Do You Know the Most Famous Dates in History?

On Dec. 7, 1941, a day that will live forever in infamy, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, sparking America's entry into World War II and changing the calculus of the world's deadliest-ever conflict.

In December 1903, the Wright Brothers conducted the first successful flight of an airplane. Within years, planes were transforming the way humans perceived transportation, warfare and exploration.

On Aug. 26, 1920, American women finally got the right to vote, nearly a century and a half after the United States was formed on the principles of "all men are created equal."

On June 28, 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in large part because the Archduke's carriage driver took a wrong turn. His murder sparked World War I.

President Abraham Lincoln was attending a play on April 14, 1865, when an assassin shot him in the back. He died shortly thereafter, ending the life of the man who helped save the Union during the Civil War.

On July 4, 1776, the American colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, which asserted their intention to sever Britain's control of the New World. King George responded with death threats. You know how that one ended.

On a fateful day in the autumn of 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy. The murder churned American politics and ripped the fabric of an entire society.

In 1783, American and British officials signed the Treaty of Paris, which brought a formal end to the American Revolution. For the first time in human history, a small group of freedom-minded people had banded together for independence from an all-powerful monarchy.

The Nazis crushed millions of lives in Europe in the early 1940s. On June 6, 1944, the Allies undertook a daring European invasion of their own. Their success or failure would determine the course of humanity for generations.

In April 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. They captured the fort, and the bloodiest war in American history was on.

In October of 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, becoming the first European to log information about the New World. His discovery encouraged Europeans to sail in droves across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Jamestown colonists were starving and desperate -- they set out to leave the New World to return to England. But on that fateful June 8, a new governor arrived with fresh supplies, and this time, Jamestown thrived, meaning that for the next century and a half, the English would dominate the East Coast.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented a wooden printing press. His new creation changed the way humans shared and stored knowledge, setting the groundwork for untold advances in civilization.

Japan just didn't want to quit World War II, and President Harry Truman wasn't inclined to keep grinding away for endless months using ground troops. Instead, American forces dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the age of atomic weapons was officially underway.

On July 20, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon. It was the first time that humans had ever performed such an incredible feat, and it was watched on TVs around the world.

In 1803, the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase, which included land that encompassed 15 current states and two Canadian provinces. The agreement permanently altered America's size and culture, setting the stage for unprecedented growth.

Hitler, exasperated by his army's inability to capture Britain, redirected his tantrums toward the Soviet Union. His decision to open the Eastern Front greatly diminished Germany's ability to control World War II ... and may have cost the Nazis the war.

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. It symbolized the end of Communist oppression and gave fresh hopes of freedom to millions of people.

In the case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Yet decades later, America is still reeling from the effects of racial tensions.

In November 2008, Barack Obama was elected to the office of U.S. President. In a land that once paraded slaves, a man of African-American descent became the most powerful politician in the world.

On July 1, 1916, WWI's Battle of the Somme began. More than 1 million men were killed or wounded, making it one of the most horrifying armed clashes in human history.

In April 1961, Gagarin boarded his Vostok spacecraft and blasted into outer space. He was the first person ever to achieve orbit.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler's political rise reached a disturbing new high -- he was appointed chancellor of Germany. He immediately set about shaping a society that he'd later use to start World War II.

Muhammed, the man who brought together the peoples of the Middle East, was born in 571. Like Jesus, he permanently altered the society around him.

In 1976, the fallout of the Watergate Scandal became radioactive -- so destructive that it toppled a U.S. president. Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office, and his legacy would never be the same.

As Americans across the Atlantic basked in their new independence, French citizens languished in rotting society. They stormed the Bastille, sparking the French Revolution, and democracy would never again look quite the same.

You don't have to be a Christian (or even remotely religious) to appreciate that Jesus Christ altered the course of humanity. His teachings laid the groundwork for a religion that shapes societies all over the Earth.

In 1953, humans had already mastered the development of complex nuclear weapons. But they had yet to climb the highest mountain in the world, a feat that finally came to fruition on May 29, thanks to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

On Aug. 20, 1998, President Bill Clinton launched a cruise missile strike at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Intelligence suggested that America missed killing Osama bin Laden. If he'd been killed before 9/11, the world today would likely be a very different place.