20th century
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Establishments – Disestablishments
The twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar.[1] The century saw a remarkable shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovation. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage.
The period witnessed radical changes in many areas of human endeavors. Scientific discoveries, such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics, drastically changed the world-view of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was fantastically more complex than previously believed, and dashing the hopes at the end of the 19th century that the last few details of scientific knowledge were about to be filled in. Accelerating scientific understanding, more efficient communications, and faster transportation transformed the world in those hundred years more rapidly and widely than at any time in the past. It was a century that started with steam-powered ships and ended with the space shuttle. Horses and other pack animals, Western society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, were replaced by automobiles within the span of a few decades. These developments were made possible by the large-scale exploitation of petroleum resources, which offered great amounts of energy in an easily portable and storable liquid form, but also caused widespread concerns about pollution and our long-term impact on the environment. Humanity explored outer space for the first time, even taking their first footsteps on the Moon.
Mass media, telecommunications, and information technology (especially the Internet) put the world's knowledge at the disposal of nearly everyone in most industrialized societies. Many people's view of the world changed significantly as they became much more aware of the suffering and struggles of others and, as such, became increasingly concerned with human rights. In the latter half of the century especially, mankind became aware of the vast scale on which it had affected the planet, and took steps to minimize its damage of the planet's fragile ecosystems. Advancements in medical technology also improved the welfare of many people on the planet; life expectancy increased dramatically from the mid-30s to the mid-60s worldwide during the century. The healthiest countries had life expectancies of over 80 years by the turn of the millennium. Rapid technological advancements, however, also allowed warfare to reach an unprecedented low; World War II alone killed over 60 million people, while nuclear weaponry gave mankind the means to destroy itself in a very short period of time. 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 century.
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[edit] Summary
The massive arms race of the 19th century culminated in a war which involved many powerful nations: World War I (1914–1918). This war drastically changed the way war was fought, as new inventions such as machine guns, tanks, chemical weapons, and grenades created stalemates on the battlefield and millions of troops were killed with little progress made on either side. After more than four years of trench warfare in western Europe, and 20 million dead, those powers who had formed the Triple Entente (France, Britain, and Russia, later replaced by the United States and joined by Italy) emerged victorious over the Triple Alliance (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 their former foes, plunging Germany in particular into economic depression. The Russian Empire was plunged into revolution during the conflict and transitioned into the first ever communist state, and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were dismantled at the war's conclusion. World War I brought about the end of the royal and imperial ages of Europe (although some portion of the British Empire remained until the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China) and established the United States as a major world military power.
At the start of the period, Britain was arguably the world's most powerful nation. However, its economy was ruined by World War I, and its empire began to shrink, producing a growing power vacuum in Europe. Fascism, a movement which grew out of post-war angst and accelerated by the Great Depression of the 1930s, gained momentum in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, culminating in World War II (1939–1945), sparked off by Nazi Germany's aggressive expansion at the expense of its neighbours. Meanwhile, Japan had rapidly industrialized and transformed itself into a technologically-advanced industrial power. Its military expansion into eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean helped to bring the United States into World War II. Germany was defeated by the Soviet Union in the east and by the D-Day invasion of 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 U.S. ally with a powerful economy based on 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) were essentially transitioned into Soviet puppet states under communist rule. Meanwhile, western Europe was 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 very powerful nations. Allies during the war, they soon became hostile to one other as the competing ideologies of capitalism and communism 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) were prepared to wage total war with each other throughout the Cold War (1947 - 91). The period was marked by a new arms race, and nuclear weapons, the most devastating ones yet to have been developed, were produced in the tens of thousands, sufficient to end most life on the planet had they ever been used. This is believed by some historians to have staved off an inevitable war between the two, as neither could win if their full nuclear arsenals were unleashed upon each other. This was known as mutually assured destruction (MAD). Although the Soviet Union and the United States never directly entered conflict with each other, several proxy wars, such as the Korean War (1950–1953) and the Vietnam War (1957–1975), were waged to contain the spread of communism.
After World War II, most of the European-colonized world in Africa and Asia gained independence in a process of decolonization. This, and the drain of the two world wars, caused Europe to lose much of its long-held power. Meanwhile, the wars helped the United States 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. After the Soviet Union collapsed under internal pressure in 1991, a ripple effect led to the dismantling of communist states across eastern Europe and their rocky transitions into market economies.
After World War II, the United Nations was established as an international forum in which the world's nations could get together and discuss issues diplomatically. It has enacted laws on conducting warfare, environmental protection, international sovereignty, and human rights, among other things. Peacekeeping forces consisting of troops provided by various countries, in concert with various United Nations and other aid agencies, has helped to relieve famine, disease, and poverty, and to contain local wars and conflicts. Europe slowly united, politically and economically, into what eventually became the European Union, which consisted of 15 European countries by the end of the century.
Perhaps the first major policy of the United Nations was the creation of Israel, a country created as a homeland for the Jewish population. This infuriated some Muslims who had inhabited the area for over a thousand years. Some surrounding Arab countries quickly declared war on Israel, sparking a conflict which became one of the most volatile global conflicts of the latter half of the century. Behind nearly unilateral support from the United States and other Western nations, Israel waged several wars with its Arab neighbors in 1948, 1958, 1967, 1973, and 1982. Anger over the Israeli capture of Palestinian lands during the Six-Day War of 1967 led to a wave of attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), during the 1970s. Negotiations during the late 1980s and 1990s led to the PLO transitioning officially to a political organization; however, other Palestinian groups continued attacks against Israel. A derailing of the peace process during the late 1990s led to a resumption of attacks around the turn of the millennium. The political situation in the Middle East was further complicated as questions arose over the influence of Islam on the governments of many Middle Eastern countries; perceived human rights violations by many of these countries; the possession of vast petroleum and natural gas reserves in the Persian Gulf region; and the Soviet war in Afghanistan that fueled such rogue Islamic groups as Al-Qaeda that would change the political landscape in the following century.
In approximately the last third of the century, concern about humankind's impact on the Earth's environment caused environmentalism to become a major citizen movement. In many countries, especially in Europe, the movement was channeled into politics partly through Green parties, though awareness of the problem permeated societies. By the end of the century, some progress had been made in cleaning up the environment in first-world countries, though pollution continued apace, and environmental problems in newly industrializing countries, such as India and China, had grown rapidly. Increasing awareness and pessimism over global warming began in the 1980s, sparking one of the most heated social and political debates by the turn of the century.
Medical science and the Green Revolution in agriculture enabled the world's population to grow from about 1.65 billion to about 6 billion. This rapid population increase quickly became a major concern and directly caused or contributed to several global issues, including pressure on finite natural resources, conflict, poverty, major environmental issues, and severe overcrowding in some areas.
[edit] The nature of change
Due to continuing industrialization and expanding trade, many significant changes of the 20th century were, directly or indirectly, economic and technological in nature. Inventions such as the light bulb, the automobile, and the telephonesupertankers, airliners, motorways, radio, television, antibiotics, frozen food, computers and microcomputers, the internet, and mobile telephones affected the quality of life for great numbers. Economic development was the force behind vast changes in everyday life, to a degree which was unprecedented in human history. Still, the gulf between the world's rich and poor grew much wider than it had ever been in the past. While increasing industrialization and world trade had helped great numbers out of at least abject poverty by the century's end, the poorer half of the world population — three billion people — lived on the purchasing power of two U.S. dollars or less per day.[2] in the late 1800s, followed by
[edit] Developments in brief
[edit] Wars and politics
Clockwise from top: front line Trenches, a British Mark I Tank crossing a trench, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the battle of the Dardanelles, a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes.
[edit] Culture and entertainment
[edit] Medicine
[edit] Notable diseases
[edit] Energy, natural resources and the environment
[edit] Science and technology
[edit] Major events
[edit] The world at the beginning of the century
In Europe, the British Empire achieved the height of its power. Germany and Italy, which came into existence as unified nations at the end of the 19th century, grew in power, challenging the traditional hegemony of Britain and France. With nationalism in full force at this time, the European powers competed with each other for land, military strength and economic power.
Asia and Africa were for the most part still under control of their European colonizers. The major exceptions were China and Japan. The Russo-Japanese War in 1905 was the first major instance of a European power being defeated by a so-called inferior nation. The war itself strengthened Japanese militarism and enhanced Japan's rise to the status of a world power. Tsarist Russia, on the other hand, did not handle the defeat well. The war exposed the country's military weakness and increasing economic backwardness, and contributed to the Russian Revolution of 1905, the dress rehearsal for the conclusive one in 1917.
Already in the 19th century, the United States had become an influential actor in world politics. It had made its presence known on the world stage by challenging Spain in the Spanish-American War, gaining the colonies of Cuba and the Philippines as protectorates. Now, with growth in immigration and a resolution of the national unity issue through the bloody American Civil War, America was emerging as an industrial power as well, rivaling Britain, Germany, and France.
With increasing rivalry among the European powers, and the rise of Japan and the United States, the stage was set for a major upheaval in world affairs.
[edit] "The war to end all wars": World War I (1914–1918)
The First World War, termed "The Great War" by contemporaries, started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It was ignited by the Assassination in Sarajevo of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's heir to the throne, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, by Gavrilo Princip of the Serbian nationalist organization "Black Hand". Bound by Slavic nationalism to help the small Serbian state, the Russians came to the aid of the Serbs when they were attacked. Interwoven alliances, an increasing arms race, and old hatreds dragged Europe into war. The Allies, known initially as "The Triple Entente", comprised the British Empire, Russia and France, as well as Italy and the United States later in the war. On the other side, Germany, along with Austria-Hungary , Bulgaria and later the Ottoman Empire, were known as "The Central Powers".
In 1917, Russia ended hostile actions against the Central Powers after the fall of the Tsar. The Bolsheviks negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, although it was at huge cost to Russia. Although Germany shifted huge forces from the eastern to the western front after signing the treaty, it was unable to stop the Allied advance, especially with the entrance of American troops in 1918.
The war itself was also a chance for the combatant nations to show off their military strength and technological ingenuity. The Germans introduced the machine gun and deadly gases. The British first used the tank. Both sides had a chance to test out their new aircraft to see if they could be used in warfare. It was widely believed that the war would be short. Unfortunately, since trench warfare was the best form of defense, advances on both sides were very slow, and came at a terrible cost in lives.
When the war was finally over in 1918, the results would set the stage for the next twenty years. First and foremost, the Germans were forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, forcing them to make exorbitant payments to repair damages caused during the War. Many Germans felt these reparations were unfair because they did not actually "lose" the war nor did they feel they caused the war (see Stab-in-the-back legend). Germany was never occupied by Allied troops, yet it had to accept a liberal democratic government imposed on it by the victors after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm.
Much of the map of Europe was redrawn by the victors based upon the theory that future wars could be prevented if all ethnic groups had their own "homeland". New states like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were created out of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to accommodate the nationalist aspirations of these groups. An international body called the League of Nations was formed to mediate disputes and prevent future wars, although its effectiveness was severely limited by, among other things, its reluctance and inability to act.
[edit] The Russian Revolution and communism
The Russian Revolution of 1917 sparked a wave of communist revolutions across Europe, prompting many to believe that a socialist world revolution could be realized in the near future. However, the European revolutions were defeated, Lenin died in 1924, and within a few years Joseph Stalin displaced Leon Trotsky as the de facto leader of the Soviet Union. The idea of worldwide revolution was no longer in the forefront, as Stalin concentrated on "socialism in one country" and embarked on a bold plan of collectivization and industrialization. The majority of socialists and even many communists became disillusioned with Stalin's autocratic rule, his purges and the assassination of his "enemies", as well as the news of famines he imposed on his own people.
Communism was strengthened as a force in Western democracies when the global economy crashed in 1929 in what became known as the Great Depression. Many people saw this as the first stage of the end of the capitalist system and were attracted to Communism as a solution to the economic crisis, especially as the Soviet Union's economic development in the 1930s was strong, unaffected by the capitalist world's crisis.
[edit] Between the wars
[edit] Economic depression
After World War I, the global economy remained strong through the 1920s. The war had provided a stimulus for industry and for economic activity in general. There were many warning signs foretelling the collapse of the global economic system in 1929 that were generally not understood by the political leadership of the time. The responses to the crisis often made the situation worse, as millions of people watched their savings become next to worthless and the idea of a steady job with a reasonable income fading away.
Many sought answers in alternative ideologies such as communism and fascism. They believed that the capitalist economic system was collapsing, and that new ideas were required to meet the crisis. The early responses to the crisis were based upon the assumption that the free market would correct itself. This, however, did very little to correct the crisis or to alleviate the suffering of many ordinary people. Thus, the idea that the existing system could be reformed by government intervention in the economy rather than by continuing the laissez-faire approach became prominent as a solution to the crisis. Democratic governments assumed the responsibility to provide needed services in society and alleviate poverty. Thus was born the welfare state. These two politico-economic principles, the belief in government intervention and the welfare state, as opposed to the belief in the free market and private institutions, would define many political battles for the rest of the century.
[edit] The rise of dictatorship
Fascism first appeared in Italy with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922. The ideology was supported by a large proportion of the upper classes as a strong challenge to the threat of communism.
When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, a new variant of fascism called Nazism took over Germany and ended the German experiment with democracy. The National Socialist party in Germany was dedicated to the restoration of German honor and prestige, the unification of German-speaking peoples, and the annexation of Central and Eastern Europe as vassal states, with the Slavic population to act as slave labor to serve German economic interests. There was also a strong appeal to a mythical racial purity (the idea that Germans were the Herrenvolk or the "master race"), and a vicious anti-semitism which promoted the idea of Jews as subhuman (Untermensch) and worthy only of extermination.
Many people in Western Europe and the United States greeted the rise of Hitler with relief or indifference. They could see nothing wrong with a strong Germany ready to take on the communist menace to the east. Anti-semitism during the Great Depression was widespread as many were content to blame the Jews for causing the economic downturn.
Hitler began to put his plan in motion, annexing Austria in the Anschluss, or reunification of Austria to Germany, in 1938. He then negotiated the annexation of the Sudetenland, a German speaking mountainous area of Czechoslovakia, in the Munich Conference. The British were eager to avoid war and believed Hitler's assurance to protect the security of the Czech state. Hitler annexed the rest of the Czech state shortly afterwards. It could no longer be argued that Hitler was solely interested in unifying the German people.
Fascism was not the only form of dictatorship to rise in the post-war period. Almost all of the new democracies in the nations of Eastern Europe collapsed and were replaced by authoritarian regimes. Spain also became a dictatorship under the leadership of General Francisco Franco after the Spanish Civil War. Totalitarian states attempted to achieve total control over their subjects as well as their total loyalty. They held the state above the individual, and were often responsible for some of the worst acts in history, such as the Holocaust Adolf Hitler perpetrated on Ashkenazi Jews, or the Great Purge Stalin perpetrated on the Russians later in the century.
[edit] Global war: World War II (1939–1945)
[edit] The war in Europe
This section provides a conversational overview of World War II in Europe. See main article for a fuller discussion.
Soon after the events in Czechoslovakia, Britain and France issued assurances of protection to Poland, which seemed to be next on Hitler's list. World War II officially began on 1 September 1939. On that date, Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, against Poland. Britain and France, much to Hitler's surprise, immediately declared war upon Germany, but the help they could afford Poland was negligible. After only a few weeks, the Polish forces were overwhelmed, and its government fled to exile in London (see Polish government in Exile).
In starting World War II, the Germans had unleashed a new type of warfare, characterized by highly mobile forces and the use of massed aircraft. The German strategy concentrated upon the devotion of the Wehrmacht, or German army, to the use of tank groups, called panzer divisions, and groups of mobile infantry, in concert with relentless attacks from the air. Encirclement was also a major part of the strategy. This change smashed any expectations that the Second World War would be fought in the trenches like the first.
As Hitler's forces conquered Poland, the Soviet Union, under General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was acting out guarantees of territory under a secret part of a nonaggression pact between the USSR and Germany known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty gave Stalin free rein to take the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Eastern Poland, all of which would remain in Soviet possession after the war. Stalin also launched an attack on Finland, which he hoped to reduce to little more than a Soviet puppet state, but the Red Army met staunch Finnish resistance in what became known as the Winter War, and succeeded in gaining only limited territory from the Finns. This action would later cause the Finns to ally with Germany when its attack on the Soviet Union came in 1941.
After the defeat of Poland, a period known as the Phony War ensued during the winter of 1939–1940. All of this changed on 10 May 1940, when the Germans launched a massive attack on the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), most probably to surmount the Maginot Line of defenses on the Franco-German border. This witnessed the incredible fall of Eben Emael, a Belgian fort considered impregnable and guarded by 600 Belgians, to a force of only 88 German paratroopers. The worst of this was that King