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 sort of morality which the priests inculcate is a very subtle policy, far finer than the politicians’, and the world is very successfully ruled by them as the policemen.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

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    “So ‘a bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.”
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    —Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)