"Most Impactful Century of History?" Topic

What do you think the most impactful century has been in history thus far?

I think many would argue that the 20th Century is due to it's recent nature and the devastating world wars. That might be a good option.

I would suggest the 11th Century is a good candidate. The end of the Viking Age, the rise of the Rus, William and the Norman ascendency, the great schism, the fading of the Byzantines, the beginning of the Crusades, the end of the Tiwanku empire, the rise of the Seljuks, and the Apex of the Song, Chola and Fatimids.

It seems a very impactful century who's events reverberate even to our own time.

I guess I'll have to go with the vanilla answer and say it's still the 20th century. I don't think any other era in human history witnessed that degree of fundamental change in lifestyles. I'm not even thinking of political or military developments, though of course those were enormously consequential. But the industrial revolution was the single biggest change in human societies ever. We used to be mostly agrarian, in our day to day experiences. The majority of human beings lived in rural areas. That's no longer true today. And on the technological front, everything we can do today would just look like straight up sorcery to past generations.

There's a huge range of historical turmoil to choose from in previous centuries, but taken on the whole it just doesn't compare to the transformations of the 20th.

The 20th Century went from horse and buggy to manned space flight, from wire connected telephone to cell phones, and from a foot and horse military to a mechanized military. IMO can't get any more impactful than that.

Jim

20th Century. Women's rights, two world wars, space exploration, and nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons alone should do it.

Impactful? 20th century. World spanning wars (not one, but TWO), more technological advances/changes than any other time in history, probably more societal upheavals than any other time.

18th.

France looses its monarchy.

Global trade starts to appear.

North America is cleared of French by the British, before a civil war leads to an independent America, which strengthens the Liberal-Anglo-American outlook that colours the world now.

Without the 18th you don't get the rise of Prussia and a unified Germany.

Russia comes to the fore in eastern Europe.

I am a bit peculiar towards the 19th century. It may not be all that impressive military-wise (though there were the Napoleonic wars in the early part), but the scientific, technological, political and social developments really paved the road towards the 20th century.

Natural sciences developed quite significantly during the century, providing for example a strong basis for physics and chemistry. And on the field of biology, Darwin came up with the evolutionary theory.

Technological progress may seem slow from our perspective, but gradually it made the world a smaller place, as various corners of the world became connected by railroads, steamships, telegraph and international postal system. Meanwhile, explorers charted out the last unknown regions of the world.

On the ideological front, nationalism spread big time throughout Europe, while the industrialisation coincided with the birth of socialistic and communistic ideologies. This century also saw the last expansion of European colonialism into Africa and Asia, while most of the American continent cast their colonial chains (independent US in the meanwhile grows from a relatively small actor into a potential powerhouse).

The rate of change during the 19th century may have been a fair bit slower than during the 20th century, but there is still quite a shift in many aspects during the century.

Without the century before, you don't get the next one. But only the 20th century (of those completed so far) could have ended the sequence, and didn't.

Why not much earlier? – the fall of Rome and the formation of proto-Europe; the first settlements/city states with agriculture as a basis for civilisation, etc. Of course, for unrecorded history – the first appearance of man.

1450 – 1550, the europeans found amerika, that changed anything.

Ask me again in four or five hundred years about any recent century. We don't have the perspective yet--even, I think, on the 18th Century. Further back, my first thoughts for 100-year periods would not begin on Year something 01 and end on something 00.

Go from about 50 BC to 49 AD, and you get the unification of the Mediterranean world under an absolute monarch, and the foundation of Christianity. Go from, say, 1450 to 1549, and you get the discovery of the New World, moveable type, the rise of Protestantism and nationalism and some of the foundations of modern science--not to mention art.

From late 15th to late 16th sees massive changes in all aspects of European life, and begins the 500 year dominance of the world by European nations.

20th Century. Flight, Internet, Space Exploration, Computers, TV, Nuclear Power.

Counting from whatever century it happens to be…

the previous one.

I'd say the first century where Homo Sapiens managed to take control of his environment. Can get much more impactful than that.

The eighteenth century. The Age of Enlightenment, development of the nation state, the ndustrial revolution and a curious form of political rule called 'democracy'.

Science, nationalism and industrialisation transformed our world out of all recognition, although based on current trends, democracy may turn out to be a wierd historical abberation.

The century of the Mongols – but not in a good way

20th – Splitting the atom gave us the ability to utterly destroy civilization. The ultimate impact.

As a Christian, I would have to say the first century.

Let's re-visit this topic in about five years.

B

Probably the 21st Century when we finally destroy ourselves, because we are just too stupid as a race to survive.

Perhaps the 1500's. Many researchers believe that the potato's arrival in northern Europe spelled an end to famine there. More than that, as the historian William H. McNeill has argued, the potato led to empire: "By feeding rapidly growing populations, [it] permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most of the world between 1750 and 1950." The potato, in other words, fueled the rise of the West. From the Smithsonian Magazine.

Impacting us as a whole world, probably the 19th century. Impacting Europe probably the 1st century BC rise of the Roman's. Impacting Asia probably Qin's wars of unification 3rd century BC? Impacting the Americas the 15the century age of Exploration…….

1450 – 1550, the europeans found amerika, that changed anything.

That would be exactly my choice, too.
Not only America, but the sea access towards Asia, linking Atlantic and India/China.

The exchange of animals, plants and germs between these two populations, which meant doom and death for many civilizations and individuals.

Other aspects are the invention of the press (peraps the most important single event), circumvention of the globe (twice and a half, in one case), the reformation, the heliocentric view and the transformation from a feudal military system and states towards standing infantry centered armies with field artillery and bastion style fortresses and the tax system necessary to bear these – not to forget the establisment of the Habsburgs as heirs of Burgund, Spain and what remains of the Imperial power, in opposition to the Valois of France or the Ottomans. Did I mention the rise of Russia?

Imho no other century saw so much of a change on so many levels. I did not even mention architecture or arts, with da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphal or Dürer.

I know that most of this is centered on Europe, but it was exactly this change that created the European domination for a century or three.