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Mon 16 Jul, 2007 03:26 pm
Here are few suggested:
1903?-Wright brothers fly first motorized airplane
1905--Einstein announces theory of relativity
1913?-Ford develops first moving assembly line
1914?-World War I begins
1917?-Lenin leads the Bolshevik Revolution
1939?-Hitler invades Poland; World War II begins
1945?-Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; first electronic computer, ENIAC, is built; Arab League launches modern pan-Arabism United Nations formed
1957?-Russia launches first satellite, Sputnik I
1969?-Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the Moon; Internet (ARPA) goes online
1989?-Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe
I was going to make this a poll, but there weren't enough options. Better for a discussion, anyway.
1962. And 1965.
Erm, no reason.
Actually, that's an interesting question. If I were to bend it more towards America, a few years more I'd throw out would be, hmm:
- 1908 - the Model T is introduced
- 1912 - the Titanic goes down (this applies to England as well, of course)
- 1920 - Prohibition begins
- 1925 - The Scopes Monkey Trial
- 1929 - the Stock Market crashes
- 1941 - Pearl Harbor attacked
- 1947 - Jackie Robinson starts the process of integrating baseball and society begins to follow suit
- 1954 - Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decided, and public schools are integrated as the "separate but equal" doctrine is struck down. The court adds that separate facilities, even if identical, are inherently unequal due to the mere fact of the separation of persons. This changes society.
- 1963 - JFK assassinated
- 1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
- 1965 - Malcolm X assassinated
- 1967 - First heart transplant; the Summer of Love
- 1968 - the sixties explode into violence: MLK and RFK are assassinated. Prague Spring; Tet Offensive.
- 1969 - Lunar landing and ARPANET
- 1970 - Kent State
- 1972 - Munich, Watergate
- 1974 - Nixon resigns
- 1978 - first test-tube baby
- 1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor gets on the Supreme Court
- 1986 - Challenger explosion
- 1988 - Lockerbie
- 1989 - Exxon Valdez; down goes the Berlin Wall
- 1993 - WTC bombing
- 1995 - OK City bombing
- 1999 - Columbine
A lot of violent stuff, but not all. Got some hints from:
http://history1900s.about.com/library/time/bltime1900.htm
20th Morch 1985 - Henry P. Williams invants the PC Spellchecker.
While many of those are important incidents, I don't think they are actually significant years.
I would consider a significant year to be the time period that something began or ended; those mentioned -
1903 - the Wright Bros. flying the first motorized plane (since it was the beginning of flight)
1905-- Einstein announces theory of relativity
1913?-Ford develops first moving assembly line
1914?-World War I begins
1917?-Lenin leads the Bolshevik Revolution
1939?-Hitler invades Poland; World War II begins
1941 - Pearl Harbor and our entrance into the war
1945?-Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
1947 - Jackie Robinson starts the process of integrating baseball
1954 - Brown vs. The Board of Education (end of segregation in schools)
1957?-Russia launches first satellite, Sputnik I
1963 - JFK assassinated (the end of the innocence of Camelot)
1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
1967 - first heart transplant
1968 - MLK and RFK are assassinated
1969?-Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the Moon;
1972 - Watergate
1974 - Nixon resigns (a first)
1978 - first test-tube baby
1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor gets on the Supreme Court (a first for women)
1989 - the Berlin wall comes down (an end)
A far as the Titanic, Kent State, Lockerbie and Columbine, while those were terrible incidents, I don't consider them to make the year particularly important in history.
Without going into too much detail (or checking my facts!), I'd say that the first World War was the most significant time of the 20th century. It set the seeds of most of the conflicts, including WWII, that tore the world apart for the next 100 years, and we're still dealing with them (Israel, Balkans, etc.). It was the impetus for motorized transport of all types, and the end of horse power. So many men were killed that the way for women into the professional workforce, and subsequently universal suffrage, was opened up. The British world hegemony was cracked, and the US stepped into the breach. Art, politics, culture, economics, taxes, healthcare, urbanization, food science, among other things, were all significantly changed.
Tico, I would go as far as to say that WWI was the singular event of the 2nd millenium.
1953
well it was for me anyway
Steve - if someone's bad math results in them thinking you're 10 years younger than you really are, just agree with them!!
Besides, 1954 was the best year.
It's true that all of us baby boomers think the world revolved around us, so I suppose the almost-20 years that comprise the birth of the boomer generation would be considered the most important years of the 20th century. :wink:
1907 A fellow named Leo Baekeland, a chemist, invents phenolic plastic.
Joe(we've built our world on it's descendents)Nation
happycat wrote:Steve - if someone's bad math results in them thinking you're 10 years younger than you really are, just agree with them!!
Besides, 1954 was the best year.
It's true that all of us baby boomers think the world revolved around us, so I suppose the almost-20 years that comprise the birth of the boomer generation would be considered the most important years of the 20th century. :wink:
I did check it more than once, hoping he might be right!
Bakalite eh? something's gotta be better.
I think the transistor in 1948
and Crick and Watson decoding the double helix of life itself in 1953...so as I said me and DNA have something in common.
No plastic=no transistor.
But we are changing the thread, which is supposed to be about years not inventions, so I will submit :
1968 - the year that liberalism was killed in the USA.
Joe(one bullet to the head at a time)Nation
Tico wrote:Without going into too much detail (or checking my facts!), I'd say that the first World War was the most significant time of the 20th century. It set the seeds of most of the conflicts, including WWII, that tore the world apart for the next 100 years, and we're still dealing with them (Israel, Balkans, etc.). It was the impetus for motorized transport of all types, and the end of horse power. So many men were killed that the way for women into the professional workforce, and subsequently universal suffrage, was opened up. The British world hegemony was cracked, and the US stepped into the breach. Art, politics, culture, economics, taxes, healthcare, urbanization, food science, among other things, were all significantly changed.
This is true.
The First World War caused the second and third world wars.
Are we now in the 4th World War,
with the Moslems against us ?
or is that a re-emergence of a world war that started
many centuries before the War to End All Wars ?
David
Yes WWI
1914-1918 (which includes Britain's illegal invasion of Basra -1914 to secure an oil pipeline, and of course the first use of chemical weaponry)
Here also emerged the swastika (Hindu, Buddhist etc) into western military - worn as a lucky symbol in the trenches (by any side) and of course, later to be associated not just with luck - but with brutality, power, domination, aggression, racism, torture and genocide - Nazism -
Lest We Forget
(Joe why is plastic vital for a germanium transistor?)
I agree with Tico that WW1 years were highly significant.
And therefore the years just before WW1 which gave rise to it. Germany building a High Seas Fleet to challenge the Royal Navy. Also the interesting and incredibly significant and secret decision by Churchill as First Sea Lord with Admirals Fisher and Jellicoe in 1907 to move to oil fired boilers for the navy's capital ships.
Not only did this give the Royal Navy an advantage over coal fired ships, but it committed Britain to securing supplies of oil. (We were not the only ones interested in oil...the Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany wanted to build a Baghdad to Berlin railway. I'm pretty sure that wasnt for cheap holidays)
54 was a good year once upon a time and twice is stretching it.
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