Enrico Caruso's first gramophone recording.

Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, fly first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air plane at Kitty Hawk.

N.C. Henry Ford organizes Ford Motor Company.

The Boston Red Sox win the first World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

General theory of radioactivity by Rutherford and Soddy.

New York City subway opens.

Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity and other key theories in physics.

Robert Stanley Weir wrote the Canadian National Anthem, the official and most popular version known today.

North Pole reportedly reached by American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson.

Plastic is invented.

Boy Scouts of America incorporated.

First use of aircraft as offensive weapon in Turkish-Italian War.

Chinese Republic proclaimed after revolution overthrows Manchu dynasty.

Amundsen reaches South Pole.

Ernest Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom.

WLU founded as the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary.

Titanic sinks on maiden voyage; over 1,500 drown.

Suffragists demonstrate in London.

Garment workers strike in New York and Boston; win pay raise and shorter hours.

World War I begins: Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and wife Sophie are assassinated; Austria declares war on Serbia, Germany on Russia and France, Britain on Germany.

Panama Canal officially opened.

Lusitania sunk by German submarine.

U.S. banks lend $500 million to France and Britain.

“Black Tom” explosion at munitions dock in Jersey City, N.J., $40,000,000 damages; traced to German saboteurs.

Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic.

Easter Rebellion in Ireland put down by British troops.

Russian Revolution of 1917.

Halifax Explosion in December; approximately 2,000 deaths and 9,000 non-fatal injuries.

The National Hockey League was founded in Montreal.

Armistice between new Russian Bolshevik government and Germans (Dec. 15).

Sigmund Freud's Introduction to Psychoanalysis.

Women get the vote in Ontario. Earliest elected woman in Canada was Hannah Gale (elected as an Alderman for the City of Calgary Municipal Council)

Russian revolutionaries execute the former czar and his family.

German Kaiser abdicates (Nov.); hostilities cease on the Western Front.

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

Paris peace conference. Versailles Treaty, incorporating Woodrow Wilson's draft Covenant of League of Nations, signed by Allies and Germany; rejected by U.S. Senate.

Alcock and Brown make first trans-Atlantic nonstop flight.

Mahatma Gandhi initiates satyagraha (“truth force”) campaigns, beginning his nonviolent resistance movement against British rule in India.

League of Nations holds first meeting at Geneva, Switzerland.

First Agatha Christie mystery.

Mussolini marches on Rome; forms Fascist government.

Death of Lenin; Stalin wins power struggle, rules as Soviet dictator until death in 1953.

Robert Frost wins first of four Pulitzers.

First Olympic Winter Games, France.

John T. Scopes convicted and fined for teaching evolution in a public school in Tennessee “Monkey Trial”; sentence set aside.

John Logie Baird, Scottish inventor, transmits human features by television.

Hitler publishes Volume I of Mein Kampf.

Gertrude Ederle of U.S. is first woman to swim English Channel.

Charles A. Lindbergh flies first successful solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris.

Georges Lemaître proposes Big Bang Theory.

Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs in the season; record stands for next 34 years.

The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson,was the first part-talking motion picture.

Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.

Richard E. Byrd starts expedition to Antarctic; returns in 1930.

Final volume of Oxford English Dictionary published after 44 years of research.

Lateran Treaty establishes independent Vatican City.

In U.S., stock market prices collapse, with U.S. securities losing $26 billion—first phase of Depression and world economic crisis.

Edwin Powell Hubble proposes theory of expanding universe.

Gangster Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion (freed in 1939; dies in 1947).

Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly Atlantic solo.

Dionne sisters, first quintuplets to survive beyond infancy, born in Canada.

Bank of Canada formed.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) founded.

Disney produced its first feature-length animated film Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs.

Fair Labor Standards Act establishes minimum wage.

Orson Welles's radio broadcast War of the Worlds.

Germany invades Poland; occupies Bohemia and Moravia; renounces pact with England and concludes 10-year non-aggression pact with USSR; World War II begins.

Einstein writes FDR about feasibility of atomic bomb.

New York World's Fair opens. DAR Gone with the Wind premieres

The first official network television broadcast is put out by NBC.

Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor brings the U.S. into the war.

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

Mussolini deposed Income tax withholding introduced.

Churchill and Roosevelt hold Casablanca Conference committing to a total Axis defeat.

Allies invade Normandy on D-Day.

World Bank established.

Germany surrenders.

United Nations established; Canada joins the United Nations U.S drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The first electronic computer, ENIAC, is built.

The first family allowance baby bonus payments are received.

League of Nations is dissolved.

Italy abolishes the monarchy.

BBC resumes broadcasting again for the first time since 1939.

Chuck Yeager, piloting the experimental Bell X-1, breaks the sound barrier.

Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Gandhi is assassinated.

Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire wins Pulitzer.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London.

Korean War begins when North Korean communist forces invade South Korea.

Eleven thieves steal more than $2 million in the Great Brink's Robbery.

Walt Disney Studios' debuts the animated film Cinderella.

First NBA All-Star game is played.

First shipment for Volkswagen Canada reached Toronto in early December.

James Watson and Francis Crick publish their discover of the molecular model of DNA.

Mount Everest summit reached by Sir Edmund Hillary.

First Atomic submarine, the Nautilus, is launched.

U.S Supreme Court unanimously bans racial segregation in public schools.

Rosa Parks refuses to sit at the back of the bus.

Warsaw Pact is signed.

Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel released.

The first Earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik I, is launched.

Tennis for Two, the precursor to Pong, is created.

Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship at age 14.

Castro takes presidency of Cuba.

American U-2 Spy plane shot down over Russia.

East Germany erects Berlin Wall.

Astronaut John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth.

Dr. Michael De Bakey implants the first artificial heart in a human.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivers famous “I have a dream” speech.

President Kennedy assassinated.

Nelson Mandela sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Power failure in Ontario plant blacks out parts of eight states of the northeast U.S and two provinces of southeast Canada.

The Canadian “maple leaf” flag made its first official appearance in February.

The Rolling Stones release Paint it, Black

The Beatles perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo.

CBC broadcasts colour T.V. in Canada for the first time

Three Apollo astronauts are killed in a fire during a simulated launch.

The Doors release their debut album.

Martin Luther King Jr. Is assassinated.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau is elected as Prime Minster of Canada.

Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, take man's first steps on the moon.

English and French are both recognized as official languages by the Canadian Federal Government.

The breathalizer is put to use to test for drunk drivers.

Four students at Kent State are slain during protests prompting national outcry.

The first CANDU reactor begins operation in Gentilly, Quebec.

Pentagon Papers published.

Five men are arrested attempting to bug the Democratic National Committee, beginning the Watergate Scandal.

Vietnam War ends.

The RCMP accepts female officers for the first time.

The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang is discovered.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks.

The CN Tower becomes the World's tallest free-standing structure.

The Eaton's catalogue is discontinued.

The death penalty is abolished in Canada.

Nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the U.S and U.S.S.R.

Apple Computer is incorporated.

Highway signs are changed to the metric system in Canada

Jonestown mass suicide tragedy.

Via Rail is established.

The Mississauga Train derailment causes the evacuation of thousands; with no fatalities.

The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for its first launch.

Terry Fox begins his Marathon of Hope run across Canada in support of cancer research.

U.S boycotts the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow

Smallpox eradicated.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.

The Canadarm is first deployed aboard the Space Shuttle.

The Canada Act is passed by the British House of Commons.

The metric system is officially adopted by the Canadian federal government.

Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.

Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

The Pope, John Paul II, visits Canada.

USSR leader Chernenko dies at 73 and is replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev.

The wreck of the RMS Titanic is found off the coast of Newfoundland.

Canada adopts sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies.

Canadian dollar hits an all-time low

Space shuttle Challenger explodes after launch at Cape Canaveral, Fla., killing all seven aboard.

Severe earthquake strikes Los Angeles, leaving 100 injured and 6 dead.

Montreal is hit by a series of severe thunderstorms during the Montreal Flood of 1987.

U.S. and Canada reach free trade agreement.

Wayne Gretzky is traded to the Los Angeles Kings by the Edmonton Oilers..

Emperor Hirohito of Japan dead at 87.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

Army general Colin R. Powell is first black chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

$1 CAD bills are replaced by the $1 CAD coin, popularly referred to as “the Loonie”

World Wide Web debuts, popularizes Internet.

South Africa frees Nelson Mandela, imprisoned over 27 years.

Soviet Union breaks up after President Gorbachev's resignation; constituent republics form Commonwealth of Independent States.

GST (Goods & Services Tax) comes into effect

Rioting erupts in South-Central Los Angeles following the aquital of officers accused in Rodney King beating.

Blue Jays become the first nominally Canadian team to win baseball's World Series

China breaks nuclear test moratorium.

Nelson Mandela elected President of South Africa.

O. J. Simpson arrested in killings of wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and friend, Ronald Goldman.

The Parti Quebecois win a narrow majority.

Terrorist Timothy McVeigh kills hundreds in Oklahoma City bombing.

Quebec narrowly rejects independence from Canada.

Britain alarmed by deadly cow disease.

Kofi Annan named UN secretary-general.

$2 CAD coin is unveiled, popullarly referred to as “the Toonie”

Princess Diana, 36, killed with two others in Paris car crash.

Europeans agree on single currency; the euro.

A powerful ice storm paralizes huge portions of Quebec and Ontario.

Tobacco companies admit to harm caused by cigarette smoking.

First Blackberry hits consumer market.

Y2K.

E-coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ontario water supply, killing 9 people.

Hells Angels motorcycle gang leader Maurice Boucher is convicted in Montreal of two counts of first-degree murder.

Supreme Court of Canada rules that inmates can vote.

The United States and Britain launch war against Iraq.

SARS outbreak in Toronto, killing 44 people.

Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow pleads guilty to defrauding Enron.

Enormous tsunami devastates Asia; at least 225,000 killed.

Facebook was created.

Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act, making Canada the fourth country to sanction same-sex marriage.

Google opens office in Waterloo Region.

Steven Harper becomes Canada's first Conservative prime minister in over a dozen years.

U.N. Security Council resolution bans the Iranian import and export of materials and technology used to enrich uranium.

Leaders of the eight industrialized nations meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, agree to consider ways to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Global Financial Crisis

A total eclipse of the Sun is vPisible from Canada and extends across northern Greenland, the Arctic, Central Russia, Mongolia, and China.

Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States, and becomes the first African-American President.

The death of American entertainer Michael Jackson triggers an outpouring of worldwide grief.

James Cameron's film Avatar is released, and becomes the highest grossing film to date.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso sells in New York for US$106.5 million, setting another new world record for a work of art sold at auction.

The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns.

Alexandre Bilodeau is the first Canadian olympian to win a gold medal on Canadian soil.

A heat wave across Eastern Canada peaks with temperatures reaching as high as 37.1 degrees Celsius (humidex: 51 degrees Celsius) in Toronto, Ontario.

Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of the militant group Al-Qaeda, is killed.

The world's first artificial organ transplant is achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells.

Seven paintings worth $25 million are stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

A meteor explodes over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,491 people and damaging over 4,300 buildings. It is the most powerful meteor to strike Earth's atmosphere in over a century.

American scientists use a 3D printer to create a living lab-grown ear from collagen and animal ear cell cultures.

Alberta floods.

The World Health Organization identifies the spread of polio in at least 10 countries as a major worldwide health emergency.

Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported.