var arrayFacts=[
"I need a raise.
The average American salary in 1900 was under $500 per year.",
"In hindsight...
In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated on September 6. He was shot twice by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.
The President was shot at the Pan-American Exposition which was displaying a new machine - the X-ray. No one thought to use the machine to find the bullet, which could have saved the President's life.",
"Did you feel that?
On April 18, 1906 an earthquake rocked San Francisco. It began at about 5am and lasted for less than a minute. But that was enough to cause incredible damage.
700 lives were lost (some historians place the figure at 6,000) as well as much of the great city, mostly by the fires afterward. The earthquake eventually cost the city over $4,000,000 in damage, a remarkable figure at the time. It ranks as one of the worst natural disasters in American history.",
"Smart kid.
On January 15, 1929 Martin Luther King Jr was born in Atlanta Georgia. His father and grandfather were both ministers and his mother was a schoolteacher. Martin Jr was an excellent student and skipped grades in both elementary School and High School. He entered Morehouse College when he was only 15.",
"Excuse me, Mr. President...
In 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt pointing out that an extremely powerful bomb could possibly be made using atomic power. He also suggested that the Germans might be developing such technology.
It was 6 years later when this technology was used by the US for the first time when it dropped the Atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II.",
"Thanks, but no thanks.
In 1952, Albert Einstein declined the presidency of Israel. ",
"That's ironic.
In 1921, a pamphlet entitled Adolph Hitler: Is he a traitor? was released in Germany, claiming Hitler was power hungry and had surrounded himself by men prone to violence. The pamphlet was published in a newspaper. Hitler sued the newspaper for libel and won a small settlement.",
"Just getting worse and worse
160,000,000 people died as a result of war in the 20th Century. In the first day of the Battle of Somme during World War I the British alone lost about 20,000 men - that is only 5,000 less than all American Revolutionaries lost during the American War for Independence.",
"The horror.
After the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the copilot looked back at the explosion and said, 'Oh my God, what have we done?'",
"Don't believe everything you read.
The Presidential Election of 1948 was a hotly contested contest between Thomas E. Dewey and President Harry Truman. The election is remembered for The Chicago Tribune running the headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman' on its front page the day after the election but it turned out they were wrong - Truman had won the election after a remarkable come from behind victory.",
"Life is short.
Life expectancy in 1901 in the United States was 49 years. At the end of the 20th Century it was 77.",
"Never show a weakness.
Throughout much of his life President Franklin D. Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair. In 1921 he contracted a disease that caused paralysis in his body, especially in his lower extremities.
Believing his disability would hurt his chances in public office, Roosevelt hid his infirmity. He convinced many reporters that his problem was only temporary and he was getting better. He had his hips and legs fitted with iron braces and he taught himself to walk awkwardly in brief spurts. In public he would have someone next to him so they could support him, and when speaking he made sure to have an extra sturdy podium to hang on too.",
"Old fashioned Standoff!
On October 16, 1962 a US reconnaissance mission discovered Soviet nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba. The US saw this as a direct threat, since the island is only 90 miles from the Florida coast.
US and Soviet officials had a tense standoff over the issue, which finally ended on October 28, 1962 when the missiles were dismantled. This was the closest the US ever came to nuclear war. ",
"Break Out!
After the Soviet occupation of East Berlin, citizens immediately began trying to escape. In one day, the entire Mathematics Department of the University of Leipzig defected to West Berlin.
To keep the workers in East Berlin, East German troops began constructing a barrier through the city on August 13, 1961. First a barbed wire fence, it eventually became a 96-mile wall that literally cut the historic city in half. The famous Berlin Wall was eventually brought down in 1989.",
"No Man's Land
The infamous 'no man's land' of the Berlin Wall was established by running another wall parallel to the original Berlin Wall. The no man's land was wired, booby-trapped, covered in red gravel to make spotting foot prints easier, and offered guards a clear shot of escapees.
There were about 5,000 escape attempts into West Berlin, with about 220 being successful. Some escapees tried scaling the wall, others jumped out of apartments to the other side. Some of the successful attempts included long underground tunnels, flying an ultra light over the wall, and one man driving a sports car underneath the barricade at the famous Checkpoint Charlie.",
"Wild Bill...
In 1941, 'Wild Bill' Donovan formed an agency under the directives of President Roosevelt called The Coordinator of Intelligence. In 1942 the agency was renamed the OSS and its primary mission was to train resistance movements and conduct guerrilla operations against the Germans.
The OSS disbanded after the war, but from it came the group of men and techniques that formed the Central Intelligence Agency on September 18, 1947. ",
"We're the Green Berets...
Colonel Aaron Bank went to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in the spring of 1952 to find personnel and a location for his new unit called the Special Forces. Later it became famous as The Green Berets.
Bank envisioned a small group of highly trained, highly disciplined men who could be placed into an enemy area and stir up a disproportionate about of trouble. He felt this tactic would be most effective in Communist countries.",
"The Soccer War.
In June 1969 the Honduran and El Salvadoran soccer teams were playing in a three game elimination match for the World Cup. Tempers began to flare during the first match, and increased into the second match. Out and out fighting began between the fans.
An unknown number of people from both countries were brutalized or even killed. On June 27, 1969 Honduras broke off relations with El Salvador. And on July 14 military action began in what became known as the Soccer War.",
"The Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March began when 75,000 Pilipino and US soldiers formally surrendered to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. The next day the captives were forced to begin a 100-mile journey to a prison camp.
The trip lasted one week and most of it was made by marching. Prisoners were beaten randomly, denied food and water, executed if they fell behind and some were simply left to die in the hot sun. By the end of the march, 10,000 prisoners were dead. After the war, the leader of the Japanese forces on the Bataan Death March, General Masaharu Homma, was executed for war crimes by the Allied forces.",
"The Great Disaster
The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social plan, implemented in China by Mae Zedong, from 1958-1962, which hoped to bring China from an agrarian society to a modern industrialized society.
Initially, the Chinese economy grew, but by 1962 the plan was a disaster. With some severe weather conditions and much of the labor force diverted to industry, a famine devastated China. Estimates vary but the death toll in China ranges from 20-30 million people.",
"Writing on the wall
In the decade prior to the Great Depression, an average of 600 banks failed each year. Also, the word 'Technological unemployment' entered the American lexicon, referring to the 200,000 workers replaced every year by machines.",
"KKK
In 1924 the Ku Klux Klan reached the height of its influence and power with a membership of 9,000,000.",
"The Secret of life?
On Feb, 28, 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. They describe it as a 'double helix' and claim it has the ability to unravel itself and make copies. On that day, Crick announces, 'we have found the secret to life.'",
"And the winner is...
In 1901 the first Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. Prizes were given in Chemistry, Literature, Medicine, Physics and the famous Nobel Peace Prize.
Two men were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year, Jean Henri Dunant for founding the Red Cross, and Frederic Passy, founder and president of the first French peace society.",
"The Killing Fields
Pol Pot (or Saloth Sar) was Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1979. As Cambodian leader he hoped to create a Communist utopia.
In his pursuit of this dream he executed some 2 million people, including monks, Western educated individuals (including those who just looked smart), ethnic minorities, as well as the physically and mentally challenged. In a country with 8 million people, Pot's regime was responsible for killing a quarter of his country's entire population.",
"World Wonder
On August 15, 1914 the Panama Canal was officially opened, after a ten year struggle. The canal linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and would have a profound effect on commerce and politics. Although advances in safety and health care had greatly improved and saved lives, the death toll of those working on the Canal was about 27,500.",
"I have to check the internet.
After the USSR launched Sputnik into outer space, the US began working on the Defense Advanced Research Project in February 1958. Hoping to regain the technological edge, the project would network country wide radar systems.
Eventually this would be applied to laboratories across the country to speed up the transfer of information. This technology would later develop and become accessible to the public and would be called the Internet.",
"Did you hear that?
The Jazz Singer opened on October 6, 1927. It was the first feature length film with talking sequences. Other films had used sound and some shorts used dialogue. But generally dialogue was displayed on caption cards. Although 'The Jazz Singer' only had a few minutes of dialogue the film created a sensation throughout the country and signaled the end of the silent era in film.",
"I can't believe he said that.
On Halloween 1938, Orson Welles performed a radio adaptation of H.G welles classic novel 'War of the Worlds.' To heighten the drama, Welles and his crew presented the novel as a live news broadcast that broke into the a regularly scheduled music show.
Although Welles announced several times that the performance was entirely fiction, many in the audience believed the account was real and were caught up in the action. In the aftermath, Welles and CBS Radio were severally criticized, and although they escaped punishment they had to never again use the 'we interrupt this program' technique.",
"A bad turn of events
After a peace protest got out of control on May 4, 1970 an altercation between students at Kent State University and the Ohio National Guard resulted in the death of 4 students and nine wounded.
The National Guardsmen had been ordered to get a demonstration of several hundred students under control. The Guardsmen fired tear gas on the crowd, but it had little effect because of the high winds. The students started throwing rocks at the Guardsmen and chanting slogans and some threw back the tear gas. The 77 Guardsmen advanced on the crowd, but were ineffectual. At the top of a hill 29 Guardsmen fired 67 shots on unarmed students. The firing lasted only 13 seconds but became a landmark event in the Vietnam War and US history.",
"That was quick.
On February 27, 1991 President George Bush declared a cease fire to the Gulf War. Led by the US, 30 nations battled Iraqi forces after their invasion of Kuwait. The war ended 100 hours after ground troops began the battle."];