20th C Ground Breaking Moments
20 Ground breaking Moments of 20th Century
This course will, in each session, look at a particular person, invention or occurrence in detail and discuss what impact it had on the development of 20th century society, what kind of changes were brought about and why. Course participants are encouraged to add to the research subjects and will, hopefully, involve themselves in a lively discussion.
We shall meet every 1st and 3rd Friday at 3 pm on ZOOM, beginning on FRIDAY the 3rd of September. The course will take about 10 months to a year to complete.
If you are interested in joining us, please contact the Group Leader by Clicking on the "To Send a Message" Icon
I shall be happy to answer any questions you might have.
COURSE CONTENT:
1. Henry Ford and the automobile
2. Women gain the right to vote in the UK (1928) (leading to feminist movements from 1960s onwards..)
3. Programmable computer (1936)
4. Medical breakthroughs: vaccine for tuberculosis(1927)/penicillin use (1942)/first organ transplant(1954)/heart transplant (1967)/invention of pacemaker(1958)/chemotherapy treatment(1956)
5) Oppenheim and the atom bomb
6) The holocaust
7) Frank MacNamara and the credit card revolution (1950)
8) Bill Hayley and Elvis Presley and the invention of Pop Music
9) Development of the contraceptive pill (1960)
10) First human in space (Yuri Gagarin, 1961) (followed by Neil Armstrong in1969 )
11) Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963)( Racial issues….)
12) First email sent (1971)
13) DNA testing and sequencing (1977)
14) The construction and demolition of the Berlin wall (1989) and the rise and fall of communism
15) Scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web (1989)
16) The Emergence of China
17) Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of Islamism ( later Osama bin Laden, ISIS and others)
18) The rise and rise of Artificial Intelligence
19) Re-education through political correctness
20) Reaching for the stars