100 Turning Points in American History

Arnold J. Toynbee, the most famous professional historian of the twentieth century, is widely quoted as having declared that “History is just one damn thing after another.” This book argues that history is not about “things” at all but is all about turning points—the decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures on which the shape of a nation’s life—our lives—depends. It presents the one hundred points at which America’s path decisively turned on its way to where we find ourselves today.

Columbus arrives in the New World

The first slaves arrive in America

Independence is declared

Female suffragists meet in Seneca Falls

Fort Sumter falls

A transcontinental railroad is completed

Edison lights his first electric lamp

FDR offers a “New Deal”

The B-29 Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima

Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon

President Nixon creates the EPA

9/11, Obama, Sandy Hook, Russian election “meddling,” and the Age of Trump

These and many more are the crucial “plot points” in our grand national story, and bestselling historian Alan Axelrod presents them here.