20th Century

20th Century

The 20th century began on 1 January 1901 (MCMI), and ended on 31 December 2000 (MM). It was the last century of the 2nd millennium, and was marked by new models of scientific understanding, unprecedented scopes of warfare, new modes of communication that would operate at nearly instant speeds and new forms of art and entertainment. The 20th century was dominated by significant geopolitical events that reshaped the political and social structure of the globe: World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, World War II and the Cold War. Unprecedented advances in science and technology defined the modern era, including the advent of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, space exploration, the shift from analogue to digital computing and the continuing advancement of transportation, including powered flight and the automobile. The Earth's sixth mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction, continued, and human conservation efforts increased. Major themes of the century include decolonization, nationalism, globalization and new forms of intergovernmental organizations. Cultural homogenization began through developments in emerging transportation and information and communications technology. Poverty was reduced and the century saw rising standards of living, world population growth, awareness of environmental degradation and ecological extinction. Automobiles, airplanes and home appliances became common, and video and audio recording saw mass adoption. Great advances in electricity generation and telecommunications allowed for near-instantaneous worldwide communication, ultimately leading to the Internet. Meanwhile, advances in medical technology resulted in the near-eradication and eradication of many infectious diseases, as well as opening the avenue of biological genetic engineering. The conclusion of World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles saw the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States and Japan as the main arbiters of the new world order. Germany returned as a great power in 1933, when the Nazi Party replaced the Weimar Republic as the new government of Germany. In 1945, Nazi Germany officially surrendered and the country was divided in two (the capitalist West Germany and the socialist East Germany, only reuniting at the end of the century). The end of World War II saw the United States, France, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and the Republic of China emerging as the primary victors. Political pressures from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations led France and the United Kingdom to withdraw from Egypt during the Suez Crisis. The episode demonstrated to the world that the United Kingdom and France had ceased to be global superpowers. The repercussions of the World Wars, the Cold War and globalization crafted a world where people were more united than any previous time in human history, as exemplified by the establishment of international law, international aid and the United Nations. The Marshall Plan—which spent US$13 billion ($110 billion in 2021 dollars) to rebuild the economies of post-war nations—launched "Pax Americana". Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union created enormous tensions around the world which manifested in various armed proxy regional conflicts and the omnipresent danger of nuclear proliferation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 after the revolutions of 1989 resulted in the United States emerging as the world's sole remaining superpower. China began rising rapidly as an economic and geopolitical power after the USSR's collapse. It took over 200,000 years of modern human history and 6 million years of human evolution for the world's population to reach 1 billion in 1804. By 1927, the world population had reached an estimated 2 billion, and by late 2000, it had reached 6 billion, with over half of that in East, South and Southeast Asia. Global literacy averaged 80%. Penicillin and other medical breakthroughs, combined with the World Health Organization's global vaccination campaigns, yielded unprecedented results, helping to eradicate smallpox and other diseases responsible for more human deaths than all wars and natural disasters combined; smallpox now only existed in labs. Machines came to be used in all areas of production, feeding increasingly intricate supply chains that allowed humankind for the first time to be constrained not by how much it could produce, but by consumption. Trade improvements greatly expanded upon the limited set of food-producing techniques used since the Neolithic period, multiplying the diversity of foods available and boosting the quality of human nutrition. Until the early 19th century, life expectancy from birth was about thirty in most populations; global lifespan-averages exceeded 40 years for the first time in history, with over half achieving 70 or more years (three decades longer than a century earlier).

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