Mirabilis Members 1900s

There shall be initially 410 Mirabilis Members. Mirabilis is latin for miracle.

The Mirabilis Members will each be unique in that they will adopt a year in the great American story beginning with 1607 through to the inaugural year – 2017.

Each year on July 4th the Club will add a new Mirabilis Member for the new year.

1900

Republican William McKinley reelected President of the United States, perhaps the most popular President since Washington.

1901

Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, age 42, became the 26th President of the United States after the assassination of President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York, by anarchist Leo Czolgosz.

1902

The Carnegie Institute was founded by Andrew Carnegie with a 10 million dollar grant. The institute still contributes millions of dollars for “scientific” experimentation and advancement.

The War against the Philippines ended.

1903

The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty gave the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone, which were retained until the Panama Canal Treaty between Jimmy Carter, President of the U.S. and Omar Torrijos, Panamanian dictator, taking effective in 1999.

1904

New York Republican Theodore Roosevelt elected President of the United States

1905

The Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”) founded—a radical organized labor group that will be involved in strikes and violence in America over the following twenty years.

1906

President Theodore Roosevelt awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the peace treaty to end the Russo-Japanese War.

The Pentecostal movement–emotions driven, mostly Protestant, and identified with a renewed religious revivalism, began in Azusa, California.

1907

Busiest year in the history of Ellis Island, the main entry point for immigrants to the United States—1.1 million arrived.

1908

President William Howard Taft of Ohio elected President of the United States.

1909

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized in New York City by a disparate group of reformers, civil rights advocates, Socialist Party regulars, journalists, lawyers, and others interested in civil rights issues for “people of color,” on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

1910

Government and Financial Leaders meet secretly at Jekyll Island, Georgia to plot a future reorganization and control of U.S. monetary policy.

1911

Birth of future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, in Tampico, Illinois to parents of Irish and Scottish heritage.

1912

Progressive” Democrat, Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, a former college president and historian, elected President of the United States.

1913

The 16th Amendment to the Constitution allowing the Federal government the right to levy income taxes, the direct election of Senators amended to Constitution with the 17th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve was created, all evidence of the triumph of “progressivist reforms” under Presidents Taft and Wilson.

Union and Confederate Civil War veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg, meet there for a 50th Anniversary reunion and shake hands over the wall at the “high water mark.”

1914

World War I erupted in Europe, the United States declared neutrality.

1915

RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine. More than eleven hundred died, including 128 American citizens.

1916

Woodrow Wilson reelected President on the slogan, “he kept us out of war.”

1917

The United States officially entered World War I on the side of the England and France, raging in Europe since 1914.

1918

The First World War ended with the Signing of the Treaty of Paris. The allied powers imposed large war reparations, restrictions, loss of colonies and territory on Germany. Ironically, Woodrow Wilson’s proposal of a League of Nations was agreed upon by the European Powers, but rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate.

1919

The international influenza pandemic killed between 20 and 50 million people world-wide, including almost 700,000 Americans. No treatments or preventions proved effective.

1920

Republican Warren Harding of Ohio elected President of the United States promising “A return to normalcy.”

George Herman Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees, where he compiled a record setting and legendary professional baseball career and public reputation, unequaled by any other player of his time or since.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gave women the right to vote, overturning centuries of precedent that the husband represented the entire household in political matters.

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks, triggering huge non-compliance, reinvigoration of organized crime.

1921

On Armistace Day the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated by President Harding at Arlington Cemetery with the burial of a World War I soldier.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti, American anarchists, were convicted of murder after a sensational trial. Executed in 1927 after appeals were exhausted, world-wide protests of their case continued, making this event the most debated and protested court case in American history.

1922

Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, leased naval oil reserves to private companies at low rates at Teapot Dome, Wyoming for bribes, triggering a scandal that implicated President Harding. He died before the political blowback could cause him harm.

The Lincoln Memorial dedicated in Washington D. C.

1923

Republican Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States upon the death of Harding.

The first state law prohibiting the teaching of Evolution in government schools passed in Oklahoma.

1924

Republican Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts elected President of the United States.

J. Edgar Hoover appointed first director of the FBI, a post he held until he died at the age of 77 in 1972.

1925

The American Civil Liberties Union sponsored Tennessee biology teacher John T. Scopes to defy state law prohibiting the teaching of Darwinian theories of the origin of man. The sensational trial was held in Dayton, Tennessee, and the historicity of the biblical account of creation was held in derision throughout by the Northern Press. The attorney for Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, won the case, but lost the war for the American mind.

1926

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and a coalition of preservation organizations began the historic restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

1927

American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh became the first person to successfully fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis. “Lucky Lindy” became the most famous man in the world as a result.

1928

Republican Herbert Hoover of California elected President of the United States.

1929

Banking and Wall Street financial collapse triggered the “Great Depression.” President Hoover was blamed.

1930

Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the highest and one of the most damaging in American history. President Hoover, though opposed, was pressured by his Republican Party to sign it.

1931

The Star Spangled Banner adopted as the National Anthem of the United States

A “dust bowl” devastated the American southwest; 27 states were affected.

1932

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) of New York elected President.

1933

The “Blain Act” ended prohibition in America.

FDR declared a bank holiday and began instituting the “New Deal,” his plan to restore the American economy based on federal government intervention and competition with free enterprise. New government jobs programs begun.

1934

John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde Barrow, Pretty Boy Floyd all involved in crime sprees in various states and all eventually killed or captured by lawmen.

1935

Social Security Act signed into law by FDR, bringing millions of more dollars into Federal coffers.

First of the Neutrality Acts passed, distancing the United States from any intervention in European affairs.

1936

FDR reelected President in a landslide.

The Spanish Civil War erupted; the U.S. remained neutral but American communists formed the “Abraham Lincoln Brigade” and traveled to Spain. Many of them died in the war; the communists were defeated.

1937

In response to the Supreme Court’s declaring New Deal programs unconstitutional, FDR threatens to pack the court with Democratic partisans who will approve of his government expansion projects. Although Congress and the court register disapproval of the threat, the Supremes ceased opposing FDR’s measures.

1938

FDR signed in to law the “Minimum Wage Act,” as the federal government forced the private sector to conform to further controls on business.

FDR asserted that should Hitler invade Czechoslovakia, the United States would remain neutral and would not join a coalition to restrict German aggression.

1939

Germany invaded Poland, World War II began, and the United States declared neutrality.

1940

FDR elected President for an unprecedented third time.

Winston Churchill elected Prime Minister in England and seeks to form special relationship with the American President, FDR.

1941

The Empire of Japan attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, initiating war with the United States. In response, Congress declared war on Japan. Germany followed with a declaration of war against the Americans and the war became truly world-wide.

1942

Doolittle Raid struck back at Japan, shocking the Japanese high command that American planes could retaliate for Pearl Harbor so quickly.

United States defeated Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway, considered by many historians, the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

The U.S. Eighth Air Force began bombing campaign against Germany.

1943

United States production capabilities transform industry to fight a two-front war. No nation in history could even be in the conversation about the home-front mobilization that was in full swing by this year.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower chosen as Supreme Allied Commander as plans go forward for the Allied attack on France.

The Allies defeated German and Italian forces in the North Africa Campaign, The Sicily Campaign and battles on Pacific Islands like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and the Aleutians.

Churchill and Roosevelt meet three times to discuss war strategy. They meet with Stalin also twice, assuring the continuity of the British, American, Russian alliance against Germany.

1944

After landing on the beaches of Normandy, the Allied armies march across France, pause before the frontiers of Germany, and suffer the bloodiest campaign of the war in the “Battle of the Bulge.”

1945

President FDR died and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman, who presided over the end of the Second World War.

Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, changing the world of warfare and foreign policy for the indeterminate future.

1946

The newly formed United Nations met for the first time, in New York. The creation of the organization was agreed to during WWII and supported by the “Big Three,” created a Security Council with single-nation veto power over any actions proposed by the body of the UN.

In a speech in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill described an “an iron curtain” that had descended on Europe through Soviet conquest and subversion.

1947

The United States announced the Marshal Plan, a strategy for reconstruction and relief of Europe in the post-war era.

President Truman oversaw the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Department of Defense, through the National Security Act of 1947.

The “Hollywood 10” were cited for contempt of Congress by an overwhelming vote, for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

1948

In a surprise upset, Democrat Harry S. Truman of Missouri elected President of the United States.

1949

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization assured the mutual defense of all the signatories in the event of Soviet attack.

1950

Communist North Korean armies invaded South Korea, triggering the Korean War, in which the United Nations and United States forces under the command of World War II hero Douglas MacArthur, fought for three years, suffering more than 950,000 casualties, inflicting at least 1.5 million on the enemy. An estimated 2.5 million civilian casualties were caused in the course of the war.

1951

General Douglas MacArthur was sacked by President Truman for exceeding orders and

I Love Lucy began its television run on CBS.

The Marshall Plan expired, having distributed more than 13 billion dollars in aid to European countries.

1952

Republican, former Commander of Allied armies in Europe in WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower of Kansas, elected 34th President of the United States.

1953

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for passing atomic secrets to the Russians, with whom the United States was not at war. The controversial trial and executions received world-wide condemnation.

1954

In Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court decided in a 9-0 ruling, that the “Separate but Equal” principle in force since Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896, in regard to segregated government schools was unconstitutional.

1955

Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine approved by the FDA, allowing mass production of the drug, resulting in a great reduction in the cases of polio, for the first time in history.

The national civil rights movement began when Rosa Parks refused to give up her  bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama and is arrested.

The U.S. Seventh Fleet helped the Nationalist Chinese army flee to safety on Formosa as the Communist Chinese army led by Chairman Mao defeated the Nationalist army of Chang Kai Chek.

President Eisenhower sends the first military advisors to South Vietnam.

1956

President Eisenhower created the national interstate highway system which made interstate commerce and travel infinitely more efficient.

1957

Captain Hank Cramer became the first United States serviceman killed in action in Vietnam.

Elvis Presley Releases (Let Me be Your) Teddy Bear which goes to #1 on the charts. He moves out from his parents house that same year.

1958

Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th American states, respectively.

Robert W. Welch founded the John Birch Society, an anti-communist organization named after an American soldier killed by the communist Chinese.

The post-WWII “baby boom” officially came to an end, beginning an eleven year declining birthrate in the United States.

1959

Premier Nikita Kruschev of the Soviet Union and American Vice-President Richard Nixon have a “kitchen debate” at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, and end up singing Ramblin Wreck from Georgia Tech together, one of the few thaws in the Cold War.

1960

Democrat John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts elected President of the United States, the first from that state since John Quincy Adams in 1824.

1961

The United States severed ties with communist Cuba and later in the year supported an invasion which became a disaster known as the “Bay of Pigs.”

President Kennedy announced the Apollo Space Program to put a man on the moon.

“Freedom Riders” bussed across the south; race riots broke out in several states, many arrests for disturbing the peace.

1962

The first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.

Russian missile bases were spotted in Cuba, triggering the Cuban missile crisis; the U.S. and USSR went to the brink of war over the issue, before it was resolved with Russia backing down.

1963

President John Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas, the fourth President to die at the hands of an assassin, allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald. The controversy over the extent of the conspiracy to kill the President rages unabated to this day.

1964

Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who became President upon the assassination of Kennedy, was elected in his own right.

1965

Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesman in all human history, is laid to rest as the world mourns.

Battle of Ia Drang, memorialized in the book and film We Were Soldiers Once and Young, and many other fights occur across Vietnam.

1966

Lockheed SR-71 Spy plane enters service

In Miranda vs. Arizona, the Supreme Court ruled that police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

Actor Ronald Reagan elected Governor of California

1967

The first ever Super Bowl is played pitting the Green Bay Packers against the Kansas City Chiefs. Packers win 35-10

Martin Luther King denounces the Vietnam War, linking together the “civil rights movement and war protest.”

Race riots break out in Newark, New Jersey, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan, Washington D. C.

1968

Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell & William Anders become the first humans ever to see the far side of the moon and the earth as a whole. The crew are so awed by the experience that they recite the creation story from Genesis.

Republican Richard M. Nixon of California elected President of the United States.

Martin Luther King, leader of the Civil Rights Movement and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy are both assassinated.

1969

Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on the moon as the entire human race stood transfixed in wonder.

1970

Ohio National Guardsmen killed four students and wounded nine, protesting the War at Kent State University, which caused national outrage and increased protests around the nation.

United States ground forces entered Cambodia.

The first female army generals in American history received commissions.

President Nixon announced the first major troop withdrawals from Vietnam, touting the successes if his “Vietnamization” policy.

1971

President Nixon takes the United States off the Gold Standard,

The Libertarian party was founded as a free-market alternative to the two major political parties.

1972

The “equal rights” amendment was sent by Congress to the states for ratification. It failed to receive the states’ approval every time it was brought back for ratification.

Republican Richard Nixon reelected President of the United States in a landslide, but only 55% of the electorate actually voted, the lowest turnout since 1948.

Troop levels down to 27,000 in Vietnam after peaking at about 550,000 in 1969.

1973

President Nixon visited China, thus opening a diplomatic door that had been shut since the communist revolution there in 1949.

The “Watergate scandal” brought together all the enemies of the President to bring about the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned and Michigan Senator Gerald Ford confirmed as his replacement.

1974

Due to the Watergate Scandal, President Nixon became the first President of the United States to resign from office. He was replaced by Vice-President Gerald Ford.

1975

President Ford survived two assassination attempts.

Microsoft became a registered trademark by entrepreneur and inventor Bill Gates.

1976

The Supreme Court ruled in Gregg vs. Georgia that the death penalty “is not inherently cruel or unusual”, overturning a ban that had been in place for ten years.

Georgia Democrat Jimmie Carter elected 39th President of the United States.

1977

Apple Computer incorporated.

The United States transferred ownership of the Panama Canal to the nation of Panama, thus potentially changing the dynamics of security in the region.

1978

Garfield makes his debut, eventually becoming the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world

 

President Carter signs a bill making it legal to brew beer at home. Samuel Adams would be proud!

1979

President Carter established the Department of Education, previously a state prerogative according to the Constitution.

The United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, encouraged by the new cleric-dictator Imam Khomeini, overrun by radical Iranians, taking ninety hostages, most of them Americans.

The United States government bailed out from bankruptcy, the auto-maker Chrysler.

1980

California Republican Ronald Reagan, elected 40th President of the United States.

The Iranian hostage crisis ended with their release on the day of President Reagan’s inauguration.

1981

President Ronald Reagan shot in the chest in an attempted assassination, by John Hinckly. He undergoes emergency surgery and survives with humor intact.

Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court Justice.

1982

Vietnam Veterans Memorial unveiled in Washington D. C. Although controversial in artist and design, the powerful emotional impact of the wall containing all the names of the Americans killed in the Vietnam War became an accepted and beloved symbol of sacrifice.

1983

Korean Airlines Flight 007 was shot down by Russian jets over the Kamchatka Peninsula, killing all aboard, including Congressman Larry MacDonald of Georgia, the most outspoken Conservative and anti-communist in the Congress.

President Reagan signed a bill making the third Monday in January a national holiday in remembrance of the death of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

United States armed forces mounted a mission to rescue medical students trapped in Granada. They defeat the Cuban and Granadan communist forces and seized the island.

1984

Ronald Reagan reelected in a landslide, carrying 49 out of 50 states.

1985

President Regan met with Prime Minister Gorbachev of the Soviet Union for the first time.

1986

United States Space Shuttle, Challenger, broke up in flight, killing all aboard, including civilian school teacher.

Clandestine support given to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua by the United States government, and the connection to activities relating to Iran, scandalized Reagan foreign policy, the so-called arms for hostages deal.

1987

“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!”

On a visit to Berlin, President Reagan called for Soviet Premier Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall and reunite East and West Germany.

The Democratic-dominated Senate rejected the Reagan nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, making it clear that candidates who accepted original intent will not get past the Senate.

1988

Texas Republican George H. W. Bush carried forty states and the election, running on a good economy and with the blessing of the popular President Reagan.

1989

President Bush banned “assault weapons.”

The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was the largest oil tanker disaster in history and the litigation lasted for years.

1990

The Hubble Space Telescope, the largest and most versatile ever launched, launched in 1990, has revealed more information on deep space, as well as the planets in our solar system than any other source. More than 9,000 scholarly articles have been produced based on Hubble discoveries.

1991

The United States went to war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait, an oil rich country that had been invaded by the regime of Sadaam Hussein.

The dissolution of the USSR left the United States as the only real super-power. Several new independent states were recognized by the U.S.

Black conservative Clarence Thomas appointed to the Supreme Court.

1992

Arkansas Democrat William Jefferson Clinton elected 42nd President of the United States.

1993

Islamic terrorists exploded a bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring a thousand.

The Holocaust Museum is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

1994

CIA operative and analyst Aldrich Ames was caught spying for Russia, providing the most damaging intelligence information ever leaked to the Russian secret services. Ames received a sentence of life in prison.

Former President Richard Nixon died, having served as a Representative and Senator from California, Vice-President, two-term President, and author of 11 major books.

1995

Mississippi became the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery.

In a sign that the cold war was thawing, the space shuttle Atlantis docks onto the Russian space station.

1996

Overcoming personal morals scandals, Bill Clinton was reelected President without much difficulty.

1997

The USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”) celebrates its 200 birthday after being fully restored.

1998

President Bill Clinton faced charges that he had lied under oath about having sexual relations in the Oval Office with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  He was impeached by the House of Representatives.

Islamic terrorist organization “al-Qaeda”, linked to Osama bin Laden, attacked two U.S. embassies, killing 224 and wounding more than 4,500.

The United States continued “no-fly” zones over Iraq.

1999

President Clinton not convicted by Senate for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The United States continued supporting the U.N. war in Kosovo with troops, planes, drones, and supplies.