American women win the vote

Apartheid ends in South Africa:
law to treat races equally

Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs --
a single-season record that would last for 34 years

Bill Gates and Paul Allen start Microsoft Corp.
to develop software for Altair computer

Brown vs. Board of Education
ends 'separate but equal' school segregation

Congress passes 'GI Bill of Rights' to help veterans

Deadly AIDS disease identified

Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine proven effective in University of Pittsburgh tests

First jet airplane takes flight

Germany surrenders: V.E. Day celebrated

Henry Ford organizes the first major U.S. assembly line to produce Model T cars

Hitler launches 'Kristallnacht,' ordering Nazis to commit acts of violence against German Jews

Israel achieves statehood

Mao Tse-tung establishes Peoples Republic of China: Nationalists flee to Formosa (Taiwan)

Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet Premier:
begins era of 'Glasnost'

Panama Canal opens,
linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' stimulates environmental protection movement

Scientists at Bell Labs invent the transistor

U.S.S.R dissolves,
Mikhail Gorbachev resigns: Boris Yeltsin takes over

United Nations is officially established

Soviets launch Sputnik, first space satellite:
space race begins

United States withdraws last ground troops from Vietnam

Violence erupts at Democratic National Convention in Chicago

White House sex scandal leads to
impeachment of President Bill Clinton

Worldwide Spanish flu epidemic kills 20 million