public school system
.......................1st college for African Americans, Lincoln University,
founded
.......................Meat packing plant opens in Chicago, operated by P.D.
Armour
.......................1st Decoration Day celebrations, honoring Civil War dead
(later renamed Memorial Day)
.......................Olmsted and Vaux design the 1st "parkway" in
Brooklyn, a landscaped drive for pleasure vehicles
.......................Skeleton of Cro-Magnon man found in France by Louis Lartet
.......................Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
1869................Ulysses S. Grant inaugurated 18th US President
.......................John Wesley Powell leads 1st recorded voyage through
the Grand Canyon
.......................Completion of transcontinental RR: golden spike in UT
at Promontory Point
.......................WY becomes 1st state to grant voting rights to women
.......................1st African American diplomat: Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett
appointed minister to Haiti
.......................Knights of Labor union founded
.......................1st Vatican Council: Cardinal Manning advocates a definition
of papal infallibility
.......................Potter's Field, largest public burying ground in US,
established on Hart Island in NY Harbor
.......................Frances Harper, Moses: A Story of the Nile;
J.S. Mill, On the Subjection of Women
1870................d. Robert E. Lee
.......................John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil Co.
.......................UT Territorial government grants women the right to vote
.......................1st African American Senator, Hiram Revels of MS, serves
one year (fills the former Confederate
...................................President Jefferson
Davis's seat). Between 1870 and 1901, 8 Southern states (LA, MS, AL,
...................................FL, GA, SC, NC,
and VA) will have at least one African American in Congress
.......................1st African American House member, Joseph Rainey of South
Carolina
.......................15th Amendment guarantees African American males (and
all adult males) the right to vote
.......................CA court rules in White v. Flood that an African-American
child may not attend a white school, setting
...................................a legal precedent
for school segregation
.......................Union Pacific RR hires Chinese laborers for $32.50 a
month. Whites (who are paid $52 a month for
...................................the same work)
claim the Chinese immigrants are competing unfairly for jobs, leading to racial
...................................conflicts
.......................Piegan Massacre: 200 Piegan Indians, mostly elderly,
women, and children, are murderd by US cavalry
...................................troops on a raid
to the wrong camp; a cover-up conspiracy quickly ensues
.......................Experimental air-driven subway opens in NY, the Beach
Pneumatic Transit
.......................Frank Scott publishes The Art of Beautifying Suburban
Home Grounds of Small Extent, creating American
...................................lawn culture
.......................Washington Canal in DC closed and moved underground,
changing the topography of the National Mall
.......................Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp
1871................Great Fire of Chicago decimates the 2nd largest US city,
killing over 300 people and leaving approx.
...................................100,000 homeless,
and 2,024 acres burned
.......................P.T. Barnam opens his circus, “"The Greatest
Show on Earth,"”in Brooklyn
.......................Jehovah's Witnesses founded by Charles T. Russell
......................."Boss" Sheperd inaugrates city-wide public
works projects in DC to pave streets, improve hygiene, etc.
......................Construction begins on the Old Executive Office Building
(through 1888), designed by Alfred B. Mullet
1872................US General Amnesty Act pardons most ex-Confederates
.......................Yellowstone Act establishes 1st national park
......................."Buffalo Bill"”Cody awarded Congressional
Medal of Honor for his service as a scout in Gen. Philip
...................................Sheridan's 4-year
campaign against the Cheyenne
.......................Susan B. Anthony casts a ballot in the presidential election,
and is brought to trial and found guilty,
...................................she refuses to
pay a $100 fine, and the judge refuses to imprison her, thereby preventing her
...................................from appealing
to a higher court; it will not be until 1820 that US women will be granted a
...................................legal right to
vote
.......................Victoria Woodhull, 1st woman to run for US President
.......................One-quarter of the city of Boston burns in massive fire
.......................Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in NYC
.......................Frances Harper, Sketches of Southern Life
1873................Cable cars introduced in San Francisco by inventor Andrew
Hallidie
.......................Color photographs 1st developed
.......................Gunsmith firm of E. Remington and Sons begins to produce
typewriters, 1st invented by Christopher
............................... I. Sholes
.......................Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis develop blue jeans for use
by gold prospectors in the American West
.......................Emily Dickinson meets Thomas Wentworth Higginson
.......................Dr. Gerhard Hansen of Norway discovers the bacteria that
causes leprosy
1874................b. Amy Lowell
.......................b. Gertrude Stein
.......................Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children founded
in NY by E.T. Gerry
.......................1st American zoo established in Philadelphia
.......................US Capitol grounds, designed by Olmsted, completed
.......................Immigrants from Russia settle in KS and bring with them
“"Turkey Red" wheat, a drought-resistant
...................................strain that eventually
transforms the “"Great American Desert" into the “"nation's
breadbasket"”
.......................Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire; its use transforms
the Plains
.......................Gen. Custer announces discovery of gold in the Black
Hills; a stampede of fortune hunters invade
...................................the most sacred
part of Lakota territory
.......................William H. Jackson photographs Anasazi cliff dwellings
at Mesa Verde, CO
.......................Georgetown University 1st major university to appoint
an African American President: Rev. Patrick
...................................Francis Healy
.......................Major fire in textile mill in Fall River, MA kills 23,
begins debates about fire escapes and other safety
...................................measures; 2nd
major fire in city of Chicago in 3 years decimates the city
.......................DC residents stripped of voting rights
.......................1st impressionist exhibition in Paris
1875................1st African American to serve full term as Senator, Blanche
Kelso Bruce of MS
.......................Civil Rights Act promises equal access to public accomodations
.......................TN aduopts 1st "Jim Crow" segregation law in
the South; other states soon follow
.......................Clinton massacre: 20 African Americans killed in MS
.......................2 women's colleges founded: Smith and Wellesley
.......................Pinkerton agents fire-bomb the James family farm in MO
in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the
...................................James Gang, notorious
for robbing banks and railroads
.......................Dr. S. Weir Mitchell begins prescribing rest cures for
"hysterical" female patients with "nervous
...................................diseases"
.......................Minute Man National Historic Park opens in Concord, MA
.......................Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic; James Abbott
McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold
...................................(The Falling
Rocket)
.......................Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
1876................CO admitted as 38th state
.......................Battle of the Little Bighorn, aka Custer's Last Stand:
263 US troops defeated by several thousand
...................................Lakota, Arapaho,
and Cheyenne warriors; Sitting Bull leads remaining Lakotas to safety
...................................in Canada
.......................Race riots in SC
.......................World's Fair held in Philadelphia
.......................Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
.......................Johns Hopkins University opens in Baltimore, contains
the 1st real graduate school in US
.......................Reformatory for juvenile offenders founded in NY
.......................Bradley, Voorhees & Day manufacture 1st union suits,
"an improvement in combined undershirt
...................................and drawers";
this company would later become synonymous with men's undergarments,
...................................called BVDs
1877................Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated 19th US President; wins
by a single electoral vote in a hotly
...................................contested election;
detractors call him “"His Fraudulency"
.......................End of Reconstruction: withdrawal of Federal troops from
the South; end of Federal commitment
...................................to civil right
enforcement until the middle of the 20th c.; Democrats regain control of state
...................................legislatures
throughout the South and pass laws retricting voting rights
.......................Crazy Horse surrenders to Gen. George Crook in NE; Congress
repeals the Fort Laramie Treaty
...................................and claims Lakota
lands (including the Black Hills)
.......................Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé surrenders after
4-month retreat in which he eluded capture
...................................repeatedly. Gives
famous surrender speech: “"From where the sun now stands I will fight
...................................no more forever"
.......................1st African American graduate of West Point, Henry O.
Flipper
.......................Frederick Douglass 1st African American successfully
confirmed by US Senate to government
...................................position (US
Marshall to District of Columbia, nominated by Pres. Hayes)
.......................An estimated 40,000 African-Americans migrate from Southern
states to KS
.......................1st public telephones
.......................James Tyng of Harvard develops 1st catcher's mask for
baseball
........................H. H. Richardson, Trinity Church, Boston
.......................Thomas Eakins, William Rush Carving His Allegorical
Figure of the Schuylkill River
1878................In Reynolds v. US, the Supreme Court rejects a
Mormon's challenge to a federal law banning bigamy
...................... Thomas Edison patents phonograph
.......................A.A. Pope manufactures 1st bicycles in US
.......................Congress creates a municipal corporation form of government
for DC under the "Organic Act"
.......................Henry James, Daisy Miller
1879................Women permitted to practice law before the Supreme Court
.......................Founding of Radcliffe College, the “"Harvard
Annex" for women
.......................1st students, 84 Lakota children, arrive at US Indian
Training and Industrial School in Carlisle, PA,
...................................which becomes
the model for 24 more schools over the next 2 decades, designed to
...................................Americanize Indians
through forced acculturation, under the auspices of the US Dept. of the
...................................Interior
.......................Susette Le Flesche (Inshta Theumba) begins lecture tour
for Native American rights
.......................Mary Baker Eddy becomes pastor of Church of Christ, Scientist
in Boston
.......................Electric lighting installed in the Capitol, Washington,
DC
.......................Ferdinand Cheval begins constructing the Palais Ideal
at Hauterives, Drome, France
.......................Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House
1880................Thomas Edison patents electric light bulb
.......................Andrew Carnegie develops 1st large steel furnace
.......................Canned fruits and vegetables 1st appear in stores
.......................Chinese Exclusion Act: places strict limits on immigration
and naturalization
.......................KS becomes 1st Prohibition state
.......................American Surgical Assn. founded
.......................1st newspaper photograph printed in the NY Daily
Graphic
1881................James A. Garfield inaugurated 20th US President; assassinated
4 months later
.......................Chester A. Arthur inaugurated 21st US President
.......................Clara Barton forms the Red Cross
.......................Last big cattle drive ends the era of the open range
in the American west
.......................Billy the Kid, charged with over 21 murders, killed by
Sheriff Pat Garrett in NM
.......................Showdown at OK Corral: Clantons killed by Deputy Marshall
Wyatt Earp
.......................Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T. Washington as
a vocational training institute for African
...................................Americans
.......................Segregation on public transportation becomes law in TN
.......................1st hand operated telephone switchboards introduced
.......................Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor, 1st
detailed examination of the government's treatment
...................................of Indians, shocks
the nation with proof of broken treaties and brutality
1882................Chinese Exclusion Act: Congress completely prohibits immigration
from China and naturalization
...................................of Chinese immigrants
in the US for a period of 10 years
.......................Edmunds Law: polygamy made a federal crime punishable
by up to 5 years in prison; many Mormon
...................................leaders go into
hiding
.......................Dr. Robert Koch discovers the cause of tuberculosis while
studying the disease in Africa
.......................Jesse James killed by Robert Ford
1883................US Supreme Court overturns Civil Rights Act of 1875
...................... Brooklyn Bridge completed over East River and publicly
inaugurated May 24 with fireworks and
...................................speeches
.......................Northern Pacific RR line completed
.......................Most US towns switch to Standard Railroad Time, with
time remaining constant within geographic
...................................zones
.......................1st skyscraper built in Chicago, 10 stories
.......................Civil Service Law
.......................Dr. Robert Koch discovers the cause of cholera on a research
trip to Egypt and India
.......................US frontiersman W.F. “"Buffalo Bill"”
Cody organizes his “Wild West Show
.......................PA passes a law legalizing dissection of human corpses
by medical students, but only those corpses
...................................buried at state
expense (because of the poverty of the deceased)
.......................Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
1884................International Meridian Conference held in Washington, DC
establishes prime meridian at Greenwich,
...................................with longitude
counted 180 degrees east and west from that point
.......................Washington Monument completed, Washington, DC (begun
in 1848)
.......................Work starts on Anoni Gudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona,
Spain
.......................John Singer Sargent, Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madame
X)
.......................Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
1885................Grover Cleveland inaugurated 22nd US President; only Pres.
to marry while in office
.......................Washington Monument completed
.......................Ulysses S. Grant's funeral procession through Manhattan
is 7 miles long
.......................Founding of Bryn Mawr College for women
.......................George Eastman manufactures coated photographic paper
.......................1st linotype printers developed
1886................d. Emily Dickinson
.......................b. Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)
.......................Statue of Liberty constructed; dedicated by Pres. Cleveland
on Bedloe's Island in NY harbor.
...................................Created in 1884
by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholde, it was shipped in 214
...................................crates to the
US and reassembled by a group of American engineers under Gen. Charles
...................................Stone; the base
of the monument contains a poem by Emma Lazarus, which states,
..................................."Give me
your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
.......................Legalization of public segregation
.......................Carollton Massacre: 20 African Americans killed in MS
.......................Surrender of Apache chief Geronimo to US troops in AZ
after over a decade of guerilla warfare;
...................................tribe removed
to FL
.......................American Federation of Labor founded by Samuel Gompers,
a coalition of skill-workers' unions
.......................Andrew Carnegie begins endowing public libraries in citys
and towns across the US (through 1917);
...................................a total
of 1,689 libraries in 1,421 communities would eventually be built with Carnegie
funds
.......................Hydroelectric installations begun at Niagara Falls
.......................1st automobiles with internal combustion engines
.......................The Dominion Bridge Company of Canada hires and trains
Kahnawake Mohawks as high altitude
...................................riveters;
over the next several generations, Mohawks will dominate the high steel industry
...................................throughout
the US, building nearly all the monumental structures of greater NY including
the
...................................Empire
State Blg., George Washington Bridge, UN General Assembly and World Trade Center
.......................Coca-Cola introduced, developed by John S. Pemberton
and containing extracts of the coca plant
.......................Pres. Ulysses S. Grant attends the dedication of the
first synogogue in Washington, DC, Adas Israel
.......................Linotype process 1st introduced by Ottmar Mergenthaler,
a high-speed mechanical means of setting
...................................type
that will open a new era in mass communications
.......................William Harnett, The Old Violin; Auguste Rodin,
The Burgers of Calais; George Seurat, La Grande Jatte
.......................Arthur Rimbaud, Les Illuminations
1887................b. Marianne Moore
.......................Dawes Severalty Act: outlaws communal land ownership
by Indian tribes, resulting in loss of tribal
...................................lands to non-Indians
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in FL
.......................1st production of radio shortwaves
.......................Catholic University of America in DC established
.......................Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion published,
with 781 multiple-image plates
1888................"The Great Die-Up" : blizzards devastate cattle
herds of the northern Plains. The worst blizzard, also
..................................called the Children's
Blizzard, on Jan. 12, kills hundreds, mostly children on their way home
..................................from school, and
is the deadliest blizzard ever to hit the Plains States of Nebraska, the Dakotas,
..................................and Minnesota
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in MS
.......................1st simple handheld camera produced by George Eastman
1889................Benjamin Harrison inaugurated 23rd US President
.......................ND admitted as 39th state
.......................SD admitted as 40th state
.......................MN admitted as 41st state
.......................WA admitted as 42nd state
.......................Ghost Dance practiced by Wovoka, a Paiute holy man, and
followers; spiritual revival among
...................................Indians
.......................Pres. Harrison authorizes opening unoccupied lands in
Indian Territory to white settlement; OK
...................................Land Rush transforms
almost 2 million acres of tribal land
.......................Johnstown Flood in PA; most devastating flood in US history
.......................American University established in DC
.......................Johns Hopkins Hospital opens in Baltimore; becomes the
US's pioneering teaching hospital
.......................Passage of the Zoological Bill calls for the creation
of the National Zoo in DC
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in TX
.......................Public pay phones invented by William Gray
.......................Eiffel Tower in Paris opens; architect, Gustav Eiffel
.......................Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court; W.B. Yeats, The Wanderings of Oisin
1890................ID admitted as 43rd state
.......................WY admitted as 44th state
.......................Sherman Anti-Trust Act
.......................Wounded Knee: Federal troops massacre 350 Lakotas on
the Pine Ridge Reservation
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in LA
.......................White supremacist elected governor of SC, “"Pitchfork
Ben" Tillman
.......................Yosemite National Park established at the urging of naturalist
John Muir as 3rd US national park,
...................................preserving 1500
square miles of wilderness
.......................1st moving picture shows appear in NY
.......................Global influenza epidemics
.......................Rubber gloves used for 1st time in surgery, at Johns
Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
.......................1st entirely steel-framed building erected in Chicago
.......................1st use of the electric chair to execute a criminal
.......................Electric lights installed in The White House
.......................Daughters of American Revolution founded in DC
.......................Passage of the Rock Creek Park Bill perpetually secures
public park land in DC
.......................1st edition of Emily Dickinson's Poems (posth.)
.......................Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives
1891................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in AL,
KY, AR, and GA
.......................End of Indian Wars
.......................The grounds of the Biltmore Estate completed in NC, largest
private property in the US, designed
...................................by Olmsted; incorporates
the 1st experiements with scientific forestry in the US
.......................Widespread famine in Russia
.......................Earthquake in Japan kills 10,000
.......................Paul Gaugin emigrates to Tahiti to paint
.......................1st escalator introduced by Jesse Reno as a ride at a
Coney Island amusement park
.......................Thomas Eakins, Miss Amelia van Buren; Mary Cassatt,
The Bath; Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Adams
...................................Memorial, Rock
Creek Cemetery, Washington, DC
.......................Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun &
Other Stories; Oscar Wilde, The Picture of
...................................Dorian Gray
1892................d. Walt Whitman
.......................Congress extends the Chinese Exclusion Act for a second
10 years, adding a requirement that all
...................................Chinese workers
in the US register or face deportation
.......................Homer Plessy refused seating in a "white" section
of the East Louisiana RR, sues; Plessy v. Ferguson
...................................reinforces "separate
but equal" doctrine
.......................Dawes Act: 2 million acres of Crow tribal land opened
to white settlers in MT
.......................John Muir founds the Sierra Club
.......................Adirondack State Park created to "be forever kept
as wild forest lands"; largest park in the
..................................contiguous US
.......................1st automatic telephone switchboard introduced
.......................1st collapsible metal tubes for packaging toothpaste
devisted by Connecticut doctor Washington W.
...................................Sheffield
.......................Fingerprints used for 1st time in murder conviction,
of mother of two boys killed in Argentina
.......................Walt Whitman, final version of Leaves of Grass
(the "deathbed edition"); Frances Harper, Iola
...................................Leroy, or Shadows
Uplifted; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
1893................Grover Cleveland re-elected; inaugurated 24th US President;
only Pres. to leave the White House
...................................then return for
a 2nd term after 4 years'’ absence
.......................HI proclaimed a republic; briefly annexed to US
.......................World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago: Designed by
architects Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim,
...................................sculptor Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.;
...................................beginning of
the City Beautiful Movement
.......................Interior of Ford's Theater in DC collapses, killing 22
.......................Yoga gains its 1st following in US when Swami Vivekananda
visits Chicago for a world religions
...................................conference
.......................Henry Ford builds his 1st car
.......................1st zipper developed by American inventor Whitcomb Judson
.......................Edvard Munch, The Scream
1894................Pullman Company strike causes national transportation crisis;
led by Eugene V. Debs
.......................Swiss doctor Alexandre-Emile Yersin discovers the cause
of the Plague in Hong Kong
.......................Frances Harper, The Sparrow's Fall & Other Poems
1895................Race riot in New Orleans; whites attack African American
workers; 6 killed
.......................Booker T. Washington delivers his famous “"Atlanta
Compromise" speech
.......................National Baptist Convention formed; largest African American
religious denomination in US
.......................Xrays 1st developed by German doctor Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen:
major medical diagnostic tool
.......................Louis Pasteur develops rabies vaccine
.......................Auguste and Louis Lumiere invent motion-picture camera
.......................Oscar Wilde's unsuccessful libel suit against Marquis
of Queensberry
.......................Ida B. Wells publishes A Red Record, an in-depth
study of lynching
.......................Motion picture technology developed in Paris and New
Jersey
.......................Gettysburg National Military Park opens in Gettysburg, PA
.......................Richard Morris Hunt, Biltmore, Asheville, NC; McKim,
Mead & White, Boston Public Library
.......................W. B. Yeats, Poems; Frances Harper, Atlanta
Offering and Martyr of Alabama
1896................UT admitted as 45th state
.......................Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision sanctions Jim
Crow segregation laws, ruling “"separate
...................................but equal"
facilities satisfy 14th Amendment guarantees
.......................Klondike Gold Rush, Bonanza Creek, AK
.......................National Association of Colored Women founded to combat
racism and provide aid to
...................................improverished
African Americans; Mary Church Terrell is President, the organization's
...................................motto is "lifting
as we climb"
.......................George Washington Carver appointed director of agricultural
research at Tuskegee Institute
.......................1st modern Olympics, Athens
.......................Nobel Prizes established for annual recognition in physics,
physiology and medicine, chemistry,
...................................literature, and
peace
.......................Sarah Orne Jewett, Country of the Pointed Firs;
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lyrics of a Lowly Life; E.A.
...................................Robinson, The
Torrent and the Night Before
1897................b. Louise Bogan
.......................William McKinley inaugurated as 25th US President
.......................Tidal Basin in DC completed
.......................General Grant National Memorial (aka Grant's Tomb) dedicated
in NYC, designed by John Duncan;
...................................Shaw Memorial,
commemorating the 54th Massachusetts regiment of African American
...................................Civil War soldiers,
dedicated in Boston, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
.......................Library of Congress opens in a dedicated building in Washington, DC
.......................1st comic strip in US, “"Katzenjammer Kids,"
by Rudolph Dirks
.......................Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
1898................Spanish American War: imperialism and overseas acquisitions
of Guam, Samoa, the Philippines,
...................................Hawaii, Puerto
Rico; sinking of the Maine; Americans destroy Spanish fleet at Manila;
...................................Treaty of Paris;
US emerges as global power
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in SC
.......................Race riot in NC; 8 African Americans killed
.......................Marie Curie discovers radium
.......................George Eastman patents Kodak box camera, 1st portable,
easy-to-use camera
.......................Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics;
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw; Thomas
...................................Hardy, Wessex
Poems; Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
1899................Philippines demands independence from US
.......................Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid commit a series of
bank and train robberies across the West,
...................................then flee to
South America in 1901
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in NC
.......................Martha Place, 1st woman to die in the electric chair
.......................Aspirin tablets developed by Bayer Co.: the most widely
used drug on earth, it is also among the
...................................least expensive,
and most generally useful for a wide range of symptoms (including
...................................control of pain,
reduction of fever, and suppression of join inflammation)
.......................Law enacted to restrict height of all private structures
in DC to no higher than the Washington Monument
...................................(555 feet)
.......................Kate Chopin, The Awakening; Oscar Wilde, The
Importance of Being Ernest
1900................US claims Wake Island, an important cable link between HI
and Manila
.......................Yaqui Indians in TX proclaim independence from Mexico
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in VA
.......................GA passes a law segreagating public parks
.......................US Census shows that 90% of African Americans live in
the South
.......................Brigham Roberts denied seat in US House of Representatives
for practicing polygamy
.......................US Yellow Fever Commission begins research in Cuba to
discover the cause of the disease
.......................Australia becomes a Commonwealth
.......................William Phelps Eno 1st suggest placing stop signs at road intersections
.......................1st production of affordable portable cameras, the Kodak
Brownie (sold for a dollar each)
.......................Frances Harper, Poems; Sigmund Freud, The
Interpretation of Dreams; Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim;
...................................Theodore Dreiser,
Sister Carrie; Frank Baum, The Wonderful World of Oz; Beatrix
Potter,
...................................The Tale of Peter
Rabbit
1901................d. Queen Victoria
.......................Pres. McKinley assassinated by Leon Czolgosz at Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo, NY
.......................Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated 26th US President; at
42, he is the youngest Pres. in the nation's history
.......................Cuban Convention makes the country a US protectorate
.......................Roosevelt incites controversy after inviting Booker T.
Washington to dine at White House; race riots
...................................in New Orleans
.......................Congress confers US citizenship on all Indians residing
in OK Territory
.......................African Americans found enslaved in parts of SC
.......................Last African American congressman for 28 years, George
H. White, ends his term
.......................AL constitution disenfranchises African Americans by
requiring literacy tests and proof that one's
...................................grandfather was
eligible to vote
.......................Supreme Court rules Puerto Ricans do not qualify for
US citizenship
.......................J.P. Morgan founds U.S. Steel Corp.
.......................Cadillac Company founded in Detroit
.......................Spindletop oil gushes in TX, opens a century when “"black
gold" will play a vital role in the economy
...................................of the American
west
.......................Senate Park Commission established for public lands in
DC
.......................Marconi's 1st wireless signal from England to Newfoundland
.......................Annie Edson Taylor, 1st person to survive a trip over
Niagara Falls in a barrel
.......................1st Nobel Prizes awarded in Literature
.......................Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
1902................US Reclamation Act
.......................US acquires perpetual control over Panama Canal
.......................Oriental Exclusion Act extended
.......................Coal Strike in US (May-Oct.)
.......................From 1902 through 1928, no African Americans serve in
Congress, in a dramatic rollback of civil rights
.......................McMillan Plan in DC: defines the monumental core and
park system for the city, extending L'Enfant's
...................................original design
of 1791 and serving as a blueprint for the capitol's continuing development
.......................1st Cadillac cars manufactured
.......................Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart introduce the Automat,
a low-cost, self-serve restaurant
.......................Willis Carrier invents air-conditioning
.......................Arthur Korn of Germany develops process to transmit photos
by wire
.......................Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Sport of the Gods;
Owen Wister, The Virginian; Rudyard Kipling, Just-so
................................... Stories
1903................Wright Brothers fly 1st powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk,
NC
.......................AK frontier settled
.......................Creation of US Dept. of Commerce and Labor
.......................Women granted the vote in CT
.......................Henry Ford founds Ford Motor Co.
.......................1st coast-to-coast crossing of the American continent
by car, in 65 days
.......................Pepsi-Cola Co. patents its soft drink
.......................1st "safety razor" developed by American traveling
salesman King Gillette
.......................Pres. Roosevelt closes PO in Indianola MS for refusing
Minnie Cox, an African American
...................................postmistress
.......................Pierre and Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel awarded Nobel
Prize in Physics for work in
...................................radioactivity;
Marie Curie is 1st woman to win a Nobel Prize
.......................Emmeline Pankhurst founds National Women's Social and
Political Union in England
......................."The Great Train Robbery," 1st movie western
........................Augustus and Louis Lumiere patent 1st color photography
process
.......................Jack London, The Call of the Wild, W.E.B. DuBois,
The Souls of Black Folk
1904................US acquires Panama Canal Zone; begins work on canal
.......................MD joins other southern states disenfranchising African
Americans, segregating public
...................................transportation
.......................Most deadly peacetime maritime disaster in US: steamboat
General Slocum catches fire
...................................and sinks in
Manhattan's East River; over 1,000 die
.......................American Socialist Party nominates Eugene Debs for Pres.
.......................Bethune-Cookman College founded in FL
.......................NY policeman arrests woman for smoking a cigarette in
public
.......................Helen Keller graduates from Radcliffe College
.......................1st American Olympics held in St. Louis, along with World
Exhibition
.......................American Academy of Arts and Letters founded
.......................Robert Scott lands on the Great Antarctic Plateau
.......................1st thermos developed by Scottish physicist James Dewar
.......................1st ice cream cones and peanut better introduced at the
World's Fair in St. Louis
.......................1st color photograph published in London Daily Illustrated
Mirror
.......................James Barrie, Peter Pan
1905................Albert Einstein formulates Special Theory of Relativity;
establishes law of mass-energy
...................................equivalence;
creates Brownian theory of motion; and formulates the photon theory of light
......................."Big Bill"” Haywood founds the Industrial
Workers of the World, a socialist organization promoting
...................................unions (the “"Wobblies")
.......................Niagara Movement founded, African American intellectuals
and activists meet
.......................Lewis and Clark Centennial opens in OR
.......................1st law creating a state presidential primary, in WI
.......................Alberta and Saskatchewan become Canadian provinces
.......................1st regular cinema established in Pittsburgh
.......................1st neon signs
.......................1st rotary dial telephones
.......................Robert Abbott begins publishing The Chicago Defender,
the most important African-American newspaper
...................................during Segregation
and one of the country's leading proponents of The Great Migration, the
...................................post-WWI migration
of African Americans from the rural south to northern cities
.......................Fauvism: Matisse, Derain, Rouault paint in wild, bright
colors
.......................Picasso begins Rose Period paintings
.......................Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
1906................Theodore Roosevelt awarded Nobel Peace Prize for mediated
the Russo-Japanese War
.......................San Francisco earthquake: over 3,000 die; downtown leveled
with 497 city blocks destroyed; martial law
...................................declared
.......................San Francisco school board orders segregation of all
Asian children
.......................Roosevelt becomes 1st Pres. to make official trips outside
US: to Puerto Rico, Panama
.......................Standard Oil indicted under Sherman Anti-trust Act
.......................Joseph Smith, Pres. of the Mormon Church, charged with
polygamy after the birth of his 43rd child,
...................................born to his 5th
wife; he pleads guilty and pays $300 fine
.......................African American soldiers riot in TX against segregation;
Pres. Roosevelt discharges 3 companies as a
...................................result
.......................AL passes a law segregating street cars
.......................Race riot in Atlanta; 12 killed
.......................NY clergy protest Bronx zoo display of a pygmy man in
a cage with apes
.......................Birth of modern Pentecostalism: Willaim J. Seymour, the
son of former slaves, begins preaching in
...................................a dilapidated
building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles (the Azusa Street Revival)
.......................NY police begin using fingerprints for identification
.......................Revelations of conditions in Chicago stockyards contained
in Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle leads
...................................to the passage
of the US Pure Food and Drugs Act
.......................Madame C.J. Walker establishes a hair care business for
African American women, which will eventually
...................................make her a millionaire
.......................Willis Carrier patnets his "Apparatus for Treating
Air," the 1st commercial air conditioner
......................."Typhoid Mary" identified and incarcerated
for unknowingly spreading typhoid
.......................Norwegian explorer Roald Amundssen traverses the Northwest
Passage and determines the position
...................................of the magnetic
North Pole
.......................Finland is 1st country to give women universal suffrage
.......................Ruth St. Denis introduces modern dance
.......................Upton
Sinclair, The Jungle
1907................OK admitted as 46th state
.......................Panic of 1907: run on banks, stopped by J.P. Morgan's
importation of $100 million in gold from Europe
.......................Pres. Roosevelt bars Japanese immigration to US
.......................Segregation in public transportation becomes law in OK
.......................New laws stipulate that all immigrants to US must be
checked to ensure they are free of contagious
...................................diseases
.......................2nd Sunday in May established in Philadelphia as Mother's
Day
.......................Ivan Pavlov studies conditioned reflexes
.......................American inventor James Murray Spangler develops the
vaccuum cleaner
.......................Ziegfield's Folly's opens, a revue of bathing beauties
(runs through 1931)
.......................Union Station opens in Washington DC; marble statues
of naked Roman soldiers lining the roof cause a ...................................scandal,
and enlongated shields are quickly added
.......................Picasso, “Demoiselles d'Avignon, beginning
of Cubism; Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage
1908................Ford Motor Co. produces 1st Model T; 1st assembly line process
splits production into 84 distinct steps;
...................................beginning of
mass production
.......................Berea College v. KY: US Supreme Court rules segregation
in private educational institutions is OK
.......................Race riot in Springfield IL
.......................General Motors Corp. founded
.......................Isadora Duncan becomes popular interpreter of dance
.......................Subway opens in NY linking Brooklyn and Manhattan
.......................Union Station built in DC
.......................Congress passes law regulating child labor in DC
.......................Fountain pens become popular
.......................Bakelite invented in US by L.H. Baekeland, commercial
manufacture in 1909 marks beginning of the
...................................Plastic Age
.......................Jack Johnson is 1st African American world heavyweight
boxing champion
.......................Ashcan School painters begin exhibiting works of urban
realism
.......................Albert Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth copyright the popular
song, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
.......................Gertrude Stein, Three Lives; Kenneth Grahame,
The Wind in the Willows; Lucy M. Montgomery,
...................................Anne of Green
Gables; Ezra Pound, A Lume Spento; W.B. Yeats., Collected
Works
1909................William Howard Taft inaugurated 2th US President
.......................1st US Army airplane purchased
.......................NAACP founded to fight for full equality for African
Americans
.......................Dawes Act opens 700,000 acres of former tribal land in
WA, ID, and MN to white settlement
.......................Admiral Robert E. Peary claims to reach the North Pole;
travels with African American explorer
...................................Matthew Hensen;
Dr. Frederick Cook claims he preceded Peary and Hensen by one year;
...................................Congress mediates
dispute and favors Peary's claim; now it is thought that both claims are
...................................unlikely
.......................Sigmund Freud lectures in US on psychoanalysis
.......................Greene and Greene, Gamble House, Pasadena, CA
.......................George Bellows, Stag at Sharkey's
.......................Gertrude Stein, Three Lives
1910................d. Florence Nightingale
.......................Mann Act passed by Congress; prohibits transportation
of women across state lines for “"immoral
...................................purposes"
.......................US law bars immigration of “"criminals, paupers,
anarchists, and carriers of disease"
.......................Baltimore enacts city ordinance designating boundaries
of white and African American
...................................neighborhoods.
Becomes the model for similar laws in TX, NC, KY, VA, OK, and MS.
...................................Declared unconstitutional
in 1917
.......................National Urban League founded
.......................Beginning of great migration of approx. 2 million souther
African Americans to northern cities
......................."The Big Blowup": in two days in August, massive
forest fires in the Rockies and throughout the
...................................West burn approx.
3.25 million acres; US Forest Serivice sends in thousands to control
...................................fires; 78 firefighters
killed
.......................1st Socialist Congressman: Victor Berger of WI
.......................Commission of Fine Arts formed in DC to implement the
McMillan Plan; continues to approve
...................................all new buildings
and monuments in the capital
.......................Baroness de Laroche becomes 1st woman to obtain a pilot's
licence, in France
.......................Halley's Comet reappears
.......................Taft begins custom of Pres. tossing 1st ball at the beginning
of baseball season
.......................Father's Day 1st celebrated in Spokane, WA
.......................The “"week-end" becomes popular in US
.......................Charles Kettering invents a self-starter for cars that
fits under the hood and runs off a small storage
...................................battery; the
first starters are installed in Cadillacs, eliminating the need for crank starters,
...................................and allowing
women to start and drive cars on their own
.......................Height Limitation Act in DC: no buildings may be taller
than the Washington Monument
.......................291 Gallery opened in NY by Alfred Stieglitz, exhibits
modern art from US and Europe
.......................Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London organized by
Roger Fry, shows works by Cezanne,
...................................Van Gogh, and
Matisse
.......................McKim, Mead & White, Pennsylvania Station, New York;
Frank Lloyd Wright, Robie House, Chicago
.......................1st publicaton of The Crisis, the crusading
journal of the NAACP, edited by W.E.B. DuBois
1911................d. Frances E. W. Harper
.......................b. Elizabeth Bishop
.......................William Henry Lewis appointed assistant attorney general
by Pres. Taft; 1st African American
...................................appointed to
a White House sub-cabinet post
.......................National Urban League founded to help African Americans
secure equal employment
.......................Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in NYC: 146 immigrant workers
killed when fire breaks out and
...................................escape doors
are locked; leads to the establishment of the International Ladies' Garment
...................................Workers Union
.......................1st Hollywood film studio opens, The Nestor Co.
.......................Construction begins on the Lincoln Memorial in DC
.......................1st center line installed on roads for traffic control, in MI
.......................Armistice ends Mexican Civil War
.......................Roald Amundsen of Norway reaches the South Pole
.......................Herman Rorschach, Swiss psychiatrist, develops ink blot
tests
.......................Marie Curie wins second Nobel Prize in Medicine
.......................Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
1912................b. May Sarton
.......................NM admitted as 47th state
.......................AZ admitted as 48th state
.......................Textile workers strike in Lawrence MA, showing the power
of IWW
.......................Immigration law bars immigrants who are illiterate
.......................Sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage;
1,513 drowned
.......................F.W. Woolworth Company founded
.......................Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden: Jim Thorpe stripped
of all gold medals and records
...................................after it is discovered
he played semi-professional baseball in 1911
.......................1st successful parachute jump
.......................Piltdown Man Hoax: humanid remains believed to be 50,000
years old planted in England;
...................................hoax revealed
in 1953
.......................Cherry trees, a gift from Japan, planted around the Tidal
Basin, Washington, DC
.......................Poetry: A Magazine of Verse founded in Chicago
.......................James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored
Man; Amy Lowell, A Dome
...................................of Many-Colored
Glass
1913................b. Muriel Rukeyser
.......................Woodrow Wilson inaugurated 28th US President; wins electoral
but not popular vote
.......................16th Amendment to the Constitution establishes the Income
Tax
.......................Department of Labor created by US Congress
.......................Federal segregation of work places, rest rooms, and lunch
rooms
.......................Alien Land Laws prohibit ownership of land by Asian immigrants
.......................5,000 American feminists, led by Alice Paul, march on
Washington
.......................Suffragette demonstrations in London; E. Pankhurst arrested
for attempted bombing
.......................Mahatma Gandhi arrested, leader of Indian Passive Resistance
Movement
.......................Grand Central Terminal opens in NY
.......................Ford Motor Co. establishes 1st assembly line
.......................Neils Bohr generates theory of atomic structure
.......................American College of Surgeons founded
.......................Panama Canal opens
.......................1st female magistrate sworn in in England
.......................1st crossword puzzles printed
.......................1st brassiere developed by American debutante Caresse
Crosby
.......................Woolworth Building, designed by Cass Gilbert, opens in
NY
......................."Star of Ethiopia" pageant presented at the
National Emancipation Exposition in NY, depicts
...................................the history of
people of African descent, produced by W.E.B. DuBois
.......................Armory Show introduces Post-Impressionism and Cubism
in NY
.......................Nobel Prize for Literature to Rabindanath Tagore
.......................Willa Cather, O, Pioneers!; Thomas Mann, Death
in Venice, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers;
...................................Robert Frost,
A Boy's Will
1914................WWI breaks out in Europe, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of
Austria assassinated in Sarajevo; war
...................................declared by Germany,
Britain, Austria, Serbia, France, and Russia; Germans occupy
...................................Rheims; Battle
of the Marne; First Battle of Ypres
.......................Telephone line installed between NY and San Francisco
.......................US Federal Trade Commission established to regulate interstate
commerce
.......................Panama Canal completed after 36 years, and the deaths
of 25,000 men
.......................Marcus Garvey founds the Universal Negro Improvement
Assn. in Jamaica
.......................Paul Bunyan legend established with advertising pamphlet,
Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox,
...................................by W. B. Laughead,
for the Red River Lumber Co.
.......................Construction begins on the Lincoln Memorial, Washington,
DC
.......................Dr. Alexis Carrel performs 1st successful heart surgery
on dog
.......................Robert Goddard begins experiments with rockets
.......................Ernest Shackleton leads Antarctic expedition
.......................Marsden Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer
.......................James Joyce, Dubliners; Robert Frost, North
of Boston; Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons; W.B.
...................................Yeats, Responsibilities
1915................b. Margaret Walker
.......................Marianne Moore's 1st poems published in The Egoist
and Poetry
.......................WWI: Italy enters war; Lusitania sunk by German submarine;
German blockage of England;
...................................Anglo-French
landings at Gallipoli; 1st Zeppelin attack on London; Czar Nicholas II takes
...................................over command
of Russian army; at Second Battle of Ypres mustard gas is 1st used; 1st
...................................German Zeppelin
attack on London
.......................Guinn v. US: US Supreme Court strikes fown OK's "grandfather
clause" voting restriction against
...................................African Americans
.......................Henry Ford develops farm tractor
.......................US Coast Guard established by Congress
.......................In a victory for labor unions, Congress enacts the Clayton
Act, which limits the court injunctions
...................................against legal
strikes, boycotts, and peaceful picketing
.......................SC passes a law segregating entrances and working facilities
in factories
.......................Albert Einstein postulates General Theory of Relativity
.......................Margaret Sanger jailed for writing Family Limitation,
1st book on birth control
.......................1st transcontinental telephone call, by Alexander Graham
Bell in NYC to Thomas A. Watson in
...................................San Francisco
.......................1st eletric traffic signal installed, in Cleveland
.......................2nd organization of Ku Klux Klan: receives charter from
Fulton County, GA Superior Court and
...................................gains wide national
membership that peaks in the 1920s
.......................Association for the Study of Negro Life and History established
by Carter G. Woodson
.......................D.W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation"
promotes racist notions about lascivious Black men and
...................................the threat of
their rise to power
.......................Raggedy Ann doll patented by Johnny Gruelle
.......................1st lipstick packaged in a slide-and-twist metal dispenser,
designed by American inventor Maurice Levy
.......................1st Dadaist paintings created by Marcel Duchamp
.......................Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis; Edgar Lee Masters,
Spoon River Anthology; Somerset Maugham, Of
...................................Human Bondage;
Willa Cather, Song of the Lark; Ezra Pound, Cathay
1916................WWI: 1st Zeppelin raid on Paris; Battle of Verdun; Germany
declares war on Portugal; Sinn Fein
...................................Easter Rebellion
in Dublin; beginning of Allied Somme defensive; Italy declares war on
...................................Germany; British
1st use tanks on Western Front; gas masks and steel helmets introduced in
...................................German army;
Battle of the Somme
.......................Child Labor Act
.......................Jeannette Rankin, 1st woman elected to Congress
.......................Margaret Sanger opens 1st birth control clinic in US
.......................National Park Service established under US Dept. of the
Interior
.......................Pancho Villa invades NM; kills 17 Americans
.......................US purchases Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) for
$25 million
.......................Marcus Garvey arrives in US and establishes the Universal
Negro Improvement Assn.
.......................Prohibition gains ground as 24 states vote against alcoholic
beverages
.......................Law establishing 8 hour work day for RR workers prevents
nationwide strike
.......................Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity
.......................Dadaism movement founded in Zurich
.......................H.D., Sea Garden; Carl Sandburg, Chicago
Poems; James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man;
...................................E.A. Robinson,
The Man Against the Sky
1917................b. Gwendolyn Brooks
.......................WWI: Declaration of war on Germany ends US neutrality;
food rationing in Germany and Britain;
...................................China enters
war; Russian Revolution; Albanian independence proclaimed; Russian Black
...................................Sea fleet mutinies
at Sebastopol; Balfour Declaration on Palestine; 1st tank battle at Cambrai;
...................................Finnish Republic
proclaimed; Turks surrender Jerusalem; Allies execute Mata Hari as spy
.......................Race riot in East St. Louis, IL; approx. 200 African
Americans killed
.......................Race riot in Houston; 12 killed; 18 African American
soldiers later hanged for participating in riot
.......................NAACP protest in NY brings attention to lynchings, race
riots, and denial of rights when 10,000 march
...................................silently down
5th Avenue
.......................Literacy requirements for US citizenship passed over
Wilson's veto
.......................Prohibition of alcohol in DC passed; the Capital is seen
as a "temperance proving ground" for what will,
...................................in 1919, become
the 18th Amendment. Despite the ban, over 2,000 speakeasies flourish in the
...................................city, and enforcement
is rare
.......................Jeannette Rankin is 1st woman to serve in Congress
.......................4 women arresting for picketing White House for women's
suffrage; sentenced to 6 months in jail
.......................1st jazz recordings, by the white Original Dixieland
Jazz Band
.......................Bobbed hair becomes fashionable for women in US and Britain
.......................1st Pulitzer Prizes awarded in Literature
.......................Hogarth Press founded by Leonard and Virginia Woolf outside
of London; eventually publishes work by
...................................T. S. Eliot,
E.M. Forster, Katherine Mansfield, among others
.......................Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems;
T.S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations; C.G.
...................................Jung, Psychology
of the Unconscious; W.C. Williams, Al Que Quiere!
1918................WWI: Hapsburg Empire dissolves into 4 nations (Austria,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom
...................................of Slovenes,
Serbs, and Croats); food rationing in Britain; German offensive on Western Front;
...................................Germans bomb
Paris; Wilson's 14 points for world peace; Japanese advance into Siberia;
...................................Germany suspends
submarine warfare; Czechoslovakia proclaims independence; Allied
...................................conference at
Versailles agrees on peace terms for Germany; Armistice declared in Nov.;
...................................German fleet
surrenders
.......................Race riot in Chester PA kills 5; race riot in Philadelphia
kills 4
.......................Daylight saving time introduced in US for 1st time as
part of the "war effort": it lasts only through 1919,
...................................although it is
used again in WWII, and dropped again. Then in 1966 the Uniform Time Act
...................................recommends its
continual use
.......................Regular airmail service established between NY and DC;
1st airmail postage
.......................Eugene V. Debs, American socialist and presidential candidate,
sentenced to prison for violation of
...................................espionage and
sedition law
.......................United Lutheran Church established in US
.......................Women over 30 get the vote in Britain
.......................Start of world-wide influenza epidemic; kills 22 million
by 1920
.......................Quantum theory introduced by Max Planck
.......................1st best-selling weight-loss manual, Diet and Health,
With Key to the Calories, by Lulu Hunt Peters
.......................US Post Office burns installments of James Joyce's Ulysses,
published in the Little Review
.......................Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, winner
of Pulitzer Prize for Literature; Willa Cather,
...................................My Antonia;
Rebecca West, Return of the Soldier; Georgia Douglas Johnson, The
Heart of a Woman
1919................Prohibition: 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits
the sale, manufacture, or transport of
...................................alcoholic beverages
.......................Pres. Wilson presides over 1st League of Nations meeting
in Paris
......................."Red Summer" : 26 race riots between April
and October in cities such as Charleston, Chicago, DC, as
...................................African American
servicemen return from WWI; 83 lynchings of African Americans reported
.......................Strikes by NY dock workers and American Steel
.......................International Labor Conference in Washington endorses
8 hour work day
.......................Postal worker Charles Caplan discovers 16 dynamite bombs
intended for prominent members of the
...................................political and
business establishment. A nationwide campaign against suspected anarchists and
...................................people with communist
sympathies begins
.......................Bombs explode at the homes of 7 government officials,
including Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
.......................American Communist Party established
.......................Emma Goldman, political agitator and free-love advocate,
deported to Russia along with 250 others
...................................accused of sedition
and anarchism
.......................1st Pan-African Congress organized by W.E.B. DuBois
.......................Lady Astor elected 1st woman member of Parliament
.......................Solar eclipse proves Albert Einstein's theory of general
relativity by showing gravity's effect on light,
...................................which he had
postulated in 1907 and calculated in 1915; results from eclipse read at a joint
...................................session of The
Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society in London, which brings
................................... Einstein world-wide
fame
.......................Grand Canyon National Monument established as national
park
.......................1st gas-powered lawn mower developed by American Edwin
George
.......................Pogo Sticks developed by George Hansburg of IL
.......................A.D. Julliard endows Julliard School of Music in NY
.......................Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio; Thomas Hardy,
Collected Poems; Carl Sandburg, Corn Huskers,
...................................winner of Pulitzer
Prize for Literature; Amy Lowell, Pictures of the Floating World
1920................19th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees women the
right to vote
.......................Pres. Wilson awarded Nobel Peace Prize
.......................US Senate votes against joining the League of Nations
.......................The Hague selected as seat of International Court of
Justice
.......................The Dept. of Justice leads coordinated mass arrests of
radicals and anarchists in 33 cities, jailing a total
...................................of 2,700 people
.......................The country celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower
landing at Plymouth Rock, with a series
...................................of patriotic
celebrations
.......................Women's Bureau established in the Dept. of Labor, under
the direction of Mary Anderson
.......................League of Women voters founded in Chicago
.......................Alien Land Tax of CA prevents Japanese immigrants from
owning farms
.......................Presidential election returns 1st broadcast on radio,
from KDKA in Pittsburgh
.......................Marcus Garvey's Universal Improvement Association holds
national convention in Harlem; 1st African
...................................American mass
movement
.......................Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian-born left-wing labor agitators,
indicted for alleged payroll robbery,
...................................executed 1927
.......................Bomb explodes on Wall Street at the JP Morgan Bank, kills
33 and injures 400; ignited by anarchist
.......................According to the 1920 census, for the 1st time more than
half of all Americans live in cities
.......................Earthquake in Kansu Province, China, kills 200,000
.......................Joan of Arc canonized by Pope Benedict XV
.......................Swiss psychiatrist Herman Rorschach develops ink blot
tests
.......................Negro National League formed, 1st professional baseball
association for African Americans
.......................Dadaism: international exposition in Berlin
.......................Mamie Smith, 1st African American to record blues songs
commercially
.......................Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles;
Colette, Cheri; Edith Wharton, The Age of
...................................Innocence;
Sinclair Lewis, Main Street; F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of
Paradise; Ezra
...................................Pound, Hugh
Selwyn Mauberley; T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood
1921................Warren G. Harding inaugurated 29th US President
.......................Tomb of the Unknown Soldier dedicated at Arlington National
Cemetery
.......................Eugene Debs, American Socialist Party leader, pardoned
.......................Immigration Quota Law enacted to severely restrict immigration
.......................US General Accounting Office formed
.......................Alice Robertson (OK) becomes 1st woman to preside over
the House of Representatives
.......................1st transcontinental air mail flight from San Francisco
to NY
.......................1st aerial crop dusting, by pilot John Macready in Dayton
OH, for the US Dept. of Agriculture
.......................Sacco and Vanzetti found guilty of murder
.......................KKK activities throughout the South, branding, whipping,
and lynching African Americans and
...................................sympathizers
.......................Race riot in Tulsa OK leaves 85 dead; Negro section of
town leveled
.......................Hitler's storm troopers begin to terrorize political
opponents in Germany
.......................Albert Einstein awarded Nobel Prize in Physics; Einstein
lectures in the US on the theory of
...................................relativity
.......................Radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh transmits 1st regular
radio programs in US
.......................Corsets go out of fashion
.......................1st "Miss America" beauty pageant held, in
Atlantic City, NJ, the winner is 15-year-old Margaret
...................................Gorman of DC
.......................1st Band-Aids developed by Johnson & Johnson employee
Earle Dickson
.......................Ulysses S. Grant Memorial installed at the base of Capitol
Hill in DC
......................."Shuffle Along," Broadway show with all African
American cast, opens in NYC
.......................Albert Einstein wins Nobel Prize
.......................Edgar Arlington Robinson wins Pulitzer Prize in Literature
.......................Marianne Moore, Poems (pub. in London); John
Dos Passos, Three Soldiers; Sherwood Anderson,
...................................The Triumph
of the Egg; D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love; E.A. Robinson, Collected
Poems
1922................KKK holds mass initiations in Tulsa
.......................Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leases Teapot Dome
oil reserve in Wyoming in exchange
...................................for illegal cash
and kickbacks
.......................Anti-lynching legislation passed in the House but filibustered
in the Senate
.......................Ozawa v. US: US Supreme Court rules Japanese are ineligible
for US citizenship
.......................Rebecca L. Felton elected 1st woman Senator
.......................Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC completed, designed
by Henry Bacon with sculpture by
...................................Daniel Chester
French
.......................Knickerbocker Theater roof collapses from 26-inch snowfall;
97 die in worst DC snowstorm
.......................Mussolini marches on Rome, forms Fascist government
.......................British archeologists open tomb of King Tutankhamen
.......................A Chippewa man thought to the the oldest living human
dies at age 137 in Minnesota
.......................1st documentary art film, "Nanook of the North,"
by Robert Flaherty
.......................Joseph Stella, The Voice of the City of New York
Interpreted: The Bridge
.......................Reader's Digest begins publication
.......................E. A. Robinson wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; James Joyce, Ulysses;
Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; Claude
...................................McKay, Harlem
Shadows; James Weldon Johnson, ed., The Book of American Negro Poetry;
...................................F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Tales of the Jazz Age
1923................b. Denise Levertov
.......................Calvin Coolidge inaugurated 30th US President after death
of Warren Harding
.......................Teapot Dome Scandal over leasing of government oil reserves
in WY; Secretary of the Interior Albert
...................................Fall is convicted
and becomes the only cabinet member in history to be imprisoned for
...................................crimes committed
in office
.......................Coolidge becomes 1st US President to broadcast speeches
on the radio, including his 1st address to
...................................Congress
.......................Tri-State conclave of KKK in Kokomo, IN; 200,000 members
attend
.......................African American town of Rosewood, FL completely destroyed
by a white mob; many residents
...................................murdered
.......................Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson opens Angelus Temple
in LA with seating for 5,000
.......................1st traffic stop lights, developed by African American
inventor Garrett Augustus Morgan
.......................1st birth control clinic opens in NY
.......................Insulin treatments for diabetics 1st used
.......................Nazi party holds 1st congress in Munich
.......................Earthquake in Tokyo and Yokohama; 120,000 dead
.......................Freer Gallery of Art opens in Washington DC
.......................The Charleston dance popularized after being introduced
in the Broadway show "Runnin' Wild"
.......................Time Magazine begins publication
.......................Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp Weaver, wins
Pulitzer Prize; Nobel Prize in Literature to W.B. Yeats
.......................Jean Toomer, Cane; e.e. cummings, The Enormous
Room; Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, W.C. Williams,
...................................Spring and
All
1924................Native Americans granted US citizenship by US Congress
.......................US immigration bill excludes all Japanese and limits
total immigration to 2% of any nationality
...................................already in the
US, as counted in the 1890 census, thus giving preference to western
...................................Europeans
.......................J. Edgar Hoover appointed Director of FBI
.......................1st female governor elected in TX: Miriam “"Ma"
Ferguson
........................Pres. Calvin Coolidge's son dies of blood poisoning
.......................1st use of radio advertising in a presidential campaign
.......................Clarence Birdseye develops frozen food
.......................Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly begins the fad of flagpole
sitting
.......................1st exhibition of American Folk Art at the Whitney Studio
Club in NYC
.......................Washington Senators baseball team wins 1st and only World
Series
.......................Robert Frost wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Marianne Moore, Observations; Jessie Fauset,
There Is Confusion; E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
1925................d. Amy Lowell
.......................John T. Scopes goes on trial for violating TN law prohibiting
the teaching of the theory of evolution;
...................................convicted then
acquitted on a technicality
........................Nellie Tayloe Ross (WY) elected 1st woman governor
........................Lucille Atcherson (OH) appointed 1st woman to hold a
diplomatic post, part of the American legation
...................................in Switzerland
.......................Chrysler Motor Co. founded by Walter Chrysler
.......................Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized; A. Philip
Randolph is President
.......................Marcus Garvey, leader of the Universal Negro Improvement
Assn., indicted for mail fraud and sentenced
...................................to 5
years in jail
........................Largest KKK march: 40,000 demonstrate on the Mall in
DC
........................David Stephenson, IN grand dragon of the KKK, convicted
of murder
.......................Hitler reorganizes the Nazi Party, publishes Vol. 1 of
Mein Kampf
.......................Art Deco style popularized by major exhibition in Paris
.......................Josephine Baker becomes a star of the Paris stage
.......................Crossword puzzles become popular
.......................1st air-conditioned movie theater: the Rivoli in NYC
.......................1st Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade held in NYC
.......................Tribune Tower opens in Chicago, IL, a 36-story gothic building incorporating stones from famous sites
...............................................from around the world in the base
.......................1st Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Aaron Copland
.......................E. A. Robinson wins 2nd Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Survey Graphic publishes a special issue on
"the New Negro," edited by Alain Locke; start of the Harlem
...................................Renaissance
.......................The New Yorker magazine begins publication;
Marianne Moore becomes editor of The Dial
.......................Pulitzer Prizes in Literature to Sinclair Lewis and
E.A. Robinson
.......................Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans; F.
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Sherwood Anderson,
...................................Dark Laughter;
Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy; Ernest Hemingway, In Our
Time;
...................................Anita
Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Edna Ferber, So Big; Countee
Cullen, Color; Alain Locke,
...................................Ed.,
The New Negro
1926................Corrigan v. Buckley: US Supreme Court upholds racially restrictive
covenants between homeowners
.......................Ford Auto Co. institutes the 5 day, 8 hour a day, work
week
.......................Massive flooding in the Mississippi River valley from
IL to LA kills approximately 1,000 people
...................... Sarah Lawrence College founded in NY
.......................Kodak produces 1st 16mm movie film
.......................Fascist youth organizations founded in Germany and Italy
.......................Scottish inventor John L. Baird demonstrates television
.......................Mayan temples found in Mexico by American archeologists
.......................1st flights over the North Pole by American and Norwegian
teams
.......................American Gertrude Ederle is 1st woman to swim the English
Channel
.......................National Capital Park and Planning Commission established
in DC
.......................Public Buildings Act in DC leads to construction of many
Federal buildings
.......................National Broadcasting Company (NBC) organized
.......................Book-of-the-Month Club founded, 1st to sell books by
subscription
.......................1st feature movie with a soundtrack, Don Juan, includes
musical background and sound effects (but
...................................no dialogue);
stars John Barrymore, Mary Astor and Myrna Loy
.......................Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany
.......................Langston Hughes publishes his essay, "The Negro
Artist and the Racial Mountain," in The Nation in June
.......................Amy Lowell wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises; Amy Lowell,
What's O'Clock; Edna Ferber, Show Boat;
...................................Langston Hughes,
The Weary Blues; A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh; Hart Crane,
White Buildings
1927................Sacco and Vanzetti executed by electrocution in MA, despite
widespread protests
.......................US Federal Radio Commission created
.......................Charles Lindbergh makes transatlantic solo flight in
The Spirit of St. Louis, nonstop from NY to Paris
...................................in 33.5 hours
.......................Herbert Hoover coordinates relief efforts for flood victims
in the Mississippi River Valley
.......................Iron Lung developed to treat coal gas poisoning; it will
later become widely used in treating polio
.......................Josephine Baker becomes a star in Paris
.......................Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs for the NY Yankees
.......................Academy of Motional Picture Arts and Sciences founded
........................Henry Ford begins production of the Model A
.......................1st talking movie: The Jazz Singer, starring
Al Jolson, top-grossing movie of the year
.......................1st primitive TV set invented by Philo Farnsworth
.......................Duke Ellington Band begins performing at The Cotton Club
in Harlem
.......................Leonora Speyer wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Mourning
Dove (Hum-Ishu-Ma), Cogowea, the Half Blood (1st
...................................novel by a Native
American woman); Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Ole
...................................Rölvaag,
Giants in the Earth (English trans.); Willa Cather, Death Comes
for the Archbishop;
.................................. James
Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones;.Langston
Hughes, Fine Clothes to the Jew; Countee
..................................Cullen,
ed., Caroling Dusk
1928................b. Anne Sexton
.......................Herbert Hoover inaugurated 31st US President
.......................Stock Market crash on “"Black Friday";
beginning of the Great Depression in US and world economic
...................................crisis
.......................Oscar S. DePriest elected to the House of Representatives
from Illinois; 1st African American in Congress
...................................after nearly
a three-decade dry stretch; 1st Northern African American ever elected to Congress
.......................St. Valentine's Massacre: 6 notorious Chicago gangsters
machine-gunned to death by rival gang
.......................Alexander Fleming of Britain discovers penicillin
.......................Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic
Ocean
.......................Woman's suffrage in Britain reduced from 30 to 21
.......................1st scheduled TV broadcasts by WGY in NY
.......................Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) organized
.......................1st La-Z-Boy chair, developed by Edward M. Knabusch and
Edwin J. Shoemaker
.......................Janet Gaynor, 1st woman to win Best Actress Oscar Award
.......................1st Mickey Mouse films produced by Walt Disney Company
.......................1st presliced bread, developed by American inventor Otto
Frederick Rohwedder
.......................The California State Park Survey, also known as the Olmsted
Report, sets aside natural and developed areas
...................................for the protection
of redwoods, among other things; this conservation plan is still followed today
.......................Franz Boas publishes Anthropology and Modern Life,
a refutation of the Fascist theory of a master race
.......................At Olympic Games in Amsterdam, women compete for the
1st time
.......................Archive of American Folk Song established
.......................Chateau-Thierry Monument dedicated in France, housing
graves of US and French Armed Forces from
...................................WWI, designed
by Paul Cret
.......................Charles Demuth, The Figure 5 in Gold
.......................E.A. Robinson wins 3rd Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown's Body;
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Buck in Snow; Virginia Woolf, A
...................................Room Of One's
Own; Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; Margaret Mead, The
Coming of Age
...................................in Samoa;
DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover; Claude McKay, Home to Harlem;
Nella Larsen,
...................................Quicksand;
Thomas Hardy, Winter Words (posthumous)
1929................b. Adrienne Rich
.......................Herbert Hoover inaugurated 31st US President
.......................Collapse of the US Stock Exchange on "Black Tuesday"
(Oct 29) brings on the start of the Great
...................................Depression (through
1939), the longest and most severe economic depression in the industrialized
...................................world
.......................Albert Fall, Sec'y of the Interior under Coolidge indicted
for bribery in Teapot Dome Scandal
.......................Einstein publishes his Unified Field Theory
.......................St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago: 6 gangsters
of the Bugs Moran gang and one bystander killed by
..................................rivals
suspected to be Al Capone's men
.......................1st canned food sold by Gerber Co.
.......................The cure for pellagra discovered by Dr. Conrad Elvehjem
of the Univ. of WI: once common among the poor,
...................................the disease is
caused by a deficiency of niacin
.......................US and Canada sign agreement for the preservation of
Niagara Falls and development of hydropower along
..................................the border
.......................New US paper currency issued, smaller by one-third
.......................Edition of Emily Dickinson's poems published with 150
new poems
.......................1st Academy Awards for movie industry from the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
.......................Bell Labs experiment with color TV, unveils prototype
.......................1st crystal clocks, accurate to one second in ten years
.......................Richard Neutra, Philip Lovell House, Los Angeles
.......................Museum of Modern Art in NY opens
.......................John Steuart Curry, Tornado over Kansas
.......................Stephen Vincent Benet wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; Erich
Maria Remarque,.All Quiet on the Western Front;
Jessie
...................................Fauset,
Plum Bun; William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Wallace Thurman,
The Blacker
...................................the
Berry; Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
1930................Pluto discovered by C.W. Tombaugh
.......................Mahatma Gandhi leads the Salt March; civil disobedience
spreads in India against British rule
.......................Scotch tape developed by engineer Richard Drew of 3M
.......................William van Alen, Chrysler Building, New York
.......................Grant Wood, American Gothic
.......................Conrad Aiken wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Hart Crane, The Bridge; Robert Frost, Collected
Poems; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Langston Hughes,
...................................Not
Without Laughter; T.S. Eliot, Ash-Wednesday
1931................US Senate passes Veterans Compensation Act over Pres. Hoover's
veto
......................."Star Spangled Banner"” becomes official
US anthem, words by Francis Scott Key
.......................Hattie T. Caraway (D-AR), 1st woman elected to Senate
......................."Scottsboro Boys" trial: 9 AL African-American
men accused of raping 2 white women
......................."Marigold Report" becomes the NAACP's legal
strategy against segregation, with a focus on fighting
...................................segregation in
schools
.......................Coal miners and operators in Harlan County, KY wage industrial
war
.......................Gangster Al Capone imprisoned for tax evasion
.......................Jehovah's Witnesses founded
.......................Massive flooding on the Huang He River in China causes
an estimated 3.7 million deaths, the deadliest
...................................natural
disaster ever recorded
.......................Jane Addams, founder of Hull House and the Women's League
for Peace and Freedom awarded Nobel
...................................Peace
Prize
.......................Empire State Building completed in NY; Rockefeller Center
construction begins; George Washington
...................................Bridge
completed, connecting NJ and NY
.......................Alexander Calder develops the first mobiles, sculptures
that are suspended and move kinetically; Charles
...................................Sheeler,
Classic Landscape
.......................Robert Frost wins 2nd Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth; Robert Frost's
Collected Poems awarded Pulitzer Prize; Langston Hughes,
...................................Dear Lovely
Death (limited edition); Langston Hughes, The Negro Mother; James
Weldon Johnson,
...................................Black
Manhattan
1932................b. Sylvia Plath
.......................US Federal Reserve System reorganized
.......................17,000 WWI veterans march on Washington to demand their
“"bonus pay" ; bill defeated by Senate;
...................................Hoover
offers to pay fares home; those that remain are evicted by US Army under Gen.
...................................Douglas
MacArthur
.......................Roosevelt uses the phrase “"New Deal"
in a speech accepting Democratic presidential nomination
.......................1st unemployment insurance law enacted in WI
.......................Construction begins on Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
.......................Amelia Earhart makes solo flight across the Atlantic
Ocean, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in 15 hours
.......................Lindbergh baby kidnapping electrifies the nation; the
20-month-old son of aviation hero Charles
...................................Lindbergh
is discovered dead two months later
.......................Development of 1st vaccine against Yellow Fever, by researchers
at the Rockefeller Fdn. in NYC
.......................Ford develops the V-8
.......................Folger Shakespeare Library opens, Washington, DC
.......................Tomb of the Unknowns dedicated at Arlington National
Cemetery
.......................George Washington Masonic National Memorial opens in Arlington, VA
.......................International Peace Garden opens, site straddles North Dakota and Manitoba
.......................George Dillon wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Sterling Brown, Southern Road; Langston Hughes,
Scottsboro Limited; Langston Hughes, The Dream Keeper
...................................(for
children); Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, Popo and Fifina (for
children); Aldous Huxley,
...................................Brave New
World; Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man; John Dos.Passos,
1919; William Faulkner,
.................................. Light
in August
1933................Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated 32nd US President,
serves 4 terms, the longest of any Pres.
.......................20th Amendment changes the date of Presidential inaugurations
to January 20
.......................Prohibition repealed (21st Amendment)
.......................Frances Perkins becomes 1st woman cabinet member when
she is named Secretary of Labor
.......................US Congress votes independence for Philippines
.......................US Congress passes Agricultural Adjustment and Federal
Emergency Relief Acts
.......................Adolph Hitler appointed German Chancellor; 1st concentration
camps erected; boycott of Jews begins;
...................................Mass
censorship in Germany; approx. 60,000 artists emigrate (through 1939); Dachau
prison
...................................camp built; books
by Jews and other "undesirables" publicly burned
.......................Chicago World's Fair opens
.......................Nobel Prize for Physics to Thomas Hunt Morgan for discovery
of heredity transmission function of
...................................chromosomes
.......................Albert Einstein moves to US; takes teaching post at Princeton
University
.......................Hocutt v. NC: NAACP challenge fails to desegregate higher
eduation in NC
.......................George Ballanchine and Lincoln Kirstein found the School
of American Ballet
.......................Philo Farnsworth develops electronic TV
.......................Pres. Roosevelt begins radio broadcasts, "Fireside
Chats"
.......................Leadbelly makes his first recordings for the Library
of Congress
.......................Movie premiere of "King Kong"; special effects
include stop-action photography, miniaturization
...................................and
rear projection
.......................Archibald MacLeish wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas;
W.B. Yeats, Collected Poems; Nathaniel West, Miss
...................................Lonelyhearts;
James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way
1934................b. Audre Lorde
.......................The New Deal: Pres. Roosevelt inaugurates jobs programs
such as the Civilian Conservation Corps to
...................................combat
Depression; US Gold Reserve Act authorizes Pres. to revalue the dollar; US Federal
...................................Farm
Mortgage Corp. organized
.......................Nazi forced sterilizations of gypsies, African-Germans,
mentally and physically disabled begins
.......................Bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde killed in police ambush
.......................Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the Jealous Lover
of Lone Green Valley
.......................Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's opera, “"Four
Saints in Three Acts,"”opens in Hartford CT
.......................Robert Hillyer wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Langston Hughes, The Ways of White Folks; F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night; Henry Roth, Call It
...................................Sleep;
Nancy Cunard, ed., Negro, An Anthology
1935................Dust Bowl: crops ruined in KS, CO, WY, OK, TX, NM; many
leave farms and head west toward CA
.......................New Deal: Labor Relations Act supports unions and investigates
unfair employment practices; Social
...................................Security
Act provides comprehensive care for elderly, disabled, and unemployed
.......................United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis forms the CIO,
a union to represent industrial workers
.......................Rise of fascism in Europe; Nazis repudiate Versailles
Treaty and reintroduce compulsory military
...................................service;
Nuremberg Laws against Jews enacted in Germany
.......................National Council of Negro Women founded by Mary McLeod
Bethune
.......................Hollins v. OK: US Supreme Court overturns death penalty
of an African American convicted of rape
...................................on the grounds
that no African American had served on juries in the County within living
...................................memory
.......................Charles Richter, US scientist, develops a system to measure
the strength of earthquakes
.......................Alcoholics Anonymous organizes in NY, developed by Bill
W. (a stockbroker) and Dr. Bob S. (a surgeon)
.......................1st parking meters, developed by OK journalist Carl Magee
.......................Nazi propaganda documentary, "Triumph of the Will,"
by Leni Riefenstahl
.......................US Supreme Court building constructed in Washington, DC
.......................1st annual cherry blossom festival celebrated in Washington,
DC
.......................Federal Writers Project established (runs through 1939)
.......................Audrey Wudenmann wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Marianne Moore, Selected Poems; Zora Neale Hurston,
Mules and Men; John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat;
.................................. Ernest
Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa; May Miller, Negro History in
Thirteen Plays; E. A.
...................................Robinson,
King Jasper (posthumous); T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems
1936................Floods sweep Johnstown, PA
.......................Jessie Owens wins 4 Olympic gold medals at Berlin Olympics
.......................Nazi troops enter Rhineland; Germany, Japan, and Italy
form Axis
.......................Mary McLeod Bethune appointed Director of Negro Affairs
of the National Youth
...................................Administration;
1st major appontment of an African American woman in the Federal
...................................government
.......................Spanish Civil War (through 1939)
.......................Hoover Dam completed on Colorado River in NV, the world's
tallest dam at that time, generating
...................................electricty
and creating Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the world
.......................Dr. Alexis Carrel develops artificial heart
.......................1st suntan lotion developed by L'Oreal founder Eugene
Schueller
.......................Frank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water, Bear Run, PA
.......................Life Magazine begins publication
.......................Federal Theatre Project established
.......................New Directions Press founded by James McLaughlin; eventually
publishes Lwrence Ferlinghetti,
...................................Marianne Moore,
Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, and Tennessee Williams, among others
.......................Robert P. Tristram Coffin wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Marianne Moore, What Are Years?; Margaret Mitchell,
Gone With the Wind; William Faulker, Absalom,
...................................Absalom!
1937................US Supreme Court rules in favor of minimum wage law for
women
.......................1st jet engine built by Frank Whittle
.......................1st African American Federal judge appointed, William
H. Hastie
.......................Insulin used to control diabetes
.......................Amelia Earhart lost on Pacific flight
.......................Boxer Joe Louis wins world heavyweight championship
.......................Dirigible Hindenburg destroyed by fire in NJ;
33 dead; described in 1st transcontinental radio broadcast
.......................Spam, a spiced ham product packaged in cans, introduced
by Hormel Foods
.......................Gold Gate Bridge opens, San Francisco; architect, Joseph
B. Strauss
.......................Fallingwater completed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright
in Bear Run, PA
.......................Picasso exhibits “"Guernica" mural at
Paris World Exhibition
.......................Paul Mellon endows National Gallery, Washington DC
.......................Robert Frost wins 3rd Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God;
Isak Dineson, Out of Africa; John Steinbeck, Of
...................................Mice
and Men
1938................40 hour work week established in US
.......................Supreme Court rules Univ. of Missouri Law School must
admit African-Americans because of lack of
................................... other
facilities in the area
.......................Harvard Univ. grants honorary degree to Marian Anderson,
African-American singer
.......................Pres. Roosevelt sends appeal to Hitler and Mussolini
to settle European problems amicably
.......................Progroms in Germany against Jews, Gypsies, gays, political
protesters; Nazis invade Austria and
...................................Sudetenland;
Krystalnacht rampage in Berlin against Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues
...................................lead to deaths
of 91 Jews and 26,000 are sent to concentration camps
.......................NY becomes 1st state to require medical tests before
issuing marriage licenses
.......................1st cars with automatic transmissions, the Chrysler Fluid
Drive
.......................Supercomics debuts Action Comics No. 1, created by Jerry
Siegel and Joseph Shuster
.......................Walter Gropius, Gropius House, Lincoln, MA
.......................Marya Zaturenska wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Delmore Schwartz, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities;
Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poetry; Marjorie
...................................Kinnan
Rawlings, The Yearling (wins Pulitzer Prize for novel); Thornton Wilder,
Our Town
...................................(wins
Pulitzer Prize for Drama); Richard Wright, Uncle Tom's Children; W.C.
Williams,
...................................Complete
Collected Poems
1939................Pres. Roosevelt asks Congress for additional defense funding
and demands assurances from Hitler and
...................................Mussolini
that they will not attack US
.......................Pres. Roosevelt becomes 1st US Pres. to appear on TV
.......................Igor Stravinsky constructs 1st helicopter
.......................WWII: Germany, Britain, France, USSR declare war; women
and children evacuated from London; US
...................................supplies
European allies with arms and equipment; Germans overrun western Poland; USSR
...................................invades
Poland from the east; British Expeditionary Force sent to France
.......................Coal strike by United Mine Workers under John L. Lewis
.......................NAACP establishes a Legal Defense and Educational Fund
to fight discrimination and segregation in the
...................................courts
.......................1st FM radio, WDRC-FM
.......................1st nylon stockings
.......................NY World's Fair features the Trylon and the Perisphere
.......................Greatest year in movie history: releases include Gone
With The Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
...................................Stagecoach,
The Wizard of Oxz, Wuthering Heights, Only Angels Have Wings, and Gunga
Din
.......................Hattie McDaniel becomes 1st African American woman to
win a best supporting actress Oscar, for her
...................................role
as Mammy in the movie "Gone With the Wind"
.......................Philip Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone, Museum of Modern
Art, NYC; Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater
.......................1st mass-market paperbacks in the US: Pocket Books
.......................John Gould Fletcher wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath; James Joyce,
Finnegan's Wake; Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep;
.................................. Dorothy
Parker, Here Lies; Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust;
W. B. Yeats, Last Poems
1940................WWII: Italy enters war; Germans launch Blitzkrieg in Belgium
and the Netherlands; Allies evacuated
...................................from
Dunkirk; Germans enter Paris; blitz over Britain; US institutes a military draft
lottery;
...................................food
rationing in Britain; Finland signs peace treaty with USSR; Germany invades
Norway and
...................................Denmark;
Dutch and Belgian armies capitulate to Germans; Germans enter Paris; RAF begins
...................................night
bombing of Germany; Japan, Germany and Italy sign pact; Germany intensifies
U-boat
...................................warfare;
Auschwitz designated a Nazi death camp for the "Final Solution"
.......................1st African American general in US Armed Forces, Benjamin
O. Davis; FDR rules out troop integration
...................................for
reasons of "morale"
.......................1st electron microscope, Radio Corp. of America, NJ
.......................1st polyester fiber, developed by British chemists John
Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson
.......................1st nylon stockings debut at the NY World's Fair (at
the Wonder World of Chemistry exhibit)
.......................Albert Einstein becomes US citizen
.......................Bald Eagle, a symbol of US, added to the Endangered Species
list
.......................Lascaux caves discovered in France; prehistoric cave
paintings are approx. 20,000 BCE
.......................Mark Van Doren wins Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
.......................Richard Wright, Native Son; John Steinbeck,
Of Mice and Men; Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the
...................................Bell
Tolls; Langston Hughes, The Big Sea; Ezra Pound, Cantos;
Robert Hayden, Heart-Shape
...................................in the
Dust;Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again; John O'Hara, Pal
Joey