The period of transition from one century to another is always rich in historical events, and especially at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The world at the turn of the 20th century is, of course, an era of industrialization and progress. She gave mankind such necessary things as radio, telephone and communications.
If we imagine for a moment that we managed to get into the world of the early 20th century, we will see an amazing landscape: industrial Europe with smoking factories, important capitalists rushing to work in the morning, and socialist parties just beginning to emerge. Well, let's see how much the imagination matches the official story...
colonial world
The world at the beginning of the 20th century was largely determined by colonial relations. It was the contradictions arising from them that provoked serious economic and political changes that set the well-known vector of development.
England, France and Italy were the major colonizing countries. They began to be called metropolises, and dependent states - colonies.
The world at the beginning of the 20th century was characterized by a noticeable difference in the living standards of people: while the Western European countries were experiencing an economic and cultural boom (often due to the deprivation of manufactured products from residents of dependent countries), the majority of the population of the colonies was starving.
But the United States at that time was an inconspicuous and quiet country: it did not interfere anywhere, except for Latin America.
The result of the colonial policy was the division of the world into zones of influence between the leading powers (mainly England and France). Of course, the weaker Germany was dissatisfied with this course of events. This country began to look for allies, which led to the formation of two well-known associations.
The balance of power in the early 20th century: the Entente and the Triple Alliance
Germany began to unite European states around itself. As a result, the Entente arose, which included the following countries:
- Germany;
- Austria-Hungary;
- Italy.
Strong powers, in turn, also decided to create their own alliance. They united in the Triple Alliance, which included:
- England;
- France;
- Russia.
The world at the beginning of the 20th century largely determined well-known historical events. The confrontation between the Entente and the Triple Alliance led to the First World War (1914-1918).
The world at the beginning of the 20th century: and migration
The period of time we are considering is notable for two processes:
- increase in the population of the Earth;
- waves of migration.
The world's population was 1.6 billion people. Most of them lived in Asia, Europe and Russia. But the population of the New World (USA and Canada) was not numerous - only 82 million people.
Most people lived in villages. About 10% of the world's population lived in cities. There were few large cities, only 360 of them had a population of over 100 thousand.
The world in the 19th and 20th centuries was a period of large-scale migrations of people from one country to another, and often to another part of the world. For example, an impressive part of European residents decided to emigrate to America (about 50 million people). This is due to the fact that people were looking for economically more profitable places and wanted to see a new mainland.
The Asian continent also did not go around. The Chinese sought to Southeast Asia, the Indians - to South Africa. It was due to the formation of such a motley, multifaceted and interesting world.
World at the end of the 20th century
The past century turned out to be incredibly rich in various historical events, which some of us witnessed.
Of great importance was its outcome - the disappearance of the bipolar world and the collapse of the USSR. Consider the changes that befell the world and our civilization at the end of the last century. Here are the main ones:
- globalization of the world;
- high development of communications;
- collapse of the USSR;
- US leadership;
- aggravation of relations between developed countries and third world countries;
- fully capitalist economy;
- world market;
- integration of the countries of the former socialist camp into the world economy;
- creation of the global Internet network;
- demographic record (in 2000, the world's population reached 6 billion);
- the emergence of HIV infection;
- progress in medicine and science (for example, the emergence of cloning technology).
The end of the 20th century belongs to modern history, and past historical events are already written (or written) in textbooks. We have a unique opportunity to form a personal opinion about this or that phenomenon that happened, because we live in this controversial time.