The History of the Twentieth Century

After years of warlord infighting, some of the major factions were exhausted, while striking workers agitated for reform. It was time for the United Front to make its move, but the untimely death of Sun Yat-sen complicated the picture.

Warren Harding was very much a hands-off kind of leader. This worked well when he appointed capable cabinet secretaries, especially Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Meanwhile, America experiences the Tulsa Massacre, the worst single episode of racial violence in its history.

Gandhi returned to India during the Great War, but needed some time to reacquaint himself with the country after being away for so long. The British promise more self-rule, but the ruthless killing of hundreds of peaceful, unarmed civilians in Amritsar is for many Indians the last straw.

Mohandas Gandhi went to South Africa to represent an Indian business in a legal dispute. He stayed for 23 years, practicing law, advocating for equal rights for Indians, and developing his theory of resistance, which he called satyagraha.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, astronomers had some idea of the size and shape of our galaxy, though the consensus was that the galaxy represented the entirety of the Universe. But in the decades that followed, it became clear that the Universe was much more.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the younger generation of nationalists had become impatient with its elders' polite political agitation and sought ways to increase the pressure on the British to grant Indians more autonomy.

Britain's control over India was not the main reason the UK rose to become the superpower of the 19th century, but the wealth extracted from India preserved British supremacy for decades longer than otherwise would have been possible, but at a terrible cost to the Indians.

In 1858, the British government took direct control over India. This was supposed to cure the injustices of Company administration, but life in India grew worse, not better.

India is one of the world's oldest nations. In the early 18th century, it was the world's largest economy. By the end of that century, it was entirely under the control of a foreign multinational corporation.

In the two years since the Armistice, virtually nothing had gone right in the United States. In 1920, voters chose the candidate who promised a return to normalcy.

By 1923, inflation was raging in Germany, and so was the right wing.

When reparations payments first came due in 1921, the German economy was in bad shape and the government resisted payment, while the German right opposed paying them at all.

Germany receives the Treaty of Versailles and is given the choice of accepting the treaty as it stands, or restarting the war.

Imposing an indemnity on the defeated enemy after a war was a longstanding practice. At the Paris Peace Conference, reparations were supposed to be something more just and civilized: a charge for losses to civilians during the German occupation of Belgium and France.

The new democratic German government believed they could get a generous peace deal from the Allies. They were wrong.

After the abdication/removal of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany was declared a republic. But what kind of republic?

With the bloodshed seemingly unending, the Lloyd George government and the Irish Republic strike an agreement.

The conflict in Ireland grows more bitter, culminating in 1920's Bloody Sunday.

On January 21, 1919, the first Dáil Éireann met in Dublin and declared itself the parliament of an Irish Republic. That same day, IRA fighters in County Tipperary stole 168 pounds of gelignite, killing the two police officers who were guarding it.  

As Woodrow Wilson recovered from his stroke, the effort to gain Senate approval for the Treaty of Versailles floundered, and the US government was without a leader.

As hard as it was to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, Woodrow Wilson returned home to an even greater challenge: winning Senate approval of the treaty.

At the same time as the "Red Scare," the USA was experiencing the worst racial violence in its history. Hundreds were killed. Some claimed, without evidence, that the Bolsheviks were behind it.

Labor unrest, racial violence, and anarchist bombs were blowing up across the USA in 1919, making many people wonder if the Bolsheviks were behind it all.

Political violence in Mexico tapers off after the new constitution comes into effect, although Venustiano Carranza will not give up power willingly.

The technological end economic changes wrought by the Great War will have major impacts even on nations that remained neutral.