Two world wars, decolonisation and the technologies that made the present. These articles cover the century within living memory.
A Chisso doctor reported an unknown nervous disease on May 1, 1956. Japan named methylmercury from the plant in 1968; a mercury treaty followed in 2013.
· 1956Royal Assent on February 7, 1957. Section 5 named March 6 as the appointed day; from then the Gold Coast was Ghana, outside British responsibility.
· 1957At 22:28:34 Moscow time on October 4, 1957, an R-7 rocket from Tyuratam put an 83.6-kilogram sphere into orbit. Its beeps lasted three weeks.
· 1957Eleven detainees died at Hola Camp, Kenya, on March 3, 1959. Nairobi blamed a water cart; the inquest found violence. Hansard 1959 to files opened in 2014.
· 1959The world's fourth largest lake lost its rivers to Soviet cotton after 1960. NASA recorded the eastern basin gone in 2014; a 13 km dike saved the north.
· 1960April 1, 1960: the Security Council deplored, 9 to 0 with France and Britain abstaining, policies behind the Sharpeville shooting of March 21 (69 dead).
· 1960A U-2 flight on October 14, 1962 brought back 928 photographs of missile sites in Cuba. Two Khrushchev letters, a lost U-2 and Radio Moscow followed.
· 1962The World Bank lent Japanese National Railways $80 million on May 2, 1961 for the New Tokaido Line. It opened October 1, 1964 at nearly double the budget.
· 1964A shallow shock under central Tashkent on April 26, 1966 left over 300,000 of 1.5 million people homeless. Official deaths were counted as eight or 10.
· 1966Tip No 7 fell on Aberfan on October 21, 1966. A Tribunal blamed the National Coal Board; £150,000 of disaster-fund money paid for tip removal until 1997.
· 1966On May 27, 1967, 90.77% of Australian voters struck eight words from section 51 and all of section 127 of the Constitution; a second question failed.
· 1967On March 8, 1960, UNESCO's director-general launched an appeal to save Nubia's monuments from the Aswan High Dam. Abu Simbel's temples rose 65 meters by 1968.
· 1968At 102:45:58 on July 20, 1969, Armstrong radioed that the Eagle had landed. The transcript, the 1202 alarms, the fuel calls and quarantine to August 10.
· 1969On April 6, 1971, Archer Blood cabled that Washington was 'bending over backwards to placate' Pakistan. Niazi surrendered at Dhaka on December 16.
· 1971OAPEC cut output 5 percent a month from October 17, 1973, and embargoed the United States. A barrel went from $2.90 to $11.65; the ban ended in March 1974.
· 1973Papers count Bhopal's immediate dead at 2,000, 2,500 or 3,800; the 1989 settlement of US$470 million rested on 3,000; 15,310 death claims paid by 2003.
· 1984On July 6, 1986 the UN Secretary-General ruled France owed New Zealand an apology, US$7 million and three years on Hao for two agents. Both left early.
· 1985At 01:23:04 on April 26, 1986, a turbine rundown test began at Chernobyl Unit 4; 45 seconds later a fuel channel ruptured. INSAG-7, Pripyat and the counts.
· 1986On August 21, 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon released stored carbon dioxide, killing at least 1,700 people. A degassing pipe began pumping the lake in 2001.
· 1986At 6:50 p.m. Günter Schabowski read a draft travel rule live and said it took effect 'sofort, unverzüglich.' By 11:30 p.m. Bornholmer Straße was open.
· 1989On November 6, 1991, the Emir of Kuwait extinguished the last of the oil-well fires Iraqi forces had set, the Senate recorded, ending a nine-month effort.
· 1991On June 3, 1992 the High Court of Australia held six to one that Meriam native title to Mer survived annexation; terra nullius had no place in its law.
· 1992An earthquake under northern Awaji Island at 5:46 a.m. on January 17, 1995, was rated M7.2, then M7.3 in 2001. Japan's final count is 6,434 dead.
· 1995Rakhmonov and Nuri signed the General Agreement on Peace and National Accord in Moscow on June 27, 1997. A UN commission and UNMOT then oversaw its terms.
· 1997
