Queen Victoria dies

First powered airplane flight by Orville Wright

Over 3000 people die as a result of the San Francisco earthquake

Robert Peary purportedly reaches North Pole

Roald Amundsen reaches geographic South Pole

Sinking of RMS Titanic

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

Battle of the Somme

Two Russian revolutions overthrow the Tsar aristocracy, leading to a communist government

Treaty of Versailles signed

First meeting of League of Nations

Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

The Wall Street crash leading to the Great Depression

First football World Cup

Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany

Beginning of the Spanish Civil War

Hindenburg disaster

Hitler invades Poland

Evacuation of Dunkirk

Attack on Pearl Harbor

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Creation of the State of Israel

George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is published

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Mount Everest

James Dean dies

The Suez crisis

The Russians send the first dog to orbit the earth in space

Cuban Missile Crisis

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Assassination of Malcolm X

Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr

First man on the moon

Nine Israeli athletes are taken hostage and killed by a Palestinian terrorist group at Olympics

Elvis Presley dies

Islamic Revolution in Iran

John Lennon is shot dead in New York

First Pope John Paul II assassination attempt

Chernobyl disaster

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Nelson Mandela is released from prison

Formal dissolution of the Soviet Union

The Rwandan genocide

Death of Princess Diana

President Clinton is impeached after the Lewinsky scandal

The euro is introduced into world financial markets