| 1901:- The first vacuum cleaners are made, which
were pulled by horses and parked outside people's homes |
| 1901:- Death of Queen Victoria |
| 1902:- The end of the Boer War |
| 1906:- San Francisco earthquake |
| 1907:- Henry Ford begins mass production and produces
a cheap reliable car, the Model T |
| 1912:- The last Chinese emperor, Pu Yi, is overthrown |
| 1914:- Passenger pigeon becomes extinct |
| 1914:- World War I begins |
| 1917:- Tsar is assassinated; Russian Revolution;
Russia becomes communist |
| 1918:- World War I ends |
| 1918:- Carolina parakeet becomes extinct |
| 1919:- Treaty of Versailles |
| 1919:- Prohibition begins in America by abolishing
alcohol |
| 1920:- Treaty of Sevres |
| 1920:- First regular public broadcasting |
| 1920:- Women gained the right to vote in the USA. |
| 1921:- Einstein wins the Physics Noble Prize |
| 1921:- Formation of Northern Ireland |
| 1921:- Mao Zedong joins the communist party in China |
| 1921:- Hitler becomes leader of the NDSAP or the
Nazi party |
| 1922:- Mussolini comes to power; Italy becomes the
first fascist country |
| 1922:- 4 countries form the USSR |
| 1923:- Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler goes to jail |
| 1924:- Death of Lenin |
| 1924:- Hitler gains popularity after writing "Mein
Kampf" (My Struggle) |
| 1925:- Birth of Margaret Thatcher |
| 1926:- Birth of Elizabeth II |
| 1929:- Birth of Martin Luther King |
| 1929:- Stalin comes to power |
| 1929:- The "Great Crash" in Wall Street |
| 1930:- First World Cup, held in Uruguay |
| 1933:- Prohibition ends because of gangsterism |
| 1933:- Hitler becomes Chancellor |
| 1934:- Mao Zedong leads the communist party on the
"Long March" of nearly 10,000km after being attacked |
| 1934:- Death of Marie Curie from radiation and cancer |
| 1934:- Hitler becomes Fuhrer and passes the Enabling
Act to become a dictator |
| 1936:- Tasmanian wolf becomes extinct |
| 1936:- Mussolini invades Abyssinia (now called Ethiopia) |
| 1937:- The first jet engine is tested by Frank Whittle |
| 1937:- Invention of the first practical helicopter,
Focke Fa-61, in Germany |
| 1938:- Hitler invades Austria and Sudetenland (in
Czechoslovakia) |
| 1939:- World War II begins |
| 1940:- Churchill becomes Prime Minister |
| 1940:- Russia forces Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
to join the USSR |
| 1941:- Final Solution begins: Hitler begins to execute
Jews, gypsies and other ethnic minorities in death camps |
| 1942:- The German V2 war rocket is the first rocket
powerful enough to reach space |
| 1945:- World War II ends |
| 1946:- Italy gets rid of its King, Victor Emmanuel,
after a vote |
| 1947:- India and Pakistan become independent |
| 1947:- American Edwin Land invents a camera, which
produces instant photos |
| 1948:- Establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine;
Israel |
| 1949:- Chinese Revolution; China becomes communist |
| 1949:- The USSR becomes a nuclear power |
| 1949:- Irish Republic is set up |
| 1950:- North Korea invades South Korea; beginning
of the Korean War |
| 1951:- The first colour TV programme transmitted
in the USA |
| 1952:- King George VI dies and Elizabeth II becomes
Queen |
| 1952:- Egypt becomes a Republic |
| 1953:- Mount Everest is climbed |
| 1953:- The Korean War ends with about 5 million
people dead |
| 1953:- Death of Stalin |
| 1954:- North Vietnam invades South Vietnam; beginning
of the Vietnam War |
| 1955:- Death of Albert Einstein |
| 1956:- Suez Crisis |
| 1957:- 6 countries sign the Treaty of Rome to form
the European Community |
| 1959:- Margaret Thatcher becomes a member of Parliament |
| 1961:- Yuri Gagarin becomes the first astronaut
in space |
| 1964:- The Civil Rights Bill in American ends racism |
| 1964:- America helps South Vietnam |
| 1965:- Death of Winston Churchill |
| 1967: Israel invades South Lebanon, Golan Heights
and Sinai in the 6 Day War |
| 1968:- Assassination of Martin Luther King |
| 1969:- America becomes the first nation to send
astronauts to the moon and Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to land
on the moon |
| 1971:- East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh |
| 1973:- Yom Kippur or 6th of October War |
| 1973:- Death of Picasso |
| 1973:- America leaves the Vietnam War |
| 1974:- Mariner 10 takes photographs of Mercury |
| 1975:- Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of the Conservative
Party |
| 1975:- A church, the heaviest load ever moved, is
transported in Czechoslovakia in a 4 week journey in a distance of 730
m only! |
| 1975:- Civil War in Ethiopia begins |
| 1976:- Viking probe lands on Mars |
| 1976:- North Vietnam unites with South Vietnam |
| 1976:- Death of Mao Zedong |
| 1979:- Iranian Revolution, the last shah, Reza Mohammed
Shah Pahlavi, is overthrown |
| 1979:- Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female
Prime Minister |
| 1982:- Argentina fights against Britain in a ten
week war over he Falkland Islands and loses 655 lives |
| 1983:- Richard Noble reaches a record speed of 1,019
km/h (633 mph) in a jet powered car |
| 1985:- Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in Russia
and allows democratic elections |
| 1987:- Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand make the
first transatlantic flight with an air balloon |
| 1989:- San Francisco earthquake |
| 1990:- East and West Germany reunited |
| 1990:- Margaret Thatcher resigns |
| 1990:- Fastest train in the world, the French TGV,
518 km/h (322 mph) |
| 1990:- Iraq invades Kuwait |
| 1991:- Slovenia and Croatia leave Yugoslavia |
| 1991:- The Gulf War |
| 1991:- End of the USSR |
| 1991:- Civil War in Ethiopia ends |
| 1992:- Czechoslovakia splits into 2 countries |
| 1992:- Civil War in Yugoslavia |
| 1993:- Channel Tunnel opens |
| 1997:- Hong Kong becomes part of China |