Not the first ones to take to the air
The balloons had them way beat up there
But they gave us a mode
Not so wont to explode
And for that we owe much to this pair

Event: The Wright Flyer flies at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Year: 1903
Learn more: Wright Flyer
History of aviation
National Air and Space Museum

Though it’s never worked quite right for time
Other measures it handles sublime
And its flag has unfurled
Over most of the world
That some mock it is truly a crime

Event: France adopts the metric system as its official system of measurement
Year: 1799
Learn more: Metric system

Though he was not the Wizard of Oz
Barnard pulled Louis back from death’s jaws
For those folks who need hearts
This is where it all starts
An achievement to give us all pause

Event: Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs the first successful heart transplant
Year: 1967
Learn more: Heart transplantation

As ruler, he several times fell
Even spent many years in a cell
And though what he left trailing
‘s a taste for impaling
To Slavs, he’s a hero as well

Event: Vlad III, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, takes control of Wallachia for the third and final time
Year: 1476
Learn more: Vlad the Impaler

Could a new birth of freedom ensure
That the founders’ creation’d endure?
That’s what still lay ahead
Once they’d buried the dead
Whose last sacrifice made the land pure

Event: Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address
Year: 1863
Learn more: Gettysburg Address

To the shores many searchers have flocked
And despite having often been mocked
All the depths they have plumbed
Yet no beast has succumbed
Will the mystery e’er be unloched?

Event: Hugh Gray takes the first known photographs of the “Loch Ness Monster,” which may or may not have been a dog carrying a stick
Year: 1933
Learn more: Loch Ness Monster

Poor Guy Fawkes, with his gunpowder casks
Wondered why this, of all of the tasks?
Sure, his plot to kill James
Went down not quite in flames
But at least now he’s got those cool masks

Event: The Gunpowder Plot is uncovered and the assassination of King James I prevented
Year: 1605
Learn more: Gunpowder Plot

Speculation bejeweled Wall Street’s crown
But what’s up will most surely come down
And the twenties’ last roar
Told us what was in store
As the bears drove the bulls out of town

Event: The Crash
Year: 1929
Learn more: Black Tuesday

First world problems: when Vanderbilts fret
‘Cause they cannot fine opera seats get
By old money door shown,
They just started their own
And ’twas thus they gave birth to the Met

Event: New York’s Metropolitan Opera opens its first season (and its new opera house) with a performance of Faust
Year: 1883
Learn more: Metropolitan Opera

“I’m a daughter of Java,” she claimed
For her body this dancer was famed
With her feminine wiles
She smuggled out files
“Femme fatale,” is now how she is named

Event: Mata Hari executed for espionage
Year: 1917
Learn more: Mata Hari