As centuries go,this has been one of the most amazing: inspiring, at times horrifying, always fascinating. Sure, the 15th was pretty wild with the Renaissance and the Spanish Inquisition in full flower, Gutenberg building his printing press, Copernicus beginning to contemplate the solar system and Columbus spreading the culture of Europe to the Americas. And of course there was the 1 st century, which if only for the life and death of Jesus may have had the most impact of any.
But we who live in the 20 th can probably claim that ours has been one of the top four or five of recorded history. Let's take stock for a moment. To name just a few random things we did in a hundred years: we split the atom, invented jazz and rock, invented the automobile, launched airplanes and landed on the moon, made up a general theory of realitivity, devised the transistor and figured out how to put millions of them on tiny microchips, discovered penicillin and the structure of DNA, fought down fascism and communism, developed cinema and telelvison, built highways and wired the world.
As a result we also produced sitcoms and cable channels, "800" numbers and Websites, shopping malls and leisure time. Initials spread like grafitti: IBM, UN, NBA, NFL, CIA, CNN, PLO, IRA and TGIF. And against all odds we avoided blowing ourselves up.
All this produced some memorable players. There's Lenin arriving in Finland Station, Gandhi marking to the sea to make salt. Winston Churchill with his cigar, Louis Armstrong with his horn, Charlie Chaplin with his cane, Rosa Parks staying seated on her bus and a kid standing in front of a tank near Tiananmen Square. Einstein in his study, and the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show".
If you had to pick a two-word summation, it would be: freedom won. It beat back the two alternatives that arose to challenge it. By the 1990s, the ideals developed by centuries of philosophers -- individual rights, civil liberties, personal freedom and democratic choice of leaders -- finally won out in more than half the world.
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Answer the following:
1. a. How many of these abbreviations do you know?
IBM CIA CNN PLO IRA TGIF
UN NBA NFL
b. What others can you add that typify the 20th century?
2. Identify as many of these people as you can in a few words?
Gutenberg Winston Churchill
Louis Armstrong Rosa Parks
Lenin Copernicus
Columbus Charlie Chaplin
3, a. List as many inventions of the 20th century you can from the article?
b. Add at least three more that you can think of.
c. In your opinion what is the greatest invention of the twentieth century?
4. How many of these terms from the article can you explain or translate into your native language?
in full flower (l. 5) the solar system (l.6)
had the most impact (l. 9) take stock (l. 12)
split the atom (l. 13-14) sitcoms (l. 21)
against all odds (l. 23 -24) a two-word summation (l. 33)
Go to Introduction to Millenium Project
Go to the task page for students.
Go to Sue Kerman's task page - a slight variation on above.
Go to students' reaction to the project - gleaned from their reflection pages.