We explain what happened in the 20th century, the wars and revolutions. In addition, its social characteristics, scientific and technological advances and more.
The 20th century introduced profound social and technological changes.
What happened in the 20th century?
The 20th century was the one hundred year period that began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000. It was a time of huge jumps in technological matter, scientific and medical, as well as profound social and political changes that changed the international panorama. One of its characteristic features was the “conquest of space” and the arrival of humans to the Moon.
It is considered one of the most violent centuries in history of humanity, crossed by two world wars that caused tens of millions of deaths through the military use of technological advances (including the atomic bomb). In addition, there were other war conflicts and genocides that increased the number of victims.
It was also a stage of expansion of the market economy worldwideknown as globalization, the signing of international agreements that led to the creation of the UN (United Nations) and the development of international humanitarian law to mitigate the negative effects of wars.
See also: Chronologies of 20th century history
The world at the end of the 19th century
The situation of the world at the end of the 19th century was largely determined by the technical and technological innovations of the Second Industrial RevolutionAlthough this revolution was centered in Western Europe, the United States, and Japan, it expanded its influence beyond that and affected the economy of most of the world. The technological and economic changes of the 20th century were made possible by this process that had begun in the previous century.
On the other hand, the world order at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was governed by ambitions imperials of the great European powerswhich had established colonies on other continents (such as the division of Africa). This shaped the subsequent division of the world between developed or industrialized countries and underdeveloped or developing countries, belonging to the so-called Third World.
The great imperial powers at that time were the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. Much of this situation changed at the end of the First World War (1914-1918), which marked the end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires. The Second World War (1939-1945), for its part, left the way open to decolonization and strengthened the role of the United States and the Soviet Union as the new superpowers.
Latin America, on the other hand, was a group of young nations at the end of the 19th century., independent for less than a hundred years, struggling to organize in the midst of internal conflicts. Many had begun a path towards modernization and integration into the new global economy.
See also: Imperialism
The revolutions of the 20th century
The Russian Revolution established the world’s first socialist state.
The 20th century hosted revolutions that They sought to change the political, social and economic structures of their countries. Many of these revolutions led to civil wars and changed the way their nations were organized.
The most important revolutions of the 20th century were:
- Mexican Revolution (1910-1920)It was a prolonged conflict that led to the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime (the Porfiriato) and involved liberal politicians and the poor peasant classes of postcolonial Mexico.
- Russian Revolution (1917)It was a series of events framed in the tensions of the First World War that led first to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy (February Revolution) and then to the establishment of the first communist government in the world (October Revolution), which in 1922 gave rise to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
- Chinese Revolution (1949). It was the result of a civil war between the Chinese nationalist government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese communist guerrillas, led by Mao Zedong, which led to the triumph of communism and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. A stage of recrudescence took place during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when an attempt was made to revive the revolutionary impetus and eliminate the supposed influence of Western and capitalist values within the regime.
- Cuban revolution (1959)It began in 1953 with a failed attempt on the life of Fulgencio Batista’s regime, which later led to a guerrilla war. It brought to power revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, among others, who established the first socialist regime in Latin America, aligned with the Soviet Union since 1961.
- Islamic revolution in Iran (1979). It was the overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy of the Shah of Iran, after several months of protest demonstrations, and its replacement by a theocratic regime headed by Ayatollah Khomeini (religious leader of the Shiite clergy). The religious character of the Islamic Republic of Iran founded by Khomeini implied the imposition of strict cultural controls on the population and promoted the expansion of radicalized Islam in other parts of the world.
The world wars and the Spanish civil war
The first atomic bomb was used in World War II.
The first half of the 20th century saw the First and Second World Wars, two major conflicts involving all the powers of the time and affecting most of the world. Their human and material costs were devastating and reshaped the political landscape of nations.
- First World War (1914-1918). It pitted two coalitions of countries, headed respectively by the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy and the United States (Entente) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire (Central Empires). In this war, 1% of the world’s population at the time lost their lives (almost sixteen million people between combatants and civilians). It resulted in the victory of the Entente and the disintegration of the great empires.
- Second World War (1939-1945)It was the most destructive war of the century. It pitted the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan) against the Allies (led by the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, the United States and China). It was a war of total destruction in which the Holocaust (systematic extermination of the European Jewish population) took place and two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The death toll was 2.5% of the world’s population (between forty and seventy million people, military and civilian). After the war, decolonization processes took place in Asia and Africa.
Furthermore, during the interwar period, a civil war took place in Spain that marked its history.
- Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). It began as a result of a military uprising against the Second Spanish Republic and pitted the “national” or rebellious forces (led by Francisco Franco) against the republican troops and militias (made up of republicans, democrats, socialists, communists and anarchists). Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy helped the rebels militarily, who won in 1939 and established a dictatorship led by Franco (1939-1975).
The genocides of the 20th century
The Holocaust was the extermination of European Jews planned by Nazi Germany.
During the 20th century a series of genocides occurred, that is, the systematic extermination of people motivated by ethnic, national or religious reasons. The main genocides of the 20th century were:
- Armenian genocide (1915-1923). It was the campaign of deportation and murder of Armenian civilians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, mainly between 1915 and 1916, although it continued during the first years of the post-war period. It is estimated that it cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Armenians, although the Turkish government denies that it was a systematic plan of extermination.
- Holocaust (1933-1945). It was the systematic extermination of the population of Jewish origin carried out by the Nazi regime, which left a death toll of six million. The persecution and segregation began with the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany in 1933 and led from 1941 to the construction of extermination camps in territories of Eastern Europe to implement what was called the “final solution”. Other victims of Nazism were gypsies, Slavs, African descendants and various forms of political opposition. The Holocaust was an impetus for the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
- Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979). It was the extermination of more than one million people (almost a quarter of Cambodia’s population) conducted by the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. It consisted of the persecution, torture and mass execution of people suspected of being opponents of or influenced by Western culture. It also involved the forced evacuation of cities and the imposition of forced labour, which led to numerous deaths from disease and malnutrition.
- Rwandan Genocide (1994). It was the campaign of annihilation of the Tutsi (minority) population of Rwanda promoted by the government administered by leaders of the Hutu (majority) population. For around one hundred days, Hutu civilians motivated by government propaganda participated in the murder of eight hundred thousand Tutsis (and moderate Hutus), joined by approximately two million exiles.
The Cold War
During the Cold War, military confrontations such as the Korean War occurred.
At the end of World War II, the powers of Western Europe were devastated and World hegemony was in the hands of two new superpowers facing each other: United States and the Soviet Union.
Each one tried to promote its own political-economic model in the other countries of the world: capitalism and socialism. This involved a period of political, economic, diplomatic and cultural conflict that was called the Cold War and which also had some indirect military episodes and situations that threatened to trigger a war between both powers.
These events included:
- The Korean War (1950-1953)It pitted the Republic of Korea (South Korea), supported by the United States, against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), supported by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.
- The construction of the Berlin Wall (1961). It was built by the government of the German Democratic Republic, belonging to the eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union. The aim was to avoid…