1900’s-2000’s

World History 1900-1909

This gives some important historical events that occured during the period 1900-1909. This could make for great history projects.

1900’s – Edwardian Era, Gilded Age and Progressive Era

• 1901: Boxer Rebellion ends. Edward VII becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India upon the death of Queen Victoria. Platt Amendment limits the autonomy of Cuba in exchange for withdrawal of American troops.
• 1902: Second Boer War ends. Philippine–American War ends. Cuba gains independence from the United States.Unification of Saudi Arabia begins.
• 1903: First controlled heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Brothers. Herero and Namaqua Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, begins in German South-West Africa. In Russia the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks form from the breakup of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Pius X becomes Pope. The teddy bear is invented. Independence of Panama.
• 1904: Entente cordiale signed between Britain and France. Russo-Japanese War begins. Trans-Siberian railway is completed. Construction of the Panama Canal begins. Roger Casement publishes his account of Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State.
• 1905: Russo-Japanese War ends. Revolution of 1905 in Russia. Persian Constitutional Revolution begins. Trans-Siberian Railway opened. Albert Einstein‘s formulation of relativity. Schlieffen Plan proposed. Las Vegas founded. The British Indian Province of Bengal, was partitioned by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon.
• 1906: Earthquakes in San Francisco, California (death toll: 3000) and Valparaíso, Chile (death toll: 20,000) occur.Dreyfus Affair ends. Stolypin reform in Russia creates a new class of affluent kulaks. Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont takes off and flies his 14-bis to a crowd in Paris. The Muslim League is formed by Nawab Salimullah Khan ofDacca.
• 1907: Herero and Namaqua Genocide ends. A peasants’ revolt in Romania kills roughly 11,000. The Indian National Congress splits into two factions at its Surat session, presided by Rash Behari Bose. Persian Constitutional Revolutionends with the establishment of a parliament.
• 1908: First commercial radio transmissions. The Ford Motor Company invents the Model T. First commercial Middle-Eastern oilfield established, at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia. The Tunguska event (later conjectured to be a meteorite strike) devastates thousands of square kilometres of Siberia. Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Independence of Bulgaria. Austro-Hungary annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina, triggering the Bosnian Crisis. Pu Yi, the lastEmperor of China, assumes the throne.
• 1909: United States troops leave Cuba. Bosnian crisis ends with Austro-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to cross the English Channel by airplane. Robert E. Peary claims to have reached the North Pole though the claim is subsequently heavily contested.

1910’s – Timeline of World War I

• 1910: Beginning of the Mexican Revolution. George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India. Union of South Africa created. Portugal abolishes its Monarchy. Imperial Japan annexes Korea.Boy Scouts of America is founded. Halley’s Comet returns.
• 1911: Xinhai Revolution in China overthrows the Qing Dynasty. Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole. New Delhi becomes the capital of British India. Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus. The British Indian Province of Bengal is reunified. The Italo-Turkish war leads to the capture of Libya by Italy
• 1912 :End of the Chinese Empire; Republic of China established. The African National Congress is founded. Moroccobecomes a protectorate of France. Sinking of the RMS Titanic. Balkan Wars begin. Woodrow Wilson is elected 28th President of the United States. Arizona becomes the last state to be admitted to the continental Union. United States occupation of Nicaragua begins.
• 1913: Niels Bohr formulates the first cohesive model of the atomic nucleus, and in the process paves the way toquantum mechanics. Balkan Wars end. George I of Greece is assassinated. Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
• 1914: Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, triggering the start of World War I. The United Kingdom establishes the Sultanate of Egypt as a protectorate. Panama Canal opens. Benedict XVbecomes Pope. Martha, last known Passenger Pigeon, dies.
• 1915: The RMS Lusitania is sunk. The United States occupation of Haiti begins. Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. First use of poison gas at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and Second Battle of Ypres.
• 1916: Easter Rising in Ireland. The implementation of daylight saving time. Warlord Era begins in China. David Lloyd George becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Gallipoli Campaign fails. First use of tanks at theBattle of Flers-Courcelette. Battle of the Somme. Grigory Rasputin is assassinated by H.H. Prince Felix Youssoupov. The Pact is agreed upon by both the Congress and the Muslim League at the Indian city of Lucknow. Battle of Verdun. The Arab Revolt begins
• 1917: Russian Revolution ends the Russian Empire; beginning of Russian Civil War. USA join the Allies for the last 17 months of World War I. Independence of Poland recognised. The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded. October Revolutionin Russia.
• 1918: End of World War I. German Revolution begins. Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Spanish flu pandemic. Murder ofTsar Nicholas II and his family. Poland, Ukraine and Belarus are among a number of states to declare independence from Russia. Finnish Civil War. Mehmed VI becomes last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and last Caliph. Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire begins. The Kingdom of Iceland and The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs are established. The British occupy Palestine. Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen is founded. Azerbaijan Democratic Republic is declared. Armenian–Azerbaijani War begins.
• 1919: Treaty of Versailles redraws European borders. German Revolution ends with the collapse of the German Empire and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. Victory for Estonia in the Estonian War of Independence.League of Nations founded in Paris. Polish-Soviet War begins. The Italian National Fascist Party is established byBenito Mussolini. Comintern established. Egyptian Revolution of 1919. Turkish War of Independence begins. TheInternational Labor Organisation is established. Ernest Rutherford discovers the proton. First experimental evidence for the General theory of relativity obtained by Arthur Eddington.

1920’s – Roaring Twenties

• 1920: Mexican Revolution ends. Greece restores its monarchy after a referendum. Turkish–Armenian War is fought, and ends with victory for Turkey. Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan and Armenia ends the Armenian–Azerbaijani Warand concludes with their incorporation into the Soviet Union. Mohandas Gandhi launches Non-cooperation movement.

• 1921: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party as hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic begins. Russia invadesGeorgia and incorporates it into the Soviet Union. End of Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War. Coup brings thePahlavi dynasty to power in Iran.
• 1922: Ottoman Sultanate abolished by the Turkish Grand National Assembly; Sultan Mehmed VI is deposed. Irish Free State is established, while the Province of Northern Ireland is created within The United Kingdom. The Irish Civil Warbegins. The Italian reconquest of Libya begins. The union of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is dissolved. Egypt gains independence from the United Kingdom, though British forces still occupy the Suez Canal.March on Rome brings Benito Mussolini to power in Italy. Howard Carter discovers Tutankhamen’s tomb. Gabriel Narutowicz, President of Poland is assassinated. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the world’s first officially Communist state, is formed. Pius XI becomes Pope. James Joyce publishes Ulysses. The Washington Naval Treaty is signed. Mohandas Gandhi calls off Non-cooperation movement.
• 1923: Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic ends with the introduction of the Rentenmark. Time Magazine is first published. Irish Civil War ends. The Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic, ends in failure and brief imprisonment for Adolf Hitler but brings the Nazi Party to national attention. A military coup ousts and kills Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski. The Great Kantō earthquake kills at least 105,000 people in Japan.Ankara replaces Istanbul as the capital of Turkey, while Kemal Atatürk becomes the first President of the newly established Republic of Turkey. The Walt Disney Company is founded.
• 1924: Death of Vladimir Lenin triggers power struggle between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. The Caliphate is abolished by Kamal Atatürk. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation founded under J. Edgar Hoover. The August Uprising in Georgia against Soviet rule. George Gershwin composes Rhapsody In Blue. U.S. Immigration Act of 1924significantly restricts immigration from Asia, the Middle East, and Southern Europe.
• 1925: Benito Mussolini gains dictatorial powers in Italy. Mein Kampf is published. First televisual image created by John Logie Baird. Locarno Treaties are signed. Serum run to Nome.
• 1926: Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan. Coups in Greece, Poland and Portugal install new dictatorships.
• 1927: The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie”, is released. Joseph Stalin becomes leader of the Soviet Union. Chinese Civil War begins. Australian Parliament convenes in Canberra for the first time. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland officially becomes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Saudi Arabia gains independence. The BBC is granted a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. World population reaches 2 billion. Charles Lindbergh‘s flight to Paris.
• 1928: Discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming. Warlord Era ends in China. Malta becomes a British Dominion. KingZog I is crowned in Albania. The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed in Paris. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is established. Mickey Mouse is created at the Walt Disney Studio. Hassan al-Banna founds the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 1929: Wall Street crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression. Leon Trotsky is exiled First people sent to the gulag in the Soviet Union as Stalin assumes effective control. Pope Pius XI signs the Lateran Treaty with Italian leader Benito Mussolini. Vatican City is recognised as a sovereign state. The first Academy Awards are presented.

1930’s – Timeline of the Great Depression

• 1930: Aided by the Great Depression, the Nazi Party increases its share of the vote from 2.6% to 18.3%. Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. Salt March by Mohandas Gandhi and the official start of civil disobedience in British India. Military coups replace governments in Peru and Brazil. Haile Selassie becomes king of Abyssinia. First FIFA World Cuphosted.
• 1931: Floods in China kill up to 2.5 million people. Independence of South Africa. Construction of the Empire State Building. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is adopted as the United States‘s national anthem. The Second Spanish Republic is declared. The Chinese Soviet Republic is proclaimed by Mao Zedong. Statute of Westminster creates theBritish Commonwealth of Nations. Japan invades Manchuria, China and occupies it until the end of World War II.
• 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States. Éamon de Valera becomes President of the Executive Council (prime minister) of the Irish Free State. The Nazi party becomes the largest single party in the German parliament. Military coup in Chile. BBC World Service starts broadcasting. The Neutron is discovered.
• 1933: Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. New Deal begins in America. Japan and Germany announce they are going to leave the League of Nations. United States occupation of Nicaragua ends.
• 1934: Dictatorships begin in Brazil and Bolivia. Mao Zedong begins the Long March. United States occupation of Haitiends. United States grants more autonomy to the Philippines. Adolf Hitler instigates the Night of the Long Knives, which cements his power over both the Nazi Party and Germany. With the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler declares himself Fuhrer of Germany.
• 1935: Second Italo-Abyssinian War concludes with the exile of Haile Selassie and the conquest of Abyssinia by Benito Mussolini. Persia becomes Iran. William Lyon Mackenzie King is elected Prime Minister of Canada. Enactment of theNuremberg racial laws.
• 1936: Beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Great Purge begins under Stalin. Edward VIII becomes King of the British Commonwealth and Emperor of India, before abdicating and handing the throne to his brother, George VI. Hoover Dam is completed. Arab Revolt in Palestine against the British begins to oppose Jewish immigration. Italy annexesEthiopia. “Benjamin”, the last known thylacine, dies in Hobart Zoo.
• 1937: Japanese invasion of China, and the beginning of World War II in the Far East. Rape of Nanking. Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Irish Republican Army attempts to assassinate KingGeorge VI of the United Kingdom. Deaths of George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel. German zeppelin Hindenburgcrashes in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
• 1938: Anschluss unifies Germany and Austria. Munich agreement hands Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Great Purge ends after nearly 700,000 executions. Kristallnacht in Germany, while Time Magazine declares Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year. DC Comics hero Superman has its first appearance.
• 1939: End of Spanish Civil War; Francisco Franco becomes dictator of Spain. Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. Nazi invasion of Poland triggers the beginning of World War II in Europe. Soviet invasion of Poland begins 16 days later. Palestinian revolt against the British ends. Pius XII becomes Pope.

1940’s – Timeline of World War II

• 1940: Nazis invade France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Katyn massacre of Polish soldiers in USSR and the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland. Winston Churchill becomesPrime Minister of the United Kingdom. Battle of Britain, the first entirely aerial military campaign, becomes the first significant defeat for the Axis powers. The Blitz begins. Leon Trotsky is assassinated. Chechen insugency begins in Soviet Union.
• 1941: Operation Reinhard commences the main phase of The Holocaust. Attack on Pearl Harbor, which leads to the USA joining World War II. Hitler commences the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Siege of Tobruk in North Africa is the first major defeat for Hitler’s land forces. Siege of Leningrad begins.
• 1942: Battle of Midway. Battle of the Coral Sea. First and second Battles of El Alamein. Battle of Stalingrad andGuadalcanal Campaign begin. Internment of Japanese-American citizens in the US begins. Manhattan Project begins.
• 1943: Battle of Stalingrad ends with over two million casualties and the retreat of the German Army. The failed Battle of Kursk becomes the last Nazi offensive on the Eastern Front. Warsaw Ghetto uprising fails. Tehran Conference beenFranklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin agrees to launch Operation Overlord. Green Revolutionbegins.
• 1944: D-Day. The Siege of Leningrad ends with Soviet victory after over a million deaths. Baltic states are annexed by the Soviet Union. Chechen insurgency ends with deportation of the entire Chechen population. First operational electronic computer, Colossus, comes online
• 1945: Bombing of Dresden. Battle of Berlin. Yalta Conference. End of World War II in Europe. The Holocaust ends after ~12 million deaths, including 6 million Jews. Deaths of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Creation of the atomic bomb, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. End of World War II in Asia and beginning of the Occupation of Japan. Potsdam Conference divides Europe into Western and Soviet blocs. United Nations founded. Independence of Korea. Deaths of Anne Frank and Béla Bartók. Independence of Indonesia.Nuremberg trials begin.
• 1946: Italy becomes a republic. French Fourth Republic established. Independence of Jordan. Nuremberg trials end.First Indochina War begins. First images taken of the Earth from space. Bhumibol Adulyadej becomes King of Thailand. Mustafa Barzani founds the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Treaty of Manila declares Philippines independent.
• 1947: Independence of India and Pakistan and beginning of First Indo-Pakistani War. Invention of the first practicaltransistor. Breaking of the sound barrier. Harry Truman establishes the Truman Doctrine of containment of Communism. Creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
• 1948: United Nations establishes Israeli Independence and the formation of the official State of Israel. Arab-Israeli War.Berlin Blockade begins. Marshall Plan; founding of the OECD and the World Health Organization. Assassination ofMohandas Gandhi. The independence of Burma. Beginning of apartheid in South Africa. Division of North and South Korea. First Indo-Pakistani War ends. The Soviet Sever-2 expedition become the first party to indisputably set foot on the North Pole.
• 1949: Creation of NATO. Berlin Blockade ends. Partition of Germany into the Soviet socialist German Democratic Republic and the NATO-backed Federal Republic of Germany. COMECON founded by USSR and the Eastern Bloc. Partition of Kashmir. Establishment of the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong; The Republic of Chinarelocates to Taiwan. Soviet Union tests atomic bomb.

1950’s – Timeline of events in the Cold War

• 1950: Communist victory in the Landing Operation on Hainan Island and Wanshan Archipelago Campaign end theChinese Civil War. Beginning of the Korean War. Lhamo Dondrub becomes the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
• 1951: Colombo Plan comes into effect. Treaty of San Francisco ends the Occupation of Japan and formally concludes hostilities between Japan and the US.
• 1952: European Defence Community formed. Egyptian Revolution under Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrows King Faroukand ends British occupation. Queen Elizabeth II becomes Monarch of the Commonwealth realms. Bonn–Paris conventions end allied occupation of West Germany. Slansky Trial in Czechoslovakia. Detonation of the hydrogen bomb. First scheduled flight by commercial jet. Development of the first effective polio vaccine by Jonas Salk. Mau Mau Uprising begins in Kenya.
• 1953: Independence of Cambodia. Discovery of DNA. First ascent of Mount Everest. Mohammed Mossadeq deposed in Iran. End of the Korean War. Death of Joseph Stalin; East German Uprising leads to the arrest and execution ofLavrentiy Beria; power struggle begins between Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev. Elvis Presley‘s musical career is launched.
• 1954: Paris Treaty establishes Western European Union, Supreme Court of the United States decides Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools. Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets, brings rock and roll to the American mainstream. The Soviet Union generates first electricity by nuclear power.First Indochina War ends. Algerian War begins.
• 1955: Nikita Khrushchev assumes control of the Soviet Union. Signing of the Warsaw Pact. First Sudanese Civil Warbegins. Antimatter first produced. Formation of the Central Treaty Organization.
• 1956: Independence of Sudan and Tunisia and full independence of Pakistan. French Fifth Republic established. TheHungarian Uprising crushed by Soviet troops. Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal triggers the Suez crisis.Brasilia constructed.
• 1957: Launch of Sputnik 1 and the beginning of the Space Age. Independence of Ghana. Treaty of Rome, which would eventually lead to the European Union. Harold Macmillan become British Prime Minister. First prescription of thecombined oral contraceptive pill.
• 1958: Great Chinese Famine begins in China. NASA, the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) founded. CND’s symbol, the peace sign, is first used. Invention of the optical disc and the cassette tape.
• 1959: Cuban Revolution. Independence of Cyprus and Singapore. Admission of Alaska and Hawaii into the United States. The Dalai Lama is exiled from Tibet. First documented AIDS cases. Beginning of the Vietnam War. First images of the far side of the Moon. Richie Valens, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper die in a plane crash. By this time, the gulaghas been effectively disbanded, after over a million recorded deaths. World population reaches 3 billion.

1960’s – African American Civil Rights Movement and Swinging Sixties

• 1960: European Free Trade Association formed. 1960 U-2 incident sparks deterioration in relations between superpowers. Year of Africa: Independence of 17 African nations. Assassination of Patrice Lumumba begins Congo Crisis begins. Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. Mau Mau Uprising ends. First manned descent to the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench. Construction of the first laser. The Beatles form in Liverpool. Muhammad Ali wins gold in Rome.
• 1961: Great Leap Forward ends in China after the deaths of roughly 20 million people. Construction of the Berlin Wall. First human spaceflight. Congo Crisis: Assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash.
• 1962: Cuban missile crisis. Algerian war ends with the independence of Algeria. The Beatles‘ first record and the beginnings of the British Invasion. Death of Marilyn Monroe. Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation begins. A coup ends theMutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and establishes the Yemen Arab Republic. North Yemen Civil War begins. Sino-Indian War. Second Vatican Council is opened by Pope John XXIII.
• 1963: Independence of Kenya and creation of Malaysia Birmingham campaign. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” at the March on Washington. Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Launch of the first geostationary satellite.Paul VI becomes Pope.
• 1964: Leonid Brezhnev ousts Khrushchev and assumes power in the Soviet Union. Independence of Malta, Malawi andTanzania. Civil Rights Act abolishes segregation in the USA. Colombian armed conflict begins. Rhodesian Bush Warbegins. First close-up images of Mars
• 1965: Deaths of Winston Churchill and Malcolm X. Congo Crisis ends; Joseph Mobutu becomes dictator of the Congo. Anti-Communist purge in Indonesia kills up to 500,000 people. Second Indo-Pakistani War. Second Vatican Council is closed by Pope Paul VI.
• 1966: Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation ends. China’s Cultural Revolution begins. Independence of Lesotho, Botswanaand Barbados.
• 1967: Summer of Love. Six Day War. Attempted secession of the Republic of Biafra from Nigeria triggers the Nigerian Civil War. ASEAN founded.
• 1968: Assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy during the Poor People’s Campaign. Prague Spring crushed by Eastern Bloc military intervention. May 1968 protests in France. The Troubles begin in Northern Ireland. Tet Offensive occurs in South Vietnam.
• 1969: Moon landings. Woodstock festival. Creation of ARPANET, the earliest incarnation of the Internet. Muammar Gaddafi overthrows King Idris of Libya in a Coup d’état and establishes the Libyan Arab Republic.

1970’s

• 1970: Nigerian Civil War ends with the reintegration of the Republic of Biafra with Nigeria after ~3 million deaths.Edward Heath becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Polish 1970 protests. Cambodian Civil War begins.Yemeni Civil War ends. Ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Containerisation adopted globally, massively boosting global trade. Maiden flight of the Boeing 747. Bhola Cyclone kills 500,000 people in East Pakistan.Black September in Jordan begins.Deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. FLQ seizes hostages, causing Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau of Canada to issue the War Measures Act
• 1971: Black September in Jordan ends. Bangladesh Liberation War ends in independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan and precipitates Third Indo-Pakistani War. Internment begins in Northern Ireland. Invention of the microchip.Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda. Joseph Mobutu renames The Republic of the Congo Zaire. Greenpeace founded.COINTELPRO officially ends.
• 1972: Northern Ireland‘s Bloody Sunday. First Sudanese Civil War ends. Martial law declared in the Philippines by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Munich massacre occurs at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.
• 1973: Yom Kippur War, Beginning of the Watergate scandal. First space station, Skylab, is launched. The Supreme Court of the United States decides Roe v. Wade. Death of Pablo Picasso. First close-up images of Jupiter
• 1974: Turkish occupation of Cyprus. Carnation Revolution in Portugal begins transition to democracy. Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia is overthrown in a military coup. First close-up images of Mercury. Discovery of “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge. World population reaches 4 billion. Resignation of Richard Nixon.
• 1975: End of Vietnam War and Fall of Saigon. Death of Francisco Franco; Juan Carlos I becomes King of Spain. Haile Selassie I dies in mysterious circumstances. Dmitri Shostakovich dies. Cambodian Civil War ends with victory for theKhmer Rouge. The Killing Fields murders begin. First Cricket World Cup hosted.
• 1976: First outbreak of the Ebola virus. Death of Mao Zedong. End of Cultural Revolution. Steve Jobs finishes his first significant invention, Apple I. Church Committee.
• 1977: Introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers. Launch of the Voyager spacecraft, currently the most distant man-made objects in the universe. Queen Alia of Jordan is killed in helicopter crash. Tenerife disastermarks the deadliest accident in aviation history. Shaba I conflict involves Safari Club.
• 1978: Invention of artificial insulin. Discovery of Pluto‘s moon Charon. Independence of Tuvalu. Birth of the first test-tube baby. Cambodian-Vietnamese War begins. Uganda–Tanzania War begins. War in Afghanistan (1978–present)begins. Deng Xiaoping commences Economic reform in the People’s Republic of China. Spanish transition to democracy is completed. John Paul I and then John Paul II become Pope.
• 1979: Smallpox eradicated. Soviet–Afghan War begins. Rhodesian Bush War ends. Iranian Revolution and Iran hostage crisis. Shah Reza Pahlavi forced into exile. Arrival of Pope John Paul II in Poland, eventually sparking theSolidarity movement. First close-up images of Saturn. Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Implementation of China’s One child policy. Uganda–Tanzania War ends with defeat for Uganda and the exile of Idi Amin. Cambodian-Vietnamese War ends with the overthrow of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime. 1.7 million people known to have been murdered in The Killing Fields. Sino-Vietnamese War. Nicaraguan Revolution. Central Treaty Organization dissolved.

1980’s

• 1980: Independence of Rhodesia, which becomes Zimbabwe. Independence of Vanuatu. Ronald Reagan is electedPresident of the United States. Queen Beatrix becomes monarch of the Netherlands. Beginning of the Iran-Iraq War,Salvadorian Civil War and Contra War. Solidarity union forms at Poland’s Gdańsk Shipyard under Lech Wałęsa, and begins agitation for greater personal freedoms. Death of John Lennon.
• 1981: Independence of Palau. First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle.
• 1982: Death of Leonid Brezhnev; Yuri Andropov becomes leader of the Soviet Union. First Israeli invasion of Lebanon.Falklands War. Hama massacre in Syria leads to more than 10,000 deaths.
• 1983: GPS becomes available for civilian use. Independence of Brunei. End of dictatorship in Argentina. Second Sudanese Civil War begins. Invasion of Grenada by the United States. Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
• 1984: Death of Yuri Andropov; Konstantin Chernenko becomes Premier of the Soviet Union. Beginning of the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia and the 1984-85 UK miners’ strike. Sino-British Joint Declaration agrees to hand Hong Kongback to China by 1997.
• 1985: End of 1982 Lebanon War.Live Aid. Death of Konstantin Chernenko; Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union. First use of DNA fingerprinting. End of dictatorship in Brazil.
• 1986: Challenger and Chernobyl disasters. South Yemen Civil War. Launch of the space station Mir. First close up images of the planet Uranus. Return of Halley’s Comet. End of dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.Iran-Contra becomes public. Assassination of Olof Palme.
• 1987: Stock market crash of 1987. First Intifada between Israel and Palestine begins. World population reaches 5 billion.
• 1988: Perestroika begins. End of the Iran-Iraq War. End of dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Pan Am Flight 103falls over Lockerbie, Scotland. Myanmar Armed Forces launch a military coup. Construction of the Channel Tunnelbegins. George HW Bush is elected President of the United States.
• 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall; 1989 revolution and collapse of the Soviet Bloc in Europe. Tiananmen Square Massacrein China. End of Soviet–Afghan War. End of dictatorship in Paraguay and first direct Presidential election in Brazil since 1960. Death of Emperor Hirohito, his son Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan. Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie.Exxon Valdez oil spill. First close up pictures of Neptune. First Liberian Civil War begins.

1990’s

• 1990: Sir Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. German reunification. Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Gulf War begins. Contra War ends. Myanmar Armed Forces place Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.North and South Yemen unify to form the Republic of Yemen. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereleases its first assessment report, linking increases in carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, and resultant rise in global temperature, to human activities.
• 1991: Gulf War ends in US withdrawal and failed uprising. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and independence of 15 former Soviet republics. Boris Yeltsin becomes the first President of the Russian Federation. Ten-Day War in Sloveniabegins the Yugoslav Wars. Beginning of the Somali, Sierra Leonian and Algerian Civil Wars. Final end of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
• 1992: Maastricht Treaty creates the European Union. Bill Clinton is elected President of the United States. End of dictatorship in Albania and South Korea. End of Salvadorian Civil War. Bosnian War begins. Los Angeles riots over the acquittal of those involved in the beating of Rodney King.
• 1993: Velvet divorce between Czech Republic and Slovakia. Independence of Eritrea. Oslo accords end First Intifadabetween Israel and Palestine.
• 1994: End of apartheid in South Africa and election of Nelson Mandela. Establishment of NAFTA. First Chechen Warbegins. 1994 civil war in Yemen. Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira triggers the Rwandan genocide. Opening of the Channel Tunnel.
• 1995: Establishment of the World Trade Organization. American terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombs the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Srebrenica massacre. NATO bombing raids in Bosnia end the Bosnian War; Dayton Accords signed. Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. North Korean famine begins. Austria, Finland and Sweden join theEuropean Union.
• 1996: First Congo War begins. First Chechen War ends. First Liberian Civil War ends. End of dictatorship in Taiwan.Dolly the sheep becomes the first successful cloned mammal. The Taliban government takes control of Afghanistan.
• 1997: Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from UK to China. Lottery Uprising in Albania. Kabila ousts Mobutu: Zaire becomes the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car accident in Paris. Sound barrier broken on land.
• 1998: Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa against the West. Kenya and Tanzania bombings. Second Congo Warbegins. Good Friday Agreement brings an end to The Troubles in Northern Ireland. North Korean famine kills an estimated 2.5 million people by this point.
• 1999: Euro is introduced. Kosovo War ends the Yugoslav Wars. Islamist insurgency in Nigeria begins. Hugo Chavezbecomes President of Venezuela. Second Chechen War and Second Liberian Civil War begin. Fourth Indo-Pakistani War. Crisis in East Timor leads to 1400 deaths. Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, USA. World population reaches 6 billion.

2000’s

• 2000: 3rd millennium celebrations. End of Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Second Intifada begins. George W. Bush is elected President of the United States. Vicente Fox becomes the first opposition President of Mexico. Vladimir Putinbecomes President of Russia. British Army launch Operation Palliser which effectively ends the Sierra Leone Civil War.International Space Station begins operations. First Inter-Korean Summit. al-Qaeda suicide bombs the USS Cole.
• 2001: September 11 attacks: Terrorists destroy the World Trade Center in New York City, damage The Pentagon inWashington, DC. War on Terror declared. Afghan War begins. Wikipedia founded. African Union founded. Duringeconomic crisis in Argentina government effectively froze all bank accounts for twelve months which led to riots and President de la Rúa‘s resignation from office. President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines impeached.
• 2002: 2002 Bali bombings. Chechen rebels seize theatre in Moscow. America demands Iraq allow unfettered access to weapons inspectors. Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established. Algerian Civil War ends. Rose Revolution inGeorgia. Independence of East Timor.
• 2003: Iraq War begins, triggering worldwide protests. War in Darfur begins. The Human Genome Project is completed.Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead. Second Liberian Civil War ends. Space Shuttle Columbia isdestroyed on re-entry.
• 2004: Enlargement of NATO and the European Union incorporates most of former Eastern Bloc. Union of South American Nations formed. Madrid train bombings. Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Beslan school hostage crisis. Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in Indian Ocean, leading to the deaths of 230,000.
• 2005: IRA end military campaign in Northern Ireland. 7/7 attacks on London Underground. Angela Merkel becomes Germany’s first woman Chancellor. Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Second Intifada ends. Israel withdraws from Gaza.Cedar Revolution in Lebanon triggered by the Assassination of Rafic Hariri. Second Sudanese Civil War ends.Hurricane Katrina kills nearly 2000 people in the Gulf of Mexico. 80,000 are killed in an earthquake in Kashmir. TheKyoto Protocol comes into effect. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran. Death of Pope John Paul II;Benedict XVI becomes Pope. Discovery of Eris.
• 2006: Independence of Montenegro. Second invasion of Lebanon. Mumbai bombings. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia, and thus Africa’s first elected female head of state. Execution of Saddam Hussein. The Baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, becomes functionally extinct.
• 2007: Anti-government protests in Myanmar crushed by ruling junta. Spike in food prices and subprime crisis help trigger global recession. Assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
• 2008: End of Monarchy in Nepal. Barack Obama is elected President of the United States. Cyclone Nargis kills 133,000 in Myanmar. Gaza War begins. 2008 South Ossetia war. Kosovo declares independence, to mixed reaction. Battle of Basra – Iraqi forces crack down on Muqtada al Sadr‘s Mahdi forces in Basra and Sadr City.
• 2009: Gaza War ends; Gaza blockade continues. Sri Lankan Civil War ends. Election protests begin in Iran. Second Chechen War ends. Boko Haram rebellion begins in Nigeria. Death of Michael Jackson. Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper, is completed. Great Recession officially ends. Formation of BRICS economic bloc. Treaty of Lisbon ratified.

2010’s

• 2010: David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Silvio Berlusconi becomes the longest-servingPrime Minister of Italy since World War II. 2010 Moscow Metro bombings. 2010 Kyrgyzstani revolution. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills 230,000. Flooding in Pakistan kills nearly 2,000 and leaves roughly a million homeless. Threat of Greece defaulting on its debts triggers the European sovereign debt crisis and Ireland’sbankruptcy. The largest oil spill in US history occurs in the Gulf of Mexico. Tensions rise between North and South Korea, culimating in the shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong. Aung San Suu Kyi released from house arrest. The website Wikileaks releases thousands of classified US documents. Arab Spring triggered by self-immolation ofMohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010 in Tunisia.
• 2011: Death of Steve Jobs. Independence of South Sudan. Arab Spring: revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya follow, as well as uprisings in Yemen and and Bahrain, and protests in several other Arab countries. Syrian civil war begins.Occupy movement inspires worldwide protests, bringing economic inequality under capitalism to attention. News International phone hacking scandal. A 9.0 earthquake near Tohoku, Japan triggers a tsunami that results in 16,000 deaths and the meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. An aftershock from the 2010 Canterbury earthquakestrikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185. Second Ivorian Civil War ends with the arrest of former presidentLaurent Gbagbo. Floods in Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines kill roughly 2500 people. Deaths of Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kim Jong-Il. Iraq War ends. The New Democratic Party of Canada gains official opposition status in the Canadian Parliament for the first time. Riots flare across England. World population reaches 7 billion.
• 2012: A Tuareg rebellion triggers conflict in northern Mali, as President Amadou Toumani Touré is ousted and theMNLA declares Azawad an independent state. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh steps down. An attack on the US Libyan embassy in Benghazi leads to the death of US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The Higgs boson is discovered. Hurricane Sandy kills 209 people in North America, while Typhoon Bopha kills over 1,600 in thePhilippines. Skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Conflict begins in the Central African Republic between the government and the Séléka rebel coalition.
• 2013: The French military intervenes in the Northern Mali conflict. A meteor explodes over the Russian town ofChelyabinsk; the largest such incident since the Tunguska event. Pope Benedict XVI becomes the first Pope to willingly resign since 1294; Pope Francis becomes Pope. Terrorist attacks occur in Boston and Nairobi. A factory collapse inBangladesh kills more than 1100. Edward Snowden releases classified documents concerning mass surveillance by the NSA. Flash floods in India kill more than 5700. President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is deposed by the military in a coup d’état. Croatia becomes a member of the European Union. The Euromaidan protest begins in Ukraine. A chemical attack in Ghouta, Syria is blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. Typhoon Haiyan kills nearly 6150 people in the Philippines and Vietnam. Deaths of Hugo Chávez, Margaret Thatcher, and Nelson Mandela. Silvio Berlusconi is convicted of tax fraud. Conflict begins in South Sudan. Uruguay becomes the first country to fully legalise cannabis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_modern_history