Defining Events of the 20th Century

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

And for me the most defining moment was the day Adler was born....



Just kidding all those you guys put up there are great and definatly defined the 20th century.

 

[Njaco]

DerAdlerIstKaput!

 

[trackend]

First powered flight
WW1
WW2
Splitting of the Atom
The invention of the Transistor
The introduction of the PC
Sputnik
Discovery of DNA
The package holiday
Concern for the environment

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

DerAdlerIstKaput!

Njaculates!

 

[Njaco]

ohhhh, snap, am I burnt!!

another event...........

June 5, 1943 A contract was signed for Project PX and constructed by the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering from July, 1943. ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems, although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. The first problems run on the ENIAC however, were related to the design of the hydrogen bomb. It was unveiled on February 14, 1946 at Penn, having cost almost $500,000. ENIAC was shut down on November 9, 1946 for a refurbishment and a memory upgrade, and was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland in 1947. There, on July 29 of that year, it was turned on and would be in continuous operation until 11:45 p.m. on October 2, 1955.

The world's first programable, electronic computer paved the way for our world today, from the computers on the Space Shuttle to the ones in the common car and everywhere else. As a side I might put in the creation of the microchip as this allowed these gigantic computers to become as small as the point of a pencil with infinte computing power.

 

[timshatz]

Eniac is a good one. Still have parts of that thing down at U-Penn. Might want to toss a few in there myself:

-The Transistor
-TVA and electrification of the rural parts of all countries
-interstate hwy systems
-GPS
-Sewage Reclaimation
-Widescale introduction of nitrogen based fetelizers-post WW2
-Reliable Turbine Engine
-Reliable reciprocating engine
-Penecillin
-Radio
-Refrigeration on a small scale.

None of them defining in and of themselves, but all of them hugely important to the 20th Century.

But my defining event of the 20th Century is WW1. Still, to my mind, not completely settled. Changed the face of the planet more than any other war has since the Greeks defeated the Persians. Took 1/3 of the population of the planet (adding China in here even though the collapse of the Qing Dynasty otherwise caused) that had been living under a Monarchy for 5000 years (at least) and changed their governing systems. The affects of that event are still rippling through the world (you can argue the war in Iraq is a direct affect of WW1, also that WW2 was little more than the second inning of WW1).

It was an event whose time had come.

 

[mosquitoman]

I would put the date that the first large-scale production of penicillin started as the production of the drug in very large amounts was needed for use as a medicine. Alexander Fleming got lucky.

 

[Njaco]

Exactly my point, thats why I put the assasination of the Duke first. Highway system is real good, started alot of things from expansion of the automobile, travel and vacation or time off along with a couple of negatives - tolls and seven men to fill a 5" pothole.

Penicillin is great. Brought about new inroads into disease.

I was thinking about refrigeration. What Mr. Birdseye started can be felt everywhere.

 

[timshatz]

If I had to pick one off that list, it would be a toss up between Penicillin and Fertelizer. Penecillin saved lives by the millions (ampacillin, tetracycaline, ect. maybe just call it large scale production of anti-biotics) while the increase in Nitrogen based Fertlizers allow crop yields per acre to soar and that led to increased populations being fed from land that barely fed anyone in the past.

But WW1 is still the baby. Consider Archduke Ferdinand getting bumped off to be a more of an excuse but, to give history it's due, you can't dump a guy out of history when he did his job (in this case, he and Sofi taking a bullet) and started the ball rolling. One thing that always kinda bothered me about that assasination was the shooting ability of Princip. He was an absolutely lousy shot (by all accounts I've read). And yet he manages to kill two people with 2 or 3 shots from a low powered pistol. Amazingly lucky bullets, these things must've had eyes on them.

Seredipity or something. But those murders were almost meant to be.