| Year |
Event |
| 1818
|
Illinois
becomes the 21st state of the United States of America |
| 1833
|
Chicago
becomes a city |
| 1850 |
George E. Gerts,
founds his
Company
on Wells Street, just north of Randolph, one of the 10 oldest manufacturers in the City |
|
Compromise of 1850 passed |
|
California becomes a state |
| 1853 |
Franklin Pierce becomes President |
| 1857 |
James Buchanan becomes President |
| Panic of 1857 |
| 1858 |
Minnesota becomes a state |
|
Lincoln-Douglas Debates |
| 1860 |
Mr. Gerts is joined by Mr. Henry Lumbard |
|
Pony Express begins. |
| Abraham Lincoln
elected President of the United States |
|
South
Carolina secedes from the Union |
| 1861 |
Ten more states secede from the Union and establish the
Confederate States of America |
|
Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy |
|
American Civil War begins at
Fort Sumter |
| 1862 |
| Lincoln issues
Emancipation Proclamation (to 1863) |
| 1863 |
Battle of Gettysburg |
| 1864 |
Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant put in command of all Union forces |
| 1865 |
The Factory is relocated to 204 Randolph Street,
just east of Wells |
|
Robert E. Lee made commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces |
| Lee surrenders to Grant at
Appomattox Court House |
|
Abraham Lincoln assassinated;
Andrew Johnson becomes President |
|
American Civil War ends as the last elements of the Confederacy surrender |
|
13th Amendment passes, permanently outlawing slavery |
| 1868 |
|
Ulysses S. Grant is elected president |
| 1871 |
Great Chicago Fire |
|
The
Company was reorganized shortly after the Great FIre, the new home being on Wood
Street, just north of Chicago Avenue. |
| 1875 |
|
Civil Rights Act of 1875 |
| 1876 |
|
Wild Bill Hickok is killed by a shot to the back of his head by
Jack McCall while playing poker in
Deadwood, South Dakota. He held
aces and eights, now known as the
Dead man's hand. |
|
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone |
| 1877 |
Microphone was invented by Emile
Berliner |
| Phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison |
| 1879 |
Thomas Edison invents
light bulb |
| 1880 |
Gerts, Lombard & Co. begin erecting a new factory located at
the corner of Hoyne and Indiana Streets (Indiana St. later named Grand Avenue) |
| 1881 |
The
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in
Tombstone,
Arizona Territory |
|
Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff
Pat Garrett |
| 1882 |
|
Jesse James was shot and killed by
Robert and
Charlie Ford |
| 1883 |
Buffalo Bill Cody debuts his
Wild West Show. Variations run into the 20th century with more than 1200 participants. Famed early participants include:
Sitting Bull,
Geronimo,
Calamity Jane, and
Annie Oakley. |
| 1885 |
Motor cycle was invented by
Gottlieb Daimler and
Wilhelm Maybach |
| 1890
|
|
Idaho and
Wyoming become states |
|
Wounded Knee Massacre |
|
National American Woman Suffrage Association founded |
| 1891 |
Gerts, Lumbard & Co. Incorporates as an Illinois Corporation |
| Zipper was invented by
Whitcomb L. Judson |
| 1896
|
|
Radio signals were invented by
Guglielmo Marconi
|
| Diesel engine was invented by Rudolf
Diesel |
|
Gold discovered in the
Yukon's
Klondike |
|
Utah becomes a state |
| 1898 |
USS Maine explodes in
Havana,
Cuba harbor, precipitating the
Spanish-American War |
|
Treaty of Paris (1898) ends
Spanish-American War,
Philippine-American War begins |
|
Hawaii annexed |
| 1901 |
|
Theodore Roosevelt becomes
President |
| 1903 |
|
Ford Motor Company formed |
|
The
Wright brothers make their first powered flight in the
Wright Flyer |
| 1907 |
Oklahoma becomes a state |
| 1908 |
Ford Model T appears on market |
| 1912 |
RMS
Titanic sinks |
|
New Mexico and
Arizona become states |
| 1913 |
|
Henry Ford develops the modern
assembly line |
| 1914 |
World War I begins in Europe |
| 1915 |
|
RMS
Lusitania sunk |
| 1916 |
U.S. acquires
Virgin Islands |
| 1917 |
| U.S. enters
World War I |
| 1919 |
|
18th Amendment, establishing
Prohibition |
| 1920 |
19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote |
| 1923 |
Electronic Television was
invented by Philo
Farnsworth |
| 1924
|
|
J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the
Bureau of Investigation — predecessor to the
FBI. |
| 1926 |
NBC founded as the U.S.'s first major broadcast network |
| 1927 |
|
Charles Lindbergh makes first trans-Atlantic flight |
|
The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie" (motion picture with sound) is released |
| 1928 |
|
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. |
|
Antibiotics were invented by
Alexander Fleming |
| 1929
|
|
St. Valentine's Day massacre |
| The
Dow Jones Industrial Average plummets a record 68 points over a two-day period, setting off the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 and triggering the
Great Depression |
| 1930 |
The Company purchases the entire capital
assets of the Burton Boston Brush Company of
Cambridge, Mass. |
| 1931 |
Empire State Building opens in New York City. |
| 1933 |
|
Chicago celebrates its Centennial -
A Century of
Progress |
|
21st Amendment, ending
Prohibition |
| 1934 |
|
John Dillinger killed |
| 1935 |
|
Social Security Act |
| 1937 |
|
Hindenburg disaster, killing 35 people and marking an end to airship travel |
| 1938 |
|
Orson Welles'
The War of the Worlds broadcast |
|
Ballpoint pen was invented by Laszlo
Biro |
| 1939
|
|
Nazi Germany invades Poland;
World War II begins |
| 1941 |
Regular commercial television broadcasting begins;
NBC television launched. |
|
Attack on Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters World War II by declaring war on Japan the next day on December 8; and three days later against Germany and Italy. |
| 1944 |
|
D-Day |
| 1945 |
|
Germany surrenders,
end of World War II in Europe |
|
Atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Days later,
Japan surrenders, ending World War II |
|
UN founded after
World War II replacing the
League of Nations |
| 1947 |
|
Polaroid camera invented |
|
Studebaker becomes the first automobile manufacturer to introduce a "post-war" model; most automakers wait until 1948 or 1949 |
| 1949 |
| Soviet Union tests its first
atomic bomb |
| Germany divided into
East and
West |
| Gerts, Lombard & Company moves to its operations from the
Grand Avenue factory to the new larger modern facility located at
3407-25 North Kimball Ave. |
| 1950 |
|
The Company celebrates its 100th Anniversary
Year |
| 1951 |
| General
Douglas MacArthur fired by President Truman for comments about using nuclear weapons on China |
|
The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, California from the
Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. One month later, the situation comedy
I Love Lucy premieres on
CBS, sparking the rise of television in the American home and the
Golden Age of Television. |
| 1955 |
|
Jonas Salk develops
polio vaccine |
| Actor
James Dean is killed in a highway collision on his way to a racetrack in
Salinas, California, while driving his racing
Porsche 550 Spyder. |
| 1956 |
|
Elvis Presley appears on
The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. |
| 1959 |
The NBC western
Bonanza becomes the first drama to be broadcast in color |
|
Alaska and
Hawaii become the 49th and 50th U.S. states; to date, they are the final two states admitted to the union. |
| 1961 |
|
John F. Kennedy becomes President |
|
Vietnam War officially begins with 900 military advisors landing in
Saigon |
| 1962 |
|
John Glenn orbits the Earth, becoming the first American to do so |
|
Cuban Missile Crisis, which becomes the closest nuclear confrontation (as of 2010) involving the U.S. and USSR |
|
Marilyn Monroe dies of an apparent overdose from acute
barbiturate poisoning at 36. |
| 1963 |
| President Kennedy assassinated in
Dallas;
Lyndon Johnson becomes President. The man accused of assassinating President Kennedy,
Lee Harvey Oswald, is shot and killed as he is led to jail by Dallas nightclub owner
Jack Ruby.. The assassination marks the first 24-hour coverage of a major news event by the major networks. |
| Computer
mouse was invented by
Douglas Engelbart |
| 1964
|
The Beatles arrive in the U.S., and subsequent appearances on
The Ed Sullivan Show, mark the start of the
British Invasion (or, an increased number of rock and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular around the world, including the U.S.) |
|
Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, and ended
racial segregation in the United States |
| 1967 |
| The first
Super Bowl is played, with the
Green Bay Packers defeating the
Kansas City Chiefs 35–10. |
| 1968 |
Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate
Robert F. Kennedy assassinated two months apart |
|
C & C Building incorporates and purchases the former Gerts.
Lumbard & Co. factory building located at 500-508 N
Hoyne Ave & 2100-2118 W Grand Ave |
| 1969 |
|
Neil Armstrong walks on the
Moon |
| The
Woodstock Festival in
White Lake, New York becomes an enormously successful musical and cultural gathering; a milestone for the baby-boom generation |
| 1971 |
President
Richard Nixon ends the United States
Gold standard monetary policy known as the
Nixon Shock |
| 1975 |
|
Sony's
Betamax becomes the first commercially successful home video recording unit |
| 1977 |
| The first home personal computer,
Commodore PET, released for retail sale |
|
Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll dies in his home in Graceland at age 42. 75,000 fans lined the streets of Memphis for this funeral |
| 1979 |
Three Mile Island nuclear accident, which is America's most serious nuclear power plant accident in its history. |
| 1980 |
|
John Lennon assassinated |
| 1986 |
|
Space Shuttle
Challenger accident, killing all seven aboard (inclduing school teacher
Christa McAuliffe) and grounding the nation's space program for 2½ years. |
| 1989 |
| President Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end. Symbolic elsewhere around the world was the fall of the
Berlin Wall in Germany |
| 1990 |
Hubble Space Telescope launched during
Space Shuttle Discovery mission. |
|
World Wide Web was invented by Tim
Berners-Lee |
| 1991
| The
Gulf War is waged in the Middle East, by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations, led by the U.S. and United Kingdom, against Iraq. |
|
Cold War ends as the
USSR dissolves. |
| 1995 |
|
A heat wave kills 750 in Chicago, bringing to attention the plight of the urban poor and the elderly in extreme weather conditions. |
| 2001 |
|
September 11th terrorist attacks; 19 terrorists
hijack four planes and crash them into the
World Trade Center, the
Pentagon, and a field in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000
people and injuring over 6,000. All civilian air
traffic is suspended for 3 days, the first time an
unplanned suspension had occurred in U.S. history. |
| 2003 |
| In Iraq, deposed Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. special forces. |
| 2007 |
| The
Late-2000s recession officially begins in December. |
| 2009 |
Barack Hussein Obama II is
inaugurated as the 44th
President of the United States. He is also the first African-American to hold the office. |
| 2011 |
|
Osama bin Laden, leader of
al-Qaeda and mastermind of the
September 11 attacks, is killed in
Abbottabad, Pakistan by sailors from the
United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group. |