Things That Changed The World, From Least Changey to Most Changey

by Michelle Legro

• Mauve

• Mr. Hornaday, a peculiar Victorian zookeeper

• Guinness

• The banana

• Temple Grandin

• The 1960 Olympics in Rome

• Indigo

• A topographic map which shows a delineation of the strata of England and Wales

• Pepper

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire *

• Cod

• The 1893 Columbian Exposition *

• The year 1959 **

• The battle of Thermopylae

• The friendship between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

• January to June, 1919

• December, 1941

• Quinine

• The compass

• The voyage of the Mayflower

• The telegraph cable

• The battle of the Marne, 1914

• Tea

• The birth-control pill

• The Reformation

• Gunpowder

* Only America is changed
** Everything is changed

Michelle Legro is an editor at Lapham’s Quarterly.