20th Century USA ( America’s Story) Historical Chronology
Part 1: 1900 - 1949

• Carry Nation, Kansas antisaloon agitator, began raiding with a hatchet.
• August 27, 1900 - U. S. Army physicians discovered the cause of yellow fever.
• U.S. helped put down the "Boxers" in Beijing [Age of Imperialism | Boxer Rebellion]
• International Ladies' Garment Workers Union was founded in New York City in November.]

• President William McKinley was shot on September 6 and died on Sept. 14, 1901.
• Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) [1901 - 1909] became the 26th president of the United States.

• Introduction of the Teddy Bear in November, 1902.

• U.S. under President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Panama Canal Treaty.
• The first successful flights by Wilbur and Orville Wright in Kitty Hawk, NC.

• July 23, 1904 - Charles E. Minches of St. Louis, Missouri invented the ice cream cone when he developed the idea of filling a pastry cone with ice cream.
• October 27, 1904 - New York subway system is opened for business

• September, 1905 - Roosevelt's involvement in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Portsmouth Treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War received him the Nobel Peace Prize )

• The San Francisco earthquake and fire which on April 18-19, 1906 left 503 dead and $350 million in damages.

• Henry Ford introduced Model T car, produced by assembly-line methods, priced at $850 on October 1.

• William Howard Taft, Republican, became the 27th President of the United States.
• Adm. Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole on April 6 accompanied by Matthew Henson, a black man, and 4 Eskimos
• National Conference of the Negro convened on May 30 leading to founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• Boy Scouts of America founded on February 8, 1910

• The building holding New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Company sweatshop caught fire on March 25, 1911 killing 146 mostly young women some of whom were trapped and killed while others jumped to their deaths.
  

• January 22, 1912 - Henry Flagler created bridges for a a train that crosses the Keys in Florida.
• Arizona statehood and New Mexico statehood
• American Girl Guides founded on March 12, 1912 whose name was later changed to the Girl Scouts.

• Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) [1913 - 1921] became the 28th president of the United States.
• National Child Labor Committee campaigns against the dangers of children working (a classroom activity) and U. S. legislators debate changing the child labor laws (1916 - Keating-Owen Act) .
• The Income Tax Amendment ( the 16th) is adopted creating tax day as April 15 for Americans.
• 17th Amendment creates the direct election of U.S. Senators - Constitution of the United States is ratified.

• Pres. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed U.S. neutrality in the European war on March 4, 1914
• May 9, 1914 - The first "Mother's Day" proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson
• Panama Canal was officially opened on August 15, 1914. [ Woodrow Wilson House]

• First telephone talk from New York to San Francisco on January 25, 1915 by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson
  [History of telephones | Bell's Path to the Telephone]
• British ship Lusitania sunk on May 7 by German submarine with 128 American passengers lost which prompted Pres. Wilson's note to Germany.
• U.S. troops landed in Haiti on July 28, 1915. Haiti became a U. S. protectorate under Sept. 16 treaty.

• General John Pershing entered Mexico to pursue Francisco (Pancho) Villa who had raided U.S. border areas and forces were withdrawn on Feb. 5, 1917
• U.S. bought Virgin Islands from Denmark on August 4, 1916

• Germany, suffering from British blockade, declared almost unrestricted submarine warfare on Jan. 31, 1917
• U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Germany on February 3, 1917
• March 31, 1917 - The United States takes ownership of the Virgin Islands
• United States formally declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917 entering World War I.
• The first U.S. troops arrived in Europe on June 26, 1917
• November 2, 1917 - Balfour Declaration in support of Jewish Zionism.
• The 18th (Prohibition) Amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states by Congress on December 18, 1917

• American Forces under General Pershing launched their first major offensive in World War I.
• World War I ended on November 11, 1918.
• December 4, 1918 - Wilson leaves for Europe to attend Paris Peace Conference which culminates in the Treaty of Versailles (signed June 28, 1919) and establishes the League of Nations

• February 26, 1919 - The Grand Canyon becomes a national park.
• The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919 ending World War I.
• The Boston police strike of September 9, 1919 was broken up by the National Guard.
• The 18th Amendment (Consitution of the United States) prohibiting intoxicating liquor was ratified by the States.

• The Senate rejected United States membership in the League of Nations, fatally weakening that international body.
• In a national Red Scare, more than 2,700 Communists, anarchists, and other radicals were arrested between January and May, 1920
• Nicola Sacco, 29, shoe factory employee and radical agitator, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 32, fish peddler and anarchist, are accused of killing 2 men in a Massachusetts payroll holdup on April 15, 1920. Both were executed on August 23, 1927 after a 6 year campaign for their release failed. On July 19, 1977, Gov. Michael Dukakis reversed the verdict.
• The Woman's Suffrage Amendment - the 19th Amendment (Constitution of the United States) providing voting for women is ratified on August 18, 1920 giving one woman one vote and ending a long campaign of picketing and lobbying. ( background)
  [ History of Suffrage]
• The League of Women Voters was founded.

• Warren Gamaliel Harding (Republican) [1921 - 1923] became the 29th president of the United States.
• On July 29, Adolf Hitler became the leader of National Socialist 'Nazi' Party.
• A joint congressional resolution declared peace with Germany, Austria, and Hungary was signed on July 2, 1921 by Pres. Warren Harding with treaties signed in August, 1921.
• The Ku Klux Klan began revival with violence against Catholics in North, South, and Midwest

• February 8, 1922 - President Harding installed a radio in the White House.
• Violence during a coal-mine strike at Herrin, Illinois on June 22-23, 1922 cost 36 lives, 21 of whom were nonunion miners.

• Calvin Coolidge (Republican) [1923 - 1929] became the 30th president of the United States.
• The first sound-on-film motion picture, Phonofilm, was shown by Lee deForest at the Rivoli Theater, New York City beginning in April, 1923

• Though the Teapot Dome Scandal was revealed in 1924 during the Coolidge Administration and dealt with then, the situation had happened during the Harding Administration when public land was secretly leased to private investors with no bids
• A law was approved by Congress on June 15, 1924 making all Indians citizens.
• First woman governor, Nellie Taylor Ross, was elected governor of Wyoming on November 6, 1924 after the death of her husband on October 2, 1924.
• George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in 1924.

• John Scopes was found guilty of having taught evolution in a Dayton, Tennessee high school, was fined $100 and court costs on July 24, 1925.
• On July 18, Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" was published.

• Dr. Robert H. Goddard demonstrated the practicality of rockets on March 16, 1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts with the first liquid fuel rocket which traveled 184 feet in 2.5 seconds.

• Captain Charles A. Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field, NY on May 20, 1927, alone in his plane, " the Spirit of St. Louis", on his first New York-Paris nonstop flight. He reached LeBourget airfield on May 21 having flown 3,610 miles in 33-1/2 hours. He received the First Distinguished Flying Cross.
• The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, demonstrated part-talking pictures in New York City on December 27, 1927.

• Herbert Hoover was elected president defeating Alfred E. Smith, the Catholic governor of New York.
• Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic on June 17, 1928.

• Herbert Hoover (Republican) [1929 - 1933] became the 31st president of the United States.
• The St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago on February 14, 1929 where gangsters killed 7 rival gangsters.
• Teapot Dome scandal
• Stock market crashed on October 29, 1929 marking the end of postwar prosperity as stock prices plummeted and began the worst American depression. Lowest day, July 8, 1932