 | 20th century: Encyclopedia - 20th century
20th century
The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s).
However, a number of arguments have been used to justify the common usage. One advanced by Stephen Jay Gould is that the first decade had only nine years, thus contradicting the definition of decade equaled 10 years. Another argument is that the astronomical year numbering system for years does have a year zero, the year normally known as 1 BC. In 2000 the International Organization for Standardization clarified ISO 8601 to use the astronomical year numbering system, which could be interpreted as retrospectively endorsing all the people who had celebrated the new century a few months earlier. Also, decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1960s", etc.).
The term is also used to describe various periods that overlap with the calendar definition, most notably the Short twentieth century, which claims that the 20th Century spanned from 1914 to 1989, rendering the pre-WWI 1900s into the 19th Century and putting the 1990s at the beginning of the 21st Century.
Indeed, the part of the 20th Century before World War I is quite identical to the late 1800s culturally and technologically and the 1990s decade pointed in many ways (such as the rise of the Internet) to the 21st Century and is seen by some as not being truly a part of the 20th Century.
20th century - Overview
The twentieth century saw a remarkable shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovations. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage and became an influence on the lives of everyday people. War reached an unprecedented scale and level of sophistication; in the Second World War (1939-1945) alone, approximately 57 million people died, mainly due to massive improvements in weaponry. The trends of mechanization of goods and services and networks of global communication, which were begun in the 19th century, continued at an ever-increasing pace in the 20th. In spite of the terror and chaos, the 20th century saw many attempts at world peace. As the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy said:
What kind of peace do we seek? I am talking about a genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living. Not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time. Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal.
Virtually every aspect of life in virtually every human society changed in some fundamental way or another during the twentieth century and for the first time, any individual could influence the course of history no matter their background. Arguably, the 20th century re-shaped the face of the planet in more ways than any previous century.
- Technology
- Death rates
- Infant mortality
- Infectious disease
- Life expectancy
- Maternal death rates
- Battles
Scientific discoveries such as relativity and quantum physics radically changed the worldview of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was much more complex than they had previously believed, and dashing the hopes at the end of the preceding century that the last few details of knowledge were about to be filled in.
For a more coherent overview of the historical events of the century, see The 20th century in review.
The 20th century has sometimes been called, both within and outside the United States, the American Century, though this is a controversial term.
20th century - Important developments events and achievements
20th century - Science and technology
- The assembly line and mass production of motor vehicles and other goods allowed manufacturers to produce more and cheaper products. This allowed the automobile to become the most important means of transportation.
- The invention of heavier-than-air flying machines and the jet engine allowed for the world to become "smaller". Space flight increased knowledge of the rest of the universe and allowed for global real-time communications via geosynchronous satellites.
- Mass media technologies such as film, radio, and television allow the communication of political messages and entertainment with unprecedented impact
- Mass availability of the telephone and later, the computer, especially through the Internet, provides people with new opportunities for near-instantaneous communication
- Applied electronics, notably in its miniaturized form as integrated circuits, made possible the above mentioned rise of mass media, telecommunications, ubiquitous computing, and all kinds of "intelligent" appliances; as well as many advances in natural sciences such as physics, by the use of exponentially growing calculation power (see supercomputer).
- The development of Nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides resulted in significantly higher agricultural yield.
- Advances in fundamental physics through the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics led to the development of nuclear weapons (known informally as "the Bomb" and dropped on the industrial town of Hiroshima and the historic one of Nagasaki), the nuclear reactor, and the laser. Fusion power was studied extensively but remained an experimental technology at the end of the century.
- Inventions such as the washing machine and air conditioning led to an increase in both the quantity and quality of leisure time for the middle class in Western societies.
- Most influential inventions in the 20th century: antibiotics, oral contraceptives, new plastics, transistors, Internet
- More...
20th century - Wars and politics
- Democratic nations began to extend voting privileges to all adults.
- Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the causes of World War I, the first of two wars to involve all the major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the British Commonwealth. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. Ironically, it was said by many to be the 'War to end all Wars'.
- The economic and political aftermath of World War I led to the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe, and shortly to World War II. This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. While the First World War mainly cost lives among soldiers, civilians suffered greatly in the Second -- from the bombing of cities on both sides, and in the unprecedented German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust.
- During World War I, in Russia the Bolshevik putsch led to the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, Communism became a major force in global politics, spreading all over the world: notably, to Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba. This led to the Cold War and proxy wars with the western world, including wars in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1957 - 75).
- The "fall of Communism" in the late 1980s freed Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet supremacy. It also led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia into successor states, many rife with ethnic nationalism, and left the United States as the world's superpower.
- Through the League of Nations and, after World War II, the United Nations, international cooperation increased. Other efforts included the formation of the European Union, leading to a common currency in much of Western Europe, the euro around the turn of the millennium.
- The end of colonialism led to the independence of many African and Asian countries. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the USA, the USSR, or China for defense.
- The creation of Israel, a Jewish state in a mostly Arab region of the world, fueled many conflicts in the region, which were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the Arab countries.
- The term Southeast Asia coined.
20th century - Culture and entertainment
- Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.
- After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century.
- Rock and Roll and Jazz styles of music are developed in the United States, and quickly become the dominant forms of popular music in America, and later, the world. The Beatles, a 1960s British Rock and Roll band, becomes one of the most successful acts of all time, and is credited, in their experimental later albums, with permanently changing what was thought possible in popular music.
- Modern art developed new styles such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.
- The automobile provided vastly increased transportation capabilities for the average member of Western societies in the early to mid-century, spreading even further later on. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. The car became a leading symbol of modern society, with styles of car suited to and symbolic of particular lifestyles.
- Sports became an important part of society, becoming an activity not only for the privileged. Watching sports, later also on television, became a popular activity.
20th century - Disease and medicine
- Although the availability and quality of medicine continued to improve, epidemic diseases continued to spread, aided by modern transportation. An influenza pandemic, the Spanish Flu, killed 25 million between 1918 and 1919, while AIDS is yet uncured and treatments remain too expensive for wide use in developing countries.
- Advances in medicine, such as the invention of antibiotics, decreased the number of people dying from diseases. Contraceptive drugs and organ transplantation were developed. The discovery of DNA molecules and the advent of molecular biology allowed for cloning and genetic engineering.
20th century - Natural resources and the environment
- The widespread use of petroleum in industry -- both as a chemical precursor to plastics and as a fuel for the automobile and airplane -- led to the vital geopolitical importance of petroleum resources. The Middle East, home to many of the world's oil deposits, became a center of geopolitical and military tension throughout the latter half of the century. (For example, oil was a factor in Japan's decision to go to war against the United States in 1941, and the oil cartel, OPEC, used an oil embargo of sorts in the wake of the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s).
- A vast increase in fossil fuel consumption leads to depletion of natural resources, while air pollution has led to the develoment of an ozone hole and, many believe, global warming and both local and global climate change. The problem is increased by world-wide deforestation, also causing a loss of biodiversity. The problem of a depletion of natural resources is decreased by advances in drilling technology which led to a net increase in the amount of fossil fuel that is readily obtainable at the end of the century, as compared with the amount considered obtainable at the beginning of the century.
20th century - Significant people
20th century - World leaders
- Africa
- Gnassingbe Eyadema, Togo
- Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d'Ivoire
- Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia
- Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya
- Idi Amin, Uganda
- Nelson Mandela, South Africa
- Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
- Gamal Abdal Nasser, Egypt
- Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana
- Julius Nyerere, Tanzania
- Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia
- Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya
- Haile Selassie, Ethiopia
- Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal
- Ahmed Sékou Touré, Guinea
- Americas
- Juan Perón, Argentina
- Eva Perón, Argentina
- Getúlio Vargas, Brazil
- Luis Carlos Prestes, Brazil
- Juscelino Kubitschek, Brazil
- Wilfrid Laurier, Canada
- William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada
- Pierre Trudeau, Canada
- Salvador Allende, Chile
- Augusto Pinochet, Chile
- Fidel Castro, Cuba
- Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Argentina/Cuba
- Emiliano Zápata, Mexico
- Pancho Villa, Mexico
- Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Mexico
- Augusto César Sandino, Nicaragua
- Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Peru
- Alberto Kenya Fujimori, Peru
- Theodore Roosevelt, USA
- Woodrow Wilson,USA
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, USA
- Harry S Truman, USA
- Dwight Eisenhower, USA
- John F. Kennedy, USA
- Lyndon B. Johnson, USA
- Richard Nixon, USA
- Ronald Reagan, USA
- Bill Clinton, USA
- George H. W. Bush, USA
- José Batlle y Ordóñez, Uruguay
- Romulo Betancourt, Venezuela
- Asia
- Mahatma Gandhi, India
- Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore
- Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines
- Corazon Aquino, the Philippines
- Mao Zedong, People's Republic of China
- Deng Xiaoping, People's Republic of China
- Pol Pot, Cambodia
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan
- Indira Gandhi, India
- Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia
- Jawaharlal Nehru, India
- Emperor Hirohito, Japan
- Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
- Sun Yat-sen, Republic of China
- Chiang Kai-shek, Republic of China
- Achmad Sukarno, Indonesia
- Suharto, Indonesia
- Australia and Oceania
- Edmund Barton, Australia
- Sir Robert Menzies, Australia
- Peter Fraser, New Zealand
- Michael Joseph Savage, New Zealand
- David Lange, New Zealand
- Harold Holt, Australia
- Europe
- Franz Joseph of Austria, Austria-Hungary
- Václav Havel, Czech Republic
- Franjo Tuđman, Croatia
- Archbishop Makarios III, Cyprus
- Urho Kekkonen, Finland
- Philippe Pétain, France
- Charles de Gaulle, France
- Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, France
- François Mitterrand, France
- Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany
- Friedrich Ebert, Germany
- Adolf Hitler, Germany
- Konrad Adenauer, West Germany
- Walter Ulbricht, East Germany
- Erich Honecker, East Germany
- Willy Brandt, West Germany
- Helmut Kohl, Germany
- Gerhard Schröder, Germany
- Eleftherios Venizelos, Greece
- Ioannis Metaxas, Greece
- Konstantinos Karamanlis, Greece
- Andreas Papandreou, Greece
- Miklós Horthy, Hungary
- Imre Nagy, Hungary
- Benito Mussolini, Italy
- Aldo Moro, Italy
- Eamon de Valera, Ireland
- Einar Gerhardsen, Norway
- Józef Piłsudski, Poland
- Lech Wałęsa, Poland
- António de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal
- Mário Soares, Portugal
- Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romania
- Milan Kučan, Slovenia
- Francisco Franco, Spain
- Felipe González, Spain
- Adolfo Suárez, Spain
- Olof Palme, Sweden
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey
- Neville Chamberlain, United Kingdom
- Winston Churchill, United Kingdom
- Margaret Thatcher, United Kingdom
- Tony Blair, United Kingdom
- Josip Broz Tito,Yugoslavia
- Slobodan Milošević, Yugoslavia
- Russia and Soviet Union
- Czar Nicholas II
- Vladimir Lenin
- Joseph Stalin
- Leon Trotsky
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Leonid Brezhnev
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Boris Yeltsin
- Middle East
- Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran
- Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran
- Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran
- Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran
- Mohammad Khatami, Iran
- Abdul Nasser, Egypt or United Arab Republic
- Anwar Sadat, Egypt or United Arab Republic
- David Ben-Gurion, Israel
- Golda Meir, Israel
- Menachem Begin, Israel
- Yitzhak Rabin, Israel
- Hafez el Assad, Syria
- Saddam Hussein, Iraq
- King Hussein, Jordan
- Yassar Arafat, Palestine
20th century - Scientists
Biology and Anthropology
- Norman Borlaug
- Francis Crick
- Theodosius Dobzhansky
- Paul Ehrlich
- Jane Goodall
- Stephen Jay Gould
- Hans Adolf Krebs
- Ernst Mayr
- John Maynard Smith
- Albert Szent-Györgyi
- James Watson
Chemistry
- Elias Corey
- Maria Skłodowska-Curie
- Pierre Curie
- Fritz Haber
- Stanley Miller
- Linus Pauling
- Ernest Rutherford
- J.J. Thomson
- Harold Urey
Computer Science
- John Backus
- Edsger Dijkstra
- Richard Matthew Stallman
- Linus Torvalds
- Grace Murray Hopper
- John von Neumann
- Claude Shannon
- Alan Turing
- William Gates III
Mathematics
- Nicolas Bourbaki
- Alonzo Church
- John Conway
- Paul Erdős
- Kurt Gödel
- G. H. Hardy
- Felix Hausdorff
- David Hilbert
- Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov
- Benoit Mandelbrot
- John von Neumann
- Marian Rejewski
- Bertrand Russell
- Srinivasa Ramanujan
- Jean-Pierre Serre
- Alan Turing
- André Weil
Medicine and Pharmacy
- Carl Djerassi
- Alexander Fleming
- Howard Walter Florey
- Ma Haide (George Hatem)
- Jonas Salk
Physics and Astronomy
- Niels Bohr
- Paul Dirac
- Freeman Dyson
- Albert Einstein
- Enrico Fermi
- Richard Feynman
- Stephen Hawking
- Werner Karl Heisenberg
- Edwin Hubble
- Wolfgang Pauli
- Max Planck
- Carl Sagan
- Erwin Schrödinger
Psychology
- Aaron T. Beck
- Mary Whiton Calkins
- Albert Ellis
- Sigmund Freud
- Carl Jung
- Alfred Kinsey
- Stanley Milgram
- Ivan Pavlov
- Jean Piaget
- B.F. Skinner
- John B. Watson
20th century - Humanities
- Art and Literary Theory
- Rudolf Arnheim
- Clive Bell
- Fredric Jameson
- Pauline Kael
- Siegfried Kracauer
- Raymond Williams
- Economics
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Kenneth Galbraith
- Milton Friedman
- Ludwig von Mises
- History
- Stephen Ambrose
- Charles A. Beard
- Marc Bloch
- Fernand Braudel
- Lucien Febvre
- Jacques Le Goff
- Philosophy
- Theodor Adorno
- Louis Althusser
- Hannah Arendt
- Gaston Bachelard
- Walter Benjamin
- Henri Bergson
- Gilles Deleuze
- Michel Foucault
- Jürgen Habermas
- Martin Heidegger
- W. V. Quine
- John Rawls
- Bertrand Russell
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Alfred North Whitehead
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Political Science
- Robert A. Dahl
- Maurice Duverger
- Francis Fukuyama
- Samuel P. Huntington
- Arend Lijphart
- C. Wright Mills
20th century - Business
- Paul Allen
- Warren Buffett
- Walt Disney
- Henry Ford
- Bill Gates
- Howard Hughes
- Steve Jobs
- Linus Torvalds
- Donald Trump
- Sam Walton
- Thomas J. Watson
20th century - Aerospace pioneers
- Alberto Santos-Dumont
- Robert Goddard
- Wernher von Braun
- Neil Armstrong
- Louis Bleriot
- Yuri Gagarin
- Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov
- Freddie Laker
- Charles Lindbergh
- Ron McNair
- Ellison Onizuka
- Herman Potočnik Noordung
- Alan Shepard
- Valentina Tereshkova
- Wright Brothers
- Chuck Yeager
20th century - Spiritual figures
- Pope Pius X
- Pope Pius XII
- Pope John XXIII
- Pope John Paul II
- Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
- The 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Thubten Gyatso
- The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso
- The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
- The Rev. Billy Graham
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Aurobindo Ghosh
- Ramana Maharshi
- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Ayatollah Khamenei
- Rasputin
- Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
- Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon
20th century - Artists
- Josef Albers
- Ernst Barlach
- Balthus
- Max Beckmann
- Hans Bellmer
- Joseph Beuys
- Louise Bourgeois
- Constantin Brancusi
- George Braque
- John Cage
- Marc Chagall
- Giorgio de Chirico
- Chuck Close
- Enzo Cucchi
- Salvador Dalí
- Otto Dix
- Marcel Duchamp
- Jacob Epstein
- Max Ernst
- Lyonel Feininger
- Helen Frankenthaler
- Alberto Giacometti
- Juan Gris
- Walter Gropius
- Erich Heckel
- Barbara Hepworth
- Eva Hesse
- Donald Judd
- Frida Kahlo
- Wassily Kandinsky
- Anselm Kiefer
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
- Paul Klee
- Yves Klein
- Gustav Klimt
- Oskar Kokoschka
- Käthe Kollwitz
- Willem de Kooning
- Jannis Kounellis
- Le Corbusier
- Sol LeWitt
- Roy Lichtenstein
- El Lissitzky
- René Magritte
- Marino Marini
- Henri Matisse
- Joan Miró
- Amedeo Modigliani
- László Moholy-Nagy
- Piet Mondrian
- Henry Moore
- Robert Motherwell
- Edvard Munch
- Bruce Nauman
- Emil Nolde
- Eduardo Paolozzi
- Pino Pascali
- Max Pechstein
- Pablo Picasso
- Jackson Pollock
- Diego Rivera
- Alexander Rodchenko
- Auguste Rodin
- James Rosenquist
- Mark Rothko
- Henri Rousseau
- Egon Schiele
- Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
- Kurt Schwitters
- Richard Serra
- Robert Smithson
- Andy Warhol
- Frank Lloyd Wright
20th century - Music
- Johnny Cash
- ABBA
- King Sunny Ade
- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
- Louis Armstrong
- Béla Bartók
- Alban Berg
- Luciano Berio
- Chuck Berry
- Pierre Boulez
- David Bowie
- John Cage
- Ray Charles
- John Coltrane
- Aaron Copland
- Dalida
- Gary Davis
- Miles Davis
- Claude Debussy
- Bob Dylan
- Carlos Gardel
- Marvin Gaye
- George Gershwin
- Philip Glass
- Amy Grant
- Nazia Hassan
- Jimi Hendrix
- Gustav Holst
- Michael Jackson
- Janis Joplin
- Scott Joplin
- Aram Khachaturian
- Kraftwerk
- Fela Kuti
- Led Zeppelin
- Yo-Yo Ma
- Bob Marley
- Olivier Messiaen
- Nirvana
- Charlie Parker
- Oscar Peterson
- Pink Floyd
- Elvis Presley
- Queen
- Sergei Rachmaninoff
- Steve Reich
- Cliff Richard
- Arnold Schönberg
- Dmitri Shostakovich
- Jean Sibelius
- Frank Sinatra
- Phil Spector
- Karlheinz Stockhausen
- Igor Stravinsky
- The Beach Boys
- The Beatles
- The Clash
- The Doors
- The Grateful Dead
- The Ramones
- The Rolling Stones
- The Smashing Pumpkins
- The Velvet Underground
- The Who
- Tupac Shakur
- U2
- Van Morrison
- Edgard Varèse
- Caetano Veloso
- Anton Webern
- John Williams
- Iannis Xenakis
- Neil Young
- Frank Zappa
- Metallica
- Led Zeppelin
20th century - Film
- Ingmar Bergman
- Gianni Bongioanni
- Frank Capra
- Charlie Chaplin
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Sergei Eisenstein
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Hayao Miyazaki
- D.W. Griffith
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Elia Kazan
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Stanley Kubrick
- Fritz Lang
- Sergio Leone
- George Lucas
- Roman Polanski
- Steven Spielberg
- Quentin Tarantino
- Orson Welles
20th century - Writers and poets
- Alamgir Hashmi
- Alan Moore
- Albert Camus
- Aldous Huxley
- Allen Ginsberg
- Amy Tan
- André Breton
- Andre Malraux
- Anna Seghers
- Anne Frank
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Antonio Machado
- Arthur Miller
- Ayn Rand
- Basil Bunting
- Bertolt Brecht
- C.S. Lewis
- Carlos Fuentes
- Charles Olson
- Charles Reznikoff
- Cid Corman
- Dario Fo
- Dorothy Richardson
- Douglas Adams
- Dylan Thomas
- E. E. Cummings
- Erich Maria Remarque
- Ernest Hemingway
- Ezra Pound
- Fernando Pessoa
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Franz Kafka
- Gabriel García Márquez
- Gary Snyder
- George Orwell
- Gerina Dunwich
- Gertrude Stein
- Günter Grass
- H.D.
- Halldór Laxness
- Harold Pinter
- Harper Lee
- Harry Turtledove
- Hart Crane
- Hermann Hesse
- Hugh MacDiarmid
- Ilja Ehrenburg
- Isaac Asimov
- Isabel Allende
- Italo Calvino
- J. D. Salinger
- J.K. Rowling
- Jean Paul Sartre
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Jack Kerouac
- James Joyce
- John Millington Synge
- John Steinbeck
- John Updike
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Julio Cortázar
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Louis Aragon
- Louis Zukofsky
- Lu Xun
- Marcel Proust
- Marianne Moore
- Maya Angelou
- Mikhail Bulgakov
- Mina Loy
- Muhammad Iqbal
- Nazim Hikmet
- Orrick Johns
- Paul Eluard
- Grazyna Miller
- Pablo Neruda
- Philip Larkin
- Ray Bradbury
- Richard Wright
- Robert Creeley
- Robert Frost
- Ruben Darío
- Salman Rushdie
- Samuel Beckett
- Seamus Heaney
- Sean O'Casey
- S.M. Stirling
- Stan Lee
- Stephen King
- T.H. White
- T.S. Eliot
- Thomas Pynchon
- Thomas Mann
- Truman Capote
- Umberto Eco
- Upton Sinclair
- Virginia Woolf
- Vladimir Nabokov
- W. B. Yeats
- W.H. Auden
- Wallace Stevens
- William Carlos Williams
- William Faulkner
20th century - Sports figures
American Football
George Halas
Jim Brown
Joe Montana
Red Grange
Vince Lombardi
Walter Payton
Steve Young
John Elway
Dan Marino
Emmitt Smith
Jerry Rice
Athletics
Al Oerter
Betty Cuthbert
Bob Beamon
Emil Zatopek
Fanny Blankers-Koen
Jim Thorpe
Paavo Nurmi
Steve Ovett
Seb Coe
Jesse Owens
Carl Lewis
Michael Johnson
Baseball
Babe Ruth
Jackie Robinson
Roberto Clemente
Ted Williams
Basketball
Wilt Chamberlain
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Karl Malone
John Stockton
Bodybuilding
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Boxing
Jack Dempsey
Joe Louis
Muhammad Ali
Larry Holmes
Rocky Marciano
Cricket
Brian Lara
Sir Don Bradman
Douglas Jardine
Sir Gary Sobers
George Headley
Herbert Sutcliffe
Sir Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Malcolm Marshall
Ray Lindwall
Richard Hadlee
Shane Warne
Steve Waugh
Sunil Gavaskar
Victor Trumper
Sir Vivian Richards
Wasim Akram
Wilfred Rhodes
Cycling
Eddy Merckx
Fausto Coppi
Lance Armstrong
Equestrian
Mark Todd
Football (soccer)
Michel Platini
Alfredo di Stefano
Giuseppe Meazza
Bill Shankly
Bobby Moore
Denis Law
Diego Maradona
Eusebio
Ferenc Puskas
Franz Beckenbauer
Gordon Banks
George Best
Johann Cruyff
Kenny Dalglish
Lev Yashin
Mokhtar Dahari
Pelé
Obdulio Varela
Sir Stanley Matthews
Golf
Arnold Palmer
Bobby Jones
Gary Player
Jack Nicklaus
Severiano Ballesteros
Tiger Woods
Ice Hockey
Wayne Gretzky
Bobby Orr
Gordie Howe
Mario Lemieux
Maurice Richard
Martial Arts
Bruce Lee
Motor Sport
Ayrton Senna
Jim Clark (racing driver)
Juan Manuel Fangio
Michael Schumacher
Mountaineering
Sir Edmund Hillary
Tenzing Norgay
Racing
Lester Piggott
Tony McCoy
Rugby Football
Colin Meads
Gareth Edwards
Wally Lewis
Skiing
Jean-Claude Killy
Franz Klammer
Ingemar Stenmark
Squash
Jahangir Khan
Jansher Khan
Swimming
Dawn Fraser
Mark Spitz
Martin Strel
Tennis
Martina Navratilova
Arthur Ashe
Rod Laver
Fred Perry
Pete Sampras
Bill Tilden
Steffi Graf
John McEnroe
Bjorn Borg
Boris Becker
Venus Williams
Serena Williams
20th century - Decades and years
Categories: 20th century | Centuries | Modernism | Postmodernism
Other related archives1900, 1900s, 1901, 1914, 1918, 1919, 1941, 1970s, 1980s, 1989, 1990s, 1999, 19th Century, 19th century, 2000, 20th Century, 20th century, 21st Century, 57 million people, ABBA, AIDS, Aaron Copland, Aaron T. Beck, Abdul Nasser, Adolf Hitler, Adolfo Suárez, Africa, African, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Al Oerter, Alamgir Hashmi, Alan Moore, Alan Shepard, Alan Turing, Alban Berg, Albert Camus, Albert Einstein, Albert Ellis, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Alberto Giacometti, Alberto Kenya Fujimori, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Aldo Moro, Aldous Huxley, Alexander Fleming, Alexander Rodchenko, Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Kinsey, Alfred North Whitehead, Alfredo di Stefano, Allen Ginsberg, Alonzo Church, Amedeo Modigliani, American Century, Americas, Amy Grant, Amy Tan, Andre Malraux, Andreas Papandreou, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, André Breton, André Weil, Andy Warhol, Anna Seghers, Anne Frank, Anselm Kiefer, Anthropology, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Anton Webern, Antonio Machado, António de Oliveira Salazar, Anwar Sadat, Arab, Aram Khachaturian, Archbishop Makarios III, Arend Lijphart, Argentina, Arnold Palmer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schönberg, Art, Arthur Ashe, Arthur Miller, Asia, Asian, Astronomy, Auguste Rodin, Augusto César Sandino, Augusto Pinochet, Aurobindo Ghosh, Australia, Australia and Oceania, Austria-Hungary, Ayatollah Khamenei, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayn Rand, Ayrton Senna, B.F. Skinner, Babe Ruth, Balthus, Barbara Hepworth, Basil Bunting, Battles, Benito Mussolini, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russell, Betty Cuthbert, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Shankly, Bill Tilden, Billy Graham, Biology, Bjorn Borg, Bob Beamon, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bobby Jones, Bobby Moore, Bobby Orr, Boris Becker, Boris Yeltsin, Brazil, Brian Lara, British Commonwealth, Bruce Lee, Bruce Nauman, Béla Bartók, C. Wright Mills, C.S. Lewis, Caetano Veloso, Calcutta, Cambodia, Canada, Carl Djerassi, Carl Jung, Carl Lewis, Carl Sagan, Carlos Fuentes, Carlos Gardel, Centuries, Charles A. Beard, Charles Lindbergh, Charles Olson, Charles Reznikoff, Charles de Gaulle, Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Parker, Chemistry, Chiang Kai-shek, Chile, China, Chuck Berry, Chuck Close, Chuck Yeager, Cid Corman, Civil Rights, Claude Debussy, Claude Shannon, Cliff Richard, Clive Bell, Cold War, Colin Meads, Computer Science, Constantin Brancusi, Contraceptive, Corazon Aquino, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czar Nicholas II, Czech Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, D.W. Griffith, DNA, Dalai Lama, Dalida, Dan Marino, Dario Fo, David Ben-Gurion, David Bowie, David Hilbert, David Lange, Dawn Fraser, Death rates, Deng Xiaoping, Denis Law, Diego Maradona, Diego Rivera, Dmitri Shostakovich, Don Bradman, Donald Judd, Donald Trump, Dorothy Richardson, Douglas Adams, Douglas Jardine, Dwight Eisenhower, Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, Eamon de Valera, East Germany, Eastern Europe, Economics, Eddy Merckx, Edgard Varèse, Edmund Barton, Edmund Hillary, Edsger Dijkstra, Eduardo Paolozzi, Edvard Munch, Edwin Hubble, Egon Schiele, Egypt, Einar Gerhardsen, El Lissitzky, Eleftherios Venizelos, Elia Kazan, Elias Corey, Ellison Onizuka, Elvis Presley, Emil Nolde, Emil Zatopek, Emiliano Zápata, Emmitt Smith, Emperor Hirohito, Enrico Fermi, Erich Heckel, Erich Honecker, Erich Maria Remarque, Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Rutherford, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Ernst Barlach, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ernst Mayr, Erwin Schrödinger, Ethiopia, Europe, European Union, Eusebio, Eva Hesse, Eva Perón, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fanny Blankers-Koen, Fascism, Fausto Coppi, Fela Kuti, Felipe González, Felix Hausdorff, Ferdinand Marcos, Ferenc Puskas, Fernand Braudel, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Fernando Pessoa, Fidel Castro, Finland, France, Francis Crick, Francis Ford Coppola, Francis Fukuyama, Francisco Franco, Franjo Tuđman, Frank Capra, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franz Beckenbauer, Franz Joseph of Austria, Franz Kafka, Franz Klammer, François Mitterrand, Fred Perry, Freddie Laker, Fredric Jameson, Freeman Dyson, Frida Kahlo, Friedrich Ebert, Fritz Haber, Fritz Lang, Fusion power, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, G. H. Hardy, Gabriel García Márquez, Gamal Abdal Nasser, Gareth Edwards, Gary Davis, Gary Player, Gary Snyder, Gary Sobers, Gaston Bachelard, George Best, George Braque, George Gershwin, George H. W. Bush, George Halas, George Headley, George Lucas, George Orwell, Gerhard Schröder, Gerina Dunwich, Germany, Gertrude Stein, Getúlio Vargas, Ghana, Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio de Chirico, Giuseppe Meazza, Gnassingbe Eyadema, Golda Meir, Gordie Howe, Gordon Banks, Grace Murray Hopper, Grazyna Miller, Greece, Gregorian calendar, Guinea, Gustav Holst, Gustav Klimt, Günter Grass, H.D., Habib Bourguiba, Hafez el Assad, Haile Selassie, Halldór Laxness, Hannah Arendt, Hans Adolf Krebs, Hans Bellmer, Harold Holt, Harold Pinter, Harold Urey, Harper Lee, Harry S Truman, Harry Turtledove, Hart Crane, Hayao Miyazaki, Helen Frankenthaler, Helmut Kohl, Henri Bergson, Henri Matisse, Henri Rousseau, Henry Ford, Henry Moore, Herbert Sutcliffe, Herman Potočnik Noordung, Hermann Hesse, Hiroshima, History, Ho Chi Minh, Howard Hughes, Howard Walter Florey, Hugh MacDiarmid, Hungary, ISO 8601, Iannis Xenakis, Idi Amin, Igor Stravinsky, Imre Nagy, India, Indira Gandhi, Indochina, Indonesia, Infant mortality, Infectious disease, Ingemar Stenmark, Ingmar Bergman, International Organization for Standardization, Internet, Ioannis Metaxas, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Isaac Asimov, Isabel Allende, Israel, Italo Calvino, Italy, Ivan Pavlov, J. D. Salinger, J.J. Thomson, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Dempsey, Jack Hobbs, Jack Kerouac, Jack Nicklaus, Jackie Robinson, Jackson Pollock, Jacob Epstein, Jacques Le Goff, Jahangir Khan, James Joyce, James Rosenquist, James Watson, Jane Goodall, Janis Joplin, Jannis Kounellis, Jansher Khan, Japan, Japanese, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jazz, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Piaget, Jean Sibelius, Jean-Claude Killy, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean-Pierre Serre, Jerry Rice, Jesse Owens, Jewish, Jews, Jim Brown, Jim Clark (racing driver), Jim Thorpe, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Miró, Joe Louis, Joe Montana, Johann Cruyff, John B. Watson, John Backus, John Cage, John Coltrane, John Conway, John Elway, John F. Kennedy, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Maynard Keynes, John Maynard Smith, John McEnroe, John Millington Synge, John Rawls, John Steinbeck, John Stockton, John Updike, John Williams, John von Neumann, Johnny Cash, Jomo Kenyatta, Jonas Salk, Jordan, Jorge Luis Borges, Josef Albers, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Stalin, Josip Broz Tito, José Batlle y Ordóñez, Juan Gris, Juan Manuel Fangio, Juan Perón, Julio Cortázar, Julius Nyerere, Juscelino Kubitschek, Józef Piłsudski, Jürgen Habermas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kenneth Kaunda, Kenny Dalglish, Kenya, King Hussein, King Sunny Ade, Konrad Adenauer, Konstantinos Karamanlis, Korea, Kraftwerk, Kurt Gödel, Kurt Schwitters, Kurt Vonnegut, Kwame Nkrumah, Käthe Kollwitz, Lance Armstrong, Larry Bird, Larry Holmes, Le Corbusier, League of Nations, Lech Wałęsa, Led Zeppelin, Lee Kuan Yew, Len Hutton, Leon Trotsky, Leonid Brezhnev, Lester Piggott, Lev Yashin, Libya, Life expectancy, Linus Pauling, Linus Torvalds, Literary, Louis Althusser, Louis Aragon, Louis Armstrong, Louis Bleriot, Louis Zukofsky, Louise Bourgeois, Lu Xun, Luciano Berio, Lucien Febvre, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig von Mises, Luis Carlos Prestes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Lyonel Feininger, László Moholy-Nagy, Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Ma Haide (George Hatem), Magic Johnson, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Mahathir Mohamad, Mahatma Gandhi, Malaysia, Malcolm Marshall, Mao Zedong, Marc Bloch, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Proust, Margaret Thatcher, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Marian Rejewski, Marianne Moore, Marino Marini, Mario Lemieux, Mark Rothko, Mark Spitz, Mark Todd, Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Strel, Martina Navratilova, Marvin Gaye, Mary Whiton Calkins, Mass media, Maternal death rates, Mathematics, Maurice Duverger, Maurice Richard, Max Beckmann, Max Ernst, Max Pechstein, Max Planck, Maya Angelou, Medicine, Menachem Begin, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Metallica, Mexico, Michael Jackson, Michael Johnson, Michael Jordan, Michael Joseph Savage, Michael Schumacher, Michel Foucault, Michel Platini, Middle East, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Miklós Horthy, Milan Kučan, Miles Davis, Milton Friedman, Mina Loy, Modernism, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Mosaddeq, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, More..., Mother Teresa, Movies, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muhammad Iqbal, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Mário Soares, Nagasaki, Nazia Hassan, Nazim Hikmet, Nazism, Neil Armstrong, Neil Young, Nelson Mandela, Neville Chamberlain, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Nicolas Bourbaki, Niels Bohr, Nikita Khrushchev, Nirvana, Nitrogen, Norman Borlaug, Norway, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, OPEC, Obdulio Varela, Olivier Messiaen, Olof Palme, Orrick Johns, Orson Welles, Oscar Peterson, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, Paavo Nurmi, Pablo Neruda, Pablo Picasso, Pakistan, Palestine, Pancho Villa, Paul Allen, Paul Dirac, Paul Ehrlich, Paul Eluard, Paul Erdős, Paul Klee, Pauline Kael, Pelé, People's Republic of China, Peru, Pete Sampras, Peter Fraser, Pharmacy, Phil Spector, Philip Glass, Philip Larkin, Philippe Pétain, Philippines, Philosophy, Physics, Pierre Boulez, Pierre Curie, Pierre Trudeau, Piet Mondrian, Pink Floyd, Pol Pot, Poland, Political Science, Pope John Paul II, Pope John XXIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Pius XII, Portugal, Postmodernism, President, Psychology, Queen, Quentin Tarantino, Ramana Maharshi, Rasputin, Ray Bradbury, Ray Charles, Ray Lindwall, Raymond Williams, Red Grange, René Magritte, Republic of China, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Richard Feynman, Richard Hadlee, Richard Matthew Stallman, Richard Nixon, Richard Serra, Richard Wright, Robert A. Dahl, Robert Creeley, Robert Frost, Robert Goddard, Robert Motherwell, Robert Mugabe, Robert Smithson, Roberto Clemente, Rock and Roll, Rocky Marciano, Rod Laver, Roman Polanski, Romania, Romulo Betancourt, Ron McNair, Ronald Reagan, Roy Lichtenstein, Ruben Darío, Rudolf Arnheim, Russia, Russian Revolution of 1917, S.M. Stirling, Saddam Hussein, Salman Rushdie, Salvador Allende, Salvador Dalí, Sam Walton, Samuel Beckett, Samuel P. Huntington, Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi, Scott Joplin, Seamus Heaney, Sean O'Casey, Seb Coe, Second World War (1939-1945), Senegal, Serena Williams, Sergei Eisenstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergio Leone, Severiano Ballesteros, Shane Warne, Short twentieth century, Siegfried Kracauer, Sigmund Freud, Singapore, Sir Robert Menzies, Slobodan Milošević, Slovenia, Sol LeWitt, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Soviet Union, Space flight, Spain, Spanish Flu, Sports, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Stan Lee, Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Matthews, Stanley Milgram, Stanley Miller, Steffi Graf, Stephen Ambrose, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen King, Steve Jobs, Steve Ovett, Steve Reich, Steve Waugh, Steve Young, Steven Spielberg, Suharto, Sukarno, Sun Myung Moon, Sun Yat-sen, Sunil Gavaskar, Sweden, Syria, T.H. White, T.S. Eliot, Tanzania, Technology, Ted Williams, Tenzin Gyatso, Tenzing Norgay, The 20th century in review, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Clash, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Velvet Underground, The Who, Theodor Adorno, Theodore Roosevelt, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Thomas J. Watson, Thomas Mann, Thomas Pynchon, Thubten Gyatso, Tibet, Tiger Woods, Togo, Tony Blair, Tony McCoy, Truman Capote, Tunisia, Tupac Shakur, Turkey, U2, USA, Uganda, Umberto Eco, United Arab Republic, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, Upton Sinclair, Urho Kekkonen, Uruguay, Valentina Tereshkova, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Van Morrison, Venezuela, Venus Williams, Victor Trumper, Vietnam, Vince Lombardi, Virginia Woolf, Vivian Richards, Vladimir Lenin, Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, Vladimir Nabokov, Václav Havel, W. B. Yeats, W. V. Quine, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Wally Lewis, Walt Disney, Walter Benjamin, Walter Gropius, Walter Payton, Walter Ulbricht, War, Warren Buffett, Wasim Akram, Wassily Kandinsky, Wayne Gretzky, Werner Karl Heisenberg, Wernher von Braun, West Germany, Western Europe, Wilfred Rhodes, Wilfrid Laurier, Wilhelm II, Willem de Kooning, William Carlos Williams, William Faulkner, William Gates III, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Willy Brandt, Wilt Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Wolfgang Pauli, Woodrow Wilson, World War I, World War II, Wright Brothers, Yassar Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Yo-Yo Ma, Yom Kippur War, Yugoslavia, Yuri Gagarin, Yves Klein, Zambia, Zimbabwe, air conditioning, air pollution, airplane, antibiotics, assembly line, astronomical year numbering, automobile, biodiversity, birth control, climate change, cloning, colonialism, computer, computing, cubism, deforestation, developing countries, electronics, ethnic nationalism, euro, exponentially growing, expressionism, fashion, film, fossil fuel, genetic engineering, genocide, geosynchronous satellites, global warming, heavier-than-air flying machines, herbicides, ideology, influenza, integrated circuits, jet engine, laser, leisure time, mass media, mass production, media, medicine, middle class, molecular biology, music, nationalism, nuclear reactor, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, oil, oral contraceptives, organ transplantation, ozone hole, pesticides, petroleum, physics, plastics, popular music, proxy wars, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, radio, relativity, successor states, supercomputer, superpower, surrealism, telephone, television, the Holocaust, the western world, theory of relativity, transistors, voting privileges, washing machine, world war
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "20th century", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
