Hepinger 1900s Dates

1945

First session of the United Nations is held

1945

World War II ends (V

1939

World War II starts with Germany's invasion of Poland

1938

Munich Conference ("Peace in our time"

1933

Hitler comes to power in Germany

1929

Stock Market Crash in the US

1928

Stalin is firmly entrenched as the leader of the Soviet Union

1924

Lenin dies

1923

Adolf Hitler leads the Beer Hall Putsch in Germany

1922

Mussolini comes to power in Italy and establishes the 1st Fascist government

1922

Russia officially becomes known as the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

1918

1921

1919

Treaty of Versailles signed

1918

WW I ends

1918

Treaty of Brest

1917

March and November (Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia

1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated

1905

Bloody Sunday Revolution in Russia

1945

1989

1946

Winston Churchill gives the "iron curtain" speech

1948

1949

1949

USSR successfully tests first atomic bomb

1951

European Coal and Steel Community formed

1953

Stalin dies and is succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev

1954

French forces defeated in French

1956

Hungarian revolt against the Soviet Union

1957

Rome Treaty is signed

1957

Sputnik is launched by the Soviet Union

1958

The fifth Republic is born in France and Charles de Gaulle becomes president

1961

Berlin Wall built

1961

Soviet Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space

1962

Cuban Missile Crisis

1963

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is published

1964

Leonid Brezhnev becomes leader of the Soviet Union

1966

Under President Charles de Gaulle, France withdraws from the common NATO military command

1968

"Prague Spring" occurs in Czechoslovakia

1968

Student revolt in France (Paris)

1978

Pole Karol Wojtyla elected Pope

1979

Soviet Union invades Afghanistan (eventually becomes their own "little Vietnam")

1979

Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of England ("The Iron Lady")

1980

1st independent labor union in the Soviet Bloc formed

1980

Ronald Reagan elected President of the US (calls the Soviet Union and "evil empire")

1985

Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader (implements policies of perestroika and glasnost)

1986

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in the Soviet Union (specifically

1989

Berlin Wall comes down

1989

The "Velvet Revolution" occurs in Czechoslovakia

1989

Romanian leader Nicolai Ceausescu is overthrown and killed

1989

The Soviet Union withdraws its forces from Afghanistan

1990

Lech Walesa becomes President of Poland

1990

East Germany and West Germany reunify into one Germany

1990

The 1st McDonald's opens in Russia

1991

Attempted coup attempt in the Soviet Union

1991

Yugoslavia begins to break apart

1991

Boris Yeltsin becomes President of Russia

1992

Maastricht Treaty signed

1997

Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister of England

1999

Eurodollar becomes the single currency of the European Union (EU)