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The 20th Century's
Top Space News Stories

Nine events particularly connected with space science and astronomy were among the 100 top stories that dominated news in the 20th Century, according to a poll of journalists and historians nationwide conducted by the Newseum museum of news and journalism at Arlington, Virginia, sponsored by the Freedom Forum foundation.

First man on the Moon

According to the journalists and historians, the 20th century's top 100 news events were:
  1. United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki: Japan surrenders to end World War II - 1945
  2. American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on the moon - 1969
  3. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor: United States enters World War II - 1941
  4. Wilbur and Orville Wright fly the first powered airplane - 1903
  5. Women win the vote - 1920
  6. President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas - 1963
  7. Horrors of Nazi Holocaust, concentration camps exposed - 1945
  8. World War I begins in Europe - 1914
  9. Brown v. Board of Education ends "separate but equal" school segregation - 1954
  10. U.S. stock market crashes: The Great Depression sets in - 1929

  11. Alexander Fleming discovers the first antibiotic, penicillin - 1928
  12. Structure of DNA discovered - 1953
  13. U.S.S.R dissolves, Mikhail Gorbachev resigns: Boris Yeltsin takes over - 1991
  14. President Richard M. Nixon resigns after Watergate scandal - 1974
  15. Germany invades Poland: World War II begins in Europe - 1939
  16. Russian revolution ends: Communists take over - 1917
  17. Henry Ford organizes the first major U.S. assembly line to produce Model T cars - 1913
  18. Soviets launch Sputnik, first space satellite: space race begins - 1957
  19. Albert Einstein presents special theory of relativity: general relativity theory to follow - 1905
  20. FDA approves birth-control pill - 1960

  21. Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine proven effective in University of Pittsburgh tests - 1953
  22. Adolf Hitler named Chancellor of Germany: Nazi Party begins to seize power - 1933
  23. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King assassinated in Memphis, Tenn - 1968
  24. D-Day invasion marks the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe - 1944
  25. Deadly AIDS disease identified - 1981
  26. Congress passes landmark Civil Rights Act outlawing segregation - 1964
  27. Berlin Wall falls as East Germany lifts travel restrictions - 1989
  28. Television debuts in America at New York World's Fair - 1939
  29. Mao Tse-tung establishes Peoples Republic of China: Nationalists flee to Formosa (Taiwan) - 1949
  30. Charles Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic in first solo flight - 1927

  31. First mass market personal computers launched - 1977
  32. World Wide Web revolutionizes the Internet - 1989
  33. Scientists at Bell Labs invent the transistor - 1948
  34. FDR launches "New Deal:" sweeping federal economic, public works legislation to combat depression - 1933
  35. Cuban Missile Crisis threatens World War III - 1962
  36. "Unsinkable" Titanic, largest man-made structure, sinks - 1912
  37. Germany surrenders: V.E. Day celebrated - 1945
  38. Roe v. Wade decision legalizes abortion - 1973
  39. World War I ends with Germany's defeat - 1918
  40. First regular radio broadcasts begin in America - 1909

  41. Worldwide flu epidemic kills 20 million - 1918
  42. ENIAC accelerates digital computing - 1946
  43. Regular TV broadcasting begins in the United States - 1941
  44. Jackie Robinson breaks baseball's color barrier - 1947
  45. Israel achieves statehood - 1948
  46. Plastic invented: revolutionizes products, packaging - 1909
  47. Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott begins after Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white person - 1955
  48. Atomic bomb tested in New Mexico - 1945
  49. Apartheid ends in South Africa: law to treat races equally - 1993
  50. Civil rights march converges on Washington, D.C.: Martin Luther King gives "I Have A Dream" speech - 1963

  51. American scientists patent the computer chip - 1959
  52. Marconi transmits radio signal across the Atlantic - 1901
  53. White House sex scandal leads to impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton - 1998
  54. Sec. of State George Marshall proposes European recovery program, The Marshall Plan - 1947
  55. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy assassinated in California - 1968
  56. U.S. Senate rejects Versailles Treaty: dooms League of Nations - 1920
  57. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" stimulates environmental protection movement - 1962
  58. British rock group The Beatles takes the United States by storm after debut on the Ed Sullivan show - 1964
  59. Congress passes Voting Rights Act, outlawing measures used to suppress minority votes - 1965
  60. Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space - 1961

  61. First jet airplane takes flight - 1939
  62. U.S. combat troops arrive in South Vietnam: U.S. planes bomb North Vietnam - 1965
  63. North Vietnamese forces take over Saigon - 1975
  64. Manhattan Project begins secret work on atomic bomb: Fermi triggers first atomic chain reaction - 1942
  65. Congress strengthens "GI Bill of Rights" to help veterans - 1945
  66. Alan Shepard becomes first American in space - 1961
  67. Watergate scandal engulfs Nixon administration - 1973
  68. Earthquake hits San Francisco: "Paris of the West" burns - 1906
  69. United Nations is officially established - 1945
  70. Communists build wall to divide East and West Berlin - 1961

  71. Mohandas Gandhi begins leading nonviolent reform movement in India - 1920
  72. Standard Oil loses Supreme Court antitrust suit: monopolies suffer blow - 1911
  73. United States withdraws last ground troops from Vietnam - 1973
  74. North Atlantic Treaty Organization established - 1949
  75. Joseph Stalin begins forced modernization of the Soviet Union: resulting famines claim 25 million - 1928
  76. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt beats incumbent President Herbert Hoover - 1932
  77. Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet Premier: begins era of "Glasnost" - 1985
  78. Max Planck proposes quantum theory of energy - 1900
  79. Scientists clone sheep, dubbed Dolly, in Scotland - 1997
  80. Congress passes interstate highway bill - 1956

  81. Panama Canal opens, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans - 1914
  82. Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" inaugurates modern women's rights movement - 1963
  83. The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes killing crew including school teacher Christa McAuliffe - 1986
  84. United States sends troops to defend South Korea - 1950
  85. Violence erupts at Democratic National Convention in Chicago - 1968
  86. Sigmund Freud publishes "The Interpretation of Dreams" - 1900
  87. China begins "Great Leap Forward" modernization program: estimated 20 million die in ensuing famine - 1958
  88. United States enters World War I - 1917
  89. Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs - a single-season record that would last for 34 years - 1927
  90. John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the earth - 1962

  91. North Vietnamese boats reportedly attack U.S. ships: Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin resolution - 1964
  92. Pathfinder lands on Mars, sending back astonishing photos - 1997
  93. Hitler launches "Kristallnacht," ordering Nazis to commit acts of violence against German Jews - 1938
  94. Winston Churchill designated Prime Minister of Great Britain - 1940
  95. Louise Brown, first "test-tube baby," born healthy - 1978
  96. Soviets blockade West Berlin: Western allies respond with massive airlift - 1948
  97. Bill Gates and Paul Allen start Microsoft Corp. to develop software for Altair computer - 1975
  98. Chernobyl nuclear plant leak results in eventual deaths of an estimated 7,000 - 1986
  99. Teacher John Scopes' trial pits creation against evolution in Tennessee - 1925
  100. The U.S. Surgeon General warns about smoking-related health hazards - 1964




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