2020s

The 2020s (pronounced "twenty-twenties" or "two thousand ndtwenties"; shortened to "the '20s" and also known as "The Twenties") is the current decade that began on 1 January 2020, and will end on 31 December 2029.

The 2020s began with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first reports of the virus were published on 31 December 2019, though the first cases are said to have appeared nearly a month earlier. The pandemic led to a global economic recession, a sustained rise in global inflation for the first time since the 1970s, and a global supply chain crisis. The World Health Organization declared the virus a global state of emergency from March 2020 to May 2023. While no longer considered a pandemic, many health critics consider the virus' effects to still be ongoing through new variants.

Several anti-government demonstrations and revolts occurred in the early 2020s, including a continuation of those in Hong Kong against extradition legislation; protests against certain local, state and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; others around the world, particularly in the United States, against racism and police brutality; one in India against agriculture and farming acts; one in Israel against judicial reforms; another in Indonesia against the omnibus law on jobs; protests and strikes in France against pension reform; political crises in Peru, Bangladesh, Armenia, and Thailand; and many in Belarus, Eswatini, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela against various forms of governmental jurisdiction, corruption, and authoritarianism; along with citizen riots in the United States, Japan, and Brazil in an attempt to overturn election results. The world population grew to over eight billion people, and in 2023, India overtook China as the most populous country in the world. Among democracies in 2024, its elections saw an 80% loss of incumbent support worldwide, several losses being historic. That year, former U.S. president Donald Trump was reelected to a second, nonconsecutive term.

Ongoing military conflicts include the Myanmar civil war, the Ethiopian civil conflict, the Kivu conflict, the Mali War, the Yemeni civil war, the Somali Civil War, Sudanese civil war, the Syrian civil war, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the Gaza war. The year 2021 saw the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, ending nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan. The Russian invasion of Ukraine became the largest conventional military offensive in Europe since World War II, resulting in a refugee crisis, disruptions to global trade, and an exacerbation of economic inflation. In 2023, a Hamas-led attack marked the first invasion of Israel since 1948, triggering an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory. The invasion has led to the displacement of nearly all 2.3 million Gaza residents, a humanitarian crisis, a famine, and a polio epidemic, sparking global protests against Israel. In 2024, a quick and renewed rebel offensive during the Syrian civil war led to the toppling of Bashar al-Assad and the fall of the Assad regime. Smaller conflicts include the insurgency in the Maghreb, the Iraq insurgency, the Philippine and the Mexican drug wars.

With multiple extreme weather events magnifying in the 2020s, several world leaders have called it the "decisive decade" for climate action as ecological crises continue to escalate. In February 2023, a series of powerful earthquakes killed up to 62,000 people in Turkey and Syria; this event fell within the top five deadliest earthquakes of the 21st century.

There were significant improvements in the complexity of artificial intelligence, with American companies, universities, and research labs pioneering advances in the field. Generative AI-based applications such as ChatGPT and DALL-E have accumulated over billions of users, and allow users to instantly generate complex texts, images, art, and video, comparable to the sophistication of human work. Other technological advances have also been made, impacting many, such as the widespread use of teleconferencing, online learning, streaming services, e-commerce and food delivery services to compensate for lockdowns ordered by governments around the world during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several popular social media applications, like Threads, BeReal, Clubhouse, Bluesky, Gettr, and Truth Social, launched, continuing progress in digital technology. 5G networks launched around the globe at the start of the decade and became prevalent in smartphones. Research into outer space further progressed in the 2020s, with the United States mainly dominating space exploration, including the James Webb Space Telescope, ''Ingenuity'' helicopter, and ''Artemis'' program. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are being used for remote collaboration, meetings, and training. Contactless payments have become more widespread, offering convenient and secure payment options. Mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, which had their roots in the 2010s, have also grown in popularity. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and NFTs, have increased in popularity.

Politics and wars

Major conflicts

The prominent wars of the decade include:

International wars

Image:Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 montage (1).png, Montage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, part of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Image:Evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport 210821-M-AU949-0155.jpg, US Marines with SP-MAGTF-CR-CC at an evacuation checkpoint at Kabul Airport on 21 August during the 2021 Fall of Kabul, at the end of the War in Afghanistan.
Image:Damage in Gaza Strip during the October 2023.jpg, Highrise residential building ″Palestine Tower″ in Gaza following an Israeli strike during the Gaza war.
Image:Syrian rebels at Hama Military Airport.png, Syrian rebels at Hama Air Base during the Syrian civil war.

Civil wars

Image:Myanmar_civil_war_(2021–present)_townships_map.svg, Territorial control during Myanmar civil war (2021–present) as of early 2022.
Image:VOA Tigray Children2.jpg, A man passing by a destroyed T-72 tank in Idaga Hamus during Tigray war.
Image:Screengrab of refugee camp from Number of Refugees Who Fled Sudan for Chad Double in Week.jpg, Sudanese refugee camp in Chad during Sudanese civil war (2023).
Image:Prigozhin rebellion Rostov tank with flowers in the muzzle June 24.jpg, A tank with flowers in the muzzle in Rostov-on-Don during the Wagner Group rebellion against the Russian government.

Revolutions and major protests

Successful revolutions and otherwise major protests of the decade include, but are not limited to:

Image:Minneapolis 05-28-20 (49947863357).jpg, Protesters in Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered and the unrest began on 26 May 2020.
File:02020 0097 (2) Protest against abortion restriction in Bielsko-Biała, November 2020.jpg, Protest against abortion restriction in Bielsko-Biała, Poland
Image:2021 Myanmar Protest in Hleden.jpg, 2021 Myanmar coup d'état culminated an ongoing protests, thousands of protesters participating in an anti-junta rally in Yangon in February 2021.
Image:2022 Kazakhstan protests — Aqtobe, January 4 (01).jpg, Protesters in Aktobe during a period of unrest in Kazakhstan, 4 January 2022.
Image:Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka 2022.jpg, Sri Lankans protesting in front of the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo, 13 April 2022.
Image:Amir Kabir University uprising September 2022 (3).jpg, Iranians protesting at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran following the death of Mahsa Amini, 20 September 2022.
Image:Ataque bolsonarista ao Congresso Nacional do Brasil.png, Protesters attack the Brazilian Congress to protest and attempt to overturn the results of the 2022 Brazilian election, 8 January 2023.
File:8 march protest in Tbilisi (cropped).jpg, Pro-Western protesters and rioters during the anti-government protests in Tbilisi, Georgia
File:Warszawa - Marsz Miliona Serc (1).jpg, " March of a Million Hearts" in Warsaw, Poland
File:John Deere 6320 Saint-Etienne-de-Fontbellon manifestations agriculteurs janvier 2024.jpg, Tractors at Saint-Etienne-de-Fontbellon (France) during the EU farmers' protests.
Image:7.Bangladesh quota reform movement 2024.jpg, Students launching the Bangla blockade during the Student–People's uprising, 6 July 2024.
Image:2024 Venezuela protests 01.jpg, Venezuelans taking to the streets to protest the 2024 presidential election results in Caracas, 3 August 2024.

Terrorist attacks

''Note: To be included, entries must be notable (have a stand-alone article) and described by a consensus of reliable sources as "terrorism."''

The most prominent terrorist attacks committed against civilian populations during the decade include, but are not limited to:

Political trends

Electoral trends

Having suffered decline in the years after the Great Recession, the centre-left politics and the 1990s political model (like progressivism, liberalism, social democracy, and third way policies) experienced a resurgence across Europe and the Anglosphere in the early 2020s, with ''New Statesman'' suggesting various causes, including natural shifts in the electoral cycle and conservatives' unpopularity among university graduates and voters under the age of 40.

Following the election of Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election, the mid-2020s saw the resurgence of right-wing populism and the 1980s political model (like conservatism, social conservatism, and anti-communist policies).

2024 was the biggest election year in history, and a number of countries announced snap elections, such as Portugal, Senegal, the United Kingdom, France, Sri Lanka, Japan, Iceland, and Ireland. This is the first time this has ever happened since 1905 (when data was first recorded) and the first time in the history of democracy, as universal suffrage began in 1894.

Deaths

Sitting leaders that died in office:

In 2020: Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Pierre Nkurunziza and Sheik Sabah al-Sabah.

In 2021: Idriss Déby, John Magufuli, and Jovenel Moïse.

In 2022: Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Elizabeth II.

In 2023: Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

In 2024: Hage Geingob, Ebrahim Raisi, and Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

In 2025: Didier Guillaume.

Former world leaders who died:

In 2020: Hosni Mubarak, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, John Turner, Daniel arap Moi, Pranab Mukherjee, Amadou Toumani Touré, Jerry Rawlings, Mamadou Tandja, Tabaré Vázquez,