Annual

1915 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1915World-Changing Event: A German U-boat torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killing 1,195 people, including 128 Americans, pushing the United States steadily toward entering a war it had been watching from a careful distanceAmerica-Changing Event: D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a […]

1913 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1913World-Changing Event: The Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line on December 1, 1913, at its Highland Park plant in Michigan, reducing chassis assembly time from 12 hours and 30 minutes to 2 hours and 40 minutes — and permanently changing the relationship between workers, wages, and

1912 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1912World-Changing Event: The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, and sank in the early hours of April 15, killing more than 1,500 of the 2,240 people on board — the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history, and the one that permanently changed

1911 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 1911World-Changing Event: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, killed 146 workers — mostly young immigrant women — and became the defining catalyst for American labor law, workplace safety regulations, and the modern labor movementOther World-Changing Event: Roald Amundsen

1910 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1910World Changing Events: The Mexican Revolution began, lasting a decade and reshaping Latin American politics. Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to Earth in April, triggering the most widespread astronomical panic in modern history.Popular Songs: By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and

1909 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1909World-Changing Event: On February 12, 1909, the nation’s largest and most widely recognized civil rights organization was founded. The NAACP was founded on the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, in direct response to a race riot in Springfield, Illinois — Abraham Lincoln’s hometown — that had occurred

1908 History, Facts, and Trivia Quick Facts from 1908 World Changing Event: The Ford Model T went on sale on October 1, 1908, for $825. Before the Model T, cars were a luxury item: At the beginning of 1908, there were fewer than 200,000 on the road. Within 20 years, the Model T had put

1907 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture HistoryQuick Facts from 1907World Changing Event: The Panic of 1907 was the first worldwide financial crisis of the twentieth century. It transformed a recession into a contraction that surpassed in severity only the Great Depression. It was also the crisis that finally convinced Congress that the United States

1906 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1906World Changing Event: The San Francisco Earthquake struck at 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906, with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. The earthquake and resulting fires killed an estimated 3,000 people, destroyed over 28,000 buildings, and left 300,000 people homeless. It remains the deadliest natural

1905 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1905World Changing Event: Albert Einstein, a 26-year-old Swiss patent clerk with no university position and no laboratory, published four papers in a single year that overthrew 200 years of Newtonian physics, proved the existence of atoms, explained light as both wave and particle, established the Special Theory of

1904 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1904World Changing Event: Construction of the Panama Canal began on May 4, 1904 — the largest engineering project in American history to that point, requiring the excavation of 240 million cubic yards of earth across 51 miles of jungle, swamp, and mountains. It would take ten years and

1903 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1903World Changing Event: On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the Wright Flyer I at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, for 12 seconds and 120 feet. Wilbur ran alongside holding a wingtip. The New York Times had predicted, two weeks earlier, that a flying machine would be possible in

1902 Trivia, History, and Fun FactsQuick Facts from 1902World Changing Event: The volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique on May 8 killed between 28,000 and 40,000 people — the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The city of Saint-Pierre, population 30,000, was incinerated in two minutes. One prisoner survived, protected by the thick

1901 History, Facts, and TriviaQuick Facts from 1901World Changing Event: President William McKinley was shot on September 6 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and died on September 14. Theodore Roosevelt — age 42, the youngest president in American history — was sworn in on the same day. America’s entire trajectory changed in

1900 History, Trivia, and Fun FactsQuick Facts from 1900World Changing Event: The Galveston Hurricane struck on September 8, 1900 — the deadliest natural disaster in American history, killing an estimated 8,000 people and destroying the city that had been the fourth-largest port in the United States. It is still the deadliest natural disaster in U.S.