15 Coolest Historical Events That Changed the World

Mahatma Gandhi Portrayal. Photo by google. Wikimedia Commons

15 Coolest Historical Events That Changed the World

In one of his famous quotes, Mahatma Gandhi noted that the course of history can be changed by a small group of passionate individuals who are driven by an unwavering faith in their cause. 

History is incredibly fascinating and engaging.

It is said that historical events have an impact on how people live their lives and that human civilization as a whole never recovers from these changes.

The world was significantly impacted by such events as the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States of America.

After these wars ended, millions of people died, and the entire world experienced a severe economic crisis.

There are very many cool historical events that have changed the world over thousands of years and narrowing them to just 15 is not easy.

However, the 15 coolest historical events that changed the world include the following.

1. The Election of Barak Obama As the First African-American President of the USA

President Barack Obama. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza. Wikimedia Commons

Barack Hussein Obama, USA’s  44th president from 2009 to 2017 was born on August 4, 1961. Obama, a Democrat, was the first African-American president of the United States.

Prior to joining politics, he practised civil rights litigation before serving as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004 and as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008.

To read more about President Barak Obama click here or this link

2. Albert Einstein’s Contributions and Impact From 1879 to 1955

Albert Einstein. Photo by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Wikimedia Commons

One of the two foundational theories of modern physics, the general theory of relativity, was created by Albert Einstein, who received the Nobel Prize in 1921.

After Hitler’s ascension to power in his native Germany, Einstein relocated to the United States in the 1930s.

He obtained American citizenship in 1940. He signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him about the likely creation of “very powerful weapons of a new type” on the eve of the Second World War.

He suggested that a similar study be started in the US. This ultimately resulted in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic weapon.

He did, however, strongly oppose the notion of deploying nuclear fusion as a weapon.

Later, Einstein signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which emphasized the peril of nuclear weapons, along with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell.

To study more about Albert Einstein click 

3. Exploration of Space

Yuri Gagarin. Photo by Министерство обороны СССР. Wikimedia Commons

Although space travel has long been a goal of the human race, it wasn’t until the end of World War II that rockets with the power to defy gravity and reach orbital velocity were created.

Both the Soviet Union and the United States profited from the manpower and rocket technology captured by Germany.

Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, was placed into orbit by the Soviet Union in October 1957, sparking the start of the so-called “Space Race” and the Cold War’s first outward display.

In January 1958, Explorer 1, the first US satellite, entered orbit. Russian Lt. Yuri Gagarin, aboard Vostok 1, became the first person to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961.

Gagarin’s 108-minute flight covered 327 kilometers (about 202 miles), and he reached that altitude.

Eight years later, US astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo 11 onto the moon’s surface and spoke these legendary words to a live, international television audience: That is a modest step for a man.

To read more about the subject matter click this link

4. The Founding of Israel As A State

On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared to the joy of many Jews worldwide.

This was the culmination of nearly 2,000 years of Jewish hope that they would one day return to the land from which the Romans had expelled them.

 The Holocaust during WWII strengthened their resolve and desire to see this happen.

The British government’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, enshrined in a League of Nations mandate in 1920, stated that a “national home for the Jewish people” would be created.

The Jewish national home was to be created in Palestine while the ‘civil and religious’ rights of the non-Jewish communities there were to be preserved.

5. The Publishing of Martin Luther’s 95  Theses In 1517

Martin Luther. Photo by Workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Wikimedia Commons

The German priest and scholar Martin Luther nailed a piece of paper to the Castle Church door on October 31, 1517, in Wittenberg.

The Protestant Reformation would start as a result of the 95 revolutionary opinions in the paper. It began as a movement to challenge and reform the Roman Catholic Church’s practices.

However, it became a major European movement that influenced European politics.

Although the goal of the campaign was not to establish a new religion, a rival Protestant Church was eventually established.

Protestant churches were established all across the world after the reformers immigrated to the New World.

Absolute monarchy took hold in Europe when the Roman Catholic Church’s influence waned and the Pope’s position as the supreme ruler diminished.

To read more about Martin Luther click this link

6. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America

Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Photo by Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons

In the middle of the 1950s, the protests against racial segregation and discrimination in the South of the United States gained widespread attention.

It has its origins in the centuries-long struggle of African slaves and their descendants to reject racial oppression and abolish slavery.

It began when Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old lady from Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in December 1955.

She was detained and fined $14, but the incident sparked widespread civil disobedience campaigns and peaceful protest actions.

 An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 protesters assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in August 1963.

Here, Martin Luther King gave the acclaimed “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he deviated from the original text and discussed his aspirations for freedom and equality in a nation rife with prejudice and enslavement.

Three months later, President Lyndon Johnson used his clout in Congress to push through a large portion of John F. Kennedy’s legislative agenda.

This included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in employment selections and in public accommodations based on “race, color, religion, or national origin.”

To read more about civil rights issues click here

7. The Fall of the Berlin Wall In 1989 And the Reunification of Germany

The Berlin Wall, built by the German Democratic Republic of East Germany in 1961, was a symbol of the division between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc, of communism and capitalism, and of the Eastern Bloc’s tyrannical rule.

During the wave of democratization that was sweeping across Eastern Europe in October 1989, the hardline communist leadership of East Germany was driven from office.

On November 9, 1989, at midnight, the new administration authorized the opening of the Wall’s gates.

Joyous West Berliners greeted them on the opposite side, and enthusiastic masses started scaling the Wall and chopping huge sections off of the 28-mile barrier right away.

After the Wall was broken, East Germany essentially fell apart. The two nations united to form a new Germany on October 3, 1990.

To read more on the Berlin Wall click here

8. The Invention of a Method for Producing Penicillin in Large Quantities

Alexander Fleming. Photo by Official photographer. Wikimedia Commons

A substance known as “penicillin,” which Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, had discovered from the mold Penicillium notatum, was the subject of a paper he published in 1929.

He claimed that penicillin had stopped a nearby colony of bacteria in the same petri dish from growing.

It was a laboratory curiosity that Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and their Oxford University colleagues transformed into a life-saving medication in 1938.

One of the greatest developments in therapeutic medicine was the invention of penicillin, which launched the era of antibiotics.

For their work on it, Fleming, Florey, and Chain each received a part of the 1945 Nobel Prize in medicine.

To read more about Alexander Fleming click here

9. The Development of Personal Computers

Steve Jobs. Photo by Joi. Wikimedia Commons

Two computer geeks named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer in 1975.

Their resolve to create a “microcomputer,” a scaled-down version of a mainframe computer, a consumer good aimed at households and non-expert people: the home computer, set them apart from their competitors.

They packaged the product in a plastic box as a self-contained machine that could be plugged into any regular electrical socket like any other device.

 It would include a keyboard for data entry, a screen for output viewing, and some sort of storage for programs and data.

In order to appeal to anyone other than a computer expert, it would also need software. The year 1975 saw the release of Apple I, while 1977 saw the release of Apple II.

They introduced spreadsheet and word processing software in 1979, and the early success they experienced persuaded many others that this strategy might work.

IBM, the company with the greatest market share in the computer sector at the time, was one of them.

They acted remarkably quickly and struck an agreement with Bill Gates of the start-up company Microsoft to use MS-DOS as the operating system for their devices.

Thanks to IBM’s well-known brand and outstanding marketing efforts, the personal computer became an instant and resounding success.

10. The 1948 Signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Pope John Paul II. Photo by Fotografia Felici. Wikimedia Commons

In December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The Declaration of Human Rights is the first universal statement of the rights to which all people are inalienably entitled, and it was directly inspired by the tragedies of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

The “Four Freedoms”—freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—were the cornerstones upon which it was erected.

Pope John Paul II called these four freedoms “one of the noblest manifestations of the human conscience of our time.” The Allies accepted these as their primary war objectives.

The 30 articles that make up the Declaration have been expanded upon in later international agreements, regional human rights agreements, national constitutions, and other pieces of legislation.

From Abkhazian to Zulu, it has been translated into more than 300 other languages.

11. The Soviet Union Dissolution

Mikhail Gorbachev. Photo by Vladimir Vyatkin. Wikimedia Commons

The Cold War came to an end in December 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up into 15 distinct nations, reorganizing global political, economic, and military relationships.

Deep political and economic issues existed in the USSR at the time Mikhail Gorbachev assumed office in 1985.

Economic planning had fallen short of the demands of the State, which was embroiled in a strenuous and crippling arms race with the US throughout the Cold War.

The Soviet Union broke up into its constituent countries on December 25, 1991, and Gorbachev announced his office to be abolished.

He then turned over control of the Soviet nuclear missile launch codes to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who had politically outmaneuvered him.

12. The Expansion and Impact of Social Media

Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Silverisdead. Wikimedia Commons

The membership of Facebook, perhaps the most developed of the top social networks, was first only available to Harvard University students when it was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and colleagues in 2004.

By 2011, the network’s population had reached levels that made it comparable to a nation. The company’s market capitalization reached over US$134 billion by January 2014.

 Social media is as pervasive as the computer itself, with platforms like Twitter having 645 million registered users, Google+ having 1.38 billion, Weibo having 503 million, Instagram having 200 million, and Renren having 210 million.

As a result, both businesses and governments must invest in social media strategies.

13. Impact of Satellite Technology

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, a satellite that was the first of its kind and was about the size of a basketball, in 1957.

Since then, about 7,000 satellites have been launched, with approximately 1,000 still active; the remainder has become space junk.

The satellites bring us television images, approve our credit card purchases, track hurricanes and gauge the size changes of glaciers among others.

14. The Globalization of English as a Language

English has evolved as the worldwide common language, owing to its colorful past and Darwinian propensity for evolution and adaptation.

Different types have appeared as a result of its seemingly unstoppable proliferation, which started in earlier centuries but has accelerated significantly in recent years.

New user communities, whether geographical or digital, are continuously molding and changing it.

Approximately 1.75 billion people, or one in four people globally, speak it at a useful level now.

Two billion people are expected to be using it or learning to use it by the year 2020. All of its speakers now claim it as their own.

It now has numerous centers and hubs throughout the world that individually and collectively create its character rather than a single center, like the UK, which determines its usage norms.

15. The Growth of Nuclear Energy

Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant. Photo by Pavel Bykov / Павел Быков. Wikimedia Commons

Soon after it was discovered that radioactive materials, like radium, releasing enormous amounts of energy at the turn of the 20th century, efforts to use nuclear energy for the production of electricity began.

The ability to harness this energy was discovered in the late 1930s, and in the years following World War II there was a push to create “peaceful” applications for nuclear energy.

The Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the USSR became the first nuclear power plant in history to produce electricity for a power grid in 1954.

Utilizing nuclear energy reduces reliance on imported energy sources and produces almost no conventional air pollutants, such as greenhouse gases.

The Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters are used by its critics to argue that it still poses numerous risks to people and the environment.

They also bring up issues with the handling, shipping, and storage of radioactive nuclear waste, the risk of nuclear terrorism and proliferation, and the health and environmental effects of uranium mining.

Nuclear power “looks dangerous, unpopular, expensive and risky,” according to a 2011 article in The Economist, and “it is replaceable with relatively easy and could be forgone with no big structural shifts in the way the world operates.”

In 2012, nuclear (fission) power plants produced 13% of the world’s electricity and provided roughly 5.7% of the world’s energy.