| Headline | Year |
Adolf Hitler named Chancellor of Germany: Nazi Party begins to seize power | |
| Alan Shepard becomes first American in space | |
| Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' inaugurates modern women's rights movement | |
| Charles Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic in first solo flight | |
Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion results in deaths of an estimated 7,000 | |
| Civil rights march converges on Washington, D.C.: Martin Luther King gives 'I Have A Dream' speech | |
| Communists build wall to divide East and West Berlin | |
Congress passes landmark Civil Rights Act outlawing segregation | |
| 'ENIAC' becomes world's first computer | |
| FDR launches 'New Deal:' sweeping federal economic, public works legislation to combat depression | |
| Joseph Stalin begins forced modernization of the Soviet Union: resulting famines claim 25 million | |
| John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas | |
| Max Planck proposes quantum theory of energy | |