| -3114 | August | 11 | Start of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar |
| -753 | April | 21 | Traditional date of the founding of Rome |
| -585 | May | 28 | Eclipse of Thales ends the Battle of Halys between the Medes and the Lydians |
| -497 | December | 17 | The first Saturnalia festival celebrated in ancient Rome |
| -404 | April | 25 | Sparta defeats Athens in the Peloponnesian War |
| -216 | August | 2 | Hannibal defeats the Roman army at the Battle of Cannae |
| -202 | October | 19 | Roman Republic defeats Carthage at the Battle of Zama |
| -49 | January | 10 | Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon River on his march to Rome |
| -44 | March | 15 | Assassination of Julius Caesar |
| -31 | September | 2 | Marc Antony and cleopatra defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium |
| -27 | January | 16 | Octavian becomes Augustus, Roman Emperor |
| 41 | January | 24 | Emperor Caligula killed by the Praetorian Guard |
| 54 | October | 13 | Emperor Claudius dies in mysterious circumstances |
| 68 | June | 9 | Emperor Nero commits suicide |
| 70 | April | 14 | Titus begins the Siege of Jerusalem |
| 79 | August | 24 | Mount Vesuvius destroys Pompeii and Herculaneum |
| 303 | February | 23 | Start of Emperor Diocletian's 'Great Persecution' |
| 537 | December | 27 | Hagia Sophia basilica inaugurated in modern Istanbul |
| 622 | July | 16 | Start date of the Islamic calendar |
| 737 | September | 30 | Umayyad Caliphate defeated in the Battle of the Baggage |
| 762 | July | 30 | Construction begins on the city of Baghdad under Caliph Al-Mansur |
| 793 | June | 8 | Viking raiders attack Lindisfarne in Northumbria |
| 868 | May | 11 | The world's earliest dated printed book created in China |
| 902 | December | 13 | Aethelwold's revolt against Edward the Elder defeated at the Battle of the Holme |
| 927 | July | 12 | Earliest foundation of England under Aethelstan |
| 1002 | November | 13 | St Brice's Day Massacre |
| 1046 | March | 5 | Persian poet Nasir Khusraw's 7-year journey through the Islamic world: The Safarnama |
| 1066 | January | 5 | Death of Edward the Confessor |
| 1066 | January | 6 | Harold Godwinson crowned king of England |
| 1066 | September | 20 | Harald Hardrada wins Battle of Fulford |
| 1066 | September | 28 | William of Normandy lands in England |
| 1066 | October | 14 | William of Normandy wins Battle of Hastings |
| 1066 | December | 25 | William the Conquerer crowned king of England |
| 1095 | November | 27 | Pope Urban II launches the First Crusade |
| 1141 | April | 7 | Matilda declared the 'Lady of England and Normandy' |
| 1170 | December | 29 | Thomas Becket murdered in Canterbury Cathedral |
| 1173 | August | 9 | Construction begins on the Leaning Tower of Pisa |
| 1187 | October | 2 | Saladin captures Jerusalem |
| 1190 | March | 16 | The Jewish population of York massacred in a pogrom |
| 1199 | May | 27 | Coronation of King John in Westminster Abbey |
| 1215 | June | 15 | King John agrees to Magna Carta by adding his seal |
| 1260 | May | 5 | Kublai Khan declared Mongol Emperor |
| 1287 | December | 14 | St Lucia's Flood kills over 50,000 people in the Netherlands |
| 1291 | May | 18 | Siege of Acre signals ends of Crusader influence |
| 1305 | August | 5 | William Wallace captured by English troops at Robroyston |
| 1306 | March | 25 | Robert the Bruce crowned King of Scots |
| 1314 | March | 18 | Execution of last Knights Templar Grand Master |
| 1314 | June | 23 | Scottish victory at the Battle of Bannockburn |
| 1338 | September | 23 | First naval battle with artillery takes place in the Hundred Years' War |
| 1346 | August | 26 | The longbow helps Edward III win the Battle of Crecy |
| 1349 | January | 9 | Jews massacred in Basel during the Black Death |
| 1355 | February | 10 | St Scholastica's Day Riot began in Oxford between 'town and gown' |
| 1374 | June | 24 | Dancing Plague breaks out in Aachen, Germany |
| 1381 | May | 30 | Outbreak of the Peasants' Revolt in England |
| 1393 | January | 28 | Charles VI of France and the fiery Bal des Ardents |
| 1410 | October | 9 | The Prague Astronomical Clock first noted in a medieval document |
| 1412 | January | 16 | Antipope John XXIII makes the Medici Bank the official bank to the Papacy |
| 1415 | October | 25 | The Battle of Agincourt is fought |
| 1429 | February | 12 | Battle of the Herrings fought during the Hundred Years War |
| 1431 | May | 30 | Joan of Arc executed by burning at the stake |
| 1450 | November | 23 | Ottoman forces abandon First Siege of Kruj? after failing to defeat Skanderbeg |
| 1452 | July | 17 | The Battle of Castillon, widely accepted as last conflict of the Hundred Years' War |
| 1453 | May | 29 | The Fall of Constantinople |
| 1455 | February | 23 | Gutenberg Bible published (traditional date) |
| 1455 | May | 22 | Wars of the Roses begin at the Battle of St Albans |
| 1472 | February | 20 | Orkney and Shetland Isles given to Scotland by Norway as a wedding dowry |
| 1478 | April | 26 | The Pazzi family launch their failed plot against the Medici family |
| 1480 | October | 8 | The Great Stand on the Ugra River |
| 1485 | August | 22 | Richard III killed at the Battle of Bosworth |
| 1491 | November | 25 | The Treaty of Granada ends Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula |
| 1492 | April | 17 | The Capitulations of Santa Fe grant Columbus funds for his voyage to the New World |
| 1492 | August | 3 | Christopher Columbus sets sail from Spain |
| 1492 | November | 7 | Oldest meteorite with a known date of impact crashes in Ensisheim |
| 1495 | February | 7 | Savonarola's Bonfire of the Vanities |
| 1495 | June | 1 | First written reference to Scotch whisky |
| 1497 | September | 7 | Perkin Warbeck claims he is English King Richard IV |
| 1498 | April | 7 | Savonarola meets to take part in a trial by fire |
| 1501 | September | 13 | Michelangelo begins work on his statue of David |
| 1504 | February | 29 | Christopher Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to secure supplies while stranded |
| 1506 | April | 18 | Construction begins on St Peter's Basilica |
| 1509 | April | 27 | Pope Julius II excommunicates the entire Republic of Venice |
| 1512 | November | 1 | Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel unveiled |
| 1513 | September | 25 | European 'discovery' of the Pacific Ocean |
| 1516 | April | 23 | The Reinheitsgebot beer purity law first introduced in Bavaria |
| 1517 | October | 31 | Martin Luther reputedly posts his 95 Theses |
| 1520 | June | 7 | Henry VIII and Francis I meet at the Field of Cloth of Gold |
| 1520 | November | 8 | Stockholm Bloodbath begins under Denmark's Christian II |
| 1520 | November | 28 | Magellan sails from the Atlantic to the Pacific |
| 1521 | October | 11 | Henry VIII becomes 'Defender of the Faith' |
| 1525 | February | 28 | Execution of Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec Emperor |
| 1534 | November | 3 | English Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy |
| 1536 | May | 19 | Execution of Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London |
| 1540 | March | 23 | Waltham Abbey last to be dissolved by Henry VIII |
| 1542 | February | 13 | The execution of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII |
| 1552 | September | 6 | Victoria, the first ship from Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, arrives home |
| 1553 | July | 10 | Lady Jane Grey becomes queen of England |
| 1555 | February | 4 | John Rogers became the first martyr under 'Bloody' Mary I |
| 1556 | January | 23 | Most destructive earthquake on record hits Shaanxi |
| 1556 | March | 21 | Thomas Cranmer executed for heresy |
| 1558 | November | 17 | Queen Elizabeth I's reign begins |
| 1561 | April | 14 | The Nuremberg Celestial Phenomenon |
| 1561 | July | 12 | The consecration of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow |
| 1564 | January | 26 | Pope Pius IV confirms the decrees of the Council of Trent |
| 1565 | October | 18 | European and Japanese naval forces fought for the first time |
| 1567 | July | 29 | James VI crowned King of Scotland aged 13 months |
| 1569 | January | 11 | First recorded lottery drawn in England under Elizabeth I |
| 1570 | February | 25 | Elizabeth I excommunicated by Pope Pius V |
| 1582 | October | 4 | Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII |
| 1587 | February | 8 | Mary, Queen of Scots beheaded |
| 1587 | April | 29 | Singeing the King of Spain's Beard |
| 1588 | July | 29 | Decisive Battle of Gravelines during the Spanish Armada |
| 1590 | September | 27 | Pope Urban VII, the shortest reigning Pope in history, dies |
| 1602 | March | 20 | The Dutch East India Company established |
| 1604 | September | 1 | The Adi Granth first installed at the Golden Temple |
| 1605 | November | 5 | Guy Fawkes discovered during Gunpowder Plot |
| 1607 | May | 14 | Jamestown established as the first permanent English settlement in North America |
| 1612 | August | 18 | Trial of the Pendle Witches begins |
| 1613 | February | 21 | Romanov dynasty begins under Michael I of Russia |
| 1613 | June | 29 | The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground |
| 1618 | May | 23 | The Second Defenestration of Prague |
| 1618 | October | 29 | Sir Walter Raleigh beheaded for treason against James I in the Main Plot |
| 1619 | July | 30 | Oldest continuous General Assembly in the New World convenes in Virginia |
| 1620 | December | 21 | The first Mayflower Pilgrims land at Plymouth to establish the Plymouth Colony |
| 1621 | March | 22 | Hugo Grotius escapes prison by hiding in a book chest |
| 1621 | April | 5 | The Mayflower returns to England |
| 1628 | June | 7 | Petition of Right ratified by King Charles I |
| 1631 | June | 17 | Mumtaz Mahal's death prompts construction of the Taj Mahal |
| 1633 | June | 22 | Galileo forced to recant his belief in heliocentrism |
| 1636 | December | 13 | The Massachusetts Bay Colony organises a formal militia |
| 1642 | January | 4 | Charles I attempts to arrest the Five Members |
| 1645 | June | 14 | The Battle of Naseby fought in the English Civil War |
| 1647 | May | 26 | Alse Young, the first person to be executed for witchcraft in America |
| 1649 | January | 30 | Charles I beheaded at Banqueting House |
| 1660 | December | 8 | First woman appears on a professional stage in England as Desdemona in Othello |
| 1666 | September | 2 | Great Fire of London breaks out in Pudding Lane |
| 1669 | May | 31 | The last entry in Samuel Pepys' diary |
| 1671 | May | 9 | Colonel Thomas Blood attempts to steal the Crown Jewels |
| 1678 | June | 25 | Elena Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to receive a PhD |
| 1683 | October | 6 | Germantown founded in the Pennsylvania Colony |
| 1689 | February | 13 | William and Mary become co-regents |
| 1692 | March | 1 | The first of the Salem 'witches' go on trial facing magistrates |
| 1693 | August | 4 | Dom Perignon supposedly invents champagne |
| 1698 | September | 5 | Peter the Great imposes a tax on beards |
| 1702 | March | 11 | The Daily Courant, the first daily English language newspaper, published |
| 1703 | May | 27 | The foundation of St Petersburg by Tsar Peter the Great |
| 1703 | July | 31 | Daniel Defoe put in the pillory for seditious libel |
| 1706 | July | 22 | Terms of the Acts of Union 1707 agreed |
| 1714 | August | 1 | George, Elector of Hanover, becomes King George I of Great Britain |
| 1718 | November | 22 | The pirate Blackbeard killed by sailors under Robert Maynard |
| 1721 | March | 24 | Bach dedicates the Brandenburg Concertos |
| 1739 | October | 23 | The War of Jenkins' Ear begins |
| 1740 | October | 20 | Maria Theresa inherits the Austrian throne |
| 1750 | December | 23 | Ben Franklin accidentally shocks himself while trying to electrocute a turkey |
| 1755 | April | 15 | Dr Samuel Johnson's Dictionary published |
| 1756 | June | 20 | British prisoners locked in the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' |
| 1759 | December | 31 | Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease for St. James's Gate Brewery |
| 1763 | October | 7 | The Royal Proclamation of 1763 issued by King George III |
| 1764 | October | 15 | Edward Gibbon first considers writing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
| 1765 | November | 1 | The Stamp Act went into force in the Thirteen Colonies |
| 1766 | March | 17 | First Saint Patrick's Day parade |
| 1767 | April | 9 | John Hancock forcibly removes British customs officials from Lydia |
| 1768 | December | 10 | First edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published |
| 1770 | April | 19 | Captain Cook Sights Australia |
| 1771 | May | 16 | The Battle of Alamance ends the Regulator Movement in Provincial North Carolina |
| 1772 | January | 1 | First travellers cheques put on sale |
| 1773 | December | 16 | The Boston Tea Party throws a shipment of tea overboard |
| 1774 | June | 2 | The Quartering Act, the fourth of the Intolerable Acts, passed by British Parliament |
| 1775 | April | 18 | Paul Revere's Ride signals start of American Revolutionary War |
| 1775 | December | 3 | Grand Union Flag flown for the first time in America on the ship 'Alfred' |
| 1776 | January | 10 | Thomas Paine publishes the pamphlet Common Sense advocating American independence |
| 1776 | May | 1 | The forerunner of the Bavarian Illuminati founded |
| 1777 | June | 14 | Stars and Stripes adopted as the flag of the USA |
| 1778 | February | 6 | France and the US sign the first treaties that recognise American independence |
| 1781 | September | 28 | The Siege of Yorktown begins in the American Revolutionary War |
| 1781 | November | 29 | Over 132 slaves thrown from the Zong ship |
| 1783 | September | 3 | Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War |
| 1783 | November | 25 | The British Army evacuated New York City at the end of the American Revolution |
| 1783 | December | 19 | William Pitt the Younger becomes Britain's youngest ever Prime Minister |
| 1785 | January | 7 | First aerial crossing of the English Channel |
| 1786 | November | 30 | Tuscany is the first modern state to abolish the death penalty |
| 1787 | May | 13 | The First Fleet departs for Australia |
| 1789 | March | 4 | US Constitution goes into effect as first Congress meets |
| 1789 | April | 28 | The crew of HMS Bounty launch a mutiny against Captain William Bligh |
| 1789 | June | 20 | National Assembly swears the Tennis Court Oath |
| 1789 | July | 14 | Storming of the Bastille in Paris |
| 1789 | August | 26 | Adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man by Constituent Assembly |
| 1789 | September | 11 | Alexander Hamilton appointed US Secretary of the Treasury |
| 1789 | September | 24 | The Judiciary Act becomes law in the United States of America |
| 1789 | September | 29 | Congress formally establishes the United States Army |
| 1789 | November | 26 | The first formal National Day of Thanksgiving in the United States |
| 1790 | January | 8 | George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address |
| 1790 | July | 31 | The first U.S. patent was awarded to Samuel Hopkins |
| 1791 | March | 2 | Claude Chappe sends the first message by semaphore machine |
| 1791 | June | 21 | Louis XVI's attempted escape from Paris in the Flight to Varennes |
| 1791 | August | 22 | Start of the Haitian Revolution in the French colony of Saint-Domingue |
| 1792 | April | 25 | First execution carried out using the guillotine |
| 1792 | May | 17 | The Buttonwood Agreement establishes the New York Stock Exchange |
| 1792 | July | 30 | La Marseillaise first sung in Paris |
| 1792 | August | 10 | Tuileries Palace stormed and French monarchy suspended |
| 1792 | October | 13 | The cornerstone of the White House laid in Washington D.C. |
| 1793 | January | 21 | Louis XVI executed for high treason |
| 1793 | July | 13 | Jean-Paul Marat attacked in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday |
| 1793 | August | 10 | The Louvre museum in Paris opens to the public for the first time |
| 1793 | September | 5 | The Reign of Terror begins in France |
| 1793 | October | 16 | The Execution of Marie Antoinette |
| 1794 | May | 7 | Robespierre establishes Cult of the Supreme Being |
| 1795 | November | 2 | The Directory established in France |
| 1796 | May | 14 | Edward Jenner vaccinates against smallpox |
| 1797 | February | 22 | The last invasion of Britain and the Battle of Fishguard |
| 1797 | October | 22 | The first high altitude parachute descent |
| 1799 | January | 9 | Income tax introduced for the first time |
| 1799 | July | 19 | Discovery of the Rosetta Stone reported in Egypt |
| 1799 | December | 10 | France adopts the metric system as the official system of weights and measures |
| 1800 | April | 24 | Library of Congress established when John Adams approves a budget of $5,000 |
| 1801 | May | 10 | The First Barbary War began when Tripoli declared war on the United States |
| 1803 | April | 30 | United States doubles in size after Louisiana Purchase from France |
| 1804 | December | 2 | Napoleon crowns himelf Emperor of the French |
| 1805 | October | 21 | Admiral Nelson wins the Battle of Trafalgar |
| 1806 | March | 23 | The Lewis and Clark Expedition begins its return journey |
| 1807 | July | 20 | The world's first internal combustion engine is patented in France |
| 1807 | August | 17 | The North River Steamboat was launched between New York and Albany |
| 1808 | January | 22 | Portuguese royal court relocates to Brazil |
| 1809 | November | 27 | The Berners Street hoax causes chaos in central London |
| 1810 | October | 12 | First Oktoberfest held in Munich |
| 1812 | February | 11 | Elbridge Gerry signs the first bill to authorise 'gerrymandering' |
| 1812 | June | 18 | The War of 1812 began when President Madison declared war against Great Britain |
| 1812 | June | 24 | Napoleon begins his failed invasion of Russia |
| 1812 | August | 19 | USS Constitution earns the nickname 'Old Ironsides' after defeating HMS Guerriere |
| 1813 | September | 7 | The United States gained the nickname 'Uncle Sam' |
| 1814 | September | 14 | USA's national anthem lyrics written |
| 1814 | October | 17 | The London Beer Flood kills 8 people |
| 1815 | February | 26 | Napoleon escapes from exile on Elba |
| 1815 | June | 9 | The 'Final Act' of the Congress of Vienna signed |
| 1815 | June | 18 | Napoleon Bonaparte defeated at the Battle of Waterloo |
| 1815 | July | 15 | Napoleon Bonaparte voluntarily surrenders to the British |
| 1819 | August | 16 | Protesters killed in the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester |
| 1822 | June | 6 | William Beaumont first treats Alexis St Martin |
| 1823 | December | 23 | The Night Before Christmas first published |
| 1826 | December | 24 | The Eggnog Riot broke out at West Point Military Academy, New York |
| 1829 | September | 29 | The Metropolitan Police begins operating in London |
| 1829 | October | 8 | Stephenson's Rocket wins the Rainhill Trials |
| 1830 | March | 26 | The Book of Mormon first went on sale at E. B. Grandin's book store |
| 1830 | May | 3 | First timetabled passenger railway begins service |
| 1830 | May | 18 | The world's first lawnmower licensed for manufacture by Edwin Budding |
| 1830 | May | 28 | The Indian Removal Act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson |
| 1830 | September | 15 | MP William Huskisson dies at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway |
| 1831 | September | 15 | The First National Negro Convention was held in Philadelphia |
| 1834 | March | 18 | Tolpuddle Martyrs sentenced to transportation to Australia |
| 1834 | July | 15 | The Spanish Inquisition disbanded |
| 1834 | August | 1 | Slavery Abolition Act comes in to force |
| 1835 | January | 30 | Andrew Jackson survives the first assassination attempt of a sitting US President |
| 1835 | September | 20 | The start of the Ragamuffin War |
| 1836 | February | 23 | The Siege of the Alamo begins, lasting for thirteen days before the final battle |
| 1836 | August | 17 | Parliament passes the 1836 Marriage Act |
| 1837 | June | 11 | Broad Street Riot breaks out in Boston, MA |
| 1839 | April | 19 | The Treaty of London establishes an independent Belgium |
| 1839 | November | 4 | The Newport Rising armed rebellion in south Wales |
| 1841 | March | 9 | US Supreme court rules on the Amistad slave case |
| 1842 | January | 13 | The sole survivor of 4,500 British soldiers arrives at Jalalabad in Afghanistan |
| 1842 | August | 29 | The First Opium War ends when Britain and China sign the Treaty of Nanking |
| 1843 | December | 19 | A Christmas Carol first published |
| 1845 | December | 27 | Manifest Destiny introduced in a newspaper column by John L. O'Sullivan |
| 1846 | May | 12 | The Donner Party begin their ill-fated journey to California |
| 1846 | June | 16 | Pope Pius IX begins the longest ever reign of a Catholic Pope |
| 1846 | August | 10 | President James K. Polk signs legislation to establish the Smithsonian Institution |
| 1846 | October | 16 | First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia |
| 1847 | January | 4 | Samuel Colt receives the first government order for his firearms |
| 1848 | February | 21 | The Communist Manifesto first published |
| 1848 | February | 24 | King Louis Philippe of France abdicates |
| 1848 | July | 19 | The Seneca Falls Convention for women's rights begins |
| 1848 | December | 5 | President James K. Polk sparks the California Gold Rush |
| 1849 | January | 23 | Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to receive a medical degree in the US |
| 1849 | May | 22 | Abraham Lincoln issued a patent for his invention |
| 1850 | January | 20 | Robert McClure departs on the first expedition to transit the Northwest Passage |
| 1850 | November | 29 | The Declaration of Olmütz signed by Prussia and Austria |
| 1851 | December | 15 | The Forest Creek Monster Meeting of Australian gold miners protests taxes |
| 1852 | February | 2 | First modern public toilets open in London |
| 1854 | March | 20 | U.S. Republican Party founded at a meeting in a schoolhouse in Wisconsin |
| 1855 | June | 4 | United States Camel Corps initiated when USS Supply set sail to obtain camels |
| 1856 | January | 29 | Victoria Cross introduced by Queen Victoria |
| 1856 | March | 30 | The Crimean War officially ends with the Treaty of Paris |
| 1857 | March | 3 | The Weeping Time - the largest ever sale of enslaved people in the United States |
| 1857 | March | 6 | The US Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case |
| 1857 | May | 10 | The start of the Indian Mutiny (First War of Indian Independence) |
| 1858 | April | 10 | The 'Big Ben' bell cast in Whitechapel |
| 1858 | July | 28 | First use of fingerprints as a means of identification |
| 1858 | August | 16 | Queen Victoria sends the first transatlantic telegram |
| 1859 | June | 15 | The Pig War begins between the USA and Britain |
| 1859 | June | 30 | Charles Blondin became the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope |
| 1859 | September | 17 | Joshua Abraham Norton declares himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States |
| 1859 | November | 24 | Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species |
| 1860 | October | 26 | Garibaldi hands southern Italy to Victor Emmanuel |
| 1860 | November | 6 | Abraham Lincoln elected 16 President of the USA |
| 1860 | December | 20 | South Carolina secedes from the United States of America |
| 1861 | January | 9 | Star of the West fired upon by South Carolina as it approached Fort Sumter |
| 1861 | March | 3 | Tsar Alexander II signs the Emancipation Manifesto |
| 1861 | August | 5 | Abraham Lincoln signs US income tax into law to help pay for the American Civil War |
| 1861 | November | 8 | The Trent Affair nearly causes a war between Britain and the United States |
| 1862 | July | 4 | Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, first tells the story of Alice in Wonderland |
| 1862 | July | 12 | Creation of the Congressional Medal of Honor |
| 1863 | April | 2 | The Richmond Bread Riot saw hundreds of women in Virginia loot storehouses and shops |
| 1863 | July | 1 | The Battle of Gettysburg begins, resulting in a decisive Union victory |
| 1863 | November | 19 | Lincoln delivers Gettysburg Address |
| 1864 | February | 17 | H.L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to sink an enemy ship |
| 1865 | January | 31 | Thirteenth Amendment passed by the US Congress to formally abolish slavery |
| 1865 | April | 9 | Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant |
| 1865 | April | 26 | John Wilkes Booth killed after refusing to surrender to Union troops |
| 1865 | May | 13 | The Battle of Palmito Ranch, considered to be the last battle of the Civil War |
| 1865 | August | 12 | Joseph Lister carries out world's first antiseptic surgery |
| 1865 | November | 11 | Dr Mary Edwards Walker becomes the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor |
| 1867 | October | 18 | The Alaska Purchase completed with the transfer from Russia to the United States |
| 1868 | February | 24 | US President Andrew Johnson impeached |
| 1868 | November | 2 | New Zealand becomes the first country to use standardised time |
| 1868 | November | 3 | John Willis Menard became the first African-American to be elected to Congress |
| 1869 | March | 6 | Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table |
| 1869 | April | 28 | Ten miles of railway track laid in a single day by the Central Pacific Railroad |
| 1870 | January | 3 | Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began |
| 1870 | February | 25 | Hiram Rhodes Revels becomes the first African-American U.S. Senator |
| 1870 | July | 19 | The Franco-Prussian War begins |
| 1871 | January | 18 | Wilhelm I declared German Emperor |
| 1871 | March | 28 | Paris Commune meets for the first time |
| 1871 | October | 8 | The Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, the deadliest wildfire in recorded history |
| 1871 | November | 10 | Henry Morton Stanley locates Dr David Livingstone |
| 1872 | March | 1 | Yellowstone becomes the world's first national park |
| 1872 | November | 18 | Susan B. Anthony arrested for voting in a Presidential election |
| 1872 | December | 4 | Deserted American merchant ship Mary Celeste found drifting in the Atlantic Ocean |
| 1873 | May | 20 | Levi Strauss & Co. patents riveted blue jeans |
| 1873 | August | 2 | The Clay Street Hill Railroad becomes San Francisco’s first cable car |
| 1873 | November | 24 | Joseph Glidden awarded a patent for modern barbed wire |
| 1875 | August | 25 | Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel |
| 1876 | March | 10 | Alexander Graham Bell transmits speech using the telephone |
| 1876 | June | 25 | Battle of Little Bighorn & Custer's Last Stand |
| 1876 | August | 13 | The premiere of Wagner's complete Ring cycle takes place in Germany |
| 1877 | June | 21 | Ten Irish immigrants hanged, having been accused of being in the Molly Maguires secret society |
| 1877 | July | 9 | First Wimbledon Championship begins in London |
| 1877 | November | 21 | Thomas Edison announces the phonograph |
| 1879 | September | 19 | The Blackpool Illuminations turned on for the first time |
| 1879 | October | 7 | Germany and Austria-Hungary form the Dual Alliance |
| 1880 | June | 28 | Australian outlaw Ned Kelly arrested following a violent shoot out |
| 1881 | March | 12 | Andrew Watson becomes the world's first black international football player |
| 1881 | March | 13 | Tsar Alexander II assassinated Saint Petersburg |
| 1881 | July | 2 | President James A Garfield shot by Charles J Guiteau |
| 1881 | July | 14 | American outlaw Billy the Kid shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett |
| 1881 | October | 26 | The gunfight at the O.K. Corral involving Wyatt Earp |
| 1882 | March | 19 | First stone laid for the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona |
| 1882 | April | 3 | Outlaw Jesse James shot by Robert Ford |
| 1882 | May | 20 | Establishment of the Triple Alliance |
| 1882 | September | 4 | Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plant on Pearl Street in New York |
| 1882 | December | 22 | The first use of electric lights on a Christmas tree |
| 1883 | June | 5 | First Orient Express train departs Paris |
| 1883 | August | 27 | The eruption of Krakatoa |
| 1884 | April | 22 | Thomas Stevens begins the first round-the-world cycle ride |
| 1884 | June | 16 | The Switchback Railway, America’s first roller coaster, opened at Coney Island |
| 1884 | October | 22 | International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. the Greenwich prime meridian |
| 1885 | February | 18 | Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published in the United States. |
| 1885 | February | 21 | The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. dedicated |
| 1885 | June | 17 | Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbour from France |
| 1887 | May | 9 | Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Opens in London |
| 1887 | June | 18 | Germany and Russia sign the secret Reinsurance Treaty |
| 1888 | September | 8 | First ever Football League matches played in England |
| 1888 | September | 22 | First edition of National Geographic Magazine published |
| 1889 | November | 23 | The world's first jukebox installed in a bar in San Francisco |
| 1890 | January | 25 | Nellie Bly circumnavigates the world in 72 days |
| 1890 | March | 4 | Forth Bridge in Scotland opened by the future King Edward VII |
| 1890 | March | 20 | Wilhelm II formally accepts Bismarck's resignation |
| 1890 | August | 6 | William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair |
| 1890 | December | 29 | Lakota Sioux massacred at Wounded Knee |
| 1892 | July | 6 | The Homestead Strike sees Pinkerton agents fight striking steelworkers |
| 1892 | December | 18 | Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker first performed |
| 1893 | November | 28 | New Zealand women vote for the first time |
| 1894 | June | 23 | Establishment of the International Olympic Committee |
| 1894 | December | 22 | Alfred Dreyfus found guilty of treason in France |
| 1895 | January | 12 | Foundation of the National Trust |
| 1895 | February | 9 | Volleyball invented by William G. Morgan |
| 1895 | March | 22 | The Lumiere brothers stage their first film screening in Paris |
| 1895 | August | 26 | Niagara Falls became the world's first large-scale electricity producer |
| 1895 | October | 22 | Granville-Paris express train crashes through a wall in Paris |
| 1895 | December | 28 | Wilhelm Rontgen publishes his discovery of X-rays |
| 1896 | April | 6 | The first modern Olympic Games take place |
| 1896 | May | 18 | Supreme Court rules on Plessy v. Ferguson and establishes the 'separate but equal' doctrine |
| 1897 | May | 26 | Bram Stoker's gothic novel Dracula is published |
| 1898 | April | 25 | The United States declares war on Spain in the Spanish–American War |
| 1898 | December | 18 | The world's first officially recognised land speed record is set |
| 1899 | May | 30 | Female bandit Pearl Hart commits one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies |
| 1899 | September | 13 | Henry H. Bliss, the first person to be killed by an automobile in America |
| 1900 | January | 23 | British troops attack Spion Kop in the Second Boer War |
| 1900 | March | 7 | First ship-to-shore wireless message sent by SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse |
| 1901 | September | 6 | President William McKinley shot at the Pan-American Exposition by Leon Czolgosz |
| 1901 | December | 10 | First Nobel Prizes awarded |
| 1902 | April | 16 | The first purpose-designed movie theater opened as Thomas Tally's Electric Theatre |
| 1902 | April | 20 | Marie and Pierre Curie prove the existence of radium by isolating radium chloride |
| 1902 | May | 17 | Identification of Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism |
| 1903 | July | 1 | First Tour de France cycling race takes place |
| 1903 | October | 10 | Foundation of Women's Social & Political Union |
| 1903 | November | 17 | The Bolshevik-Menshevik split within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party |
| 1903 | December | 17 | Wright brothers make first aircraft flight |
| 1904 | February | 8 | Russo-Japanese War triggered by Japanese torpedo attack on Port Arthur |
| 1904 | April | 8 | France and Britain sign the Entente Cordiale |
| 1904 | April | 8 | Times Square in New York given its name |
| 1905 | January | 22 | Bloody Sunday massacre in Saint Petersburg |
| 1905 | March | 31 | Kaiser Wilhelm II provokes the First Moroccan Crisis |
| 1905 | June | 27 | Russian sailors mutiny on the battleship Potemkin |
| 1906 | February | 10 | The launch of HMS Dreadnought |
| 1906 | March | 15 | Rolls-Royce Limited established in Britain |
| 1906 | April | 27 | The Russian Empire's State Duma meets for the first time |
| 1907 | August | 31 | The Anglo-Russian Entente is signed, forming the Triple Entente |
| 1908 | January | 24 | Robert Baden-Powell publishes Scouting for Boys |
| 1908 | September | 27 | First Model T Ford produced in Detroit |
| 1909 | March | 31 | The end of the Bosnian Crisis |
| 1909 | July | 25 | Louis Bleriot makes the first powered cross-Channel flight |
| 1909 | August | 7 | Alice Ramsey makes the first female transcontinental car journey |
| 1910 | January | 13 | World's first public radio broadcast comes from the Met Opera in New York |
| 1910 | February | 8 | The Boy Scouts of America incorporated by William D. Boyce in Washington D.C. |
| 1910 | March | 8 | First woman awarded a pilot's license |
| 1910 | October | 23 | Blanche Stuart Scott becomes the first American woman to fly an aircraft in public |
| 1910 | December | 3 | First neon light used at the Paris Motor Show |
| 1911 | July | 1 | Start of the Second Moroccan Crisis |
| 1911 | July | 7 | North Pacific Fur Seal Convention signed for wildlife conservation |
| 1911 | July | 24 | Machu Picchu 'rediscovered' by US explorer Hiram Bingham III |
| 1911 | August | 21 | The Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre |
| 1911 | August | 29 | Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe, emerged from the wilderness |
| 1911 | October | 23 | Italian Carlo Piazza pilots the first aircraft in war |
| 1911 | November | 1 | First ever aerial bombing takes place in the Italo-Turkish War |
| 1911 | December | 14 | Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole |
| 1912 | May | 5 | Russian Communist newspaper Pravda first published |
| 1913 | February | 19 | Pedro Lascurain began the world's shortest ever presidency in Mexico |
| 1913 | June | 4 | Suffragette Emily Davison hit by a racehorse at Epsom Derby |
| 1913 | July | 10 | Highest recorded temperature on Earth |
| 1913 | December | 21 | First modern crossword puzzle printed |
| 1914 | June | 28 | Trigger and end of the First World War |
| 1914 | July | 23 | Austria-Hungary presents its ultimatum to Serbia |
| 1914 | July | 28 | Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia |
| 1914 | July | 29 | Successful voice test of the first transcontinental telephone line |
| 1914 | August | 4 | Woodrow Wilson proclaims US neutrality in the First World War |
| 1914 | August | 15 | The Panama Canal officially opened with the transit of SS Ancon |
| 1914 | December | 16 | German Navy attack Scarborough |
| 1914 | December | 25 | The Christmas Truce takes place at sections along the Western Front |
| 1915 | January | 19 | Zeppelins bomb Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn |
| 1915 | March | 27 | Typhoid Mary placed in permanent quarantine in New York |
| 1915 | April | 22 | Chlorine gas attack marks start of the Second Battle of Ypres |
| 1915 | May | 3 | John McCrae writes the war poem In Flanders Fields |
| 1915 | May | 7 | RMS Lusitania sunk by the German U-Boat, U-20 |
| 1915 | May | 23 | Italy enters WW1 on the side of the Triple Entente |
| 1915 | September | 21 | Cecil Chubb buys Stonehenge at auction, becoming its last private owner |
| 1915 | October | 12 | British nurse Edith Cavell executed by a German firing squad |
| 1916 | March | 15 | The Punitive Expedition into Mexico to locate revolutionary leader Pancho Villa |
| 1916 | April | 24 | Ernest Shackleton begins rescue attempt in the James Caird |
| 1916 | April | 24 | The Easter Rising begins in Dublin |
| 1916 | May | 16 | The Sykes-Picot Agreement ratified by Britain and France |
| 1916 | June | 1 | Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jewish justice on the U.S. Supreme Court |
| 1916 | June | 10 | Battle of Mecca starts the full Arab Revolt |
| 1916 | August | 25 | The U.S. National Park Service signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson |
| 1916 | November | 18 | Battle of the Somme ends |
| 1917 | January | 19 | 73 people killed in the Silvertown munitions factory explosion in London |
| 1917 | February | 26 | Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band makes first commercially released jazz recording |
| 1917 | April | 6 | The USA declares war on Germany in WW1 |
| 1917 | April | 12 | The Canadian Corps successfully capture Vimy Ridge |
| 1917 | April | 16 | Lenin arrives back in Russia in the sealed train after a decade in exile |
| 1917 | November | 7 | The Bolshevik Revolution erupts in Russia |
| 1917 | November | 15 | Clemenceau appointed Prime Minister of France during the First World War |
| 1917 | December | 20 | Cheka established by the Bolsheviks |
| 1918 | January | 8 | Woodrow Wilson announces the Fourteen Points |
| 1918 | February | 6 | Women secure the right to vote in the Representation of the People Act |
| 1918 | March | 3 | Russia and Central Powers sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk |
| 1918 | March | 11 | First confirmed case of 'Spanish Flu' |
| 1918 | April | 21 | Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shot down and killed |
| 1918 | July | 17 | Romanov family shot dead by the Bosheviks |
| 1918 | August | 13 | Opha May Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the US Marine Corps |
| 1918 | August | 30 | Lenin shot in a failed assassination attempt |
| 1918 | October | 3 | Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria comes to the throne |
| 1918 | November | 9 | Wilhelm II abdicates as Kaiser of Germany |
| 1918 | November | 11 | The Armistice of Compiegne is signed, ending WW1 |
| 1918 | December | 1 | Unification of Transylvania and the Kingdom of Romania |
| 1918 | December | 19 | Ripley's 'Believe it or Not!' published for the first time in the New York Globe |
| 1919 | January | 15 | Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg killed by Freikorps |
| 1919 | January | 15 | Great Molasses Flood kills 21 people in Boston |
| 1919 | January | 16 | Prohibition approved as Nebraska becomes 36th state to ratify the 18th Amendment |
| 1919 | January | 18 | The Paris Peace Conference begins |
| 1919 | April | 13 | British troops commit the Amritsar Massacre |
| 1919 | May | 19 | The Turkish War of Independence begins |
| 1919 | June | 21 | The German fleet is scuttled at Scapa Flow |
| 1919 | August | 11 | Weimar Republic established after constitution signed |
| 1919 | September | 12 | Hitler joins the German Workers Party |
| 1919 | October | 2 | US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke while in office |
| 1920 | January | 10 | League of Nations officially founded |
| 1920 | January | 19 | Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union |
| 1920 | March | 13 | Start of the Kapp Putsch in Berlin |
| 1920 | June | 4 | Treaty of Trianon signed with Hungary after the First World War |
| 1920 | August | 18 | Ratification of 19th Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees female suffrage |
| 1920 | August | 20 | The NFL established as the American Professional Football Conference |
| 1920 | August | 31 | World's first radio news program begins broadcasting on 8MK in Detroit, Michigan |
| 1920 | September | 16 | The Wall Street bombing kills 38 people in New York |
| 1921 | March | 21 | The New Economic Policy introduced to the USSR by Vladimir Lenin |
| 1921 | May | 31 | The Tulsa Race Massacre breaks out in Oklahoma |
| 1921 | October | 21 | U.S. President Warren G. Harding condemns lynching in a speech in Alabama |
| 1921 | December | 9 | Lead identified as a fuel additive for automobiles |
| 1922 | April | 16 | The Treaty of Rapallo signed by Russia and Germany |
| 1922 | July | 11 | The Hollywood Bowl opens in Los Angeles |
| 1922 | October | 18 | British Broadcasting Company established |
| 1922 | October | 31 | The cabinet of Benito Mussolini formally comes to power |
| 1922 | November | 26 | Tutankhamun's tomb entered by Howard Carter |
| 1922 | December | 30 | Foundation of the USSR |
| 1923 | January | 11 | French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr |
| 1923 | February | 16 | Howard Carter unseals Tutankhamun's burial chamber |
| 1923 | April | 28 | The opening of Wembley Stadium and the White Horse Final |
| 1923 | September | 26 | Weimar Germany ends the strikes in the Ruhr |
| 1923 | October | 15 | Rentenmark introduced in Weimar Germany |
| 1923 | November | 8 | The Beer Hall Putsch begins in Munich |
| 1924 | February | 5 | The BBC 'pips' first broadcast |
| 1924 | February | 12 | First performance of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue |
| 1924 | April | 1 | Hitler found guilty of treason for the Beer Hall Putsch |
| 1924 | June | 10 | Matteotti kidnapped and murdered by Italian Fascists |
| 1924 | December | 20 | Adolf Hitler released from Landsberg Prison |
| 1925 | January | 5 | Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the American woman to be a state governor |
| 1925 | February | 2 | Great Race of Mercy diptheria antitoxin dogsled relay |
| 1925 | April | 4 | Adolf Hitler orders the establishment of the SS |
| 1925 | July | 18 | Hitler publishes first volume of Mein Kampf |
| 1925 | July | 21 | The 'Monkey Trial' finds John T. Scopes guilty of teaching evolution |
| 1925 | August | 8 | More than 50,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan stage a march in Washington D.C. |
| 1925 | November | 28 | The Grand Ole Opry broadcast for the first time |
| 1926 | October | 24 | Harry Houdini performs his final show despite suffering from acute appendicitis |
| 1927 | May | 21 | First solo transatlantic flights |
| 1927 | July | 24 | Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is unveiled |
| 1927 | October | 4 | Work begins on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial |
| 1927 | November | 12 | Leon Trotsky expelled from the Communist Party |
| 1928 | May | 15 | Mickey Mouse's first cartoon appearance |
| 1928 | July | 7 | Sliced bread goes on sale for the first time |
| 1928 | August | 27 | The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed |
| 1928 | September | 28 | Penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming |
| 1928 | October | 1 | USSR introduces first five-year plan |
| 1928 | October | 12 | Iron lung' respirator used for the first time at Boston Children's Hospital |
| 1929 | February | 14 | Saint Valentine's Day Massacre |
| 1929 | August | 11 | Babe Ruth becomes the first Major League Baseball player to hit 500 home runs |
| 1929 | October | 24 | Wall Street Crash begins on Black Thursday |
| 1929 | November | 29 | Richard E. Byrd completes the first flight over the South Pole |
| 1929 | December | 27 | Stalin calls for the 'liquidation of the kulaks as a class' |
| 1930 | February | 18 | Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly |
| 1930 | March | 12 | Gandhi begins the Salt March to Dandi |
| 1931 | September | 18 | Manchurian Crisis begins after Japanese bomb |
| 1932 | May | 4 | Al Capone imprisoned for income tax evasion |
| 1932 | July | 8 | Dow Jones falls to its lowest point in the Great Depression |
| 1932 | July | 28 | Bonus Marchers forcibly evicted from Washington D.C. by the Army |
| 1932 | September | 18 | Actress Peg Entwistle's body found after jumping from the Hollywood sign |
| 1932 | September | 18 | Actress Peg Entwistle's body found after jumping from the Hollywood sign |
| 1933 | January | 30 | Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany |
| 1933 | February | 27 | Arson attack causes the Reichstag Fire |
| 1933 | October | 17 | Albert Einstein moves to the USA after Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany |
| 1933 | November | 16 | The USA establishes formal diplomatic relations with the USSR |
| 1933 | December | 15 | 21 Amendment ends prohibition in the USA |
| 1934 | May | 23 | Bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde ambushed by police and killed in rural Louisiana |
| 1934 | June | 30 | Nazi party purged on Night of the Long Knives |
| 1934 | August | 2 | Hitler becomes Fuhrer following Hindenburg's death |
| 1934 | December | 5 | Wal-Wal Incident between Italy and Abyssinia |
| 1935 | January | 13 | Saar votes to reunite with Germany |
| 1935 | February | 26 | Hitler formally establishes the Luftwaffe |
| 1935 | June | 10 | Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by Bill Wilson and Robert Smith |
| 1935 | September | 2 | The Labor Day hurricane, the most intense hurricane to ever make landfall |
| 1935 | September | 15 | 'Nuremberg Laws' introduced in Germany |
| 1935 | September | 30 | The Hoover Dam is dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| 1935 | October | 19 | League of Nations imposes sanctions on Italy |
| 1935 | October | 20 | Mao's Red Army finishes the Long March |
| 1935 | December | 12 | Nazis introduce Lebensborn programme |
| 1935 | December | 31 | Monopoly board game patented |
| 1936 | March | 7 | Remilitarisation of the Rhineland by the German Army |
| 1936 | July | 26 | Germany and Italy agree to support Franco |
| 1936 | August | 3 | Jesse Owens wins his first Olympic medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics |
| 1936 | October | 4 | The Battle of Cable Street |
| 1936 | October | 5 | The Jarrow March departs for London |
| 1936 | November | 25 | Anti-Comintern Pact signed by Germany and Japan |
| 1936 | December | 11 | Abdication of King Edward VIII |
| 1937 | February | 16 | Wallace Carothers receives a patent for nylon |
| 1937 | April | 26 | The Bombing of Guernica |
| 1937 | May | 6 | The Hindenburg airship disaster in New Jersey |
| 1937 | June | 30 | World's first emergency telephone number began operation |
| 1937 | July | 5 | SPAM, the canned cooked pork, first introduced by Hormel Foods Corporation |
| 1937 | September | 21 | The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein is first published |
| 1937 | December | 13 | The Nanking Massacre begins |
| 1938 | July | 3 | Mallard sets the world speed record for steam locomotive |
| 1938 | September | 29 | Munich Agreement annexes Sudetenland |
| 1938 | October | 30 | War of the Worlds by Orson Welles is broadcast |
| 1939 | March | 30 | Batman's debut in Detective Comics #27 |
| 1939 | April | 1 | Francisco Franco announces the end of the Spanish Civil War |
| 1939 | August | 23 | Nazi-Soviet Pact signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop |
| 1939 | September | 1 | Nazi Germany invades Poland |
| 1939 | September | 3 | Second War War begins |
| 1940 | February | 29 | First African-American to win an Oscar |
| 1940 | May | 15 | The world's first McDonald's restaurant opened in California |
| 1940 | May | 26 | Start of the Dunkirk evacuation |
| 1940 | July | 3 | British navy attacks the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir |
| 1940 | July | 10 | The Vichy government established in France |
| 1940 | July | 27 | Bugs Bunny makes his cartoon debut in A Wild Hare |
| 1940 | August | 20 | Leon Trotsky attacked with an ice axe in Mexico |
| 1940 | September | 7 | The Nazi German Luftwaffe launches The Blitz |
| 1940 | October | 25 | Benjamin O. Davis Sr. becomes first African-American general in the US military |
| 1940 | November | 5 | President Roosevelt elected for an unprecedented third term |
| 1941 | May | 10 | Rudolf Hess secretly flies to Scotland to seek peace |
| 1941 | August | 14 | Roosevelt and Churchill issue the Atlantic Charter |
| 1941 | August | 15 | The last execution takes place at the Tower of London |
| 1941 | September | 8 | Start of the Siege of Leningrad |
| 1941 | December | 7 | Attack on Pearl Harbor |
| 1941 | December | 11 | Nazi Germany declares war on the USA |
| 1942 | January | 1 | Declaration by the United Nations agreed |
| 1942 | January | 20 | Nazi leaders meet at the Wannsee Conference |
| 1942 | January | 29 | Desert Island Discs first broadcast by the BBC |
| 1942 | March | 13 | Julia Flikke of the Army Nurse Corps, became the first female Colonel in the USA |
| 1942 | March | 28 | Operation Chariot and the St. Nazaire raid by British forces in WW2 |
| 1942 | May | 8 | The Battle of the Coral Sea ends |
| 1942 | May | 29 | The song "White Christmas" recorded by Bing Crosby |
| 1942 | June | 12 | Anne Frank receives a diary for her 13 birthday |
| 1942 | June | 22 | The words of the Pledge of Allegiance formally adopted by Congress |
| 1942 | July | 22 | Wartime gasoline rationing introduced to the USA |
| 1942 | July | 27 | Allies halt the Axis advance in the First Battle of El Alamein |
| 1943 | January | 14 | Churchill and Roosevelt meet in Casablanca |
| 1943 | February | 22 | Trial and execution of White Rose members |
| 1943 | May | 17 | RAF No. 617 Squadron carries out the 'Dambusters' raid |
| 1943 | May | 24 | Josef Mengele, the Nazi Angel of Death, transferred to Auschwitz |
| 1943 | July | 23 | Archibald Brown blown up in the Rayleigh bath chair murder by an anti-tank grenade placed under his seat |
| 1944 | January | 17 | Allies launch the Battle of Monte Cassino during the Second World War |
| 1944 | April | 1 | The USAAF accidentally bomb the neutral Swiss town of Schaffhausen |
| 1944 | June | 6 | D-Day landings mark the start of Operation Overlord |
| 1944 | June | 13 | First V-1 'Doodlebug' flying bomb attack on London |
| 1944 | August | 4 | First Allied jet fighter destroys a Nazi V-1 flying bomb |
| 1944 | August | 23 | King Michael of Romania leads a coup d'etat against against Ion Antonescu |
| 1944 | August | 25 | The Allies liberate Paris from Nazi control |
| 1945 | January | 27 | Auschwitz-Birkenau liberated by Soviet forces |
| 1945 | February | 4 | Yalta Conference begins |
| 1945 | March | 26 | Battle of Iwo Jima officially ends |
| 1945 | April | 12 | Harry Truman Becomes President of the USA |
| 1945 | May | 2 | The Battle of Berlin ends with the German surrender to the USSR |
| 1945 | May | 8 | Victory in Europe Day |
| 1945 | June | 20 | The United States approves the transfer of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun |
| 1945 | July | 16 | USA tests the first ever nuclear bomb |
| 1945 | August | 6 | The USA drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima |
| 1945 | November | 16 | Foundation of UNESCO |
| 1945 | November | 20 | First Nuremberg Trial begins |
| 1946 | February | 15 | ENIAC, the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer |
| 1946 | March | 5 | Winston Churchill makes his 'Iron Curtain' speech in Fulton |
| 1946 | May | 2 | The Battle of Alcatraz began when armed inmates attempted to escape from the prison |
| 1946 | June | 2 | Italians vote to turn their country into a republic |
| 1946 | July | 5 | The bikini swimsuit introduced for the first time |
| 1946 | September | 24 | The policy of 'Containment' first suggested in a US report |
| 1946 | December | 11 | UNICEF established by the United Nations General Assembly |
| 1947 | January | 25 | Patent for the first interactive electronic game filed |
| 1947 | March | 12 | Truman Doctrine established when the President asks for aid to Greece and Turkey |
| 1947 | June | 5 | The Marshall Plan outlined in a speech at Harvard University |
| 1947 | June | 24 | The first widely-reported UFO sighting was made by private pilot Kenneth Arnold |
| 1947 | July | 6 | The Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle goes into production |
| 1947 | July | 8 | Roswell Army Air Base reports 'flying disc' debris |
| 1947 | September | 9 | Moth 'bug' discovered inside a Harvard computer |
| 1948 | June | 22 | MV Empire Windrush arrives at Tilbury Docks in London |
| 1948 | July | 5 | National Health Service launched in the UK |
| 1948 | July | 26 | Executive Order 9981 abolishes racial segregation in the US military |
| 1949 | February | 15 | The first archaeological excavation at the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls |
| 1949 | May | 12 | Stalin lifts the Berlin Blockade |
| 1949 | June | 19 | The first NASCAR 'Strictly Stock' race takes place at Charlotte Speedway |
| 1949 | August | 29 | USSR conducts its first atomic bomb test |
| 1949 | September | 23 | President Truman announces the USSR's first nuclear test |
| 1949 | October | 1 | Mao Zedong declares the establishment of the People's Republic of China |
| 1949 | October | 7 | East Germany founded in the Soviet zone |
| 1950 | March | 8 | VW Transporter (aka 'camper' / 'bus') begins production |
| 1950 | March | 14 | FBI launches its 'Ten Most Wanted' list |
| 1950 | April | 11 | Stone of Scone rediscovered 4 months after its disappearance |
| 1950 | May | 13 | First Formula One World Championship Grand Prix race at Silverstone |
| 1950 | June | 27 | President Truman sends US navy and air force to Korea |
| 1950 | July | 4 | Radio Free Europe broadcasts for the first time |
| 1951 | April | 5 | Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sentenced to death for spying |
| 1952 | March | 21 | Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, takes place in Cleveland, Ohio |
| 1952 | May | 1 | Mr Potato Head goes on sale for the first time |
| 1952 | May | 2 | First ever passenger jet plane takes off from London |
| 1952 | December | 5 | The Great Smog of London begins |
| 1953 | April | 27 | The US launches Operation Moolah to obtain a Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter |
| 1953 | May | 29 | Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquer Mount Everest |
| 1953 | October | 19 | Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 first published |
| 1954 | January | 21 | Launch of USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine |
| 1954 | April | 7 | President Eisenhower first described the ‘domino theory’ of the spread of communism |
| 1954 | December | 2 | US Senator Joseph McCarthy censured by the Senate |
| 1955 | May | 14 | The establishment of the Warsaw Pact |
| 1955 | August | 28 | The murder of black teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi |
| 1955 | September | 16 | Uprising that topples Juan Peron from power in Argentina begins |
| 1955 | December | 1 | Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat |
| 1955 | December | 24 | NORAD tracks Santa for the first time |
| 1956 | February | 25 | Khruschev criticises Stalin in his 'secret speech' |
| 1956 | May | 24 | First Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Switzerland |
| 1956 | June | 3 | Rock and Roll music banned in Santa Cruz |
| 1956 | September | 9 | When Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show |
| 1956 | September | 25 | Inauguration TAT-1, the first transatlantic telephone cable |
| 1956 | October | 29 | Israel invades Egypt in the Suez Crisis |
| 1956 | November | 13 | Browder v Gayle leads to desegregation on buses |
| 1956 | December | 4 | Million Dollar Quartet record at Sun Studios |
| 1956 | December | 6 | USSR and Hungary 'Blood in the Water' Olympic match |
| 1957 | March | 25 | Treaty of Rome establishes the EEC |
| 1957 | July | 6 | Lennon and McCartney meet for the first time |
| 1957 | September | 4 | Black students denied entry to Little Rock High School |
| 1957 | October | 1 | The phrase ‘In God We Trust’ appears on U.S. paper currency for the first time |
| 1957 | October | 10 | Eisenhower apologises to Ghanaian minister for racism in Delaware restaurant |
| 1957 | November | 3 | Laika the dog becomes the first animal in orbit |
| 1958 | February | 5 | American nuclear bomb lost off the coast of Tybee Island in Georgia, USA |
| 1958 | February | 6 | Munich air disaster kills Manchester Utd players |
| 1958 | March | 14 | Perry Como awarded the first gold record by the RIAA |
| 1958 | June | 16 | Execution of Hungarian Communist leader Imre Nagy |
| 1958 | September | 12 | The world's first integrated circuit (aka microchip) demonstrated by Jack Kilby |
| 1958 | December | 28 | The Greatest Game Ever Played' in the NFL Championship Playoff |
| 1959 | February | 3 | Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens & The Big Bopper plane crash (Day The Music Died) |
| 1959 | February | 20 | Jimi Hendrix plays his first gig |
| 1959 | March | 9 | Barbie doll introduced at the New York Toy Fair |
| 1959 | June | 8 | United States Post Office Department transported 3,000 letters using a cruise missile |
| 1959 | August | 21 | Hawaii becomes the 50th state of the USA |
| 1959 | September | 14 | The USSR successfully sends the first man-made object to the Moon's surface |
| 1960 | February | 1 | Start of the Greensboro sit-ins to protest segregation |
| 1960 | June | 23 | Enovid approved as the first combined oral contraceptive pill in the world |
| 1960 | September | 26 | Kennedy and Nixon's first televised debate |
| 1960 | October | 27 | Ben E. King records Stand By Me |
| 1960 | November | 14 | Ruby Bridges, the first African-American to desegregate an elementary school |
| 1961 | January | 3 | USA cuts diplomatic relations with Cuba |
| 1961 | February | 3 | Operation Looking Glass begins its 29-year Cold War flight above the USA |
| 1961 | April | 11 | The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Israel |
| 1961 | April | 17 | The Bay of Pigs invasion launched by Brigade 2506 |
| 1961 | May | 5 | Astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel in space on Freedom 7 |
| 1961 | May | 25 | Kennedy announces plan for manned moon landing |
| 1961 | August | 13 | Construction begins on the Berlin Wall |
| 1961 | October | 30 | The Tsar Bomba detonated by the USSR |
| 1962 | February | 10 | Captured U-2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers freed in a prisoner exchange |
| 1962 | March | 19 | Bob Dylan releases his eponymous debut album |
| 1962 | May | 19 | Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to President John F. Kennedy |
| 1962 | June | 2 | Chile and Italy meet in football's violent 'Battle of Santiago' |
| 1962 | July | 11 | World's first satellite TV broadcast using Telstar |
| 1962 | August | 5 | Nelson Mandela arrested and jailed |
| 1962 | October | 5 | First James Bond film and first Beatles single released |
| 1962 | October | 14 | U-2 spy plane captures images of Cuban missile sites |
| 1962 | October | 28 | End of the Cuban Missile Crisis |
| 1963 | March | 27 | Dr Beeching publishes his first British Rail report |
| 1963 | April | 30 | The Bristol Bus Boycott against discriminatory recruitment begins |
| 1963 | June | 11 | Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself to death |
| 1963 | June | 26 | JFK declares 'Ich bin ein Berliner' |
| 1963 | August | 8 | The Great Train Robbery takes place |
| 1963 | August | 28 | Martin Luther King Jr. declares 'I Have a Dream' |
| 1963 | August | 30 | Moscow-Washington hotline enters operation |
| 1963 | November | 22 | Assassination of John F. Kennedy |
| 1963 | November | 23 | First episode of Doctor Who broadcast |
| 1963 | December | 12 | Kenya gains independence from the United Kingdom |
| 1964 | January | 11 | US Surgeon General publishes report on the health effects of tobacco smoking |
| 1964 | February | 7 | The Beatles' first visit to the USA |
| 1964 | July | 2 | Civil Rights Act signed into law by Lyndon B Johnson |
| 1964 | August | 7 | Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by US Congress |
| 1964 | October | 29 | ‘Murf the Surf’ and two accomplices commit New York’s biggest ever jewel heist |
| 1965 | March | 2 | USA launches Operation Rolling Thunder in Vietnam |
| 1965 | March | 25 | The Selma to Montgomery March ends at the Alabama State Capitol |
| 1965 | April | 20 | Skylight windows of the Houston Astrodome painted |
| 1965 | July | 25 | Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival |
| 1965 | December | 9 | Charlie Brown Christmas first broadcast |
| 1966 | February | 17 | The Beach Boys start recording Good Vibrations |
| 1966 | May | 16 | Start of the Cultural Revolution in China |
| 1966 | June | 13 | The Miranda Warning - US Supreme Court rules suspects must be told their rights |
| 1966 | July | 18 | The Hough Riots begin in Cleveland, Ohio |
| 1966 | September | 8 | Star Trek makes its television debut with "The Man Trap" |
| 1966 | October | 15 | The Black Panther Party founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale |
| 1966 | October | 21 | 144 people killed in the Aberfan disaster |
| 1967 | January | 12 | Dr James Bedford becomes the first cryonically preserved human |
| 1967 | January | 27 | The Outer Space Treaty that is the basis for all space laws opened for signatures |
| 1967 | April | 21 | Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Joseph Stalin, arrives in the USA after defecting |
| 1967 | June | 1 | The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
| 1967 | June | 5 | Start of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War |
| 1967 | August | 24 | Abbie Hoffman throws money inside the New York Stock Exchange |
| 1967 | September | 30 | BBC Radio 1 begins broadcasting |
| 1967 | October | 9 | Ernesto 'Che' Guevara executed in Bolivia |
| 1967 | December | 3 | The first human-to-human heart transplant |
| 1968 | January | 5 | Prague Spring begins in Czechoslovakia |
| 1968 | February | 1 | Viet Cong Captain Bảy Lốp executed by General Loan |
| 1968 | March | 16 | My Lai Massacre committed by US troops |
| 1968 | April | 4 | Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. |
| 1968 | April | 11 | The Fair Housing Act of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 signed by President Johnson |
| 1968 | August | 20 | Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring |
| 1969 | February | 9 | First test flight of Boeing 747 'Jumbo Jet' |
| 1969 | June | 28 | The Stonewall Riots begin when NYPD raid the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village |
| 1969 | July | 20 | Apollo 11 lands on the moon |
| 1969 | August | 8 | The Beatles stop traffic on Abbey Road for their photo on the zebra crossing |
| 1969 | August | 12 | The Battle of the Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland |
| 1969 | November | 10 | Sesame Street first broadcast |
| 1969 | November | 15 | 500,000 people march on Washington in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam |
| 1969 | November | 20 | Native Americans begin their occupation of Alcatraz Island |
| 1969 | December | 6 | Meredith Hunter killed at the Altamont Free Festival |
| 1970 | April | 13 | Explosion on Apollo 13 |
| 1970 | May | 4 | Ohio National Guardsmen shoot Kent State students |
| 1970 | July | 21 | Construction of Egypt's Aswan High Dam is completed |
| 1970 | July | 31 | Black Tot Day ends the Royal Navy's daily rum ration |
| 1970 | August | 23 | Start of the Salad Bowl Strike, the largest farm worker walkout in U.S. history |
| 1970 | September | 19 | First Glastonbury Festival takes place |
| 1970 | October | 5 | PBS, the national Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, was launched |
| 1970 | November | 12 | A dead whale is blown up with dynamite by the Oregon State Highway Division |
| 1971 | February | 15 | The UK and Ireland decimalise their currency |
| 1971 | March | 8 | Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier faced each other in the 'Fight of the Century' |
| 1971 | April | 10 | US table tennis team ushers in ping pong diplomacy |
| 1971 | July | 9 | Henry Kissinger makes a secret diplomatic trip to China |
| 1971 | October | 28 | Prospero, the only British satellite launched with a British rocket |
| 1972 | May | 21 | Laszlo Toth attacks Michelangelo's Pieta with a hammer |
| 1972 | June | 8 | Photo taken of a Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack |
| 1972 | September | 6 | Olympic athletes killed in the Munich massacre |
| 1972 | December | 7 | The Blue Marble photograph taken of the whole Earth |
| 1972 | December | 28 | Kim Il-sung becomes President of North Korea |
| 1973 | January | 14 | Elvis Presley makes the satellite broadcast Aloha From Hawaii |
| 1973 | January | 22 | The Supreme Court issues its decision on the Roe v. Wade abortion case |
| 1973 | February | 27 | Occupation of Wounded knee by the Oglala Lakota and the American Indian Movement |
| 1973 | March | 29 | Final US troops withdraw from Vietnam |
| 1973 | September | 20 | Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the 'Battle of the Sexes' tennis match |
| 1973 | December | 26 | The Exorcist released in cinemas |
| 1974 | March | 29 | Discovery of the Terracotta Army |
| 1974 | June | 26 | World's first barcode scanned on a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum |
| 1974 | August | 9 | Richard Nixon resigns as President of the USA |
| 1974 | September | 23 | BBC launches the Ceefax teletext service |
| 1974 | November | 21 | The Birmingham pub bombings kill 21 people and injure 182 |
| 1975 | January | 6 | Led Zeppelin banned from Boston after fans run riot at Boston Garden arena |
| 1975 | April | 29 | US evacuation of Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind |
| 1975 | July | 15 | The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project lifted off |
| 1975 | October | 11 | Saturday Night Live is broadcast for the first time |
| 1975 | November | 6 | Sex Pistols play their first gig |
| 1976 | July | 18 | Nadia Comăneci scores the first ever Olympic gymnastic 'perfect 10' |
| 1976 | November | 26 | Sex Pistols release the punk single Anarchy in the UK |
| 1977 | April | 2 | Red Rum wins an unprecedented third Grand National horse race |
| 1977 | May | 25 | Star Wars is first released in cinemas |
| 1977 | September | 12 | Anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies of injuries sustained in police custody |
| 1977 | October | 20 | Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashes during an emergency landing |
| 1978 | May | 3 | The world's first ‘spam’ email sent by Gary Thuerk of Digital Equipment Corporation |
| 1978 | June | 19 | Garfield cartoon strip first published |
| 1978 | September | 11 | Last ever death from smallpox in Birmingham, UK |
| 1978 | September | 16 | Filming begins on Monty Python's Life of Brian |
| 1978 | September | 17 | Egypt and Israel sign Camp David Accords |
| 1978 | November | 17 | CBS broadcast the heavily-criticised Star Wars Holiday Special |
| 1978 | November | 27 | George Moscone and Harvey Milk killed by Dan White |
| 1979 | January | 7 | Cambodian leader Pol Pot overthrown |
| 1979 | February | 11 | Iranian Revolution overthrows the Shah |
| 1979 | March | 28 | Worst accident in U.S. nuclear power plant history at Three Mile Island Generating Station |
| 1979 | July | 3 | President Jimmy Carter authorizes $500,000 to aid the mujahideen in Afghanistan |
| 1979 | November | 4 | The Iran hostage crisis begins |
| 1979 | November | 9 | A computer error reports the USSR had fired nuclear missiles at the USA |
| 1980 | January | 2 | Jimmy Carter instigates the end of détente after the USSR invades Afghanistan |
| 1980 | August | 14 | Lech Wałęsa leads Gdańsk shipyard workers on strike |
| 1980 | September | 22 | Iraq-Iran war begins |
| 1980 | December | 8 | John Lennon murdered by Mark David Chapman |
| 1981 | January | 2 | Peter Sutcliffe, "The Yorkshire Ripper" arrested |
| 1981 | January | 21 | First DeLorean sports car produced |
| 1981 | February | 13 | The sewers of Louisville, Kentucky, explode due to industrial waste |
| 1981 | May | 31 | Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka burnt down |
| 1981 | August | 1 | The launch of cable music television channel MTV |
| 1981 | October | 6 | Egyptian President Anwar Sadat assassinated |
| 1982 | April | 2 | Falklands War begins with Argentine invasion |
| 1982 | June | 7 | Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee, was opened to the public |
| 1982 | August | 17 | The first commercial CD is produced in Germany |
| 1982 | November | 30 | Michael Jackson releases the album Thriller |
| 1983 | January | 31 | It became compulsory for UK drivers to wear a seat belt |
| 1983 | May | 6 | The Hitler Diaries proven to be forgeries |
| 1985 | February | 19 | BBC broadcasts first episode of EastEnders |
| 1985 | March | 31 | WrestleMania I takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City |
| 1985 | April | 23 | Introduction of 'New Coke' is a marketing disaster |
| 1985 | July | 13 | Live Aid is watched by 1.9 billion people |
| 1985 | September | 1 | Wreck of the Titanic discovered by Robert Ballard |
| 1985 | September | 13 | Super Mario Bros. video game released |
| 1985 | November | 19 | Reagan and Gorbachev meet for the first time at the Geneva Summit |
| 1986 | January | 20 | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day first observed as a federal holiday |
| 1986 | January | 28 | The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster |
| 1987 | April | 19 | The Simpsons make their first television appearance on The Tracey Ullman Show |
| 1987 | May | 28 | West German amateur pilot lands a private plane near Red Square in Moscow |
| 1987 | June | 12 | Ronald Reagan calls on Mikhail Gorbachev to 'Tear down this wall!' |
| 1987 | November | 18 | Kings Cross St Pancras fire on the London Underground |
| 1988 | October | 27 | Ronald Reagan halts construction of the Moscow embassy |
| 1988 | November | 2 | Release of the Morris Worm signalled the first major internet security attack |
| 1989 | March | 24 | Start of the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound |
| 1989 | April | 15 | 96 Liverpool fans killed in the Hillsborough Disaster |
| 1989 | June | 3 | Start of the Tiananmen Square massacre |
| 1989 | August | 19 | The Pan-European Picnic opens the Cold War border between Hungary and Austria |
| 1989 | September | 10 | Hungary allows East Germans into Austria |
| 1989 | November | 9 | East Germany opens the Berlin Wall |
| 1989 | December | 22 | Overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania |
| 1990 | January | 31 | First McDonald's opens in the USSR |
| 1990 | February | 14 | Voyager 1 creates the Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth |
| 1990 | March | 18 | The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum suffers the world’s largest ever art theft |
| 1990 | August | 12 | Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex discovered by Susan Hendrickson |
| 1990 | October | 3 | East and West Germany reunited |
| 1990 | November | 12 | World Wide Web first proposed |
| 1990 | November | 14 | Margaret Thatcher faces leadership challenge |
| 1990 | November | 16 | Milli Vanilli stripped of their Grammy Award for not singing on their album |
| 1991 | January | 17 | Gulf War combat phase begins with Operation Desert Storm |
| 1991 | August | 19 | Gorbachev placed under house arrest in the August Coup |
| 1991 | September | 10 | Nirvana release 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' |
| 1991 | December | 26 | The USSR formally dissolved |
| 1992 | March | 17 | White South Africans vote to end apartheid in a referendum |
| 1992 | July | 22 | Pablo Escobar escapes from the luxury La Catedral prison |
| 1993 | February | 28 | Beginning of the Waco siege of the Branch Davidian Church in Texas |
| 1993 | October | 3 | The Black Hawk Down incident during the Battle of Mogadishu |
| 1993 | December | 30 | Israel and the Vatican City begin diplomatic relations |
| 1996 | February | 27 | Pokémon first launched in Japan |
| 1997 | May | 11 | Deep Blue chess computer beats Garry Kasparov |
| 1998 | January | 26 | Bill Clinton denies 'sexual relations with that woman' |
| 2000 | March | 10 | The NASDAQ index peaks at the height of the dot-com bubble |
| 2002 | January | 29 | The phrase 'Axis of Evil' used for the first time by President George W. Bush |
| 2008 | June | 29 | Apple release the iPhone |
| 2015 | October | 21 | Marty McFly goes 'Back To The Future' |
