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Period: to
Most Important Events of the 20th Century
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"A trip to moon", first sci-fi movie
A Trip to the Moon was one of the most popular films of the first years of the twentieth century. Its unusual length for the era, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were influential on other film-makers and ultimately on the development of narrative film as a whole. -
First flight by the Wright brothers
Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903 in North Carolina. In 1904–05, the brothers developed the Wright Flyer II, followed by the first truly practical aircraft, the Wright Flyer III. The Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible. -
Einstein's theory of relativity
The theory transformed theoretical physics and astronomy during the 20th century, superseding a 200-year-old theory of mechanics created primarily by Isaac Newton. In the field of physics, relativity improved the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves -
Henry Ford's first model-T
The Ford Model T is an automobile produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. -
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars consisted of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913.Balkan states (Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria defeated the Ottoman Empire in the first war. In the Second Balkan War, attacked its former allies. The conflicts ended catastrophically for the Ottoman Empire, which lost the bulk of its territory in Europe, while Greece doubled its territory. The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914, that lead to the First World War. -
World War I
World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 of July 1914 to 11 of November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history -
Family migration
Before World War I, there were an estimated 1.8 million Greeks living in the Ottoman Empire. After the Balkan wars and the beginning of World War I massacres and internal deportations against Greeks living in todays Turkey started and my great grand father fled to Greece. -
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution across the territory of the Russian Empire. -
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the mid-19th century, from the work being done by women for broad-based economic and political equality and for social reforms, women sought to change voting laws to allow them to vote -
First talking movie, "The Jazz Singer"
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with not only a synchronised recorded music score but also lip-synchronous singing and speech in several isolated sequences. Its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and ended the silent film era. It was produced by Warner Bros. with its Vibraphone sound-on-disc system. The film features six songs performed by Al Jolson -
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character and the mascot of The Walt Disney Company. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. He is one of the world's most recognizable characters. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across the world; in most countries, it started in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s.It was the longest and most widespread depression of the 20th century. -
Nazi rise in Germany
Nazi Germany, also known as the Third Reich was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country which they transformed into a dictatorship. -
Nazi invasion in Poland
The German invasion of Poland caused the start of the war in Europe (1 September 1939). -
World War II
World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. -
Family in WW II
Greece participated in the side of the Allies during WWII. All able male population over 18 fought in the war, so did two of my great-grandparents. The Greek Army was able to push the Italians back. The Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene. The Germans invaded Greece and occupied it making life difficult for everybody, since more than 400.000 died of starvation. -
Holocaust
The Holocaust was a a genocide of the European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, -
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States for taking over the world. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts. Itlasted from 1947 to 1991 -
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 in the compound of Birla House, a large mansion in New Delhi. His assassin was Nathuram Godse, a member of the political party the Hindu Mahasabha, and a past member of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the support of the United Nations, principally from the United States). The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea -
Family Internal Migration
After WWII and Greek civil war most of Greece population migrated to Athens, its capital for finding jobs and looking for a better life. So did two of my grand parents -
Elvis Prisley
Elvis Aaron Presley, also known simply as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll". -
Beggining of Civil Rights
Black men and women sufferedd segregation and discrimination during their deployment. In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools. -
Polio Vaccine
Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis.The vaccine has eliminated polio from most of the world, and reduced the number of cases reported each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 33 in 2018. -
Sputkin and the beggining of the Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the USSR and the United States, to achieve firsts in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. 1963 was the year that France withdrew from the conflict, leaving only the United States to fight as allies of South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China. -
Kennedy's assassination
USA President John.F. Kennedy was shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald on the 22nd of November, 1963. -
First man on the Moon
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969. Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface. Neil Armstrong was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. -
Peru earthquake
The 1970 Great Peruvian earthquake occurred on 31 May off the coast of Peru in the Pacific Ocean. It is the most catastrophic natural disaster in the history of Peru and caused an estimate of 66,794 to 70,000 casualties, it is also considered to be the world's deadliest avalanche. -
Munich Olympics massacre
The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, in which the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took eleven Israeli Olympic team members hostage and killed them along with a West German police officer. Police officers killed five of the eight Black September members during a failed attempt to rescue the hostages. A West German policeman was also killed in the crossfire. The other three Palestinian hijackers were captured. -
Oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War: Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. By the end of the embargo in March 1974 the price of oil had risen nearly 400%. The oil crisis had many short- and long-term effects on global politics and global economy. -
Family in the 70s
Oil Crisis resulted to everyone buying small cars, as did my family. Also that was the decade that my parents were born.
Black and White TV was the norm, it was difficult to travel abroad and there were no computers in most houses. Children were playing outdoors. -
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution also known as the Islamic Revolution overthrowned the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States and replaced his government with an Islamic republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It replaced a pro-Western authoritarian monarchy with an anti-Western theocracy. -
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).Following initial infection a person may not notice any symptoms, or may experience a brief period of influenza-like illness -
Falklands war
The Falklands War was a 10-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. -
Ethiopian famine
The famines in Ethiopia occurred periodically through the history of Ethiopia due to a number of reasons. The economy of Ethiopia was based on subsistence agriculture, with an aristocracy that consumed the surplus. -
Family in the 80s
First computers (Commodore 64 and Spectrum ZX), colour TV, VCR and easily accessible music systems. More people had cars and in Athens most people moved to block of flats. Greece joined European Community, making travel and commerce easier. New products and brands available to Greek people. My family started travelling internationally by car. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and the start of the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. -
USSR collapse
The dissolution of the Soviet Union or collapse of the Soviet Union was the process of internal disintegration within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which began in the second half of the 1980s with growing unrest in the various national republics and ended on 26 December 1991, when the Supreme Soviet voted the USSR itself out of existence. -
Internet
The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. -
European Union forms
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe.Its members have a combined area of 4,233,255.3 km2 and an estimated total population of about 447 million. -
End of Apartheid
The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of negotiations between 1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de Klerk government. These negotiations took place between the governing National Party, the African National Congress, and a wide variety of other political organisations. The negotiations resulted in South Africa's first non-racial election, which was won by the African National Congress. -
Family in the 90s
PCs as the norm, videogames and consoles, internet and mobile phones. EU made travel easier. My parents started their studies.
