From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
Timeline 1900s

1492-1695 | 1700s | 1800s | 1900s | 2000s

Year	World Events	American Jewish Events	American Events
1900	Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams 1900 Paris Exposition	Jewish population estimated at between 938,000 -1.058 million (1.23-1.39 percent of total population) Workmen's Circle is established in New York to promote mutual aid, Yiddish culture, and labor solidarity among Jewish workers	International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is founded
1901		The Industrial Removal Office is established to help relocate Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side, New York, to communities across the United States	President William McKinley is assassinated; Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the U.S. President
1902		Agudath ha-Rabbanim, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, is founded in New York
1903	Forty-nine Jews are killed and 92 are severely wounded in the Kishinev pogram Settlers of the Second Aliyah begin to arrive in Palestine	A bronze tablet containing Emma Lazarus's poem, "The New Colossus" is affixed to the base of the Statue of Liberty	Orville and Wilbur Wright make first sustained airplane flight U.S. gains control over the Panama Canal Henry Ford founds Ford Motor Company
1905		American Jews celebrate the 250th anniversary of receiving the right to settle in New Amsterdam
1906		In response to the Kishinev pogroms, the American Jewish Committee is founded to safeguard Jewish rights internationally Oscar Straus is appointed Secretary of Labor and Commerce, the first Jew to hold a U.S. Cabinet post	San Francisco earthquake Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle
1909	Robert E. Peary reaches the North Pole		National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded Protesting intolerable working conditions, 20,000 shirtwaist makers go on strike
1911	Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole		One hundred and forty-six women die tragically in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York
1912	Titanic sinks on maiden voyage across Atlantic ocean	Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America Financier and philanthropist Jacob Schiff purchases large Hebrew book collection for Library of Congress, leading to the establishment of the Semitic Division in the following year
1913	In Kiev, Mendel Beilis, target of a blood libel, is acquitted after a sensational trial	B'nai B'rith founds the Anti-Defamation League to combat anti-Semitism in the United States, in response to the Atlanta trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager wrongly accused of murder
1914	World War I begins During First World War, Russian forces in retreat drive 600,000 Jews from their homes	American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is founded to provide funds and assistance for Jewish war relief First boarding house for Jewish vacationers opens in the Catskills, which will lead to the development of the area into a major vacation destination of national reputation	Panama Canal is opened
1915		A mob kidnaps and lynches Leo Frank on learning that the governor of Georgia had committed Frank's death sentence to life in prison
1916		Louis Brandeis becomes first Jewish Supreme Court justice
1917	Russian Revolution brings Vladimir Lenin to power in Russia Balfour Declaration declares that the British government favors the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine		United States enters World War I
1918		American Jewish Congress is founded to help secure Jewish rights in post-War Europe and Palestine	Worldwide influenza epidemic strikes, killing more than 25 million people over two years
1919	Prohibition begins Anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to the Soviet Union
1920	League of Nations is established in Geneva, Switzerland, and the United States does not join	Jewish population: between 3.3-3.6 million (3.12-3.41 percent of total population)	Constitutional amendment grants women the right to vote Henry Ford publishes anti-Semitic propaganda in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent
1921			Margaret Sanger forms the America Birth Control League, the predecessor to Planned Parenthood Clinics
1922		Mordecai M. Kaplan founds the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the cradle of the Reconstructionist movement; Judith Kaplan (Eisenstein), Kaplan's daughter, celebrates first American Bat Mitzvah
1923		George Gershwin composes "Rhapsody in Blue"
1924			Immigration Act severely limits immigration
1925	Hebrew University opens in Jerusalem with American rabbi Judah L. Magnes as chancellor First volume of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is published	Florence Prag Kahn of San Francisco becomes the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives	The Scopes Trial puts the theory of evolution on trial
1927	Charles Levine becomes the first transatlantic air passenger	Warner Brothers produces drama of Jewish acculturation, The Jazz Singer, the first film with sound	Charles A. Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic
1928	Alexander Fleming formulates penicillin	Yeshiva College is dedicated in New York The first chair in Jewish history at a secular university in the United States is endowed at Columbia University	First scheduled television broadcast in New York
1929			U.S. Stock market crashes on October 29th
1930	Mahatma Gandhi leads the March to the Sea, where thousands gather to protest a government tax on salt	Jewish population: between 4.228–4.4 million (3.44–3.58 percent of total population)
1931			Construction of Empire State Building completed, making it the tallest building in the world at the time
1932			Amelia Earhart is the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
1933	Albert Einstein leaves his academic post in Nazi Germany to reside in United States Adolf Hitler becomes German chancellor, and initiates a series of anti-Jewish actions	The American Jewish Congress declares a boycott of German goods to protest the Nazi persecution of Jews	Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated President
1934		Hank Greenberg, first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, refuses to play on Yom Kippur
1935	Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of their civil rights
1936	Spanish Civil War begins Edward VIII abdicates the British throne to wed American divorcee Wallis Simpson
1937	Pablo Picasso paints Guernica		Golden Gate Bridge is completed in San Francisco
1938	German synagogues and Jewish businesses are destroyed on Kristallnacht, or "The Night of Broken Glass" Germany annexes Austria		Father Charles E. Coughlin launches a media campaign against Jews on his popular radio program and in his widely-read magazine, Social Justice
1939	Germany invades Poland, World War II begins		America refuses entry to the St. Louis carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany Irving Berlin introduces his song "God Bless America"
1940	Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom	Jewish population: between 4.77 and 4.83 million (3.63-3.68 percent of total population)	First electron microscope is demonstrated in New Jersey
1941			Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and the United States officially enters World War II
1942		Rabbi Stephen S. Wise receives the "Riegner Telegram" confirming the Nazi intention to murder the Jews of Europe and turns to the State Department for help	War Relocation Authority interns Japanese Americans Electronic computer is developed in the U.S. "Manhattan Project" of atomic research begins
1944	D-Day. Allied forces attack at the beaches of Normandy, France	Camp for Jewish war refugees is opened at Oswego, New York	Franklin Delano Roosevelt establishes the War Refugee Board
1945	World War II ends International tribunal for war crimes is established at Nuremberg United Nations is established	Bess Myerson becomes the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America Pageant	President Franklin Roosevelt dies in office and Vice-President Harry S Truman takes over U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II
1946	Winston Churchill gives his "Iron Curtain" speech in Missouri		Bernard Baruch presents the U.S. policy statement for the control of atomic energy to the United Nations
1947	Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered in the Judean desert The U.N. General Assembly votes to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab		Marshall Plan for post-war recovery of European nations is introduced
1948	State of Israel is established Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated in India	Brandeis University is founded as first nonsectarian, Jewish-sponsored, institution of higher education	President Harry S Truman recognizes the State of Israel within its first hour of existence U.S. Congress passes the Marshall Plan
1949	Chaim Weizmann is elected first president of Israel N.A.T.O. treaty signed
1950	The Korean War breaks out	Jewish population: between 4.5 and 5 million (2.98-3.31 percent of total population)
1951			Color television is introduced
1952	Yiddish writers and other Jewish cultural figures are executed in the U.S.S.R. on "Night of the Murdered Poets" Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England
1953	James Watson and Francis Crick decipher the structure of DNA		Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted and executed for espionage
1954		American Jewish community celebrates tercentenary of Jewish life in America Stern College for Women is created as a branch of Yeshiva University in New York City	Supreme Court issues ruling in Brown v. Board of Education ending legal segregation in U.S. schools The phrase "under God" is added to the Pledge of Allegiance
1955			Polio vaccine is developed by Jonas Salk and is licensed for use Martin Luther King Jr. initiates the bus boycott to end racial segregation on public transportation in the South
1956	Suez Canal Crisis
1957	The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I into orbit and begins the "space race"
1958		Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta is dynamited by a group of extreme segregationists	Leonard Bernstein becomes first American-born musician to be appointed Music Director and Conductor of the New York Philharmonic Symphony
1959	Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba		Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states
1960	Adolf Eichmann is captured and later stands trial in Israel for World War II crimes against Jews and humanity	The movie version of Leon Uris's novel Exodus is released
1961	Berlin Wall goes up, dividing East and West Germany
1963			President John F. Kennedy is assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1964		Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry founded to protest Soviet anti-Jewish policies Fiddler on the Roof opens on Broadway	Thousands of activists travel to Mississippi to register African-American voters during Freedom Summer. Three, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, are murdered
1965			Abraham Joshua Heschel walks with Martin Luther King Jr. on civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama
1967	"Six Day War" between Israel and its neighbors
1968	Polish government outlaws Jewish language and institutions		Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy are assassinated
1969		Association for Jewish Studies founded	Vietnam War protests take place across the country Neil Armstrong becomes first man on moon
1970		Jewish population estimated at between 5.37 and 6 million (2.64-2.95 percent of total population)
1972	Eleven Israeli Olympians in Munich are murdered in terrorist attack	Hebrew Union College ordains Sally J. Priesand, making her America's first woman rabbi
1973	"Yom Kippur War" between Israel and its neighbors	The first National Jewish Women's Conference is held in New York, attended by over 400 women
1974			Jackson-Vanick amendment passes, linking free emigration from Russia to "most favored nation" trade status In the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal, President Richard M. Nixon resigns
1976	The Concorde, a supersonic jet, takes flight and starts regular service between London, Paris, and U.S.	Lilith, the Jewish feminist magazine, begins publication	The United States of America celebrates its bicentennial
1977			First flight of space shuttle
1978	Camp David Accords result in peace treaty between Israel and Egypt First "test-tube" baby is born in England	Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature	American Nazi party marches in Skokie, Illinois
1979	Margaret Thatcher becomes first woman prime minister of Britain Shah of Iran is ousted and Ayatollah Khomeini sets up an Islamic Republic		U.S. hostages are taken in Iran Three Mile Island nuclear accident
1980		First Jewish film festival is held in San Francisco	Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington state
1981	Anwar Sadat is assassinated		Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is identified
1983		Jewish Theological Seminary votes to ordain women as Conservative rabbis	Sally Ride becomes the first American female astronaut
1984	Israel launches "Operation Moses," the clandestine airlift of 25,000 Ethiopian Jews in Sudanese refugee camps to Israel (through 1985)	Madeleine M. Kunin is elected governor of Vermont, becoming the first Jewish woman governor in the United States Shoshana Cardin of Baltimore becomes the first woman president of the National Council of Jewish Federations	Macintosh computer with "mouse" is launched 15,000 Holocaust survivors gather in Washington, D.C
1986	Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Ukraine	Elie Wiesel wins Nobel Peace Prize	Space shuttle Challenger explodes
1989	Soviet Union permits Jews to emigrate freely The Berlin Wall falls Tiananmen Square Massacre
1990	Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela is freed in South Africa
1991	Republics of the Soviet Union gain independence		U.S. and allies begin Operation Desert Storm
1992	NAFTA Trade Pact signed by U.S., Canada, and Mexico	The first Jewish women senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, are elected to the U.S. Senate – representing California
1993	Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are signed in a ceremony on the White House lawn		Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes first Jewish woman Supreme Court justice The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opens in Washington, D.C.
1995	Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated		Oklahoma City bombing of U.S. federal building