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Key dates of the 20th century

The years of 40 turning points of the 1900s, from the first flight and two world wars to the Moon landing and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

40 cards · History

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Each Zap teaches up to 5 new cards, so you learn the deck a few at a time.

Checked by the Brain Zap team · reviewed 10 Oct 2026

Source: 20th century (Wikipedia)

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  • Year the first Nobel Prizes were awarded

    Show answer: Year the first Nobel Prizes were awarded

    1901

    Learn more: Awarded on 10 December 1901, five years after Alfred Nobel's death. The first physics prize went to Röntgen for X-rays.

  • Year of the Wright brothers' first powered flight

    Show answer: Year of the Wright brothers' first powered flight

    1903

    Learn more: On 17 December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville flew 12 seconds and 37 m in the Wright Flyer.

  • Year Einstein published special relativity

    Show answer: Year Einstein published special relativity

    1905

    Learn more: That year Einstein, a patent clerk in Bern, published four landmark papers, including E = mc².

  • Year Ford introduced the Model T

    Show answer: Year Ford introduced the Model T

    1908

    Learn more: The Model T made cars affordable; from 1913 it was built on a moving assembly line. Over 15 million were sold.

  • Year Amundsen reached the South Pole

    Show answer: Year Amundsen reached the South Pole

    1911

    Learn more: Roald Amundsen's Norwegian team reached the pole on 14 December 1911, ahead of Robert Falcon Scott.

About this topic

The twentieth century packed more change into a hundred years than any before it: two world wars, the end of empires, the first flight and the first steps on the Moon, the split of Europe by the Berlin Wall and its fall.

Knowing its key dates turns history into a timeline you can hang new facts on. When you read about an event, you can place it before or after a war, a revolution or a discovery, and see what caused what.

Dates are easier to learn as neighbours than one by one. Group them by decade, and link each to another you know: the Titanic sank two years before the First World War began, the Wall Street Crash came a decade after the Treaty of Versailles, and the Berlin Wall stood from 1961 to 1989. A small number of anchors, such as 1914, 1939, 1945, 1969 and 1989, carries the rest.

All 40 cards

  1. Year the first Nobel Prizes were awarded

    1901

    Learn more: Awarded on 10 December 1901, five years after Alfred Nobel's death. The first physics prize went to Röntgen for X-rays.

  2. Year of the Wright brothers' first powered flight

    1903

    Learn more: On 17 December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville flew 12 seconds and 37 m in the Wright Flyer.

  3. Year Einstein published special relativity

    1905

    Learn more: That year Einstein, a patent clerk in Bern, published four landmark papers, including E = mc².

  4. Year Ford introduced the Model T

    1908

    Learn more: The Model T made cars affordable; from 1913 it was built on a moving assembly line. Over 15 million were sold.

  5. Year Amundsen reached the South Pole

    1911

    Learn more: Roald Amundsen's Norwegian team reached the pole on 14 December 1911, ahead of Robert Falcon Scott.

  6. Year the Titanic sank

    1912

    Learn more: It hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank on 15 April 1912; more than 1,500 people died.

  7. Year World War I began

    1914

    Learn more: Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914; within weeks Europe's great powers were at war.

  8. Year of the Russian Revolution

    1917

    Learn more: The tsar fell in February and the Bolsheviks seized power in October, by the old Russian calendar.

  9. Year World War I ended

    1918

    Learn more: The armistice took effect at 11 am on 11 November 1918. A deadly flu pandemic swept the world the same year.

  10. Year the Treaty of Versailles was signed

    1919

    Learn more: Signed on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors, five years to the day after the Sarajevo assassination.

  11. Year US women won the vote (19th Amendment)

    1920

    Learn more: Ratified in August 1920, it barred states from denying the vote on account of sex.

  12. Year Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered

    1922

    Learn more: Carter found the tomb in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922, almost untouched for over 3,000 years.

  13. Year Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic

    1927

    Learn more: Charles Lindbergh flew New York to Paris in about 33.5 hours in May 1927, the first solo nonstop crossing.

  14. Year Fleming discovered penicillin

    1928

    Learn more: Alexander Fleming saw mould killing bacteria on a dish in London. Penicillin was mass-produced in the 1940s.

  15. Year of the Wall Street Crash

    1929

    Learn more: Share prices collapsed in October 1929, on Black Thursday and Black Tuesday, setting off the Great Depression.

  16. Year Hitler became chancellor of Germany

    1933

    Learn more: President Hindenburg appointed him on 30 January 1933; within months the Nazis ruled alone.

  17. Year World War II began in Europe

    1939

    Learn more: Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939; Britain and France declared war two days later.

  18. Year of the attack on Pearl Harbor

    1941

    Learn more: Japan attacked the US fleet in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, bringing the United States into the war.

  19. Year of the D-Day landings in Normandy

    1944

    Learn more: On 6 June 1944 Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches, the largest seaborne invasion in history.

  20. Year World War II ended

    1945

    Learn more: Germany surrendered in May. After the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in August.

  21. Year India became independent

    1947

    Learn more: India became independent at midnight on 15 August 1947, and was partitioned to create Pakistan.

  22. Year the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted

    1948

    Learn more: The UN General Assembly adopted it in Paris on 10 December, now marked each year as Human Rights Day.

  23. Year NATO was founded

    1949

    Learn more: Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington on 4 April, pledging to defend one another.

  24. Year the Korean War began

    1950

    Learn more: North Korean troops crossed into the South in June. An armistice stopped the fighting in 1953.

  25. Year the double helix structure of DNA was described

    1953

    Learn more: James Watson and Francis Crick described the double helix, using X-ray images by Rosalind Franklin.

  26. Year Rosa Parks was arrested on a Montgomery bus

    1955

    Learn more: She refused to give up her seat on 1 December, starting the year-long Montgomery bus boycott.

  27. Year Sputnik 1 was launched

    1957

    Learn more: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October; its radio beeps were heard around the world.

  28. Year the Berlin Wall was built

    1961

    Learn more: East Germany sealed the border overnight on 13 August to stop people fleeing to West Berlin.

  29. Year of the Cuban Missile Crisis

    1962

    Learn more: For 13 days the US and USSR faced off over Soviet missiles in Cuba, the closest the world came to nuclear war.

  30. Year John F. Kennedy was assassinated

    1963

    Learn more: Kennedy was shot in Dallas on 22 November. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president the same day.

  31. Year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated

    1968

    Learn more: King was shot in Memphis on 4 April, five years after his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

  32. Year of the Apollo 11 Moon landing

    1969

    Learn more: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on 20 July, meeting Kennedy's goal of the Moon within the decade.

  33. Year Saigon fell, ending the Vietnam War

    1975

    Learn more: North Vietnamese forces took the city on 30 April. It was renamed Ho Chi Minh City the next year.

  34. Year Margaret Thatcher became UK prime minister

    1979

    Learn more: She won the May election and became Britain's first woman prime minister, serving until 1990.

  35. Year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster

    1986

    Learn more: Reactor 4 exploded on 26 April during a safety test, spreading radioactive fallout across Europe.

  36. Year the Berlin Wall fell

    1989

    Learn more: On 9 November East Germany opened its border crossings, and Berliners began tearing down the wall.

  37. Year Germany was reunified

    1990

    Learn more: East and West Germany reunited on 3 October, now celebrated as German Unity Day.

  38. Year the Soviet Union was dissolved

    1991

    Learn more: Gorbachev resigned on 25 December, and the USSR split into 15 independent countries.

  39. Year Nelson Mandela became South Africa's president

    1994

    Learn more: Nelson Mandela was sworn in on 10 May, after the first elections in which all South Africans could vote.

  40. Year Hong Kong was handed over to China

    1997

    Learn more: Britain handed it back on 1 July, when the 99-year lease on the New Territories ended.

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