The twentieth century: historical overview and key events

¶ … World Wars: WWI (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945) occur. The Allied Forces win both wars, positioning the United States as a world superpower. The first use of the atomic bomb was used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during WWII.

Middle Eastern Affairs: The state of Israel is created in 1948.

The first of the Arab-Israeli Wars takes place the same year, a conflict that resumes today, yet has turned into more of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

American Presidency: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963 while on motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas. 11 years later in 1974, President Richard Nixon resigns after the Watergate Scandal.

Space technology: With the launch of Russia's spacecraft Sputnik in 1957, the space race with the United States begins. In 1965, the first human space walk takes place, followed four years later by the landing of Apollo 11 (U.S.) on the moon.

Civil Rights: In 1948, South Africa created apartheid in order to segregate white citizens from black. The end of apartheid would come years later, in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became the first black president in South Africa. In the United States, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation.

Literature: In 1929, Ernest Hemingway wrote a Farewell to Arms, James Joyce wrote Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man in 1916, the Grapes of Wrath was written by John Steinbeck in 1939, William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies 1954, and Harper Lee wrote to Kill a Mockingbird in 1960.

Film: The first talking film debuted in 1927 ("The Jazz Singer"), revolutionizing motion pictures. In 1939, the first film festival was held in Venice, followed shortly by the Cannes Film Festival. In 1965, the first computer generated film is created.

Economy: The Great Depression begins in 1929 when stock markets around the world crash. The United States remained in depression for a large part of the 1930's.

Women's Rights: Female suffrage was granted in 1920 in the United States. In 1929, British women were granted electoral equality with men.

Communism: Lenin and the Bolshevik's seize power of Russia in 1917. The Communist Party takes over under Stalin. Communism takes hold in Cuba and China as well.

The twentieth century was marked by world-shaping wars. The first of these was World War I, which created global allies and enemies that would forever change the landscape of worldwide interactions and set the stage for the next great war to come, WWII. WWI "was the first man-made catastrophe of the 20th century" and with it, "a new kind of war emerged on the battlefield."

In June of 1914, a Serbian Nationalist assassinated Austro-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Germans, in favor of punishing Serbia, jumped to support Austria.

Russia's backing of Serbia meant allied nations France and Britain would become involved in the conflict as well. As other countries began to take sides, including the United States on behalf of the Allied forces, the war grew at an astonishing pace. The battles "targeted both civilians and military personnel, and mobilized men and resources at an unprecedented rate."

By 1918, nine million men had been killed and four empires were destroyed.

At the same time, the ideals of Bolshevism and democracy were on the rise. Many felt victim to a war that left many unanswered questions, thus setting the stage for the rise of the German Empire by Adolf Hitler and the atrocities that would come about during WWII.

While the wars fought by military personnel on the battlefields were of great influence to the 20th century, other forms of "war" would make an equally lasting impression. In 1957, the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, elevating the Cold War with the United States to new levels. The U.S. And the U.S.S.R. would compete in space, setting the ultimate goal as putting the first man on the moon. In 1961, the U.S.S.R. put their first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into space, and four years later, accomplished the first space walk as well.

With each new feat in space technology, both countries would match the goal and then attempt to rival the success.

When the U.S.S.R. failed to launch a rocket capable of sending a man to the moon, the U.S. took advantage of the situation and utilized its Apollo spacecraft program to reach the moon. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon.

The American success gave the "entire free world a huge and badly needed boost."

President Kennedy used the space race to boost the idea of the "free world" over Communism, commenting that we would govern space "by a banner of freedom and peace."

Space technology was not the only form of competition taking place in the 20th century. The Wright brothers and Samuel Langley, the secretary for the Smithsonian Institution, were competing to put the first aircraft flown by a human into flight. They both were attempting to build a powered aircraft and on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers sent their aircraft into flight for 12 seconds.

Thus with the invention of the powered aircraft, transportation was forever changed and would cause a tremendous impact on the events of the 20th century. The aerial age brought about the use of airplanes for both commercial and military use, creating "an entirely new world."

Both the Army and the Navy purchased Wright model airplanes and as years went on, the use of all types of aircraft in military maneuvers changed the way battles were fought. Aerial transportation changed the way the world works and created "broad cultural implications" with an "influence [that] went well beyond the aeronautical community."

Technological inventions were a defining factor in the 20th century. From the airplane to nuclear weaponry, innovation and invention ushered in a new world. In 1969, the Internet would be added to this list of incredible technological achievements. Starting as a Defense Department project, a "web' of datagram network" was to be built which would "use dynamic routing protocols to constantly adjust the flow of traffic."

Research continuously evolved the system and by the late 1980's, the development of the PC and LAN technology made "an internetwork of networks" possible.

The World Wide Web debuted in the early 1990's, and the emergence of web sites "drove the Internet into the public eye."