Defining events in the life of the Greatest Generation¶

Events grouped by the life stage the Greatest Generation cohort (born 1914–1924) was in when they happened.

Childhood (ages 6–12)¶

• 1929 — Black Thursday: Wall Street Crash of 1929

Teenage years (ages 13–20)¶

• 1933 — Hitler becomes Germany's dictator

Adulthood (ages 21–60)¶

• 1941 — The movie "Citizen Kane" is released
• 1941 — Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
• 1944 — D-Day: Allied Forces land in Normandy
• 1945 — Hitler commits suicide
• 1945 — The first atomic bomb falls on Hiroshima
• 1954 — NBC made the first coast-to-coast color TV broadcast
• 1960 — Berry Gordy Jr launches Motown Records
• 1960 — The movie "Psycho" was released
• 1960 — In Japan, NHK and NTV introduces color television
• 1962 — Marilyn Monroe dies
• 1963 — John F Kennedy is assassinated
• 1964 — First performance of the Beatles on the US Ed Sullivan show
• 1966 — Color television in Canada was launched on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) English language TV service
• 1967 — BBC2 starts transmittin TV in color
• 1972 — Brazil began TV broadcasting in color using PAL-M
• 1972 — Francis For Coppola release the first Godfather movie
• 1973 — Roe vs Wade: the right to have an abortion
• 1974 — Nixon resigns over Watergate scandal
• 1977 — The first Star Wars movie is released
• 1977 — Elvis Presley dies

Later life (ages 61–80)¶

• 1980 — CNN is launched
• 1980 — John Lennon is killed on the streets of NYC
• 1981 — First news story on AIDS
• 1981 — MTV is launched
• 1982 — Michael Jackson releases the album "Thriller"
• 1983 — Nena releases "99 Luftballons"
• 1984 — The first Terminator movie is released
• 1984 — The Bhopal disaster exposes 500000 people to highly toxic gas
• 1985 — Live Aid concert
• 1985 — Rock Hudson dies of AIDS
• 1986 — Chernobyl nuclear disaster
• 1988 — The movie Die Hard is a surprise hit and becomes an even bigger surprise Christmas classic
• 1989 — The tanker Exxon Valdez spills its oil in the ocean
• 1989 — Fall of the Berlin Wall
• 1990 — The movie Home Alone hits the screens
• 1994 — Genocide in Rwanda kills more than 500000 people
• 1994 — Pulp Fiction wins Palme D'Or at Canne Film festival
• 1994 — The TV series "Friends" launches
• 1995 — Microsoft launches the Windows95 OS
• 1996 — Los Del Rio & Bayside Boys release "Macarena" - english version
• 1997 — The book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is published, the first of a very successful series
• 1997 — "Titanic" launches and will grow to the biggest boxoffice ever
• 1998 — Bill Clinton denies affair with Monica Lewinsky

Last updated: 2026-06-04