Page 76 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 61

th
Table 2 Engineering/Technology-Related News Stories of the 20 Century*

Engineering/Technology Top 100
Ranking Ranking Year Headline
1 1 1945 U.S. drops Atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki: Japan
surrenders to end World War II
2 2 1969 American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to
walk on the moon
3 3 1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor: U.S. enters World War II
4 4 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright fly the first powered airplane
5 11 1928 Alexander Fleming discovers the first antibiotic, penicillin
6 12 1953 Structure of DNA discovered
7 17 1913 Henry Ford organizes the first major U.S. assembly line to
produce Model T cars
8 18 1957 Soviets launch Sputnik, first space satellite: space race begins
9 20 1960 FDA approves birth control pill
10 21 1953 Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine proven effective in University of
Pittsburgh tests
11 25 1981 Deadly AIDS disease identified
12 28 1939 Television debuts in America at New York World’s Fair
13 30 1927 Charles Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic in first solo flight
14 31 1977 First mass market personal computers launched
15 32 1989 World Wide Web revolutionizes the Internet
16 33 1948 Scientists at Bell Labs invent the transistor
17 35 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis threatens World War III
18 36 1912 “Unsinkable” Titanic, largest man-made structure, sinks
19 40 1909 First regular radio broadcasts begin in America
20 41 1918 Worldwide flu epidemic kills 20 million
21 42 1946 “ENIAC” becomes world’s first computer
22 43 1941 Regular TV broadcasting begins in the United States
23 46 1909 Plastic invented: revolutionizes products, packaging
24 48 1945 Atomic bomb tested in New Mexico
25 51 1959 American scientists patent the computer chip
26 52 1901 Marconi transmits radio signal across the Atlantic
27 57 1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring stimulates environmental
protection movement
28 60 1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes first man in space
29 61 1941 First jet airplane takes flight
30 64 1942 Manhattan Project begins secret work on atomic bomb: Fermi
triggers first atomic chain reaction
31 66 1961 Alan Shepard becomes first American in space
32 70 1961 Communists build wall to divide East and West Berlin
33 75 1928 Joseph Stalin begins forced modernization of the Soviet Union;
resulting famines claim 25 million
34 78 1900 Max Planck proposes quantum theory of energy
35 79 1997 Scientists clone sheep in Great Britain
36 80 1956 Congress passes interstate highway bill
37 81 1914 Panama Canal opens, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
38 83 1986 The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, killing crew
39 87 1958 China begins “Great Leap Forward” modernization program,
estimated 20 million die in ensuing famine
40 90 1962 John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the Earth
41 92 1997 Pathfinder lands on Mars, sending back astonishing photos
42 95 1978 Louise Brown, first “test-tube baby,” born healthy
43 96 1948 Soviets blockade West Berlin: Western allies respond with
massive airlift
44 97 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen start Microsoft Corp. to develop
software for Altair computer
45 98 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion kills more than 7,000

th
*Modified from “The Top 100 News Stories of the 20 Century” (1999 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc.)

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.