Top 25 Events from 1600-2000

[Felch]

Re: Top 25 Events from 1600-2000

Originally posted by Panzer32
1607 1st N. American colony established at Jamestown

Pre-1600, but the residents of St. Augustine, Florida might disagree.

[Zkribbler]

& the residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico as well.

1620 - First European women come to America, giving the colonies a quality of permanence.
1620 - First African slaves imported into America.

[Zkribbler]

Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin - beginning the industrial revolution

Edison's light bulb

Pasteur's germ theory

Replace "Moon Landing" which was cool but had little effect on history with "Launch of Yuri Gargarin" first human in space.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin - beginning the industrial revolution

Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin after the Industrial Revolution had already begun.

[JohnT]

A couple of events are so paramount, so global in their import that they have to be placed on top of the list, separated from the others by a wide margin.

1. The Industrial Revolution. Not so much an "event" as a seemingly irreversible process that swept mankind starting in 1700's Britain.
2. The Scientific Revolution. You know, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Pasteur, and all that. It can be argued that the scientific revolution is even bigger and is a requirement of an industrial revolution, but I rank it number 2 as you do not need to be a scientist nor even be aware of science or mechanics to benefit and use the products of the industrial revolution.
3. Globalization. Call it the communications revolution, call it European/state and American/corporate imperialism, call it the result of the growth and fight between economic systems of Communism and Capitalism, whatever; the fact is, that the world is one as never before imagined in 1599.
4. The rise of the nation-state as the globally accepted geographic organizational method, plus the general trend towards democratic (mass) institutions (if not, alas, with pure democratic practices) at the expense of the pre-industrial revolution ruling classes.

And I'm going to leave my list at that. Anything else would likely be an extension of the above four items, except possibly moments of Art (and those too, will show a heavy prejudice towards societies that have used and benefited from the above four movements). So I'm just leaving it at the above four and say that from them, all else (Hitler, Lennon, Lenin, Einstein, Ghandi, Mao, Apartheid) follows.

[Tolls]

"...why not Waterloo? "

Because in the great scheme of things Waterloo was not all that important...even had Napoleon won there, there were still huge Austrian and Russian armies set to advance into France, against which he had bugger all he could field. He wouldn't have lasted the summer.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

Also I need a few more 15th-16th century events

1492 springs to mind, as does 1453 and 1517.

If you look at this list, and any one of these dates you don't immediately recognize... SHAME!!!!!!



Of course, it's too late for your teacher. But why she would separate the Reformation, the discovery of America and the fall of Constantinople (I also think of 1453 as the invention of the printing press, though that exact date is vague) from the modern era is anybody's guess.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
Down with Eurocentrism!

1911, End of the Chinese Empire.
Put the most populous nation of the world on cardiac arrest for 70 years.

1978, opening up of China.
End of that cardiac arrest.

Whenever it was that Simon Bolivar won freedom for South America.
South America was probably the first place in the world to have leftists, rightists, juntas, coups, etc. Pretty impressive, since the remainder of the world took another century to learn.

Introduction of euro/Maastricht Treaty/whatever

Shows us the direction for the future.

Finally: take the Emancipation Proclamation out. America was late among Western countries in outlawing slavery.

.

Simon Bolivar won freedom for Venezuela. He was Spanish by descent.

Chinese empire was ended by the West. If China is "re-opening", then it has to be re-opening to somebody, right? Isn't that somebody the "eurocentric" West?

Everything you list shows an Eurocentric bias, but you decry the same bias in others?

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

Finally: take the Emancipation Proclamation out. America was late among Western countries in outlawing slavery.

I was thinking that, but then weren't they far and away the largest user of slaves?

I think Universal Suffrage would be a better choice, but that is again no one nation or event.

If the US wasn't, it's because Brazil was. And Brazil didn't outlaw slavery until 1888, over 20 years after the Americans. Your number 1 slave exporter, all time? Britain, with over 2.5-4,000,000 slaves moved. Portugal was #2 (all went to Brazil) and Spain was #3. I'll look up the numbers later when I return home - I have a 500 page book all about the slave trade that's chock full of stats.

[Arrian]

Doesn't Yury Gagarin (sp?) rate? You know, first guy in space?

Just a thought.

-Arrian

[JohnT]

Btw, Panzer, you HAVE to have Louis Pasteur developing the germ theory of disease (1878, with the publication of "Germ Theory and it's Application to Medicine and Surgery."

[Zkribbler]

Arrian -- Look 7 posts above your own.

Originally posted by JohnT
If you look at this list, and any one of these dates you don't immediately recognize... SHAME!!!!!!

Noooo. I don't recognize 1517. --Er, maybe Luther??

[JohnT]

Yup. Protestant Reformation begins, October 31st, 1517 at 12:00 noon.

[Zkribbler]

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Replace "Moon Landing" which was cool but had little effect on history with "Launch of Yuri Gargarin" first human in space.

I was going to say the same thing.

Also : the Wright brothers flight has to be inthere somewhere.