In the United States | 1912-1961

1912

  • New Mexico and Arizona joined the Union

1913

  • 16th Amendment of the Constitution provides for a Federal Income Tax
  • Henry Ford employed the assembly line (adapting the model of the meat packing industry)

1914

  • Fair Trade Commission established

1915

  • Marines intervened in Haiti, giving US control of the island

1916

  • Pisgah National Forest established, proclamation signed by President Woodrow Wilson

1917

  • April 6 the United States declared war on Germany
  • First Selective Service Act covering men aged 18 – 45

1920

  • January 16, 18th Amendment adopted prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors (Prohibition)

1921

  • Charlie Chaplin made his first full-length movie The Kid
  • State of North Carolina assumes responsibility for a portion of its roads

1923

  • George Gershwin wrote his popular Rhapsody in Blue

1925

  • John Scopes prosecuted in Tennessee for teaching Darwin’s theories

1927

  • Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic ocean in his monoplane The Spirit of St Louis

1928

  • American anthropologist Margaret Mead published best-seller Coming of Age in Samoa

1929

  • Jacob Schick invented the “injector” razor, but concentrated work on the electric dry razor

1930

  • “Harry” Hans Straus established the Champagne Paper Corporation in New York

1931

  • Al Capone, crime syndicate boss, jailed for tax evasion

1932

  • Carl Magee, responding to Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, invented parking meter

1933

  • December 21: Prohibition repealed

1935

  • Beginning construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway

1936

  • Carl Sandburg awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

1938

  • US virologist Wendell Stanley opened up the genetic study of viruses

1939

  • John Steinbeck published Grapes of Wrath
  • Russian immigrant Igor Sikorsky designed and flew the first helicopter
  • The U-235 isotope of uranium was split at Columbia University

1940

  • President Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected to an unprecedented third term

1941

  • Scientists started working on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb
  • December 7: Pearl Harbor: loss of 19 ships, 140 aircraft, and 2,300 lives
  • December 8: The US declared war on Japan
  • December 11: US declared war on Germany and Italy
  • President Roosevelt dedicated the Smoky Mountain Park

1942

  • US naval forces prevent Japan’s free advance
  • University of Chicago scientists, led by Enrico Fermi, achieved first nuclear chain reaction

1944

  • G.I. Bill provided for education and other benefits for veterans

1945

  • Percy L. Spencer invented the microwave oven

1949

  • Medical researchers at Ohio State University first used cobalt-60 to treat cancer patients

1951

  • U.S. Troops in Korea stopped communist north at the 38 parallel
  • First Television broadcast from San Francisco to New York

1954

  • Merger of Olin Industries and Mathieson Chemical Corporation
  • American virologist, Jonas Edward Salk, developed polio vaccine
  • In Brown vs Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas), U. S. Supreme Court found school segregation illegal

1956

  • First video recording
  • Elvis Presley made “Rock ‘n Roll” a household phrase

1958

  • National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA) established

1960

  • John F. Kennedy elected President of the U. S.

Sources - Inter Alia::
(1.) Beazley, Mitchell (ed.): Time Lines: World History Year by Year since 1492. New York Crescent Books, 1991
(2.) Grun, Bernard: The Timetables of History. New York, Simon Schuster/ Touchstone, 199

By Brian du Toit  - Transylvania Sesquicentennial Steering Committee

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