Timeline: Living: Gerber Family of Langnau

	Date	Event(s)
1	1913	1913: USA - Leo Baekeland invented a plastic laminate, known as Bakelite, and later as Formica 1913: Detroit, MI, USA - First assembly line introduced in Ford automobile factory 1913: New York, NY, USA - The Armory Show, an international display of some 1600 works of modern art, and one of the more important U.S. art exhibitions ever held, opens at the 69th-regiment armory. It arouses public curiosity, generates sensational news coverage, and helps change the direction of American art 1913: USA - Personal Income Tax introduced 1913: Washington, DC, USA - Woodrow Wilson president 1913-1921. 1913: UK - The crossword puzzle was invented by Arthur Wynne. 1913: USA - The Merck Chemical Company patented what is now known as ecstasy. 1913: USA - Mary Phelps Jacob invents the bra 1913: USA - Gideon Sundback invents the modern zipper.
2	1914	1914: UK - Battle of the Marne 1914: USA - Charlie Chaplin First Appeared as the Little Tramp 1914: UK - First Traffic Light 1914: Panama - Panama Canal Officially Opened 1914: Egypt - Britain proclaims protectorate over Egypt 1914: France - Stunning British casualty figures come from Loos -60,000; in on the Somme, 60,000 in one day; total for 5-month offensive - 400,000; Germans use poison gas at Ypres 1914: Ireland - Easter Monday Irish rebellion, Irish Volunteers (later Irish Republican Army) proclaim Irish Republic; German submarine lands Sir Roger Casement who is arrested, German ship with rifles intercepted off Irish coast, Casement executed; Sinn Fein and Ulster cannot agree on partition 1914: France - Passchendaele, British advance of 5 miles costs 400,000 casualties 1914: UK - Balfour Declaration promises Jews home in Palestine 1914: UK - First use of massed tanks (Battle of Cambrai) 1914: UK - King George V adopts Windsor as Royal Family's English surname in place of family's German name 1914: USA - Garrett A. Morgan invents the Morgan gas mask 4 Aug 1914: World War I begins and lasts until 1918, because Germany violates a treaty to respect neutrality of Belgium; Turkey enters war on Germany's side
3	1915	1915: Armenia - Armenian Genocide 1915: USA - D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is Released 1915: UK - Lusitania Sunk by German U-Boat 1915: Ypres, France - Second Battle of Ypres 1915: New York, NY, USA - Eugene Sullivan and William Taylor co-invent Pyrex
4	1916	1916: UK - Navy employs animal trainer 'Captain' Joseph Woodward's music hall sea lions for U-boat sabotage. 1916: USA - Coca-Cola adopts a distinctive bottle which identifies the company internationally 1916: France - Battle of the Somme 1916: Verdun, France - Battle of Verdun 1916: Ireland - Easter Rising 1916: USA - First Self-Service Grocery Store Opens 1916: UK - Radio tuners invented that received different stations. 1916: UK - Stainless steel invented by Henry Brearly.
5	1917	1917: Russia - Bolshevik revolution installs a new government headed by V.I. Lennin 1917: New York, NY, USA - French artist Marcel Duchamp submits a porcelain urinal, signed 'R. Mutt' and titled Fountain, to the New York Independents Exhibition; it is rejected. 1917: UK - First Pulitzer Prizes Awarded 1917: Germany - Mata Hari Executed for Being a Spy Apr 1917: USA - The United States joined World War I on the side of the Triple Entente
6	1918	1918: UK - Influenza Epidemic 1918: Russia - Czar Nicholas II and his family are killed 1918: UK - Summer:Great Influenza Epidemic begins, reaches height end of year, new outbreak first quarter of 1919: England and Wales lose 150,000 (15,000 in London alone) 1918: UK - Final casualties for World War I - almost 1 million British Empire men killed, about 3 million maimed (744,000 killed are from UK) 1918: UK - Women over 30 given the vote (complete voting equality with men comes in 1928), all men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons) given vote 1918: UK - Consumer purchasing power now about 1/3 of what it was in 1914 1918: USA - Charles Jung invented fortune cookies. 1918: UK - Police strikes this year and the next 9 Nov 1918: Europe - Kaiser abdicates, peace signed two days later at Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I
7	1919	1919: UK - Eddington and Frank W. Dyson measured the bending of starlight by the gravitational pull of the sun, thus confirming Einstein's general theory of relativity 1919: USA - Prohibition Begins in the U.S. 1919: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins terrorist campaign against police ('Black and Tans') and their families 1919: London, UK - First woman in House of Commons, Viscountess Astor 1919: Ireland - Alcock and Brown arrive after flying across the Atlantic 1919: UK - Strikes and riots in Glasgow for 40- hour week; National Industrial Conference convenes, trades union representatives resign in disgust 1919: Europe - Regular air service commences across the English Channel 1919: UK - Post-war boom collapses, unemployment problem, 1920 Act provides small payment under National Insurance Scheme 1919: UK - Most war-time rationing ends 1919: UK - One-week railway strike - Emergency Powers Act passed to give government war-time powers to deal with threats from 'Triple Alliance' of miners, railwaymen and dockers, re high prices, shortage of housing 1919: UK - The pop-up toaster invented by Charles Strite. 1919: UK - Short-wave radio invented. 1919: UK - The arc welder invented. 1919: UK - Runaway inflation; Coal Mines Act (1919) and Mining Industry Act (1920) create 7-hour day for miners plus minor reforms Jun 1919: UK - Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting atom
8	1920	1920: India - Bubonic Plague strikes 1920: UK - League of Nations Established 1920: UK - Population of England/Wales - 37,887, Scotland - 4,882, N.Ireland - 1,258 1920: UK - Economic slump, 2,170,000 unemployed 1920: Palestine - Serious clashes between Jews and Arabs 1920: USA - US restricts immigration 1920: Ireland - Southern Irish parliament passes Government of Ireland Act, civil war effectively ends (until 1968) 1920: UK - Lloyd George sells honours in return for party contributions, partly responsible for downfall of Coalition government 1920: Egypt - Britain recognizes Egyptian independence 1920: UK - British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins transmission of speech over air to public 1920: Italy - Benito Mussolini becomes fascist dictator 1920: UK - First football cup final at Wembley 1920: UK - Greyhound racing becomes popular 1920: UK - Radio and cinema begin growth (by 1929, 3,000 cinemas in Britain) 1920: UK - Convictions for drunkenness fall from 189,000 in 1913 to 53,000 in 1930 1920: France - Tuberculosis vaccine developed 1920: UK - The tommy gun patented by John T Thompson. 1920: USA - The Band-Aid invented by Earle Dickson 1920: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins Civil War with raids on police barracks and income tax offices all over Ireland 1920: UK - Communist Party of Great Britain founded; affiliation with Labour Party rebuffed = schism between communism and socialism 1920: UK - Population of Great Britain has grown by 5 per cent, emigration overseas declines from 256,000 in 1923 (post-war peak) to 92,000 in 1930 and many return to offset those leaving; British population gravitates to south and away from depressed areas of South Wales and northern England, Greater London is now over 8 million Dec 1920: Ireland - New Government of Ireland Act proposes partition of Ireland into Ulster (north) and Irish Free State (south), each to have its own government
9	1921	1921: UK - Stage debut of John Gielgud 1921: Germany - Extreme Inflation sets in 1921: Ireland - Irish Free State Proclaimed 1921: Washington, DC, USA - Warren Harding president in 1921. He dies of an embolism in San Francisco. He had taken ill on 31 Jul 1921 1921: Washington, DC, USA - Calvin Coolidge president 1921-1929. Vice president under Warren Harding, he was sworn in as president the day after Harding dies. 1921: UK - The first robot is built. 1921: CA, USA - John Larson, a University of California medical student, invented the modern lie detector (polygraph), used by police since 1924.
10	1922	1922: London, UK - BBC launched as limited company 1922: Turkey - Kemal Atatürk Founds Modern Turkey 1922: Ireland - Michael Collins Killed in Ambush 1922: Rome Italy - Benito Mussolini Marches on Rome 1922: USA - The Reader's Digest is first published 1922: UK - Insulin invented by Sir Frederick Grant Banting 1922: USA - The first 3-D movie (spectacles with one red and one green lens) is released. Nov 1922: Thebes, Egypt - Tomb of Tun-ankh-amen discovered