| 1901 |
|
Death of Queen Victoria |
| 1901 |
|
Edward VII comes to English throne |
| 1901 |
|
Marconi sends first transatlantic radio message from Britain |
| 1901 |
|
Commonwealth of Australia established |
| 1901 |
|
Death of Giuseppe Verdi (composer) |
| 1902 |
|
Death of Emile Zola (writer) |
| 1902 |
|
Eruption of Mount Pelée, Martinique (40,000 killed) |
| 1902 |
|
Boers surrender to British forces in South Africa |
| 1903 |
|
Wright Brothers make first controlled flight in aeroplane |
| 1903 |
|
Henry Ford designs first mass-produced cars |
| 1903 |
|
Bolshevik Party established in Russia |
| 1904 |
|
Russo-Japanese War |
| 1904 |
|
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov wins Nobel Prize for work on animal behaviour |
| 1905 |
|
Norway separates from Sweden |
| 1905 |
|
Trans-Siberian Railway completed |
| 1905 |
|
"Bloody Sunday" massace of protestors in St Petersburg |
| 1905 |
|
Albert Einstein develops special theory of relativity |
| 1905 |
|
Sinn Fein, Irish nationalist (Republican) movement, founded |
| 1906 |
|
Movement for Women's Suffrage becomes active in Britain |
| 1906 |
|
Liberal landslide government in Britain |
| 1906 |
|
Death of Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian dramatist) |
| 1906 |
|
Norwegian Roald Amundsen navigates North-West Passage |
| 1906 |
|
Death of Paul Cézanne (artist) |
| 1907 |
|
Death of Edvard Grieg (Norwegian composer) |
| 1907 |
|
Entente Cordiale between Russia, Britain and France |
| 1908 |
|
Herbert Asquith becomes Liberal Prime Minister |
| 1908 |
|
Lord Baden-Powell founds Boy Scouts and Girl Guides |
| 1908 |
|
"Young Turk" Revolution establishes constitution in Turkey |
| 1908 |
|
Bulgaria liberated from Turkish rule by Russia |
| 1909 |
|
American Robert Peary first to reach North Pole |
| 1909 |
|
Union of South Africa established |
| 1909 |
|
Arnold Schoenberg explores musical atonality |
| 1909 |
|
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque develop Cubism |
| 1910 |
|
First Post-Impressionist art exhibition (Cezanne/Van Gogh/Gauguin) in London |
| 1910 |
|
Death of Florence Nightingale (nurse and hospital reformer) |
| 1910 |
|
George V succedes to British throne |
| 1910 |
|
Portuguese monarchy abolished in favour of republic |
| 1910 |
|
Mexican Revolution under Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa leads to civil war |
| 1910 |
|
Death of Leo Tolstoy (writer) |
| 1910 |
|
Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead publish "Principia Mathematica" |
| 1910 |
|
Futurist Manifesto (modern art movement) published in Italy |
| 1911 |
|
Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes first to reach South Pole |
| 1911 |
|
Vasily Kandinsky experiments with abstract expressionism |
| 1911 |
|
Chinese Revolution - Sun Yat-Sen establishes Republic |
| 1911 |
|
Death of Gustav Mahler (composer) |
| 1912 |
|
African National Congress (ANC) formed in South Africa to fight apartheid |
| 1913 |
|
Rabindranath Tagore receives Nobel Prize for Literature |
| 1913 |
|
Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" causes uproar |
| 1913 |
|
Nijinsky and Pavlova perfoming Fokine and Diaghilev's ballets |
| 1914 |
|
First World War - Germany/Austria vs Britain/France/Russia |
| 1914 |
|
Panama Canal opened |
| 1914 |
|
Charlie Chaplin makes his first silent movies |
| 1916 |
|
Albert Einstein publishes General Theory of Relativity |
| 1916 |
|
Inconclusive battles at Verdun and Somme in France |
| 1916 |
|
Grigory Rasputin murdered by nobles of Nicholas II's court |
| 1916 |
|
Unsuccessful Easter Rising by Irish Republicans |
| 1916 |
|
Tristan Tzara develops Dada art movement |
| 1917 |
|
Democratic constition established in Mexico |
| 1917 |
|
Death of Edgar Degas (artist) |
| 1917 |
|
Death of Buffalo Bill Cody (showman) |
| 1917 |
|
Chicago takes over from New Orleans as capital of jazz |
| 1917 |
|
US enters First World War - balance tips in Allies' favour |
| 1917 |
|
Bolshevik Revolution under Vladimir Ilych Lenin and Leon Trotsky |
| 1918 |
|
Lawrence of Arabia aids British forces in Middle East |
| 1918 |
|
Tsar Nicholas II killed |
| 1918 |
|
Bolsheviks end Russian involvment in First World War |
| 1918 |
|
End of First World War (25m killed) - Versailles Conference |
| 1918 |
|
Women over 30 granted right to vote in Britain |
| 1918 |
|
Earnest Rutherford splits the atom |
| 1918 |
|
Death of Claude Debussy (composer) |
| 1918 |
|
Jewish League formed by David Ben Gurion |
| 1918 |
|
Spanish influenza pandemic (50 to 100 million killed worldwide) |
| 1919 |
|
Start of "Indianization" of civil service |
| 1919 |
|
Amritsar Massacre - beginning of limited self-rule |
| 1919 |
|
Death of Adelina Patti (opera singer) |
| 1919 |
|
Irish Republican Army (IRA) formed as radical military wing of Sinn Fein |
| 1919 |
|
Death of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (artist) |
| 1919 |
|
Treaty of Versailles - Germany loses annexed lands and colonies |
| 1919 |
|
Germany proclaimed a republic |
| 1919 |
|
Bauhaus art movement developed by architect Walter Gropius |
| 1919 |
|
Prohibition of alcohol in North America |
| 1919 |
|
Kemal Atatürk leads Turkish nationlist resistance |
| 1919 |
|
Jewish Zionists start immigration into Palestine |
| 1919 |
|
Poland recognized as independent state after First World War |
| 1919 |
|
League of Nations formed |
| 1920 |
|
Russo-Polish War |
| 1921 |
|
Chinese Communist Party founded |
| 1921 |
|
Death of Enrico Caruso (opera singer) |
| 1921 |
|
Economic collapse and famine in Russia - 5 million die |
| 1921 |
|
Modern Persian state created by Resa Khan |
| 1921 |
|
British-Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes his "Tractatus" |
| 1921 |
|
Greece declares war on Turkey |
| 1922 |
|
TS Eliot writes "The Waste Land" |
| 1922 |
|
Dane Niels Bohr wins Nobel Prize for work on atomic theory |
| 1922 |
|
Fascist Benito Mussolini siezes power as dictator in Italy |
| 1922 |
|
James Joyce writes "Ulysses" |
| 1922 |
|
Ireland partitioned into Ulster (North) and Irish Free State (South) |
| 1922 |
|
Republic of Turkey declared under Kemal Pasha |
| 1922 |
|
Britain grants independence to Egypt |
| 1923 |
|
Arnold Schoenberg develops 12-tone system of music |
| 1924 |
|
First Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald voted in Britain |
| 1924 |
|
Death of Giaccomo Puccini (composer) |
| 1924 |
|
André Breton publishes first Surrealist Manifesto |
| 1924 |
|
Joseph Stalin becomes Premiere of Russia after Death of Lenin |
| 1924 |
|
Greece declares itself a republic |
| 1925 |
|
Franz Kafka writes "The Trial" |
| 1925 |
|
Art Deco movement at its height |
| 1926 |
|
German physicist Werner Heisenberg develops his uncertainty principle |
| 1926 |
|
General Strike in Britain |
| 1926 |
|
Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan |
| 1926 |
|
Death of Rainer Maria Rilke (poet) |
| 1926 |
|
Antonio Salazar leads military coup in Portugal |
| 1926 |
|
Death of Antoni Gaudí (Catalan architect) |
| 1927 |
|
Werner Heisenberg publishes treatise on Uncertainty Principle |
| 1927 |
|
Charles Lindburgh makes first solo flight of Atlantic |
| 1927 |
|
First "talkie" movie - "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson |
| 1927 |
|
Leon Trotsky expelled from Communist Party |
| 1928 |
|
Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin |
| 1928 |
|
Equal adult suffrage established in Britain |
| 1928 |
|
Kuomintang under Chang Kai-Shek subdues Chinese warlords |
| 1928 |
|
Walt Disney introduces character of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie" |
| 1928 |
|
Bessie Smith recording first Blues songs |
| 1929 |
|
Kurt Weill writes "Threepenny Opera" |
| 1929 |
|
Valentines Day Massacre - Al Capone gains control of Chicago underworld |
| 1929 |
|
Astronomer Edwin Hubble shows that the universe is expanding |
| 1929 |
|
US Stock Market Crash |
| 1929 |
|
Massive collectivization push in Russia under Stalin |
| 1930 |
|
Death of DH Lawrence (writer) |
| 1930 |
|
Mahatma Ghandi leads Salt March in India |
| 1930 |
|
Civil War in China between Nationalists and Communists |
| 1930 |
|
Pluto (last planet) discovered by Clyde Tombaugh |
| 1930 |
|
Military coup in Brazil, start of Vargas dictatorship |
| 1930 |
|
Heile Selassie becomes Emperor of Ethiopia |
| 1931 |
|
National Coalition Government in Britain |
| 1931 |
|
Japanese invade Manchuria |
| 1931 |
|
Spain proclaimed a republic |
| 1931 |
|
Floods in Central China kill up to 4 million |
| 1932 |
|
Aldous Huxley writes "Brave New World" |
| 1932 |
|
Eamonn de Valera becomes Republican Fianna Fail leader |
| 1933 |
|
Adolph Hitler becomes dictator after coup |
| 1933 |
|
End of Prohibition of alcohol |
| 1933 |
|
FD Roosevelt becomes US President |
| 1934 |
|
Death of Sir Edward Elgar (composer) |
| 1934 |
|
Long March by Chinese communists under Mao Tse-Tung |
| 1934 |
|
Bonnie Parke and Clyde Barrow ("Bonnie and Clyde") killed in Louisiana |
| 1934 |
|
Social Realism art movement encouraged in Russia |
| 1935 |
|
Benito Mussolini invades Abyssinia |
| 1935 |
|
France concludes pact of mutual assistance with Russia |
| 1935 |
|
Germany under Hitler begins persecution of Jews (6m killed) |
| 1935 |
|
Count Basie leads his Big Band Orchestra |
| 1936 |
|
King George V dies - Edward VIII abdicates - George VI accedes |
| 1936 |
|
Popular Front government in France under Léon Blum |
| 1936 |
|
Joe Louis becomes heavyweight boxing champion |
| 1936 |
|
Great purge of Russian political parties by Stalin |
| 1936 |
|
Spanish Civil War starts |
| 1936 |
|
Assassination of Federico García Lorca (Spanish poet) |
| 1937 |
|
Neville Chamberlaine's government appeases Germany and Italy |
| 1937 |
|
Japanese advance into Northern China and Mongolia |
| 1937 |
|
Eire (Southern Ireland) declares itself completely independent state |
| 1937 |
|
Death of Maurice Ravel (composer) |
| 1937 |
|
German bombing of Guernica, Northern Spain |
| 1938 |
|
Enrico Fermi wins Nobel Prize for work on atomic energy |
| 1938 |
|
Hitler siezes Austria (Anschluss) and Czechoslovakia |
| 1939 |
|
Russia signs non-agression pact with Hitler's Germany |
| 1939 |
|
"Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" movies released |
| 1939 |
|
Britain and France enter Second World War after Hitler invades Poland |
| 1939 |
|
Fascists under Francisco Franco triumph in Spanish Civil War |
| 1939 |
|
Discovery of nuclear fission by German physicists Hahn, Meitner, Strassmann and Frisch |
| 1940 |
|
Sir Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister |
| 1940 |
|
Battle of Britain - Germany defeated in air |
| 1940 |
|
Marshal Pétain agrees armistice with Hitler - France occupied |
| 1940 |
|
Japan occupies Indo-China |
| 1941 |
|
Death of Virginia Woolf (writer) |
| 1941 |
|
Germany invades Russia - Russia enters Second World War |
| 1941 |
|
Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbour brings US into Second World War |
| 1941 |
|
Orson Wells' movie "Citizen Cane" released |
| 1941 |
|
Josip Broz Tito leads coommunist revolution in Yugoslavia |
| 1942 |
|
British army under Montgomery drives Germans out of Egypt |
| 1942 |
|
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus develop Existentialism |
| 1942 |
|
Manhattan Project established to develop atomic bomb |
| 1943 |
|
Mussolini overthrown and Fascist Party dissolved |
| 1944 |
|
Iceland declares independence from Denmark |
| 1944 |
|
D-Day - Allies make crucial push into France |
| 1944 |
|
International Monetary Fund (IMF) established |
| 1944 |
|
Charles de Gaulle organizes provisional government after Paris liberated |
| 1945 |
|
Germany surrenders - end of Second World War (45m killed) |
| 1945 |
|
US drops first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Japan surrenders |
| 1945 |
|
Clement Attlee becomes Labour Prime Minister of Britain |
| 1945 |
|
Jackson Pollock pioneers action painting |
| 1945 |
|
ENIAC considered to be first functional computer |
| 1945 |
|
Russian intransigence after Potsdam conference starts "Cold War" |
| 1945 |
|
Death of King Zog of Albania |
| 1945 |
|
Death of Bela Bartok (Hungarian composer) |
| 1945 |
|
United Nations (UN) formed |
| 1946 |
|
Italy votes to become a republic |
| 1946 |
|
Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal |
| 1946 |
|
Start of First Indochina War for independence from French rule |
| 1946 |
|
League of Nations formally abandoned |
| 1946 |
|
General Juan Perón elected president of Argentina |
| 1947 |
|
British withdraw from India - Partition of India and Pakistan |
| 1947 |
|
"Iron Curtain" effectively drawn around Soviet-controlled countries |
| 1947 |
|
US Marshall Plan aid spurs European economic recovery |
| 1948 |
|
George Orwell writes "1984" |
| 1948 |
|
British pull out of Palestine - state of Israel established |
| 1948 |
|
Enver Hoxha leads Albania as independent Stalinist state |
| 1948 |
|
Organization of American States (OAS) formed |
| 1948 |
|
Afrikaaner National Party comes to power in South Africa - apartheid |
| 1948 |
|
Korea divided into North and South Republics |
| 1948 |
|
Mahatma Ghandi assassinated |
| 1949 |
|
People's Republic of China proclaimed by Mao Tse-Tung |
| 1949 |
|
West Germany declared a republic - Konrad Adenauer becomes Chanceller |
| 1949 |
|
Comecon setablished to coordinate Soviet block economies |
| 1949 |
|
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed |
| 1949 |
|
Council of Europe formed |
| 1949 |
|
Indonesia under Sukarno gains independence from Netherlands |
| 1949 |
|
William Faulkner wins Nobel Prize for Literature |
| 1950 |
|
Death of George Bernard Shaw (dramatist) |
| 1950 |
|
Bertrand Russell receives Nobel Prize for Literature |
| 1950 |
|
Korean War starts - Communist North vs Capitalist South |
| 1950 |
|
US becomes involved in Korean War |
