The20th century began on 1 January1901 (MCMI), and ended on 31 December2000 (MM).[1][2] It was the 10th and last century of the2nd 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]
Fascism, a movement which grew out of post-warangst and which accelerated during theGreat Depression of the 1930s, gained momentum inItaly,Germany, andSpain in the 1920s and 1930s, culminating inWorld War II, sparked byNazi Germany's aggressive expansion at the expense of its neighbors. Meanwhile,Japan had rapidly transformed itself into a technologically advanced industrial power and, along with Germany and Italy, formed theAxis powers. Japan's militaryexpansionism in East Asia and the Pacific Ocean brought it into conflict with the United States, culminating ina surprise attack which drew the US into World War II.
Following World War II, theUnited Nations, successor to theLeague of Nations, was established as an international forum in which the world's nations could discuss issues diplomatically. It enactedresolutions on such topics as the conduct of warfare, environmental protection, internationalsovereignty, 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 theEuropean Union, which consisted of 15 European countries by the end of the 20th century.
After the war, Germany wasoccupied and divided between theWestern powers and the Soviet Union.East Germany and the rest ofEastern Europe became Sovietpuppet states under communist rule. Western Europe was rebuilt with the aid of the AmericanMarshall Plan, resulting in a majorpost-war economic boom, and many of the affected nations became close allies of the United States.
With the Axis defeated and Britain and France rebuilding, the United States and the Soviet Union were left standing as the world's only superpowers. Allies during the war, they soon became hostile to one another as their competing ideologies ofcommunism anddemocratic capitalism proliferated in Europe, which became divided by theIron Curtain and theBerlin Wall. They formed competing military alliances (NATO and theWarsaw Pact) which engaged in a decades-long standoff known as theCold War. The period was marked by anew arms race as the USSR became the second nation to develop nuclear weapons, which were produced by both sides in sufficient numbers toend most human life on the planet had a large-scale nuclear exchange ever occurred.Mutually assured destruction is credited by many historians as having prevented such an exchange, each side being unable tostrike first at the other without ensuring an equally devastatingretaliatory strike. Unable to engage one another directly, the conflict played out in a series ofproxy wars around the world—particularly inChina,Korea,Cuba,Vietnam, andAfghanistan—as the USSR sought toexport communism while the US attempted tocontain it. The technological competition between the two sides led to substantial investment inresearch and development which produced innovations that reached far beyond the battlefield, such asspace exploration and the Internet.
The international community grew in the second half of the century significantly due to a new wave of decolonization, particularly in Africa. Most of the newly independent states, were grouped together with many other so calleddeveloping countries. Developing countries gained attention, particularly due to rapid population growth, leading to a recordworld population of nearly 7 billion people by the end of the century.
Starting from the century, strong discrimination based on race and sex was significant in most societies. Although theAtlantic slave trade had ended in the 19th century, movements for equality for non-white people in the white-dominated societies ofNorth America, Europe, andSouth Africa continued. By the end of the 20th century, in many parts of the world, women had the same legal rights as men, and racism had come to be seen as unacceptable, a sentiment often backed up by legislation.[12] When theRepublic of India wasconstituted, the disadvantaged classes of thecaste system in India became entitled toaffirmative action benefits in education, employment and government.
Attitudes toward pre-marital sex changed rapidly in many societies during thesexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Attitudes towards homosexuality also began to change in the later part of the century.[13][14]
Trauma brought on by events like World War I and World War II, with theirmilitary death tolls aloneat bare minimum being 29,697,963, and theSpanish Flu, whose death count alone exceeded that, helped make society in many countries moreegalitarian and less neglectful of the poor.[15]
Economic growth and technological progress had radically altered daily lives. Europe appeared to be at a sustainable peace for the first time in recorded history[citation needed]. The people of theIndian subcontinent, a sixth of the world population at the end of the 20th century, had attained anindigenous independence for the first time in centuries. China, an ancient nation comprising a fifth of the world population, was finallyopen to the world, 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.
The world was undergoing its second major period ofglobalization; 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 wasAmericanization. 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 ofnuclear weapons were pressingglobal issues. The world was still blighted by small-scale wars and other violent conflicts, fueled by competition over resources and by ethnic conflicts.
Disease threatened to destabilize many regions of the world. New viruses such as theWest Nile virus continued to spread.Malaria and other diseases affected large populations. Millions were infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The virus was becoming anepidemic in southern Africa.
Based on research done by climate scientists, the majority of the scientific community consider that in the long term environmental problems pose a serious threat.[16] One argument is that ofglobal warming occurring due to human-caused emission ofgreenhouse gases, particularlycarbon dioxide produced by the burning offossil fuels.[17] This prompted many nations to negotiate and sign theKyoto 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.[18][19]
Map of territorial changes in Europe afterWorld 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.[citation needed] Political scientistRudolph Rummel estimated 262,000,000 deaths caused bydemocide, which excludes those killed in war battles, civilians unintentionally killed in war and killings of rioting mobs.[20] According toCharles 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."[21] It is estimated that approximately 70 million Europeans died through war, violence and famine between 1914 and 1945.[22]
Russo-Japanese War, between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan during1904 and1905 over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire.
Russian Revolution of 1905, a wave of mass political and social unrest then began to spread across the vast areas of the Russian Empire. The unrest was directed primarily against the Tsar, the nobility, and the ruling class. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies.
Sinking of the Titanic,RMS Titanic sank on15 April1912 in theNorth Atlantic Ocean. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic was four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, with an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at 23:40 (ship's time)[a] on 14 April.
After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of newbirth control techniques,women became more independent throughout the century.
The Revolutions of 1917–1923 occurred during and World War I inspired by the Russian Revolution which saw many political changes in Europe and in Asia.
The 1921Tulsa Race Massacre, was a racist anti black terrorist attack in theGreenwood District inTulsa, Oklahoma, which was home to many successful and wealthyBlack Americans. The attack was perpetrated by white residents and local white deputies. The perpetrators were armed by local government officials.[29][30]
A violentcivil war broke out in Spain in 1936 when GeneralFrancisco Franco rebelled against theSecond Spanish Republic. Many consider this war as a testing battleground for World War II, as the fascist armies bombed some Spanish territories.
In 1948The Nakba was, according to several historians, a targeted ethnic cleansing campaign against Arabs in Palestine perpetrated by Jewish Militias underPlan Delta, a plan ordered byBen-Gurion. The campaign utilized methods of intimidation, violent attacks, and the destruction of several Arab villages.[31][32][33]
TheCold War (1947–1991) involved anarms race and increasing competition between the two major players in the world: the Soviet Union and the United States. This competition included the development and improvement ofnuclear weapons andspace technology. This led to theproxy wars with theWestern bloc, including wars inKorea (1950–1953) andVietnam (1957–1975).
TheSoviet authorities caused the deaths of millions of their own citizens to eliminate domestic opposition.[34] More than 18 million people passed through theGulag, with a further 6 million beingexiled to remote areas of theSoviet Union.[35]
The end ofcolonialism led to the independence of manyAfrican andAsian countries, from the two largest colonial empires in the world, theBritish andFrench colonial empires. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the United States, the USSR, or China for defense.
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by the government's subordination to the Soviet Union (USSR).
Cuban Missile Crisis, 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles inCuba.
The 1981Martial law in Poland, The government of the Polish People's Republic drastically restricted everyday life by introducing martial law and a military junta in an attempt to counter political opposition, in particular theSolidarity movement.
The 1986Chernobyl disaster, worst nuclear disaster in history. Some Ukrainians viewed the Chernobyl disaster as another attempt by Russians to destroy them, comparable to the Holodomor.
TheTiananmen Square protests of 1989, culminating in the deaths of hundreds of civilian protesters and thousands of wounded, were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world.
1991 Soviet coup attempt, a failed attempt by hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to forcibly seize control of the country fromMikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the CPSU at the time.
Bosnian War, international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between1992 and1995.
The 1994Rwandan genocide, over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias.
European integration began in earnest in the 1950s inFrance andGermany, and eventually led to theEuropean Union, a political and economic union that comprised 15 countries at the end of the 20th century.
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.
Visual culture 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.
Computer games and internet surfing became new and popular form of entertainment during the last 25 years of the century.
The invention of music recording technologies such as thephonograph record, and dissemination technologies such asradio broadcasting, massively expanded the audience for music. Prior to the 20th century, music was generally only experienced inlive performances. Many new genres of music were established during the 20th century.
Tango was created in Argentina and became extremely popular in the rest of the Americas and Europe.
Blues andjazz music became popularized during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s in the United States.Bebop develops as a form of jazz in the 1940s.
Country music develops in the 1920s and 1930s in the United States.
Blues and country went on to influencerock and roll in the 1950s, which along withfolk music, increased in popularity with theBritish Invasion of the mid-to-late 1960s.
Film as an artistic medium was created in the 20th century. The first modern movie theatre was established inPittsburgh in 1905.[38]Hollywood developed as the center of American film production. While the first films were in black and white,technicolor was developed in the 1920s to allow for color films.Sound films were developed, with the first full-length feature film,The Jazz Singer, released in 1927. TheAcademy Awards were established in 1929. Animation was also developed in the 1920s, with the first full-lengthcel animated feature filmSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937.Computer-generated imagery was developed in the 1980s, with the first full-lengthCGI-animated filmToy Story released in 1995.
Modern dance is born in America as a 'rebellion' against centuries-old European ballet.Dancers and choreographersAlvin Ailey,Isadora Duncan,Vaslav Nijinsky,Ruth St. Denis,Mahmoud Reda,Martha Graham,José Limón,Doris Humphrey,Merce Cunningham, andPaul Taylor re-defined movement, struggling to bring it back to its 'natural' roots and along with Jazz, created a solely American art form. Alvin Ailey is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th-century concert dance. His company gained the nickname "Cultural Ambassador to the World" because of its extensive international touring. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best known and most often seen modern dance performance.
Video games—due to the great technological steps forward incomputing since the secondpost-war period—are one of the new forms of entertainment that emerged in the 20th century alongside films.
Art Nouveau began as a form of architecture and design but fell out of fashion after World War I. The style was dynamic and inventive but unsuited to the depression of the Great War.
In Europe,modern architecture departed from the decorated styles of theVictorian era. Streamlined forms inspired by machines became commonplace, enabled by developments inbuilding materials and technologies. Before World War II, many European architects moved to the United States, where modern architecture continued to develop.
The automobile increased the mobility of people in the Western countries in the early-to-mid-century, and in many other places by the end of the 20th century.City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car.
The popularity of sport increased considerably—both as an activity for all and as entertainment, particularly on television.
The modernOlympic Games, first held in 1896, grew to include tens of thousands of athletes in dozens of sports.
TheFIFA World Cup was first held in 1930 and was held every four years after World War II.
American LeagueBaseball was formed in 1900 and in 1903, both National and American agreed to play in the firstWorld Series with over 100,000 in attendance.[42]
Boxing, also known as "Prize Fighting" became popular over this decade althoughbare-knuckle fighting was still popular.
Radiocarbon dating was invented, and became a powerful technique for determining the age ofprehistoric animals and plants as well as historical objects.
A much better understanding of the evolution of theuniverse was achieved, itsage (about 13.8 billion years) was determined, and theBig Bang theory on its origin was proposed and generally accepted.
The age of theSolar System, including Earth, was determined, and it turned out to be much older than believed earlier: more than 4 billion years, rather than the 20 million years suggested byLord Kelvin in 1862.[46]
The planets of the Solar System and their moons were closely observed via numerousspace probes.Pluto was discovered in 1930 on the edge of the Solar System, although in the early 21st century, it was reclassified as adwarf planet instead of a planet proper, leaving eight planets.
No trace of life was discovered on any of the other planets orbitingthe Sun (or elsewhere in the universe), although it remained undetermined whether some forms of primitive life might exist, or might have existed, somewhere in the Solar System.Extrasolar planets were observed for the first time.
Norman Borlaug fathered theGreen Revolution, the set of researchtechnology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s that increased agricultural production in parts of the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s, and is often credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation.
The convergence of various sciences for the formulation of themodern evolutionary synthesis (produced between 1936 and 1947), providing a widely accepted account ofevolution.
Cocaine and heroin were widely illegalized after being found to be addictive and destructive.Psychoactive drugs such asLSD andMDMA were discovered and subsequently prohibited in many countries.Prohibition of drugs caused a growth in the black market drug industry, andexpanded enforcement led to a larger prison population in some countries.[49]
Contraceptive drugs were developed, which reduced population growth rates in industrialized countries, as well as decreased the taboo ofpremarital sex throughout many western countries.
The development of medicalinsulin during the 1920s helped raise the life expectancy ofdiabetics to three times of what it had been earlier.
Vaccines, hygiene and clean water improved health and decreased mortality rates, especially among infants and the young.
Aninfluenza pandemic,Spanish Flu, killed anywhere from 17 to 100 million people between 1918 and 1919.
A newviral disease, called theHuman Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, arose in Africa and subsequently killed millions of people throughout the world. HIV leads to a syndrome calledAcquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. Treatments for HIV remained inaccessible to many people living with AIDS and HIV indeveloping countries, and a cure has yet to be discovered.
Changes in food production, along withsedentary lifestyles due to labor-saving devices and the increase in home entertainment, contributed to an "epidemic" ofobesity, at first in the rich countries, but by the end of the 20th century spreading to the developing world.
Oil field in California, 1938. The first modern oil well was drilled in 1848 by Russian engineer F.N. Semyonov, on theApsheron Peninsula north-east ofBaku.
Widespread use of petroleum in industry—both as a chemical precursor to plastics and as a fuel for the automobile and airplane—led to the geopolitical importance of petroleum resources. The Middle East, home to many of the world's oil deposits, became a center of geopolitical and military tension throughout the latter half of the century. (For example, oil was a factor in Japan's decision to go to war against the United States in 1941, and the oil cartel,OPEC, used an oil embargo of sorts in the wake of theYom Kippur War in the 1970s).
The increase infossil fuel consumption also fueled a major scientific controversy over its effect on air pollution,global warming, and globalclimate change.
In the last third of the century, concern about humankind's impact on the Earth'senvironment made environmentalism popular. In many countries, especially in Europe, the movement was channeled into politics throughGreen parties. Increasing awareness ofglobal warming began in the 1980s, commencing decades of social and political debate.
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, electronics, engineering, travel, medicine, and war.
The first airplane, theWright Flyer, was flown in 1903. With the engineering of the fasterjet engine in the 1940s, massair travel became commercially viable.
Theassembly line 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 ofdivided highways reduced the death rate.
Thetriode tube was invented, laying the foundation for amplification and switching technologies that led to silicon-basedsolid-state transistors, which revolutionized modern electronics.
Air conditioning of buildings became common
New materials, most notablystainless steel,Velcro,silicone,teflon, and plastics such aspolystyrene,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.
Aluminum became an inexpensive metal and became second only to iron in use.
Thousands ofchemicals were developed for industrial processing and home use.
Digital computers came into use, they greatly increased productivity and paved the way for theInternet, which revolutionized global communication and information sharing.
TheSpace Race between the United States and theSoviet Union gave a peaceful outlet to the political and military tensions of theCold War, leading to the firsthuman spaceflight with the Soviet Union'sVostok 1 mission in 1961, and man's first landing on another world—theMoon—with America'sApollo 11 mission in 1969. Later, the firstspace station was launched by theSoviet space program. The United States developed the first reusable spacecraft system with theSpace Shuttle program, first launched in 1981. As the century ended, a permanent crewed presence in space was being founded with the ongoing construction of theInternational Space Station.
In addition to human spaceflight, uncrewed space probes became a practical and relatively inexpensive form of exploration. The first orbiting space probe,Sputnik 1, was launched by theSoviet Union in 1957. Over time, a massive system of artificial satellites was placed into orbit around Earth. These satellites greatly advanced navigation, communications, military intelligence, geology, climate, and numerous other fields. Also, by the end of the 20th century, uncrewed probes had visited or flown by the Moon,Mercury,Venus,Mars,Jupiter,Saturn,Uranus,Neptune, and various asteroids and comets, withVoyager 1 being the farthest manufactured object from Earth at 23,5 billion kilometers away from Earth as of 6 September 2022, and together withVoyager 2 both carrying TheVoyager Golden Record containing sounds, music and greetings in 55 languages as well as 116 images of nature, human advancement, space and society.
TheHubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, greatly expanded our understanding of the Universe and brought brilliant images to TV and computer screens around the world.
TheGlobal Positioning System, a series of satellites that allow land-based receivers to determine their exact location, was developed and deployed.[50]
^Ferguson, Niall (2004).Empire: The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power. New York: Basic Books.ISBN978-0-465-02328-8.
^Malchow, Howard (2011).Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain?. Stanford University Press.ISBN978-0-804-77399-7.
^Djukanovic, Bojka (2024).Nordic, Central, and Southeastern Europe 2024–2025. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 3.ISBN978-1-5381-8587-2.Most of the countries presented in this book had communist regimes until 1989–1991 and have been undergoing the difficult transition to democracy and free-market economies.
^IPCC AR5 WG1 2013,"Summary for Policymakers, Observed Changes in the Climate System", pp. 10–11: "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).
^Brown, DeNeen L. (October 22, 2019). "HBO's 'Watchmen' depicts a deadly Tulsa race massacre that was all too real".Washington Post. Retrieved July 3, 2020."White city police officer "deputized" members of the lynch mob and "instructed them to get a gun and get a n-----", according to the Oklahoma Historical Society".
^"Tulsa race massacre of 1921 | Commission, Facts, & Books".Britannica. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
^Devaney, Robert L. (1998).A first course in chaotic dynamical systems : theory and experiment (6. printing. ed.). Reading, Mass. [u.a.]: Addison-Wesley.ISBN978-0-201-55406-9.
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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 perspectiveonline free
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