TOPICS and YEARS for SHORT STORIES 2020
WEEK 1 Beginnings to the American Revolution
5500BC Anasazi lived in Southwest
1492 Columbus "discovered" the US
1497 Cabot sailed to Canada
1519 Magellan sailed around the world
1520 Coronodo entered the Southwest
1534 Cartier explored Canada
1579 Sir Francis Drake landed in California
1598 Don Juan de Onate founded New Mexico
1603 Champlain continued exploring Canada
1607 Jamestown founded by John Smith
1623 Conant started Salem Colony
1624 Fort Orange colony in New York
1626 Dutch purchase Manhattan for 24 dollars
1638 New Sweden founded in Delaware
1620 Pilgrims came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower
1655 New Amsterdam expands and takes over New Sweden
1664 Britain takes over Dutch colonies
1673 Marquette and Joillet (France) claim Louisiana Mississippi River area
1680 Civil war and dictatorship among Pueblo Indians
1682 Quakers (William Penn) came to Pennsylvania and Delaware
1689 French and Indian wars begin
1692 Salem Witch Trials
1763 French and Indian wars end with France giving up its land to Spain.
Week 2: New government and the 19th century to the Civil War
1765 Stamp Act
1769 Spanish missions founded up West Coast
1770 Boston Massacre
1773 Boston Tea Party
1775 "The shot heard 'round the world"
1776 Declaration of Independence
1778 France sides with the United States (Lafayette)
1779 John Paul Jones "I have not yet begun to fight."
1781 British surrender at Yorktown
1783 Treaty of Paris ends the Revolution
1787 Constitutional Convention
1789 George Washington's Inauguration as president
1791 Bill of Rights adopted
1793 Eli Whitney's cotton gin
1803 Louisiana Purchase
1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition
1808 Slave importation prohibited
1812 War of 1812: war on Britain begins
1818 War Hawks war on Britain ends
1820 missionaries arrive in Hawaii
1820 Missouri Compromise
1823 Monroe Doctrine
1831 Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion
1834 Mc Cormick's reaper
1836 Remember the Alamo!
1843 Oregon Trail
1844 Samuel Morse telegraph
1846 Mexican War begins
1847 Mormon pioneers reach Great Salt Lake
1848 California Gold Rush
1850 1850 compromise
1850 California in as the 31st state
1850 First National Women's Rights Convention held
1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin
1853 Gadsen Purchase
1854 Kansas Nebraska Act
1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford
1858 Lincoln Douglas Debates
1859 John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry
1860 Abraham Lincoln elected 16th President and South Carolina secedes
1861 Fort Sumter and First Bull Run
1862 Antietam and Fredricksburg and the Emancipation Proclamation
1863 Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg and the Gettysburg Address
1864 Sherman's March to the Sea and Lincoln is reelected
1865 Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomatox
1865 President Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
WEEK 3 Transition to the 20th Century
1867 Alaska purchased from Russia (Seward’s Folly)
1869 Transcontinental Railroad (the golden spike)
1870 Hiram Revels of Mississippi becomes the first black Senator
1872 Susan B. Anthony is arrested while attempting to vote.
1876 Custer's Last Stand in Montana
1878 Thomas Edison patents the phonograph
1879 Edison invents the light bulb
1890 Wounded Knee Massacre
1891 Thomas Edison patents his moving picture camera
1895 The first automobile race is run from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois
1898 Spanish American War
1901 JP Morgan's US Steel Corp. is first billion dollar industry
1901 President Mc Kinley is assassinated
1902 President Roosevelt helps settle a coal miner strike
1903 Wright brothers fly first plane at Kitty Hawk, NC
1904 U.S. granted the Panama Canal Zone
1905 Roosevelt negotiates end to Russo Japanese War （Treaty of Portsmouth)
1906 The great San Francisco Earthquake
1908 Ford Company introduces the Model T cost $850
1911 Sherman Antitrust Act breaks up monopolies
1912 The Titanic sinks killing over 1,500 people
1914 World War I starts in Europe
1915 Lusitania is sunk by a German submarine
1917 US enters World War I
1918 Wilson’s Fourteen Points as plan for peace
1919 The Treaty of Versailles ends the War
1919 19th amendment ratified (women’s vote)
1920 The 18th Amendment Prohibition takes effect
1923 President Harding dies during the Teapot Dome oil scandal
1925 The Scopes Monkey Trial
1927 Charles Lindbergh flys solo over the Atlantic
1927 Babe Ruth hits 60th Home Run
1929 stock market collapses; Great Depression
1930 the "Dust Bowl" begins in the Midwest
1931 Al Capone is sentenced to prison
1932 Charles Lindbergh's baby kidnapped and killed
1933 President F.D. Roosevelt "New Deal“
1937 Steel strike in Chicago (Memorial Day massacre)
1939 Hollywood film "Gone with the Wind" wins Oscar
Week 4: From World War 2 and the Cold War to today
1941 Pearl Harbor attack, US enters WWII
1942 Fermi splits atom, "Manhattan Project" begins
1945 Atomic bomb test in New Mexico
1945 Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing
1946 Benjamin Spock "Baby and Child Care"
1949 NATO treaty
1950 Mc Carthy era begins
1950 Korean War begins
1951 Color TV introduced
1952 "The pill" produced
1953 Lung cancer reported linked to smoking
1954 Race segregation in schools declared unconstitutional (Brown vs. Board)
1955 Blacks in Montgomery, Alabama boycott bus lines (Rosa Parks)
1955 Disneyland opens
1957 USSR launches Sputnik (first earth satellite)
1958 US launches Satellite Explorer I
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 President Kennedy assassinated
1963 Coup in South Vietnam
1965 Malcolm X assassinated
1966 Protests against Vietnam
1968 Worldwide student protests
1969 First man on moon
1969 US troop withdrawal from Vietnam
1970 Four students killed at Kent State protests
1972 Nixon first visits China
1974 Watergate scandal, Nixon impeached
1975 Apollo/Soyuz link in space
1975 Vietnam War ends
1976 Bicentennial celebrations
1977 President Carter pardons draft evaders
1978 Egypt/Israel summit at Camp David
1979 US Embassy staff taken hostage in Iran
1980 Iraq invades Iran
1981 AIDS identified, IBM personal computer invented
1982 US back Contra rebels in Nicaragua, invade Grenada
1986 Challenger explodes in space
1987 Gorbachev introduces "perestroika" and "glasnost“ ending cold war
1991 Iraq invades Kuwait/Gulf War
1992 Rodney King riots in L.A.
1992 WWW born
1993 World Trade Center bombed
1993 Waco Firestorm
1994 Earthquake in L.A.
1995 Building bombed by Mc Veigh in Oklahoma
1998 President Clinton impeached but found not guilty
1998 US Embassies bombed in Kenya,Tanzania
2001 Twin towers attacked by terrorists (9/11)
2001 Patriot act, War in Afghanistan
2003 War in Iraq
2005 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
2008 Lehman Shock and Great Recession
2008 Obama wins election
2009 Michael Jackson dies
2010 First IPAD released
2011 Osama bin Laden killed, End of Iraq war announced
2011 Arab Spring
2013 Terrorism at the Boston Marathon
2016 Trump wins election
2017 # Metoo movement
2017 Las Vegas mass shooting
2019 Trump impeachment
2020 Coronavirus pandemic