Age of Hope(1900-1914)About the Series | Episodes | Timeline | Your Stories | Thematic Overview | Teacher's Guide
Sporting Fever(1900-1938)
(1900) World population: 1.6 billion
Paris World's Fair showcases electricity
(1905) First Russian Revolution Fails
(1912) China becomes a republic
African National Congress founded
(1900)
Women compete in the Olympics for the first time
(1927)
Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs
(1930)
First World Cup soccer match
(1936)
Hitler uses Berlin Olympics to showcase his Nazi propaganda
On the Line(1908-1945)
(1908)
Model T touring car introduced; price: $850
(1913)
Model T touring car first produced on assembly line
(1916)
Model T touring car price: $360
(1936)
United Auto Workers' first sit-down strike
Widespread labor strike in France
Killing Fields(1914-1918)
(1914)
WW I begins
(1916)
Battle of Verdun
(1917)
U.S. enters war
(1918)
WW I ends
Red Flag(1917-1940)
(1917)
Bolsheviks seize power in Russia
(1924)
Lenin dies
(1928)
Stalin becomes Soviet leader
(1929)
Forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture begins
(1934)
Stalin's purge of political leaders begin
Half the People(1917-1996)
(1920)
U.S. women win right to vote
(1945) Women's suffrage becomes law in France
(1963)
The Feminine Mystique is published
(1973)
Roe v. Wade decision legalizes abortion
(1982)
Equal Rights Amendment bill defeated
Lost Peace(1919-1935)
(1919)
League of Nations founded
Treaty of Versailles drawn up
(1932)
League of Nations holds World Disarmament Conference
(1933)
Hitler becomes German chancellor
(1935)
Italy invades Ethiopia
Master race(1926-1945) (1923) Hitler completes Mein Kampf (1938) Germany annexes Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia Kristallnacht accelerates Holocaust (1942) Nazi leaders commence ³Final Solution² (1945) Allies liberate death camps Picture Power(1939 - 1997) (1925) First Television transmission (1936) BBC inaugurates television service (1939) NBC broadcasts opening ceremonies World's Fair (1960) First televised U.S. presidential debate (1964) Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show : 73 million viewers (1968) Corporation for Public Broadcasting established (1972) Taking of Israeli hostages at Olympics televised around the world Great Escape(1895 -1964) (1925) Chaplin makes The Gold Rush (1927) First sound movie made: The Jazz Singer (1933) First drive-in theater in the U.S. (1940) John Ford's Grapes of Wrath reflects Great Depression (1944) Lawrence Olivier inspires British in Henry V Breadline(1929-1939) (1929) U.S. stock market crash Worldwide economic depression (1932) U.S. jobless rate reaches 25% (1933) New Deal initiates economic recovery Total War(1939-1945) (1939) WW II begins (1940) Battle of Britain begins (1941) Japan bombs Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters war (1944) Siege of Leningrad lifted (1945) Atomic bombs dropped on Japan; WW II ends Fallout(1945-1995) (1942) U.S. begins building atomic bomb (1949) First Soviet atomic bomb (1954) First nuclear power plant built (1963) Partial Test-Ban Treaty prohibits nuclear explosions (1986) Chernobyl nuclear accident Brave New World(1945-1961) (1945) UN formed (1947) Truman Doctrine challenges Soviet expansion (1949) NATO established (1956) Soviet crush (1961) Berlin Wall built BoomTime(1945-1973) (1947) Levvitown founded (1948) Marshall Plan initiated (1950) First credit card issued in U.S. (1957) European Economic Community founded (1958) Disneyland opens Skin Deep(1945-1994) (1948) Apartheid established in South Africa (1954) Brown v. Board of Education decision mandates U.S. school segregation (1964) Civil Rights Act adopted in U.S. (1976) Uprising in Soweto, South Africa (1994) Mandela elected in South Africa's first free elections Freedom Now(1947-1990) (1947) India gains independence (1954) Vietnam gains independence (1956) Suez Canal crisis (1957) Ghana gains independence (1975) North and South Vietnam reunited as one country (1990) Namibia, Africa's last colony, gains independence Living Longer(1944-1996) (1948) World Health Organization established (1955) Salk announces polio vaccine (1980) Global eradication of smallpox declared (1981) HIV identified Asia Rising(1951-1988) (1952) Allied military occupation of Japan ends (1962) South Korea's first 5-Year Plan for economic reform begins (1976) 1.5 million Japanese cars sold in U.S. - half of the auto import market (1989) Japan becomes world's top lender Guerrilla Wars(1956-1989) (1954) North Vietnamese take Dien Bien Phu (1958) Castro overthrows Batista in Cuba (1965) U.S. enters Vietnam War (1973) U.S. withdraws from Vietnam (1979) Soviet troops enter Afghanistan Endangered Planet(1959-1990) (1956) Mercury poisoning found in Minamata, Japan (1962) Silent Spring published (1970) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created (1980) Residents' severe health problems linked to Love Canal, N.Y., chemical dump (1984) Toxic gas leak from insecticide plant in Bhopal, India Young Blood(1950-1975) (1964) Berkeley Free Speech Movement gains momentum (1967) March on Pentagon to protest Vietnam War (1968) Paris police and protestors clash (1969) Woodstock music festival God Fights Back(1978-1992) (1978) Shah of Iran declares martial law (1979) Islamic militants take hostages at U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran Jerry Falwell forms Moral Majority (1988) Pat Robertson runs for U.S. President People Power(1971-1991) (1980) Polish strikes inspire solidarity movement (1986) Gorbachev introduces glasnot and perestroika (1989) Berlin Wall torn down (1991) Soviet Union dissolved Fast Forward(1980-1997) (1991) Cold War ends; nationalism on the rise War begins in former Yugoslavia (1994) World Trade Organization ratified (1999) Estimated world population:6.2 billion
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