The 20th Century

The 20th century was a century that began on January

1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000. It was the
tenth and final century of the 2nd millennium. It is
distinct from the century known as the 1900s, which
began on January 1, 1900 and ended on December 31,
1999.

The century in human history was dominated by

World War I and World War II, nationalism and
decolonization, the Cold War and Post-Cold War
conflicts, cultural homogenization through
developments in transportation and communications
technology, world population growth, awareness of
environmental degradation, ecological extinction and
the birth of the Digital Revolution. It saw great
advances in communication and medical technology
that by the late 1980s allowed for near-instantaneous
worldwide computer communication and genetic
modification of life.

The century saw a major shift in the way that many

people lived, with changes in politics, ideology,
economics, society, culture, science, technology, and
medicine. The 20th century may have seen 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, profoundly changed the
foundational models of physical science, forcing
scientists to realize that the universe was more
complex than previously believed, and dashing the
hopes (or fears) at the end of the 19th century that the
last few details of scientific knowledge were about to
be filled in.

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
a few decades. These developments were made
possible by the exploitation of fossil fuel resources,
which offered energy in an easily portable form, but
also caused concern about pollution and long-term
impact on the environment. Humans explored space
for the first time, taking their first footsteps on the
Moon.