The abolition and reform movements were complex by nature, carrying emotional overtones, and associated with spectacular events. It was not possible to present disinterested analyses of their content and direction, either in their time or for a long time thereafter. The growth of free soil and the struggle to preserve the Union made reform seem less important, and confused the definition of abolition. In the post-Civil War period the reformers, once bound together by concern for the slave, by free speech, temperance, education, woman’s rights, and other causes, tended to separate, each to pursue his own specialty. This growing emphasis on “specialists” made it increasingly difficult to accept the fact that one could agitate for woman’s rights, and education, and the rights of the individual all at once–that many Americans had once done so. Hence, although there have been numerous biographies of pre-Civil War reformers, and monumental histories of woman’s rights, temperance, education, and other crusades, their relevance to each other has been less persistently sought. The central hub of reform–abolition–has received fragmented consideration, for the most part, in the interest of one or another major figure.

It has been too readily assumed that the “moral struggle” against slavery in the 1830′s became transformed, from 1840 to 1860, into a “political struggle” which diminished the value of the abolitionists. Whether true or false, the thesis requires re-examination. The present volume traces the relationship of antislavery to abolition, and probes their connection with the several reforms which dominated the period. It attempts to avoid merely mentioning names, to say nothing of name-calling. It seeks, rather, to discriminate among individuals and inquire into their purposes and worth. It endeavors to recapture a sense of the contemporary consequence which reformers enjoyed; and it may well be that such an attempt affects our judgment of their relevance to our
own times.

The available materials are as numerous, as complex as our “densepack’d cities,” as broad as our “myriad fields.” The investigator who seeks to rise above the level of partisanship has a delicate task in seeking out representative materials intended to open inquiry, rather than to close it, while at the same time satisfying the reader’s right to know how the author feels about his own findings.

My appreciation is due Antioch College, the American Philosophical Society, and the Social Science Research Council, which, at strategic points, provided grants in aid of research and for related expenses. Antioch College’s fine library staff helped keep materials coming during the long preparation of the manuscript, and its excellent sabbatical policy enabled me to complete the work. Many more people than can be conveniently mentioned have given aid and comfort, suggestions and advice. Thanks are due, first, to my editors, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, who gave this work the benefit of their long experience and understanding. Numerous persons read the manuscript in part, and many more influenced the formulation of passages and ideas. It is a pleasure to note, among my colleagues, Professors Bernard A. Weisberger of the University of Chicago, the late Robert S. Fletcher of Oberlin College, Harry R. Stevens of Ohio University, Wesley M. Gewehr, emeritus professor of history at the University of Maryland, Lawrence A. Cremin of Teachers College, Columbia University, C. Stanley Urban of Park College, Mary E. Young of Ohio State University, Dean Lloyd E. Worner of The Colorado College, and Bernard Mandel of Cleveland. Mr. Boyd B. Stutler of Charleston, West Virginia, not only gave freely from his great store of information about John Brown and related topics, but contributed a warm interest which was welcome during stonier stages of investigation. Librarians are friendly folks, and one is grateful to them as a class. Helpful beyond the strict call of duty were Mrs. Alene Lowe White of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Miss Lelia F. Holloway of the Oberlin College Library, and Miss Louise F. Kampf of The Colorado College, as well as Dr. Henry J. Caren, Associate Editor of the Ohio Historical Quarterly.

CHAPTER 1: The Challenge of Slavery

THROUGHOUT the colonial period and after the American Revolution, slavery was accepted by most Americans as a normal and inevitable aspect of their affairs. True, it became more and more confined, as a working institution, to the southern states. True, also, relatively few Americans had a direct economic stake in its perpetuation. These few, however, included some of the most respected elements of society. They bought and sold slaves, rented them as laborers, and otherwise lived by money gained from their use. To no small degree, they involved in their fortunes non-slaveholding Northerners from whom they purchased goods and services and for whom they felt friendship. They enjoyed the good will of humbler classes of Southerners and Northerners who despised the Negro for his color or feared him as a possible competitor.

Click here to read the complete version of The Crusade against Slavery and get more sources on this subject at Questia.com.

Yet curiously enough, during the decades which preceded the reform era, slavery inspired not one notable literary or legal defense. Many influential leaders of society assumed that it must ultimately give way to a more democratic order. Others deplored its workings and sought to hasten its end. Their compassion sometimes extended to the Indian, as well, who had also been marked for enslavement, though he was less tractable than the black man. In New England, back in the seventeenth century, John Eliot, “apostle to the Indians,” had been stirred to his saintly labors of Indian conversion. In the South, the following century, Christian Priber, from Saxony, adopted the Cherokees in western Carolina; he died a prisoner of Oglethorpe, English reformer and founder of Georgia. Among others, Samuel Sew. all, notable Massachusetts diarist and penitent judge of the Salem witchcraft hysteria, had been concerned over the right and wrong of slavery, and had undertaken to pay his own slave for services rendered. Theirs were literally voices crying in the wilderness.

It would later become a major assumption in American history that the frontier had fostered freedom. There is, indeed, persuasive evidence that the frontier encouraged the creation of democratic ideas and attitudes and helped push democratic leaders to the fore, but it did not, on the other hand, help to undermine slavery. The frontier tended to reflect the prejudices and expectations of those who settled it. It permitted them almost unbounded opportunity, so that practical and experimental, progressive and patently reactionary, modes of behavior flourished according to the strength of their sponsors. Cosmopolitan Cincinnati in Ohio and Mormon Nauvoo in Illinois, Natchez with its Old South ways and atheistic New Harmony in Indiana–all were made possible by the open terrain. It was part of the tragedy of the South that its rapidly tightening social system should have so dominated its own frontier as not to have permitted a leavening process between the new areas being developed in the South and the original states. Western Virginia–hilly, with few slaves, with large numbers of poor whites and individualists–was not able to modify Old Virginia’s ways. Ultimately, they separated.

The American Revolution and the years following excited new expectations that slavery must soon dwindle in strength and prestige. Such actual plans for ending it as maintaining high tariffs on the slave trade, or permitting slaves to buy their own freedom, were impractical. 4 But the spirit of the times seemed to favor an expansion of civil and other liberties. Leading Southerners freely expressed abhorrence of the foreign slave trade and domestic slavery. Not a few rewarded loyal slaves with manumissions for services during the Revolutionary War. Dr. Samuel Hopkins, noted theologian and a disciple of the great Jonathan Edwards, expressed himself in behalf of the slave, and contributed a vital Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans ( 1776) to the Revolutionary debate. After the Revolution had been fought and won, it continued to influence the American imagination; identification with it would strengthen a demand for a specific reform. The Negro’s cause was seen as aided by his association with the Revolutionary effort, which was regarded as the most favorable era in Negro-white relations. In due course, antislavery views of the Revolutionary Fathers would be carefully collected and widely quoted.

But with the war over, popular interest in the slave declined. Abolitionist petitions to the first Federal Congress were, according to one caustic observer, received “with a sneer” by John Adams, presiding, and with hostility by distinguished senators. Such acts as Virginia’s, officially manumitting Negroes who had served the Revolution, did not contribute to a landslide of manumissions, although well into the nineties it was customary for slave owners to manumit some of their faithful Negroes by will.

The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made slavery profitable in cotton cultivation; thereafter, the southern leadship became more assertive in defense of its rights. Representative Northerners unequivocally expressed their antislavery sentiments, but they did not speak for a section united on the issue, nor were they themselves clear about what should be done. Sensibilities on the subject took time to form in the North. William Jay, soon to be one of the most distinguished of abolitionists, was proud of the career of his father, John Jay, and of the latter’s services as president of the pioneer Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. His biography of the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court placed Jay’s ownership of slaves in a special category:

In the year 1798, being called upon by the United States marshal for an account of his taxable property, [ John Jay] accompanied a list of his slaves with the following observations:

“I purchase slaves, and manumit them at proper ages, and when their faithful services shall have afforded a reasonable retribution.”

As free servants became more common, he was gradually relieved from the necessity of purchasing slaves; and the last two which he manumitted he retained for many years in his family, at the customary wages.

Click here to read the complete version of The Crusade against Slavery and get more sources on this subject at Questia.com.

Thus, in this early period, antislavery leaders resorted to slave-owning for “humane” ends.

By 1825, North and South were clearly distinguishable in their attitude toward slavery, but not in their attitude toward the Negro. The celebrated visit of the Marquis de Lafayette, in that year, helped underscore how far the new nation had fallen from earlier expectations. The eminent Frenchman received an appeal from a public-spirited citizen to speak out against slavery, the latter having “a recollection of the notices in my early youth of thy generous efforts in the Cause of American liberty,” and being convinced that the General’s views would be received with enthusiasm. 8 But Lafayette himself was dismayed by the amount of anti-Negro prejudice he observed, in the North as well as in the South, and remarked that during the Revolution “black and white soldiers messed together without hesitation.”

Theodore Dwight and John Sergeant were typical of many Northerners who were sincerely antislavery in sentiment, but who inadvertently fell into the posture of mere sectionalists. Theodore Dwight, editor of the New York Daily Advertiser, not only favored the abolition of slavery; he denounced the flogging of soldiers, and cruelty toward Negroes, Indians, Eskimos, mental patients, and even lobsters. But besides being a reformer he was also an ardent Federalist, whose strictures on the virtues and vices of Thomas Jefferson were far from dispassionate. John Sergeant was an outstanding Philadelphia lawyer and congressman who earned the denunciation of Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina as being “a distinguished advocate of the Missouri restriction, an acknowledged abolitionist.” There is no evidence, however, that Sergeant had any regard for Negroes as individuals or as a people. Having little firsthand knowledge of slavery’s workings, such partisans failed to acquire the information which would have added sinews
to their arguments opposing it. Of different mettle was Benjamin Lundy, greatest of the pioneer abolitionists, who noted in 1826 that the governor of South Carolina had recommended that the custom of burning slaves in capital cases be stopped. “Is it possible that this has not been done long ago?” Lundy asked. “Will the cruelties of slaveholders hence be denied, as they have, by slaveite
editors?”

The majority of Lundy’s fellow Northerners remained indifferent to such practices; in fact, not a few of them were actively proslavery. The line between anti-Negro sentiment and proslavery feeling was sometimes shadowy, but Major Mordecai Manuel Noah, picturesque and popular Jacksonian, did not beat about the bush. Noah preached the rights of man, but also defended enslavement for the Negro. His point of view was shared by numerous elements throughout the North.

Daniel Webster, in his greatest peroration, pleading in 1830 for “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,” observed that suspicion had been fostered in the South against the North for political reasons. The North was represented as “disposed to interfere with them in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns.” The charge was untrue, Webster averred: “Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted.” Many other Northerners adopted an equally virtuous stand regarding their willingness to live with slavery as a system. Their insensitivity was a major challenge, not only to abolitionists, but to other antislavery partisans now coming to be frustrated in their hopes that southern spokesmen would support programs for freeing slaves. But as Theodore Parker was to point out in sermon after sermon, the supporter of the slave system would not let the North alone. Horace Greeley was one day to sum up the problem brilliantly:

“Why can’t you let Slavery alone?” was imperiously or querulously demanded at the North, throughout the long struggle preceding [the bombardment of Fort Sumter], by men who should have seen, but would not, that Slavery never left the North alone, nor thought of so doing. “Buy Louisiana for us!” said the slaveholders. “With pleasure.” “Now Florida!” “Certainly.” Next: “Violate your treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees; expel those tribes from the lands they have held from time immemorial, so as to let us expand our plantations.” “So said, so done.” “Now for Texas!” “You have it.” “Next, a third more of Mexico!” “Yours it is.” “Now, break the Missouri Compact, and let Slavery wrestle with Free Labor for the vast region consecrated by that Compact to Freedom!” “Very good. What next?” “Buy us Cuba, for One Hundred and Fifty Millions.” “We have tried; but Spain refuses to sell it.” “Then wrest it from her at all hazards!” And all this time, while Slavery was using the Union as her catspaw–dragging the Republic into iniquitous wars and enormous expenditures, and grasping empire after empire thereby–Northern men (or, more accurately, men at the North) were constantly asking why people living in the Free States could not let Slavery alone, mind their own business, and expend their surplus philanthropy on the poor at their own doors, rather than on the happy and contented slaves!

Author: Louis Filler

Click here to read the complete version of The Crusade against Slavery and get more sources on this subject at Questia.com.

2000 Final Peanut comic strip published. Largest ever corporate merger as AOL buys Time-Warner for $162 billion. Vladimir Putin elected President of Russia. George W Bush defeats Al Gore to become US President. The Tate Modern opens in London. Summer Olympics is held in Sydney, Australia. Reality TV introduced in the form of Survivor, based on Swedish game show Operation Robinson.

2001 NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lands on asteroid 433 Eros, a first. Dale Earnhardt killed during Daytona 500 race. 32-year old Erik Weihenmayer of Boulder, Colorado, becomes first blind person to reach summit of Mount Everest. Wikipedia started. On September 11, Al Qaida terrorists fly jet aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing around 3,000 people. The US launch against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Act of the War on Terrorism is signed by President Bush. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the movie, debuts.

2002 Euro banknotes and coins released. Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah. New order of insects, Mantophasmatodea, announced. East Timor becomes independent state. Brazil wins Football World Cup. The planetoid Quaoar discovered. Jimmy Carter awarded Nobel Peace prize.

2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas upon reentry, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Coalition forces launch against Iraq, ending Sadam Hussein’s rule. Last old-style Volkswagen Beetle produced in Puebla, Mexico. Arnold Schwarzenegger voted Governor of California. Concorde makes its last commercial flight. Dan Hanebrink invents the Ice Bike. England wins the Rugby Union World Cup defeating Australia 20-17. Earthquake in Bam, Iran on December 27, kills more than 26,000 people.

2004 NASA’s Mer-A (Spirit) lands on Mars. Britney Spears’s marriage to Jason Allen Alexander annulled after 55 hours. Cruise liner Queen Mary 2 launched. Facebook founded. Kyushu Shinkansen high-speed rail line opens in Japan. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban released. Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece. Largest Tsunami disaster ever recorded, killing 225,000 people in 14 countries.

2005 Pope John Paul II dies April, 2. German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected as 265th pontiff, Benedict XVI. First successful partial face transplant, France. July 7 London terrorist bombings. Hurricane Katrina strikes the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts. Earthquake kills about 80,000 people in Kashmir. YouTube launched.

2006 Montenegro gains independence and becomes the 192nd member of the UN. Australian Dr Ian Frazer develops vaccine for cervical cancer. Winter Olympics held in Torino, Italy. Football World Cup won by Italy. Microsoft launches Vista operating system. 80% of world land surface has coverage by cellular networks for mobile phone use. Mandarin passes English as the most prevalent language on the Internet. Twitter launches.

2007 Romania and Bulgaria join the EU. Australia win Cricket World Cup. The New Seven Wonders of the World announced. Apple launches the iPhone. July 1, nationwide public smoking ban introduced in England. BBC launches iPlayer. Homer Simpson movie released. Abel Gonzales Jr. introduces Deep-Fried Coca-Cola. State of celebriphilians (persons who desire romantic relationship with celebrity) more evident than ever on online video channel YouTube.

2008 Beijing Olympics. Dmitri Medvedev elected President of Russia as Vladimir Putin reaches end of his term. Kosovo declares independence. NASA WMAP progam declares the universe is flat. Recession hits West worst; world power starts shifting from West to East.

2009 Barack Hussein Obama becomes first black US President. Obama receives Noble Peace Prize. Barbie dolls turns 50. Microsoft launches Windows 7. World leaders meet (unsuccessfully) in Copenhagen to discuss global warming.

2010 Google launches Nexus One cell phone. Record cold weather in many countries. One of the deadliest earthquakes on record hits Haiti on January 12. Apple launches the iPad. Massive deep sea oil leak in Gulf of Mexico – British Petroleum held responsible (see list of largest oil spills). Spain wins Football World Cup.

2011 Earthquake of 9.0 magnitude hits Japan in March 11, triggering 32 ft (10 m) tsunami, killing more than 12,000 people and causing partial melt-down of Fukushima nuclear reactor north of Tokyo – 7.1 magnitude earthquake on April 7 worsens catastrophe. Apple launches iPad2. Facebook reaches 700 million membership mark. MySpace, which was bought for $580m in 2005 is sold for $35m. GooglePlus social network launched. Arab Spring.

2012 Mayan and other calendars end.

2060 End of world according to Isaac Newton.

| 2000 – 2099 | 1900 – 1999 | 1800 – 1899 | 1700 – 1799 | 1600 – 1699 | 1500 – 1599 | 1400 -1499 | 1300 – 1399 | 1200 – 1299 | 1100 – 1199 | 1000 – 1099 | 900 – 999 | 800 – 899 | 700 – 799 | 600 – 699 | 500 – 599 | 400 – 499 | 300 – 399 | 200 – 299 | 100 – 199 | 1 – 99 | Before Christ |

1976 Viking I lands on Mars. 14-year old Romanian Nadia Comaneci scores 5 perfect 10′s at Montreal Olympics. Konica introduces automatic focus camera. Apple computers founded by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. The Eagles become the first group to go platinum, with a million sales of their Greatest Hits LP.

1977 Apple II becomes the first mass-produced home computer. Star Wars debuts. Rings around Uranus discovered.

1978 Karol Wojtyla of Poland becomes Pope John Paul II. Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz is first woman to sail around the world. Taito Corp launches first arcade video game, Space Invaders. In England, Louise Brown is the first test-tube baby. Superman the movie debuts, starring Christopher Reeve.

1979 Nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. Russia invades Afghanistan. Nobel prize awarded to Mother Teresa. Sony launches the Walkman. Frank Rudy designs first air-cushioned running shoe, the Nike Tailwind.

1980 Philips invents the CD. US ice hockey player Scott Olson develops roller blades. Italian Reinhold Messner makes the first solo ascent of Mount Everest. World Health Organization declares end of smallpox. John Lennon is shot by Mark Chapman.

1981 IBM launches their PC. BMW develops the first in-car computer. PacMan hits the arcades. Shuttle Columbia launched. Prince Charles and Lady Di wedded.

1982 Barney Clark receives artificial heart – operation by Dr William de Vries. European doctors offer liposuction. Rings around Neptune discovered. First papal visit to Britain since 1531. PacMan is Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. The New King James Version Bible (NKJV) published.

1983 HIV virus identified. Cabbage Patch Kids debuts, as does Madonna. Sally Ride is first US woman in space. Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to travel beyond the solar system. Grandson of Alexander Graham Bell answers first commercial cell phone call. Computer hackers break into US defense computers. Programmer Jaron Lanier coins the term “virtual reality”.

1984 Apple Computers launch the Macintosh. Canadian writer invents the word “cyberspace”. Dr William Clewall perform the first operation on an unborn fetus. Bruce McCandless becomes the first man to fly in space without a safety line.

1985 British scientist Joe Farman discovers the hole in the ozone. Dr Alec Jeffreys discovers genetic fingerprint, using DNA, at Leicester University. Lasers are first used in surgery. Clive Sinclair introduces the battery-operated car. Commercial whaling banned.

1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeagar makes the first non-stop non-refuelling flight around the world. Nuclear reactor explodes in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Soviet Union launches Mir space station. Fuji introduces disposable camera. Tom Cruise stars in Top Gun.

1987 World population reaches 5 billion. World stock exchanges collapse on Black Monday, 20 Oct. First optic cable is laid across Atlantic Ocean. Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand make first transatlantic hot air balloon crossing. GM invents active suspension, on Lotus F1 car.

1988 US introduces the F-117 stealth fighter. Prozac launched, as is RV486, an abortion-inducing drug. Bombs set by Lybian terrorists explodes on Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” is published.

1989 One of the last unspoiled areas on earth threatened when the tanker Exxon Valdes runs aground in Alaska. CFC gases banned. Russia quits Afghanistan. Tiananmen Square protests by students. Berlin Wall comes down. Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web.

1990 Gulf War erupts as NATO defends Kuwait from Iraqi invasion. Germany reunites. Breakthrough in the Channel Tunnel. Hubble space telescope launched.

1991 End of the Soviet Union. Iraqi forces expelled from Kuwait. Helen Sharman becomes the first British astronaut, on Soyuz TM-12. 5,000 year old frozen body is discovered in Alps, named “Otzi”, with tattoos on his back, knees and ankles.

1992 World’s first damages award made for illness causes by passive smoking, in Sydney. Fighting breaks out in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Samsung launches 64MB DRAM.

1993 World Wide Web goes graphic with the launch of the Mosaic browser. Plan to map the entire genetic structure of humans, Human Genome Project, launched in San Diego. Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to pay income tax.

1994 An asteroid passes earth at only 160 000km (100,00 miles). Channel Tunnel opens for business. Wiki invented by Ward Cunningham

1995 Microsoft launches Windows95. A national computer data base of DNA records opens in UK. 26-year old trader Nick Leeson single-handedly brings down Britain’s oldest bank, Barings, by running up losses of 620 million Pounds.

1996 Same-sex marriages in the US is prohibited under the Defense of Marriage Act. NASA scientist announce the discovery of proof of living organisms on a Mars meteorite in Antarctica.

1997 First ever space funeral when Timothy Leary‘s ashes is launched into space. US space probe pathfinder lands on Mars. Scientists at Roslin Institute in Scotland clones a sheep, “Dolly”. Lady Di killed in car crash. World’s first university, where Aristotle and Socrates taught, is discovered in Athens.

1998 Microsoft launches Windows98. The law against mixed race marriages is abandoned in South Carolina, US. Frenchman Benoit Lecomte swims across the Atlantic Ocean.

1999 NATO launch air attacks on Serbia. Citizens of Alabama, USA get chance to vote on law against mixed race marriages. Scientists measure fastest wind speed ever recorded on earth, 509 km/h (318 mph) inside a tornado that struck Oklahoma City. World population reaches the 6 billion mark.

The first millennium consisted of 365,250 days. The second millennium of 365,237 days. The third millennium will consist of 365,242 days. The third millennium actually started at about 21h00 on 31 December 2000. Basically, the year 2000 is celebrated one year earlier because the year 0 was not calculated. It is the THIRD millennium, of course, because the Gregorian calendar has already observed two thousand years after Christ. See the History of the Calendar

1900 – 1924 | 1925 – 1949 | 1950 – 1974 | 1975 – 1999

| 2000 – 2099 | 1900 – 1999 | 1800 – 1899 | 1700 – 1799 | 1600 – 1699 | 1500 – 1599 | 1400 -1499 | 1300 – 1399 | 1200 – 1299 | 1100 – 1199 | 1000 – 1099 | 900 – 999 | 800 – 899 | 700 – 799 | 600 – 699 | 500 – 599 | 400 – 499 | 300 – 399 | 200 – 299 | 100 – 199 | 1 – 99 | Before Christ |

1951 First Miss World contest is held at the Lyceum theatre in London, won by Miss Sweden. John Paul Getty becomes the richest man. Zenith Radio Corp introduces cable television. Chrysler introduces power steering. First space flight by living creatures when US sends 4 monkeys into the stratosphere. Remington Rand launches the first commercially available computer, the Univac 1. Swiss Georges de Metral patents Velcro.

1952 M&R Labs introduce the first coffee creamer, “Pream”. Kirsch launches the first diet soft drink, “No-Cal Ginger Ale”. Car safety belts introduced. BOAC starts first jet passenger service. Sony invents pocket-sized transistor radio. Ian Fleming’s James Bond debuts in novel “Casino Royale”.

1953 US physiologist Ancel Keys suggests link between heart disease and high fat diet. Dr James Watson discovers the structure of DNA. Playboy magazine is launched. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach summit of Mount Everest. Baron Bich launches Bic ballpoint in France. Queen Elizabeth II crowned.

1954 Oxford student Roger Bannister breaks the 4-minute mile. Elvis Presley debuts with “That’s all right, Mamma.” Racial segregation in US schools banned. Nuclear power station begins production in Obninsk, USSR. First mass-produced computer by IBM, installing 120 “650′s”. Ray Kroc start McDonald’s.

1955 Guinness Book of Records is published. Clean Air Act is passed in Britain. Walt Disney opens Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

1956 CIA launches the U-2 spy plane. John Bachus and his IBM team invent FORTRAN, the first high-level programming language.

1957 USSR launches the Sputnik satellite into space. The EEC, European Economic Community, founded. The Medical Research Council links lung cancer with smoking. BMW launches the three-wheel Isetta.

1958 Yves Saint Laurent holds his first fashion show in Paris. Danish toymakers Ole and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen launches Lego. Bill and Mark Richards of California invents the skateboard. Australian David Warren invents the black box flight recorder. NASA founded. Jack Kilby from Texas and Robert Noyce from California invents the integrated circuit at the same time! However, their idea is not new – Briton GW Dummer had suggested such a design in 1952.

1959 First pictures of dark side of the moon by Luna III. Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba. Alec Issigonis’s Morris Mini is launched. Haloid launches the first copier, the “Xerox 914,” able to reproduce documents at the press of a button. Briton Christopher Cockerell launches the hovercraft. Ermal Cleon Fraze invents the easy-open can. First Daytona 500 takes place, won by Lee Petty in an Oldsmobile. The Beatles form. Barbie doll debuts, after she started life years earlier as Lilli.

1960 US submarine Triton makes the first round the world undersea voyage. Two hackers from MIT create the first computer video game, Spacewar. “Ben Hur” is awarded 10 Oscars. Largest earthquake recorded in Chili.

1961 Yuri Gagarin the first man in space. A coup, backed by the CIA and President John F Kennedy, fails at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Russia starts building the Berlin Wall. Alan B. Shephard Jr is the first American in space. Bob Dylan plays his first gig, in New York. World Wildlife Fund founded. Weight Watchers founded by 97kg (214 lb) Jean Nidetch.

1962 The Beatles debut with “Love me do”. John Glenn becomes first American to orbit earth in space. Dow Corp invent silicone breast implants. Ivan Sutherland demonstrates Sketchpad, the first program to use windows, icons, and a light pen. In “the Cuban crisis,” Khrushchev removes Russian nuclear missiles from Cuba, but only after Kennedy agrees to remove US missiles from Turkey.

1963 President John F Kennedy assassinated. Ursula Andress is picked for the first nude screen test for “Four for Texas”. Velentina Tereshlova Sikorsky becomes first woman in space in Vostok 6. Push-button telephone is introduced. First TV instant replay is shown in the US during a football game between the Army and the Navy.

1964 GI Joe doll debuts. The Beatles occupy the Billboard Top Five. Verbands Molkerei introduces long-life milk in Switzerland. John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop BASIC at Dartmouth College.

1965 US troops deployed in Vietnam – anti-war protests start at the university of Michigen. Soviet astronaut Alexei Leonov makes the first space walk. Ray Dolby invents the Dolby sound recording system. Stephanie Kwolek discovers kevlar. Biggest power failure in history causes 9-hour blackout in eastern Canada and US, leading to surge in national birthrates 9 months later.

1966 Star Trek debuts on NBC. 64-year old Englishman Francis Chichester becomes the first to circumnavigate the globe in a boat without a stop-over. Neil Armstrong and David Scott makes the first space docking in Gemini 8. Twiggy, at 17, becomes the world’s most famous model.

1967 Che Guevara is shot dead by Bolivian troops. First staging of the Superbowl. Rolling Stone magazine goes on sale. Bee Gees debut. Dr Christiaan Barnard performs the first heart transplant. Biologists in the US successfully synthesizes DNA in a test tube. Seiko launches the quartz wristwatch.

1968 Dr Martin Luther King assassinated. Scientist devise the epidural anaesthetic to ease pain of childbirth. Boeing 747 introduced. Roy Jacuzzi invent the whirlpool bath. Kodak launches the Instamatic. Bill Gates and Paul Allen use their first computer, an ASR-33 Teletype.

1969 Neil Armstrong is the first man on the moon. The “Aquarian Exposition” takes place in Woodstock, New York, (Woodstock Festival). Yasser Arafat becomes leader of PLO. The first test-tube fertilization of human eggs, in England. US Department of Defense starts ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet.

1970 The Beatles split up. IBM introduces the floppy disk (invented by Yoshuito Nakamats in 1950). New English Bible launched, sells 1 million copies in first week.

1971 Philips launches the VCR. Intel launch the microprocessor. Bruce Lee receives international acclaim with “Fist of fury”. Britain conforms to the decimal currency. Greenpeace founded in Canada.

1972 Polaroid introduces the instant color camera. Texas Instruments launches the pocket calculator. Nolan Bushnell of Atari introduces Pong, the first major coin-operated electronic video game. Nike running shoes launched. Republic of Ireland joins the European Community. World War II ends for Shoichi Yokoi of Japan, who gives himself up on Guam Island where he has hidden for 27 years.

1973 Watergate scandal breaks. US pulls out of Vietnam. Arab oil embargo brings Europe to its knees. Bic invents the disposable lighter. Members of the Marin County Canyon in California invents the mountain bike. The “New International Version” (NIV) Bible published.

1974 Lt Hiroo Onoda surrenders on the island of Lubang, finally convinced that WWII is over, 29 years after it ended. Art Fry invents Post-It. GM introduces the catalytic converter. Gillette introduces the disposable razor.

1900 – 1924 | 1925 – 1949 | 1950 – 1974 | 1975 – 1999

| 2000 – 2099 | 1900 – 1999 | 1800 – 1899 | 1700 – 1799 | 1600 – 1699 | 1500 – 1599 | 1400 -1499 | 1300 – 1399 | 1200 – 1299 | 1100 – 1199 | 1000 – 1099 | 900 – 999 | 800 – 899 | 700 – 799 | 600 – 699 | 500 – 599 | 400 – 499 | 300 – 399 | 200 – 299 | 100 – 199 | 1 – 99 | Before Christ |

1926 Marion B Skaggs founded Safeway food stores. Scottish engineer John Logie Baird demonstrates a machine that transmits movie pictures using radio technology, calling it a “televisor”, based on a 1884 idea by German Paul Nipkow. (But the mechanical TV system is beaten to general use by Philo Farnsworth’s design of 1928.)

1927 25-year old Charles Lindbergh flies non-stop from New York to Paris in Spirit of St Louis. The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, is the first talkie movie. The first words were: “Wait a minute! You ain’t heard nothing’ yet!” First transatlantic phone call – at $75 for 3 minutes, half the cost of a car.

1928 Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. Philo Farnsworth has a working model for TV. TV sets go on sales in the US for $75. Harry Ramsden opens the first chip shop in Bradford, England. First Bubble Gum, Fleer’s Dubble Bubble, goes on sale in the US. JW Horton and WA Morrison invent the quartz crystal clock.

1929 US engineer Paul Galvin invents the car radio. Enzo Ferrari launches his company. Colour television pictures is transmitted in New York. Kelloggs launches Rice Krispies. Popey debuts in the Thimble Theater strip by Elzie Segar. New York Stock Exchange crash on “Black Thursday” 24 October.

1930 The “differential analyzer”, or analog computer, is invented by Vannevar Bush at MIT in Boston. General Electric launches the electric kettle with automatic cut-out. First football World Cup, won by host Uruguay.

1931 Harold Edgerton invents the electronic flash for cameras. Germans Max Knott and Ernst Ruska invents the electron microscope. Chevrolet launches the pickup truck. The American anthem “land of the free and the home of the brave” is adopted.

1932 Worldwide depression hits its peak. Zippo lighter is introduced. Britons John Cockroft and Ernest Walton introduces nuclear energy by demonstrating the split of the atom. British physicist James Chadwick discovers the neutron. Carrier Corp invents air conditioning. Edwin Land develops Polaroid sunglasses.

1933 The chocolate chip cookie is invented by Ruth Wakefield. Prohibition end in the US, on 5 February – 1,5 million barrels of beer are drunk that night. Adolf Hitler becomes leader of Germany.

1934 First launderette, the “washeteria” opens in Texas. British engineer Percy Shaw invents the “catseyes” for roads. Charles Darrow invents the Monopoly game. Carl Kaelen launches the cheeseburger at his burger bar in Louisville, Kentucky.

1935 Wallace Carother lead DuPont scientists to invent nylon, calling it “polymer 6.6.” Penguin Books are launched by publisher The Bodley Head. The hearing aid is launched. Kreugers launches beer in a can.

1936 Volkswagen Beetle is launched. Billboard magazine publishes the first “hit parade.” German Heinrich Focke creates the first successful helicopter, the FA61. King Edward VIII announces his abdication to marry twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

1937 An emergency number to the police – 999 – is launched in London. Humphrey Bogart stars in 8 films this year. Golden Gate Bridge opens. Hormel launches tinned processed pork and ham, Spam. Scientists bombard the element molybdenum (42 protons) with atomic particles in a cyclatron, adding a proton and creating the first artificial element, technetium (43 protons).

1938 Swiss company Nestle introduces its instant coffee, Nescafe (read about coffee). Supermarket trolleys introduced in Oklahoma. Maiden flight of pressurized airliner, Boeing Stratoliner. Roy Plunkett discovers Teflon. Chester Carlson invents the copying process, “xerography.” Superman debuts in Action Comics. Germans discover nuclear fission.

1939 Outbreak of World War II. Frank J Whittle invents the jet engine. Robert Watson-Watt invents radar. Nash introduces car with air conditioning. General Electric launches a refrigerator with a freezer compartment. Igor Sikorsky makes a successful flight in his VS300 helicopter. “Gone with the wind” is screened.

1940 M&M sweets are launched in military ration packs. Colonel Sanders’ recipe is launched for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Nylon stocking introduced. Freeze drying process discovered. CBS makes the world’s first TV broadcast in color. Bugs Bunny debuts in “A wild hare.”

1941 Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor draws USA into WWII. The Willys General Purpose vehicle, or GP (to be known as the “jeep”) is introduced by Bantam Car Co. In New York, WNBT becomes the world’s first commercial radio station. Aerosol insect sprays go on sale in the US. Using atomic bombardment, scientists create plutonium (94 protons). German Konrad Zuse create world’s first programmable computer, the Z3, from spare telephone parts.

1942 Tony the Tiger debuts as mascot for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. Earl Tupper uses polyethylene to create Tupperware. A sell-by-date is first used – on Lyons Coffee in Britain. Glenn Miller receives the first gold disc for selling a million copies of Chattanooga Choo Choo. Italian physicist Enrico Fermi launches the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago.

1943 Irish chef Joe Sheridan introduces Irish Coffee at Shannon Airport, Ireland. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic properties of LSD. In Britain, a 1,500-valve electronic machine, called Colossus, becomes the first programmable or digital computer, used to decode German messages.

1944 Allied D-Day landings at Normandy, France break German defenses. “The Three Caballeros” by Walt Disney becomes the first film to combine live action and animation. Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro invents ballpoint pens. Elizabeth Taylor stars in “National Velvet”, filmed in California where Taylor was living as a war evacuee. B.F. Skinner describes Project Pigeon, the system which Google would eventually be based upon.

1945 German forces finally surrender in May. The US drops atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan’s surrender. 35 million people were killed in WWII, 18 million were from Russia. UN is founded, as is the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Percy LeBaron Spencer invents the microwave oven. “Coke” is registered as a trademark by the Coca-Cola company.

1946 Enrico Piaggio launches the Vespa scooter in Italy. Louis Reard introduces the bikini swimsuit in Paris, modeled by Micheline Bernardini. Proctor & Gamble launches Tide. Cannes Film Festival is launched. The Electronic Numerial Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) at the University of Pennsylvania, with 18,000 electronic valves, performs 5,000 additions or subtractions per second. The world’s first nuclear reactor is opened in the USSR.

1947 Edwin H Land invents the Polaroid instant camera, which prints black-and-white photos in 60 seconds. First solid-body electric guitar is built by Les Paul. AT&T invents cell phone (became commercial only 1983). Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket plane. The Edinburgh Festival is launched. Mikhail Kalashnikov invents the AK-47. The Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in Jordan – dating from the 1st century, they are in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and Hebrew. The 400 scrolls contain fragments of every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther.

1948 Israel established. Kenneth Wood launches the Kenwood Chef food mixer, and Daimler introduces electric windows in cars. Robert Hope-Jones invents the Wurlitzer jukebox. Columbia Records introduces long-playing record, LP. Bell laboratories displays the first transistor.

1949 In Britain, Robinson’s launches the world’s first disposable nappies, “Paddipads”. De Havilland Comet is the first jet airliner. Israel’s capital move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Birth of the People’s Republic of China. NATO founded. Republic of Ireland founded.The first Emmy is awarded.

1900 – 1924 | 1925 – 1949 | 1950 – 1974 | 1975 – 1999

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1901 Edison General Electric Co introduces its Christmas tree lights. The first facelift is performed by Eugene Hollander in Berlin on a Polish aristocrat. First time getaway car is used by 3 bank robbers in Paris. Gustave Whitehead possibly made first flight.

1902 The teddy bear is created by a Russian immigrant to the USA, after seeing a newspaper cartoon depicting President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. Automatic vending machine invented. Willis Carrier invents the air conditioner. Richard Pearse makes powered flight.

1903 Orville Wright makes powered flight with Kitty Hawk, flying for 12 seconds. Earlier that year, Russian physicist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky claimed, with complex mathematical theories that man will one day travel in space and occupy planets. First Tour de France. William Harley and Arthur Davidson launch the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company. Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky publishes The Investigation of Outer Space by Means of Reaction Apparatus. First Crayola crayons go on sale.

1904 Teabags invented by Thomas Suillivan. The first underwater journey by submarine – from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight. Henry Royce and Charles Rolls start Rolls-Royce.

1905 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen discovers the magnetic north pole. Albert Einstein publishes “theory of relativity.” Sinn Fein founded by printer Arthur Griffith.

1906 William Kellogg invents cornflakes. Lewis Nixon invents sonar. Instant coffee invented by Mr G Washington, an Englishman living in Guatemala. The first Grand Prix is held at Le Mans, France – won by Romanian driver Ferenc Szisz in a Renault. Picasso invents cubism.

1907 Frenchman Paul Cornu designs first helicopter, flying it for a few seconds. First blood transfusion. Leo Baekeland discovers plastic. Color photography invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere.

1908 Paper cups launched by the International Paper Co New York. Ford Model T rolls out. Einstein proposes quantum theory. Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger invents cellophane. Gideon Bible Company started. Aisin-Gioro Puyi becomes the last emperor of China – he ruled until 1912 and for 12 days in 1917.

1909 American Robert Peary reaches North Pole. French aviator Louis Bleriot flies across the English Channel in a wooden monoplane tied together with piano strings. Briton George Smith launches the first commercially made color film.

1910 French physicist George Claude invents neon light. Thomas Edison demonstrates the talking motion picture. Artificial silk stockings made in Germany. Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker found Black & Decker in Baltimore. Mrs John B Dodd starts Father’s Day. The Dalai Lama is forced to flee Tibet as Chinese invade Lhasa.

1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who discovered the magnetic north pole, reaches the South Pole. First airmail is carried from London to Berkshire. Republic of China founded. Chevrolet Motor Co founded. First Hollywood studios built. Word “Vitamin” used to describe chemicals necessary to diets.

1912 First crossword puzzle published in New York Journal. Dr Gaston Odin discovers the cancer microbe. Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from an airplane. First neon advertising sign is displayed in Paris, for Cinzano. First self-service food store opens in California. The Titanic sinks on April, 15. Turkey surrenders to Serbia and Bulgaria, ending the Ottoman period.

1913 Briton Henry Brearly invents stainless steel. Thomas Edison invents the telephone recorder. Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick becomes the first woman to make a parachute jump.

1914 World War I breaks out on 4 August. First aerial dogfight, when Joseph Frantz and Louis Quenault in a Voisin shoot down a German Aviatik. Color photographic process invented by Eastman Kodak. Gideon Sundback designs the zip fastener. First commercial airline flies from Tampa to St Petersburg, Florida. First passenger meal served on airplane in flight, from Russia to Ukraine. US President Woodrow Wilson proclaims Mother’s Day, a revival of a practice that dates back to the Greek empire.

1915 James Lewis Kraft launches process cheese in Canada. Eugene Sullivan and William Taylor invents Pyrex in New York. Poison gas is used as a weapon in Ypres, Belgium by German forces.

1916 George Jung produces the first fortune cookies, in Los Angeles. Coca-Cola launches its curvaceous bottle, modeled on the cola nut. William Boeing found his aircraft construction company. John D Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire.

1917 BMW founded. Charlie Chaplin signs the first million dollar movie contract. Lenin leads the Russian revolution. British royal family changes name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. The war tank is introduced, at the Battle of Cambrai. The airplane is used to drop bombs, in Belgium.

1918 US astronomer Harlow Shapley discovers the size and shape of the milky way. Electric food mixer is manufactured by Universal Co. Robert Ripley’s strip “Believe it or not!” is published in the New York Globe. Germany surrenders to the Allies on 11 November at Compiegne, France.

1919 The Treaty of Versailles signed 28 June, concluding WWI. Wireless telephone is invented, allowing pilots to talk in-flight. First non-stop flight across the Atlantic made by Briton John Alcock and American Arthur Whitten Brown, from Newfoundland to Ireland. KLM of the Netherlands is the world’s first airline company. Physicist Ernest Rutherford discovers a means of splitting the atom.

1920 Electric hand iron goes on sale in London. The tommy-gun is patented by John T Thompson. First ice cream on a stick is sold by Harry Burt at his Good Humor Bar. Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devises “inkblot test.”

1921 Johnson & Johnson launches the band-aid bandage. Avus Autobahn in Berlin is the first motorway. Californian medical student John Larson invents the polygraph (lie detector). Philo Farnsworth realized an idea for TV.

1922 Husband-and-wife team De witt Wallace and Lila Acheson launch Reader’s Digest. British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankamun, pharaoh 1316-1322BC. The snowmobile is built by 15-year old Joseph Bombardier in Quebec. The police car, called a bandit-chaser, is launched in Denver, Colorado, using a Cadillac engine.

1923 Swiss John Harwood invents the self-winding watch. Jacob Schick patents the electric shaver. 16mm home movie camera is launched by Kodak. Frank Epperson invents the popsicle when he leaves his lemonade mix on a windowsill overnight.

1924 First around-the-world flight. First Winter Olympics at Chamonix, France. Columbia Pictures and MGM founded. Spin dryer launched by Kleenex. Caesar salad invented in Tijuana, Mexico by Caesar Gardini.

1900 – 1924 | 1925 – 1949 | 1950 – 1974 | 1975 – 1999

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Marconi (1874-1937) was born in Italy and studied at the University of Bologna. He was fascinated by Heinrich Hertz’s earlier discovery of radio waves and realized that it can be used for sending and receiving telegraph messages, referring to it as “wireless telegraphs.”

Marconi’s first radio transmissions, in 1896, were coded signals that were transmitted only about a mile (1,6 km) far. Marconi realized that it held huge potential. He offered the invention to the Italian government but they turned it down. He moved to England, took out a patent, and experimented further. In 1898 Marconi flashed the results of the Kingstown Regatta to the offices of a Dublin newspaper, thus making a sports event the first “public” broadcast. The next year Marconi opened the first radio factory in Chelmsford, Essex and established a radio link between Britain and France. A link with the USA was established in 1901. In 1909 Marconi shared the Nobel prize in physics for his wireless telegraph. Marconi became a wealthy man.

Signals only
But Marconi’s wireless telegraph transmitted only signals. Voice over the air, as we know radio today, came only in 1921. Marconi went on to introduce short wave transmission in 1922.

Marconi was not the first to invent the radio, however. Four years before Marconi started experimenting with wireless telegraph, Nikola Tesla, a Serb who moved to the USA in 1884, invented the theoretical model for radio. Tesla tried unsuccessful to obtain a court injunction against Marconi in 1915. In 1943 the US Supreme Court reviewed the decision. Tesla became acknowledged as the inventor of the radio – even though he did not build a working radio.

Who then, tell me?!
There are other claims to the throne of radio inventor.

Indian scientist J.C. Bose demonstrated the radio transmission in 1896 in Calcutta in front of the British Governor General. The transmission was over a distance of three miles from the Presidency College and Science College in Calcutta. The instruments (‘Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector’) are still there in the science museum of the Calcutta University. Thus writes contributor Dipak Basu, referencing the Proceedings of the IEEE, January, 1998.

Bose repeated his demonstration in the Royal Society in London in 1899 in the presence of Lord Rayleigh (Nobel prize winner in Physics, 1904), J.A. Fleming (Professor at London university and later an advisor to the Marconi company), and Lord Lister (President of the Royal Society). As a result he was offered Professorship in Cambridge, but declined.

Bose had solved the problem of the Hertz not being able to penetrate walls, mountains or water. Marconi was present in the meeting of the Royal Society and it is thought that he stole the notebook of Bose that included the drawing of the ‘Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector’. Marconi’s Coherer, which he used in 1901, was the exact copy of that of Bose. Apparently Marconi was unable to explain how he got to the design. He said that an Italian Navy engineer called Solari had developed it, but Solari later denied it. Marconi then said that Italian Professor Timasina did, which later was exposed as a lie by another Italian professor, Angelo Banti, who claimed that the design was invented by signalman Paolo Castelli.

Bose did not apply for a patent on his design because he believed in the free flow of inventions in science. But under pressure from American friends, he applied for the patent in September 1901. He was awarded the US patent for the invention of the radio in 1904. By that time Marconi had received his patent and international recognition.

“Hello Rainey!”
It is reputed that Nathan B. Stubblefield, a farmer from Murray, Kentucky, made a voice transmission four years before Marconi transmitted radio signals. In 1892, Stubblefield handed his friend Rainey T. Wells a box and told him to walk away some distance. Wells said later: “I had hardly reached my post.. when I heard I heard HELLO RAINEY come booming out of the receiver.”

Stubblefield demonstrated his invention to the press in 1902 but, being afraid that his invention will be stolen, never marketed his wireless radio. When he was found dead in 1929, his radio equipment was gone.

Nikola Tesla remains acknowledged as the inventor of the radio.

Radio everywhere
Today, there are more than 33,000 radio stations around the world, with more than 12,000 in the US alone. Worldwide there are more than 2 billion radio sets in use, or about one radio for every 3 persons; proof that video never killed the radio star.