Key Takeaways

• Some major events that happened in the 20th century include The Great Depression, the release of the Macintosh computer and the introduction of the floppy disk.
• Some major events that happened in the 2000s include the election of Barack Obama as US president; the launch of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; and the Al-Qaeda attacks on Pentagon and World Trade Center.
• Some major events that happened in the 2010s include the enactment of the affordable healthcare act, Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as US president, and the affirmation of same-sex marriages by the US supreme court.

Introduction

20TH CENTURY

1930s

• 1930: The Great Depression, Pluto discovered.
• 1931: Empire State Building construction completed, Star Spangled Banner named the US national anthem.
• 1932: Franklin Roosevelt elected US President.
• 1933: Adolf Hitler appointed German chancellor.
• 1934: Adolf Hitler named Fuhrer.
• 1935: Italy invades Ethiopia. 
• 1936: Spanish Civil War, BBC debuts TV service, King Edward the 8th abdicates, Hoover Dam built. 
• 1937: Hindenburg explosion, Japan invades China, Golden Gate Bridge built, Amelia Earhart vanishes.
• 1938: Minimum wage established, nuclear fission discovered.
• 1939: World War 2 begins, Russo-Finnish war

1940s

• 1940: Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain, Roosevelt elected for a third term, Battle of Britain.
• 1943: Warsaw ghetto uprising, introduction of withholding tax on wages.
• 1944: World Bank and International Monetary Fund created at the Bretton Woods Conference.
• 1945: Roosevelt dies, Harry Truman becomes US president, United Nations founded, End of World War 2, US drops atomic bombs on Japan.
• 1946: Independence of Philippines from the US.
• 1947: Independence of India and Pakistan. 
• 1948: Gandhi assassinated, division of North and South Korea, state of Israel founded, end of racial segregation in US military.
• 1949: Institution of apartheid in South Africa, founding of People's Republic of China. 

1950's

• 1950: Korean war, introduction of Xerox machine.
• 1951: First business computer - Univac, first US transcontinental television transmission.
• 1952: Election of Dwight Eisenhower as US president, Queen Elizabeth 2 accession.
• 1953: Discovery of DNA double helix, death of Joseph Stalin.
• 1954: Vietnam divided, introduction of polio vaccine. 
• 1955: Montgomery bus boycott, formation of Warsaw pact.
• 1956: Suez crisis, Hungarian uprising. 
• 1959: Hawaii and Alaska become states, Castro gets into power in Cuba.

1960's

• 1960: John Keneddy elected as US president, approval of birth control pill for contraceptive use.
• 1961: Erection of Berlin wall, formation of OPEC.
• 1962: First trans-Atlantic TV transmitted by Telstar.
• 1963: Kennedy assassinated, Lyndon Johnson becomes president, Equal pay act.
• 1964: Civil rights act, sentence of Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment, affirmation that cigarette smoking causes cancer by US surgeon general.
• 1965: Assassination of Malcolm X, first spacewalks, voting rights act, US equal employment opportunity commission, US combat troops in Vietnam.
• 1966: Medicare coverage takes effect, China's cultural revolution.
• 1967: Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American US supreme court justice, 6-day Israeli-Arab war, first successful transplant of the human heart.
• 1968: Martin Luther King Junior assassinated, Robert Kennedy assassinated, election of Richard Nixon as US president, Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
• 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the moon, Islamic republic established in Libya by Gaddafi.

1970's

• 1970: Introduction of floppy disk by IBM, US invades Cambodia.
• 1971: Voting age in the US lowered to 18, first email sent across network, Idi Amin coup in Uganda, publication of Pentagon Papers.
• 1972: Watergate break-in. 
• 1973: Watergate hearings, Pinochet coup in Chile.
• 1974: Nixon resigns, Gerald Ford becomes US president. 
• 1975: US withdraws from Vietnam, Lebanese civil war.
• 1976: Election of Jimmy Carter as US president, Viking 1 lands on Mars.
• 1977: Death of Steve Biko in South African police custody.
• 1978: Election of Pope John Paul II, first test-tube baby, Jonestown mass suicide, agreement of Rhodesia to black-majority rule.
• 1979: Three Mile Island nuclear accident, Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of Britain.

1980's

• 1980: Election of Ronald Reagan as US president, CNN starts broadcasting, Iran-Iraq war.
• 1981: Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first female US supreme court justice, AIDS is identified, assassination attempts on Pope John Paul II and Reagan.
• 1983: Sally Ride becomes the first woman astronaut in the US, assassination of Benigno Aquino, US invades Grenada.
• 1984: Macintosh computer released, assassination of Indira Gandhi, breakup of the Bell telephone system.
• 1986: explosion of Challenger, Chernobyl nuclear accident, election of Corazon Aquino as president of Philippines.
• 1988: Election of George H W Bush as US president, warning of global warming. 
• 1989: fall of Berlin wall, invention of world wide web browser and server.

1990's

• 1990: Persian Gulf war, fall of Eastern European communist regimes, Germany reunited, Nelson Mandela freed, election of Lech Walesa as Poland president, launch of Hubble Space telescope.
• 1991: Repeal of apartheid in South Africa, dissolution of Warsaw pact, election of Boris Yeltsin as president of Russian republic.
• 1992: Election of William Clinton as US president, earth summit, Yugoslav Federation dissolved.
• 1993: Formation of European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement.
• 1994: Election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa president, genocide in Rwanda.
• 1995: Srebrenica genocide, Oklahoma city bombing.
• 1996: First cloned sheep - Dolly.
• 1997: Hong Kong returned to China. 
• 1998: Clinton impeached by Congress.
• 1999: Euro currency launched, Kosovo war.

21ST CENTURY

2000s

• 2000: Election of George W Bush as US president, election of Vladimir Putin as Russia president, election of Hilary Clinton to Senate, Concorde crashes in France.
• 2001: Al-Qaeda attacks on Pentagon and World Trade Center, stem cell research approved by US government, Wikipedia launched, US-UK Afghanistan invasion, iPod debut, anthrax attack in the US.
• 2002: Establishment of the US Department of Homeland Security, Bali bombings,  
• 2003: Iraq invasion, explosion of Columbia space shuttle, completion of human genome project, Darfur conflict, MySpace launched. 
• 2004: Tsunami in Asia, Facebook launched, George W Bush re-elected, emergence of Web 2.0, world's first 1GB SD card.
• 2005: Hurricane Katrina, bombings in London, Angela Merkel becomes chancellor in Germany, Pope John Paul dies, Pope Benedict elected, YouTube launch,replacement of floppy disks with USB flash drives.
• 2006: Twitter launched, Pluto reclassified as a dwarf planet, Sadam Hussein hanged. 
• 2007: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female speaker of the house in the US, assassination of Benazir Bhuto, first iPhone unveiled, global recession, Nicolas Sarkozy becomes president of French republic, Kindle debut, Google Street View launch.
• 2008: Election of Barack Obama as US president, Fidel Castro steps down as the president of Cuba, Dmitry Medvedev is elected Russia president, Beijing hosts Olympic games, Mumbai attacks, tornado across southern US. 
• 2009: Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Latina US supreme court justice, water discovered on the moon, Iran protests, Bitcoin introduced, Michael Jackson dies, Instagram launch. 

2010's

• 2010: Affordable healthcare act enacted, Wikileaks founded, Haiti earthquake, Uber debut, first photo uploaded to Instagram, iPad launched, first female prime minister in Australia, Wikileaks leaks information about Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
• 2011: Occupy Wall Street protest, Gaddafi and Bin Laden die, 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan, death of Steve Jobs, Spotify launch in US, Amy Winehouse dies, Elizabeth Taylor dies, Prince William marries Kate Middleton. 
• 2012: Syrian civil war, discovery of Higgs Boson, legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado, Whitney Houston dies, Hurricane Sandy, Facebook buys Instagram, Tinder launch, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Neil Armstrong dies. 
• 2013: Boston marathon bombings, retirement of Pope Benedict, election of Pope Francis, surveillance of National Security Agency, Hurricane Sandy, Nelson Mandela dies. 
• 2014: Emergence of Ebola virus, Janet Yellen becomes the first female chairman of the Federal Reserve, US starts attacking ISIS, Facebook buys Whatsapp, Eric Garner death, Maya Angelou dies, Joan Rivers dies, Robin Williams commits suicide, Malaysian Airlines plane disappears. 
• 2015: Same sex marriage permitted by the US supreme court, China gets rid of one-child policy, rise of Black Lives Matter movement, European refugee crisis, Caitlyn Jenner comes out as trans, Paris climate agreement.
• 2016: Muhammad Ali dies, election of Donald Trump as US president, UK votes to exist the European Union (Brexit), emergence of Zika virus, Prince dies, David Bowie dies, Fidel Castro dies,
• 2017: Emergence of self-driving trucks, #MeToo movement, Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, Women's March.
• 2018: Bill Cosby convicted of sexual assault, China approves plan to get rid of presidential term limits, Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle. 
• 2019: Impeachment of President Donald Trump,

2020s

• 2020: Emergence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, former vice president Biden elected as US president, Basketball star Kobe Bryant and daughter die, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, US FDA approves first COVID-19 vaccine.
• 2021: Capitol attacked, SpaceX launches "world's first all-civilian crewed mission."  

Research Strategy