Ten Decades of the 20th Century

We have now moved in to the 21st century, but for virtually everyone reading here, the 20th century was our century. In this post I am taking images of 4 significant events for each decade of the 20th century. A picture paints a thousand words, so here they are:

The 1900s


1901 Australia Federates


1903 Man Flies


1905 The Theory of Relativity is Proposed


1907 Picasso Gives Birth to Modern Art

The 1910s


1912 RMS Titanic Sinks


1912 Republic of China Established


1917 Bolshevik Revolution – Communist Russia is born


1914 World War I Begins

The 1920s


1920 Prohibition Begins



1922 Tomb of Tutankhamen is Found


1925 Television is Invented


1929 On With the Show – first 100% color, 100% sound movie

The 1930s


1930 The First Full Length Color/Sound Cartoon Appears


1930 Mohandas Gandhi Leads Satyagraha Movement in India


1931 Empire State Building Opens


1939 World War II Begins

The 1940s


1944 Colossus – First Fully Electronic Computer


1945 First Atomic Bomb Built


1945 First Secretary General of the Newly Formed United Nations


1946 Cold War Begins



The 1950s


1950 Korean War Begins


1953 DNA First Accurately Modeled


1954 Rock Aound The Clock takes Rock and Roll International


1957 Sputnik 1 – First artificial satellite put into geocentric orbit

The 1960s


1962 Spacewar! The First Computer Game is Invented


1962 Pope John XXIII Starts the Vatican II Council


1967 Marxist Revolutionary Che Guevara is Executed in Bolivia


1969 Man walks on the moon

The 1970s


1973 Embargoes from the OPEC nations cause an oil Crisis in nations supporting Israel


1973 American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders


1979 Dame Margaret Thatcher Becomes the First Female UK Prime Minister


1979 Khomeini Takes Power in Iran

The 1980s


John Lennon is Shot


1984 The First Commercially Successful Graphic Interface PC Arrives with the Apple Macintosh


1986 The Chernobyl Disaster Occurs


1988 The Commercial Internet Begins

The 1990s


1990 The Gulf War Begins


1991 The Soviet Union Collapses


1996 Dolly The Sheep is Cloned


December 31, 1999 The Second Millennium Since the Birth of Christ Closes (some prefer Dec 2000)