1900-present dates

Russo-Japanese war

1905

Mexican Revolution

1910-1920 (Diaz overthrown)

Chinese Revolution

1911 (end of Qing)

World War I

1914-1918/19 / Treaty of Versailles

Russian Revolution

1917

Kellogg-Briand Pact

1928 (outlawing war)

Stock market crashes

1929

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

1931

Italian invasion of Ethiopia

1935

Japanese invasion of (rest of) China

1937; Rape of Nanking

German blitzkrieg in Poland

1939

Pearl Harbor

1941, US entry into WWII

Yalta Conference

1945 Feb (beg of Cold War??)

A-Bomb in Hiroshima/Nagasaki

1945 Aug

End of WWII

1945 Sept (Japan surrenders)

Truman Doctrine

1947 June ("official" decl of Cold War)

Independence and Partition of India/Pakistan

1947 Aug

Birth of Israel

1948

Berlin blockade/airlift

1948-1949

NATO founded

1949 Apr

Chinese Communist Revolution

1949 Oct

Korean War

1950-1953

Vietnam expels France

1954 (Dien Bien Phu)

Bandung Conference

1955 (Non-Aligned nations)

Khrushchev begins de-Stalinization

1956 Feb

Sputnik

1957

Cuban Revolution

1959 (Fidel Castro)

Cuban missile crisis

1962

Vietnam War

1965-1973

Chinese Cultural Revolution

1966-1976

6-Day War

1967 btwn Israel & Arab States

Yom Kippur War

1973 (OPEC oil embargo)

Iranian Revolution

1979

China begins "Socialist Market Economy" reforms

1979 (Deng Xiaoping)

1st Palestinian Intifada

1987

Tiananmen Square

1989 June

Fall of the Berlin Wall

1989 Nov

Namibia gained independence

1990 (last African colony)

1st Persian Gulf War

1991 Jan

USSR disbanded

1991 Dec

Genocide in Rwanda

1994 Apr-Jul

1st all race elections in S Africa

1994 Apr

9/11 attacks

2001; "war on terror" begins

US invades Iraq

2003

Facebook founded

2004

Global "Great Recession" begins

2007-08

Wikileaks

2011; "Arab Spring" democracy

Syrian Civil War begins

2011

Rise of Islamic State

2014