HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Contemporary history, in English-language
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians h ...
, is a subset of
modern history The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is appli ...
that describes the
historical period Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied through ...
from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the
late modern period In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began approximately around the year 1800 and depending on the author either ended with the beginning of contemporary history after World War ...
, or it is one of the three major subsets of modern history, alongside the early modern period and the late modern period. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related to, the rise of
postmodernity Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
. Contemporary history is politically dominated by the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
(1947–1991) between the
Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...
, led by the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, and the
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, led by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. The confrontation spurred fears of a
nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...
. An all-out "hot" war was avoided, but both sides intervened in the internal politics of smaller nations in their bid for global influence and via
proxy war A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a p ...
s. The Cold War ultimately ended with the
Revolutions of 1989 The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
in 1991. The latter stages and aftermath of the Cold War enabled the
democratization Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...
of much of Europe, Africa, and Latin America. In the Middle East, the period after 1945 was dominated by conflict involving the new state of Israel, the rise of
petroleum politics Petroleum politics have been an increasingly important aspect of diplomacy since the rise of the petroleum industry in the Middle East in the early 20th century. As competition continues for a vital resource, the strategic calculations of major ...
, and the growth of
Islamism Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern State (polity), states and Administrative division, regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, Economics, econom ...
. The first supranational organizations of government, such as the United Nations and
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
, emerged during the period after 1945, while the European
colonial empire A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state. Before the expansion of early mode ...
s in Africa and Asia collapsed, gone by 1975.
Counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. H ...
s rose and the
sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
transformed
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
relations in western countries between the 1960s and 1980s, as seen in the
protests of 1968 The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against state militaries and the bureaucracies. In the United States, these protests marked a turning point for the ci ...
. Living standards rose sharply across the
developed world A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
because of the
post-war economic boom In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period ...
.
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
and
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
both emerged as exceptionally strong economies. The
culture of the United States The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...
spread widely, with American television and movies spreading across the world. Some Western countries began a slow process of deindustrializing in the 1970s;
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
led to the emergence of new financial and industrial centers in Asia.
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
was the first major success story, seeing the
Japanese economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the Unit ...
; it was later followed by the
Four Asian Tigers The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese and Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1960s and 1990s, they underwent ...
of
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
; and later
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
after its
economic reform Microeconomic reform (or often just economic reform) comprises policies directed to achieve improvements in economic efficiency, either by eliminating or reducing distortions in individual sectors of the economy or by reforming economy-wide polici ...
, which exported its consumer and technological goods around the world.
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
made new advances after 1945:
spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in ...
,
nuclear technology Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors a ...
,
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
s,
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
s,
molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...
,
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...
,
particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
, and the
Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces ( electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying all known elementary particles. It ...
of
quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...
. The first commercial computers were created, followed by the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
, beginning the
Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
.


Political history


1945–1991

In 1945, the
Allies of World War II The Allies, formally referred to as the Declaration by United Nations, United Nations from 1942, were an international Coalition#Military, military coalition formed during the World War II, Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis ...
had defeated all significant opposition to them. They established the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
to govern international relations and disputes. A looming question was how to handle the defeated Axis nations and the shattered nations that the Axis had conquered. Following the
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
, territory was divided into zones for which Allied country would have responsibility and manage rebuilding. While these zones were theoretically temporary (such as the eventual fate of occupied Austria, which was released to independence as a neutral country), growing tensions between the
Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...
, led by the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, with the
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, led by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, meant that many calcified into place. Countries in Soviet zones of Eastern Europe had communist regimes installed as
satellite state A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbitin ...
s. The
Berlin Blockade The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, ro ...
of 1948 led to a Western Airlift to preserve
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
and signified a cooling of East-West relations. Germany split into two countries in 1949, liberal-democratic
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
and communist
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...
. The conflict as a whole would become known as the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. The Western Bloc formed
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
in 1949 while the Eastern Bloc formed the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
in 1955. Direct combat between the new Great Powers was generally avoided, although
proxy war A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a p ...
s fought in other countries by factions equipped by one side against the other side's faction occurred. An
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
to develop and build
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s happened as policymakers wanted to ensure their side had more if it came to a war. In East Asia,
Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
's
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...
was overthrown in the
Chinese Communist Revolution The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (RO ...
from 1945–1949. His government retreated to Taiwan, but both the nationalist KMT government and the new communist mainland government under
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...
continued to claim authority over all of China. Korea was divided similarly to Germany, with the Soviet Union occupying the North and the United States occupying the South (future
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
and
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
). Unlike Germany, the conflict there turned hot, as the
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...
erupted from 1950–1953. Korea was not reunified under either government, however, due to strong support from both the US and China for their favored side; it became a
frozen conflict In international relations, a frozen conflict is a situation in which active armed conflict has been brought to an end, but no peace treaty or other political framework resolves the conflict to the satisfaction of the combatants. Therefore, lega ...
instead. Japan was given a new constitution foreswearing aggressive war in 1947, and the American occupation ended in 1952, although a treaty of mutual aid with the US was soon signed. The US also granted the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
their independence in 1946 while keeping close relations. The Middle East became a hotbed of instability. The new Jewish state of
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
declared its independence, recognized by both the United States and the Soviet Union, after which followed the
1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form Britis ...
. Egypt's weak and ineffective king Farouk was overthrown in the Egyptian revolution of 1952, and replaced by General
Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-r ...
; the
1953 Iranian coup d'état The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état ( fa, کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of ...
saw the American-friendly shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran , image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg , caption = Shah in 1973 , succession = Shah of Iran , reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979 , coronation = 26 Octob ...
remove the democratic constraints on his government and take power directly; and Iraq's monarchy was overthrown in 1958.
Decolonization Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
was the most important development across Southeast Asia and Africa from 1946–1975, as the old British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese colonial empires were dismantled. Many new states were given their independence, but soon found themselves having to choose between allying with the Western Bloc, Eastern Bloc, or attempting to stay neutral as a member of the
Non-Aligned Movement The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide. The movement originated in the aftermath ...
.
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
was granted independence in 1947 without an outright war of independence being required. It was partitioned into Hindu-majority
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
and Muslim-majority Pakistan (
West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...
and
East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wit ...
, future
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
and
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
);
Indo-Pakistani wars Since the Partition of India, Partition of British India in 1947 and subsequent creation of the dominions of Dominion of India, India and Dominion of Pakistan, Pakistan, the two countries have been involved in a number of wars, conflicts, and m ...
were fought in 1947, 1965, and 1971.
Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...
took control of an independent
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
in 1950, as attempts to reinstate Dutch rule in 1945–1949 had largely failed, and took an independent-to-Eastern leaning stance. He would later be overthrown by
Suharto Suharto (; ; 8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian army officer and politician, who served as the second and the longest serving president of Indonesia. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto l ...
in 1968, who took a pro-Western stance. The
Federation of Malaya The Federation of Malaya ( ms, Persekutuan Tanah Melayu; Jawi: ) was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya comprising eleven states (nine Malay states and two of the British Straits Settlements, Penang and Malacca)''See' ...
was granted independence in 1957, with the concurrent fighting of the
Malayan Emergency The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces ...
against communist forces from 1948–1960. The French unsuccessfully fought the
First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...
in an attempt to hold on to
French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
; at the
1954 Geneva Conference The Geneva Conference, intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War, was a conference involving several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 April to 20 July 1954. The par ...
, the new states of
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist s ...
, the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
, and the eventual
Republic of Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of t ...
were created. The division of Indochina eventually led to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) 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 Vie ...
in the 1960s and 70s (as well as the
Laotian Civil War The Laotian Civil War (1959–1975) was a civil war in Laos which was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. It is associated with the Cambodian Civil War and the Vietnam War ...
and
Cambodian Civil War The Cambodian Civil War ( km, សង្គ្រាមស៊ីវិលកម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ) was a civil war in Cambodia fought between the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khmer Rouge, supported by North Vi ...
), which ended in communist North Vietnam unifying the country in 1975 and a stinging defeat for the United States. In Africa, France fought the grinding
Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
from 1954–1962 that saw the end of
French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...
and the rise of a new independent
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
. The British and French both slowly released their vast holdings, leading to the creation of states such as
First Nigerian Republic The First Republic was the republican government of Nigeria between 1963 and 1966 governed by the first republican constitution. The country's government was based on a federal form of the Westminster system. The period between 1 October 196 ...
in 1963. Portugal, on the other hand, fiercely held onto their Empire, leading to the
Portuguese Colonial War The Portuguese Colonial War ( pt, Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War () or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (), and also known as the Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican War of Independence, ...
from 1961–1974 in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique until the '' Estado Novo'' government fell. Meanwhile, apartheid-era
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
remained fiercely anti-communist, but withdrew from the British Commonwealth in 1961, and supported various pro-colonial factions across Africa that had lost support from their "home" governments in Europe. Many of the newly independent African governments struggled with the balance between being too weak and overthrown by ambitious coup-plotters, and too strong and becoming dictatorships. Latin America saw gradual economic growth but also instability in many countries, as the threat of coups and military regimes (
junta Junta may refer to: Government and military * Junta (governing body) (from Spanish), the name of various historical and current governments and governing institutions, including civil ones ** Military junta, one form of junta, government led by a ...
s) were a major threat. The most famous was the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
that overthrew
Fulgencio Batista Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
's American-friendly government for
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 20 ...
's Soviet-aligned government. This led to the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
in 1963, generally considered one of the incidents most dangerously close to turning the Cold War into a direct military conflict. The
1968 Peruvian coup d'état The 1968 Peruvian coup d'état took place during the first presidency of Fernando Belaúnde (1963–1968), as a result of political disputes becoming norms, serious arguments between President Belaúnde and Congress rising, dominated by the APR ...
and also installed a Soviet-friendly government. Despite this, the region ultimately leaned toward the US in this period, with the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
supporting American-friendly factions in the
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was the result of a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. It deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944–1954. It installed the mi ...
, the
1964 Brazilian coup d'état The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état ( pt, Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964), colloquially known in Brazil as the Coup of 64 ('), was a series of events in Brazil from March 31 to April 1 that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart by membe ...
, the
1973 Chilean coup d'état The 1973 Chilean coup d'état Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the par ...
, and others. Nicaragua suffered the most, with the
Nicaraguan Revolution The Nicaraguan Revolution ( es, Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, link=no) encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation F ...
seeing major military aid from both great powers to their favored factions that extended a civil war in the country for decades. Mexico escaped this unrest, although functioned largely as a one-party state dominated by the PRI.
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
had a succession of idiosyncratic governments that courted both the US and USSR, but generally mismanaged the economy. The Middle East saw events that presaged later conflicts in the 70s and 80s. After the end of the
United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ar, الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, al-Jumhūrīyah al-'Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Eg ...
(UAR), Syria's government was overthrown in the
1966 Syrian coup d'état The 1966 Syrian coup d'état refers to events between 21 and 23 February during which the government of the Syrian Arab Republic was overthrown and replaced. The ruling National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party were removed from power ...
and replaced with the Neo-Baathist Party, eventually leading to the leadership of the
Assad family The al-Assad family ( ar, عَائِلَة الْأَسَد '), also known as the Assad dynasty, has ruled Syria since General Hafez al-Assad became President of Syria in 1971 under the Ba'ath Party. After his death, in June 2000, he was succee ...
. Israel and its neighbors fought the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 ...
in 1967 and the
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by E ...
of 1973. Under
Anwar Sadat Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
and later
Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in ...
, Egypt switched from
Nasserism Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and Egypt's second President. Spanning the domestic an ...
to favoring the Western Bloc, and signed a peace treaty with Israel. Lebanon, once among the most prosperous and cultural centers of the region, collapsed into the decade-long
Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
from 1975–1990. Iran's unpopular pro-American government was overthrown in the 1979
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
and eventually replaced by a new Islamic Republic headed by
Ayatollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
. Iran and Baathist Iraq under
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
soon fought each other in the Iran-Iraq War from 1980–1988, which ended inconclusively. In East Asia, China underwent the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
from 1966 to 1976, a major internal struggle that saw an intense program of
Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
and persecution of perceived internal enemies. China's relations with the Soviets deteriorated in the 1960s and 70s, resulting in the
Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
, although the two were able to cooperate on some matters. "
Ping-pong diplomacy Ping-pong diplomacy ( ''Pīngpāng wàijiāo'') refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States (US) and People's Republic of China (PRC) in the early 1970s, that began during the 1971 World Table Tennis Cha ...
" led to a rapprochement between the US and China and American recognition of the Chinese communist government in the 1970s. China's pro-democracy movement was suppressed after the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
, and China's government survived the tensions that would roil the Soviet-aligned bloc during the 1980s. South Korea (in the
June Democratic Struggle The June Democratic Struggle (), also known as the June Democracy Movement and June Democratic Uprising, was a nationwide pro-democracy movement in South Korea that generated mass protests from June 10 to June 29, 1987. The demonstrations force ...
) and Taiwan (with the lifting of martial law) would take major steps toward liberalization in 1987–1988, shifting from Western-aligned one-party states to more fully participatory democracies. The 1980s saw a general retreat for the communist bloc. The
Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...
(1979–1989) is often called the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" in comparison to the American defeat, being an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful war and occupation. More importantly, the intervening decades had seen that Eastern Europe was unable to compete economically with Western Europe, which undermined the promise of communist abundance compared to capitalist poverty. The Western capitalist economies had proven wealthier and stronger, which made matching the Soviet defense budget to the American one strain limited resources. The
Pan-European Picnic The Pan-European Picnic (german: Paneuropäisches Picknick; hu, páneurópai piknik; sk, Paneurópsky piknik) was a peace demonstration held on the Austrian- Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989. The opening of the border ...
in 1989 then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction with the subsequent
fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
. The
Revolutions of 1989 The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
saw many countries of Eastern Europe throw off their communist governments, and the USSR declined to invade to re-establish them. East and West Germany were reunified.
Client state A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite sta ...
status for many states ended, as there was no conflict left to fund. The
Malta Summit The Malta Summit was a meeting between US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It followed a meeting that included Ronald Reag ...
on 3 December 1989, the failure of the
August Coup August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named '' Sextilis'' in Latin because it was the 6th month in ...
by Soviet hardliners, and the formal
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
on 26 December 1991 sealed the end of the Cold War.


1991–2001

The end of the Cold War left the United States the world's sole superpower. Communism seemed discredited; while China remained an officially communist state, Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms and
socialism with Chinese characteristics Socialism with Chinese characteristics ( zh, s=中国特色社会主义, hp=Zhōngguó tèsè shèhuìzhǔyì) is a set of political theories and policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that are seen by their proponents as representing M ...
allowed for the growth of a capitalist private sector in China. In Russia, President
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
pursued a policy of privatization, spinning off former government agencies into private corporations, attempting to handle budget problems inherited from the USSR. The end of Soviet foreign aid caused a variety of changes in countries previously part of the Eastern Bloc; many officially became democratic republics, though some were more accurately described as
authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...
or
oligarchic Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
republics and
one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other partie ...
s. Many Western commentators treated the development optimistically; it was thought the world was steadily progressing toward free, liberal democracies. South Africa, no longer able to attract Western support by claiming to be anti-communist, ended apartheid in the early 1990s, and many Eastern European countries switched to stable democracies. While some Americans had anticipated a "peace dividend" from budget cuts to the Defense Department, these cuts were not as large as some had hoped. The European Economic Community evolved into the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
with the signing of the
Maastricht Treaty The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the ...
in 1993, which integrated Europe across borders to a new degree. International coalitions continued to have a role; the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
saw a large international coalition undo Baathist Iraq's annexation of Kuwait, but other "police" style actions were less successful.
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...
and
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
descended into long, bloody civil wars for almost the entirety of the decade (
Somali Civil War The Somali Civil War ( so, Dagaalkii Sokeeye ee Soomaaliya; ar, الحرب الأهلية الصومالية ) is an ongoing civil war that is taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the Military dictatorship, military junta wh ...
,
Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) The 1992–1996 Afghan Civil War took place between 28 April 1992—the date a new interim Afghan government was supposed to replace the Republic of Afghanistan of President Mohammad Najibullah—and the Taliban's conquest of Kabul establishing ...
,
Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period tha ...
). Russia fought a brutal war in Chechnya that failed to suppress the insurgency there from 1994–1996; war would resume during the
Second Chechen War The Second Chechen War (russian: Втора́я чече́нская война́, ) took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 ...
in 1999–2000 that saw a resumption of Russian control after Russia successfully convinced enough rebels to join their cause with promises of autonomy. The
breakup of Yugoslavia The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
also led to a series of
Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
; NATO eventually intervened in the
Kosovo War The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
. In the Middle East, the
Israeli–Palestinian peace process The Israeli–Palestinian peace process refers to the intermittent discussions held by various parties and proposals put forward in an attempt to resolve the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Since the 1970s, there has been a parallel ef ...
offered the prospect of a long-term peace deal to many; the
Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;
signed in 1993 seemed to offer a "roadmap" to resolving the conflict. Despite these high hopes, they would be largely dashed in 2000–2001 after a breakdown of negotiations and the
Second Intifada The Second Intifada ( ar, الانتفاضة الثانية, ; he, האינתיפאדה השנייה, ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada ( ar, انتفاضة الأقصى, label=none, '), was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel ...
.


2001–present


War on Terror, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War

The
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
were a series of coordinated
suicide attack A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
s by
Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
upon the United States on 11 September 2001. On that morning, nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger
jet airliner A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines (passenger jet aircraft). Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly clas ...
s. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
in
Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...
, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. In response, the United States under President George W. Bush enacted the
Patriot Act The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appro ...
. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Major terrorist events after the September 11 attacks include the
Moscow theater hostage crisis The Moscow theater hostage crisis (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, which involved 850 hostages and ended with Russian security services killing o ...
, the Istanbul bombings, the
Madrid train bombings The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known in Spain as 11M) were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's g ...
, the
Beslan school siege The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre) was a terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages ( ...
, the
London bombings London attack may refer to any of the following attacks that have occurred within London, London metropolitan area, City of London, Lundenwic, Londinium, or County of London: ;Actuated attacks * List of terrorist incidents in London **1973 Old Ba ...
, the Delhi bombings, and the Mumbai attacks, generally from
Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists. Incidents and fatalities ...
. The United States responded to the 11 September 2001 attacks by launching a "Global War on Terrorism", invading the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
to depose the
Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists. The
War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...
began in late 2001 and was launched by the UN-authorized
ISAF ' ps, کمک او همکاري ' , allies = Afghanistan , opponents = Taliban Al-Qaeda , commander1 = , commander1_label = Commander , commander2 = , commander2_label = , commander3 = , command ...
, with the United States and United Kingdom providing most of the troops. The Bush administration policy and the
Bush Doctrine The Bush Doctrine refers to multiple interrelated foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. These principles include unilateralism, preemptive war, and regime change. Charles Krauthammer first used ...
stated forces would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbor them.
Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the official name used synonymously by the U.S. government for both the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and the larger-scale Global War on Terrorism. On 7 October 2001, in response to the September 11 a ...
(OEF) was the United States combat operation involving some coalition partners and operating primarily in the eastern and southern parts of the country along the
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
border; the ISAF established by the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, ...
was in charge of securing the capital of
Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
and its surrounding areas. NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003. Despite initial coalition successes, the Taliban were never entirely defeated, and continued to hold territory in mountainous regions as well as threaten the new government, the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was a presidential republic that ruled Afghanistan from 2004 to 2021. The state was established to replace the Afghan interim (2001–2002) and transitional (2002–2004) administrations, which were form ...
, whose grasp on power outside the major cities was shaky at best. The war was also less successful in restricting al-Qaeda than anticipated. The Second Gulf War began in March 2003 with the
invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
by a
multinational force A Multinational force is a multinational operation which may be defensive, offensive, or for peacekeeping purposes. In multinational operations, many countries form an alliance to carry them out. Multinational forces include: * Supreme Headquar ...
. The invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
, who was later
executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
by the Iraqi Government. Despite government assumptions that the war in Iraq would be over with the fall of Hussein, it continued and intensified. Sectarian groups both fought each other and the occupying coalition forces via
asymmetric warfare Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is the term given to describe a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional ar ...
during the
Iraqi insurgency Iraqi insurgency may refer to: * Iraqi insurgency (2003–2011), part of the Iraq War ** Iraqi insurgency (2003–2006), 2003–2006 phase of the Iraqi insurgency ** Iraqi civil war (2006–2008), multi-sided civil war in Iraq * Iraqi insurgency (2 ...
, as Iraq was starkly divided between Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish groups that now competed with each other for power. Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq continued as well. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved a
Status of Forces Agreement A status of forces agreement (SOFA) is an agreement between a host country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country. SOFAs are often included, along with other types of military agreements, as part of a comprehensive security ...
effective through to the end of 2011. The
Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
re-focused US involvement in the conflict on the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq and a surge of troops and government support in Afghanistan. In May 2011, the bin Laden raid occurred after bin Laden was tracked to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In 2011, the United States declared a formal end to the Iraq War. In February 2020, President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
agreed with the Taliban to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the next year. The
Biden administration Joe Biden's tenure as the 46th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2021. Biden, a Democrat from Delaware who previously served as vice president under Barack Obama, took office following his victory ...
delayed the withdrawal by a few months, but still largely kept to the deal; the coalition-supported Afghan government soon collapsed, and the Taliban took undisputed control of the country in August 2021 after the successful
2021 Taliban offensive A military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the ...
.


Arab Spring and Syria

The
Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
began in earnest in 2010 with anti-government protests in the
Muslim world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, but quickly escalated to full-scale military conflicts in countries like
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
, and
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
and also gave the opportunity for the emergence of various militant groups including the
Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic ter ...
(IS). The IS was able to take advantage of social media platforms including Twitter to recruit foreign fighters from around the world and seized significant portions of territory in
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
,
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, and the
Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a ...
of
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
from 2013 and ongoing. On the other hand, some violent militant organizations were able to negotiate peace with governments including the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF; ar, ''Jabhat Taḥrīr Moro al-ʾIslāmiyyah'') is a group based in Mindanao seeking an autonomous region of the Moro people from the central government. The group has a presence in the Bangsamoro r ...
in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
in 2014. The presence of IS and the stalemate in the Syrian Civil War created a migration of refugees to Europe and also galvanized and encouraged high-profile terrorism attacks and armed conflicts around the world, such as the
November 2015 Paris attacks The November 2015 Paris attacks () were a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks that took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 9:15p.m., three suicide bombers ...
and the
Battle of Marawi The siege of Marawi ( fil, Pagkubkob sa Marawi), also known as the Marawi crisis (), and the Battle of Marawi (), was a five-month-long armed conflict in Marawi, Philippines, that started on May 23, 2017, between Philippine government securit ...
in the Philippines in 2017. In 2014, the United States decided to intervene against the Islamic State in
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, with most IS fighters being driven out by the end of 2018. Russia and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
also jointly launched a campaign against IS and in support of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
. As of 2022, Assad has largely regained authority in the southern half of the country, while the northern reaches are controlled by a mixture of Arab Sunni rebels, Kurds, and Turkey.


Russia

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, Yeltsin's successor, was very popular in Russia after his victory in the Second Chechen War. He portrayed himself as a corruption fighter initially, checking
Russian oligarchs Russian oligarchs ( Russian: олигархи, romanized: ''oligarkhi'') are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet ...
who had acquired vast wealth during Russia's liberalization period. With a combination of genuine popularity and legal rollbacks, Russia gradually moved toward being a
one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other partie ...
, a democracy but one where Putin's party always won. Russia has since intervened in a variety of military conflicts in its neighboring countries including the 2008
Russo-Georgian War The 2008 Russo-Georgian WarThe war is known by a variety of other names, including Five-Day War, August War and Russian invasion of Georgia. was a war between Georgia, on one side, and Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of Sou ...
; the 2014
Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
and Annexation of Crimea; a 2015 intervention in the Syrian Civil War; and the expansion of the
Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
to the full-fledged
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...
where Russia declared their intent to depose the Ukrainian government and install a compliant, Russia-friendly government. The Russian government has often cited the
enlargement of NATO NATO is a military alliance of Member states of NATO, twenty-eight European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic ...
as a major complaint.


Economic history

The end of World War II in 1945 saw an increase in
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significa ...
and an interconnected system of treaties and agreements to ease its flow. In particular, the United States and the
United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...
took a pivotal role in the
world economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumptio ...
, displacing the UK. The era is sometimes called "
Pax Americana ''Pax Americana'' (Latin for "American Peace", modeled after ''Pax Romana'' and ''Pax Britannica''; also called the Long Peace) is a term applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end o ...
" for the relative liberal peace in the Western world, resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the US, as a comparison to the
Pax Romana The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stabilit ...
established at the height of the Roman Empire. New York's financial sector ("
Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
") was the center of the financial world from 1945–1970 in a dominant way unlikely to be seen again. Unlike the aftermath of World War I, the US strongly aided in the rebuilding of Europe, including aid to the defeated Axis nations, rather than punishment. The
Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
sent billions of dollars of aid to Western Europe to ensure its stability and ward off a potential economic downturn. The 1944
Bretton Woods Conference The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Unite ...
established the
Bretton Woods system The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretto ...
, a set of practices that governed world trade and currencies from 1945–1971, as well as the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
and the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
(IMF). Western Europe also established the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...
in 1957 to ease customs and aid international trade. In general, vast quality of life improvements affected most every corner of the globe during this period, in both the Western and Eastern spheres. France called them ''
Les Trente Glorieuses ''Les Trente Glorieuses'' (; 'The Glorious Thirty') was a thirty-year period of economic growth in France between 1945 and 1975, following the end of the Second World War. The name was first used by the French demographer Jean Fourastié, who ...
'' ("The Glorious Thirty
ears An ear is the organ that enables hearing and, in mammals, body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts—the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists o ...
). Despite being largely destroyed in the war, West Germany soon bounced back to being an economic powerhouse by the 1950s with the ''
wirtschaftswunder The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social ma ...
''. Surprisingly,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
followed Germany, achieving incredible economic growth and becoming the second largest economy in the world in 1968, a phenomenon called the
Japanese economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the Unit ...
. Many explanations are proffered for the enviable results of these years: relative peace (at least outside the "
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
"); a reduction in average family size; technological improvements; and others. The Eastern Bloc, meanwhile, established
Comecon The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (, ; English abbreviation COMECON, CMEA, CEMA, or CAME) was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc#List of s ...
as their equivalent to the Marshall Plan and to establish internal trading rules between communist states. The 1970s saw economic headwinds. Notably, the
price of oil The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC ...
started to go up in the 1970s, as the easiest and most accessible wells had already been pumped dry in the preceding century, and oil is a non-renewable resource. Attention was drawn to the abundant oil in the Middle East, where countries in
OPEC The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, ) is a cartel of countries. Founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela), it has, since 1965, been headqua ...
controlled substantial untapped oil reserves. Political tensions over the
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by E ...
and the
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
led to the
1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had su ...
and
1979 oil crisis The 1979 oil crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four per ...
. The Soviet Union called it the "
Era of Stagnation The "Era of Stagnation" (russian: Пери́од засто́я, Períod zastóya, or ) is a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev in order to describe the negative way in which he viewed the economic, political, and social policies of the Soviet Uni ...
". The 1970s and 80s also saw the rise of the
Four Asian Tigers The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese and Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1960s and 1990s, they underwent ...
, as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong emulated the Japanese route to prosperity with varying degree of success. In China, the leftist
Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gang ...
were overthrown in 1976, and
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. Aft ...
pursued a policy of tentatively opening the Chinese economy to capitalist innovations throughout the 1980s, which would be continued by his successors in the 1990s. China's economy, tiny in 1976, would see tremendous growth, and eventually take the spot as second largest economy from Japan in 2010. Among Western economies, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system was replaced by a more flexible era of floating exchange rates. The
Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is officiall ...
(G7) first met in 1975 and become one of the main international forums that regulated international trade among
industrialized nations A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
. The Soviet Union implemented a policy of ''
perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
'' in the 1980s which allowed tentative market reforms. The fall of the USSR saw differing approaches in the 1990s in the East: some newly independent states went in a capitalist direction such as
Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...
, some maintained a strong governmental presence in their economy, and some opted for a mix. The privatization of government firms and resources drew accusations of
crony capitalism Crony capitalism, sometimes called cronyism, is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of free enterprise, but rather as a return on money amassed through collusion between a business class and the political class. This i ...
in many states, however, including the Russian Federation, the largest and most important state of the USSR; the beneficiaries of the turbulent period were often called the "
Russian oligarchs Russian oligarchs ( Russian: олигархи, romanized: ''oligarkhi'') are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet ...
". In the beginning of the 2000s, there was a global rise in prices in
commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...
and
housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether ...
, marking an end to the commodities recession of 1980–2000. The US mortgage-backed securities, which had risks that were hard to assess, were marketed around the world and a broad based credit boom fed a global speculative bubble in real estate and equities. The financial situation was also affected by a sharp increase in oil and
food prices Food prices refer to the average price level for food across countries, regions and on a global scale. Food prices have an impact on producers and consumers of food. Price levels depend on the food production process, including food marketing ...
. The collapse of the American
housing bubble A housing bubble (or a housing price bubble) is one of several types of asset price bubbles which periodically occur in the market. The basic concept of a housing bubble is the same as for other asset bubbles, consisting of two main phases. Firs ...
caused the values of
securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
tied to
real estate pricing Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of developing an opinion of value for real property (usually market value). Real estate transactions often require appraisals because they occur infrequently and every prop ...
to plummet thereafter, damaging financial institutions. The
late-2000s recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
, a severe economic
recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
which began in the United States in 2007, was sparked by the outbreak of the
financial crisis of 2007–2010 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
. The modern financial crisis was linked to earlier lending practices by financial institutions and the trend of
securitization Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations (or other non-debt assets which generate receivables) and selling ...
of American real estate mortgages. The
Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
spread to much of the
industrialized world A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastru ...
, and has caused a pronounced deceleration of economic activity. The
global recession A global recession is recession that affects many countries around the world—that is, a period of global economic slowdown or declining economic output. Definitions The International Monetary Fund defines a global recession as "a decline i ...
occurred in an economic environment characterized by various imbalances. This global recession has resulted in a sharp drop in
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significa ...
, rising unemployment and slumping commodity prices. The recession renewed interest in Keynesian economic ideas on how to combat recessionary conditions. However, various industrial countries continued to undertake
austerity Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
policies to cut
deficits The government budget balance, also alternatively referred to as general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the overall difference between government revenues and spending. A positive balance is called a ''g ...
, reduced
spending Consumption is the act of using resources to satisfy current needs and wants. It is seen in contrast to investing, which is spending for acquisition of ''future'' income. Consumption is a major concept in economics and is also studied in many o ...
, as opposed to following Keynesian theories. From late 2009
European sovereign-debt crisis The European debt crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis, is a multi-year debt crisis that took place in the European Union (EU) from 2009 until the mid to late 2010s. Several eurozone me ...
, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning rising government debt levels across the globe together with a wave of downgrading of government debt of certain European states. Concerns intensified early 2010 and thereafter making it difficult or impossible for sovereigns to re-finance their debts. On 9 May 2010, Europe's Finance Ministers approved a rescue package worth €750 billion aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe. The
European Financial Stability Facility The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is a special purpose vehicle financed by members of the eurozone to address the European sovereign-debt crisis. It was agreed by the Council of the European Union on 9 May 2010, with the objectiv ...
(EFSF) was a special purpose vehicle financed by members of the
eurozone The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU pol ...
to combat the European sovereign debt crisis. In October 2011 eurozone leaders agreed on another package of measures designed to prevent the collapse of member economies. The three most affected countries, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, collectively account for six percent of eurozone's gross domestic product (GDP). In 2012, eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement on a second €130-billion Greek bailout. In 2013, the European Union agreed to a €10 billion economic bailout for Cyprus. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic caused economic disruption, with wide-ranging economic impacts of COVID-19 such as supply chain changes and an increase in working-from-home, along with the
COVID-19 recession The COVID-19 recession, also referred to as the Great Lockdown, is a global economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnati ...
.


Social history

Social changes since 1945 have been vast and disparate, affecting countries and subgroups within those countries in ways specific to each population, meaning there is not one single global story of social change. Despite this, one of the major trends has been an increasing interchange between cultures and a wider spread of the most successful works, enabled by new technology and
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
. In earlier periods, a successful musician or theater troupe might be confined to playing in a single city at a time, limiting their reach. The spread of better recording technology, such as the
magnetophon Magnetophone, or simply Magnetophon, was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer. AEG ...
, meant that a musical act could have their song be played over the
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
everywhere without loss of sound quality, creating international superstars such as
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...
and
The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
. The spread of home
television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...
s allowed people across the globe to easily watch the same show, rather than requiring viewers to attend a local theater.
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
in California produced films that dominated cinema; while intended for the lucrative American market, these films spread across the globe, backed by their large budgets and the cinematic expertise gathered there. The rise of the Internet in the 1990s allowed both for an ever further spread of the most popular and dominant works, but the comparatively cheap cost of publishing there, whether as a personal website, blog, or YouTube video, also allowed specific niche subcultures to connect and thrive in a way that was less true in the 20th century. For example, diaspora groups of immigrants can more easily stay in contact with their family and friends in their origin region, compared to earlier eras where travel and communication was far more expensive, making a narrative of strictly increasing global homogenization incomplete. International telephone networks, and later Internet telephony, allowed cheaper and easier long-distance communication than previous eras. Language usage in the contemporary era has seen a rise in
English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language "as a global means of inter-community communication" and can be understood as "''any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communica ...
, where people across the world learn the
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
as a
second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language ( first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a ...
. This has been both to facilitate international communication, especially in places tied to international trade or tourism, as well as to better consume widespread English-language media. This is tied to increased
Americanization Americanization or Americanisation (see spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the United States of America, including their media, cuisine, business practices, popular culture, te ...
, as American culture has grown increasingly influential and widespread. To a lesser extent, during the Cold War, something similar happened with the
Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living E ...
in the Eastern Bloc and among communist-aligned factions; however, this status was mostly reversed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and
German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...
s saw their prestige as
global language In sociolinguistics, a world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also b ...
s decline after World War II. Religious trends have been disparate and not consistent across countries, often with sharply varying results even between similar and nearby groups. In industrialized and economically prosperous regions, there has been a loose trend toward
secularization In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses ...
that deprioritized the role of religion, even among people who still identified as adherents. The
decline of Christianity in the Western world The decline of Christianity in the Western world is the decreasing Christian affiliation in the Western world. While most countries in the Western world were historically almost exclusively Christian, the post- World War II era has seen develope ...
has been perhaps the most notable of these trends, although many non-Western cultures have been affected as well, such as the rise of
irreligion in China China has the world's greatest irreligious population, and the Chinese government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist. Despite limitations on certain forms of religious expression and assembly, religion is not ba ...
(buttressed by antireligious campaigns). As an example of how localized this process can be, during the Cold War both the
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...
and the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
endorsed
state atheism State atheism is the incorporation of positive atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. It is a form of religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically l ...
. However, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989–1990, the people of these bordering states had radically cultural attitudes toward religion; Poland was one of the more religious states in Europe, with 96% of its population espousing a belief in Catholic Christianity in 2011, while the Czech Republic was one of the most stridently irreligious, with only 15% of its population espousing any religious beliefs at all by 2011. In the
Islamic world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, a notable trend has been the spread of international schools of thought into regions where belief was previously localized, such as the International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism funded by the government of
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
. While regional Islamic groups remain strong, they are more contested than in the past. Another social trend has been the rise of
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly th ...
as a larger proportion of the world's population has moved to live in cities and urban areas, and fewer people live in rural areas. In the United States, as the overall population more than doubled from 1930 to 1990, around a third of its counties saw their population decline by around 27%, suggesting that as rural counties empty, the urban counties are where the vast majority of inhabitants are moving to. In Eastern Africa, the urban population soared from 11 million in 1920 to 77 million in 2010. Many rural Chinese people moved to large coastal cities such as Shenzhen to work in the 1990s and 2000s, leading to a sharp increase of
Urbanization in China Urbanization in China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening policy. As of 2022, China had an urbanization rate of 64.7% and was expected to reach 75-80% by 2035. By 2010, the OECD, based on Functional Urban Area ( ...
. Rural parts of Japan have seen stark population declines, especially among the young, with only the
Greater Tokyo area The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, consisting of the Kantō region of Japan (including Tokyo Metropolis and the prefectures of Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tochigi) as well as the ...
continuing to grow. How to deal with this change is a major issue, as many cities and their transportation networks were not designed to serve the larger populations that now occupy them. A major trend in many industrialized nations was the
sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
, an adoption of publicly more tolerant attitudes toward sex and
pre-marital sex Premarital sex is sexual activity which is practiced by people before they are married. Premarital sex is considered a sin by a number of religions and also considered a moral issue which is taboo in many cultures. Since the Sexual Revolutio ...
. " The pill" was first approved for use in 1960 in the United States, and spread rapidly around the world. The pill made
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
easier and more reliable than earlier methods. This made sex for pleasure less likely to result in unintended children. It also allowed for easier
family planning Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marita ...
, where couples could choose more specifically when to have kids compared to earlier eras. Some analysts credit this as one reason behind a decline in birth rates in the industrialized world, which had multiple second-order effects. Many regions have also made
divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving th ...
much easier to officially procure. However, the decline in birth rate is not a universal trend; many nations continue to have high birth rates, and the world's overall population is still growing as of 2022. One of the yet evolving and unknown impacts in the contemporary era has been the social effects of cheap and common Internet access. As users gradually switched from
personal web page Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature rather than content pertaining to a company, organization or institution. Personal web pages are primarily used for informative or enter ...
s to
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
s to
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
, many surprising effects have resulted with both positive and negative assessments. Optimistic assessments often praise the decentralized nature that allows anyone to theoretically gain a platform without the need to convince a publisher or media company to back them, as well as the ease in enabling like-minded people to collaborate at long-distance, even if the digital utopianism of the 1990s is less common. Pessimistic assessments worry about the effects on children such as enabling
cyberbullying Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital ...
;
filter bubble A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolationTechnopediaDefinition – What does Filter Bubble mean?, Retrieved October 10, 2017, "....A filter bubble is the intellectual isolation, that can occur when websites make us ...
s where Internet users are not challenged by outsider views; "
cancel culture Cancel culture, or rarely also known as call-out culture, is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles—whether it be online, o ...
" where people are pilloried online but sometimes disproportionately; and
slacktivism Slacktivism (a portmanteau of '' slacker'' and ''activism'') is the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. Additional fo ...
as an appealing but ineffective replacement for older forms of community work.


Contemporary science and technology


Energy

The growing world population and rising standards of living has caused a vast increase in demand for
energy development Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reuse ...
, both to power vehicles such as personal cars as well as on public
electrical grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...
s. In particular,
petroleum oil Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum, as distinct from usually edible vegetable oils. The name 'mineral oil' by itself is imprecise, ...
has been in ravenous demand across the world. Many of the cheapest and easiest sources of oil to access were largely drained in the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to a hunt for new sources of oil. The value of oil has spilled over into politics as well, as "
petro state Petro is a masculine given name, a surname and an Ancient Roman cognomen. It may refer to: Given name * Petro Balabuyev (1931-2007), Ukrainian airplane designer, engineer and professor, lead designer of many Antonov airplanes * Petro Doroshenko (1 ...
s" with access to oil found a source of vast revenue that did not require traditional government revenue-raising measures, such as tariffs or income taxation. The rising cost of oil led to the
1970s energy crisis The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period wer ...
and various adaptations in
energy conservation Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less service (f ...
to better conserve oil, such as more efficient engines and better insulation. It has also led to concerns of "
peak oil Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; whil ...
," that the rising extraction costs of oil will eventually lead to massive shortages and a large disincentive to burn oil except when absolutely necessary (such as in the case of
aviation fuel Aviation fuels are petroleum-based fuels, or petroleum and synthetic fuel blends, used to power aircraft. They have more stringent requirements than fuels used for ground use, such as heating and road transport, and contain additives to enhan ...
), although oil continues to be one of the most popular sources of energy. Other
fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...
s have continued a prominent role in the world's energy production.
Coal energy A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a t ...
, usually credited as helping kickstart the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, has declined somewhat in prominence, but it started from a commanding large slice of the sources of energy. Even if diminished, coal is still a popular and common style of power plant; it made up a huge proportion of South Africa and India's power grid from 1945 to the present, for example. That said, increasing price, as well as concerns both over the
air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different type ...
generated when it is burnt and the landscape destruction when it is mined (such as
mountaintop removal mining Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. Thi ...
), have caused setbacks for the coal industry.
Natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...
has grown in its proportion of the market, especially as
Liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the vol ...
(LNG) has enabled it to be transported over longer distances than was previously feasible. An entirely new form of energy creation dawned in the 1950s and 1960s:
nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
for peaceful purposes and the construction of
nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ...
s. Hopes that atomic energy would be "
too cheap to meter Too cheap to meter refers to a commodity so inexpensive that it is cheaper and less bureaucratic to simply provide it for a flat fee or even free and make a profit from associated services. Originally applied to nuclear power, the phrase is also ...
" in the 1950s proved overly optimistic, however. Atomic energy grew to be a large part of several nations energy generation strategies, especially
nuclear power in France Since the mid 1980s, the largest source of electricity in France is Nuclear power, with a generation of 379.5 TWh in 2019 and a total electricity production of . In 2018, the nuclear share was 71.67%, the highest percentage in the world. Sinc ...
. Nuclear power continues to be controversial. Concerns include its association with
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s, financial cost, disposal of radioactive
nuclear waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...
, and fears of safety from reactor meltdowns, especially after the 1986
Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two n ...
. An
anti-nuclear movement The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
arose that was skeptical of atomic energy and has discouraged many projects. Nuclear proponents counter that nuclear energy produces no air pollution compared to traditional fossil fuel plants, and can provide a steady supply of energy regardless of external conditions unlike solar and wind energy. With the supply of Russian natural gas disrupted in 2022, France is looking to reactivate some of its older decommissioned nuclear plants, for example. Various forms of
renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
have grown in prominence in the contemporary era.
Wind energy Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller impact on the environment than burning fossil fuels. Historically, w ...
, while used on a small scale for centuries, has seen growth with large distributed groups of
windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
s used to produce energy for the grid.
Solar power Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovolta ...
has also grown in prominence, with around 4% of the world's overall energy production in 2021 (compared to a much smaller slice before). While these energy sources are considered to be much less environmentally impactful than fossil fuels, concerns have been raised over the various rare earth metals used in the production of batteries and solar, which can require destructive mining techniques to gather.


Computing and the Internet

The
Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
or Information Era, also commonly known as the Age of the Computer, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is heavily linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
brought through
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The period is generally said to have begun in the latter half of the 20th century, though the particular date varies. The term began its use around the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has been used up to the present with the availability of the Internet. During the late 1990s, both Internet directories and
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
s were popular—
Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Mana ...
and
Altavista AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own sear ...
(both founded 1995) were the respective industry leaders. By late 2001, the directory model had begun to give way to search engines, tracking the rise of Google (founded 1998), which had developed new approaches to relevancy ranking. Directory features, while still commonly available, became after-thoughts to search engines. Database size, which had been a significant marketing feature through the early 2000s (decade), was similarly displaced by emphasis on relevancy ranking, the methods by which search engines attempt to sort the best results first. "
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...
" is characterized as facilitating communication,
information sharing Information exchange or information sharing means that people or other entities pass information from one to another. This could be done electronically or through certain systems. These are terms that can either refer to bidirectional '' inform ...
,
interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
,
User-centered design User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or proc ...
and
collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...
on the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and
web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
s. Examples include
social-networking sites A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
, video-sharing sites,
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
s, blogs,
mashup Mashup may refer to: * Mashup (culture), the rearrangement of spliced parts of musical pieces as part of a subculture * Mashup (education), combining various forms of data and media by a teacher or student in an instructional setting * Mashup (m ...
s and folksonomies.
Social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
emerged in the early 21st century as a popular social communication, largely replacing much of the function of email,
message board An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s and
instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...
services.
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, and
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
are all major examples of social websites that gained widespread popularity. The information distribution continued into the early 21st century with mobile interaction and
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Interne ...
growing massively in the early 21st century. By the 2010s, a majority of people in the developed world had Internet access and a majority of people worldwide had a mobile phone. Marking the rise of
mobile computing Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...
, worldwide sales of personal computers fall 14% during the first quarter of 2013. The Semantic Web (dubbed, "Web 3.0") begins the inclusion of
semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
content in web pages, converting the current web dominated by unstructured and semi-structured documents into a "web of data". With the rise of
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...
,
computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...
, and
information security Information security, sometimes shortened to InfoSec, is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of Risk management information systems, information risk management. It typically involves preventing or re ...
in general, is a concern for computers and networks. Concerns include information and services which are protected from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction. This has also raised questions of
Internet privacy Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Pr ...
and
personal privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
globally.


Space exploration

The
Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
was one of the rivalries of the Cold War, with both the United States space program (
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
) and the
Soviet space program The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissoluti ...
launching
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
s, probes, and planning missions. While the Soviets put the first human into space with
Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. T ...
, the Americans soon caught up, and the US was the first to launch a successful moon landing mission with
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...
. In the 1970s and 80s, the US took a new approach with the
Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. I ...
, hoping to reduce the cost of launches by creating a re-usable Space Shuttle. The first fully functional
Space Shuttle orbiter The Space Shuttle orbiter is the spaceplane component of the Space Shuttle, a partially reusable orbital spacecraft system that was part of the discontinued Space Shuttle program. Operated from 1977 to 2011 by NASA, the U.S. space agency, thi ...
was
Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...
(designated OV-102), launched into
low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...
in April 1981. In 1996, Shuttle mission
STS-75 STS-75 was a 1996 NASA Space Shuttle mission, the 19th mission of the ''Columbia'' orbiter. Crew Allen, Hoffman, Nicollier and Chang-Díaz had previously been members of the STS-46 crew, which had flown the TSS-1 experiment in 1992. Mission ...
conducted research in space with the electrodynamic tether generator and other tether configurations. The program suffered from two incidents that destroyed a shuttle: the ''Challenger'' disaster and the ''Columbia'' disaster). The program ultimately had 135 missions. The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011. The end of the Cold War saw a new era of international cooperation with the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
(ISS).
Commercial spaceflight Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Unio ...
also became possible as governments loosened what had previously been their firm control over satellites, opening new possibilities, but also new risks such as light pollution from satellites. The
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) was a NASA program to coordinate the development of vehicles for the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 200 ...
(COTS) program began in 2006. There are various spaceports, including
spaceport A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport'', and even more so ''cosmodrome'', has traditionally been used for sites capable ...
s of
human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...
and other launch systems (
space logistics Space logistics is "the theory and practice of driving space system design for operability and supportability, and of managing the flow of materiel, services, and information needed throughout a space system lifecycle." It includes terrestrial lo ...
).
Private spaceflight Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Un ...
is flight beyond the
Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is an attempt to define a boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, and offers a specific definition set by the Fédération aéronautique internationale (FAI), an international record-keeping ...
that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.
Commercialization of space Commercial use of space is the provision of goods or services of Commerce, commercial value by using equipment sent into Earth orbit or outer space. This phenomenon – aka Space Economy (or New Space Economy) – is accelerating cross-sector i ...
is the use of equipment sent into or through outer space to provide goods or services of commercial value, either by a corporation or state.
Space trade Space trade is interplanetary or interstellar trade. Plans and ideas on how trade functions have been published by Futurists and pundits since the 1960s, though science fiction writers have been envisioning such trade for several more decades. ...
plans and predictions began in the 1960s.
Spacecraft propulsion Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. In-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with space launch or atmospheric ...
is any method used to accelerate
spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, ...
and artificial
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
s. NASA announced in 2011 that its
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, an ...
captured photographic evidence of possible liquid
water on Mars Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of ...
during warm seasons. On 6 August 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory
Curiosity Curiosity (from Latin '' cūriōsitās'', from ''cūriōsus'' "careful, diligent, curious", akin to ''cura'' "care") is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in human ...
, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date, landed on Mars. After the WMAP observations of the
cosmic microwave background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...
, information was released in 2011 of the work done by the
Planck Surveyor ''Planck'' was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013, which mapped the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and small ang ...
, estimating the
age of the Universe In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang. Astronomers have derived two different measurements of the age of the universe: a measurement based on direct observations of an early state of the universe, ...
to 13.8 billion years old (a 100 million years older than previously thought). Another technological advancement came in 2012 with European physicists statistically demonstrating the existence of the
Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stan ...
.


Emerging technologies

Various emerging technologies, the recent developments and convergences in various fields of technology, hold possible future impacts. Emerging technologies cover various cutting-edge developments in the emergence and convergence of technology, including transportation, information technology,
biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
, robotics and applied mechanics, and material science. Their status and possible effects involve controversy over the degree of social impact or the viability of the technologies. Though, these represent new and significant developments within a field; converging technologies represent previously distinct fields which are in some way moving towards stronger inter-connection and similar goals.


Challenges and problems


Climate change

Climate change and global warming reflects the notion of the modern climate. The changes of climate over the past century, have been attribution of recent climate change, attributed to various factors which have resulted in a global warming. This warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record, average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Some effects on both the natural environment and civilization, human life are, at least in part, already being attributed to global warming. A 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that Retreat of glaciers since 1850, glacier retreat, Ice shelf#Ice shelf disruption, ice shelf disruption such as that of the Larsen Ice Shelf, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are attributable in part to global warming. Other expected effects include water scarcity in some regions and increased precipitation in others, changes in mountain snowpack, and adverse health effects from warmer temperatures. It usually is impossible to connect specific weather events to human impact on the world. Instead, such impact is expected to cause changes in the overall distribution and intensity of weather events, such as changes to the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation. Broader effects are expected to include Glacier mass balance, glacial retreat, Arctic shrinkage, and worldwide sea level rise. Other effects may include changes in crop yields, addition of new trade routes, species extinction risk from climate change, extinctions, and changes in the range of Vector (epidemiology), disease vectors. Until 2009, the Arctic ''Northwest Passage'' Arctic ice pack, pack ice prevented regular ship transport, marine shipping throughout most of the year in this area, but climate change has reduced the pack ice, and this Arctic shrinkage made the waterways more navigable.


Health and pandemics

Several disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics have occurred during contemporary history. Some of these include the 1957–1958 influenza pandemic, the Hong Kong flu of 1968–1969, the 1977 Russian flu, 1977–1979 Russian flu, the Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS epidemic (1981–present), the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, SARS outbreak of 2002–2004, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic of 2009–2010, and the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–present).


COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, an outbreak of the COVID-19 disease, first documented in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, spread to other countries becoming a COVID-19 pandemic, global pandemic, which caused a major socio-economic disruption all over the world. Many countries ordered mandatory COVID-19 lockdowns, lockdowns on movement and closures of non-essential businesses.The Global Crisis of Our Time: The Long-Term Impacts of COVID-19
''Oxford Research Group'' The threat of the disease caused the
COVID-19 recession The COVID-19 recession, also referred to as the Great Lockdown, is a global economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnati ...
, although the distribution of vaccines has since eased the economic impact in many countries. More generally, COVID-19 has been held up as an example of a global catastrophic risk unique to the modern era's ease of travel. New diseases can spread far faster and further in the contemporary era than any previous era of human history; pandemic prevention is one resulting field to ensure that if this happens with a sufficiently deadly virus, humanity can take measures to stop its spread.


Forecasting the future

Contemporary history is fertile ground for creating and testing models of the future of the third millennium, as being the most relevant and recent domain to compare predictions with. The field is called futures studies and it uses various models and methods to make forecasting, forecasts, as well as testing these models against recent contemporary history in an attempt to verify the models' validity. Forecasters can use recent events in contemporary history to plot out their future scenarios and risks to better aid in planning.


Charts


Timeline

ImageSize = width:1024 height:auto barincrement:27 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:20 right:130 left:70 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:time value:rgb(0.7,0.7,1) # id:period value:rgb(1,0.7,0.5) # id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.5) # id:eon value:rgb(1,0.85,0.7) # id:filler value:gray(0.8) # background bar id:black value:black Period = from:1940 till:2022.81 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1940 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:1940 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:11 shift:(0,-5) bar:Tech color:era from:1945.667 till:1948.5 text:Vacuum tube, Tube from:1948.5 till:1958.7 text:Transistor from:1958.7 till:1970 shift:(0,2) text:Integrated circuit, Integrated from:1958.7 till:1970 shift:(0,-8) text:Integrated circuit, circuit from:1970 till:end text:
Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
from:2010 till:end text:Big Data bar:War color:era from:1940 till:1945.667 text:WWII from:1947 till:1991.98 text:
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
from:2001.69 till:end text:War on Terror bar:Decade color:era from:1940 till:1946 shift:(0,5) text:Modernity, Late Modernity from:1946 till:end shift:(0,5) text:Postmodernity from:1940 till:1950 text:Forties from:1950 till:1960 text:Fifties from:1960 till:1970 text:Sixties from:1970 till:1980 text:Seventies from:1980 till:1990 text:Eighties from:1990 till:2000 text:Nineties from:2000 till:2010 text:Noughties from:2010 till:2020 text:Tens from:2020 till:end text:Twenti


Contemporary world map


See also

;General: Modern history, Timelines of modern history, Future history, Anthropocene ;Generations: Generation, List of generations, Baby Boom Generation, Generation X, Xennials, Generation Y, Generation Z, Generation Alpha ;Music and arts: Contemporary art, Contemporary dance, Contemporary literature, Contemporary music, Contemporary hit radio, Adult contemporary music, Contemporary Christian music, Contemporary R&B, Urban contemporary, History of video games, Video games


References


Further reading

* Bell, P. M. H. and Mark Gilbert. ''The World Since 1945: An International History'' (2nd ed. 2017), 584p
excerpt
* Boyd, Andrew, Joshua Comenetz. '' An atlas of world affairs'' (2007
excerpt
* Briggs, Asa, and Peter Burke. ''A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet'' (2002
excerpt
* * Hunt, Michael H. ''The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present'' (2nd ed. 2015) 624p
website
* Hunt, Michael H. ed., ''The World Transformed, 1945 to the Present: A Documentary Reader'' (2nd ed. 2001) primary source
excerpts
* McWilliams, Wayne C. and Harry Piotrowski. ''The World Since 1945: A History of International Relations'' (8th ed. 2014), 620pp


External links

; General
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
at Fordham University
''Journal of Contemporary History''
SAGE Publications. (Print )
Contemporary History Institute (CHI)
ohiou.edu (ed., Analyzes the contemporary period in world affairs—the period from World War II to the present—from an interdisciplinary historical perspective.)
Soviet Union Timeline
on ''BBC'' {{Authority control Contemporary history, Historiography Historical eras Articles which contain graphical timelines Articles containing video clips