Timeline

Timelines are cool because they provide context for historical events.

Science and Technology Timeline (with a few other things thrown in)
Note: most of this came from Lucie-Smith, E., (1997). Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century

1880-1

France annexes Tahiti
Nationalist uprising in Egypt
Death of British Statesman Benjamin Disraeli
Assignation of Tsar Alexander II
First practical electric lights invented
Canned foodstuffs first appear on sale
Electric street lights installed in New York
Opening of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London
Auguste Rodin begins work on The Gates of Hell (-1920)
Auguste Renoir, The Boating Party

1882-3

Triple Alliance of Italy, Austria and Germany
British troops occupy Cairo
France gains control of Tunis
Thomas Edison designs first hydroelectric plant
First synthetic fiber produced
Paul Gauguin abandons his career as a stockbroker in order to paint
Claude Monet settles at Giverney, where he builds his lily pond
Brooklyn Bridge, New York opened
First skyscraper (10 stories), Chicago – Le Baron Jenny, Home Insurance Building
Antonio Gaudi, Sagrada Familia church, Barcelona (-1926)

1884-5

German troops occupy South West Africa (now Namibia)
Indian National Congress founded
Mark Twain publishes Huckleberry Finn
First practical steam turbine engine
Design of the machine gun perfected
First single-cylinder automobile engine invented by Daimler
Salon des Independents founded in Paris
Georges Seurat, La Grande Jatte (-1886)
August Rodin, Burghers of Calais (-1895)

1886-7

Gold discovered in South Africa
Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria
French chemist Henri Moissan produces fluorine
Celluloid camera film invented
Auguste Rodin, The Kiss
Gustave Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris (-1889)
Work completed on the Statue of Liberty, designed by Frederic Auguste Bartoldi over an armature created by Gustave Eiffel

1888-9

“Jack the Ripper” murders six women in London
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington become US states; Oklahoma is opened to non-Native American settlement
Birthd of Adolf Hitler, Nazi dictator
George Eastman perfects “Kodak” box cameras
Pneumatic tires invented by Dunlop
Paul Gauguin, The Vision After the Sermon
Vincent Van Gogh goes to Arles and produces Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
McKim, Mead, and White begin work on the Boston Public Library (-1892)

1890-1

Massacre of Native American Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
Bismark resigns as chancellor of Germany
Daughters of the American Revolution founded in Washington DC
United States becomes the world’s leading industrial power
Beginning of wireless telegraphy
Thomas Edison unveils his “kinetograph” (the first cine camera)
Vincent Van Gogh commits suicide
Paul Cezanne, The Card Players (-1895)
Paul Gauguin leaves for Tahiti
Death of Georges Seurat
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produces his first music hall posters

1892-3

World exhibition in Chicago
Iron and Steel workers strike in the United States
Franco-Russian alliance
First cans of pieapples
Viscose invented. Beginning of manufacture of rayon
First automatic telephone switchboard
Edvard Munch exhibition creates scandal in Berlin
Georges Seurat, The Bathers, Asnieres
Edvard Munch, The Scream
Claude Monet begins his series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral

1894-5

Uganda becomes a British protectorate
The Alfred Dreyfus affair reveals widespread corruption and anti-semitism in the French military establishment
Cuban war of independence against Spain
Auguste Lumière invents the cinematograph, enabling film projection of moving images
Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-rays
Guglielmo Marconi invents radio telegraphy
Paul Cezanne, Large Bathers
Art Nouveau style predominates
First major exhibition of Paul Cezanne’s work, organized by Ambroise Vollard

1896-7

Indian troops defeated in Ethiopia
France annexes Madagascar
First modern Olympics held in Athens
Beginning of Klondike Gold Rush, Bonanza Creek, Canada
Severe famine in India
Malaria bacillus discovered
William Ramsey discovers helium
Magnetic detection of electrical waves by Ernest Rutherford
Die Jugend and Simplicissimus, two important German art magazines, appear in Munich
Vienna Secession formed
Auguste Rodin, plaster maquette for Balzac (commissioned 1891, refused 1898)

1898-9

United States declares war on Spain over Cuba
Spain forced to cede Puerto Rico, Guam, and philippines to United States
Outbreak of war between Britain and Boer settlers in South Africa
Dysentery bacillus discovered
Radium discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie
First magnetic sound recording
Ferdinand von Zeppelin produces his airship
Secession movement founded in Berlin
Charles Rennie Macintosh completes Glasgow School of Art
Hector Guimard, Art Nouveau entrances to Metro stations, Paris (-1904)

1900

Boxer Rising in China against the foreign population
Creation of the Commonwealth of Austrailia
First Zeppelin flight
Human speech first transmitted by radio wave
Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams
Paris holds World’s Fair
Claude Monet exhibits first Waterlilies paintings

1901

Cuba becomes US protectorate
Death of Queen Victoria, accession of Edward VII
Theodore Roosevelt elected US president
Guglielmo Marconi sends first telegraphic radio message across Atlantic
First prototype motorcycles
First exhibition of Impressionist paintings in Russia

1902

Boer War ends
Death of Emile Zola
Aswan Dam inaugurated
Major retrospective of Toulouse-Lautrec, Brussels
Daniel Hudson Burnham, Flatiron Building, New York

1903

British troops complete conquest of Nigeria
First motorized taxis in London
First crossing coast-to-coast by automobile (65 days)
Wilbur and Orville Wright make first aeroplane flight
The Great Train Robbery, first narrative cinematic film and the longest to date (12mins)
Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel win the Nobel Prize for their research into radium
Death of Paul Gauguin in Tahiti
Deaths of James McNeill Whistler and Camille Pissarro
August Peret completes the first concrete apartment building, Paris

1904

Outbreak of Russo-Japanese War
France and England reach Entente Cordiale
Conference of the white slave trade held in Paris
First practical photoelectric cell
First ultraviolet lamps
First telegraphic transmission of photographs
Silicones discovered
Work begins on Panama Canal
Freud publishes The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
Henri Matisse, first solo show
Paul Cezanne show triumphs at the Salon d’Automne
Pablo Picasso settles into the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, Paris

1905

Russo-Japanes War ends in Japanese victory. Demonstration and general strike throughout Russia
Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta are formed
Albert Einstein begins work on his Theory of Relativity
Fauves show as a group at Salon d’Automne, Paris
Die Brucke founded – holds first group exhibition in Dresden

1906

US troops occupy Cuba
Death of playwright Henrik Ibsen
Earthquake in San Francisco, killing 700
First radio program with voices and music broadcast in United States
Death of Paul cezanne
Edouard Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (rejected by the Paris Salon of 1863) goes on display at the Louvre
Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker installed outside the Pantheon, Paris
Discovery of African art
McKim, Mead, and White, Pennsylvania Station, New York (-1919)

1907

Oklahoma becomes 46th state
Invention of slow-motion film by Auguste Musger
Louis Lumière invents color photography
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Henri Rousseau, the Snake Charmer

1908

Austria occupies Bosnia and Herzegovina
Foundation of Tel Aviv
Invention of Bakelite (first modern plastic)
Henry Ford produces first Model-T car
London witnesses Suffragette demonstrations over right of women to vote
The term “cubism” coined by critic Louis Vauxcelles, reviewing a show of Braque landscapes
Exhibition of the Eight (the Ashcan school) at the Macbeth Galleries, New york

1909

Paul Ehrlich prepares Salvarsan for cure of syphilis
English aviator Henri Farman completes first 100-mile flight
Bleriot completes first flight across English Channel
Expedition led by Robert E. Peary reaches North Pole
Publication of “Foundation and First Manifesto of Futurism” on front page of Le Figaro, 20 february
Piet Mondrian, The Red Tree

1910

Japan annexes Korea
China abolishes slavery
Union of south Africa established
Death of Edward VII, succession of George V
First crystal radio set transmission
Roger Fry coins the term “Postimpressionist”
Vassily Kandinsky paints first abstract watercolors
Death of Henri Rousseau
Henri Matisse, Dance and Music
Robert Delaunay, The Eiffel Tower
Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard

1911

First practical electric self-starter for automobiles invented
Ernest Rutherford propounds his theory of atomic structure
Expedition led by Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole
Revolution in Central China, Chinese Republic proclaimed
Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre
Vassily Kandinsky publishes About the Spiritual in Art

1912

Kasimir Funk coins the word “vitamin”
Cellophane first manufactured
Titanic sinks on maiden voyage
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque produce first collages
Egon Schiele briefly imprisoned on charges of producing pornography

1913

First domestic refrigerator in Chicago
Henry Ford introduces assembly line method of production
First film roles for Charlie Chaplin
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, and the first ready-mades
Armory Show in New York, introducing America to modern art

1914

First use of radium to treat cancer
Panama Canal is opened
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo
World War I begins
First successful heart surgery (performed on a dog)
James Joyce publishes Dubliners

1915

German submarine torpedoes US liner Lusitania
Einstein publishes General Theory of Relativity
Ford Motor Company produces one millionth car
First Trans-Continental telephone call, New York to San Francisco
Kasimir Malevich publishes the Suprematist Manifesto

1916

Battle of Verdun
Death of Henry James
Franz Kafka publishes Metamorphosis
Margaret Sanger establishes the first birth-control clinic
First British tanks fight in the Battle of the Somme
Dada created at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich
Umberto Boccioni killed during military training
Franz Marc killed at Verdun

1917

First recording of a jazz concert (United States)
100-inch reflecting telescope used at Mount Wilson
United States declares war on Germany
October Revolution in Russia brings Bolsheviks to power
Death of Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas
Mondrian creates Neoplasticism

1918

World War I ends with the defeat of Germany, which is further disrupted by revolution and social unrest
Break-up of Austro-Hungarian Empire; Austria becomes a republic
First experiments with shortwave radio
Max Planck receives the Nobel prize for his theory of quantum mechanics
First airmail service in United State
Execution of the Tsar and his family at Ekaterinberg
Worldwide epidemic of “Spanish flu”
Deaths of Egon Schiele, Gustave Klimt and Guillaume Apollinaire
Kasimir Malevich, White Square on White

1919

Versailles Peace Conference opens
Weimar Republic founded in Germany
Civil war in Russia
League of Nations formed
Observations of solar eclipse confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity
Bauhaus founded, Weimar, Germany
Death of Auguste Renoir

1920

Gandhi launches civil disobedience campaign in India
Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorshach invents “Rorshach” ink-blot test
Thompson submachine gun patented
Structure of the Milky Way demonstrated for the first time through the use of photography
19th amendment gives American women the right to vote
Death of Amedeo Modigliani
Dada exhibition at the Winter Brasserie, Cologne

1921

Beginning of US stock market boom
End of Mexican revolution
Sacco-Vanzetti murder trial in the United States
First tuberculosis vaccine
Insulin discovered
Albert Einstein wins the Nobel prize in physics

1922

Soviet states unite to form USSR
Mussolini’s “March on Rome” leads to formation of Fascist government, Italy
Irish Free State officially proclaimed
James Joyce publishes Ulysses
Louis Armstrong’s first recording
Insulin first given to diabetics
Discovery of Vitamin E

1923

Hitler mounts coup d’etat in Munich, which fails
Greta Garbo’s film debut
Continuous hot strip-rolling of steel invented
Diptheria vaccine discovered
The American collector Albert C. Barnes buys 100 works from Chaim Soutine

1924

Death of Lenin
First Winter Olympics, Chamonix, Switzerland
George Gershwin composes Rhapsody in Blue
E.M. Forster publishes A Passage to India
Hitler writes Mein Kampf while in prison
First use of insecticides
25 million radios in use in United States
First Surrealist manifesto published, Paris
Fernand Leger directs Mechanical Ballet

1925

Stalin ousts Trotsky from power
Sergei Eisenstein directs The Battleship Potemkin
F. Scott Fitzgerald writes The Great Gatsby
John Logie Baird transmits recognizable human features by television
First Leica camera
First solar eclipse in New York for 300 years
First Surrealist exhibition

1926

“Hitlerjugend” (Hitler Youth) founded, Germany
Fritz Lang directs Metropolis
First liquid-fuel rocket
Kodak produces first 16 mm photographic film
First exhibition of Max Ernst’s frottages in Paris

1927

German economy collapses
Charles Lindbergh flies solo non-stop from New York to Paris
Civil war breaks out in China
Russian scientist I.V. Pavlov publishes Conditioned Reflexes
15 million Model T Fords produced by this date
Death of Juan Gris

1928

Chaing Kai-shek elected president of China
Amilia Earhart becomes first woman to fly across the Atlantic
D.H. Lawrence publishes Lady Chatterley’s Lover
First performance of Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, with music by Kurt Weill
Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
George Eastman exhibits first color motion pictures
The Geiger counter is invented
Andre Breton publishes Surrealism and Painting
William van Alen, Chrysler Building, New York

1929

Stock Market crash in New York on October 2, precipitates world economic crises
“Talkies” replace silent films in popularity
Quartz-crystal clocks introduced
Inaugeration of MOMA, New York
Salvador Dali and Louis Bunuel direct the surrealist film fantasy Un chien andalou
Le Corbusier produces designs for “The City of Tomorrow”

1930

Nazi party wins 107 seats in German elections
Name of Constantinople, Turkey, changed to Istanbul
Human blood groups identified
Photo flashbulb comes into use
The planet Pluto is discovered
First tansatlantic airmail service
Grant Wood, American Gothic
R. Hood designs daily News Building, New York

1931

Collapse of Austrian Credit-Anstalt bankleads to financial crisis in Central Europe
First woman elected to US Senate
Cyclotron invented
Using x-rays, P.J.W. Debye investigates molecular structure
Abstraction-Creation Group founded
Inaugeration of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Rockefeller Center begun, New York (-1940)
Empire State Building and Crysler Building completed, New York

1932

Nazi party wins 230 seats in German elections
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president of United States
First Venice film festival
Discovery of the positron and neutron, and of Vitamin D
Alexander Calder invents the mobile

1933

Hitler appointed German Chancellor
Nazis build first concentration camps. Boycott of Jewish businesses begins in Germany
United States recognizes USSR
Electronic television developed (a system different from Baird’s)
Vitamin C synthesized
Hitler closes the Bauhaus

1934

Civil Works Emergency Relief Act passed in United States
Assassination of Kirov in Leningrad. Stalin begins purge of Communist Party
“Night of the Long Knives” in Germany: up to 1,000 of Hitler’s political opponents killed by the SS
Cargo refrigeration process devised
Death of Marie Curie
First public exhibition devoted to interior design, “The Chair,” held in the Netherlands
“The Machine,” exhibition at MOMA, New York

1935

Nazis repudiate Versailles Treaty. Compulsory military service reintroduced in Germany.
Italy invades Abyssinia
Penguin publishers in London launch the first “paperback” format books
Radar invented
The liner The Normandie breaks the speed record for an Atlantic crossing
Richter scale developed
Death of Kasimir Malevich

1936

Spanish Civil War begins. The dramatist and poet Frederico Garcia Lorca is one of the first victims, killed by the Francoist militia
Hitler and Mussolini proclaim Rome-Berlin Axis
Italy annexes Abyssinia
China declares war on Japan
Abdication of Edward VIII, in order to mary the American, Wallis Simpson
Boulder Damn on the Colorado River completed
Regular television broadcasts initiated for the first time in Germany
International Surrealist Exhibition, London
First art-therapy school opened in London under the aegis of Sigmund Freud
Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water, Bear Run, PA
The Crystal Palace in London, venue for the Great Exhibition of 1851, is destroyed by fire

1937

Japanese troops capture Peking and Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek unites with Communists under Mao Tse-tung
Bombing of Guernica, Spain
Frank Whittle builds first jet engine
Patent granted for the manufacture of “nylon”
Walt Disney directs the first full-length animated cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Pablo Picasso, Guernica
Nazi “Degenerate Art” exhibition, Munich
Raoul Dufy’s Le Fee Electricite (300 x 60 ft, and the largest painting in the world) is exhibited at the International Exhibition, Paris
Plastic Art and Pure Art, essays by Piet Mondrian
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is opened to traffic
Walter Gropius is appointed to Harvard Chair of Architecture

1938

German civilians move into the Sudatenland, Czechoslovakia
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain meets Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgarten to resolve crisis
Germany annexes Austria
Ball-point pen invented
Atomic fission achieved
International Exhibition of Surrealism in Paris

1939

End of Spanish Civil War
Germany invades Poland and annexes Danzig
Britain and France declare war on Germany. World War II begins
DDT invented
Igor Sikorsky builds first helicopter
Death of Sigmund Freud
Death of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard
Max Ernst interned by the French authorities
Phillip Goodwin and Edward Stone remodel MOMA, New York

1940

British forces in Europe evacuated from Dunkirk
Italy declares war on France
German troops enter Paris. France concludes Armistice with Germany
Assassination of Trotsky in Mexico
Charlie Chaplin directs and stars in The Great Dictator.
First electron microscope developed
First successful helicopter flight
Death of Paul Klee
Discovery of prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, France
Varian Fry opens an office in Paris to arrange for the emigration of intellectuals and artists to the United States
Henry Moore becomes an official war-artist and begins his “Shelter” sketchbooks
Raymond Hood’s Rockefeller Center transforms the Manhattan skyline

1941

Germany invades USSR
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and invades the Philippines
United States declares war on Germany and Italy
Orson Welles directs and stars in Citizen Kane
Dacron invented
Plutonium discovered. Intensive research into the A-bomb (the “Manhattan Project”) begins in the United States
The paintings of Expressionist Emile Nolde are banned by the Nazi party
The Jeu de Paume in Paris is requisitioned as an official exhibition space by the German forces of occupation

1942

Japanese troops capture Singapore
US Navy wins the battles of the Coral Sea and Medway
German advance across USSR halted at Stalingrad
Enrico Fermi splits the atom
First electronic computer developed in United States
Magnetic recording tape invented
First jetplane tested
“First Papers of Surrealism” exhibition, New York
Dubuffet resumes full-time painting
Jean Fautrier, in hiding, begins work on his Hostage series
Arshille Gorgy holds courses on camouflage painting at the Grand Central School of Art

1943

The German commander General Paulus surrenders to Russia at Stalingrad
German troops surrender in Tunisia
Allies invade Italy
Anti-Nazi revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto
Streptomycin discovered
Jean-Paul Sartre publishes Being and Nothingness
Jackson Pollock’s first solo show at the Art of This Century Gallery, New York
Death of Chaim Soutine
Alexander Calder retrospective at MOMA, New York

1944

Allied armies reach Rome
D-Day landings in Normandy
Red Army occupies Hungary
Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh declares itself independent of France
Success in synthesizing quinine leads to widespread availability of a treatment for maleria
Andre Breton meets Arshile Gorky
Jean Dubuffet’s first solo exhibition
Deaths of Piet Mondrian and Vassily Kandinsky, and of sculptor Aristide Maillol
Pablo Picasso paints Charnet House in response to the first pictures from the death camps of eastern Europe

1945

Death of Roosevelt. Harry S. Truman succeeds as US president
Hitler commits suicide
Berlin surrenders to Russians, May 2. War in Europe ends, May 8
United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders August 14.
Vitamin A synthesized
Sir Alexander Fleming shares Nobel prize for the discovery of penicillin
Mondrian retreospective at MOMA, New York
Double retrospective of Picasso and Matisse at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Jean Fautrier exhibits his paintings from the Hostage series
Walter Gropius founds the group “The Architect’s Collaborative

1946

First session of UN General Assembly (in London)
truman creates Atomic Energy Commission
First film festival held at Cannes includes Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast
Xerox process invented
Atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll in Pacific Ocean
First electronic computer at the University of Pennsylvania
Pablo Picasso, La Joie de Vivre
Scandal of the Van Meegeren Vermeer forgeries id discovered
Andre Breton returns to France from the United States with a large collection of Native American masks and sculptures
Henry Moore wins sculpture prize at the Venice Biennale
Frank Lloyd Wright unveils the model of his revolutionary spiral design for the proposed Guggenheim Museum, New York

1947

India proclaims independence and divides into India and Pakistan
United Nations announces plan to partition Palestine
Albert Camus publishes The Plague
Premiere of Tennesse William’s A Streetcar Named Desire
US aircraft is the first to fly faster than sound
Holography invented
Pollock begins his “drip” paintings
Clyfford Dtill exhibits first color-field abstractions
Opening of the Musee Nationale d’Art Moderne in Paris
Death of Pierre Bonnard
Closure of the Art of the Century Gallery

1948

Gandhi assassinated
Communist coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia
Foundation of the State of Israel
Berlin airlift begins
Harry S. Truma elected president of United States for second term
Beginning of anti-Communist “witch hunts”
Long playing record invented
Transistor invented at Bell laboritories
Cobra Group founded
Arshile Gorky commits suicide
Georges Rouault publicly burns 315 unfinished paintings following a law-suit with the heirs of the dealer Ambroise Vollard
Mies van der Rohe, Lakeshore Drive apartments, Chicago (-1951)
Sigfried Giedion publishes Mechanization Takes Command

1949

Chiang Kai-shek retreats to Taiwan. The Chinese People’s Republic proclaimed under Chairman Mao
Vietnam and Indonesia become independent states
Berlin airlift ends
Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex
Cortisone discovered
USSR tests its first atomic bomb
First performance of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes
Death of Expressionist pioneer James Ensor
Lucio Fontana experiments with perforating the canvas of his paintings

1950

Communist Chinese army occupies Tibet
North Korea invades South Korea. UN troops land in South Korea
Miltown comes into use as a tranqualizer
Antihistamines introduced against colds and allergies
The “Irascibles” in New York demand to be recognized by the American avant-garde
Matisse awarded the grand prize at the Biennale in Venice
Franz Kline’s first exhibition

1951

United States signs peace treaty with Japan.
22nd Amendment limits US presidents to two terms
Electric power first produced from atomic energy
First color-television broadcast in the United States
Massacre in Korea by Pablo Picasso
Andre Malraux publishes The Voices of Silence

1952

Dwight D. Eisenhower elected US president
The Iron Curtain divides Berlin
Elizabeth II succeeds George VI
First US hydrogen bomb exploded at Eniwetok Atoll in Pacific Ocean
Mass production of the IBM computer 701
“Unknown Political Prisoner” competition held by Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Foundation of the Daur al Set Group in Barcelona
Publication of Un art autre by Michel Tapie

1953

Death of Stalin. Malenkov becomes Soviet Premier
Korean armistice signed
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing are first to climb Everest
Discovery of DNA by Crick, Watson, and Wilkins
Georges Braque’s ceiling painting in the Louvre
Scandal over Picasso’s Portrait of Stalin
Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome

1954

Dien Bien Phu taken by Vietnamese Communists, who occupy Hanoi
Algerian War of Independence begins (-1962)
US Supreme Court rules that segregation by color in public schools is illegal
Polio vaccine developed at the Pasteur Institute
Formation of Gutai Group, Japan
Death of Henri Matisse
Jean Arp, Max Ernst and Joan Miro win grand prizes at the Biennale in Venice

1955

Malenkov resigns as Soviet Premier and is succeeded by Bulganin
Bus boycott against racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama
Death of Albert Einstein
Jasper Johns produces first Flag paintings
Yellow Manifesto by Victor Vasarely
Clement Greenberg defines color field painting
Inauguration of General Motors research center by Eero Saarinen

1956

Nasser elected President of Egypt, and seizes Suez Canal. Anglo-French forces invade. Israel invades Sinai. British and French troops withdraw
Uprising in Hungary against Soviet domination put down by USSR
Martin Luther King emerges as a leader against racial segregation
Transatlantic cable telephone service inaugurated
Oral vaccine developed against polio
Death of Jackson Pollock in a car accident
Cysp I by Nicholas Schoffer, the first autonomous cybernetic sculpture
Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York (-1958)
Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum, New York
Jorn Utzon, Sydney Opera House (-1973)
Eero Saarinen, TWA Building, Kennedy International Airport, New York (1962)

1957

Israeli forces withdraw from Sinai and hand over Gaza Strip to United Nations
Segregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas
Six European nations sign the Treaty of Rome, forming the EEc
USSR launches Sputnik I and II, the first satellites
Hans Hartung exhibits throughout Germany
Ad Reinhardt publishes Twelve Rules for a New Academy
Death of Constantin Brancusi

1958

Fidel Castro Begins war against the Batista government in Cuba
Nikita Khruschev succeeds Bulganin as Soviet Premier
Stereophonic recordings come on the market
Mark Rothko paints canvases for the Rothko Chapel, Houston
Group Zero formed in Dusseldorf
Expo 58 in Brussels: the return of metal architecture

1959

Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba
Charles de Gaulle becomes president of the Fifth Republic in France
The Russian rocket Lunik reaches the moon
Launching of the first American nuclear-powered merchant vessel
First “Happenings” in New York
Louis I. Kahn, Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA (-1965)

1960

Massacre by white troops of black school children at Sharpeville, South Aferica
Formation of Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC)
First weather satellite launched by United States
First laser constructed in California
Andy Warhol, first comic strip painting (Dick Tracey)
Pierre Restany publishes his New Realist Manifesto
Performance in Paris of Yves Klein’s Anthropometries
Claes Oldengurg “Happening”: Snapshots from the City
Foundation of Brasilia as the new capital of Brazil, with buildings by Oscar Niemeyer

1961

US Bay of Pigs, attempted invasion of Cuba fails
Berlin Wall constructed
Joseph Heller publishes Catch 22
Gunter Grass publishes The Tin Drum
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits Earth in a Satellite
The contraceptive pill becomes available on prescription
“Art of Assemblage” exhibition at MOMA, New York
Joseph Beuys begins teaching at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie
Roy Lichtenstein creates his first works based on comic strips
The term “concept art” is coined by Henry Flynt
Nicolas Schoffer erects a “cybernetic and echoing” tower at the International Exhibition in Liege

1962

Cuban missile crisis
First black student admitted to the University of Mississippi, protected by 3,000 US troops
Execution of Adolf Eichmann in Israel
The anti-nausea drug “Thalidomide” is identified as a cause of major birth defects
“Nuevia Presencia” group (opposed to Mexican Muralism) founded in Mexico
Warhol holds his first solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles
BBC television screens the film “Pop Goes the Easel”
Pop Art covered by Time, Life, and Newsweek
“Fluxus” group formed
Death of Yves Klein
Philip Johnson begins work on the New York State Theater at the Lincoln Center, New York

1963

Britain’s application to join the Common Market rejected
President John F. Kennedy assassinated
Nelson Mandela begins a sentence of Life imprisonment in South Africa
First use of an artificial heart to take over the circulation of the blood during heart surgery
Color version of polaroid Land Camera goes on sale
Death of Piero Manzoni
Dan Flavin produces the first of his sculptures using fluorescent light
Leben mit Pop exhibition held in Dusseldorf, germany
George Segal, Cinema
First solo exhibition for R.B. Kitaj at the Marlborough Gallery, London

1964

Escalation of US military involvement in Vietnam
Martin Luther King awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Greek/Cypriot War
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founded
Mary Quant invents the mini-skirt
First close-up photos of the moon’s surface
China explodes its first A-bomb
“Post-Painterly Abstraction” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum. Edward Kienholz’s Backseat Dodge ’38 is met with official outrage when exhibited at the same venue
“Amerikan Pop-Konst,” Moderna Museet, Stockholm
“The Shaped Canvas,” Guggenheim Museum, New York
Carolee Schneemann performs Meat Joy
“Architecture without Architects,” exhibition at MOMA, New York
Kenzo Tange designs pavilions and the Olympic area for the Olympic Games in Tokyo

1965

Malcolm X, Black Muslim leader, assassinated. Race riots in the Watts district, New York
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) founded in the United States
White government of Rhodesia declares independence from the Commonwealth
Death of Albert Schweitzer
Noam Chomsky publishes Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
Andy Warhol’s first retrospective is held at the University of Pennsylvania
Salvador Dali, The Perpignan Railway Station
“New Generation” exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London
Death of Le Corbusier
Founding of the International Group of Prospective Architecture

1966

Cultural Revolution begins in China (-1968)
Strasbourg students and the Situationist Internationale group publish “On Student Poverty”
Truman Capote publishes In Cold Blood
Premiere of Blow-Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
First implant of an artificial heart
“Soft” landings on the moon by both USSR and US spacecraft
“Primary Structures” exhibition, Jewish Museum, New York
“Systematic Abstraction,” Guggenheim Museum, New York
First “Hairy Who” group show, Hyde Park Center, Chicago
Opening of the new Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Marcel Breuer

1967

Six day War between Israel and the Arab nations
Che Guevara Killed in Bolivia
50.000 pepole demonstrate against the Vietnam War at the Lincoln memorial, Washington D.C.
Abortion and homosexuality decriminalized in Great Britain
First Heart transplant operation performed by Dr Cristiaan Barnard in South Africa
Death of Robert Oppenheim, the inventor of the A-bomb
Synthetic DNA produced for the first time
Birth of “Arte Povera” marked by the exhibition at the Galleria la Bertesca, Genoa
“Funk” exhibition, University of California, Berkeley
Peter Blake creates the cover for The Beatles’s “Sergeant Pepper” album
Death of Rene Magritte
Robert Motherwell completes his Elegy to the Spanish Republic
International Expo ’67 showcases pavilions by Buckminster Fuller (US), Frei Otto and Rolf Gutbrod (Germany), and Habitat ’67 by Moishe Safdie

1968

Martin Luther King assassinated
Student rioting in Paris
Liberalization in Czechoslavakia leads to Soviet invasion
Richard Nixon elected president of the United States
Stanley Kubrick directs 2001: A Space Odyssey
BMW unveil its 2002 saloon
James D. Watson publishes The Double Helix
“Earthworks” exhibition, Dwan Gallery, New York
“Art and the Machine” exhibition at MOMA, New York
Christo wraps the Kunsthalle, Berne
Death of Marcel Duchamp

1969

First US troops withdrawn from Vietnam
British troops sent to Belfast to quell rioting
Woodstock music festival, New York state
Riots after the police raid on the Stonewall Inn, New York, precipitate the founding of the Gay Rights movement
Charles Manson murders in California
Concorde, the Anglo-French supersonic passenger aircraft, makes its first test flight
US government bans the use of DDT as insecticide
Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon
Robert Smithson begins work on Spiral Jetty at the Great Salt Lake, Utah
First issue of Art & Language published
Theft of the Penrose collection, including major works by Pablo Picasso and Giorgio de Chirico, in London
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, the John Hancock Center, Chicago

1970

Nigerian civil war ends
US National Guardsmen shoot dead four student anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University, Ohio
Salvador Allende elected president of Chile
Riots in Gdansk against Communist government of Poland
Boeing 747 airline begins regular flights
IBM develops “floppy disc” to store computer data
Deaths of mark Rothko and Barnett Newman
“Conceptual Art, Arte Povera, Land Art,” exhibitionat the Galleria Civica de Arte Moderna, Turin
Judy Chicago organizes first feminist art course at California State College, Fresno

1971

Women are granted the right to vote in Switzerland
War breaks out between Pakistan and India. Republic of Bangladesh established
200,000 people demonstrate in Washington D.C. against the Vietnam War
Microprocessor introduced
US space probe Marine IX becomes first man-made object to orbit another planet (Mars)
Francis Bacon retrospective in Paris
“Contemporary Black American Artists,” exhibition at the Whitney Museum, New York
Exhibition on the metamorphosis of the object in Brussels
Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers begin work on the Pompidou Center, Paris (-1977)

1972

Richard Nixon visits China
Eleven members of the Israeli team are killed by Arab terrorists at the Munich Olympics
Five arrested after break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in Watergate apartment complex, Washington D.C.
First home video-casette recorders introduced
CAT scans introduced to provide cross-section x-rays of human brain
Soulages retrospective in the United States
“The New Art,” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London
First still lifes produced by Claes Oldenburg
Alvar Aalto, Finlandia Hall, Helsinki
Louis I. Kahn completes Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX

1973

Britain joins EEC
President Allende of Chile overthrown by General Pinochet
Yom Kippur War between Israel, Egypt and Syria
Ceasefire in Vietnam
Barcodes first used in supermarkets
First live birth (of a calf) from frozen embryo
Konrad Lorenz is awarded the Nobel prize for medicine
Death of Picasso
“Photo Realism,” exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London
Works by the New York School fetch record auction prices
First color photocopier marketed (Japan)
John Portman and Associates, Hyatt-Regency Hotel, San Francisco

1974

Left-wing revolution in Portugal resulting in a bloodless coup
President Makarios of Greece overthrown. Turkey invades Cyprus
Nixon resigns and Gerald Ford becomes US President
Patricia Hearst is kidnapped
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is exiled from the USSR
Death of Charles A. Lindbergh
Russian space probe lands on Mars
Dali Museum opens in Figueras, Spain
Joseph Beuys performs Coyote in New York
I.M. Pei, East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (-1978)

1975

Civil War begins in Lebanon
Khmer Rouge capture Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia
Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese
Death of General Franco
First warning of possible damage to ozone layer due to aerosols
First personal computer (PC) marketed
Muralism makes a comeback in the United States
Roy Lichtenstein retrospective takes place in Paris
Spain opens itself up to contemporary art

1976

MaoTse-Tung dies (China)
Jimmy Carter is elected President of United States
Olympic Games held in Montreal
Israeli raid on Entebbe
Concorde supersonic airliner begins regular passenger services across Atlantic
US space probe Viking I lands on Mars
Christo builds The Running Fence in California
“Women artists: 1550-1950,” exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum
Death of Max Ernst
Carl Andre’s Bricks whip up controversy in London

1977

First democratic elections in Spain since 1936
South African black leader Steve Biko dies in police custody
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visits Isreal
First victims of AIDS reported in New York
Apple II microcomputer marketed in the United States
First staffed flight of space shuttle Enterprise
Opening of Pompidou Center, Paris
“Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union,” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Heresies magazine published in New York

1978

Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Cracow, elected pope as John Paul II
Mass suicide of over 900 people in Jonestown, Guyana
Camp David peace treaty – Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin share the Nobel Peace Prize
First autofocus camera marketed
First test-tube baby born (england)
Two Soviet astronauts orbit the earth for 140 days
“Bad Painting,” exhibition at New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Deaths of Giorgio de Chirico and critic Harold Rosenberg
“Paris-Berlin,” exhibition at the Pompidou Center, Paris
Philip Johnson and John Burgee, AT&T Headquarters, New York

1979

Fall of Shah in Iran, which becomes Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini
Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first woman prime minister
Iranian students seize US embassy in Teheran. President Carter imposes embargo on Iranian oil
USSR invade Afghanistan
Television broadcasting via satellite launched
US Surgeon-General publishes a report confirming that smoking causes cancer and is linked to other diseases
Personal stereo introduced and compact disc developed
Joseph Beuys retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New Youk
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party
Germaine Greer publishes The Obstacle Race: Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work

1980

Death of President Tito of Yugoslavia
Poland allows trade unions. Lech Walesa forms “Solidarity”
Iraq invades Iran
Ronald Reagan becomes president of United States
US apace probe Voyager I flies past Saturn
Fax machines enter widespread use
George Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer sensations at the Venice Biennale
Robert Mapplethorpe, Black Male series exhibited at Galerie Jurka, Amsterdam
“Picasso’s Picassos,” exhibition shown in New York
Richard Meier, High Museum of Art, Atlanta Georgia (-1983)

1981

Francois Mitterand elected president of France
President Sadat of Egypt assassinated
Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court
US Center for Disease Control recognizes AIDS as a communicable disease
“A New Spirit in Painting,” exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
The philosopher Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida is published
International recognition of the new German art
Maya Ling Lin, Vietnam War Memorial, The Mall, Washington D.C. (-1984)

1982

Argentine troops invade Falkland Islands. British task force recaptures islands
PLO forced to leave West Beirut. Christian massacre, with Israeli connivance of Palestinians in Beirut refugee camps
Compact-sic players go on sale
First permanent artificial-heart operation
“Transavantguardia,” exhibition at the Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy
“Zeitgeist,” exhibition at the Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Video Art at the Whitney Museum, New York
New French painters in New York
Michael Graves, Humana Building, Louisville, Kentucky

1983

US marines invade Grenada
242 US troops killed by a suicide bomber in Beirut
Chicago elects its first black mayor
Soviets shoot down Korean commercial airliner, killing all 269 passengers
First successful transfer of human embryo
HIV virus isolated
First US woman travels in space
Julian Schnabel takes the New York art world by storm
“The New Art,” exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London
Italo Mussa publishes La Pittura Colta, Rome
Balthus retrospective at the Pompidou Center, Paris
I.M. Pei, Pyramid, Musee di Louvre, Paris (-1988)

1984

Indian troops storm Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar, Punjab
Geraldine Ferraro nominated as US Democratic candidate for vice president
Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards
Chemical plant leak in Bhopal, India, kills 2,500 and injures 200,000
Discovery of “genetic fingerprinting” in DNA
Top quark molecule discovered in Geneva
“Content: A Contemporary Focus, 1974-1984,” exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
“Primitivism in 20th Century Art,” exhibition at MOMA, New York

1985

Mikhail Gorbachev named First Secretary of Russian Communist Party
Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior sunk in Auckland harbor by French secret agents
Major earthquake in Mexico City
African famine continues
Hole discovered in ozone layer of Antartica
The wreck of the Titanic is detected by underwater robots
The Saatchi Gallery, devoted to contemporary art, opens in London
Christo wraps the Pont-Neuf bridge, Paris, in a huge fireproof canvas
Deaths of Marc Chagall and Jean Dubuffet
Peter Eisenman, Wexner Center for Visual Arts, Columbus, Ohio (-1989)

1986

US space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off. Space flight program suspended
Revolution in Philippines, President Marcos flees
Iran-Contra scandal
American bombing raid on Libya
First laptop computer introduced
First heart, lung and liver transplant
Major accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station, Kiev
Death of Joseph Beuys
Rediscovery of Futurism in Venice
Ludwig Museum is opened in Cologne
Arata Isozaki”s Museum of Contemporary Art opens in Ls Angeles

1987

Gorbachev offers to dismantle all short and medium-range missiles in USSR, and introduces glasnost and perestroika
Stock markets crash on Black Wednesday
Iran-Contra hearings take place in Washington D.C.
Construction of Channel Tunnel between France and Britain begins
Compact video disc introduced
A conference in Montreal produces a protocol on CFC emissions
Deaths of Andy Warhol and Andre Masson
Marc Chagall exhibition in Moscow
Jean Tinguely retrospective in Venice
“New York Art Now,” exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London
“Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987,” exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Charles Jencks publishes Post-Modernism: Neo-Classicism in Art and Architecture

1988

Soviet troops begin withdrawel from Afghanistan
George Bush elected president of United States
Benazir Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan
Pan Am Boeing 747 destroyed by terrorist bomb over Lockerbie in Scotland
Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses causes worldwide controversy
Transatlantic fiber-optic cable laid
Developments in DNA fingerprinting revolutionize forensics and paternity testing
Emergence of Computer Art
Death of Louise Nevelson
Three paintings by Vincent Van Gogh are stolen from the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands
“American/German Art of the Late 80s,” exhibition held in Dusseldorf and Boston
Kish Kurokawa, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan

1989

Oil tanker Exxon Valdez spills 11 milion gallons of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska
Massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Bejing
Bush and Gorbachev declare end of Cold War
The Berlin Wall is demolished and Germany unified
San Francisco Earthquake
Stephen hawking publishes A Brief History of Time
US space-probe Magellan launched, to map surface of Venus
Cordless telephones become widely available
“Black Art: Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art,” exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art
“Magiciens de la Terre,” exhibition at the Pompidou Center, Paris
Linda Nochlin publishes Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays

1990

Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russia
Iraqi troops invade Kuwait
Nelson Mandela released from prison in South Africa
Global warming threat recognized
Ilya Kabakov, He Lost His Mind, Undressed, Ran Away Naked (environmental work, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York)
“Between Spring and Summer: Soviet conceptual art in the era of late communism,” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston
Lucy Lippard publishes Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multi-Cultural America
Santiago Calatrava, TGV Railway Stateion, Lyon-Satolas, France

1991

Civil War breaks out in Yugoslavia
Gulf offensive launched by NATO against Iraq
Rajiv Ghandi assassinated
Final disestablishment of the USSR
First planet beyond the Sun’s solar system discovered
Damien Hirst, The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
“Cara: Chicano Art, resistance and Affirmation,” exhibition at the Wright Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles
“Metropolis,” exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Museum of Contemporary Arts opens in Frakfurt, Germany

1992

Bill Clinton elected US president
Race riots in Los Angeles
Collapse of Russian-backed Communist regime in Afghanistan
“Cosmic ripples” detected in space
Earth Summit environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro
Yu Youhan, Mao and Blonde Girl Analyzed
Bill Viola, To Pray without Ceasing (video installation)
Andres Serrano, The Morgue series of photographs
SoHo Guggenheim Museum opened in New York
“Helter Skelter: LA Art in the 90s,” exhibition held in Los Angeles

1993

United States initiates missle attacks on Iraq
Benazir Bhutto re-elected prime minister of Pakistan
PLO-Israeli peace agreement announced
130 nations sign peace treaty banning chemical weapons
Concept of “information super-highway” promoted
Internet system links five million users
Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (House)
“Aratjara: Art of the First Australians,” exhibition at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany
“China Avant-Garde,” exhibition at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England

1994

First non-racial eklections in South Africa
Massacre of Tutsi people by Rwandan Hutus
Russian military offensive against the break-away republic of Chechnya
Number of HIV cases worldwide estimated to have reached 17 million
“Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away,” exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London
“Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky,” exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York
Death of the influential art critic, Clement Greenberg

1995