Twentieth Century

A Twentieth Century is a century period that began on between January 1, 1901 and endied on December 31, 2000.

• Context:
  • It overlaps the 1900s.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • 19th Century.
  • 21st Century.
• See: World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, Nationalism, International Law.

---

---

References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century Retrieved:2014-10-27.
  • The 20th century was the period between January 1, 1901 and December 31, 2000, inclusive. It was the tenth and last century of the 2nd millennium. It is distinct from the century known as the 1900s, which began on January 1, 1900 and ended December 31, 1999.

    The century had the first global-scale wars between several world powers across multiple continents in World War I and World War II. Nationalism became a major political issue in the world in the 20th century that was acknowledged in international law with the acknowledgement of the right of nations to self-determination, official decolonization in the mid-century, and many nationalist-influenced armed conflicts - including both World Wars.

    The century saw a major shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of changes in politics, ideology, economics, society, culture, science, technology, and medicine. It has been theorized that the 20th century saw more technological and scientific progress than all the other centuries combined since the dawn of civilization. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage. Scientific discoveries, such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics, drastically changed the worldview of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was fantastically more complex than previously believed, and dashing the strong hopes (or fears) 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 in any previous century. It was a century that started with horses, simple automobiles, and freighters but ended with high-speed rail, cruise ships, global commercial air travel and the space shuttle. Horses, Western society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, were replaced by automobiles and buses within the span of a few decades. These developments were made possible by the large-scale exploitation of fossil fuel resources (especially petroleum), which offered large amounts of energy in an easily portable form, but also caused widespread concerns about pollution and long-term impact on the environment. Humans explored outer space for the first time, taking their first footsteps on the Moon.

    Mass media, telecommunications, and information technology (especially computers, paperback books, public education, and the Internet) made the world's knowledge more widely available. Many people's view of the world changed significantly as they became much more aware of the struggles of others and, as such, became increasingly concerned with human rights. Advancements in medical technology also improved the welfare of many people: the global life expectancy increased from 35 years to 65 years. Rapid technological advancements, however, also allowed warfare to reach unprecedented levels of destruction. World War II alone killed over 60 million people, while nuclear weapons gave humankind the means to annihilate or significantly harm 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 20th century.

---