On June 22, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed services–known as G.I.s–for their efforts in World War II. As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s administration created the G.I. Bill–officially...
Helmet testing Although it is widely thought that this is the photo of a football helmet testing, it is in fact a safety demonstration by a British inventor W.T. Warren of a Protective Flight Helmet he invented. At the time, head injuries were the leading cause...
The first subway ride Not much after the first flight in 1903, the US got its first subway in New York in 1904. George McClellan, the City’s mayor, opened it and even drove the first passengers on a track that was 9.1 miles long and had...
We’ve come a long way in the last couple of centuries and our lives have improved significantly. But the path to get to where we are now was not always easy. It was a constant battle for survival, while trying to improve our living conditions...
On May 11, 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta. At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the...
On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was...
On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict...
World War II monument opens in Washington, D.C. On April 29, 2004, the World War II Memorial opens in Washington, D.C. to thousands of visitors, providing overdue recognition for the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the war. The memorial is located on 7.4 acres on the...
Read MoreEarth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems, is celebrated in the United States for the first time on April 22, 1970. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches and educational programs...
American Revolution begins at Battle of Lexington At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green....
