The following information is taken from Lincoln Journal Star.

April 15, 1912: The steamship Titanic strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic killing 1502 people.

Aug 15, 1914: The Panama Canal is opened to shipping.

April 2, 1917: U.S. president Wilson asks congress to declare war on Germany.

Nov 11, 1918: Germany signs an armistice treaty ending World War I.

Sep 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland (World War II starts).

May 10, 1940: Winston Churchill is designated prime minister of Britain.

Dec 7, 1941: War declared by U.S. on Japan, after the last attacked Pearl Harbor (Hawaii). The attack which resulted in the death of 1500 people. According to some sources, 60% of the U.S. naval power was stationed in Hawaiian water before the attack.

July 16, 1945: The first atomic bomb is manufactured in Alamogordo, NM.

Aug 6, 1945: Japan was hit by the first atomic bomb. The target was a Japanese army base in Hiroshima. Hiroshima, a city of 318,000 (at that time), is located on the island of Honshu (the Inland sea), and it contains a principal port. Hiroshima atomic bomb (both research and production) had costed 2 billion dollars. This bomb contained more power than 20,000 tons of TNT, and it was more than 2000 times powerful than the most powerful bomb ever dropped before.

Aug 14, 1945: Japan surrenders and World War II ends.

April 4, 1949: Twelve countries sign the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO is founded).

June 25, 1950: North Korea invades the south.

Oct 4, 1957: The soviets launch the first satellite called Sputnik.

April 12, 1961: The Soviet Yori Gagarin becomes the first human in space.

May 5, 1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

October 22, 1962: The Soviet Union threatens the U.S. over quarantine of Cuba.

Nov 22, 1963: U.S. president John F. Kennedy (46 at that time) was shot in Dallas, Texas. He died half an hour later. About two hours after his death, vice president (a native Texan) Lyndon B. Johnson became a new president. In the same attack which ended the life of the youngest U.S. president, the governer of Texas was also seriously wounded.

Aug 5, 1964: U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson orders air strikes on North Vietnam. In 1969, U.S. troops begins phased withdrawal. On June 27, 1973, Paris Peace Agreement was signed and ended the U.S. direct military intervention. On April 30, 1975, South Vietnam unconditionally surrenders.

Aug 8, 1974: U.S. 37th president Richard M. Nixon resigns (because of Watergate) to become the first U.S. president to relinquish his office. Nixon has appointed vice president Gerald R. Ford, who became the first appointed president.

1984: The Aids virus is discovered.

Nov 9, 1989: East Germany opens, for the first time since 1961, the Berlin Wall and its other borders.

Feb 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela is freed by F. W. deKlerk after spending 27 years in prison.

Jan 16, 1991: U.S. and allied planes strike Iraq.

Dec 25, 1991: The last soviet president Mikkail S. Gorbachev resigns, and the Russian president Boris Yeltsin becomes the new commander of the soviet nuclear arsenal. Note: the Soviet Union was established in 1917.