September 8

• Galveston hurricane leaves an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 dead. According to the census, the nation's population numbers nearly 76 million.

March 4

• McKinley's second inauguration.

September 6

• McKinley's is shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, N.Y.

September 14

• He later dies from his wounds and is succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Treaty signed November 17

• U.S. acquires Panama Canal Zone.

December 17

• Wright brothers make the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
  Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

March 4

• Theodore Roosevelt's second inauguration.

April 18

• San Francisco earthquake leaves 500 dead or missing and destroys about 4 sq mi of the city.

March 4

• William Howard Taft is inaugurated as the 27th president.

• Mrs. Taft has 80 Japanese cherry trees planted along the banks of the Potomac River.
  Cherry Trees in Blossom at the Washington Monument

March 4

• Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as the 28th president.

April 8

• Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, providing for the direct election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather than by the state legislatures.

• World War I: U.S. enters World War I, declaring war on Germany (April 6, 1917) and Austria-Hungary (Dec. 7, 1917) three years after conflict began in 1914.

Nov. 11, 1918

• Armistice ending World War I is signed.

August 15

• Panama Canal opens to traffic.

January 25

• First long distance telephone service, between New York and San Francisco, is demonstrated.

Treaty signed Aug. 14

• U.S. agrees to purchase Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands) for $25 million.

November 7

• Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Jeannette Rankin

March 5

• Wilson's second inauguration.

May 15

• First regular airmail service begins, with one round trip a day between Washington, DC, and New York.

• Worldwide influenza epidemic strikes; by 1920, nearly 20 million are dead. In U.S., 500,000 perish.

January 13

• League of Nations meets for the first time; U.S. is not represented.

January 16

• Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor. It is later repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933.

August 18

• Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote.

September 26

• President Wilson suffers a stroke.

November 19

• Treaty of Versailles, outlining terms for peace at the end of World War I, is rejected by the Senate.

March 4

• Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as the 29th president.

July 2

• He signs resolution declaring peace with Austria and Germany.

Aug. 2

• President Harding dies suddenly. He is succeeded by his vice president, Calvin Coolidge.

October

• Teapot Dome scandal breaks, as Senate launches an investigation into improper leasing of naval oil reserves during Harding administration.

March 4

• Coolidge's second inauguration.

March 23

• Tennessee passes a law against the teaching of evolution in public schools.

July 10–25

• This sets the stage for the Scopes Monkey Trial.

May 20–21

• Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis.
  Charles Lindbergh

March 4

• Herbert Hoover is inaugurated as the 31st president.

October 29

• Stock market crash precipitates the Great Depression.

March 3

• The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the national anthem.

January 12

• Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas is the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband. She is reelected in 1932 and 1938.
  Hattie Wyatt Caraway

May 21

• Amelia Earhart completes first solo nonstop transatlantic flight by a woman.

January 23

• Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, sometimes called the “Lame Duck Amendment,” is ratified, moving the president's inauguration date from March 4 to Jan. 20.

March 4

• Franklin Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president.

March 9 – June 16

• New Deal recovery measures are enacted by Congress.

December 5

• Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, repealing Prohibition.

April 8

• Works Progress Administration is established.

August 14

• Social Security Act is passed.

• Bureau of Investigation (established 1908) becomes the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover

Jan. 20

• F. Roosevelt's second inauguration.

June 25

• Fair Labor Standards Act is passed, setting the first minimum wage in the U.S. at 25 cents per hour.

September 5, 1939

• World War II: U.S. declares its neutrality in European conflict.

January 20, 1941

• F. Roosevelt's third inauguration. He is the first and only president elected to a third term.

December 7, 1941

• Japan attacks Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.

December 8

• U.S. declares war on Japan.

December 11

• Germany and Italy declare war on the United States; U.S. reciprocates by declaring war on both countries.

October – December 1942

• Allies invade North Africa.

September – December 1943

• Allies invade Italy.

June 6, 1944

• Allies invade France on D-Day.

January 20, 1945

• F. Roosevelt's fourth inauguration

February 4 – 11

• President Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet at Yalta in the USSR to discuss postwar occupation of Germany.

April 12

• President Roosevelt dies of a stroke and is succeeded by his vice president, Harry Truman.

May 7

• Germany surrenders unconditionally.

July 16

• First atomic bomb is detonated at Alamogordo, N.M.

July 17 – August 2

• President Truman, Churchill, and Stalin meet at Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany, to demand Japan's unconditional surrender and to discuss plans for postwar Europe.

August 6

• U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
  Bomb cloud at Hiroshima

August 9

• U.S. drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

August 14

• Japan agrees to unconditional surrender.

September 2

• Japanese envoys sign surrender terms aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor.

October 24

• United Nations is established.

July 4

• The Philippines, which had been ceded to the U.S. by Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War, becomes an independent republic.

July 18

• Presidential Succession Act is signed into law by President Truman.

• Central Intelligence Agency is established.

April 2

• Congress passes foreign aid bill including the Marshall Plan, which provides for European postwar recovery.

June 24

• Soviets begin blockade of Berlin in the first major crisis of the cold war.

June 26

• In response, U.S. and Great Britain begin airlift of food and fuel to West Berlin.

Jan. 20

• Truman's second inauguration.

April 4

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is established.

• Soviets end blockade of Berlin (May 12), but airlift continues until Sept. 30.