The History of the Twentieth Century

The 1904 World's Fair helped define America in the 20th century.

Pablo Picasso begins his career in Paris, the city of the 1900 Exposition and Olympic Games. Turmoil in Morocco gives the French an opportunity to move in, but first they need to come to an understanding with the British.

Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley expounds on international courts, and argues that what we really need is an international police force.

Roosevelt tours America and runs for re-election. Ugly racial violence erupts in the South. An American citizen is kidnapped in Morocco, and somebody thought, "This would make a great movie."

The remarkable unification of Italy in the nineteenth century was complete, but the problem of uniting these disparate peoples of the peninsula, who over the course of centuries had grown accustomed to thinking of themselves as different nationalities, into one nation.

 La nascita della Italia moderna.

We return to the USA to take a look at some more issues facing President Roosevelt. Possible war crimes in the Philippines. Cuban independence. The Colombia Panama Canal. A major coal strike. And, most important, Roosevelt's prospects in the 1904 election.

After securing international recognition of his claim to the Congo, King Leopold sets to work to extract as much wealth as he can from the Congo in the most brutal ways imaginable. He is eventually exposed, but walks away a billionaire.

King Leopold II of Belgium, having decided his ambitions are far greater than the "small nation of small people" he reigns over, sets out to swindle for himself a colony in Africa.

As working class conditions seem to be getting worse instead of better, a new political movement emerges, advocating intervention on behalf of the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised.

Theodore Roosevelt becomes President and at once begins turning everything upside down. Scott Joplin writes an opera about it.

Theodore Roosevelt becomes a war hero, and Vice President of the United States. An anarchist assassin takes the life of the President, William McKinley.

Reinforcements from the Western nations turn the tide in the fight against the Boxers. But will they get to Beijing in time?

A grassroots uprising against foreigners develops in China in 1900, a result of outrage over Chinese territorial concessions and foreign missionary activity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a fault line develops in Protestantism, especially in the USA, over the role of ancient Scriptures in a modern church.

Frustrated on all fronts, the British mobilize the enormous resources of their Empire in a bid to defeat the Boers once and for all.

The British get the war they want with the Boer republics in South Africa, but the Boers turn out to be more than the British can handle. At first.

Britain is still very much a class-bound society at home and a military power abroad. A look at the state of the Empire in the late 19th century, with a special emphasis on Ireland and South Africa.

What are cathode rays? X-rays? Radioactivity? How old is the Earth? Inquiring minds want to know. Also, in an age when only men can vote, the greatest scientist of the time is a woman. And Polish. Take that, haters!

France at the turn of the century was rocked by the Dreyfus Affair, where an innocent soldier was convicted of treason, and the Army went to incredible lengths in its refusal to acknowledge what became increasingly obvious.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

As relations between the Americans and the Filipinos degenerate into open combat, the war to liberate Cuba becomes a war to subjugate the Philippines.

...and imbued with firm confidence in Divine Providence, we hereby mutually bind ourselves to support this Declaration with our lives, our fortunes, and with our most sacred possession, our Honor....

So, are the US and the Filipino rebels allies or not? When the US and Spain start doing deals, there are no Filipinos at the table.

Three documents referenced in this week's podcast on the Spanish-American War: The letter from the Spanish ambassador, McKinley's message to Congress, Joint Congressional Resolution.