# most significant single event in the 20th century **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021 "2019-10-19T23:46:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/21 "2019-10-20T23:41:43Z")
I’ll go with: The appointment of Adolf Hitler to Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg. People forget that Hitler came to power via appointment, not election, not revolution. A bunch of conservatives - who thought they could control Hitler - talked Hindenberg into appointing Hitler. And that led directly to WW2, and many things that occurred afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/22 "2019-10-21T00:16:10Z")
I’ll go with the invention of semiconductors in 1949. Wars come and go; this technology changed everything. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/23 "2019-10-21T00:33:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m also going to have to go with the Moon Landing. Yes, there were a bunch of other things that led up to it, but then, that’s true of any event in history. And yes, it probably would have happened eventually one way or the other, but then, if Archduke Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated, some other event was bound to set off the powderkeg, instead. > > But anyone, anywhere in the world, can point up to the most prominent object in the night sky, and say “Humans have been there”. Sure but… and then, what ? It didn’t really teach us anything new or change anything for the people on the ground. It was essentially a hybrid dick waving contest slash threat of total annihilation. Me, I’d nominate the Missile Crisis - because that’s probably the tipping point that let even the maddest assholes in charge realize that maybe, just mayyyybe permanent arms race and rigid ultrajingoistic fuckery should possibly maybe stop somewhere and both superpowers suddenly started opening up inroads towards détente and disarmament (albeit with a temporary stop at “a whole bunch of brutal proxy wars” first). ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/24 "2019-10-21T02:35:37Z")
> [@survinga](#): > > I’ll go with: The appointment of Adolf Hitler to Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg. > > People forget that Hitler came to power via appointment, not election, not revolution. A bunch of conservatives - who thought they could control Hitler - talked Hindenberg into appointing Hitler. And that led directly to WW2, and many things that occurred afterwards. Hitler coming to power was a lot like Vanilla Ice dominating the music charts. If he hadn’t done it, inevitably someone very similar to him would have. World War II was inevitable when the gratuitously harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles were forced on Germany two decades earlier. The atomic bomb is a good answer. It was unprecedented in a way that a Russian revolution and an assassinated archduke really weren’t. My answer is, arming airplanes in World War I. Airplanes were wood-and-canvas novelties up until that point, and their initial military use was for reconnaissance. The first pilots from opposing sides actually waved at each other and went about their business, until one day one of them was issued a revolver and told to shoot the other one. Mounting machine guns, figuring out how to shoot through propellers without damaging them, dropping a bomb from a plane, all this happened very quickly after the first time a pilot was issued a revolver. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/25 "2019-10-21T02:40:33Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > I’ll go with the invention of semiconductors in 1949. Wars come and go; this technology changed everything. Agreed, it changed a lot (it was actually [1947](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor)) but I think the [integrated circuit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_integrated_circuit) in 1958-59 was really the inflection point. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/26 "2019-10-21T02:44:36Z")
I’ll go with a different event during WWI - von Kluck’s turn South leading to the Battle of the Marne. I think Germany had a very good chance of fulfilling the Schlieffen plan and knocking France out of the war had the series of mistakes and brilliant French/British counterattacks not happened. It’s hard to imagine how the 20th century would have played out if WWI ends in September 2014 with a victorious Germany the primary power on the continent. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/27 "2019-10-21T03:46:26Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > My answer is, arming airplanes in World War I. Airplanes were wood-and-canvas novelties up until that point, and their initial military use was for reconnaissance. The first pilots from opposing sides actually waved at each other and went about their business, until one day one of them was issued a revolver and told to shoot the other one. Nah, they’d been throwing bricks at each other and cutting each other’s paths in dangerous fashion before it got to guns. And I’m pretty sure they escalated on their own account, not due to orders. Ultimately it’s just an example of brutalization of warfare as a conflict draws longer. It did all happen very fast past the first shots fired though. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/28 "2019-10-21T03:46:38Z")
Establishing the link between smoking and heart and lung disease. The drive to reduce smoking may be the biggest medical advancement ever, in terms of lives saved. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/29 "2019-10-21T04:22:43Z")
Something that DIDN’T happen: the soldier whose nationality escapes me who had an opportunity to kill Hitler in WWI, and didn’t. On the medical front: Alexander Fleming goes on vacation and leaves a petri dish unwashed. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/30 "2019-10-21T12:43:47Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > I’ll go with the invention of semiconductors in 1949. Wars come and go; this technology changed everything. I would go with a related event - [the invention of the stored program architecture by von Neumann](https://www.britannica.com/technology/stored-program-concept). Wars come and go, but this was the beginning of the next phase of human evolution. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/31 "2019-10-21T15:26:54Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > I’d go along with the shot that killed Archduke Fran Ferdinand but not directly because it led to what you might feel was the inevitable carnage of WW1, rather because it led to certain events during WW1 that were not predictable but have had continuing effects throughout the century. Around 1980 there was a convention of newspaper editors (remember newspapers?) and just for fun they had a contest, what is the most startling headline imaginable. The winner was: **Archduke Ferdinand found alive** _WWI all a mistake_ ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/32 "2019-10-21T15:29:58Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > I’m going with the Russian Revolution. If Russia had not become communist China would not have either (would it have happened anywhere?), and can you imagine the 20th century without communism? I think the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor would be one of the critical events. Had the Japanese not done that then things might have changed substantially with respect to WWII. Even had the US gotten into the war later down the line it would have made a huge difference. Had we not gotten in at all I think the impact would have been even greater. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/33 "2019-10-21T18:49:25Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > It is not unreasonable to view 20thC as one war with short regional outbreaks of peace. You swiped that from Toland or someone. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/34 "2019-10-21T19:07:27Z")
It is hard to pick from [these 20 times we almost started World War Last,](http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm) but if I had to chose it would be November 9th, 1979, when a computer exercise tape caused a panic: > [@](#): > > At 8:50 a.m. on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD HQ, SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in a full scale attack on the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes were launched, including the President’s National Emergency Airborne Command Post, though without the President! The President had not been informed, perhaps because he could not be found. > No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet intentions or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/35 "2019-10-21T21:00:11Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Got _my_ vote. I’d offer the attack on Pearl Harbor as an alternate because it led to a huge expansion of American industrial capacity and the development of nuclear weapons and yet unlike the other key players in WW2, the U.S. suffered virtually no damage at all within its territory. Canada got similar benefits but on a far far smaller scale. I suppose Australia did as well. Everyone else got clobbered to varying degrees from minor to total. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/36 "2019-10-21T21:04:20Z")
Invention of the desktop computer. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/37 "2019-10-21T21:09:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Got _my_ vote. I’d offer the attack on Pearl Harbor as an alternate because it led to a huge expansion of American industrial capacity and the development of nuclear weapons and yet unlike the other key players in WW2, the U.S. suffered virtually no damage at all within its territory. Canada got similar benefits but on a far far smaller scale. I suppose Australia did as well. Everyone else got clobbered to varying degrees from minor to total. I actually think that in the case of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, it really wouldn’t have changed things that much had he not been assassinated. I think that the clash of European powers was inevitable, and something would have set it off. If not that day, then one day for sure. It’s why I, like you, picked Pearl Harbor as I think that this was a real pivot point. I’m not convinced that the US would have joined the war had we not been attacked, and certainly we wouldn’t have been as fervent in pursuing it as we were. That event really crystallized and galvanized the American people, putting the majority firmly behind making the sacrifices necessary to pursue the war to the upmost. Without that, at best I see the US sort of half heartedly joining in sometime further down the road, or the allies being overwhelmed or basically giving up and the US having no real option to join at all. I think that the attack on Pearl Harbor is what lead to the world we have today, with the US in the position it’s in. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/38 "2019-10-21T21:58:32Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Something that DIDN’T happen: the soldier whose nationality escapes me who had an opportunity to kill Hitler in WWI, and didn’t. > > On the medical front: Alexander Fleming goes on vacation and leaves a petri dish unwashed. Which led to the discovery of penicillin, for anyone who may not have known. The measles vaccine was another; eradicating that disease alone cut the childhood death rate in half, not so much because measles is so dangerous in itself but because the virus inactivates the immune system to varying degrees for as long as 2 years afterwards. (I’m surprised that nobody has been snarky and mentioned anything to do with OJ Simpson, or when that soccer player tore off her top and ran around the field in her bra after her team won.) ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/39 "2019-10-21T22:16:18Z")
I was going to go with Archduke Franz Ferdinand as well because none of the subsequent events mentioned by other posters would have happened at all without this one event. But then you could also argue that it was the wrong turn by the Archduke’s driver moments before that which took the car into the path of Gavrilo Princip or instead of that how about the formation of the Black Hand Gang or the means of arming them or some other earlier event which bought them into being? If we therefore accept that Europe was going to fall into war regardless how about the decisions that Germany had taken in the early stages of WWI? The decision to move into France via Belgium has been described as possibly the biggest single mistake in human history because it bought the British into a war they might have otherwise stayed clear of. Germany might have gained a quick success (or failure) in France, won (or lost) some land and the pressures in Europe would have been eased (perhaps) and the rest of the 20th century would have played out completely differently including WWII, the rise of Communism, the development of Nuclear weapons, American interventionism, the entire space race, the advent of computing, the proliferation of media, and the entirety of western culture after 1945. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021/40 "2019-10-21T23:24:02Z")
One other item for consideration. 4 October 1957. A beach-ball sized hunk of metal with batteries and a transmitter that went ‘beep-beep-beep’ suddenly changed the world and ushered in the space race, the moon mission, and eventual cooperation in space. Sputnik I. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-significant-single-event-in-the-20th-century/842021.md?page=3)