History of Europe - World Wars and Cold War

World Wars and Cold War

See also: Twentieth century

The "short twentieth century", from 1914 to 1991, sees the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War, including the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and of the Soviet Union. These disastrous events spell the end of the European Colonial empires and initiated widespread decolonisation. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 to 1991 leaves the United States as the world's single superpower and triggers the fall of the Iron Curtain, the reunification of Germany and an accelerated process of a European integration that is ongoing.

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Famous quotes containing the words world, wars, cold and/or war:

    The true poet is called to take in the splendor of the world and for that reason will always be inclined to praise rather than to find fault.
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    Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold winters.
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    There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.
    Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)