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:

    “But the main things about a man are his eyes and his feet. He should be able to see the world and go after it.”
    —Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)

    “... the trouble is that most people in this country think that we can stay out of wars in other parts of the world. Even if we stay out of it and save our own skins, we cannot escape the conditions which will undoubtedly exist in other parts of the world and which will react against us.... We are all of us selfish ... and if we can save our own skins, the rest of the world can go. The best we can do is to realize nobody can save his own skin alone. We must all hang together.”
    —Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)

    “If her horny feet protrude, they come
    To show how cold she is, and dumb.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “At last, after innumerable glamorous and frightful years, mankind approaches a war which is totally predictable from beginning to end.”
    —Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)