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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1614 | - 5 Apr 1614—5 Apr 1614: Pocahontas marries John Rolfe
Don’t blame Disney: Pocahontas was being mythologized from the moment she came cartwheeling into the English settlers’ fort as the barely clothed, free-spirited teenage daughter of Chief Powhatan. John Smith was the first to stoke the legend, penning the now-famous account of Pocahontas saving him from execution upon his 1607 capture by the Tsenacommacah. How much of his account is true is up for debate, but it is a matter of record that after Smith left Jamestown for England, Pocahontas was taken hostage by settlers seeking the return of their own people. Her father agreed to a prisoner exchange but having been baptized by the settlers, his daughter chose to stay among them — marrying John Rolfe in 1614. Two years later they set sail for England, where Pocahontas rebuked Smith for leaving Virginia and forsaking the promises he had made to her people. As Pocahontas and Rolfe were returning to the New World in 1617, she became seriously ill and died in her husband’s arms. Rolfe was killed in an Indian attack in Virginia in 1622, so he was not around to counter the Rolfe-Pocahontas-Smith love triangle idea later exploited by writer John Davis in his book “Travels in the United States of America.”
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| 2 | 1660 | - 1660—1660: Monarchy restored in England
Monarchy restored in England
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| 3 | 1707 | - 1707—1707: Union of England and Scotland
Union of England and Scotland
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| 4 | 1752 | - 10 Jun 1752—10 Jun 1752: Yosemite is named as the first US national park
Yosemite is named as the first US national park
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| 5 | 1770 | - 17 Dec 1770—17 Dec 1770: Ludwig Von Beethoven is born
Ludwig Von Beethoven is born
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| 6 | 1776 | - 1776—1776: Declaration of American Independence
American Declaration of Independence determines the political evolution of the New World and the rise of American power.
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| 7 | 1789 | - 1789—1789: French Revolution; George Washington elected the first President of America
French Revolution marks a fundamental break with the tradition of monarchy; the “rights of man” are enshrined.
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| 8 | 1794 | - 1794—1794: Whiskey Rebellion
As the new country began finding its feet, U.S. Pres. George Washington sent troops to western Pennsylvania in 1794 to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising by citizens who refused to pay a liquor tax that had been imposed by Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton to raise money for the national debt and to assert the power of the national government. Federalists cheered the triumph of national authority; members of the Thomas Jefferson’s Republican (later Democratic-Republican) Party were appalled by what they saw as government overreach. More than two centuries later, the names and faces have changed, but the story is ongoing.
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| 9 | 1798 | - 7 Jul 1798—7 Jul 1798: United States Marine Corps is established
The United States Marine Corps is established
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| 10 | 1803 | - 1803—1803: Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
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| 11 | 1804 | - 11 Jul 1804—11 Jul 1804: Alexander Hamilton shot by V.P. Aaron Burr in a duel
Alexander Hamilton shot by V.P. Aaron Burr in a duel
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| 12 | 1805 | - 1805—1805: Battle of Trafalagar and Nelson's death
Battle of Trafalagar and Nelson's death
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| 13 | 1825 | - 1825—1825: Rocket steam locomotive built
Rocket steam locomotive built, marking the start of the railway age of cheap, fast land transport.
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| 14 | 1836 | - 1836—1836: Telegraph Invented
Telegraph Invented
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| 15 | 1855 | - 1855—1855: First petrol-driven car
Benz develops first petrol-driven car, starting the most profound technical and social revolution of the modern age.
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| 16 | 1861 | - 12 Apr 1861—1861: US Civil War
US Civil War Started
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| 17 | 1865 | - 31 Jan 1865—31 Jan 1965: Slavery abolished
Congress passes 13th Amendment abolishing slavery
- 14 Apr 1865—1865: Abraham Lincoln Assassination
Abraham Lincoln Assassination
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| 18 | 1866 | - 13 Feb 1866—13 Feb 1866: Jesse James hold up his first bank in Liberty, MO
Jesse James hold up his first bank in Liberty, MO
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| 19 | 1872 | - 1 Nov 1872—1 Nov 1872: Susan B. Anthony casts a vote
By 1872, the Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified. Reconstruction was under way, and many Americans found it obscene that only one gender could participate in the most basic democratic exercise. Championing the rights of women was eloquent suffragette Susan B. Anthony, who, before the war, had been an abolitionist and prohibitionist. The temperance movement radicalized Anthony, though not in the way its leadership intended. Barred by men from speaking at anti-drinking rallies, she turned her intellect and ire away from the distillers and toward a bigger target: America’s male-dominated political system. And so, on the first day of November, she and three other women talked their way into registering to vote in a barbershop in the Eighth Ward in Rochester, NY. The male registrars didn’t want to do it, but Anthony threatened to sue them personally. The ballots they cast four days later were secret, but their sympathies were not: President Grant and his Republican Party were more receptive to women’s rights than the Democrats.
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| 20 | 1902 | - 1902—1902: 1st Electric Theatre
Thomas L. Tally opened his Electric Theater in Los Angeles, a radical new venture devoted to movies and other high-tech devices of the era, like audio recordings.
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| 21 | 1903 | - 15 Feb 1903—15 Feb 1903: The teddy bear debuts
In November 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt decided he needed a break from the White House. For the Rough Rider, a vacation meant hunting, so he traveled to Mississippi during bear-hunting season. On the second day of the trip, the hounds picked up a scent — and an aging 235-pound black bear was promptly clubbed and tied to a tree, awaiting the commander in chief’s lethal shot. Roosevelt, however, refused the unsportsmanlike opportunity. Although the bear was eventually euthanized, reporters’ stories still made the president seem merciful — and Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Berryman immortalized the moment with an illustration showing the old bear as a cute little cub and the president waving his arm: “Drawing the line in Mississippi,” it read. Brooklyn candy-shop owner Morris Michtom saw the cartoon and had an idea for his wife Rose to stitch up stuffed-toy bears. The president gave his permission to dub them “Teddy’s bears,” and knockoffs quickly abounded.
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| 22 | 1905 | - 1905—1905: Theory of special relativity published
Einstein’s theory of special relativity published. It transforms the nature of modern physical knowledge
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| 23 | 1914 | - 18 Jun 1914—1918: WW1
The Habsburg and Ottoman empires collapse; maps of Europe and the Middle East are redrawn.
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| 24 | 1915 | - 1 Jan 1915—1 Jan 1915: NYC’s first female cabbie gets behind the wheel
NYC’s first female cabbie gets behind the wheel
- 25 Jan 1915—25 Jan 1915: 1st Transatlantic phone call
Alexander Graham Bell makes 1st transcontinental phone call
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| 25 | 1929 | - 1929—1929: Stock Market Crash
“The chief business of the American people is business,” U.S. Pres. Calvin Coolidge said in 1925. And with the American economy humming during the “Roaring Twenties” (the Jazz Age), peace and prosperity reigned in the United States…until it didn’t. The era came to a close in October 1929 when the stock market crashed, setting the stage for years of economic deprivation and calamity during the Great Depression.
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| 26 | 1939 | - 1939—1945: WW2
Outbreak of Second World War: 50 million die worldwide from 1939-45 in the world’s largest and most deadly conflict, which ends the long age of imperialisms.
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| 27 | 1941 | - 7 Dec 1941—7 Dec 1941: Peal Harbor Attacked
Peal Harbor Attacked
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| 28 | 1944 | - 6 Jun 1944—6 Jun 1944: D Day
D Day
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| 29 | 1945 | - 1945—1945: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Having again stayed out of the initial stages of another worldwide conflict, the U.S. entered World War II on the side of the Allies following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 1941). In August 1945, with the war in Europe over and U.S. forces advancing on Japan, U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman ushered in the nuclear era by choosing to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in the hope that the terrible destruction unleashed would prevent an even greater loss of life that seemed likely with a protracted island-by-island invasion of Japan.
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| 30 | 1949 | - 1949—1949: Communist China founded
China is created as a single territorial unit with a common administration and a modernizing economy.
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| 31 | 1950 | - 1950—1950: Korean War
Korean War
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| 32 | 1955 | - 1 Nov 1955—1 Nov 1955: Start of Vietnam War
Start of Vietnam War
- 1 Dec 1955—1 Dec 1955: Rosa Parks arrested for not moving to the back of the bus
Rosa Parks arrested for not moving to the back of the bus
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| 33 | 1958 | - 1958—1958: NASA Formed
NASA Formed
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| 34 | 1959 | - 1959—1959: Silicon Chip invented
Invention of the silicon chip is the major technical invention of the past century, making possible the computer age.
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| 35 | 1960 | - 1960—1960: 1st Contraceptive Pill
First contraceptive pill made available for women, who can now make their own biological choices about reproduction.
- 1960—1960: Explosion of an atom bomb device by France
Explosion of an atom bomb device by France; Election of John F. Kennedy as President of USA
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1575 - 1632 (56 years)
