The History of the Twentieth Century

Charles Darwin himself noted that the development of civilization had "stopped" evolution by natural selection within our own human species. This led others to speculate on whether society could purposefully direct human evolution.

The state of Tennessee had made it a criminal offense to teach evolution in the public schools. The trial of John Scopes became the most famous court case in America of the period.

If the first great scientific debate of the 1920s was over the size and composition of the Universe, the second was over the structure and nature of the atom. It turned out that the common-sense rules of our everyday world don't apply at the atomic level.

The French know the Roaring Twenties as the "crazy years," when Coco Chanel was the queen of fashion and Dada art was making everyone scratch their heads.

Music has always been a part of theatre, from opera to vaudeville. But in the 1920s, the first true stage musicals appeared.

New York City grew to be the most populous city in the world in the 1920s, as well as home to the world's tallest buildings and the world's champion smart alecks.

In the early twentieth century, France had the world's largest motion picture industry, but it was soon eclipsed by that of the USA, a larger nation where movies were extremely popular. By 1920, 8 out of 10 motion pictures made in the world came from the United States.

The vibrant cultural shifts in 1920s Germany marked a departure from imperial traditions. Soldiers found intimacy through unconventional means, reshaping societal norms around sexuality. The Bauhaus movement revolutionized design and cinematography in the Weimar Republic, influencing future architecture. The themes of 'I Am a Camera' and its adaptations reflect the complexities of Weimar culture amid moral chaos. Lastly, Bertolt Brecht's impactful works underscore the struggles of artists living under political oppression.

Churchill was out of Parliament for a couple of years following the 1922 general election. When he returned, it was as a Conservative and as chancellor of the exchequer in the new Tory government of Stanley Baldwin.

History seemed to teach that the gold standard was the key to prosperity. But the postwar world was a different place. Economist John Maynard Keynes dismissed the gold standard as a "barbarous relic."