Top Ten Most Significant Events of The Last 1000 Years

[Vince278]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Sept 18th, 1983 - My birth

Beat me to it.

[Urban Ranger]

What about:

- The Black Death
- The Renaissance
- The Crusades
- The Invention of the Computer


Gutenberg's printing press was quite a non-event. Asians had been using movable types for centuries.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


I agree with aggie.

The French Revolution is regarded by many (if not most) historians as being of greater importance than the American revloution...

You mean that revolution where radical liberals cut people's heads off for disagreeing with them?

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Agathon
The French Revolution?

A copy of the American Revolution, only more brutal.

[MrFun]

Or how about how the French Revolution was crushed by the conservative Holy Alliance reactionary movement?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Vince278


A copy of the American Revolution, only more brutal.

Which is really an understatement here.

Unlike the American Revolution, the French Revolution devoured itself in a wasteful, savage orgy of loose heads.

[bipolarbear]

How about that Industrial Revolution? I am too giddy to think right now, but didn't that lead ot trains to being a major source of transport? Trains made Chicago, adn Chicago fueled America for quite a while and is rich with cultural and industrial, and business hsitory.

The Industrial Revolution really shaped the world of today.

It isn't the most important by far, but I'd say it has its spot somewhere lower on the list.

I'd personally place the printing press higher.
The prinitng press allowed for a mucho more effective spread of ideas. Ideas are very powerful when correctly presented.

[notyoueither]

In rough date order. I couldn't pick from a few of them which was number one.

The Peace of the Sword, Monguls of the 13th and 14th centuries
They did more than pillage and burn. The Monguls created a path between the Orient and the Mediterranean where trade could begin to blossom again. Trade, rich people, surplus cash and the ability to fund thinkers and artisans would become important elements in Italy before long.

The Caliphate in Spain and the Fall of Constantinople, 1453
What the devil could they have to do with each other? Well, both the struggle for Spain and the rise of the Ottomans resulted in 'lost' knowledge of the Romans and Greeks returning to Italy and Northern Europe. Humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment... they follow like ducklings in a line following their mother.

The Reformation and the Printing Press, 15th and 16th centuries
These aren't two events, but an event and the consequences. The power of the Catholic clergy to be the keepers of the Word was broken by the advent of movable type, and into the breach poured more cheaply produced literature. Pluralistic societies and literate populations would be the eventual outcomes.

The Revolutions, 1776 and 1789
Not two disconnected events, but two closely tied movements. One would succeed and survive in the safety of isolation while the other was smothered by the hostilities of neighbours and the measures adopted to combat them. Still, the seeds of change that first sprouted in Boston and Philadelphia then spread to Paris and Marseilles were planted and would later germinate in fertile soil in Europe and around the world.

Those Damned Brits and Their Infernal Contraptions, 18th century
The steam engine put the world on the path to mechanisation and we've been prisoners of machines ever since. It should be revealing that the trend began as a way to make coal mines more profitable. Is it significant that machines were employed to get fuel for yet more machines?

The Seige of Port Arthur, 1904-05
An Asian nation met and defeated a European power in full on war on land and at sea. The lesson was not lost on many people who lived outside of European societies. Europeans could be beaten by a determined and skillful effort with proper equipment.

A Century of Warfare, 1914-1989
The echoes of the shots fired in Sarajevo in 1914 would not subside for some 75 years. First old orders would be torn down as hereditary rulers were toppled in Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, and Istanbul. Then colonial empires would be dissolved when the power of the French and British empires were sapped during a second round. Coming full circle, the heirs of the Romanovs in the Kremlin found their better system was not sufficient to the task of confronting and competing with the great democracies that emerged from complacency in 1914 to preeminence in 1990.

The Independence of India, 1947
Not the event so much as the tactics. A peaceful man led his people using peaceful means to overcome the armed opposition of the British Empire, and in the process won their freedom and helped create the greatest democracy, if measured by the sheer weight of humanity involved, on Earth. Others would follow the example, from Alabama to Johannesburg to Berlin to Manilla, and demonstrate that people hold the power and peaceful change can be won, even sometimes in the face of the most vicious regimes.

The Apollo program and Apollo 11, 20 July 1969
A movement and an event. Man is not imprisoned on this rock as a little titan ala Prometheus. Since the beginnings of time man has wandered, and explored. The future will be no different as man will not accept the ends of the world as the end of the journey.

[MrFun]

excellent, eloquent post, NYE

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The Independence of India, 1947
Not the event so much as the tactics. A peaceful man led his people using peaceful means to overcome the armed opposition of the British Empire, and in the process won their freedom and helped create the greatest democracy, if measured by the sheer weight of humanity involved, on Earth. Others would follow the example, from Alabama to Johannesburg to Berlin to Manilla, and demonstrate that people hold the power and peaceful change can be won, even sometimes in the face of the most vicious regimes.

If the Brits were, in fact, vicious, Gandhi would have been dead before his movement got started.

[MrFun]

The part "even in the face of the most vicious regimes" could be referring to other ruling nations besides Great Britain.

[bipolarbear]

Nobody cares about the IR?

[notyoueither]

Steam engine.

[Dis]

Originally posted by DanS
I would put Sputnik and Apollo as among the top 10. Possible #1. They ushered in the Space Age, which we are now experiencing. The relative importance of these two milestones increases as more happens off Earth and people live off-Earth. Nowadays, only 2 do and there is only a small amount of activity (like Hubble, GPS, and satellite television), but within the next thousand years, I think a lot more will happen there.

Regarding the revolutions, etc., I would just lump it all in as the Enlightenment and put it near the top. Also, I would lump World War I and World War II together and put it near the top.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree.

The space race is useless. Put a man on the moon. Big deal. We now have a bunch of worthless rocks. We have a space station that really is a piece of crap.

The laws of physics cannot be altered. The speed of light will never be exceeded. We will never get out of this solar system (to another solar system)

Sure the space race helped develop ICBM's, but they were never used. They did shape diplomacy, but in no major way.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


If the Brits were, in fact, vicious, Gandhi would have been dead before his movement got started.

Humanity got a good break there.