Mount Vesuvius destroys Pompeii and Herculaneum
Christopher Columbus lands in the Americas
Magellan circumnavigates the world
William Shakespeare is born
The Boston Tea Party
Adam Smith publishes 'The Wealth of Nations'
The Bastille is stormed
The Battle of Waterloo
'On the Origin of Species' is published
Abraham Lincoln is assassinated
The US buys Alaska from Russia
The Suez Canal opens
The modern Olympic Games is first held in Athens
Einstein publishes the Mass–Energy Equivalence: E=MC2
The Titanic sinks
The Battle of the Somme
The Bolshevik Revolution
Jesse Owens wins four gold medals
The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Cuban Missile Crisis
England wins the World Cup
First man lands on the moon
The Berlin Wall falls
Nelson Mandela is released from prison