1920S V 2020S

With all this talk of the ‘Roaring 2020s’, how do the third decades of each century compare so far?

Spanish flu pandemic February 1918-April 1920. It didn’t actually start in Spain, but due to Spain’s neutrality in WWI their press wasn’t censored and it was first reported there.

Coronavirus pandemic starts spreading widely in March 2020. The true facts about the virus are reported accurately by people on social media.

Henry Ford introduces the Ford Model A in 1927 at $385, so that “no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces”.

Elon Musk introduces the Tesla Cybertruck in 2022 at $70,000, with bulletproof windows that cannot be smashed with a sledgehammer. Lockdown legislates against the purchase of alcoholic beverages from pubs, even as takeaways. Result: a different kind of speakeasy. Prohibition legislates in the US against the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920-1933. Result: speakeasies.

Mickey Mouse is created in Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1928. The goal of the character is to be a fun guy who gets up to amusing adventures.

Disney announces new Mickey Mouse Funhouse series in 2021: “The goal of the series is to demonstrate imaginative play for children and encourage age-appropriate themes like social and emotional lessons about friendship and creativity”.

Oxford Bags nearly cause riots on the streets when they reach a staggering 44-inch width on the hem. Questions are asked in Parliament.

Skinny Jeans achieve staggeringly narrow proportions, leading to cases of infertility in young males. Questions are asked in Parliament. Albanian gangsters operating in the UK have less stylish nicknames like Albert ‘Diti’ Memia, and they don’t dress so nicely. American Gangsters have stylish nicknames like Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, George ‘Bugs’ Moran, Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano, and Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond.

Charles Lindbergh flies the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927.

Nobody has flown on any transatlantic flights except Tom Cruise, when he returned the US after expressing disgust at crew members not obeying social distancing rules: “We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf—ers. I don’t ever want to see it again. Ever!”.

The silent movie era ends with the first talking picture released, The Jazz Singer in 1927.

First silent version of a James Bond film released, No Time To Die, delayed from cinema screens three times so far since April 2020. Madonna releases a heartfelt lockdown message in 2020 from a rose petal-filled bathtub, “It’s the great equaliser and what’s terrible about it is what’s great about it.” Sigmund Freud’s influential paper The Ego & The Id is published in 1923.

AstraZeneca creates a vaccine for coronavirus after accidentally receiving £65.5 million from the government. Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin during the 1920s, after preventing the growth of bacteria when accidentally contaminating an experiment.