| Date | Event |
| 1896 | William McKinley is elected president. |
| 1898 | The Spanish-American War occurs. |
| 1901 | President McKinley is assassinated, and Teddy Roosevelt takes office. |
| 1908 | The NAACP is created. |
| 1912 | Woodrow Wilson is elected president. |
| 1913 | The Federal Reserve Act creates the Federal Reserve System. |
| 1914 | World War I begins in Europe. The Clayton Antitrust Act curbs the power of monopolies. |
| 1917 | The United States enters World War I. The Bolshevik Revolution starts in Russia. |
| 1918 | Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points address, calling for the creation of a League of Nations. |
| 1919 | Paris Peace Conference creates the Treaty of Versailles, the formal end to World War I. The Red Scare breaks out in America. |
| 1920 | The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote. The beginning of the Jazz Age, or the Roaring Twenties. |
| 1923 | The Teapot Dome Scandal takes place. President Harding dies in office, and Calvin Coolidge takes office. |
| 1929 | The stock market crashes on Black Tuesday, triggering the Great Depression. |
| 1933 | The first part of FDR’s New Deal is implemented. |
| 1939 | Hitler invades Poland, starting World War II. |
| 1940 | France falls to Hitler. The United States implements the first peacetime draft. |
| 1941 | Japan attacks the U.S. military installation at Pearl Harbor. The United States declares war on Japan. Germany declares war on the United States. |
| 1942 | The United States sends Japanese-Americans to internment camps. The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway are victories for the Allies. |
| 1944 | The GI Bill is signed into law. D-Day invasion occurs on the beaches of Normandy in France. |
| 1945 | Germany surrenders to the Allied Powers. FDR, Stalin, and Churchill meet at the Yalta Conference. President Roosevelt dies while still in office. Harry Truman becomes president. The United States drops atomic bombs on Japan, bringing an end to World War II. |