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20th century

The 20th century began on January 1, 1901 (MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 (MM).[1][2] It was the 10th and last century of the 2nd millennium and was marked by new models of scientific understanding, unprecedented scopes of warfare, new modes of communication that would operate at nearly instant speeds, and new forms of art and entertainment. Population growth was also unprecedented,[3] as the century started with around 1.6 billion people, and ended with around 6.2 billion.[4]

For other uses, see 20th century (disambiguation).

The 20th century was dominated by significant geopolitical events that reshaped the political and social structure of the globe: World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, World War II and the Cold War. Unprecedented advances in science and technology defined the modern era, including the advent of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, space exploration, the shift from analog to digital computing and the continuing advancement of transportation, including powered flight and the automobile. The Earth's sixth mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction, continued, and human conservation efforts increased.


Major themes of the century include decolonization, nationalism, globalization and new forms of intergovernmental organizations. Democracy spread, and women earned the right to vote in many countries in the world. Cultural homogenization began through developments in emerging transportation and information and communications technology, with popular music and other influences of Western culture, international corporations, and what was arguably a truly global economy by the end of the 20th century. Poverty was reduced and the century saw rising standards of living, world population growth, awareness of environmental degradation and ecological extinction.[5][6] Automobiles, airplanes, and home appliances became common, and video and audio recording saw mass adoption. These developments were made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuel resources, which offered energy in an easily portable form, but also caused concern about pollution and long-term impact on the environment. Humans started to explore space, taking their first footsteps on the Moon. Great advances in electricity generation and telecommunications allowed for near-instantaneous worldwide communication, ultimately leading to the Internet. Meanwhile, advances in medical technology resulted in the near-eradication and eradication of many infectious diseases, as well as opening the avenue of biological genetic engineering. Scientific discoveries, such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics, profoundly changed the foundational models of physical science, forcing scientists to realize that the universe was more complex than previously believed, and dashing the hopes (or fears) at the end of the 19th century that the last few details of scientific knowledge were about to be filled in.

Nature of innovation and change[edit]

Due to continuing industrialization and expanding trade, many significant changes of the century were, directly or indirectly, economic and technological in nature. Inventions such as the light bulb, the automobile, mechanical computers, and the telephone in the late 19th century, followed by supertankers; airliners; motorways; radio communication and broadcasting; television; digital computers; air conditioning; antibiotics; nuclear power; frozen food; microcomputers; the Internet and the World Wide Web; and mobile telephones affected people's quality of life across the developed world. The quantity of goods consumed by the average person expanded massively. Scientific research, engineering professionalization and technological development—much of it motivated by the Cold War arms race—drove changes in everyday life.

The , Syriac and Greek genocide were the systematic destruction, mass murder and expulsion of the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).[22][23]

Armenian

The (Austro-Hungarian Empire, French Republic, German Empire, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Russian Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and United States of America) formed in 1900 to invade the Qing China represented the club of great powers in the early 20th century.

Alliance of Eight Nations

Rising and increasing national awareness were among the many causes of World War I (1914–1918), the first of two wars to involve many major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia/USSR, the British Empire and the United States. At the time, it was said by many to be the "war to end all wars".

nationalism

The of 1916 was an armed uprising against the Ottoman Empire done by the Arabs in agreement with the British Empire. The revolt was led by Sharif Hussein bin Ali who was promised by Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, that in exchange for fighting the Ottoman Empire, Sharif Hussein would gain control over all Arab lands under the Ottoman Empire. A promise the British Empire did not honor.[24][25][26]

Arab Revolt

During World War I, in the , 300 years of Tsarist reign were ended and the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, established the world's first Communist state.

Russian Revolution of 1917

The saw the collapse of the central powers, the German Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire into several independent sovereign states throughout Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East.

end of World War I

After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new techniques, women became more independent throughout the century.

birth control

greatly increased in its scale and complexity during the first half of the 20th century. Notable developments included chemical warfare, the introduction of military aviation and the widespread use of submarines. The introduction of nuclear warfare in the mid-20th century marked the definite transition to modern warfare.

Industrial warfare

occurred during and World War I inspired by the Russian Revolution which saw many political changes in Europe and in Asia.

The Revolutions of 1917-1923

were a series of killings of members of the Native American Osage Nation, who were the richest people per capita in the world at that time.[27]

The Osage Murders of 1918-1931

The 1921 , was a racist anti black terrorist attack in the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was home to many successful and wealthy Black Americans. The attack was perpetrated by white residents and local white deputies. The perpetrators were armed by local government officials.[28][29]

Tulsa Race Massacre

The in the 1930s led to the rise of Fascism (especially Nazism) in Europe.

Great Depression

A violent broke out in Spain in 1936 when General Francisco Franco rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. Many consider this war as a testing battleground for World War II, as the fascist armies bombed some Spanish territories.

civil war

(1939–1945) became the deadliest conflict in human history involving primarily the axis, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Empire of Japan against the allies, China, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Many atrocities occurred, particularly the Holocaust killing approximately 11 million victims. It ended with the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

World War II

The two world wars led to efforts to increase , notably through the founding of the League of Nations after World War I, and its successor, the United Nations, after World War II.

international cooperation

The of Israel in 1948, a Jewish state in the Middle East, at the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, fueled many conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians in addition to regional conflicts. These were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the other countries of the predominantly Arab region.

creation

In 1948 was, according to several historians, a targeted ethnic cleansing campaign against Arabs in Palestine perpetrated by Jewish Militias under Plan Delta, a plan ordered by Ben-Gurion. The campaign utilized methods of intimidation, violent attacks, and the destruction of several Arab villages.[30][31][32]

The Nakba

After the , communism became a major force in global politics, notably in Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba, where communist parties gained near-absolute power.

Soviet Union's involvement in World War II

The number of people killed during the century by government actions was in the hundreds of millions. This includes deaths caused by wars, genocide, politicide and mass murders. The deaths from acts of war during the two world wars alone have been estimated at between 50 and 80 million. Political scientist Rudolph Rummel estimated 262,000,000 deaths caused by democide, which excludes those killed in war battles, civilians unintentionally killed in war and killings of rioting mobs.[19] According to Charles Tilly, "Altogether, about 100 million people died as a direct result of action by organized military units backed by one government or another over the course of the century. Most likely a comparable number of civilians died of war-induced disease and other indirect effects."[20] It is estimated that approximately 70 million Europeans died through war, violence and famine between 1914 and 1945.[21]

As the century began, Paris was the artistic capital of the world, where both French and foreign writers, composers and visual artists gathered. By the middle of the century New York City had become the artistic capital of the world.

Theater, films, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many films and much music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.

1953 saw the , an iconic figure of the century.

coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

became more dominant not only in films but in comics and television as well. During the century a new skilled understanding of narrativist imagery was developed.

Visual culture

Computer games and internet surfing became new and popular form of entertainment during the last 25 years of the century.

In literature, science fiction, fantasy (with well-developed fictional worlds, rich in detail), and fiction gained popularity. Detective fiction gained popularity in the interwar period. In the United States in 1961 Grove Press published Tropic of Cancer a novel by Henry Miller redefining pornography and censorship in publishing in America.

alternative history

New areas of , like special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics, were developed during the first half of the century. In the process, the internal structure of atoms came to be clearly understood, followed by the discovery of elementary particles.

physics

It was found that all the known can be traced to only four fundamental interactions. It was discovered further that two forces, electromagnetism and weak interaction, can be merged in the electroweak interaction, leaving only three different fundamental interactions.

forces

Discovery of , in particular nuclear fusion, finally revealed the source of solar energy.

nuclear reactions

was invented, and became a powerful technique for determining the age of prehistoric animals and plants as well as historical objects.

Radiocarbon dating

Basic including washing machines, clothes dryers, furnaces, exercise machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, electric stoves and vacuum cleaners became popular from the 1920s through the 1950s. Radios were popularized as a form of entertainment during the 1920s, followed by television during the 1950s.

home appliances

The first airplane, the , was flown in 1903. With the engineering of the faster jet engine in the 1940s, mass air travel became commercially viable.

Wright Flyer

The made mass production of the automobile viable. By the end of the 20th century, billions of people had automobiles for personal transportation. The combination of the automobile, motor boats and air travel allowed for unprecedented personal mobility. In western nations, motor vehicle accidents became the greatest cause of death for young people. However, expansion of divided highways reduced the death rate.

assembly line

The was invented.

triode tube

Air conditioning of buildings became common

New materials, most notably , Velcro, silicone, teflon, and plastics such as polystyrene, PVC, polyethylene, and nylon came into widespread use for many various applications. These materials typically have tremendous performance gains in strength, temperature, chemical resistance, or mechanical properties over those known prior to the 20th century.

stainless steel

Aluminum became an inexpensive metal and became second only to iron in use.

Thousands of were developed for industrial processing and home use.

chemicals

Digital computers came into use

1900s – A number of related mark the start of Pentecostalism.

revival movements

1904 – dictates The Book of the Law, the foundational text of Thelema.

Aleister Crowley

1922 – The establishes a doctrine of state atheism.

Soviet Union

1924 – abolishes the Islamic Caliphate, in favor of secularism. This marks the last widely recognized Muslim Caliphate.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha

1930 – founds the Nation of Islam. The Seventh Lambeth Conference allows for the possibility of birth control within Anglicanism, the first example of a modern Christian church supporting such a position.[50]

Wallace Fard Muhammad

1940s – is formalized by Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente.

Wicca

1950s – articulates Qutbism, a violent variety of Islamism that would later become foundational to jihadist ideology. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi begins to teach Transcendental Meditation.

Sayyid Qutb

1953 – founds the Church of Scientology, which has a unique cosmology based on science fiction and his older system of Dianetics.

L. Ron Hubbard

1956 – launches the Dalit Buddhist movement.

B. R. Ambedkar

1960 – The starts within Anglicanism, quickly spreading to other Christian sects.

charismatic movement

1962–65 – The is held, resulting in significant changes in the Catholic Church.

Second Vatican Council

1970s – beliefs and practices are popularized.

New Age

1979 – In , the Islamic Revolution establishes a theocratic state within Iran.

Shia Islam

1988 – , a network of Islamic extremists, is founded among Arab members of the Afghan mujahideen. It engages in a number of terror attacks throughout the 1990s, leading up to the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Al-Qaeda

1999 – , a Chinese new religious movement dating to the early 1990s, begins to be persecuted by the Chinese government.

Falun Gong

The was a worldwide economic slowdown that lasted throughout the early 1930s.

Great Depression

The implemented a series of five-year plans for industrialization and economic development.

Soviet Union

Most countries abandoned the for their currency. The Bretton Woods system involved currencies being pegged to the United States dollar; after the system collapsed in 1971 most major currencies had a floating exchange rate.

gold standard

Economics was divided into two general economic schools: Keynesian and neoclassical

The occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period were the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, when, respectively, the Yom Kippur War and the Iranian Revolution triggered interruptions in Middle Eastern oil exports.

1970s energy crisis

20th-century inventions

Death rates in the 20th century

Infectious disease in the 20th century

Modern art

Short twentieth century

Timelines of modern history

List of 20th-century women artists

List of notable 20th-century writers

List of battles 1901–2000

List of stories set in a future now past

IPCC AR5 WG1 (2013), Stocker, T.F.; et al. (eds.), , Cambridge University Press{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link). Climate Change 2013 Working Group 1 website.

Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group 1 (WG1) Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report (AR5)

IPCC TAR WG2 (2001). McCarthy, J. J.; Canziani, O. F.; Leary, N. A.; Dokken, D. J.; White, K. S. (eds.). . Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521807685. Archived from the original on 14 May 2016. Retrieved 18 December 2019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) (pb: 0521015006)

Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

[in French]; Duclert, Vincent [in French]; Kévorkian, Raymond H. (2015). Comprendre le génocide des arméniens—1915 à nos jours [Understanding the Armenian genocide: 1915 to the present day] (in French). Tallandier. ISBN 979-10-210-0681-2.

Bozarslan, Hamit

Brower, Daniel R. and Thomas Sanders. The World in the Twentieth Century (7th Ed, 2013)

CBS News. . Simon and Schuster, 1999. ISBN 0-684-87093-2

People of the century

Grenville, J. A. S. A History of the World in the Twentieth Century (1994).

online free

Hallock, Stephanie A. The World in the 20th Century: A Thematic Approach (2012)

Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973); highly detailed outline of events

online free

Morris, Richard B. and Graham W. Irwin, eds. Harper Encyclopedia of the Modern World: A Concise Reference History from 1760 to the Present (1970)

online

Pindyck, Robert S. "What we know and don't know about climate change, and implications for policy." Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy 2.1 (2021): 4–43.

online

Pollard, Sidney, ed. Wealth and Poverty: an Economic History of the 20th Century (1990), 260 pp; global perspective

online free

Stearns, Peter, ed. The Encyclopedia of World History (2001)

(February 28, 2008). "The Twentieth Century". History of Humanity. Vol. VII. Routledge. p. 600. ISBN 978-0-415-09311-8.

UNESCO

(archived 26 February 2012)

The 20th Century Research Project

(archived 6 February 2012)

Slouching Towards Utopia: The Economic History of the Twentieth Century

at the British Library

Discovering Literature: 20th century