Active Now

Spunky
Discussion » Questions » History » In your opinion what is the single most significant event or person of the 20th century?
Benedict Arnold

In your opinion what is the single most significant event or person of the 20th century?

In asking for a "single" event I've probably eliminated all the major wars. It still leaves tons of scope.

Posted - February 25, 2017
Tags : None

Responses


  • Considering the prevailing beliefs at the time, how could it be otherwise? In many areas, 60-80% of the population died off, and in their ignorance of (to name one) germ theory, the masses were fed divine wrath as the only plausible cause by the clergy, who were often the only people around who could even read.

    In time, people began to question what anyone had done to merit such horrible pestilence and why the Church seemed so powerless against it. There quickly ensued a reflexive pogrom of heretics and witchhunts. The clergy mounted a campaign to distract and defend from heretical thinking. Seeds of the Inquisition, Protestantism.

    That said, the decimation of population after the Black Death also destroyed the caste system, as the few remaining skilled tradesman, able workers and the like could now pick and choose whom to hire their services to, for profit, which can be said was the seminal period of Capitalism, and sowed the seeds of the Renaissance and Enlightenment to follow. 

    This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at February 26, 2017 10:10 AM MST
      February 26, 2017 5:30 AM MST
    1

  • Zee...I recall you have had a couple of conversations with Wisdom Tooth...I think it was he who mentioned an author of history that I have not encountered yet...one of them I am going to look into is this one, have you read this?

    "The End of the World - A History" by Otto Friedrich. 
    Our human fascination and absolute belief that The End Is Nigh...I think this book just lists and tells the story of a number of these...
      February 26, 2017 10:18 AM MST
    1

  • I'll have to add it to my reading list. These topics are of endless interest to me. 
      February 26, 2017 10:40 AM MST
    1

  • Yes there you go.   I was going to put that up to.  The whole 20th century was defined by the outcomes of those two events. Arguably this one as well so far. This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at February 25, 2017 8:28 PM MST
      February 25, 2017 7:48 PM MST
    2

  • Yes indeed! That revolution changed the face of the world and significantly affected everybody's lives until the Soviet Union collapsed. Now, considering Putin's drive to return Russia to its former power, it may still continue to have an impact. 
      February 25, 2017 8:13 PM MST
    2

  • 318
    Person: The man who invented the 20th century  Nicola Tesla
    Event: The invention of the AC generator and transformer
      February 25, 2017 7:22 PM MST
    2

  • Excellent nomination...also not as well-known as he should be.
      February 25, 2017 7:42 PM MST
    0

  • 318
    Not known as everything about him was classified until about 1994, or 96. They were not even allowed to release the fact that the US supreme Court had decided for him on the invention of the radio.. So we all learned it was Marconi. :)
      February 25, 2017 8:00 PM MST
    2

  • I watched a YouTube documentary on Tesla last night...and still I did not know, until your post, about the declassification in the 1990's.
      February 25, 2017 8:32 PM MST
    0

  • 318
    He offered the US government/military a way to cause any aircraft crossing the border to crash. They turned him down, then he died, and his notebook containing the secret disappeared. The US immediately classified everything about Tesla. (I personally believe it was a microwave curtain) Many believe it was the Star Wars weapon the US was going to use.
      February 26, 2017 9:34 AM MST
    1

  • He was an amazing man, Maurice. One of history's giants. I didn't know when the AC generator/transformer was developed. I'd have guessed the previous century and I'd have been wrong. 
      February 25, 2017 8:15 PM MST
    1

  • Dear Dozy,

    I will nominate someone I only heard about from you, and only a couple of years ago now...he is not all that famous.

    ALAN TURING (1912-1954); the British mathematical genius whose brilliant work with breaking the German codes arguably led to Allied victory in the Atlantic, and thus WWII. And he was instrumental in developing modern computers.

    Further, he was admittedly gay in a homophobic era, which led to his death but he became a role model for later generations.

    This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at February 26, 2017 8:49 PM MST
      February 25, 2017 7:35 PM MST
    6

  • He was an amazing man, Virginia, and died because a country he helped to save couldn't accept him. 
      February 25, 2017 8:17 PM MST
    2

  • 7683
    There are many, but since we are here because of WWW... I can't think of anything more significan't;)) On December 25, 1990, British computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web and implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and
    server via the Internet. His original purpose was to help physicists communicate more effectivelyaround the world. Within a few years the Web's ease of use opened the Internet to those outside the scientific community. By the end of the century, it is the world's fastest growing communications medium.
      February 25, 2017 7:50 PM MST
    5

  • About 1990 I read a sci-fi novel named Earth in which David Brin described the Internet as we use it today. Some of the descriptions he gave were far ahead of what was even imagined at that time. I was fascinated by it but never dreamed that in just a few years I'd be using it myself. (We were still using MS-DOS in those days and PCs were very clumsy indeed). 

    Berners-Lee is a good nomination, Veena. 
      February 25, 2017 8:21 PM MST
    1

  • 7683
    Thanks Didge, you are right, I remember reading about the computer being the size of a room....Charles Babbage...see how we progressed from there 
      February 25, 2017 8:26 PM MST
    2

  • Did not know his name, THAT is fascinating Veena.K
      February 25, 2017 8:26 PM MST
    1

  • 7683
    Charles Babbage....VirginiaL
      February 25, 2017 8:28 PM MST
    1

  • Hi Veena.K...the comments sometimes end up in strange places...I actually knew of Charles Babbage, from Alan Turing biographies...the name I learned from you is Timothy Berners-Lee!
      February 26, 2017 10:33 AM MST
    0

  • 2327
    The Beatles...breaking up! BOO-HOO!! Here's some previously rare and unseen footage of Paul and George arguing. ;p

      February 25, 2017 7:57 PM MST
    4

  • They certainly made an impact on the music industry -- and they put a lot of barbers out of work. Until the Beatles most of us had a haircut (short back and sides) every fortnight. 
      February 25, 2017 8:22 PM MST
    2

  • Oh, ty Righty1...so Historical! (sniff, sniff)
      February 25, 2017 8:22 PM MST
    0

  • I doubt if it will ever be built, WW. America prides itself on freedom -- the American people will not stand still for the Nazification of their southern borders. But when you mention Trump and an erection in the same sentence, I do hope you're not suggesting that the President is a prique. 
      February 25, 2017 8:24 PM MST
    2

  • 2515
    WWII and the use of nuclear weapons in Japan. 
      February 25, 2017 8:10 PM MST
    4

  • Oh, yeah. I remember in the years following the explosions, newspapers used to publish maps of their districts with concentric circles showing the areas of devastation. It was scary stuff.
      February 25, 2017 8:26 PM MST
    1