Referat 20-th Century
Mai jos puteti citi fragmente din
Referat 20-th Century si de asemenea puteti face
Download Referat 20-th centuryCiteste fragmente din Referat 20-th 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.
The 20th century has sometimes been called, both within and outside the
United States, the American Century, though this is a controversial
term.
For a more coherent overview of the historical events of the century,
see The 20th century in review.
Timeline of the Twentieth Century
1900-1909 - Model-T, First Flight, San Francisco Earthquake, Einstein s
Theory of Relativity, Boxer Rebellion, First Silent Movie;
1910-1919 - World War I, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the Titanic,
Russian Revolution, Mata Hari, Prohibiton;
1920-1929 - Women s Suffrage, King Tut s Tomb, Mussolini, J. Edgar
Hoover, Mein Kampf, Monkey Trial, Charles Lindbergh;
1930-1939 - Great Depression, Mohandas Gandhi, Empire State Building,
Amelia Earhardt, Nazis, "Monopoly," the Hindenburg;
1940-1949 - World War II, Adolf Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Manhattan Project,
Chuck Yeager, Berlin Airlift, Apartheid, Communist China;
1950-1959 - Hydrogen Bomb, McCarthyism, Korean War, Color TV, Polio
Vaccine, Mt. Everest, Disneyland, Rosa Parks, Sputnik;
1960-1969 - JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Eichmann Trial, Berlin Wall,
Cuban Missile Crisis, Draft Protests, Charles Manson;
1970-1979 - Vietnam War, Munich Olympic Games, Watergate, Abortion,
Patty Hearst, Pol Pot, Star Wars, Disco, Margaret Thatcher;
1980-1989 - Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount St. Helens, AIDS, Pac-Man, Personal
Computers, Ethiopian Famine, Exxon Valdez;
1990-1999 - Internet, Nelson Mandela, Operation Desert Storm, Waco, O.J.
Simpson, Oklahoma City Bombing, Princess Diana, Y2K.
Important developments, events and achievements
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 20th century in review
Above all, the 20th century is distinguished from most of human history
in that its most significant changes were directly or indirectly
economic and technological in nature. Economic development was the force
behind vast changes in everyday life, to a degree which was
unprecedented in human history. The great changes of centuries before
the 19th were more connected with ideas, religion or military conquest,
and technological advance had only made small changes in the material
wealth of ordinary people. Over the course of the 20th century, the
world s per-capita Gross Domestic Product grew by a factor of five, much
more than all earlier centuries combined (including the 19th with its
Industrial Revolution). Many economists make the case that this
understates the magnitude of growth, as many of the goods and services
consumed at the end of the century, such as improved medicine (causing
world life expectancy to increase by more than two decades) and
communications technologies, were not available at any price at its
beginning. However, the gulf between the world s rich and poor grew much
wider than it had ever been in the past, and the majority of the global
population remained in the poor side of the divide. Still, advancing
technology and medicine has had a great impact even in the Global South.
Large-scale industry and more centralized media made brutal
dictatorships possible on an unprecedented scale in the middle of the
century, leading to wars on unprecedented scales, but the increased
communications also contributed to democratization.
Major events
The 20th century was marked by a period of change. With inventions such
as the light bulb, the automobile, and the telephone in the late 1800s,
the quality of life improved for many. Alongside such technological
progress, no one could have expected what a change 100 years would have
on the political world. The United States made huge gains economically
and politically; by 1900, the U.S. was the world s leading industrial
power in terms of output. Africa, Central and South America, and Asia
also gradually drifted towards greater autonomy. With the creation of
newly independent states in former European possessions, the balance of
power throughout the 20th century began to shift away from Europe.
In Europe, changes began as well. The British Empire achieved the height
of its power. Germany and Italy, which came into existence as unified
nations at the end of the 19th century, worked to grow in power, economy
and imperial power. With nationalism in full force at this time, the
European powers competed with each other for land, military strength and
economic power.
Asia and Africa, for the most part, were still under control of their
European conquerors. Exceptions existed, however, as in China and Japan.
Furthermore, Japan and Russia were at war with one another in 1905. The
Russo-Japanese War was one of the first instances of a European power
falling victim to a so-called inferior nation. The war itself
strengthened Japanese militarism and enhanced Japan s rise to the status
of a world power. Czarist Russia, on the other hand, did not handle the
defeat well. The war exposed the country s military weakness and
increasing economic backwardness.
The United States was an increasingly influential player in world
politics during the 19th century. It had made its presence known on the
world stage by challenging the Spanish in the Spanish-American War,
gaining the colonies of Cuba and the Philippines as protectorates. Now,
with growth in immigration and a resolution of the national unity issue
through the bloody American Civil War, America was emerging as an
industrial powerhouse as well, rivaling Britain, Germany, and France.
With such a rise in power in Asia, and especially in North America, and
with increasing rivalry among the European powers, the stage was set for
world politics to undergo a major upheaval.
"The Great War"
The First World War started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It was ignited by
the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire s heir to the throne,
Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, by Gavrilo Princip of the Serbian nationalist
organization "Black Hand". Bound by Slavic nationalism to help the small
Serbian state, the Russians came to the aid of the Serbs when they were
attacked. Interwoven alliances, an increasing arms race, and old hatreds
dragged Europe into war. The Allies, known as "The Triple Entente",
comprised the British Empire, Russia and France, as well as Italy and
the United States later in the war. On the other side, Germany, along
with Austria-Hungary and later the Ottoman Empire, were known as "The
Central Powers".
In 1917 Russia ended hostile actions against the Central Powers after
the fall of the Tsar. The Bolsheviks negotiated the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk with Germany although it was at huge cost to Russia.
Although Germany shifted huge forces from the eastern to the western
front after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, it couldn t stop the Allied
advance, especially with the entrance of American troops in 1918.
The war itself was also a chance for the combating nations to show off
their military strength and technological ingenuity. The Germans
introduced the machine gun and deadly gases. The British first used the
tank. Both sides had a chance to test out their new aircraft to see if
it could be used in warfare. It was widely believed that the war would
be short. Unfortunately, since trench warfare was the best form of
defense, advances on both sides were very slow. Thus the war was drawn
out longer and caused more fatalities than expected.
When the war was finally over in 1918, the results would set the stage
for the next fifty years. First and foremost, the Germans were forced to
sign the Treaty of Versailles, forcing them to make exorbitant payments
to repair damages caused during the War. Many Germans felt these
reparations were unfair because they did not actually "lose" the war nor
did they feel they caused the war (q.v. Dolchstoßlegende). Germany was
never occupied by Allied troops, yet it had to accept a liberal
democratic government imposed on it by the victors after the abdication
of Kaiser Willhelm.
Much of the map of Europe was redrawn by the victors based upon the
theory that future wars could be prevented if all ethnic groups had
their own "homeland". New states like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were
created out of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to accommodate the
nationalist aspirations of these groups. An international body called
the League of Nations was formed to mediate disputes and prevent future
wars, although its effectiveness was severely limited by, among other
things, the refusal of the United States to join.
The entire world got a taste of what world-wide industrialized warfare
could be like. The idea of war as a noble defense of one country in a
good cause vanished as people of all nations reflected upon the
deficiencies of their leaders which had caused the decimation of an
entire generation of young men. No one had any interest in another war
of such magnitude. Pacifism became popular and fashionable.
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution of 1917 sparked a wave of communist revolutions
across Europe, prompting many to believe that a socialist world
revolution could be realized in the near future. However, the European
revolutions were defeated, Lenin died in 1924, and within a few years
Josef Stalin displaced Leon Trotsky as the de facto leader of the Soviet
Union. The idea of worldwide revolution was no longer in the forefront,
as Stalin concentrated on "socialism in one country" and embarked on a
bold plan of collectivization and industrialization. The majority of
socialists and even many communists became disillusioned with Stalin s
autocratic rule, his purges and the assassination of his "enemies", as
well as the news of famines he imposed on his own people.
Communism was strengthened as a force in Western democracies when the
global economy crashed in 1929 in what became known as the Great
Depression. Many people saw this as the first stage of the end of the
capitalist system and were attracted to Communism as a solution to the
economic crisis.
Between two wars
The Interwar period (also interbellum) is understood within Western
culture to be the period between the end of the First World War and the
beginning of the Second World War in Europe, specifically 11 November
1918 to 1 September 1939. It was marked by turmoil in much of the world,
as Europe struggled to recover from the devastation of the First World
War. In North America the first half of the interwar period is often
seen as one of considerable prosperity, but this changed dramatically
with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.
Economic depression
The economy after World War I remained strong throughout the 1920s. The
war provided a stimulus for industry and for economic activity in
general. There were many warning signs foretelling the collapse of the
global economic system in 1929 that were generally not understood by the
political leadership of the time. The responses to the crisis often made
the situation worse, as millions of people watched their savings become
next to worthless and the idea of a steady job with a reasonable income
fading away.
Many sought answers in alternative ideologies such as Communism and
Fascism. They believed that the economic system was collapsing and new
ideas were required to meet the crisis. The early responses to the
crisis were based upon the assumption that the free market would correct
itself, however, this did very little to correct the crisis or alleviate
the suffering of many ordinary people. Thus, the idea that the existing
system could be reformed by government intervention in the economy
rather than a laissez-faire approach became prominent as a solution to
the crisis. Democratic governments assumed the responsibility to provide
needed services in society and alleviate poverty - thus the welfare
state was born. These two politico-economic principles, the belief in
government intervention and the welfare state, as opposed to the belief
in the free market and private institutions, would define many political
battles for the rest of the century.
The rise of dictatorships
Fascism first appeared in Italy with the rise to power of Benito
Mussolini in 1922. This was supported by the Roman Catholic Church and a
large proportion of the upper classes as a strong challenge to the
threat of Communism.
When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, a new variant of
Fascism called Nazism took over Germany and ended the German experiment
with democracy. The National Socialist party in Germany was dedicated to
the restoration of German honor and prestige, the unification of
German-speaking peoples, and the annexation of Central and Eastern
Europe as vassal states, with the Slavic population to act as slave
labor to serve German economic interests. There was also strong appeal
to racial purity (the idea that Germans are the Herrenvolk or master
race) and a vicious anti-semitism which promoted the idea of Jews as
subhuman (Untermensch) and worthy only of extermination.
Many people in Western Europe and the United States greeted the rise of
Hitler with relief or indifference. They could see nothing wrong with a
strong Germany ready to take on the Communist menace to the east.
Anti-semitism during the Great Depression was widespread as many were
content to blame the Jews for causing the economic downturn.
Hitler began to put his plan in motion, annexing Austria in the
Anschluss, or reunification of Austria to Germany, in 1938. He then
negotiated the annexation of the Sudetenland, a German speaking
mountainous area of Czechoslovakia, in the Munich Conference. The
British were eager to avoid war and believed Hitler s assurance to
protect the security of Czech state. Hitler annexed the rest of the
Czech state shortly afterwards. It could no longer be argued that Hitler
was solely interested in unifying the German people.
Fascism was not the only form of dictatorship to rise in the post-war
period. Almost all of the new democracies in the nations of eastern
Europe collapsed and were replaced by authoritarian regimes. Spain also
became a dictatorship under the leadership of General Francisco Franco
after the Spanish Civil War. Totalitarian states attempted to achieve
total control over their subjects as well as their total loyalty. They
held the state above the individual, and were often responsible for some
of the worst acts in history, such as the Holocaust, or the even greater
Great Terror Stalin perpetrated on his own people later in history. In
fact, at this time, democracy seemed to be on the decline. It was a
period of fear and doubt, exploited by several ruthless men who
committed horrific acts with their peoples support.
Global war
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th Century
conflict that engulfed much of the globe and is accepted as the largest
and deadliest continuous war in human history. It was the first time
that a number of newly developed technologies, including nuclear
weapons, were used against either military or civilian targets. World
War II resulted in the direct or indirect death of anywhere from 50 to
60 million or more people, over 3% of the world population at that time.
It is estimated to have cost more money and resources than all other
wars combined: about 1 trillion US dollars in 1945 (adjusted for
inflation; roughly 10.5 trillion in 2005), not including subsequent
reconstruction. The outcomes of the war, including new technology and
changes to the world s geopolitical, cultural and economic arrangement,
were unprecedented.
The conflict began by most Western accounts on September 1, 1939 with
the German invasion of Poland (the Pacific war is taken to have started
on July 7, 1937 with the Japanese attack on China) and lasted until
mid-1945, involving many of the world s countries. Virtually all
countries that participated in World War I were involved in World War
II. Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany
on September 3, 1939 and Canada followed on September 10, 1939. The
United States entered the conflict in December of 1941 after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The war in Europe
Soon after the events in Czechoslovakia, Britain and France issued
assurances of protection to Poland, which seemed to be next on Hitler s
list. World War II officially began on September 1, 1939. On that date,
Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, against Poland.
Britain and France, much to Hitler s surprise, immediately declared war
upon Germany, but the help they could afford Poland was negligible.
After only a few weeks, the Polish forces were overwhelmed, and its
government fled to exile in London.
In starting World War II, the Germans had unleashed a new type of
warfare, characterized by highly mobile forces and the use of massed
aircraft. The German strategy concentrated upon the devotion of the
Wehrmacht, or German army, to the use of tank groups, called panzer
divisions, and groups of mobile infantry, in concert with relentless
attacks from the air. Encirclement was also a major part of the
strategy. This change smashed any expectations that the Second World War
would be fought in the trenches like the first.
As Hitler s forces conquered Poland, the Soviet Union, under General
Secretary Joseph Stalin, was acting out guarantees of territory under a
secret part of a nonaggression pact between the USSR and Germany known
as the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty gave Stalin free rein to take the
Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Eastern
Poland, all of which would remain in Soviet possession after the war.
Stalin also launched an attack on Finland, which he hoped to reduce to
little more than a Soviet puppet state, but the Red Army met staunch
Finnish resistance in what became known as the Winter War, and succeeded
in gaining only limited territory from the Finns. This action would
later cause the Finns to ally with Germany when its attack on the Soviet
Union came in 1941.
After the defeat of Poland, a period known as the Phony War ensued
during the winter of 1939-1940. All of this changed on May 10, 1940,
when the Germans launched a massive attack on the Low Countries
(Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), most probably to surmount
the Maginot Line of defenses on the Franco-German border. This witnessed
the incredible fall of Eben Emael, a Belgian fort considered impregnable
and guarded by 600 Belgians, to a force of only 88 German paratroopers.
The worst of this was that King Léopold III of Belgium surrendered to
the Germans on May 28 without warning his allies, exposing the entire
flank of the Allied forces to German panzer groups. Following the
conquest of the Low Countries, Hitler occupied Denmark and Norway,
beginning on April 9, 1940. Norway was strategically important because
of its sea routes which supplied crucial Swedish ore to the Nazi war
machine. Norway held on for a few crucial weeks, but Denmark surrendered
after only four days.
With the disaster in the Low Countries, France, considered at the time
to have had the finest army in world, lasted only four weeks, with Paris
being occupied on June 14. Three days later, Marshal Philippe Pétain
surrendered to the Germans. The debacle in France also led to one of the
war s greatest mysteries, and Hitler s first great blunder, Dunkirk,
where a third of a million trapped British and French soldiers were
evacuated by not only British war boats, but every boat the army could
find, including fishing rafts. Hitler refused to "risk" his panzers on
action at Dunkirk, listening to the advice of Air Minister Herman
Göring and allowing the Luftwaffe, or German Air Force, to handle the
job. The irony of this was that the escaped men would form the core of
the army that was to invade the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Hitler did
not occupy all of France, but about three-quarters, including all of the
Atlantic coast, allowing Marshal Pétain to remain as dictator of an
area known as Vichy France. However, members of the escaped French Army
formed around General Charles de Gaulle to create the Free French
forces, which would continue to battle Hitler in the stead of an
independent France. At this moment, Mussolini declared war on the Allies
on June 10, thinking that the war was almost over, but he managed only
to occupy a few hundred yards of French territory. Throughout the war,
the Italians would be more of a burden to the Nazis than a boon, and
would later cost them precious time in Greece.
Here is one of history s greatest ironies. Hitler now stood in a unique
position. Already, he had conquered an incredible amount of territory in
only a short space of time, and had the chance to rule all of Europe.
Indeed, from a military viewpoint, it is a wonder that Hitler even lost
World War II. Throughout 1940 and 1941, he gained the acquiescence and
virtual control of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as Finland as
an uncomfortable ally. The key is that Hitler had supported the ideas of
generals like Heinz Guderian, often called the prophet of accelerated
war, and Erwin Rommel, one military genius who emerged in World War II.
Hitler attributed their successes to his own military genius, and his
own self-confidence would later be the chief cause of the defeat of
Germany. Hitler could now have become ruler of Europe, and possibly
dictator of the world, if only he had followed common-sense plans
advocated to him by many German generals. However, he did not, saving
the world from Nazi domination.
Hitler now turned his eyes on Great Britain, which stood alone against
him. He ordered his generals to draw up plans for an invasion, code
named Operation Sea Lion, and ordered the Luftwaffe to launch a massive
air war against the British isles, which would come to be known as the
Battle of Britain. The British at first suffered steady losses, but
eventually managed to turn the air war against Germany, taking down
2,698 German planes throughout the summer of 1940 to only 915 Royal Air
Force (RAF) losses. The key turning point came when the Germans
discontinued successful attacks against British airplane factories and
radar command and coordination stations and turned to civilian bombing
known as terror bombing using the distinctive "bomb" sound created by
the German dive-bomber, the Stuka. The switch came after a small British
bombing force had attacked Berlin. Hitler was infuriated. However, his
decision to switch the attacks focus allowed the British to rebuild the
RAF and eventually force the Germans to indefinitely postpone Sea Lion.
The importance of the Battle of Britain is that it marked the beginning
of Hitler s defeat. Secondly, it marked the advent of radar as a major
weapon in modern air war. With radar, squadrons of fighters could be
quickly assembled to respond to incoming bombers attempting to bomb
civilian targets. It also allowed the identification of the type and a
guess at the number of incoming enemy aircraft, as well as tracking of
friendly airplanes.
Hitler, taken aback by his defeat over the skies of Britain, now turned
his gaze eastward to the Soviet Union. Despite having signed the
non-aggression pact with Stalin, Hitler despised communism and wished to
destroy it in the land of its birth. He originally planned to launch the
attack in early spring of 1941 to avoid the disastrous Russian winter.
However, a pro-allied coup in Yugoslavia and Mussolini s almost utter
defeat in his invasion of Greece from occupied Albania prompted Hitler
to launch a personal campaign of revenge in Yugoslavia and to occupy
Greece at the same time. The Greeks would have a bitter revenge of
sorts; the attack caused a delay of several crucial weeks of the
invasion of Russia.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler hurled at Stalin the largest army the world has
ever seen. Over three million men and their weapons were put into
service against the Soviets. Stalin had been warned about the attack,
both by other countries and by his own intelligence network, but he had
refused to believe it. Therefore, the Russian army was largely
unprepared and suffered incredible setbacks in the early part of the
war, despite Stalin s orders to counterattack the Germans. Throughout
1941, German forces, divided into 3 army groups (Army Group A, Army
Group B, and Army Group C), occupied the Baltic states of Ukraine and
Belarus, laid siege to Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg), and
advanced to within 15 miles of Moscow. At this critical moment, the
Russian winter, which began early that year, stalled the German
Wehrmacht to a halt at the gates of Moscow. Stalin had planned to
evacuate the city, and had already moved important government functions,
but decided to stay and rally the city. Recently arrived troops from the
east under the command of military genius Marshal Georgi Zhukov
counterattacked the Germans and drove them from Moscow. The German army
then dug in for the winter.
Here marks the third great blunder of Hitler s. He could have won the
war in the USSR except for a few reasons. One, he started the war too
late to avoid the Russian winter. Second, he tried to capture too much
too fast; he wanted the German army to advance all the way to the Urals,
which amounted to one million square miles (2,600,000 km²) of
territory, when he probably should have concentrated on taking Moscow
and thereby driving a wedge into heart of the Soviet Union. Third, he
ignored the similar experiences of Napoleon Bonaparte nearly one hundred
and fifty years earlier in his attempt to conquer Russia. Despite this,
Stalin was not in a good position. Roughly two-fifths of the USSR s
industrial might was in German hands. Also, the Germans were at first
seen by many as liberators fighting the communists. Stalin was also not
a very able general, and like Hitler, at first tried to fight the war as
a military strategist. However, Hitler managed to turn all of his
advantages against himself, and lost the only remaining hope for
Germany: seizing the Caucacus and taking control of North Africa and the
oil-rich Middle East.
Mussolini had launched an offensive in North Africa from
Italian-controlled Libya into British-controlled Egypt. However, the
British smashed the Italians and were on the verge of taking Libya.
Hitler decided to help by sending in a few thousand troops, a Luftwaffe
division, and the first-rate general Erwin Rommel. Rommel managed to use
his small force to repeatedly smash massively superior British forces
and to recapture the port city of Tobruk and advance into Egypt.
However, Hitler, embroiled in his invasion of the Soviet Union, refused
to send Rommel any more troops. If he had, Rommel might have been able
to seize the Middle East, where Axis-friendly regimes had taken root in
Iraq and Persia (present-day Iran). Here, Rommel could have cut the
major supply route of the Soviets through Persia, and helped take the
Caucasus, virtually neutralizing Britain s effectiveness in the war and
potentially sealing the fate of the USSR. However, Hitler blundered
again, throwing away the last vestiges of the German advantage on his
coming offensive in 1942.
After the winter, Hitler launched a fresh offensive in the spring of
1942, with the aim of capturing the oil-rich Caucacus and the city of
Stalingrad. However, he repeatedly switched his troops to where they
were not needed. The offensive bogged down, and the entire 6th Army,
considered the best of German troops, was trapped in Stalingrad. Hitler
now refused to let 6th Army break out. He insisted that the German army
would force its way in. Herman Goering also assured Hitler that the
Luftwaffe could supply the 6th Army adequately, when it could in reality
only supply a minute fraction of the needed ammunition and rations.
Eventually, the starved 6th Army surrendered, dealing a severe blow to
the Germans. In the end, the defeat at Stalingrad was the turning point
for the war in the east.
Meanwhile, the Japanese had attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor
in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. This disastrous attack forced the
Americans into the war. Hitler need not have declared war on the United
States, and kept its continued neutrality in Europe, but he did not.
Both he and Mussolini declared war only a few days after the attack. At
the time, most German generals, preoccupied with war in Russia, did not
even notice America s entrance. It was to be a crucial blunder.
Throughout the rest of 1942 and 1943, the Soviets began to gain ground
against the Germans. The tank battle of Kursk is one example. However,
by this time, Rommel had been forced to abandon North Africa after a
defeat at El Alamein, and the Wehrmacht had encountered serious
casualties that it could not replace. Hitler also insisted on a "hold at
all costs" policy which forbade relinquishing any ground. He followed a
"fight to the last man" policy that was completely ineffective. By the
beginning of 1944, Hitler had lost all initiative in Russia, and was
struggling even to hold back the tide turning against him.
From 1942 to 1944, the United States and Britain acted in only a limited
manner in the European theater, much to the chagrin of Stalin. They
drove out the Germans in Africa, invading Morocco and Algeria on
November 8, 1942. Then, on July 10, 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily, in
preparation for an advance through Italy, the "soft underbelly" of the
Axis, as Winston Churchill called it. On September 9, the invasion of
Italy began. By the winter of 1943, the southern half of Italy was in
Allied hands. The Italians, most of whom did not really support the war,
had already turned against Mussolini. In July, he had been stripped of
power and taken prisoner, though the Italians feigned continued support
of the Axis. On September 8, the Italians formally surrendered, but most
of Italy not in Allied hands was controlled by German troops and those
loyal to Mussolini s (Mussolini had been freed by German paratroopers)
new Italian Social Republic, which in reality consisted of the shrinking
zone of German control. The Germans offered staunch resistance, but by
June 4, 1944, Rome had fallen.
From 1942-1944, the Second Battle of the Atlantic had been taking place.
The Germans hoped to sever the vital supply lines between Britain and
America, sinking many tons of shipping with U-boats, German submarines.
However, the development of the destroyer and aircraft with a longer
patrol range were effective at countering the U-boat threat. By 1944,
the Germans had lost the Battle of the Atlantic.
On June 6, 1944, the Western Allies finally launched the long awaited
assault on "Fortress Europe" so wanted by Stalin. The offensive,
codenamed Operation Overlord, began the early morning hours of June 6.
The day, known as D-day, was marked by foul weather. Rommel, who was now
in charge of defending France against possible Allied attack, thought
the Allies would not attack during the stormy weather, and was on
holiday in Germany. Here, a blunder occurred for the German s, sealing
the operation s success. The Germans expected an attack, but at the
natural harbor of Calais and not the beaches of Normandy. They did not
know about the Allies artificial harbors. Also, clues planted by the
Allies suggested Calais as the landing site.
By this time, the war was looking ever darker for Germany. On July 20,
1944, a group of conspiring German officers attempted to assassinate
Hitler. The bomb they used did injure him, but the second was not used,
and a table shielded Hitler in a stroke of luck. The plotters still
could have launched a coup, but only the head of occupied Paris acted,
arresting SS and Gestapo forces in the city. The German propaganda
minister, Joseph Goebbels, rallied the Nazis, and saved the day for
Hitler.
In France, the Allies took Normandy and finally Paris on August 25. In
the east, the Russians had advanced almost to the former Polish-Russian
border. At this time, Hitler introduced the V weapons, the V-1 and,
later, the V-2, the first rockets used in modern warfare. The V-1 was
often intercepted by air pilots, but the V-2 was extremely fast and
carried a large payload. However, this advance came too late in the war
to have any real effect. The Germans were also on the verge on
introducing a number of terrifying new weapons, including advanced jet
aircraft, which were too fast for ordinary propeller aircraft, and
submarine improvements which would allow the Germans to again fight
effectively in the Atlantic. All this came too late to save Hitler.
Although a September invasion of Holland failed, the Allies made steady
advances. In the winter of 1944, Hitler put everything into one last
desperate gamble in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge, which,
despite an initial advance, was a failure, because the introduction of
new Allied tanks and low troop numbers among the Germans prevented any
real action being taken.
In early February 1945, the three Allied leaders, Franklin Roosevelt,
Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, met at newly liberated Yalta in
the Crimea in the Soviet Union in the Yalta Conference. Here, they
agreed upon a plan to divide post-war Europe. Most of the east went to
Stalin, who agreed to allow free elections in Eastern Europe, which he
never did. The west went to Britain, France, and the U.S. Post-war
Germany would be split between the four, as would Berlin. Here the
territory of the Cold War was set. The foundations of the Iron Curtain
and of the nuclear buildup were laid by three men at Yalta.
At the beginning of 1945, Hitler was on his last strings. The Russians
launched a devastating attack from Poland, where they had liberated
Warsaw, into Germany and Eastern Europe, intending to take Berlin. The
Germans collapsed in the West, allowing the Allies to fan out across
Germany. However, the Supreme Allied Commander, American General Dwight
D. Eisenhower, refused to strike for Berlin, and instead became obsessed
with reports of possible guerrilla activity in southern Germany, which
in reality existed only in the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels. By April
25, the Russians had besieged Berlin. Hitler remained in the city in a
bunker under the Chancellery garden. On April 30, he committed suicide,
after a ritual wedding with his long time mistress Eva Braun. The
Germans held out another 7 days under Admiral Doenitz, their new leader,
but the Germans surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945, ending the
war in Europe.
The war in the Pacific
The Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) is the term used in the United
States for all military activity in the Pacific Ocean and the countries
bordering it, during World War II. Pacific War is a more common name,
around the world, for the broader conflict between the Allies and Japan,
between 1937 and 1945.
Partly because of the nearly equal roles of the U.S. Army and the U.S.
Navy in conducting war in the Pacific Theater, but largely for domestic
political reasons, there was not a single Allied or US commander for the
theater (comparable to Eisenhower in the ETO). Indeed, the
organizational structure was rather tangled, with the Joint Chiefs of
Staff frequently required to be involved, and the Army and Navy
commanders reporting to both the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary
of War. (No doubt the attendant difficulties helped motivate the
formation of the Department of Defense in 1947.)
The two main Allied commanders in the PTO were Commander-in-Chief
Pacific Ocean Areas, the title held by Admiral Chester Nimitz and
Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific Area1, General Douglas
MacArthur (following termination of the short-lived ABDACOM, in early
1942.)
The Holocaust
The Holocaust (which roughly means "burnt whole") was the deliberate,
systematic, and horrific murder of millions of Jews during World War II
by the Nazi regime in Germany. Several differing views exist regarding
whether it was intended to occur from the war s beginning, or if the
plans for it came about later. Regardless, persecution of Jews extended
well before the war even started, such as in the Kristallnacht (Night of
Broken Glass). The Nazis used propaganda to great effect to stir up
anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.
After the conquest of Poland, the Third Reich, which had previously
deported Jews and other "undesirables", suddenly had within its borders
the largest concentration of Jews in the world. The solution was to
round up Jews and place them in concentration camps or in ghettos,
cordoned off sections of cities where Jews were forced to live in
deplorable conditions, often with tens of thousands starving to death,
and the bodies decaying in the streets. As appalling as this sounds,
they were the lucky ones. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, armed
killing squads of SS men known as Einsatzgruppen systematically rounded
up Jews and murdered an estimated one million Jews within the country.
As barbaric and inhuman as this seems, it was too slow and inefficient
by Nazi standards.
In 1942, the top leadership met in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, and
began to plan a more efficient way to slaughter the Jews. The Nazis
created a system of extermination camps throughout Poland, and began
rounding up Jews from the Soviet Union, and from the Ghettos. Not only
were Jews shot or gassed to death en masse, but they were forced to
provide slave labor and they were used in horrific medical experiments
(see Human experimentation in Nazi Germany). Out of the widespread
condemnation of the Nazis medical experiments, the Nuremberg Code of
medical ethics was devised.
The Nazis took a sadistic pleasure in the death camps; the entrance to
the worst camp, Auschwitz, stated "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- "work makes
free". In the end, seven million Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah s Witnesses,
gypsies and political prisoners were killed by various means, mainly in
the death camps. An additional seven million Soviet and Allied prisoners
of war died in camps and holding areas.
There is some controversy over whether ordinary Germans knew about the
Holocaust. It appears that most of the Germans readily knew about the
concentration camps; such things were prominently displayed in magazines
and newspapers. In many places, Jews had to walk past towns and villages
on their way to work as slaves in German industry. In any case, Allied
soldiers reported that the smell of the camps carried for miles. A very
small number of people deny the Holocaust occurred entirely, though
these claims have been routinely discredited by mainstream historians.
The Nuclear Age begins
During the 1930s, innovations in physics made it apparent that it could
be possible to develop nuclear weapons of incredible power using nuclear
reactions. When World War II broke out, scientists and advisors among
the Allies feared that Nazi Germany may have been trying to develop its
own atomic weapons, and the United States and the United Kingdom pooled
their efforts in what became known as the Manhattan Project to beat them
to it. At the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico, scientist
Robert Oppenheimer led a team of the world s top scientists to develop
the first nuclear weapons, the first of which was tested at the Trinity
site in July 1945. However, Germany had surrendered in May 1945, and it
had been discovered that the German atomic bomb program had not been
very close to success.
The Allied team produced two nuclear weapons for use in the war, one
powered by uranium-235 and the other by plutonium as fissionable
material, named "Little Boy" and "Fat Man". These were dropped on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. This, in
combination with the Soviet entrance in the war, convinced the Japanese
to surrender unconditionally. These two weapons remain the only two
nuclear weapons ever used against other countries in war.
Nuclear weapons brought an entirely new and terrifying possibility to
warfare: a nuclear holocaust. While at first the United States held a
monopoly on the production of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union, with
some assistance from espionage, managed to detonate its first weapon
(dubbed "Joe-1" by the West) in August 1949. The post-war relations
between the two, which had already been deteriorating, began to rapidly
disintegrate. Soon the two were locked in a massive stockpiling of
nuclear weapons. The United States began a crash-program to develop the
first hydrogen bomb in 1950, and detonated its first thermonuclear
weapon in 1952. This new weapon was alone over 400 times as powerful as
the weapons used against Japan. The Soviets detonated a primitive
thermonuclear weapon in 1953 and a full-fledged one in 1955.
The conflict continued to escalate, with the major superpowers
developing long-range missiles (such as the ICBM) and a nuclear strategy
which guaranteed that any use of the nuclear weapons would be suicide
for the attacking nation (Mutually Assured Destruction). The creation of
early warning systems put the control of these weapons into the hands of
newly created computers, and they served as a tense backdrop throughout
the Cold War.
Since the 1940s there had been concerns about the rising proliferation
of nuclear weapons to new countries, which was seen as being
destablizing to international relations, spurring regional arms races,
and generally increasing the likelihood of some form of nuclear war.
Eventually, seven nations would officially develop nuclear weapons and
still maintain stockpiles today: the United States, the Soviet Union
(and later Russia would inherit these), the United Kingdom, France,
China, India, and Pakistan. South Africa developed six crude weapons in
the 1980s (which it later dismantled), and Israel almost certainly
developed nuclear weapons though it never confirmed or denied it. The
creation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968 was an attempt
to curtail such proliferation, but a number of countries developed
nuclear weapons since it was signed (and many did not sign it), and a
number of other countries, including Libya, Iran, and North Korea) were
suspected of having clandestine nuclear weapons programs.
The Post-War World
Following World War II, the majority of the industrialized world lay in
ruins as a result of aerial bombings, naval bombardment, and protracted
land campaigns. The United States was a notable exception to this;
barring Pearl Harbor and a few other isolated incidents, the U.S. had
suffered no attacks upon its homeland. The United States and the Soviet
Union, which, despite the devastation of its most populated areas,
rebuilt quickly, found themselves sharing the world as the two dominant
superpowers.
Much of Western Europe was rebuilt after the war with assistance from
the Marshall Plan. Germany, chief instigator of the war, was placed
under joint military occupation by the United States, Great Britain,
France, and the Soviet Union. Berlin, although in Soviet-controlled
territory, was also divided between the four powers. Occupation of
Berlin would continue until 1990. Japan was also placed under U.S.
occupation; the occupation would last five years, until 1949. Oddly,
these two Axis powers, despite military occupation, soon rose to become
the second (Japan) and third (West Germany) most powerful economies in
the world.
Following the end of the war, the Allies famously prosecuted numerous
German officials for war crimes and other offenses in the Nuremberg
Trials. Although Adolf Hitler had committed suicide, many of his
cronies, including Hermann Göring, were convicted. Less well-known
trials of other Axis officials also occurred, including the Tokyo War
Crime Trial.
The failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War II essentially
dissolved the organization. A new attempt at world peace was begun with
the founding of the United Nations on October 24, 1945 in San Francisco,
California. Today, nearly all countries are members, but the
organization s success at achieving its stated goals is dubious.
Israel and Palestine
The Holocaust accelerated efforts to repatriate and settle Jews in
Palestine. Great Britain, which had previously occupied Palestine under
a League of Nations mandate, withdrew and partitioned the area into
Palestinian and Jewish territories with United Nations assistance. The
ethnic, religious, and political tensions created by this have plagued
the world ever since. Three regional wars: the 1956 Suez War, the
Six-Day War, and the Yom Kippur War, have been fought between Israel and
neighboring countries. The Palestinians within Israel itself have also
actively resisted what they term as "Israeli occupation" with some
participating in actions such as the First Intifada and suicide bombings
of Israeli military and civilian targets, targets that groups such as
Hamas make no distinction between.
The end of empire
Almost all of the major nations that were involved in World War II began
shedding their overseas colonies soon after the conflict. The United
States granted independence to the Philippines, its major Pacific
possession. European powers such as Great Britain also began withdrawing
from possessions in Africa and Asia. France was forced out of both
Indochina and, later, Algeria.
An "Iron Curtain" forms
The latter half of the twentieth century was profoundly marred by the
competition between the two world superpowers: the United States and the
Soviet Union. This situation was made especially tense by the advent of
nuclear weapons. The United States, of course, had exploded the first
nuclear bomb and had used such weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear bomb on August 9, 1949.
Great Britain, France, and the People s Republic of China also developed
nuclear capabilities, realistically posing the threat of annihilation of
the human race for the first time in recorded history.
The Cold War was named as such because the two opposing superpowers
never directly fought each other. A war between the two powers could
have been apocalyptic; the threat of mutually assured destruction
prevented the two powers from engaging in open conflict. Instead, they
competed for political influence and engaged in the arms race and space
race. They also fought each other indirectly through proxy wars, such as
the Vietnam War and Afghanistan War. Europe was turned into a no-man s
land of allied nations. The United States founded the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) in order to organize capitalist western
European nations to resist the Soviets. In response, the Soviet Union
installed communist regimes in the Eastern European countries that it
had occupied at the end of World War II and organized these countries in
the Warsaw Pact. The U.S.S.R. also constructed the Berlin Wall to serve
as a barrier between NATO-occupied West Berlin and Soviet-occupied East
Berlin. Germany proper was also split into West Germany and East Germany
along the end-of-war occupation zones. This split seemed to give life to
Winston Churchill s Iron Curtain speech, in which he proclaimed that "An
iron curtain has fallen across Europe."
War by proxy
Two wars and a third near-war in the 1900s became the foci for
capitalist vs. communist struggle. The first was the Korean War, fought
between People s Republic of China-backed North Korea and mainly United
States-backed South Korea. North Korea s invasion of South Korea led to
United Nations intervention. General Douglas MacArthur led troops from
the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and other countries
in repulsing the Northern invasion. However, the war ground to a
stalemate after Chinese intervention pushed U.N. forces back, and a
cease-fire ended hostilities, leaving the two Koreas divided and tense
for the rest of the century.
The Vietnam War is probably the second most visible war of the 20th
century, after World War II. After the French withdrawal from its former
colony, Vietnam became partitioned into two halves, much like Korea.
Fighting between North and South eventually escalated into a regional
war. The United States provided aid to South Vietnam, but was not
directly involved until the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed in
reaction to a supposed North Vietnamese attack upon American destroyers,
brought the U.S. into the war as a belligerent. The war was initially
viewed as a fight to contain communism (see containment, Truman
Doctrine, and Domino Theory), but, as more Americans were drafted and
news of events such as the Tet Offensive and My Lai massacre leaked out,
American sentiment turned against the war. U.S. President Richard Nixon
was elected partially on claims of a "secret plan" to stop the war. This
Nixon Doctrine involved a gradual pullout of American forces; South
Vietnamese units were supposed to replace them, backed up by American
air power. Unfortunately, the plan went awry, and the war spilled into
neighboring Cambodia while South Vietnamese forces were pushed further
back. Eventually, the U.S. and North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace
Accords, ending U.S. involvement in the war. With the threat of U.S.
retaliation gone, the North proceded to violate the ceasefire and
invaded the South with full military force. Saigon was captured on April
30, 1975, and Vietnam was unified under Communist rule a year later,
effectively bringing an end to one of the most unpopular wars of all
time.
The Cuban Missile Crisis illustrates just how close to the brink of
nuclear war the world came during the Cold War. Cuba, under Fidel
Castro s socialist government, had formed close ties with the Soviet
Union. This was obviously disquieting to the United States, given Cuba s
proximity. When Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the island revealed
that Soviet missile launchers were being installed, U.S. President John
F. Kennedy instituted a naval blockade and publicly confronted the
Soviet Union. After a tense week, the Soviet Union backed down and
ordered the launchers removed, not wanting to risk igniting a new world
war.
"One giant leap for mankind"
With Cold War tensions running high, the Soviet Union and United States
took their rivalry to the stars in 1957 with the Soviet launch of
Sputnik. A "space race" between the two powers followed. Although the
U.S.S.R. reached several important milestones, such as the first craft
on the Moon (Luna 2) and the first human in space (Yuri Gagarin), the
U.S. eventually pulled ahead with its Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo
programs, which culminated in Apollo 11 s manned landing on the moon.
Five more manned landings followed (Apollo 13 was forced to abort its
mission). In addition, both countries launched numerous probes into
space, such as the Venera 7 and Voyager 2.
In later decades, space became a somewhat friendlier place. Regular
manned space flights were made possible with the American space shuttle,
which was the first reusable spacecraft to be successfully used. Mir and
Skylab enabled prolonged human habitation in space. In the 1990s, work
on the International Space Station began.
The end of the Cold War
By the 1980s, the Soviet Union was weakening. The Sino-Soviet split had
removed the U.S.S.R. s most powerful ally, the People s Republic of
China. Its arms race with the U.S. was draining the country of funds.
Internal pressures, ethnic and political, also weakened the nation.
Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to reform the country with glasnost and
perestroika, but the formation of Solidarity, the fall of the Berlin
Wall, and the breaking-off of several Soviet republics, such as
Lithuania, started a slippery slope of events that culminated in a coup
to overthrow Gorbachev organized by Communist Party hard-liners. Boris
Yeltsin, president of Russia, organized mass opposition, and the coup
failed. On December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union was officially disbanded,
ending the Cold War.
Dawn of the Information Age
The creation of the transistor revolutionized the development of the
computer. The first computers, room-sized electro-mechanical devices
built to break cryptographical codes during World War II, became more
powerful. Computers became reprogrammable rather than fixed-purpose
devices. The invention of programming languages meant computer operators
could concentrate on problem solving at a high-level, without having to
think in terms of the individual instructions to the computer itself.
The creation of operating systems also vastly improved programming
productivity. Building on this, computer pioneers could now realize what
they had envisioned. The graphical user interface, piloted by a computer
mouse made it simple to harness the power of the computer. Storage for
computer programs progressed from punch cards and paper tape to magnetic
tape, floppy disks and hard disks. Core memory and bubble memory fell to
random access memory.
The invention of the word processor, spreadsheet and database greatly
improved office productivity over the old paper, typewriter and filing
cabinet methods. The economic advantage given to businesses led to
economic efficiencies in computers themselves. Cost-effective CPUs led
to thousands of industrial and home-brew computer designs, many of which
became successful; a home-computer boom was led by the Apple II, the
ZX80 and the Commodore PET.
IBM, realizing the future now lay in individual computers rather than
dumb terminals tied to a mainframe, devised their IBM Personal Computer.
Crucially, IBM made all specifications for their computer open rather
than proprietary, with the exception of their BIOS. As the only
impediment to an open system with interchangeable suppliers was this
BIOS, it was reverse-engineered by Compaq, and the IBM PC became the
first fully open-specification computer system, leading to its current
dominance in the marketplace. Riding on this wave of popularity, the
operating system vendors for the PC (Microsoft) leveraged their position
to become the most powerful software company in the world.
The 1980s heralded the Information Age. The rise of the computer
applications and data processing made ethereal "information" as valuable
as physical commodities. This brought about the specter of "intellectual
property", where people and companies would fight to control simple
facts and ideas, motivated by the new-found economic worth of such
things. The US Government made algorithms patentable, forming the basis
of software patents. The controversy over these and proprietary software
led Richard Stallman to create the Free Software Foundation and begin
the GNU Project.
Computers also became a useable platform for entertainment. Computer
games were first developed by software programmers exercising their
creativity on large systems at universities, but these efforts became
commercially successful in arcade games such as PONG and Space Invaders.
Once the home computer market was established, young programmers in
their bedrooms became the core of a youthful games industry. In order to
take advantage of advancing technology, games consoles were created.
Like arcade systems, these machines had custom hardware designed to do
game-oriented operations (such as sprites and parallax scrolling) in
preference to general purpose computing tasks.
Computer networks appeared in two main styles; the local area network,
linking computers in an office or school to each other, and the wide
area network, linking the local area networks together. Initially,
computers depended on the telephone networks to link to each other,
spawning the Bulletin Board sub-culture. However, a DARPA project to
create bomb-proof computer networks led to the creation of the Internet,
a network of networks. The core of this network was the robust TCP/IP
network protocol. Thanks to efforts from Al Gore, the Internet grew
beyond its military role when universities and commercial businesses
were permitted to connect their networks to it. The main impetus for
this was elec
