Hmmm....this could be interesting!! So, world history, not American history, I take from the the last answer. I can think of one year, but not the date, that helped to make us more civilized....1066. Are we looking for one in particular, or just pontificating??

We had a massive winter storm this week, fortunately the day after my move - yea!!! Getting organized slowly, as I am a hurting unit - I'm not used to this hard physical work anymore!! lol. Except in the garden!!

Nancy.

Hmmmm, this is going to take a bit of thought, there's so many things it could be, back later.

Annette

Good morning all,
My daughter and her husband, are house hunting. They want to buy close to me so I can baby sit. lol.
Right now they live in a nice tiny apartment in Bayonne NJ. About an hour and a half from me. Slim pickings for their price range. Just rambling again :)

I think day light savings changed the world. I have no idea what day it was when it first started. I believe it was a concept by Ben Franklin. I remember hearing that its saves billions of dollars each year.
:) Laura

Nancy, I have my thought, but you can decide on whatever you think is the day or event that most changed history. Can be anything! I like the idea of the Norman Invasion. One of the responders in the Atlantic article said he couldn't get it correct, so he would pick something that affected him personally. He said May 16, 1983 when Michael Jackson first moonwalked on stage. He said he thinks that is one of the reasons we have a black president today-"People went, wow, black people are sort of magical. And Barak Obama is basically a walking sequin". That was Kamau Bell. I definitely don't concur, but to each his own. We will have to see if that changes the world, but I can't credit Jackson for any of it! I do hope President Obama can change the world for the better, but he certainly can't do it alone.

Anyway, Paul Kennedy of Yale University said the day Thomas Newcomb invented his steam engine because "America would be like a giant Angola without it." Freeman Dyson of Princeton chose the day the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula and "wiped out the dinosaurs, making room for our little primate ancestors to grow big and brainy and to take over the planet." Timothy Snyder of Yale chose December 11, 1241 when the Mongol warrior Batu Khan was poised to take Vienna and destroy the Holy Roman Empire because no European force could have prevented him from reaching the Atlantic, but the death of the Second Great Khan forced him to return to Mongolia to discuss the succession. He said that had the Khan died a few years later, European history as we know it would not have happened.

I like Laura's idea, too. I am leaning toward July 16,1945 at 5:29:21 when the first nuclear device was exploded in New Mexico. I think that truly changed everyone on the planet because suddenly there was the possibility of the destruction of the entire human race by man's hand. I have another day in mind as well. Much more positive than this one.

Some of the folks in the article chose dates or events that I don't think of as having changed the world, Michael Jackson being a case in point. So just enjoy the mental exercise-Nancy, a nice change from all that hard work! I do think it is fun arranging a new place, though! ...or rearranging an old one as I often do. Chuck can never be sure where furniture will be when he comes home-ha.

Cynthia

Then there's the day Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin.

Annette

I can't narrow it down to a single day, but in the late fall of 1947 a little device called the point-contact transistor was invented at AT&T's Bell Labs. That gave us a host of smallish electronic devices like the transistor radio.

In 1958, a man named Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments was able to combine transistors with other devices in a single bit of germanium, making the first integrated circuit, and leading to the development of modern-day marvels like computers and cell phones. A currently available computer has from two to three billion transistors inside, and that number just keeps going up and up.

It's amazing how much life depends on computer technology now, and it all works because of the transistor.

That's my vote.

TM

These are great ideas! Transistors and penicillin-definite game changers!

Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton and a contributing editor to the Atlantic chose July 4,1776 because it "was the first public assertion of human equality as a legitimate rationale for political action. The Declaration would eventually eat away at the formal barriers of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and any other differences that human beings have created to hold some down and raise others up." Now, that I agree with and this would be for me the answer to the question. At least for the moment. Still thinking about all the other choices you have offered.

BTW, here is a little trivia, the vote in the Continental Congress that passed the Declaration actually took place on July 2, 1776 and John Adams wrote that that day would be remembered in the annals of history and celebrated with fireworks. The written Declaration was dated July 4, but wasn't signed until August 2nd and some signed later than that!

Oh, and Christina Paxson named the day Gutenberg finished the printing press as her choice.

Cynthia

I am thinking more along the line as Dyson. IMO the day the first man stood upright changed the world for humans.

Michael Jackson may have changed pop rock but I don't think he is responsible for Obama being President. The civil rights movement of the sixties was a major factor in America's acceptance of the rights of blacks and other suppressed people in our society. And we still have a long way to go.
I also credit science fiction as a positive influence through the depiction of societies that are inclusive of all peoples.

Ooooohhhh, I hurt. A friend came over and helped me place furniture in the living room and hang pictures/art.This is the first house were I essentially had no idea where to put things - it looks quite nice, and slightly organized !!~

I actually meant 15 June 1215, but didn't take the time to double check - this was the Magna Carta, the first set of rights for people. I know it was meant originally for titled and entitled wasps, but it was unique idea and the first of it's kind. Very important, I should say!!

Nancy.

There are so many possibilities and we can make good arguments for each. This morning, I thought maybe the discovery of the atom, but then that could go back to van Leeuwenhoek again as would so many later discoveries.

Thanks for sharing. I am happy to say that next week, we will experience Laura's pick-Daylight Saving(s) Time-never sure about that 's'! Can't wait, even though it means getting up for school in the dark again.

**** stars for everyone for your wonderful ideas. Thanks for playing. Back to trivia today and next next week!

Cynthia

Thanks Cyn - good mental exercise!! I think we/I did a trivia question about DST!! A good idea, indeed.

Nancy.

Thanks, Cynthia, for the though provoking question. It was interesting to see everyone's answer as each took a different area on which to focus.

I final got a star!!! yeah me.
thanks for the fun.
:) Laura

Thanks, Cynthia, for a different, and good(!), kind of question this weekend. I like the open-ended questions at least as much as our usual fare. It's good to mix them up a little.

Hope you get your snow day Tuesday. A school near me has had 12 of them so far this winter!

TM