Crazy for the win. USSR develops the bomb #7.
Top 25 events in modern US history
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
- Start date
Crazy for the win. USSR develops the bomb #7.
So that was an interesting list and it is probably hard to pick just 25, but I think there were a few misses there.
@Marvin the Martian,
Thanks for posting this thread. Great idea, and very interesting.
Thanks for posting this thread. Great idea, and very interesting.
Also, in case nobody's said it yet, great thread. Really love the palette cleaners.
The full list is below. Pearl, moving assembly line, and the creation of the UN are the three absences I wonder about most.
The first credit cards are issued by Visa (September 15, 1958)
The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show (February 9, 1964)
Jackie Robinson debuts (April 15, 1947)
The September 11 attacks (September 11, 2001)
The Watergate break-in (June 17, 1972)
The moon landing (July 20, 1969)
The Battle of Wounded Knee (December 29,1890)
The U.S.S. Maine sinks (February 15, 1898)
Donald Trump is elected president (November 8, 2016)
The Tet Offensive (January 30, 1968)
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire (March 25, 1911)
The founding of Israel (May 14, 1948)
The Zimmermann telegram (January 16, 1917)
Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929)
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July 2, 1964)
The G.I. Bill (June 22, 1944)
The Battle of Midway (June 4, 1942)
Russia gets the bomb (August 29, 1949)
China becomes communist (October 2, 1949)
(tie) Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)/Rosa Parks arrested (December 1, 1955)
The Social Security Act (August 14, 1935)
The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified (August 18, 1920)
Plessy v. Ferguson (May 18, 1896)
(tie) The bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945)
The first credit cards are issued by Visa (September 15, 1958)
The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show (February 9, 1964)
Jackie Robinson debuts (April 15, 1947)
The September 11 attacks (September 11, 2001)
The Watergate break-in (June 17, 1972)
The moon landing (July 20, 1969)
The Battle of Wounded Knee (December 29,1890)
The U.S.S. Maine sinks (February 15, 1898)
Donald Trump is elected president (November 8, 2016)
The Tet Offensive (January 30, 1968)
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire (March 25, 1911)
The founding of Israel (May 14, 1948)
The Zimmermann telegram (January 16, 1917)
Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929)
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July 2, 1964)
The G.I. Bill (June 22, 1944)
The Battle of Midway (June 4, 1942)
Russia gets the bomb (August 29, 1949)
China becomes communist (October 2, 1949)
(tie) Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)/Rosa Parks arrested (December 1, 1955)
The Social Security Act (August 14, 1935)
The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified (August 18, 1920)
Plessy v. Ferguson (May 18, 1896)
(tie) The bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945)
About time! I beat you to it by seconds, you insensitive bastard.
Indeed. That was fun.
Reminds me of a really fun book from shortly before the Millennium:
Amazon product ASIN 1568362536
Thanks for playing everyone. It felt good to not fight so much. I was worried when Trump's election made the list.
Well, it is the beginning of the Apocalypse and all, so I can understand its inclusion.
Today is the Anniversary of Homebrew Legalization
On October 14, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation legalizing homebrew and ushering in the current age of craft beer
www.porchdrinking.com
That is one of the ones I would have pulled off and replaced with the UN, the Marshall Plan, the creation of the Assembly line, or Pearl Harbor.
Way too early to tell if that is a big deal or not.
This also reminded me of one of my favorite trivia games, which is sadly no longer in production. You basically have to identify when something occurred. You get points based on how close you come, with tougher ones having wider spreads to get max points.
boardgamegeek.com
Chronology is similar. In this one you have to determine where the event falls within a timeline you create:
Amazon product ASIN B007MHIYFM
Chronicles
Chronicles is a trivia game that asks players to guess when certain historical events took place. The questions are designed to enable players to reason their way closer to the answers, and partial credit is given for how close one comes, dependent on question difficulty. The partial credit...
Chronology is similar. In this one you have to determine where the event falls within a timeline you create:
Amazon product ASIN B007MHIYFM
the Maine
Personnel computing
Transcontinental RR
rock and Roll
Fracking
The Pill
Prohibition
Roe v Wade
Communication; Telegraph/telephone/satellite
WPA
Coca Cola
Microwave cooking
digital medical imaging
Chlorinated drinking water
and
The designated hitter.
Personnel computing
Transcontinental RR
rock and Roll
Fracking
The Pill
Prohibition
Roe v Wade
Communication; Telegraph/telephone/satellite
WPA
Coca Cola
Microwave cooking
digital medical imaging
Chlorinated drinking water
and
The designated hitter.
Had the answers right here, yet I think you only managed to get one of them.
I too am surprised JFK assassination didn't make it. I guess it did not make the list because, while it still reverberates, it arguably did not have a long lasting effect on the course of American history?
For the interstate highway and similar things, they really weren't discrete "events" that lasted less than one week. I think that's also why truly impactful inventions did not make the list. For example, what date do you put on the invention of television? Even the first TV broadcast was probably only viewed by a small number of people. The only thing that made the list that is arguably a form of "invention" is the release of the first credit card. But, that event was the release of 60,000 credit cards to the public on a single day.
How old is this guy and what are his metrics?
As far as enduring effects are concerned, I think he is off by a lot. Putting Trump on the list is a showstopper for me. Trump is more of an effect than a cause. I can think of a dozen or more presidents who have had a more lasting effect.
A
anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I might add the George Floyd killing and dissemination of video on there.
Rodney King more important than George Floyd at least as a foundational, historical milestone?
When (Z) teaches modern U.S. history (1877-present), he gives an outline prior to each lecture. Some items on that outline are in bold; that tells the students "This is what you should take notes about, because this is what is important, and so might show up on a quiz." To take one example, the bold terms for the World War II lecture are, in order, Adolf Hitler, Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, the war on the homefront, D-Day, and the Yalta Conference.
In addition, some bold terms have a ranking next to them. For example, on the World War II outline, it says "The Battle of Midway (Top 25: #8)." What this does, over the course of the semester, is slowly reveal a list of the 25 most important events of modern U.S. history, at least in (Z)'s estimation. Each lecture has at least one of them, some lectures have as many as three. This adds a little more interest to the course, and also clues students in as to the things they might want to keep in mind once the course has concluded.
To qualify for the list, the event must have taken place in a week or less. Or, at very least, it must have a focal point of that length. It takes a while to invent something new, or to haggle about a bill in Congress, or to execute a grand military maneuver, but all of those things ultimately come to a climax—a patent is applied for, legislation is signed into law, a battle takes place. By contrast, something like "World War II" or "The Cold War" or "The feminist movement" are broader, and don't have a single, clear focal point. The purpose of this restriction is to try to avoid comparing apples and oranges.
I am guessing he is around 50 judging by a YouTube video. In that video, he asks what these events have in common, any guesses:Abraham Lincoln's speech to the people of Bloomington IL in 1858
The census of 1890
The maps used in bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The movie The Way of All Flesh which won the 1st ever best actor oscar
Super Bowl 2
The Wright Brothers' original patent for an airplane
The first episode of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show
wow. I totally spaced out on the Yalta Conference. That should be in the top 10 for sure.
Great trivia question. Need time.
Directions confused me. Thread should have been locked at that point
Trump's election is too recent to be considered from an historical perspective.
Not to mention what constitutes a "top" event. Top what?
Regardless, it's an interesting list. None of the events I saw would be considered inconsequential, but of course there will be disagreements on the omissions and the relative rankings. But it's those kinds of interpretive processes that make up the study of history. "Who, what, when, and where" is journalism. It's the "why" and the "how" that make it history.
I agree it's impossible to judge the list without defining "top." If we define it as "events that helped shaped what the nation is today," then I think it's a pretty fair list, but with a couple of errors. The election of Trump hasn't really shaped America as much as it was a result of what America was already becoming. Similar for Jackie Robinson, although that event probably straddles the line as both a result of where America was already going as well as an impetus to push America further down that path. The Beatles is also sort of an anomalous entry when viewed through that lens.
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It is tough to compare all these types of events.
Beatles created a massive revolution in sales of albums, and made rock stars celebrities. I buy they have import, but I also don't know how to compare that with the moving assembly line. I might list Dylan's first album since he made the music/social activism a more real connection.
Trump, I doubt since we do not know how it will play out. I assume it symbolizes the normalization of the populist movement.
I also now am really wondering why polio/smallpox vaccines are not there.
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