These moments from history changed everything! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for key discoveries, eras, technological achievements, and watershed moments that reshaped civilizations.
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00:00 The internet and the information age it sparked has created a seismic shift that completely changed how we live and communicate.
00:08 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for key discoveries, eras, technological achievements, and watershed moments that reshaped civilization.
00:17 Everything that our culture and our civilization depends on starts with Gutenberg's invention.
00:28 The unthinkable happened today. The World Trade Center, both towers, gone.
00:33 The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon radically shifted geopolitics forever.
00:38 In the wake of the end of the Cold War, the West had shifted into the complacency of a 90s boom.
00:43 One renowned philosopher even called the era, quote, "the end of history." Yeah, not so much.
00:49 The U.S. and its allies soon invaded Afghanistan.
00:52 By liberating Dana, we free the local populace from the influence of the Taliban.
00:57 They're able to go about their daily lives.
00:58 A smaller coalition followed up with another invasion into Iraq, and decades of conflict and turmoil ensued and are still ongoing.
01:06 9/11 had so many repercussions on both individual lives and collective world history.
01:12 The job of a president is to protect the American people from harm.
01:16 And some presidents don't need to worry about that.
01:19 And some do. And it turns out I was one that did.
01:22 Number nine, the Holocaust. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
01:28 I saw the word Auschwitz. The doors opened. Terror hit us immediately.
01:32 In the modern era where an estimated one in five young Americans don't believe the Holocaust happened, this statement still rings true.
01:40 We've seen entertainers like Kanye West share anti-Semitic tropes.
01:43 Even former President Trump had dinner with a prominent Holocaust denier.
01:48 The Holocaust during World War Two was Germany's monstrous, systematic, state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of Jewish people, as well as other groups the Nazis targeted.
01:59 Hitler ordered a rounding up of Jews, as well as other groups he hated, including gay people, Roma gypsies, and people with disabilities.
02:07 It taught the world that turning a blind eye to human rights abuses has horrific consequences.
02:12 The UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, after the war.
02:19 Number eight, the Great Depression. In 1929, a stock market crash on Wall Street spread economic contagion around the world.
02:28 Wherever you looked, boys and girls were men and women were wondering what was ever going to happen to them.
02:35 The Great Depression was a moment of great change for the world.
02:38 Widespread economic suffering and hunger led people to rethink the role of government in their lives.
02:44 I remember looking behind the markets, the garbage cans, looking for, like, head of lettuce.
02:53 Some, like the US with the New Deal, turned to a variety of governmental social welfare systems.
02:59 Governments were acknowledged to have responsibility to create a social safety net.
03:04 Other countries turned to the lures of totalitarianism and fascism.
03:08 They used force and terror to rebuild their empires.
03:12 This tension between authoritarianism and egalitarianism still defines geopolitics in the 21st century.
03:20 Number seven, the American Revolution.
03:22 All of a sudden you have this group of people who are going, "No, we're not part of some great chain of being with the king at the top of it.
03:29 We are free people. We can vote for who we want to have in charge."
03:33 When Britain's colonies in the New World rebelled and achieved independence,
03:37 it was one of the first instances of a colonial nation defeating their mother country.
03:42 A new time for humankind, which is that we can be free and that we can make decisions for ourselves.
03:50 More importantly, the newly formed United States brought an ancient form of governance back to life.
03:55 As a democratic republic in a world of empires,
03:58 the United States represented a major blow to the mystique of aristocrats, emperors, kings, and despots.
04:05 Though America's democracy was and is deeply flawed,
04:09 it was one of the first modern instances of government by and for the people.
04:13 If you review our Declaration of Independence, it has those beautiful words about all men are created equal
04:19 and governments are formed among men to represent the people.
04:23 It was a good statement of what we were all about.
04:25 It inspired a similar revolution in France and represented a beacon of hope for oppressed peoples.
04:31 Today, civilizations around the world have turned to republican and parliamentary democracies.
04:37 Number six - assassination of Archduke Ferdinand II.
04:41 "From a pistol shot at Sarajevo, the first of the great modern world wars exploded."
04:46 It's hard to imagine that the death of a single man could reshape an entire century.
04:51 That's exactly what happened, however, when Serbian nationalists assassinated the heir to their Austro-Hungarian throne.
04:58 The killing triggered a series of alliances and dragged the world into war.
05:02 "Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
05:04 Russia, Serbia's ally, mobilizes its forces and as a result, Germany declares war on Russia.
05:08 Russia's ally, France, then mobilizes its forces, which causes Germany to declare war on France."
05:13 The Great War changed the map of Europe and the world in innumerable ways.
05:18 The aftermath of World War I over the decades also contributed enormously to World War II,
05:23 which battered the planet and led to tens of millions of deaths.
05:27 "Essentially what happened is that you create such an unstable economy and so much animosity between nations
05:34 that you're just seeding the field of war to rise and grow again."
05:39 In the aftermath of the Second Great War, European empires fell.
05:43 For the first time in centuries, the world entered a period of decolonization and self-rule.
05:49 5. Columbus discovers America
05:52 August 1492.
05:55 Italian mariner Christopher Columbus prepares to sail west from southern Spain.
05:59 The age of exploration began with the invention of ships that could traverse oceans and circumnavigate the globe.
06:06 In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian commissioned by the Spanish, "discovered" the New World.
06:13 There were already people living here for millennia, and he wasn't even the first European to visit.
06:18 The Norse had settled Newfoundland almost 500 years before.
06:22 The European discovery of two new western continents dramatically changed the course of human history.
06:28 Dozens of indigenous civilizations eventually fell from European diseases, wars of conquest, and persecution.
06:35 They were replaced by French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.
06:39 Wealth was extracted, and over the centuries, countries like Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Brazil formed and grew.
06:48 4. The launch of Sputnik
06:50 "A man-made celestial body, for the first time in history, overcame terrestrial gravity and flew into space."
06:57 Less than half a century after the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, humanity began ascending objects into space.
07:04 When the Soviet Union launched their Sputnik satellite into orbit, the eyes of the world were lifted upwards to the stars.
07:10 Sputnik's technology was primitive. A rudimentary sphere with a simple radio transmitter that beeped.
07:18 The space race began, as the US and Russia competed to develop newer and better spacefaring technology.
07:24 More importantly, Sputnik was just the first of thousands of satellites sent into orbit.
07:29 Global positioning, cell phones, television, and the internet are just a few of the ways satellites are integrated into the 21st century.
07:37 Satellite surveillance and positioning are key parts of intelligence gathering and military campaigns.
07:43 Accurate weather forecasting relies on satellite surveillance.
07:46 Data from satellites are even used for crop management.
07:50 Today, the global satellite industry is a $208 billion business.
07:55 But that relatively small number belies how rapidly our dependence on satellite technology continues to expand.
08:02 Number 3. The Gutenberg Printing Press
08:05 "Everything that our culture and our civilization depends on starts with Gutenberg's invention."
08:12 The printing press was a game-changer in the evolution of human technology and thought.
08:17 For most of human history, the written word was a luxury for the elite.
08:21 The printing press and mass production levelled the playing field.
08:25 "Glittering proof that a new information age was dawning in Europe."
08:29 It spread the availability of knowledge, allowing commoners access to education.
08:34 The bourgeoisie, a new class of educated tradesmen, came into being.
08:38 Commerce, knowledge, and talent could, for the first time in human history, be as important as one's status at birth.
08:46 "It was a necessary precursor to the age of enlightenment, which sparked a transition to a modern, relatively more egalitarian world."
08:53 "For the next 500 years, his method of printing was used to make books everywhere. His was the machine that made us."
09:02 Number 2. The invention of the internet
09:05 "The internet, and the information age it sparked, has created a seismic shift that completely changed how we live and communicate."
09:13 Human civilization is now in its second generation of the internet age.
09:17 Young people today may have difficulty fully understanding just how much the internet has changed the planet.
09:23 People in India can video chat in real time with someone in London.
09:28 Students in South Africa can connect with counterparts in China on social media.
09:32 The world is smaller and faster than it was 50 years ago.
09:36 International business now happens at the speed of thought.
09:40 Political movements have become global.
09:42 Though it has become completely ubiquitous, few saw the internet coming, and no one could have predicted its impact.
09:48 "Unfortunately, dangers have spread like wildfire too. Misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracies can now circle the world before the truth wakes up in the morning."
09:58 "Love it, hate it, or both, there can be no doubt. The 21st century is the century of the internet."
10:04 All while connection speeds ramp up exponentially, the question now becomes, what could possibly be next?
10:12 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable and dishonorable mentions.
10:18 COVID-19 outbreak. Mass death and global shutdowns have had world historical impacts.
10:23 "It's now the deadliest year in US history."
10:26 "Since late March, the US has led the world with the most cases and the most deaths."
10:31 The fall of Rome. Rome's decline began a long, dark period of history.
10:36 "At its height, it seemed like it would rule forever. And today, it's a distant memory."
10:41 The fall of the Berlin Wall. The tearing down of the wall signaled the end of the Cold War.
10:45 "Nobody could believe this was real. It was a miracle."
10:49 The Black Death. The plague killed half of Europe.
10:52 "But as much tragedy as the disease has caused, it also helped drive crucial scientific and social progress."
11:00 Invention of the assembly line. The assembly line sparked a manufacturing revolution.
11:05 "Did you know that Tesla produces one brand new Tesla every 30 seconds at their Giga Shanghai facility?"
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11:28 Number 1. Understanding Electricity
11:31 After explaining the similarities he saw between electricity and lightning,
11:35 including the color, crooked formation, and crackling sound,
11:38 he was the first to suggest an experiment to prove a connection.
11:42 "As every American student learned as a kid, Ben Franklin was a scientist in addition to being a founding father."
11:48 "In 1752, he flew a kite during a storm and proved that lightning was made of electricity."
11:54 "The resulting electricity in the air charged the metal key that he had tied to the end of the string."
11:59 "Franklin touched his knuckles to the key and sparks jumped from the key to his hand."
12:03 Despite common misconceptions, Franklin didn't actually technically discover electricity in 1752.
12:10 It had already been a part of scientific experiments for thousands of years.
12:14 His experiment, however, was central to understanding the nature of electricity and harnessing its power.
12:20 News spread quickly of Franklin's "electrical amusements", as he called his experiments,
12:24 making him the most celebrated man of science in the world.
12:27 By the end of the 19th century, the light bulb and electric power spread throughout everyday life.
12:33 Today, electricity is the driver of modern society.
12:37 What other moments in history should be included? Let us know in the comments.
12:42 Wikipedia. Mankind's greatest invention. You can learn about anything.
12:46 [Music]