Beyond 1900 The race to

Wright Flyer Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright’s plane had a wooden frame covered in muslin cloth.

1900

RADIO ACROSS THE ATLANTIC (1901) Radio pioneer Gugliemo Marconi sends the first radio signals from England to Canada. SOUTH POLE (1911) Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes the first person to reach the South Pole. »pp126–27

THE WRIGHT FLYER (1903) The first powered, controlled flight takes place at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, US. »pp132–33 TITANIC DISASTER (1912) The luxury cruise ship Titanic is sunk by an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

WAR IS OVER (1945) The war ends in August with Victory over Japan Day, following Victory in Europe day in May. »pp140

D-DAY (1944) British, US, and Canadian troops land on French beaches to gain access to Germanheld territory. »pp142–43

Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 “Shturmovik” anti-tank aircraft US JOINS WORLD WAR II (1941) The US joins the war after Japan attacks the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. »pp138–39

NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA (1945) Korea is divided into the Soviet-controlled North and the US-occupied South.

Mohandas Gandhi spinning cotton in defiance of British law

SUPERSONIC FLIGHT (1947) The Bell X-1 rocket plane is the first manned aircraft to fly faster than sound. »pp132–33

GERMANY INVADES THE SOVIET UNION (USSR) (1941) The war’s largest invasion, on the Eastern Front, changes the course of the war. »pp140–41

THE STATE OF ISRAEL (1948) The State of Israel is declared, following a United Nations vote to partition British-controlled Palestine. WORLD WAR II (1939–45) England and France declare war on Germany after it invades Poland. »pp138–43

AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS (1955–68) Martin Luther King Jr. rallies AfricanAmericans to demand equal rights.

INDIAN INDEPENDENCE (1947) Gandhi inspires the end of British rule in India, and the country is divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. »pp144–45

APARTHEID (1948–94) South African apartheid law severely restricts the rights of black people. It is abolished in 1994. MOUNT EVEREST (1953) Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing Norgay conquer the world’s highest mountain.

VIETNAM WAR (1956–75) North and South Vietnam are united in 1975 after the US lose the war to stop Communism in the South.

CHINA POWER (2013) China becomes the largest trading nation in the world, overtaking the US. »pp154–55 END OF THE COLD WAR (1991) Aggression between the US and USSR finishes, as Communist government ends and the USSR splits up. EMAIL (1971) Computer programmer Ray Tomlinson sends the first email. »pp152–53 WALKING ON THE MOON (1969) US astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon. »pp150–51

WORLD WIDE WEB (1991) British scientist Tim Berners-Lee creates a system of interlinked pages on the internet and calls it the World Wide Web. »pp152–53 ARPANET (1969) Computers are connected in a network for the first time. The network, in California, US, is called ARPAnet and is an early version of the internet. »pp152–53

ABORIGINAL RIGHTS (1967) The Australian government recognizes Aboriginal People as full Australian citizens.

PRODUCTION LINE (1913) The Ford motor company introduces assembly-line mass production, making cars faster and cheaper to produce. WORLD WAR I (1914–18) After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austro-Hungary declares war on Serbia. »pp128–29

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (1917–22) The Bolsheviks (later known as Communists) take control of the Russian Empire. »pp130–31 IN THE AIR (1915) World War I sees the first air battles. Airships drop bombs and planes battle in dogfights. »pp128–29 TANK WARFARE (1916) The first battle tanks are used by the British army during World War I. »pp128–29

Net connection

The white lines on the globe represent internet connections between cities.

British Whippet tank, World War I

AMELIA EARHART (1937) Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappears in the Pacific when trying to fly around the world. »pp132–33 THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1929–39) A global economic crisis is fueled by companies losing value and unemployment rising disastrously. »pp134–35

CHINA’S LONG MARCH (1934–35) The rebel Chinese Communist army marches for 1 year and 3 days to escape Nationalist forces. »pp136–37 AMRITSAR MASSACRE (1919) The British army fires on 6,000 protestors for Indian rights in Amritsar, India, killing hundreds. »pp144–45 END OF THE WAR (1918) A temporary truce was agreed to end World War I, with a formal peace treaty signed in 1919. »pp128–29

AMERICA JOINS WORLD WAR I (1917) Outraged by German bombing of their ships, the US joins World War I. »pp128–29

SPUTNIK IN SPACE (1957) The Soviet Union (USSR) launches Sputnik I—the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. »pp148–49

NASA’s Space Shuttle

TO THE MOON (1959) Luna 2, sent by the Soviet Union (USSR), becomes the first spacecraft to land on the Moon. »pp150–51

THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS (1962) The US asks the Soviet Union to remove its missiles from Cuba. The world waits for war, but it doesn’t come. »pp146–47

THE BERLIN WALL (1961–89) Communist East German authorities build a wall to stop people from escaping from East Berlin into West Germany.

Beyond 1900

The 20th century saw the fast development of many forms of technology, from radio and television to space exploration and computing. Technology had a major impact on wars, but also made the world smaller: every continent has been explored, thanks to improvements in transportation, and every part of the world is connected, thanks to a revolution in telecommunications.