In the year 1981, Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, ending the Iran hostage crisis (Jan 20), the first London Marathon starts with 7500 runners (Mar 29), President Reagan survives the assassination in Washington D.C. (Mar 30), Space Shuttle Columbia returns to Earth, the first time for a manned reusable spacecraft to do so (Apr 14), the first game of paintball is played in Henniker, NH (Jun 27), Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer get married in London (Jul 29), France abolishes capital punishment (Sep 18), the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated in Cairo (Oct 6), Muhammad Ali boxes for the last time (Dec 11) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1990, Mr. Bean debuts on television (Jan 1), Manuel Noriega is disposed as the leader of Panama (Jan 3), Nelson Mandela is finally released from prison (Feb 11), Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as president (Mar 13), Namibia gains independence (Mar 21), WHO removes homosexuality from its list of diseases (May 17), the first ban of smoking in bars is passed in California, and Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War (Aug 2), East and West Germany reunify into a single Germany (Oct 3), South Africa ends segregation on a wide scale (Oct 15), Akihito is enthroned as the 125th emperor of Japan (Nov 12), the first known web page is written (Nov 13), communism is falling allover Europe and the U. Continue reading

In the year 1949, VW Beetle Type 1 enters the American scene, but the future automotive phenomenon goes yet unrecognized (Jan 17), Australian citizenship comes into being (Jan 26), astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang (Mar 28), NATO is founded (Apr 4), the Republic of Ireland comes into being (Apr 18), Siam changes its name to Thailand (May 11), George Orwell’s 1984 is published (Jun 8), West Germany is established (Sep 7), the People’s Republic of China is officially proclaimed (Oct 1), East Germany is established (Oct 7), the cornerstone of the UN Headquarters is laid (Oct 24), Winston Churchill makes a landmark speech in support of the idea of a European Union (Nov 28) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins (Jan 5), Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany (Jan 30), King Kong premieres in New York City (Mar 2), FDR is sworn in as the 32nd U.S. president (Mar 4), the board game Monopoly is invented (Mar 7), the concentration camp Dachau is completed, years before the WWII starts (Mar 20), Gestapo is founded (Apr 26), the first alleged sighting of the Loch Ness monster occurs (May 2), the first drive-in movie theater opens near Camden, New Jersey (Jun 6), all non-Nazi parties are forbidden in Germany (Jun 21), Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly around the world (Jul 22), Einstein arrives in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany (Oct 17), alcohol becomes legal again in the U. Continue reading

In the year 1917, Mata Hari is arrested in Paris for spying (Feb 13), the first jazz recording is commercially released (Mar 7), the Russian Empire comes to an end as Nicholas II abdicates his throne (Mar 15), the Danish West Indies become the US Virgin Islands (Mar 31), Lenin returns to Russia from exile (Apr 16), Our Lady of Fátima apparitions begin, lasting 5 months (May 13), the first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded (Jun 4), the Lions Club International is formed (Jul 7), October Revolution in Russia starts years of turmoil (Nov 7/Oct 25 O. Continue reading

In the year 1901, oil is discovered in the first great Texas gusher at Spindletop in Beaumont (Jan 10), Queen Victoria dies after 63 years of reign (Jan 22), New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates (Apr 25), Cuba becomes a U.S. protectorate (Jun 12), Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner (Aug 30), the first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm (Dec 10), Alzheimer’s disease is described for the first time by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer, Scotland Yard creates a fingerprint archive - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1905, The Trans-Siberian Railway officially opens (Jan 1), Las Vegas, Nevada is founded when 110 acres (0.4 km²), in what later becomes downtown, are auctioned off (May 15), the Japanese fleet destroys the Russian fleet in a 2-day battle (May 27-28), the Norwegian Parliament declares the union with Sweden dissolved, and Norway achieves full independence (Jun 7), Albert Einstein publishes his theory of special relativity (Jun 30), Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway (Nov 18) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1903, Morris and Rose Mitchom introduce the first teddy bear in the United States (Feb 15), Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity” (Feb 23), the first Tour de France bicycle race commences (Jul 1), Prussia becomes the first country to require mandatory driver’s license for car drivers (Sep 29), Orville Wright makes the first flight with an aircraft with petrol-engine (Dec 17), women’s rights progress around the world - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1915, Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising, and Zeppelins bomb British towns for the first time (Jan 19), Alexander Graham Bell makes the first United States coast-to-coast phone call (Jan 25), Pluto is photographed for the first time (Mar 19), Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp is released (Apr 11), the Gallipoli Campaign starts (Apr 25), RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat (May 7), Iceland gets its own flag (Jun 19), an enemy aircraft is shot down from the ground for the first time (Sep 30), Einstein’s theory of general relativity is formulated (Nov 25), the WW1 rages on - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1923, the very first issue of the Time magazine is published, depicting Joseph G. Cannon on the cover (Mar 3), Lenin resigns for health reasons (Mar 9), the original Wembley Stadium opens its doors for the first time (Apr 28), the Hollywood sign is inaugurated in California, and the first dinosaur eggs are found in Mongolia (Jul 13), the Ottoman Empire ceases to exist (Jul 24), Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company (Oct 16), Kemal Atatürk becomes president of the new republic of Turkey (Oct 29), Adolf Hitler is arrested for leading an attack against the Bavarian government (Nov 15) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1916, Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time (Jan 29), Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control in the U.S (Feb 11), the automobile company BMW is founded (Mar 7), the toggle light switch is invented (Apr), the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire is declared (Jun 10), the Pacific Aero Products Co., later named Boeing, is incorporated (Jul 15), Robert Baden-Powell publishes The Wolf Club’s Handbook in the U. Continue reading

In the year 1966, Chicago Bulls is officially founded (Jan 16), Indira Gandhi is sworn in as Prime Minister of India (Jan 24), the Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet’s surface (Mar 1), Leonid Brezhnev becomes the new Soviet leader (Apr 8), Guyana achieves independence (May 26), groundbreaking takes place for the World Trace Center (Aug 5), Star Trek debuts on NBC (Sep 8), LSD is made illegal in the United States (Oct 6), Ronald Reagan becomes Governor of California (Nov 8), the Vietnam War rages on - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1929, the first Academy Awards are announced, with the actual awards being handed out in May (Feb 18), Herbert Hoover becomes the 31st U.S. President (Mar 4), the first public demonstration of color TV is held in New York (Jun 27), a secret decree of the Sovnarkom creates the backbone of the Gulag system in Soviet Union (Jul 11),** Wall Street Crash of 1929** (Oct 24-29) marks the beginning of the Great Depression, the Museum of Modern Art in New York opens to the public (Nov 7), the first light poles appear in London (Dec 2) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1911, the first official air mail flight takes place in India, carrying 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km (Feb 18), International Women’s Day is celebrated for the first time (Mar 8), The New York Public Library is officially dedicated (May 23), IBM is incorporated in New York (Jun 15), Chevrolet enters the automobile market to compete with Ford (Nov 3), the Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s expedition reaches the South Pole (Dec 14) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

Hitler and Mussolini in Venice in 1934 In the year 1934, Alcatraz becomes a prison (Jan 1, and remained so until 1963), Fuji Photo Film is founded (Jan 20), the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed and killed by police in Louisiana (May 23), Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet for the first time, in Venice (Jun 14), Night of the Long Knifes in Germany increases Nazi power (Jun 30), Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany (Aug 2), the Soviet Union joins the League of Nations (Sep 19), Persia becomes Iran (Dec 27) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1971, cigarette advertisements are banned on radio and television in the United States (Jan 2), All in the Family debuts on CBS (Jan 12), Idi Amin becomes president of Uganda, and Charles Manson is found guilty in Los Angeles (Jan 25), Bangladesh declares itself an independent country (May 31), Neville Bonner becomes the first indigenous Australian to sit in the country’s parliament (Jun 11), Jim Morrison is found dead in Paris (Jul 3), Apollo 15 astronauts ride the first lunar rover on the Moon(Jul 31), Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida (Oct 1), Greenpeace is founded in Vancouver, Canada (Oct 14), Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to enter Mars orbit successfully (Nov 13), Starbucks is founded - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1961, U.S. President Eisenhower warns in his Farewell Address of the increasing power of the military-industrial complex (Jan 17), the Beatles perform for the first time (Feb 9), Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space (Apr 12), the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins, failing two days later (Apr 17), the Swedish ship Vasa is removed from the water after 333 years of its sinking (Apr 24), Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space (May 5), President Kennedy announces his plan to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade (May 25), construction of the Berlin Wall begins (Aug 13), JFK sends 18,000 military advisers to South Vietnam (Nov 18), Fidel Castro announces that Cuba will now adopt socialism (Dec 2), Goa becomes part of India after 400 years of Portuguese rule (Dec 19) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

In the year 1957, Eisenhower’s second term as U.S. president begins (Jan 20), the first new conscripts join the Bundeswehr (Apr 1), John Lennon(16) and Paul McCartney(15) meet for the very first time, 3 years before forming the Beatles (Jul 6), Olav V becomes King of Norway (Sep 21), David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in the UK (Oct 2), the Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth (Oct 4), Sputnik 2 is launched, with the dog Laika on board (Nov 3), Gordon Gould invents the laser (Nov 13), the Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time (Dec 20) - and all these fine people were born: Continue reading

Pick a year between 1901 and 2000! If you have forefathers or -mothers born any of these years, you can have them added in the list by simply leaving a comment on the box below the year in question. Keep in mind though that you need to have the permission of any living person to be added here, unless that person is yourself. 1901 - 1902 - 1903 - 1904 - 1905 - 1906 - 1907 - **1908 **- 1909 - 1910 - 1911 - 1912 - 1913 - 1914 - 1915 - 1916 - 1917 - 1918 - 1919 - 1920 - 1921 - 1922 - 1923 - 1924 - 1925 - 1926 - 1927 - 1928 - 1929 - 1930 - 1931 - 1932 - 1933 - 1934 - 1935 - 1936 - 1937 - 1938 - 1939 - 1940 - 1941 - 1942 - 1943 - 1944 - 1945 - 1946 - 1947 - 1948 - 1949 - 1950 - 1951 - 1952 - 1953 - 1954 - 1955 - 1956- 1957 - 1958 - 1959 - 1960 - 1961 - 1962 - 1963 - 1964 - 1965 - 1966 - 1967 - 1968 - 1969 - 1970 - 1971 - 1972 - 1973 - 1974 - 1975 - 1976 - 1977 - 1978 - 1979 - 1980 - 1981 - 1982 - 1983 - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - 1987 - 1988 - 1989 - 1990 - 1991 - 1992 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 Updated 29. Continue reading

In the year 1946, Project Diana opens the Space Age (Jan 10), Trygve Lie is selected as the first UN Secretary-General (Feb 1), Juan Perón is elected president of Argentina (Feb 24) and Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam (Mar 2), women vote for the first time in Japan (Apr 10), Italy is declared a republic (Jun 10), the bikini is first modeled in Paris (Jul 5), the U.S. detonates nuclear bomb near Bikini Atoll, and the last mass lynching in the U. Continue reading