The Not Very Overrate Events of the 20th Century
As Voted by You, the People of the Web
(Survey begun on 25 November 1998 and completed on 27 March
1999)
The events of the 20th Century which you, the people of Internet, seemed to
feel were rather important.
... or else you never even heard of them, or just have no opinion on the
matter whatsoever.
- 11 Points:
- 1915: Film: "Birth of a Nation"
- 1919: 18th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the sale of alcohol
- 1922: Book: "Ulysses" by James Joyce
- 1941: Film: "Citizen Kane"
- 1953: Senator Joe McCarthy hunts for communists in the US government
- 1972: Nixon visits China
- 1977: TV: "Roots"
- 1994: Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa
- 10 Points:
- 1927: Babe Ruth hits 59 home runs in one season
- 1933: The Tennessee Valley Authority created
- 1961: Film: "101 Dalmations"
- 1964: The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan show
- 1965: Film: "Dr. Zhivago"
- 1965: Film: "The Sound of Music"
- 1969: The music festival at Woodstock
- 1973: Abortion is legalized in the US
- 1993: Film: "Schindler's List"
- 9 Points:
- 1911: Germany creates a crisis at Agadir, Morocco
- 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated
- 1925: Book: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1927: Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
- 1937: The zeppelin Hindenburg explodes over New Jersey
- 1948: Painting: "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth
- 1951: Book: "The Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger
- 1956: Play: "Waiting For Godot" by Samuel Beckett
- 1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated
- 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the moon
- 1973: Nobel Peace Prize: Kissenger & LDT for ending War in Vietnam
- 1981: Sandra Day O'Connor is 1st woman appointed to the US Supreme Court
- 1982: Film: "ET: The Extra-Terrestrial"
- 1982: Book: "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
- 8 Points:
- 1913: Invention: The zipper
- 1925: Film: "The Gold Rush"
- 1942: Film: "Casablanca"
- 1959: Film: "Some Like It Hot"
- 1979: Accident at the 3-Mile Island nuclear power plant
- 1979: Nobel Peace Prize: Mother Teresa
- 7 Points:
- 1906: The San Francisco Earthquake
- 1907: Painting: "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by Pablo Picasso
- 1922: The discovery of King Tut's tomb
- 1925: Invention: Television
- 1941: Film: "The Maltese Falcon"
- 1947: Play: "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams
- 1955: Book: "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
- 1955: Ray Kroc buys the rights to franchise McDonald's Restaurants
- 1961: John Glenn orbits the earth
- 1965: The Rolling Stones release "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
- 1968: Film: "2001: A Space Odyssey"
- 1972: Film: "The Godfather"
- 1975: Film: "Jaws"
- 1993: Peace in the Mideast: Israel and the PLO
- 6 Points:
- 1908: The Ford Model T debuts
- 1930: Painting: "American Gothic" by Grant Wood
- 1935: The Social Security Act
- 1936: The Volkswagon Beetle debuts
- 1944: Invention: Ballpoint pen
- 1944: D-Day
- 1948: The State of Israel is established
- 1949: Book: "1984" by George Orwell
- 1952: Film: "Singing in the Rain"
- 1953: Discovery of the double helix structure of DNA
- 1954: Book: "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
- 1954: Book: "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
- 1955: Book: "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabakov
- 1957: Book: "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
- 1959: Film: "Ben-Hur"
- 1962: Bob Dylan records "Blowin' In The Wind"
- 1967: Music: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the
Beatles
- 1974: Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run
- 1974: Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman
- 1974: Film: "Chinatown"
- 1974: Lucy the fossil hominid is discovered
- 1977: Film: "Star Wars"
- 1979: Somoza overthrown in Nicaragua
- 1983: Play: "Glengary Glen Ross" by David Mamet
- 1984: Book: "Neuromancer" by William Gibson
- 1986: Space Shuttle Challenger explodes
- 5 Points:
- 1918: The Romanovs are executed
- 1924: Music: "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin
- 1925: The New Yorker debuts
- 1928: The first Mickey Mouse cartoon
- 1942: 1942: Music: "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin
- 1947: The Marshall Plan
- 1947: Jackie Robinson, the first African-American major league baseball
player
- 1950: Film: "Sunset Boulevard"
- 1952: Book: "Charlotte's Web" by E. B. White
- 1956: Film: "The Ten Commandments"
- 1961: Cuban expatriots invade at the Bay of Pigs
- 1968: Musical: "Hair"
- 1971: TV: "All in the Family" debuts
- 1972: Terrorists interupt Olympic Games in Munich
- 1991: The Soviet Union breaks apart
- 4 Points:
- 1905: Albert Einstein's theory of relativity
- 1913: Music: "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky
- 1915: The Lusitania is torpedoed by a German U-Boat
- 1922: Excavation of Ur
- 1937: Film: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
- 1939: Film: "The Wizard of Oz"
- 1941: Day That Will Live In Infamy: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
- 1942: The first nuclear chain reaction
- 1948: The Berlin Airlift
- 1950: Film: "All About Eve"
- 1951: Film: "African Queen"
- 1952: Nobel Peace Prize: Albert Schweizer
- 1954: Roger Bannister breaks the 4-minute mile
- 1954: Battle of Dien Bien Phu
- 1955: Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott
- 1960: Film: "Psycho"
- 1961: Book: "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
- 1962: Book: "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
- 1967: Theory of plate tectonics
- 1967: The 6-Day War
- 1969: Book: "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
- 1978: Invention: Test tube babies
- 1979: Film: "Apocalypse Now"
- 1980: Film: "Raging Bull"
- 1980: Book: "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy O'Toole
- 3 Points:
- 1900: Invention: Kodak Brownie camera
- 1913: Book: "Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence
- 1914: The Battle of the Marne
- 1926: Book: "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
- 1929: Book: "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
- 1932: Book: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
- 1936: Film: "Modern Times"
- 1938: Invention: Nylon
- 1940: Book: "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
- 1952: Book: "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
- 1952: Book: "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
- 1954: Brown v. Board of Education: US Supreme Court desegregates schools
(3 pts.)
- 1961: Book: "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein
- 1961: Invention: Birth-control pill
- 1967: Film: "The Graduate"
- 1968: The Tet Offensive
- 1973: Book: "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon
- 1985: Book: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry
- 2 Points:
- 1901: Invention: Radio
- 1918: Influenza sweeps across the planet
- 1920: American women get the right to vote
- 1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
- 1929: Stock market crash
- 1930: Mohandas Gandhi leads a peaceful revolt again British rule in India
- 1939: Book: "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
- 1940: Film: "The Grapes of Wrath"
- 1940: British troops evacuate Dunkirk
- 1941: Book: "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler
- 1945: Nuremberg Trials begin
- 1947: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier
- 1957: The satellite Sputnik is launched
- 1964: The Civil Rights Act
- 1967: Film: "The Jungle Book"
- 1975: Book: "Humboldt's Gift" by Saul Bellow
- 1978: Nobel Peace Prize: Begin (Israel) + Sadat (Egypt)
- 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched
- 1 Point:
- 1917: Invention: Battle tank
- 1936: Music: "Peter & the Wolf" by Sergei Prokofiev
- 1942: The Battle of Midway
- 1943: Invention: Scuba gear
- 1945: Invention: ENIAC, the electronic computer
- 1949: Play: "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller
- 1950: Battle of Inchon
- 1954: Film: "On the Waterfront"
- 1961: The Berlin Wall is built
- 1967: Christiaan Barnard performs the 1st heart transplant
- 1975: Film: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
- 1979: The American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, is seized
- 1989: The Berlin Wall is torn down
- 0 Points:
- 1903: Invention: The airplane
- 1938: Invention: Xerographic copying
- 1952: First hydrogen bomb exploded
- 1960: Book: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
- 1962: Film: "Lawrence of Arabia"
- 1975: TV: "Saturday Night Live" debuts
- 1989: Communists surrender power monopoly in East Europe
- Your votes for the most overrated aspects of the 20th Century:
- My opinion on which are the most overrated
aspects of the 20th Century
to Table of Contents
Last updated February 1999
Copyright © 1999 Matthew White