Historical events that changed our world

 Name: Asif Iqbal

ID: 23301520

Section: M35

Introduction

History is a topic that is familiar to most of us. It may be because we had to study it for hours on end for our exams in school, listened to stories from our grandparents about significant historical events during their lifetime, or were avid readers of history books. Many of my peers, including myself, did not like the way we were taught about history in our classrooms, it felt dull and boring, and the rote memorization of dates and names of people was painful, to say the least, or maybe we were too naive to comprehend the situations about which we were discussing. But in recent years, mainly during the pandemic, the topic of learning history became one of my favorite ways to spend my time and I could actually enjoy learning about this important without any stress of performing well in exams. In this blog, I’ll try to outline a few historical events of the past century that have shaped our global geopolitics, technology, and our experience of life.

Impact of history on our lives

As history is a topic that has a subjective element to it, it is bound to have different groups of people who will have their own observations, interpretations, and conclusions about the same major event that has occurred in the past. A new student of history might immediately blame Mao Zedong for the millions of lives that were lost due to his policies regarding the Great Leap Forward, but an experienced Chinese historian, who has closely studied this issue from different perspectives for decades, might hold a different opinion. Two experts with opposing views on a subject matter can argue for hours about whose version of the depictions of a controversial historical event is more accurate. A young child who has been brought up by his family members to hate a certain ethnic group will most likely carry on this hatred with him or her well into adulthood. Therefore, we can see the level of impact that certain events have had on our cultural norms, psyche, and our way of thinking.

The two world wars

It cannot be stressed enough how impactful these two wars were in molding the state of many nations on Earth. Austria, a landlocked German-speaking nation in Central Europe was not on favorable terms in the early 1900s with various nations across Europe, who all wanted to show their superiority in several aspects. By 1914, Europe was the flashpoint for tension and military rivalry between numerous countries. And then finally, this tension reached its boiling point when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serb in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This plunged the continent of Europe and its colonies across the world into an unsettling war for four years, after which the geography of many parts of the world was altered. 

Germany, a nation that was on the losing side of WW1, felt that it was deeply humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles as one of it had to pay 32 billion gold marks (US$33 billion at the time) to cover civilian damages.  This and many other factors led to the rise of fascism and Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany. Hitler’s vision included expanding its territory to accommodate the Aryan race which ultimately caused him to start World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. And then, almost like a ripple effect, this deadly war spread to almost all parts of the globe. It ended when the last of the Axis forces, Japan, surrendered after the use of an Atomic in two of its cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soon after the end of the deadliest war in human history, the United Nations was formed, which to this day has continued its noble work of trying to bring peace to areas of the world that are in conflict, provide food and shelter to refugees and many other social sectors to improve the lives of all of us.

Image of Allied forces landing in Normandy, France, and pushing the Germans back.

The space race 

After the end of World War 2, the world was plunged again into a different kind of war, the Cold War. It comprised the two superpowers of the world at that time, the United States of America and the Soviet Union to battle for global supremacy, a competition to see whose economic policies and forms of government the rest of the world would follow, namely capitalism versus communism. And within this tug of war, where both of these were trying to outperform each other on the global stage, a new frontier caught their eyes: space. And thus began the race to send humans into outer space. It was the Soviet Union that sent the first artificial satellite into space, Sputnik 1, the first animal, and also the first human, Yuri Gagarin into space. But ultimately, it was understood that the goal was to send humans to the moon and the first nation to do that would “win” this race. And it was the Americans who would do that with their Apollo missions program and it was the Apollo 11 which landed the first humans on the moon. This race gave us artificial satellites which have enabled the invention of many electronics which we use in our daily lives such as satellite televisions, maps on our phones, and communication technology. It has also vastly improved our understanding of the cosmos.

Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. walks on the surface of the moon, on July 30, 1969, with seismograph equipment that he just set up.

The technological revolution

The first operational electronic digital computer in the United States was developed by Army Ordnance to compute World War II ballistic firing tables. The first all-electric computing machine was proposed by physicist John Mauchly in 1942 and was completed in 1945. This was the ENIAC, an acronym for Electronic, Numerical Integrator And Computer. Since then, inventions in the sector of information and communication technology have only been on the rise. From semiconductors and then transistors to electronic ships, the use of these devices in our electronics is increasing with each passing day. Since the start of the late 1970s, the use of personal computers or, simply PCs has transformed our lives. With multiple software and hardware companies being established in that period, the competition also developed good deals for customers. And with each update, the user interface kept getting better and this led to a certain inventor developing the first smartphone which basically enabled us to carry mini-computers in our pockets. And that has allowed our daily activities to be more efficient and productive, with the proper use of technology.

The ENIAC.

Conclusion 

Thus, we can deduce that events that have gone by in the past definitely play a monumental role in our present and will continue to do in the near future. And especially now in the digital age, information is widely available to us, so be it watching videos about such events on YouTube, or flipping through a history magazine, we can all ponder about these turning points in the course of our history and formed this world the way we know it today  

About the author:

Asif Iqbal was born and raised in Dhaka. He attended Maple Leaf International School for his O-levels and A-levels. He is currently a freshman at BRAC University, studying in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He likes reading, cubing, and playing chess in his free time and also volunteers for different social causes and hopes to leave this world a bit better than he found it.