Orville Wright makes the first powered airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Communist Party seizes power in Russia, and holds it in an iron fist that does not unclench for 74 years. The toll of human suffering is immense, and leads directly to such tragedies as the Cold War, the enslavement of the individual to the state, and Yakov Smirnoff. Under this statute bootlegging and speakeasies are established as popular institutions, organized crime flourishes, and contempt for the law becomes widespread. It is widely regarded as a triumph of social legislation.
Organized crime sues, citing restraint of trade.
The investigation remains ongoing. 1954 Megaton-range thermonuclear weapons are tested on the Pacific island of Bikini Atoll. The island is subsequently renamed Notmuch Atoll. A blast of psychedelic music ushers in the Summer of Love, followed closely by the Autumn of Nasty Diseases and the Spring of Unwanted New Family Members. The preceding statements are actual quotes.