Historical Quarters

   
1920.0 (Teddy Roosevelt president)
1920.1 League of Nations discussions; Red Army captures Odessa
1920.2 19th Amendment: women's right to vote: Marconi opens first public broadcasting system in England
1920.3 Unemployment insurance introduced in England; Harding elected president; Pittsburgh radio braodcasts election results
1920.4 Russian civil war ends; Emergence of Gandhi in India; Rohrschock devises inkblot test; Submachine gun invented; First airmail flight SF -> NY
   
1921.0 (Harding president)
1921.1 First regular radio program in US
1921.2 Capital punishment abolished in Sweden; Discovery of bacteriophages
1921.3 Oberth writes `The Rocket into Interplanetary Space'; KKK becomes violently active
   
1922.0 (Harding president)
1922.1 Gandhi sentenced to 6 years in prison
1922.2 Joyce's Ulysses
1922.3 Mussolini forms fascist government; 1922.3 Self winding wristwatch
1922.4 USSR formed; First use of insulin for diabetes
   
1923.0 (Harding, then Coolidge president)
1923.1 First birth control clinic: Earthquake kills 120,000 in Japan, esp Tokyo
1923.2 Hubble discovers ''distance-indicating'' star in Andromeda nebula
1923.4 Teapot Dome scandal in DC; Harding dies; Coolidge succeeds; KKK violence increases
   
1924.0 (Coolidge president)
1924.1 Wave theory of matter
1924.2 US bill limits immigrants, excludes Japanese
1924.3 Will Rogers at height of fame; First insecticides; Leopold/Loeb trial for kidnap/murder
1924.4 Coolidge elected president
   
1925.0 (Coolidge president)
1925.1 Heisenberg and Bohr develop quantum mechanics
1925.2 Pauli exclusion principle on statistic structure of atoms
1925.3 Scopes `monkey trial' on teaching evolution
   
1926.0 (Coolidge president)
1926.1 Goddard fires first liquid fuel rocket; Heisenberg further develops quantum physics
1926.2 First 16mm movie film
   
1927.0 (Coolidge president)
1927.1 German economic system collapses
1927.2 Pavlov writes on `conditioned reflexes'; Lindbergh's flight to Paris
1927.3 Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs
   
1928.0 (Coolidge president)
1928.1 Beginning of first Soviet 5-year plan; Discovery of Penicillin
1928.2 Veronoff: `Conquest of Life' on gland transplanting; First scheduled TV broadcast; Amelia Earhart flies across Atlantic Ocean
1928.3 Color movies
1928.4 Herbert Hoover elected president
   
1929.0 (Hoover president)
1929.1 St. Valentine's Day gangland massacre in Chicago
1929.2 Graf Zeppelin flies around world; Estrone isolated; vitamin B1 discovered
1929.3 Quartz crystal clock for precise time keeping
1929.4 Hubble measures red shifts in spectra of extra-galactic nebulae; Stock market crash (Oct 28)
   
1930.0 (Hoover president)
1930.1 Pluto discovered; Photoflash bulb; First talk about `technocracy'; Artificial fabrics
   
1931.0 (Hoover president)
1931.2 Lansky discovers radio interference from Milky Way; Papal encyclical on `new social order'; Cyclotron invented; Deuterium discovered
1931.3 Submarine Nautilus under Arctic Ocean
1931.4 Al Capone jailed; Nonstop flight Tokyo - US; Fascists rise throughout western world
   
1932.0 (Hoover president)
1932.1 Hindenburg defeats Hitler for German presidency, but Nazis get 230 Reichstag seats; Discovery of positron and neutron; Lindbergh baby kidnapped; Famine in USSR begins, as does second five-year plan
1932.2 Earhart flies solo across Atlantic; Foundations of radio astronomy
1932.4 FD Roosevelt elected US President, calls for New Deal; Vitamin D discovered; Work begun on Golden Gate Bridge
   
1933.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1933.1 FDR introduces `New Deal'; creates Public Works Administration; Hitler becomes chancellor and later dictator; Reichstag fire in Berlin
1933.2 First German concentration camps
1933.3 Chicago World's Fair (`century of progress'); Nazis gets 92% of German vote
1933.4 Starvation in USSR; 21st Amendment: repeal of prohibition
   
1934.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1934.2 Hitler, voted Fuhrer, promotes assassinations in Germany and Austria
1934.4 Stalin begins bloody purge in USSR
   
1935.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1935.1 Nazis repute Treaty of Versailles; First aircraft radar; First sulfa drug
1935.3 US Social Security Act
1935.4 CIO organized
   
1936.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1936.1 German troops occupy Rhineland
1936.3 Spanish civil war begins; Hoover dam; Jesse Owens stars in Berlin Olympics; Life magazine begins
1936.4 Artificial heart; Mussolini and Hitler ally; King Edward VIII abdicates to marry US divorcee; Reelection of FDR; Hauptman convicted of killing Lindbergh baby; Johnstown PA flood
   
1937.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1937.1 Death of Amelia Earhart
1937.2 FDR signs neutrality act; Insulin used for diabetes; Nylon patented; Hindenberg disaster, described live on radio
1937.3 Japanese seize Peking and other Chinese cities; Royal commission recommends establishment of Jewish and Arab states; First jet engine
   
1938.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1938.1 Japanese install puppet government in China; Gas masks issued to English civilians
1938.2 Franco begins offensive in Spain; Germany occupies Sudeten in Czechoslovakia
1938.3 Ball point pen; Reber receives short waves from Milky Way
1938.4 Vitamins E and B6
   
1939.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1939.1 Barium obtained my bombarding uranium with neutrons; Possibility arises of splitting atom
1939.2 Death of Freud; Franco wins Spanish civil war
1939.3 Germany occupies Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia; Italy invades Albania; Germany invades Poland and World War II begins (Sep 1); England and France declare war (Sep 3)
1939.4 Nylon stockings on sale
   
1940.0 (F D Roosevelt president)
1940.1 War in Europe and Asia; Rationing in Britain; Germany invades Norway and Denmark; Churchill becomes Prime Minister; Giant cyclotron built in California; Penicillin becomes more practical, esp as an antibiotic
1940.2 Electron microscope; First helicopter flight; Germany invades Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg; Germans enter Paris (Jun 14)
1940.3 Battle of Britain begins: London blitz
1940.4 FDR reelected
   
1941.0 (FD Roosevelt president)
1941.1 Underwater photography; Construction begins on Panama Canal
1941.2 Germans invade Russia (Jun 22)
1941.3 Discovery of plutonium
1941.4 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor (Dec 8); US and GB declare war on Japan (Dec 9); US declares war on Germany and Italy
   
1942.0 (FD Roosevelt president)
1942.1 Japan captures Dutch East Indies, Burma, Singapore; First automatic computer in US
1942.2 US bombs Tokyo; Nazis burn Lidice in Bohemia; Japanese-American internment
1942.3 Holocaust begins in concentration camps
1942.4 US attacks North Africa; Germans work on V2 rocket; First sustained nuclear reaction at U of Chicago; Testing of first US jet plane
   
1943.0 (F.D. Roosevelt president)
1943.1 Russians destroy German army east of Stalingrad
1943.2 Warsaw ghetto massacre
1943.3 Allies recapture much of north Africa; Allies invade Italy; Italy surrenders to Eisenhower; Allied round the clock bombing of Germany; Discovery of streptomycin US polio epidemic
   
1944.0 (F.D. Roosevelt president)
1944.2 D-Day landing on Normandy (Jun); VI bombs hit London
1944.3 V2 rockets hit London; US troops enter Germany
1944.4 FDR reelected; Battle of the Bulge begins at Ardenne; Vietnam declares independence from France
   
1945.0 (F.D. Roosevelt president; later Truman)
1945.1 Russians take Warsaw; Yalta conference
1945.2 FDR dies; Truman succeeds; UN Charter (Jun); Suicide of Hitler; Surrender of Germany (May); End of European War (May)
1945.3 First atomic bomb test in NM; US drops atomic bomb at Hiroshima (Aug); US drops atomic bomb at Nagasaki (Aug); Japan surrenders and World War II ends (Aug); War death toll: 35 million + 10 million in concentration camps
1945.4 Nationalists and communists fight in China; Nuremberg trials begin
   
1946.0 (Truman president)
1946.1 ENIAC computer dedicated
   
1947.0 (Truman president)
1947.2 Marshall Plan for reconstruction of Europe; UN announces plan to partition Palestine; Flying saucer reports in US
1946.3 Jackie Robinson signs baseball contract; Indian independence
1947.4 First supersonic flight; Invention of transistor
   
1948.0 (Truman president)
1948.1 University of Michigan wins Rose Bowl 49-0 over USC; Gandhi assassinated; Invention of LP record
1948.2 200'' Mount Palomar telescope dedicated; Jewish state born
1948.3 Berlin airlift
1948.4 Narrow reelection of Truman; Kinsey Report on US sexual behavior
   
1949.0 (Truman president)
1949.1 Communist Mao Tse-tung wins rule of China: Chiang Kai-shek and his army flee to Formosa; USSR tests its first atomic bomb
1949.2 France grants independence to Vietnam; Britain recognizes independence of Ireland
1949.3 US launches guided missile; Israel admitted to UN; capital moved to Jerusalem; Apartheid policy established in South Africa; Berlin airlift ends
1949.4 Holland grants independence to Indonesia
   
1950.0 (Truman president)
1950.1 Communist Chinese forces occupy Tibet; Rise of Senator Joe McCarthy
1950.2 North Korea invades South Korea; Californium and Berkelium discovered; Einstein writes `General Theory of Relativity.'
1950.3 UN forces under Gen. MacArthur recapture Seoul
   
1951.0 (Truman president)
1951.1 Korean war continues; 22nd Amendment: presidential term limit
1950.2 Color TV introduced in US
1951.3 Peron reelected president of Argentina
1951.4 Electric power from atomic power
   
1952.0 (Truman president)
1952.1 Queen Elizabeth II succeeds to British throne; Contraception pill produced
1952.4 US test hydrogen bomb; Eisenhower elected US President
   
1953.0 (Eisenhower president)
1953.1 Tito elected president of Yugoslavia; Prehistoric paintings found in French caves
1953.2 Stalin dies, succeeded by Malenkov; Rosenbergs executed as atomic spies
1953.3 Korean armistice signed; Vietnamese rebels attack Laos; USSR explodes hydrogen bomb; Mt Everest first scaled
1953.4 Lung cancer linked to cigarette smoking
   
1954.0 (Eisenhower president)
1954.1 Jonas Salk inoculates Pittsburgh children against polio
1954.2 Vietnamese communists take Dien Bien Phu; US Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools; Senator McCarthy and House on Unamerican Activities bring their hunt to TV
1954.3 Roger Bannister breaks four-minute mile
1954.4 US Senate censures McCarthy
   
1955.0 (Eisenhower president)
1955.2 Peron resigns
1955.3 Einstein dies at age 86
1955.4 Blacks in Montgomery boycott segregated city bus system
   
1956.0 (Eisenhower president)
1956.1 Rock and Roll in vogue; Tension in Middle East
1956.2 Khruschev denounces Stalinism; Actress Grace Kelly weds Prince Rainier of Monaco
1956.3 Sabin develops oral anti-polio vaccine
1956.4 Reelection of Eisenhower; Nixon Vice President; Emergence of Martin Luther King; Castro begins civil war against Batista in Cuba
   
1957.0 (Eisenhower president)
1957.2 Nobelium (element 102) discovered
1957.4 USSR launches Sputnik satellites; US bemoans their science inferiority; Eisenhower sends troops to Little Rock in high school desegregation crisis; Baseball Giants and Dodgers move from NY to California
   
1958.0 (Eisenhower president)
1958.1 Khruschev heads USSR; European Common Market officially begins
1958.2 DeGaulle elected president of France; Alaska becomes 49th state
1958.3 NASA established
1958.4 US launches moon rocket (doesn't get there)
   
1959.0 (Eisenhower president)
1959.1 Castro expels Batista from Cuba, expropriates US-owned sugar mills; USSR successful launches: one with 2 monkeys aboard, one reaches moon, one circles moon
1959.3 Hawaii becomes 50th state; Eisenhower halts steelworker and longshoremen strikes
   
1960.0 (Eisenhower president)
1960.1 Brezhnev becomes USSR premier
1960.2 USSR shoots down Gary Powers in a US spy plane over Russia; First US weather satellite; US nuclear submarine Triton circumnavigates earth underwater
1960.3 Former Gestapo chief Eichmann arrested; J F Kennedy debates Nixon on TV; Laser devises
1960.4 Brasilia built to become new capital of Brazil; Charles Van Doren admits perjury in quiz show inquiry; Kennedy elected US president
   
1961.0 (J F Kennedy president)
1961.1 Kennedy establishes Peace Corps as he had promised earlier on steps of UM Student Union; Yuri Gagarin orbits earth
1961.2 Alan Shepard makes first successful US manned space flight; CIA-backed Cuban exiles in US attempt futile (Bay of Pigs) invasion of Cuba; Kennedy takes blame for Bay of Pigs fiasco
1961.3 Berlin Wall constructed
   
1962.0 (J F Kennedy president)
1962.1 More US astronauts, including Glenn, Shepard and Schirra; Eichmann hanged after trial
1962.2 Rachel Carson writes ``Silent Spring''
1962.2 Thalidomide causes children to be born with deformities
1962.3 US marshals enforce admission of James Meredith to University of Mississippi; US confronts USSR ships in blockade of Cuba
   
1963.0 (J F Kennedy; later L B Johnson)
1963.1 First female astronaut (USSR)
1963.3 Birmingham, Alabama race riots; MLK arrested; 200,000 hear MLK's I Have a Dream speech
1963.4 US supports Buddhist coup in Vietnam; Assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald (Nov 22); Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) sworn in as president; Ruby kills Oswald in front of TV audience; DeBakey uses artificial heart during heart surgery
   
1964.0 (L B Johnson president)
1964.1 ``Brain drain'' emigration of British scientists to US; Zanzibar (Tanzania), Zambia and later Kenya become republics; 24th Amendment: bans poll tax; Turks and Greeks fight over Cyprus
1964.3 US destroyer attacked off North Vietnam; Warren Commission says no conspiracy in JFK assassination; Kosygin replaces Khruschev as head of USSR; Race riots in US cities
1964.4 LBJ reelected
   
1965.0 (L B Johnson president)
1965.1 LBJ institutes Great Society Plan, under leadership of UM Economist Gardner Ackley; Malcolm X shot in NY; MLK leads Alabama march after racial violence in Selma, AL
1965.2 North Vietnam aircraft shoot down US jets; USSR and US spacewalks
1965.3 Severe race riots in Watts district of Los Angeles; Mariner 4 sends back many photos from above Mars
1965.4 Northeast US (including NYC) suffers power blackout; births increase 9 months later; US Students protest widening US involvement in Vietnam
   
1966.0 (L B Johnson president)
1966.1 DeGaulle begins second term as president of France; Indira Gandhi becomes Prime Minister of India
1966.2 USSR and US spacecraft make soft landings on moon
1966.3 Israel-Jordan forces fight; DeBakey implants artificial heart
   
1967.0 (L B Johnson president)
1967.1 Israel-Syria conflict; Three US astronauts die on launching pad
1967.2 US bombs Hanoi; Israel wins 6-Day War against Arab nations
1967.3 DeGaulle urges independence for Quebec; Death of Che Guevara; DC anti-war protest; LBJ appoints Thurgood Marshall to US Supreme Court; Black riots in Cleveland, Newark and Detroit; China explodes hydrogen bomb; First human heart transplant
1967.4 MLK leads anti-Vietnam War March in NYC; About 500,000 US troops in Vietnam
   
1968.0 (L B Johnson president)
1968.1 Viet Cong successful Tet counter-offensive; Sen. Robert Kennedy announces presidential campaign; Pres Johnson announces that he will not seek reelection
1968.2 MLK assassinated in Memphis; R F Kennedy assassinated in LA, just after victory speech for California primary
1968.3 Riots and police brutality mark Democratic convention in Chicago; Soviet troops invade Czechoslovakia to thwart independence drive
1968.4 Richard Nixon elected president; Apollo 7 orbits earth for 11 days with 3 astronauts; Apollo 8 orbits moon with 3 astronauts
   
1969.0 (Nixon president)
1969.1 Violent fighting begins in Northern Ireland; First supersonic flight by commercial SST Concorde
1969.2 Mariner space probes send back photos of Mars surface
1969.3 Woman killed as Sen Edward Kennedy's car plunges off bridge after party; Apollo 11 lands on moon; Astronaut Armstrong and crew walk on moon's surface
1969.4 US bans pesticide DDT; First `Moratorium' day of student protest against Vietnam War
   
1970.0 (Nixon president)
1970.2 US invades Cambodia; 4 students protesting the war at Kent State are killed by National Guard
1970.3 USSR lands unmanned Luna 16 and 17 on moon and Venera 7 on Venus; Cyclones kill 1/2 million in Pakistan; Apollo 13's troubled flight
   
1971.0 (Nixon president)
1971.1 Vietnam war spreads to Laos and Cambodia; US ping pong team hosted in China; Idi Amin starts Ugandan dictatorship; Lt. Calley found guilty in trial for My Lai massacre in Vietnam
1971.2 26th Amendment allowing 18 year olds to vote; NY Times publishes Pentagon Papers detailing inside decisions regarding Vietnam
1971.3 Nixon freezes wages and prices; Crews of Apollo 14 and 15 explore moon's surface; cosmonauts die on reentry of Soyuz 11 to earth; Police storm Attica Prison, 10 guards and 32 prisoners killed
1971.4 USSR soft lands space capsule on Mars; Discovery of two new galaxies adjacent to Milky Way; US conducts large scale bombings of North Vietnam
   
1972.0 (Nixon presdent)
1972.1 Paris Peace Talks try to end Vietnam War; Nixon visits China and Russia
1972.2 Arrest of 5 burglars at Watergate Complex; administration covers up burglars' motives; Candidate George Wallace shot and paralyzed; Crews of Apollo 16 and 17 each spend about 3 days on moon
1972.3 Arab terrorists hit Munich Olympics; 11 Israeli sthletes killed
1972.4 After years of violence, Britain takes direct control of Northern Ireland; US mines North Vietnamese ports; Nixon reelected; Agnew vice president; By end of year, fewer than 24,000 US troops in Vietnam
   
1973.0 (Nixon president)
1973.1 Continued violence in Northern Ireland; Vietnam peace treaty; though some fighting continues
1973.2 Arabs and Israelis fight; Watergate scandal spreads to White House; Nixon's aides resign; Senate Watergate hearings on television; Pioneer 10 launched, will send back TV pictures from near surface of Jupiter; designated hitter rule in baseball
1973.3 Nixon turns over tape recordings of all White House conversations -- with critical gaps; Vice President Agnew resigns after tax evasion charge
1973.4 Gerald Ford new vice president; Arab oil producing nations embargo shipments to west, precipating major oil crisis and economic crises; Peron and wife elected pres and vice pres of Argentina; OJ Simpson sets 1 year football rushing record;
   
1974.0 (Nixon president: later G Ford)
1974.1 World wide inflation rises after oil crisis; Kissinger mediates war between Israel and Syria; Kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst by Symbionese Liberation Army, later joins them in bank robbery; Year round daylight savings time to conserve fuel
1974.2 Peron dies, succeeded by his wife; North Ireland terrorism spreads to London; Turks and Greeks battle in Cyprus; Mariner 10 sends back detailed pictures of Venus and Mercury; USSR probe finds much water vapor on Mars; India test nuclear bomb
1974.3 Aaron breaks Ruth's lifetime home run record; Nixon resigns in wake of Watergate Crisis; Ford now president; Ford pardons Nixon and Vietnam War draft evaders; Streaking becomes a fad
   
1975.0 (Ford president)
1975.2 Last US personnel leave Vietnam; Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia; Galaxy 3C123 discovered: 8 billion light years away and 5-10 times larger than Milky Way
1975.3 2 assassination attempts on President Ford; Joint US/USSR space endeavors.
   

Last Updated on 11/23/98
By Eric S. Rabkin