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Contemporary history, in English-languagehistoriography, is a subset ofmodern history that describes thehistorical period from about 1945 to the present.[1] In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related to, the rise ofpostmodernity.
Contemporary history ispolitically dominated by theCold War (1947–1991) between theWestern Bloc, led by the United States, and theEastern Bloc, led by theSoviet Union. The confrontation spurred fears of anuclear war. An all-out "hot" war was avoided, but both sides intervened in the internal politics of smaller nations in their bid for global influence and viaproxy wars. The Cold War ultimately ended with theRevolutions of 1989 and thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The latter stages and aftermath of the Cold War enabled thedemocratization of much of Europe, Africa, and Latin America.Decolonization was another important trend in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa as new states gained independence from Europeancolonial empires during the period from 1945–1975. The Middle East also saw aconflict involving the new state of Israel, the rise ofpetroleum politics, the continuing prominence but later decline ofArab nationalism, and the growth ofIslamism. The first supranational organizations of government, such as the United Nations and European Union, emerged during the period after 1945.
Countercultures rose and thesexual revolution transformedsocial relations in western countries between the 1960s and 1980s, as seen in theprotests of 1968. Living standards rose sharply across thedeveloped world because of thepost-war economic boom. Japan andWest Germany both emerged as exceptionally strong economies. Theculture of the United States spread widely, with American television and movies spreading across the world. Some Western countries began a slow process ofdeindustrializing in the 1970s;globalization led to the emergence of new financial and industrial centers in Asia. TheJapanese economic miracle was later followed by theFour Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Singapore,South Korea andTaiwan.China launched major economic reforms from 1979 onward, becoming a major exporter of consumer goods around the world.
Science made new advances after 1945, which includedspaceflight,nuclear technology,lasers,semiconductors,molecular biology,genetics,particle physics, and theStandard Model ofquantum field theory. The first commercial computers were created, followed by the Internet, beginning theInformation Age.
In 1945, theAllies of World War II had defeated all significant opposition to them. They established the United Nations to govern international relations and disputes. A looming question was how to handle the defeated Axis nations and the shattered nations that the Axis had conquered. Following theYalta Conference, territory was divided into zones for which Allied country would have responsibility and manage rebuilding. While these zones were theoretically temporary (such as the eventual fate ofoccupied Austria, which was released to independence as a neutral country), growing tensions between theWestern Bloc, led by the United States, with theEastern Bloc, led by theSoviet Union, meant that many calcified into place. Countries in Soviet zones of Eastern Europe had communist regimes installed assatellite states. TheBerlin Blockade of 1948 led to a Western Airlift to preserveWest Berlin and signified a cooling of East-West relations. Germany split into two countries in 1949, liberal-democraticWest Germany and communistEast Germany. The conflict as a whole would become known as theCold War. The Western Bloc formedNATO in 1949 while the Eastern Bloc formed theWarsaw Pact in 1955. Direct combat between the new Great Powers was generally avoided, althoughproxy wars fought in other countries by factions equipped by one side against the other side's faction occurred. Anarms race to develop and buildnuclear weapons happened as policymakers wanted to ensure their side had more if it came to a war.[2]
In East Asia,Chiang Kai-shek'sRepublic of China was overthrown in theChinese Communist Revolution from 1945–1949.His government retreated to Taiwan, but both the nationalistKMT government and the new communist mainland government underMao Zedong continued to claim authority over all of China.Korea was divided similarly to Germany, with the Soviet Union occupying the North and the United States occupying the South (futureNorth Korea andSouth Korea). Unlike Germany, the conflict there turned hot, as theKorean War erupted from 1950–1953. Korea was not reunified under either government, however, due to strong support from both the US and China for their favored side; it became afrozen conflict instead. Japan was given anew constitution foreswearing aggressive war in 1947, and theAmerican occupation ended in 1952, although a treaty of mutual aid with the US was soon signed. The US also granted thePhilippines their independence in 1946 while keeping close relations.
The Middle East became a hotbed of instability. The new Jewish state of Israel declared its independence, recognized by both the United States and the Soviet Union, after which followed the1948 Arab–Israeli War. Egypt's weak and ineffective kingFarouk was overthrown in the1952 Egyptian revolution, and replaced by GeneralNasser; the1953 Iran coup saw the American-friendly shahMohammad Reza Pahlavi remove the democratic constraints on his government and take power directly; and Iraq'sWestern-friendly monarchy wasoverthrown in 1958. Nasser's Egypt would go on to face theSuez Crisis in 1956, briefly unify with Syria as theUnited Arab Republic (UAR) from 1958 to 1961, and expensively intervene in theNorth Yemen civil war from 1962 to 1970.
Decolonization was the most important development across Southeast Asia and Africa from 1946–1975, as the old British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonial empires were dismantled. Many newstates were given their independence, but soon found themselves having to choose between allying with the Western Bloc, Eastern Bloc, or attempting to stay neutral as a member of theNon-Aligned Movement.British India was granted independence in 1947 without an outright war of independence being required. It waspartitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan (West Pakistan andEast Pakistan, futurePakistan andBangladesh);Indo-Pakistani wars were fought in 1947, 1965, and 1971.Sukarno took control of an independentIndonesia in 1950, as attempts to reinstate Dutch rule in 1945–1949 had largely failed, and took an independent-to-Eastern leaning stance. He would later be overthrown bySuharto in 1968, who took a pro-Western stance. TheFederation of Malaya was granted independence in 1957, with the concurrent fighting of theMalayan Emergency against communist forces from 1948–1960. The French unsuccessfully fought theFirst Indochina War in an attempt to hold on toFrench Indochina; at the1954 Geneva Conference, the new states ofCambodia,Laos, theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam, and the eventualRepublic of Vietnam were created. The division of Indochina eventually led to theVietnam War in the 1960s and 70s (as well as theLaotian Civil War andCambodian Civil War), which ended in communist North Vietnam took overSai Gon in 1975.[3]
In Africa, France fought the grindingAlgerian War from 1954–1962 that saw the end ofFrench Algeria and the rise of a new independentAlgeria. The British and French both slowly released their vast holdings, leading to the creation of states such asFirst Nigerian Republic in 1963. Portugal, on the other hand, fiercely held onto their Empire, leading to thePortuguese Colonial War from 1961–1974 in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique until theEstado Novo government fell. Meanwhile,apartheid-eraSouth Africa remained fiercely anti-communist, but withdrew from the British Commonwealth in 1961, and supported various pro-colonial factions across Africa that had lost support from their "home" governments in Europe. Many of the newly independent African governments struggled with the balance between being too weak and overthrown by ambitious coup-plotters, and too strong and becoming dictatorships.
Latin America saw gradual economic growth but also instability in many countries, as the threat of coups and military regimes (juntas) were a major threat. The most famous was theCuban Revolution that overthrewFulgencio Batista's American-friendly government forFidel Castro's Soviet-aligned government. This led to theCuban Missile Crisis in 1963, generally considered one of the incidents most dangerously close to turning the Cold War into a direct military conflict. The1968 Peruvian coup d'état and also installed a Soviet-friendly government. Despite this, the region ultimately leaned toward the US in this period, with theCIA supporting American-friendly factions in the1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, the1964 Brazilian coup d'état, the1973 Chilean coup d'état, and others. Nicaragua suffered the most, with theNicaraguan Revolution seeing major military aid from both great powers to their favored factions that extended a civil war in the country for decades. Mexico escaped this unrest, although functioned largely as a one-party state dominated by thePRI.Argentina had a succession of idiosyncratic governments that courted both the US and USSR, but generally mismanaged the economy.
The Middle East saw events that presaged later conflicts in the 70s and 80s. A few years after the end of the UAR's union between Egypt and Syria, Syria's government was overthrown in the1966 Syrian coup d'état and replaced with the Neo-Baathist Party, eventually leading to the leadership of theAl-Assad family. Israel and its neighbors fought theSix-Day War in 1967 and theYom Kippur War of 1973. UnderAnwar Sadat and laterHosni Mubarak, Egypt switched fromNasserism to favoring the Western Bloc, and signed a peace treaty with Israel. Lebanon, once among the most prosperous countries in the region and a cultural center, collapsed into the decade-longLebanese Civil War from 1975–1990. Iran's unpopular pro-American government was overthrown in the 1979Iranian Revolution and was replaced by a new Islamic Republic headed byRuhollah Khomeini. Iran and Baathist Iraq underSaddam Hussein then fought each other in theIran–Iraq War from 1980–1988, which ended inconclusively.
In East Asia, China underwent theCultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, a major internal struggle that saw an intense program ofMaoism and persecution of perceived internal enemies. China's relations with the Soviets deteriorated in the 1960s and 70s, resulting in theSino-Soviet split, although the two were able to cooperate on some matters. "Ping-pong diplomacy" led to a rapprochement between the US and China andAmerican recognition of the Chinese communist government in the 1970s. China's pro-democracy movement was suppressed after the1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and China's government survived the tensions that would roil the Soviet-aligned bloc during the 1980s. South Korea (in theJune Democratic Struggle) and Taiwan (with thelifting of martial law) would take major steps toward liberalization in 1987–1988, shifting from Western-aligned one-party states to more fully participatory democracies.
The 1980s saw a general retreat for the communist bloc. TheSoviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) is often called the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" in comparison to the American defeat, being an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful war and occupation. More importantly, the intervening decades had seen that Eastern Europe was unable to compete economically with Western Europe, which undermined the promise of communist abundance compared to capitalist poverty. The Western capitalist economies had proven wealthier and stronger, which made matching the Soviet defense budget to the American one strain limited resources. ThePan-European Picnic in 1989 then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction with the subsequentfall of the Berlin Wall. TheRevolutions of 1989 saw many countries of Eastern Europe throw off their communist governments, and the USSR declined to invade to re-establish them.East and West Germany were reunified.Client state status for many states ended, as there was no conflict left to fund. TheMalta Summit on 3 December 1989, the failure of theAugust Coup by Soviet hardliners, and the formaldissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991 sealed the end of the Cold War.[4]
The end of the Cold War left the United States the world's sole superpower. Communism seemed discredited; while China remained an officially communist state,Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms andsocialism with Chinese characteristics allowed for the growth of a capitalist private sector in China. In Russia, PresidentBoris Yeltsin pursued a policy of privatization, spinning off former government agencies into private corporations, attempting to handle budget problems inherited from the USSR. The end of Soviet foreign aid caused a variety of changes in countries previously part of the Eastern Bloc; many officially became democratic republics, though some were more accurately described as authoritarian oroligarchic republics andone-party states.[5] Many Western commentators treated the development optimistically; it was thought the world was steadily progressing toward free, liberal democracies. South Africa, no longer able to attract Western support by claiming to be anti-communist,ended apartheid in the early 1990s, and many Eastern European countries switched to stable democracies. While some Americans had anticipated a "peace dividend" from budget cuts to the Defense Department, these cuts were not as large as some had hoped. TheEuropean Economic Community evolved into the European Union with the signing of theMaastricht Treaty in 1993, which integrated Europe across borders to a new degree. International coalitions continued to have a role; theGulf War saw a large international coalition undo Baathist Iraq's annexation of Kuwait, but other "police" style actions were less successful.Somalia andAfghanistan descended into long, bloody civil wars for almost the entirety of the decade (Somali Civil War,Afghan Civil War (1992–1996),Afghan Civil War (1996–2001)). Russia fought abrutal war in Chechnya that failed to suppress the insurgency there from 1994–1996; war would resume during theSecond Chechen War in 1999–2000 that saw a resumption of Russian control after Russia successfully convinced enough rebels to join their cause with promises of autonomy. Thebreakup of Yugoslavia also led to a series ofYugoslav Wars; NATO eventually intervened in theKosovo War. In the Middle East, theIsraeli–Palestinian peace process offered the prospect of a long-term peace deal to many; theOslo Accords signed in 1993 seemed to offer a"roadmap" to resolving the conflict. Despite these high hopes, they would be largely dashed in 2000–2001 after a breakdown of negotiations and theSecond Intifada.
TheSeptember 11 attacks were a series of coordinatedsuicide attacks byal-Qaeda upon the United States on 11 September 2001. On that morning, nineteen al-Qaeda terroristshijacked four commercial passengerjet airliners.[6][7] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of theWorld Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner intothe Pentagon inArlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed into a field nearShanksville in ruralSomerset County, Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane.
In response, the United States under PresidentGeorge W. Bush enacted thePatriot Act. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Major terrorist events after the September 11 attacks include the2002 Bali bombings, the 2002Moscow theater hostage crisis, the2003 Istanbul bombings, the2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2004Beslan school siege, the2005 London bombings, the2005 Delhi bombings, and the2008 Mumbai attacks, generally fromIslamic terrorism.
The United States responded to the 11 September 2001 attacks by launching a "Global War on Terrorism", invading theIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan to depose theTaliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists. TheWar in Afghanistan began in late 2001 and was launched by the UN-authorizedISAF, with the United States and United Kingdom providing most of the troops. TheBush administration policy and theBush Doctrine stated forces would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbor them.Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the United States combat operation involving some coalition partners and operating primarily in the eastern and southern parts of the country along thePakistan border; the ISAF established by theUnited Nations Security Council was in charge of securing the capital ofKabul and its surrounding areas. NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003.
Despite initial coalition successes, the Taliban were never entirely defeated, and continued to hold territory in mountainous regions as well as threaten the new government, theIslamic Republic of Afghanistan, whose grasp on power outside the major cities was shaky at best.[8][9] The war was also less successful in restricting al-Qaeda than anticipated.[10]
TheIraq War began in March 2003 with theinvasion of Iraq by amultinational force.[11] The invasion of Iraq led to anoccupation and the eventual capture ofSaddam Hussein, who was laterexecuted by the Iraqi Government. Despite government assumptions that the war in Iraq would be over with the fall of Hussein, it continued and intensified. Sectarian groups both fought each other and the occupying coalition forces viaasymmetric warfare during theIraqi insurgency, as Iraq was starkly divided between Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish groups that now competed with each other for power.Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq continued as well.[12][13] In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved aStatus of Forces Agreement effective through to the end of 2011.[14]
TheObama administration re-focused US involvement in the conflict on the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq and a surge of troops and government support in Afghanistan. In May 2011, thebin Laden raid occurred after bin Laden was tracked tohis compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.[15]
In 2011, the United States declared aformal end to the Iraq War.[16][17][18] In February 2020, PresidentDonald Trump agreed with the Taliban towithdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the next year. TheBiden administration delayed the withdrawal by a few months, but still largely kept to the deal; the coalition-supported Afghan government soon collapsed, and the Taliban took undisputed control of the country in August 2021 after the successful2021 Taliban offensive.
The end of World War II in 1945 saw an increase ininternational trade and an interconnected system of treaties and agreements to ease its flow. In particular, the United States and the United States dollar took a pivotal role in theworld economy, displacing the UK. The era is sometimes called "Pax Americana" for the relative liberal peace in the Western world, resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the US, as a comparison to thePax Romana established at the height of the Roman Empire. New York's financial sector ("Wall Street") was the center of the financial world from 1945–1970 in a dominant way unlikely to be seen again. Unlike the aftermath of World War I, the US strongly aided in the rebuilding of Europe, including aid to the defeated Axis nations, rather than punishment. TheMarshall Plan sent billions of dollars of aid to Western Europe to ensure its stability and ward off a potential economic downturn. The 1944Bretton Woods Conference established theBretton Woods system, a set of practices that governed world trade and currencies from 1945–1971, as well as theWorld Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF). Western Europe also established theEuropean Economic Community in 1957 to ease customs and aid international trade. In general, vast quality of life improvements affected most every corner of the globe during this period, in both the Western and Eastern spheres. France called themLes Trente Glorieuses ("The Glorious Thirty [Years]"). Despite being largely destroyed in the war, West Germany soon bounced back to being an economic powerhouse by the 1950s with thewirtschaftswunder. Surprisingly,Japan followed Germany, achieving incredible economic growth and becoming the second largest economy in the world in 1968, a phenomenon called theJapanese economic miracle.[19] Many explanations are proffered for the enviable results of these years: relative peace (at least outside the "Third World"); a reduction in average family size; technological improvements; and others. The Eastern Bloc, meanwhile, establishedComecon as their equivalent to the Marshall Plan and to establish internal trading rules between communist states.[20]
The 1970s saw economic headwinds. Notably, theprice of oil started to go up in the 1970s, as the easiest and most accessible wells had already been pumped dry in the preceding century, and oil is a non-renewable resource. Attention was drawn to the abundant oil in the Middle East, where countries inOPEC controlled substantial untapped oil reserves. Political tensions over theYom Kippur War and theIranian Revolution led to the1973 oil crisis and1979 oil crisis. The Soviet Union called it the "Era of Stagnation". The 1970s and 80s also saw the rise of theFour Asian Tigers, as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong emulated the Japanese route to prosperity with varying degree of success. In China, the leftistGang of Four were overthrown in 1976, andDeng Xiaoping pursued a policy of tentatively opening the Chinese economy to capitalist innovations throughout the 1980s, which would be continued by his successors in the 1990s. China's economy, tiny in 1976, would see tremendous growth, and eventually take the spot as second largest economy from Japan in 2010. Among Western economies, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system was replaced by a more flexible era of floating exchange rates. TheGroup of Seven (G7) first met in 1975 and become one of the main international forums that regulated international trade amongdeveloped country. The Soviet Union implemented a policy ofperestroika in the 1980s which allowed tentative market reforms.[21] The fall of the USSR saw differing approaches in the 1990s in the East: some newly independent states went in a capitalist direction such asEstonia, some maintained a strong governmental presence in their economy, and some opted for a mix. The privatization of government firms and resources drew accusations ofcrony capitalism in many states, however, including the Russian Federation, the largest and most important state of the USSR; the beneficiaries of the turbulent period were often called the "Russian oligarchs".[22]
In the beginning of the 2000s, there was a global rise in prices incommodities and housing, marking an end to the2000s commodities boom. The US mortgage-backed securities, which had risks that were hard to assess, were marketed around the world and a broad based credit boom fed a global speculative bubble in real estate and equities. The financial situation was also affected by a sharp increase in oil andfood prices. The collapse of the Americanhousing bubble caused the values ofsecurities tied toreal estate pricing to plummet thereafter, damaging financial institutions.[23] TheGreat Recession, a severe economicrecession which began in the United States in 2007,[24] was sparked by the outbreak of the2007–2008 financial crisis.[25] The modern financial crisis was linked to earlier lending practices by financial institutions and the trend ofsecuritization of American real estate mortgages.[26]
TheGreat Recession[27] spread to much of thedeveloped country, and has caused a pronounced deceleration of economic activity. Theglobal recession occurred in an economic environment characterized by various imbalances. This global recession has resulted in a sharp drop ininternational trade, rising unemployment and slumping commodity prices. The recessionrenewed interest in Keynesian economic ideas on how to combat recessionary conditions. However, various industrial countries continued to undertakeausterity policies to cutdeficits, reducedspending, as opposed to following Keynesian theories.
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From late 2009European debt crisis, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning rising government debt levels across the globe together with a wave of downgrading of government debt of certain European states. Concerns intensified early 2010 and thereafter making it difficult or impossible for sovereigns to re-finance their debts. On 9 May 2010, Europe's Finance Ministers approved a rescue package worth €750 billion aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe. TheEuropean Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was a special purpose vehicle financed by members of theeurozone to combat the European sovereign debt crisis. In October 2011 eurozone leaders agreed on another package of measures designed to prevent the collapse of member economies. The three most affected countries, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, collectively account for six percent of eurozone's gross domestic product (GDP). In 2012, eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement on a second €130-billion Greek bailout. In 2013, the European Unionagreed to a €10 billion economic bailout for Cyprus. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic caused economic disruption, with wide-rangingeconomic impacts of COVID-19 such as supply chain changes and an increase in working-from-home, along with theCOVID-19 recession.[28]
Social changes since 1945 have been vast and disparate, affecting countries and subgroups within those countries in ways specific to each population, meaning there is not one single global story of social change. Despite this, one of the major trends has been an increasing interchange between cultures and a wider spread of the most successful works, enabled by new technology andglobalization. In earlier periods, a successful musician or theater troupe might be confined to playing in a single city at a time, limiting their reach. The spread of better recording technology, such as themagnetophon, meant that a musical act could have their song be played over the radio everywhere without loss of sound quality, creating international superstars such asElvis Presley andThe Beatles. The spread of hometelevision sets allowed people across the globe to easily watch the same show, rather than requiring viewers to attend a local theater.Hollywood in California produced films that dominated cinema; while intended for the lucrative American market, these films spread across the globe, backed by their large budgets and the cinematic expertise gathered there. The rise of the Internet in the 1990s allowed both for an ever further spread of the most popular and dominant works, but the comparatively cheap cost of publishing there, whether as a personal website, blog, or YouTube video, also allowed specific niche subcultures to connect and thrive in a way that was less true in the 20th century. For example, diaspora groups of immigrants can more easily stay in contact with their family and friends in their origin region, compared to earlier eras where travel and communication was far more expensive, making a narrative of strictly increasing global homogenization incomplete. International telephone networks, and later Internet telephony, allowed cheaper and easier long-distance communication than previous eras.
Language usage in the contemporary era has seen a rise inEnglish as a lingua franca, where people across the world learn the English language as asecond language. This has been both to facilitate international communication, especially in places tied to international trade or tourism, as well as to better consume widespread English-language media. This is tied to increasedAmericanization, as American culture has grown increasingly influential and widespread. To a lesser extent, during the Cold War, something similar happened with the Russian language in the Eastern Bloc and among communist-aligned factions; however, this status was mostly reversed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The French and German languages saw their prestige asglobal languages decline after World War II.
Religious trends have been disparate and not consistent across countries, often with sharply varying results even between similar and nearby groups. In industrialized and economically prosperous regions, there has been a loose trend towardsecularization that deprioritized the role of religion, even among people who still identified as adherents. Thedecline of Christianity in the Western world has been perhaps the most notable of these trends, although many non-Western cultures have been affected as well, such as the rise ofirreligion in China (buttressed byantireligious campaigns). As an example of how localized this process can be, during the Cold War both thePolish People's Republic and theCzechoslovak Socialist Republic endorsedstate atheism. However, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989–1990, the people of these bordering states had radically different cultural attitudes toward religion;Poland was one of the more religious states in Europe, with 96% of its population espousing a belief in Catholic Christianity in 2011, while theCzech Republic was one of the most stridently irreligious, with only 15% of its population espousing any religious beliefs at all by 2011. In theIslamic world, a notable trend has been the spread of international schools of thought into regions where belief was previously localized, such as theInternational propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism funded by the government ofSaudi Arabia. While regional Islamic groups remain strong, they are more contested than in the past.
Another social trend has been the rise of urbanization as a larger proportion of the world's population has moved to live in cities and urban areas, and fewer people live in rural areas. In the United States, as the overall population more than doubled from 1930 to 1990, around a third of its counties saw their population decline by around 27%, suggesting that as rural counties empty, the urban counties are where the vast majority of inhabitants are moving to.[29] In Eastern Africa, the urban population soared from 11 million in 1920 to 77 million in 2010.[30] Manyrural Chinese people moved to large coastal cities such as Shenzhen to work in the 1990s and 2000s, leading to a sharp increase ofUrbanization in China. Rural parts of Japan have seen stark population declines, especially among the young, with only theGreater Tokyo area continuing to grow.[31] How to deal with this change is a major issue, as many cities and their transportation networks were not designed to serve the larger populations that now occupy them.
A major trend in many industrialized nations was thesexual revolution, an adoption of publicly more tolerant attitudes toward sex andpre-marital sex. "The pill" was first approved for use in 1960 in the United States, and spread rapidly around the world. The pill madebirth control easier and more reliable than earlier methods. This made sex for pleasure less likely to result in unintended children. It also allowed for easierfamily planning, where couples could choose more specifically when to have kids compared to earlier eras. Some analysts credit this as one reason behind adecline in birth rates in the industrialized world, which had multiple second-order effects. Many regions have also made divorce much easier to officially procure. However, the decline in birth rate is not a universal trend;many nations continue to have high birth rates, and the world's overall population is still growing as of 2022.
One of the yet evolving and unknown impacts in the contemporary era has been the social effects of cheap and common Internet access. As users gradually switched frompersonal web pages to blogs to social media, many surprising effects have resulted with both positive and negative assessments. Optimistic assessments often praise the decentralized nature that allows anyone to theoretically gain a platform without the need to convince a publisher or media company to back them, as well as the ease in enabling like-minded people to collaborate at long-distance, even if thedigital utopianism of the 1990s is less common. Pessimistic assessments worry about the effects on children such as enablingcyberbullying;filter bubbles where Internet users are not challenged by outsider views; "cancel culture" where people are pilloried online but sometimes disproportionately; andslacktivism as an appealing but ineffective replacement for older forms of community work.
The growing world population and rising standards of living has caused a vast increase in demand forenergy development, both to power vehicles such as personal cars as well as on publicelectrical grids. In particular,petroleum oil has been in ravenous demand across the world. Many of the cheapest and easiest sources of oil to access were largely drained in the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to a hunt for new sources of oil. The value of oil has spilled over into politics as well, as "petrostates" with access to oil found a source of vast revenue that did not require traditional government revenue-raising measures, such as tariffs or income taxation. The rising cost of oil led to the1970s energy crisis and various adaptations inenergy conservation to better conserve oil, such as more efficient engines and better insulation. It has also led to concerns of "peak oil," that the rising extraction costs of oil will eventually lead to massive shortages and a large disincentive to burn oil except when absolutely necessary (such as in the case ofaviation fuel), although oil continues to be one of the most popular sources of energy.
Otherfossil fuels have continued a prominent role in the world's energy production.Coal energy, usually credited as helping kickstart theIndustrial Revolution, has declined somewhat in prominence, but it started from a commanding large slice of the sources of energy. Even if diminished, coal is still a popular and common style of power plant; it made up a huge proportion of South Africa andIndia's power grid from 1945 to the present, for example.[32] That said, increasing price, as well as concerns both over the air pollution generated when it is burnt and the landscape destruction when it is mined (such asmountaintop removal mining), have caused setbacks for the coal industry. Natural gas has grown in its proportion of the market, especially asLiquefied natural gas (LNG) has enabled it to be transported over longer distances than was previously feasible.
An entirely new form of energy creation dawned in the 1950s and 1960s:nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the construction ofnuclear power plants. Hopes that atomic energy would be "too cheap to meter" in the 1950s proved overly optimistic, however. Atomic energy grew to be a large part of several nations energy generation strategies, especiallynuclear power in France. Nuclear power continues to be controversial. Concerns include its association withnuclear weapons,financial cost, disposal of radioactivenuclear waste, and fears of safety fromreactor meltdowns, especially after the 1986Chernobyl disaster. Ananti-nuclear movement arose that was skeptical of atomic energy and has discouraged many projects. Nuclear proponents counter that nuclear energy produces no air pollution compared to traditional fossil fuel plants, and can provide a steady supply of energy regardless of external conditions unlike solar and wind energy. With thesupply of Russian natural gas disrupted in 2022, France is looking to reactivate some of its older decommissioned nuclear plants, for example.[33]
Various forms ofrenewable energy have grown in prominence in the contemporary era.Wind energy, while used on a small scale for centuries, has seen growth with large distributed groups ofwindmills used to produce energy for the grid.Solar power has also grown in prominence, with around 4% of the world's overall energy production in 2021 (compared to a much smaller slice before). While these energy sources are considered to be much less environmentally impactful thanfossil fuels, concerns have been raised over the variousrare earth metals used in the production of batteries and solar, which can require destructive mining techniques to gather.
TheInformation Age or Information Era, also commonly known as the Age of the Computer, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is heavily linked to the concept of aDigital Age orDigital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that theIndustrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The period is generally said to have begun in the latter half of the 20th century, though the particular date varies. The term began its use around the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has been used up to the present with the availability of the Internet.
During the late 1990s, bothInternet directories andsearch engines were popular—Yahoo! andAltavista (both founded 1995) were the respective industry leaders. By late 2001, the directory model had begun to give way to search engines, tracking the rise of Google (founded 1998), which had developed new approaches torelevancy ranking. Directory features, while still commonly available, became after-thoughts to search engines. Database size, which had been a significant marketing feature through the early 2000s (decade), was similarly displaced by emphasis on relevancy ranking, the methods by which search engines attempt to sort the best results first.
"Web 2.0" is characterized as facilitating communication,information sharing,interoperability,User-centered design[34] andcollaboration on theWorld Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities,hosted services, andweb applications. Examples includesocial-networking sites,video-sharing sites,wikis, blogs,mashups andfolksonomies.Social networking emerged in the early 21st century as a popular social communication, largely replacing much of the function of email,message boards andinstant messaging services. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all major examples of social websites that gained widespread popularity. The information distribution continued into the early 21st century withmobile interaction andInternet access growing massively in the early 21st century. By the 2010s, a majority of people in the developed world had Internet access and a majority of people worldwide had a mobile phone.[35] Marking the rise ofmobile computing, worldwide sales of personal computers fall 14% during the first quarter of 2013. TheSemantic Web (dubbed, "Web 3.0") begins the inclusion ofsemantic content in web pages, converting the current web dominated by unstructured and semi-structured documents into a "web of data".
With the rise of information technology,computer security, andinformation security in general, is a concern for computers and networks. Concerns include information and services which are protected from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction. This has also raised questions ofInternet privacy andpersonal privacy globally.
TheSpace Race was one of the rivalries of the Cold War, with both the United States space program (NASA) and theSoviet space program launchingsatellites, probes, and planning missions. While the Soviets put the first human into space withYuri Gagarin, the Americans soon caught up, and the US was the first to launch a successful Moon landing mission withApollo 11 in 1969, followed byfive more landings in the next few years.
In the 1970s and 80s, the US took a new approach with theSpace Shuttle program, hoping to reduce the cost of launches by creating a re-usable Space Shuttle. The first fully functionalSpace Shuttle orbiter wasColumbia (designated OV-102), launched intolow Earth orbit in April 1981. In 1996, Shuttle missionSTS-75 conducted research in space with theelectrodynamic tether generator and other tether configurations. The program suffered from two incidents that destroyed a shuttle: theChallenger disaster and theColumbia disaster). The program ultimately had 135 missions. Theretirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011.
The end of the Cold War saw a new era of international cooperation with theInternational Space Station (ISS).Commercial spaceflight also became possible as governments loosened what had previously been their firm control over satellites, opening new possibilities, but also new risks such aslight pollution from satellites. TheCommercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program began in 2006.
There arevarious spaceports, includingspaceports ofhuman spaceflight and otherlaunch systems (space logistics).Private spaceflight is flight beyond theKármán line[36] that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.Commercialization of space is the use of equipment sent into or through outer space to provide goods or services of commercial value, either by a corporation or state.Space trade plans and predictions began in the 1960s.Spacecraft propulsion[37] is anymethod used to acceleratespacecraft and artificialsatellites.
NASA announced in 2011 that itsMars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquidwater on Mars during warm seasons. On 6 August 2012, the Mars Science LaboratoryCuriosity, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date, landed on Mars. After theWMAP observations of thecosmic microwave background, information was released in 2011 of the work done by thePlanck Surveyor, estimating theAge of the universe to 13.8 billion years old (a 100 million years older than previously thought). Another technological advancement came in 2012 with European physicists statistically demonstrating the existence of theHiggs boson.[38]
Climate change andglobal warming reflects the notion of the modernclimate. The changes of climate over the past century, have beenattributed to various factors which have resulted in a global warming. This warming is the increase in theaverage temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Some effects on both thenatural environment andhuman life are, at least in part, already being attributed to global warming. A 2001 report by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests thatglacier retreat,ice shelf disruption such as that of theLarsen Ice Shelf,sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased intensity and frequency ofextreme weather events are attributable in part to global warming.[39] Other expected effects includewater scarcity in some regions and increased precipitation in others, changes in mountain snowpack, and adverse health effects from warmer temperatures.[40]
It is usually impossible to connect specific weather events to human impact on the world. Instead, such impact is expected to cause changes in the overall distribution and intensity of weather events, such as changes to the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation. Broader effects are expected to includeglacial retreat,Arctic shrinkage, and worldwidesea level rise. Other effects may include changes incrop yields, addition of new trade routes,[41] speciesextinctions,[42] and changes in the range ofdisease vectors. Until 2009, the ArcticNorthwest Passagepack ice prevented regularmarine shipping throughout most of the year in this area, but climate change has reduced the pack ice, and thisArctic shrinkage made the waterways more navigable.[43][44][45][46]
Severaldisease outbreaks, epidemics, andpandemics have occurred during contemporary history. Some of these include the1957–1958 influenza pandemic, theHong Kong flu of 1968–1969, the1977–1979 Russian flu, theHIV/AIDS epidemic (1981–present), theSARS outbreak of 2002–2004, theswine flu pandemic of 2009–2010, and theCOVID-19 pandemic (2019–2022).
In 2020, an outbreak of theCOVID-19 disease, first documented in late 2019 inWuhan, China, spread to other countries becoming aglobal pandemic, which caused a major socio-economic disruption all over the world. Many countries ordered mandatorylockdowns on movement and closures of non-essential businesses.[47] The threat of the disease caused theCOVID-19 recession, although the distribution of vaccines has since eased the economic impact in many countries.
More generally, COVID-19 has been held up as an example of aglobal catastrophic risk unique to the modern era's ease of travel. New diseases can spread far faster and further in the contemporary era than any previous era of human history;pandemic prevention is one resulting field to ensure that if this happens with a sufficiently deadly virus, humanity can take measures to stop its spread.
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