Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
21st century
Summary
The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century in the Anno Domini or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on 1 January 2001 (MMI) and will end on 31 December 2100 (MMC). It is the first century of the 3rd millennium. It is distinct from the century known as the 2000s, which began on 1 January 2000 and will end on 31 December 2099.
The rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism marked the beginning of the century, along with increased private enterprise and deepening concern over terrorism after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The NATO interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, and the overthrow of several regimes during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world, resulting in several civil wars and political instability. The United States has remained the sole global superpower while China is now considered an emerging superpower.
In 2022, 45% of the world's population lived in "some form of democracy", though only 8% lived in "full democracies". The United Nations estimates that by 2050, two thirds of the world's population will be urbanized.
The world economy expanded at high rates from 94 trillion in 2021, though many economies rose at greater levels, some gradually contracted. The European Union greatly expanded in the 21st century, adding 13 member states, but the United Kingdom withdrew. Most EU member states introduced a common currency, the Euro. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was also greatly expanded, adding 11 member states.
Effects of global warming and rising sea levels exacerbated the ecological crises, with eight islands disappearing between 2007 and 2014.
In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began to rapidly spread worldwide, killing over 6.95 million people around the globe and causing severe global economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (2)
HUM-393: Introduction to Environmental History
A partir d'analyse de sources historiques et d'exercices d'écriture, ce cours propose de comprendre comment les choix technologiques, politiques et économiques du passé ont forgé la «question écologiq
HUM-321: History of contemporary art
L'enseignement propose une introduction à l'histoire de l'art contemporain du XIXe au XXIe siècle, permettant d'aborder les oeuvres selon une approche esthétique et sociale.
Related concepts (2)
20th century
The 20th century began on 1 January 1901 (MCMI), and ended on 31 December 2000 (MM). It was the last century of the 2nd millennium, and was marked by new models of scientific understanding, unprecedented scopes of warfare, new modes of communication that would operate at nearly instant speeds and new forms of art and entertainment. The 20th century was dominated by significant geopolitical events that reshaped the political and social structure of the globe: World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, World War II and the Cold War.
2nd millennium
File:2nd millennium montage.png|From top left, clockwise: in 1492, [[Christopher Columbus]] reaches [[North America]], opening the [[European colonization of the Americas]]; the [[American Revolution]], one of the late 1700s [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]-inspired [[Atlantic Revolutions]]; the [[Ottoman conquest of Constantinople]]; the [[Atomic Bomb]] from [[World War II]]; an alternate source of light, the [[light bulb]]; for the first time, a [[Neil Armstrong|human being]] [[Moon landing|sets foot on the Moon]] in 1969 during the [[Apollo 11]] Moon mission; [[airplane]]s enable widespread air travel; [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], in the early 19th century, affects France and Europe with [[expansionism]], [[modernization]], and [[nationalism]]; [[Alexander Graham Bell]]'s [[telephone]]; in 1348, the [[Black Death]] kills in just two years over 100 million people worldwide, and over half of [[Europe]].