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:

    “Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviæ; at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The great wars of the present age are the effects of the study of history.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “That cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.”
    —Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

    “Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul a people.”
    —Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)