The 20th Century

"This is the age of machinery,
A mechanical nightmare,
The wonderful world of technology,
Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare,
This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation
It's the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem."

— The Kinks, "20th Century Man"

The Twentieth Century: A Century that witnessed changes in technology, society, culture and attitudes in more ways and more circumstances than any other century before it. The historian Eric Hobsbawm who labelled it The Age of Extremes considers it "A Short 20th Century" (comprising 77 years between 1914-1991) that really began and ended with the rise and fall of the USSR, while others argue that it began with World War I ("The Seminal Tragedy") and more or less continued into the Turn of the Millennium until 9/11.

So rapid, shocking, and sudden were the changes in governments, society, culture, science and technology for the century, that the world of the 1990s looked different from the world of the 1910s to the point of virtual unrecognizability - the life of a man in 1909 will be radically different than a man in 1999. The idea that every decade had to have its own aesthetics was more or less invented in this century, where art and science melded together forming visual oeuvres chronicled through new mediums of photography, motion picture (so called "the art of the 20th century"), and television, and popular music which depended on radio, sound-recording equipment, portable media ^note LPs, records, cassettes and CDs, and music videos for their commercial viability.

It was the century that saw the greatest advances and gains in society, such as women's rights ^note with women entering in the workforce, and finding ways to marry/divorce/raise children on their own; widespread decolonization, the end of the 19th Century empires, and the rise of a global community of nations; anti-racism as a central pillar of acceptable civilization; the possibility for more people to travel the globe via commercial air transport; great permissiveness with sexuality expressed more freely by all classes than centuries before it; profanity in serious literature such as James Joyce's Ulysses; and towards the end of the century, the acceptance and debate of LGBT rights becoming a public movement. ^note (beginning in Imperial Germany at the start of the century and flourishing in the Anglophone by the end of the century).

Yet despite this, the century was remembered for the two bloodiest world wars, for violent genocides, for brutal famines, for the use of chemical weapons, and later for city-destroying nuclear weapons; a huge dissonance among developed and undeveloped nations; a situation on overpopulation; great environmental crises and an awareness in pollution and climate change; and the growth and spread of political movements such as fascism, socialism, and democracy that overthrew the old systems, and created governments with varying results.

In a nutshell, with the greater entanglement, flourishing of information, and greater complexities of life and society as a whole the message of the 20th Century was that "the world got better and nobody is happy about it".

Note that while decades technically end in 10 years, there would be a cultural bleed in between decades. Culturally, the century started with either the Spanish-American War or the death of Queen Victoria and ended with Y2K or 9/11. Or alternatively, it started and ended with the affair around the Balkans.

The Twentieth Century is divided into decades with each one having its own cultural identity (though many do overlap with others), which are:

• The Edwardian Era, Also known as the "La Belle Époque"^note Not only in France but across the world because it recieved a lot of Nostalgia Filter after the world wars: (1898^note The Spanish American War/1901^note Death of Queen Victoria and the start of Teddy Roosevelt's presidency - June 1914^note Assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, though on cultural terms it extended until 1919^note Signing of the Treaty of Versailles and passage of the Volstead Act) King Edward VII on the Throne, rich white people, rich economy, high endeavours, ragtime, silent movies, Art Nouveau, elaborate dresses with S-bend corsets, Gibson Girls, suffragettes, Theodore Roosevelt, the Theory of Relativity, Freudian psychology, China under new management, Russia and Japan at war, Mexico in flames, the Congo-gate scandals, weird and wacky flying machines, "horseless carriages", motion pictures and other inventions, and the RMS Titanic. Once used as a nostalgic setting until as late as the 1960s.
• World War I: (Summer 1914 - 1919) The war that was supposed to "end all wars", until its sequel came up. Archduke Franz Ferdinand shot, trench warfare, the fall of various empires, map redrawings, rise of ethnic nationalism, independence movements, Red October, The Spanish Flu^note The global influenza outbreak that actually killed more people than the war that overshadowed it. The "Spanish Flu" part is a misnomer, as its origin was (and still is) unknown (originating either in France, England or Kansas), but it firstly affected the belligerent countries, which played it down for morale purposes, while Spain, a neutral country, sent the earliest news about contagions, creating the false impression that it originated there., unresolved conflicts and loose ends, accompanied by the rise of modern and postmodern art movements ^note formalism, surrealism, dadaism, futurism, English war poetry, Beige Prose and Charlie Chaplin.
• The Roaring '20s^note Also known as the "Jazz Age" by artists, or the "Golden Twenties" in Europe: (1917^note Release of the first jazz records/late 1918^note End of the Great War and the disintegration of the old European empires - October 1929^note The Wall Street Crash, although the decade culturally ended between 1933/35^note The FDR Administration, the New Deal, Repeal of Prohibition, the Motion Picture Production Code, the end of the "Golden Age of Gangsters" and the rise of swing music) Bootleg + Flappers + Jazz x Booming Economy = par-tayz. Also with gangsters, the silent films and talkies, radio, Coco Chanel, stylistic and futuristic Cubism, Bauhaus and Arts Decoratifs, Weimar culture ^note Berlin cabaret, German Expressionism, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, Sergei Eisenstein and Soviet Montage, gin tubs, gangsters, and "23 Skidooin' bees knees seeing a man about a dog",
• The Great Depression^note Also known as the "Flirty Thirties" or the "Dirty Thirties": (1929/31^note While the Crash occurred in October '29, the Depression would not get in full swing until two years later - fall 1940/December 1941^note Beginning of the draft, FDR's third term, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. finally entering war) Parties were over with a crash and the worst has begun. More gangsters, the dust bowl, the New Deal, the rise of American labour movents. Those Wacky Nazis, Spanish Civil War and Stalin's purges aside, expect for elaborate musical sequences with Busby, and Screwball Comedy soundfilms with Ginger and Fred, raunchy pre-code flicks, gangsters like James Cagney, comedians like The Stooges and The Marxes, and bombshells like Jean Harlow in a sexy satin slip.
• The '40s^note Also known as the "Fightin' Forties" or "Flying Forties": (September 1939^note German invasion of Poland - 1949/50^note End of the Chinese Civil War and start of the Korean War) A turbulent time, a mark of transition. All the while it's swingtime for soldiers with Glamorous Wartime Singers in Technicolor and bebop for badass private eyes with Femme Fatale stunners in noir.
  • World War II: (Autumn 1939 - Autumn 1945) Even worse than the crash and its prequel, you have aerial dogfights, Pearl Harbor, Cool Tanks, The Holocaust, atomic bombs, the dawn of the Cold War, violent post-war independence movements, Carmen Miranda and pin-up girls. All in all, the bloodiest decade in the history of mankind.
• The '50s^note Also known as the "Fabulous Fifties" or the "Frivoulous Fifties": (1945^note End of the War/47^note U.S.-U.S.S.R. tensions emerge, the beginning of the HUAC's "witch hunt", and fashion designer Christian Dior's introduction of the "New Look" designs. - 1961^note Beginning of the JFK Presidency, the Bay of Pigs invasion and erection of the Berlin Wall/November 1963^note Assassination of John F. Kennedy) Hot War was over, Cold War has begun, Germany and Korea split in two, nuclear and communist/capitalist fear, the Khrushchev Thaw, The Baby Boom at its height, nostalgic musical extravaganzas showcased through widescreen at your nearest Drive-In Theater, housewives with aprons and elaborate dresses, your standard father, wholesome family moments, Baby Boomers, Rock & Roll, greasers with suave pompadours, rebellious teenagers, television, a turbulent Hollywood with Marilyn Monroe on the subway vents, a wave of foreign avant-garde directors, and SCIENCE! A rather affectionate, if not parodied, nostalgic setting.
• The '60s^note Also known as the "Swingin' Sixties": (1957^note Beginning of the "space race"/59^note Castro's takeover of Cuba - 1973/75^note End of the Vietnam War, Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon, although you could say it ended as late as 1976^note Election of Jimmy Carter) The Vietnam War, The Space Race, The Kennedys, The Civil Rights Movement, The Prague Spring, The Miniskirts, The Beatles, The British Invasion, The Hippies, The New Hollywood, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Space Odyssey, The Graduate, The Psychedelia, The Free Love Sex, The Mindbending Drugs, The Rockin' Roll, man, The Wierdness, The Wonders,... The Articles...
• The '70s^note Also known as the "Saucy Seventies" or the "Sordid Seventies": (1968/69^note The Vietnam War reaches fever pitch, the Nixon administration begins, the Apollo 11 landing and Woodstock - 1981/82^note Beginning of the Reagan era, MTV begins transmissions and Michael Jackson debuts Thriller) Disco, disco and more disco, dance because 'twill never go out of fashion!!! Also... big sideburns, afros, hot mustaches and beards, blockbuster movies, kung fu fighting, disco, polyester, glam rock, roleplaying, the Time Warp, oil crisis and long lines outside gas stations, disco, rebellions, revolutions, spiritual discoveries, environmental awareness, lava lamps, Punk, very low necklines, women without bras, Pong, Heavy Metal, economic malaise and Disco. Also, møøse...^note We're sorry for that. Those responsible for writing this index have been sacked.
• The '80s^note Also known as the "Elegant Eighties" or the "Excessive Eighties": (1977^note Premiere of Star Wars (A New Hope) and the rise of the movie blockbuster/79^note Rise of Margaret Thatcher, Iran Hostage Crisis, Disco Demotion Night - 1993^note Beginning of the Clinton Presidency/95^note Oklahoma City bombings and the first big U.S. government shutdown) Everything's BIG!!! BIG HAIR, BIG POWER SUITS WITH BIG SHOULDERS, BIG ECONOMY, BIG DEBAUCHERY, BIG POLITICS, BIG MOVIES, BIG PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS, BIG TECHNOLOGY, BIG BRICK CELLPHONES, BIG JAPANESE IMPORTS, BIG RETRO CRAZE, BIG NEW MUSIC, BIG MUSICALS, BIG CELEBRITIES, BIG BODYBUILDERS, BIG RUNNING GAGS, BIG!!! Totally a de-fin-IT-elly radically BIG nostalgic setting. And BIG MØØSE... ^note We apologize again for that. Those responsible for sacking the index writers have been sacked.
• The '90s^note Also known as the "Nihilistic Nineties": (1989^note Fall of the Berlin Wall as well as for most Warsaw Pact regimes/91^note Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union - either January 2000 with the arrival of the new millennium, September 2001 with 9/11 and The War on Terror, or even as late as 2006-2008 with the economic crisis) end of the Cold War, Weast Germany, The New Russia, Cool Britannia, the rise of the EU, The Yugoslav Wars, Bill Clinton, The Internet, Alternative Rock with the fragrance of teen spirit, fresh Hip-Hop "Yo, Vanilla Ice Ice Baby", House Music, teenage angst, upbeat parties and concerts, flannel shirts, loose sagging pants, coffeeshops, Jennifer Aniston's signature haircut, anthropomorphic mascots, The One With The Yellow Mouse, Boy Bands, the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, the Lambada, the Macarena, TV shows and games you grew on this decade and are now a victim of Rule34 internet memes and parodies. ^note Mynd you, Rüle 34 picthers of møøse Kan be pretti nasti...

People

• Authors of the 20th Century

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You know what? Forget it. Off to the Twenty First Century!!! Where there'll be jetpacks, and food pills, and holographic møøse, and...

The editor of this page hired to continue writing this index after the people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.
The edits involving The Twenty First Century will be completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.

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