When historians look back at the year 2017, they will agree that this year of Donald Trump, and the tumult and disarray it has engendered, will make 2017 a path breaking year in American history.
Every year is significant in some way or other, but 2017 will join four other years since the end of World War II as a turning point year, with the inauguration of Donald Trump, and the tumultuous events leading to the possible removal of Trump sometime in 2018 or beyond, due to the criminal activities of the President and many of his cabinet officers.
1945, the end of World War II, the atomic bombing of Japan, the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the evolution of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, will always stand as an especially pivotal year.
1968, the year of assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War which caused the withdrawal of Lyndon B. Johnson from the Presidential race, the disarray and tumult in America over civil rights and Vietnam, the election of Richard Nixon, has long been considered an historic year.
1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, the Tienanmen Square Massacre in China, and the inauguration of George H. W. Bush make that year historic.
2001, the year of the September 11 attacks which made us aware that we were no longer safe from worldwide terrorism, and the inauguration and crisis leadership short term of George W. Bush after a highly contested 2000 Presidential election, also always seen as a turning point year.