20th century

For other uses, see 20th century (disambiguation).
For a timeline of 20th-century events, see Timeline of modern history. For the videogame, see 19XX: The War Against Destiny.
Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries:
Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
Categories: Births – Deaths
Establishments – Disestablishments
The Earth as seen from Apollo 17 in 1972. The second half of the 20th century saw humankind's first space exploration.

The 20th century was a century that began on January 1, 1901[1] and ended on December 31, 2000.[2][3] It was the tenth and final century of the 2nd millennium. It is distinct from the century known as the 1900s (sometimes written as 19XX), which began on January 1, 1900 and ended on December 31, 1999.

Dubbed the "short twentieth century", this century in human history was dominated by chain of events that heralded significant changes in world history as to redefine the era: World War I and World War II, nationalism and decolonization, the Cold War and Post-Cold War conflicts, cultural homogenization through developments in transportation and communications technology, world population growth, awareness of environmental degradation, ecological extinction[4][5] and the birth of the Digital Revolution. It saw great advances in communication and medical technology that by the late 1980s allowed for near-instantaneous worldwide computer communication and genetic modification of life.

Overview

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner on its first flight

The century had the first global-scale total wars between world powers across continents and oceans in World War I and World War II. Nationalism became a major political issue in the world in the 20th century, acknowledged in international law along with the right of nations to self-determination, official decolonization in the mid-century, and nationalist-influenced armed regional-conflicts.

The century saw a major shift in the way that many people lived, with changes in politics, ideology, economics, society, culture, science, technology, and medicine. The 20th century may have seen more technological and scientific progress than all the other centuries combined since the dawn of civilization. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage. 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. It was a century that started with horses, simple automobiles, and freighters but ended with high-speed rail, cruise ships, global commercial air travel and the space shuttle. Horses, Western society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, were replaced by automobiles and buses within a few decades. 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 explored space for the first time, taking their first footsteps on the Moon.

Map of the British Empire (as of 1910). At its height, it was the largest empire in history.

Mass media, telecommunications, and information technology (especially computers, paperback books, public education, and the Internet) made the world's knowledge more widely available. Advancements in medical technology also improved the welfare of many people: the global life expectancy increased from 35 years to 65 years. Rapid technological advancements, however, also allowed warfare to reach unprecedented levels of destruction. World War II alone killed over 60 million people, while nuclear weapons gave humankind the means to annihilate itself in a short time. However, these same wars resulted in the destruction of the Imperial system. For the first time in human history, empires and their wars of expansion and colonization ceased to be a factor in international affairs, resulting in a far more globalized and cooperative world. The last time major powers clashed openly was in 1945, and since then, violence has seen an unprecedented decline.[6]

The world also became more culturally homogenized than ever with developments in transportation and communications technology, popular music and other influences of Western culture, international corporations, and what was arguably a true global economy by the end of the 20th century.

Summary

Technological advancements during World War I (1914-1918) changed the way war was fought, as new inventions such as tanks, chemical weapons, and aircraft modified tactics and strategy. After more than four years of trench warfare in western Europe, and 20 million dead, the powers that had formed the Triple Entente (France, Britain, and Russia, later replaced by the United States and joined by Italy and Romania) emerged victorious over the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). In addition to annexing much of the colonial possessions of the vanquished states, the Triple Entente exacted punitive restitution payments from them, plunging Germany in particular into economic depression. The regime of Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown during the conflict, Russia became the first communist state, and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were dismantled at the war's conclusion.

Ukraine, early days of the 1941 Nazi invasion. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people between 1941 and 1945,[7] almost half of all World War II deaths.

At the beginning of the period, Britain was the world's most powerful nation,[8] having acted as the world's policeman for the past century. Fascism, a movement which grew out of post-war angst and which accelerated during the Great Depression of the 1930s, gained momentum in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in World War II (19391945), sparked by Nazi Germany's aggressive expansion at the expense of its neighbors. Meanwhile, Japan had rapidly transformed itself into a technologically advanced industrial power. Its military expansion into eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean culminated in a surprise attack on the United States, bringing it into World War II. After some years of dramatic military success, Germany was defeated in 1945, having been invaded by the Soviet Union and Poland from the east and by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Free France from the west. The war ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Japan later became a western ally with an economy based on the manufacture of consumer goods and trade. Germany was divided between the Western powers and the Soviet Union; all areas recaptured by the Soviet Union (East Germany and eastward) became Soviet puppet states under communist rule. Meanwhile, Western European countries were influenced by the American Marshall Plan and made a quick economic recovery, becoming major allies of the United States under capitalist economies and relatively democratic governments.

World War II left about 60 million people dead. When the conflict ended in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the major world powers. Allies during the war, they soon became hostile to one another as the competing ideologies of communism and democratic capitalism occupied Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. The military alliances headed by these nations (NATO in North America and Western Europe; the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe) threatened each other with total war in what was called the Cold War (1947–91). The period was marked by a new arms race, and nuclear weapons were produced in the tens of thousands, sufficient to end most human life on the planet had a large-scale nuclear exchange ever occurred. The size of the nuclear arsenals is believed by many historians to have staved off war between the two, as the consequences were too great to bear. The policy of massive nuclear attack, knowing a similar counterattack would be forthcoming, was called mutually assured destruction (MAD). However, several proxy wars, such as the Korean War (1950–1953) and the Vietnam War (1957–1975), were waged as the United States implemented its worldwide "containment" policy against communism.

Albert Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics.

After World War II, most of the European-colonized world in Africa and Asia gained independence in a process of decolonization. Meanwhile, the wars empowered several nations, including the UK, USA, Russia, China and Japan, to exert a strong influence over many world affairs. American culture spread around the world with the advent of Hollywood, Broadway, rock and roll, pop music, fast food, big-box stores, and the hip-hop lifestyle. Britain continued to influence world culture, including the "British Invasion" into American music, leading many rock bands from other countries (such as Swedish ABBA) to sing in English. The western world and parts of Asia enjoyed a post-World War II economic boom. After the Soviet Union collapsed under internal pressure in 1991, the communist governments of the Eastern bloc were dismantled, followed by awkward transitions into market economies.

Following World War II the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations, was established as an international forum in which the world's nations could discuss issues diplomatically. It enacted resolutions on such topics as the conduct of warfare, environmental protection, international sovereignty, and human rights. Peacekeeping forces consisting of troops provided by various countries, with various United Nations and other aid agencies, helped to relieve famine, disease, and poverty, and to suppress some local armed conflicts. Europe slowly united, economically and, in some ways, politically, to form the European Union, which consisted of 15 European countries by the end of the 20th century.

In the last third of the century, concern about humankind's impact on the Earth's environment made environmentalism popular. In many countries, especially in Europe, the movement was channeled into politics through Green parties. Increasing awareness of global warming began in the 1980s, commencing decades of social and political debate.

The nature of innovation and change

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, and the telephone in the late 19th century, followed by supertankers, airliners, motorways, radio, television, antibiotics, frozen food, computers and microcomputers, the Internet, and mobile telephones affected people's quality of life across the developed world. Scientific research, engineering professionalization and technological development drove changes in everyday life.

Social change

At the beginning of the century, strong discrimination based on race and sex was significant in general society. Although the Atlantic slave trade had ended in the 19th century, the fight for equality for darker-skinned people in the white-dominated societies of North America, Europe, and South Africa continued. During the century, the social taboo of sexism fell. By the end of the 20th century, women had the same legal rights as men in many parts of the world, and racism had come to be seen as abhorrent.[9] Attitudes towards homosexuality also began to change in the latter part of the century.

Event timeline

Developments in brief

Wars and politics

Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1923).

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.[10] 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."[11] It is estimated that approximately 70 million Europeans died through war, violence and famine between 1914 and 1945.[12]

Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev aboard the USS Sequoia, June 19, 1973
Hong Kong, under British administration from 1841 to 1997, is one of the original four Asian tigers.

Culture and entertainment

Science and mathematics

Science advanced dramatically during the century. There were new and radical developments in the physical, life and human sciences, building on the progress made in the 19th century.[17] Big Science flourished, especially after the Second World War, as funding for science increased. Mathematics became ever more specialized and abstract.

Mathematics

Physics

Astronomy

Biology

Engineering and technology

American Buzz Aldrin during the first moonwalk in 1969.

One of the prominent traits of the 20th century was the dramatic growth of technology. Organized research and practice of science led to advancement in the fields of communication, engineering, travel, medicine, and war.

Medicine

A stamp commemorating Alexander Fleming. His discovery of penicillin had changed the world of modern medicine by introducing the age of antibiotics.

Notable diseases

Energy and the environment

The world at the end of the 20th century

Communications and information technology, transportation technology, and medical advances had radically altered daily lives. Europe appeared to be at a sustainable peace for the first time in recorded history. The people of the Indian subcontinent, a sixth of the world population at the end of the 20th century, had attained an indigenous independence for the first time in centuries. China, an ancient nation comprising a fifth of the world population, was finally open to the world in a new and powerful synthesis of west and east, creating a new state after the near-complete destruction of the old cultural order. With the end of colonialism and the Cold War, nearly a billion people in Africa were left in new nation states after centuries of foreign domination.

Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, is often credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation.

The world was undergoing its second major period of globalization; the first, which started in the 18th century, having been terminated by World War I. Since the US was in a dominant position, a major part of the process was Americanization. The influence of China and India was also rising, as the world's largest populations were rapidly integrating with the world economy.

Terrorism, dictatorship, and the spread of nuclear weapons were some issues requiring attention. The world was still blighted by small-scale wars and other violent conflicts, fueled by competition over resources and by ethnic conflicts. Despots such as Kim Jong-il of North Korea continued to lead their nations toward the development of nuclear weapons.

Disease threatened to destabilize many regions of the world. New viruses such as SARS and West Nile continued to spread. Malaria and other diseases affected large populations. Millions were infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The virus was becoming an epidemic in southern Africa.

The geographic distribution of surface warming during the 21st century calculated by the HadCM3 climate model if a business as usual scenario is assumed for economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. In this figure, the globally averaged warming corresponds to 3.0 °C (5.4 °F).

Based on research done by climate scientists, the majority of the scientific community consider that in the long term environmental problems may threaten the planet's habitability.[21] One argument is that of global warming occurring, and that it may be due (at least partially) to human-caused emission of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels.[22] This prompted many nations to negotiate and sign the Kyoto treaty, which set mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

World population increased from about 1.6 billion people in 1901 to 6.1 billion at the century's end.[23][24]

See also

References

  1. "Twentieth Century's Triumphant Entry". The New York Times. January 1, 1901
  2. "When and where did the new Millennium officially start, and why?". Royal Observatory Greenwich
  3. "The 21st Century and the 3rd Millennium When Did They Begin?". United States Naval Observatory. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  4. Wilson, E.O., The Future of Life (2002) (ISBN 0-679-76811-4). See also: Leakey, Richard, The Sixth Extinction : Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind, ISBN 0-385-46809-1
  5. "The Sixth Extinction - The Most Recent Extinctions".
  6. Pinker, Stephen (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3.
  7. Mark Harrison (2002). Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940–1945. Cambridge University Press. p.167. ISBN 0-521-89424-7
  8. Ferguson, Niall (2004). Empire: The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02328-2.
  9. Fleegler, Robert L. Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938-1947. Retrieved 23 December 2014
  10. Democide See various exclusions
  11. Charles Tilly (2003). "The politics of collective violence" Cambridge University Press. p.55. ISBN 0-521-53145-4.
  12. Gary Rodger Weaver (1998). Culture, Communication, and Conflict. Simon & Schuster. p. 474. ISBN 0-536-00373-4
  13. Geoffrey A. Hosking (2001). "Russia and the Russians: a history". Harvard University Press. p. 469. ISBN 0-674-00473-6
  14. "The Other Killing Machine". The New York Times. May 11, 2003
  15. 1 2 "China's great famine: 40 years later". British Medical Journal 1999;319:1619–1621 (December 18 )
  16. Thee, Marek (1976). "The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement - Escalation and Disengagement". Journal of Peace Research (Sage Publications) 13 (2): 117. ISSN 1460-3578 via JSTOR. (subscription required (help)).
  17. Agar, Jon (2012). Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-3469-2.
  18. Thomson, Sir William (1862). "On the Age of the Sun's Heat". Macmillan's Magazine 5: 288–293.
  19. 1 2 3 "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962". NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
  20. 1 2 3 4 "James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin". chemheritage.org. Chemical Heritage Foundation. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
  21. Smith, J.B.; et al. "Ch. 19. Vulnerability to Climate Change and Reasons for Concern: A Synthesis". Extreme and Irreversible Effects. Sec 19.6., in IPCC TAR WG2 2001
  22. "Total radiative forcing is positive, and has led to an uptake of energy by the climate system. The largest contribution to total radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750." (p 11) "From 1750 to 2011, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production have released 375 [345 to 405] GtC to the atmosphere, while deforestation and other land use change are estimated to have released 180 [100 to 260] GtC." (p 10), IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System, p. 10&11, in IPCC AR5 WG1 2013.
  23. "World Population: Historical Estimates of World Population". United States Census Bureau. December 19, 2013. Retrieved 2015-01-09.
  24. "World Population: Total Midyear Population for the World: 1950-2050". United States Census Bureau. December 19, 2013. Retrieved 2015-01-09.

Sources

External links

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