| Year | Event |
| 1900 | Boxer uprising in China |
| 1900 | Max Planck proposes quantum theory |
| 1900 | Publication of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams |
| 1901 | Discovery of principal blood groups |
| 1901 | Establishment of Commonwealth of Australia |
| 1901 | Guglielmo Marconi transmits wireless signals across the Atlantic |
| 1901 | Nobel Prize first awarded |
| 1902 | Enrico Caruso makes first gramophone record |
| 1903 | Panama Canal Zone leased to U.S.A. |
| 1903 | Wright brothers make their first flight |
| 1903 | Henry Ford founds motor company |
| 1903 | Publication of Bertrand Russell's Principles of Mathematics |
| 1904 | Beginning of Russo-Japanese War (to 1905) |
| 1904 | Construction of first engine-powered lifeboat |
| 1905 | Revolution in Russia against Tsar |
| 1905 | Albert Einstein presents special theory of relativity |
| 1906 | Major earthquake in San Francisco |
| 1906 | Foundation of Rolls-Royce Ltd in England |
| 1906 | Death of Henrik Ibsen |
| 1907 | Dominion of New Zealand established |
| 1907 | Cubist exhibition in Paris |
| 1908 | Young Turks revolution |
| 1908 | Robert Baden-Powell founds Boy Scout movement |
| 1908 | First Model T Ford made |
| 1908 | Great meteorite falls in Siberia |
| 1909 | Sergei Diaghilev launches Ballets Russes |
| 1909 | Robert Peary reaches North Pole |
| 1909 | Louis Blériot makes first cross-Channel flight |
| 1910 | Foundation of Union of South Africa |
| 1910 | Beginning of Mexican revolution (to 1917) |
| 1910 | Annexation of Korea by Japan |
| 1910 | Constitutional Crisis in Britain |
| 1910 | Paul Ehrlich invents salvarsan as cure for syphilis |
| 1910 | Death of Leo Tolstoy |
| 1911 | Chinese Revolution |
| 1911 | Ernest Rutherford propounds theory of atomic structure |
| 1911 | Roald Amundsen first to reach South Pole |
| 1912 | Beginning of Balkan Wars (to 1913) |
| 1912 | Sinking of RMS Titanic |
| 1912 | Republic of China established under Sun Yat-sen |
| 1912 | Victor Hess discovers cosmic rays |
| 1914 | First Charlie Chaplin films |
| 1914 | Opening of Panama Canal |
| 1914 | Beginning of First World War (to 1918) |
| 1916 | Albert Einstein presents general theory of relativity |
| 1916 | Battle of the Somme |
| 1916 | Irish rebellion (to 1921) |
| 1917 | U.S. Expeditionary Force in Europe |
| 1917 | Russian Revolution |
| 1917 | Civil war in Russia (to 1922) |
| 1917 | Balfour Declaration promises Jews a home in Palestine |
| 1918 | Fourteen Points statement by President Wilson |
| 1918 | End of First World War |
| 1918 | Women over age of 30 given the right to vote in Britain |
| 1919 | May 4th movement in China |
| 1919 | Foundation of Soviet Republic |
| 1919 | Amritsar massacre in India |
| 1919 | Bauhaus movement established in Germany |
| 1919 | John Alcock and Arthur Brown make first Atlantic Air Crossing |
| 1919 | First woman MP in House of Commons (Lady Astor) |
| 1919 | Adolf Hitler founds National Socialist German Worker's Party |
| 1919 | Spartacist rising in Berlin crushed |
| 1919 | League of Nations established |
| 1920 | Radio broadcasting begins |
| 1921 | Treaty partitions Ireland |
| 1922 | USSR established |
| 1922 | Benito Mussolini in power in Italy |
| 1922 | Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate insulin |
| 1922 | BBC makes first regular broadcasts |
| 1922 | Tomb of Tutankhamun discovered in Egypt |
| 1923 | Munich putsch by Adolf Hitler |
| 1923 | Republic proclaimed in Turkey |
| 1923 | Major earthquake in Japan |
| 1924 | Death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin |
| 1925 | Publication of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf |
| 1926 | General strike in Britain |
| 1926 | Chiang Kai-shek leads movement for reunification of China |
| 1926 | John Logie Baird demonstrates television |
| 1927 | Talking pictures begin |
| 1927 | Charles Lindbergh's first solo flight across Atlantic |
| 1927 | Duke Ellington begins playing at the Cotton Club |
| 1928 | Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin |
| 1928 | Walt Disney introduces Mickey Mouse |
| 1929 | Wall Street crash |
| 1929 | Lateran Treaty establishes Vatican as state |
| 1930 | Amy Johnson's solo flight, England to Australia |
| 1931 | Creation of republic of Spain |
| 1931 | Japanese occupy Manchuria |
| 1931 | Empire State Building built in New York |
| 1932 | Foundation of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia |
| 1932 | Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia (to 1935) |
| 1933 | Franklin Roosevelt introduces New Deal |
| 1933 | Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany |
| 1933 | Reichstag Fire in Berlin |
| 1933 | Prohibition repealed in the U.S.A. |
| 1933 | Discovery of Polythene |
| 1934 | Long March of Chinese Communists begins (to 1935) |
| 1934 | Discovery of nuclear fission |
| 1935 | Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) |
| 1936 | Beginning of Spanish Civil War (to 1939) |
| 1936 | Anti-Comintern Pact between Japan and Germany |
| 1936 | Arab revolt in Palestine |
| 1936 | british constitutional crisis over Edward VIII |
| 1936 | John Maynard Keynes publishes his economic theory |
| 1936 | First public television transmissions in Britain |
| 1936 | Queen Mary's maiden voyage |
| 1936 | Crystal Palace destroyed by fire |
| 1937 | War between Japan and China begins |
| 1937 | Pablo Picaso paints 'Guernica' |
| 1937 | Golden Gate Bridge completed in San Francisco |
| 1937 | Hindenburg zeppelin destroyed by fire in U.S.A. |
| 1937 | Jet engine tested |
| 1938 | Germany occupies Austria |
| 1938 | Munich Agreement |
| 1938 | Discovery of nylon |
| 1938 | Chester Carlson makes first xerographic print |
| 1939 | germany invades Czechoslovakia and Poland |
| 1939 | The Second World War begins |
| 1940 | Evacuation of Dunkirk |
| 1940 | Battle of Britain |
| 1940 | Plutonium obtained by bombardment of uranium |
| 1941 | Germany invades Russia |
| 1941 | Japanese attack Pearl Harbor |
| 1941 | Death of James Joyce |
| 1941 | Orson Wells makes Citizen Cane |
| 1942 | Construction of first nuclear reactor |
| 1942 | Defeat of Germany at El Alamein |
| 1942 | U.S. defeats Japan at Battle of Midway |
| 1942 | Anglod-American landings in North Africa |
| 1943 | Surrender of German army at Stalingrad |
| 1943 | Capitulation of Italy |
| 1944 | D-Day landing in Normandy |
| 1944 | Education Act in Britain |
| 1945 | Atomic bombs dropped on Japan |
| 1945 | End of Second World War |
| 1945 | Yalta Conference |
| 1945 | Nuremberg War crimes Tribunal opens |
| 1945 | United Nations established |
| 1945 | Republic of Yugoslavia established under Tito |
| 1946 | Juan Perón in power in Argentina |
| 1946 | Civil War in China (to 1949) |
| 1946 | Civil War in Indo-China (to 1954) |
| 1946 | Construction of first electronic digital computer |
| 1947 | First supersonic flight |
| 1947 | Independence of India and Pakistan |
| 1947 | Greek Civil War (to 1949) |
| 1947 | Marshall Plan for European reconstruction |
| 1947 | Dead Sea Scrolls found in Palestine |
| 1947 | Christian Dior introduces 'New Look' |
| 1947 | Invention of the transistor |
| 1948 | Creation of State of Israel |
| 1948 | Communist rule established in Czechoslovakia |
| 1948 | Berlin airlift |
| 1948 | Formation of Organization of American States |
| 1948 | First Arab-Israeli War |
| 1948 | Creation of World Council of Churches |
| 1948 | Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi |
| 1948 | Apartheid policy begins in South Africa |
| 1948 | Creation of World Health Organization |
| 1948 | Kinsey report on sexual behaviour published |
| 1949 | Formation of NATO |
| 1949 | Communist victory in China |
| 1950 | Beginning of Korean War (to 1953) |
| 1951 | Nuclear power stations introduced |
| 1951 | Festival of Britain |
| 1951 | First turbo-jet airliner (Comet) |
| 1952 | Mau Mau rebellion begins in Kenya |
| 1952 | Military revolt in Egypt |
| 1952 | Accession of Elizabeth II of Britain |
| 1952 | Detonation of first hyrodogen bomb |
| 1953 | Death of Josef Stalin |
| 1953 | Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing conquer Mount Everest |
| 1953 | James Watson and Francis Crick show DNA molecule structure |
| 1954 | Independence of Cambodia and Laos |
| 1954 | Nationalist revolt in Algeria |
| 1954 | Nasser in power in Egypt |
| 1954 | Vietnam divided into North and South |
| 1954 | Independent Television Authority set up in Britain |
| 1955 | Formation of Warsaw Pact |
| 1955 | Enosis (Greek unity) crisis in Cyprus (to 1959) |
| 1956 | Wladyslaw Gomulka in power in Poland |
| 1956 | Soviet forces crush Hungarian revolt |
| 1956 | Contraceptive pill introduced |
| 1956 | Second Arab-Israeli War |
| 1956 | Suez Crisis |
| 1956 | Neutrino experimentally observed |
| 1956 | Rock-and-roll music era begins |
| 1957 | Independence of Ghana |
| 1957 | Treaty of Rome forms European Economic Community |
| 1957 | Launch of first satellite (Sputnik I) |
| 1957 | Civil Rights violence at Little Rock, Arkansas |
| 1958 | Fifth Republic formed in France under Charles de Gaulle |
| 1958 | Introduction of stereo recordings |
| 1959 | Fidel Castro in power after Cuban revolution |
| 1959 | First photograph of dark side of the Moon (Luna 3) |
| 1959 | First section of Britain's first motorway opened |
| 1960 | Independence of many African states |
| 1960 | Sharpeville massacre in South Africa |
| 1960 | Development of the Laser |
| 1961 | John F. Kennedy becomes U.S. President |
| 1961 | Berlin Wall built |
| 1961 | South Africa becomes republic |
| 1961 | Yuri Gagarin beomes first man in space (Vostok 1) |
| 1962 | Second Vatican Council begins (to 1965) |
| 1962 | Independence of Algeria |
| 1962 | Cuban missile crisis |
| 1963 | Assassination of John F. Kennedy |
| 1963 | Valentina Tereshkova becomes first woman in orbit |
| 1963 | The Beatles become internationally known |
| 1964 | Publication of Thoughts of Chairman Mao |
D. Crystal, The Cambridge Factfinder (Cambridge University Press, 1998)