2. The Firing on Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War
3. The Winter of 1933-1934 - Unemployment hits 24.9%
4. The Fall of Corregidor - May, 1942 was dark, indeed
5. The enactment of The Great Society legislation in the mid-1960s which ushered in the welfare state
And, for good measure, 6. The Defeat in Vietnam, from which we have yet to recover
Your #14 is a list I can agree with. I was going to say Dec. 7, 1941 which was the precursor for Corregidor, the Bataan Death March and all the horrors that followed. Good list, especially your indictment of LBJ and his creation of the American welfare state.