Texts in Context:
Timeline of Late Modernity,
1876-1946

By Gabriel Blanchard

Today’s timeline chronicles what we are labelling “Late Modernity” (though we caution the reader that this is not necessarily a standard historical term). The period consists in what are, arguably, a related complex of social and military conflicts, occurring in both Europe and North America, from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, the chief of these being the World Wars. Naturally this timeline is by no means complete, and we can only hope to have covered the most salient events of the period.

To achieve some balance between the detail required for chronicling the world wars and the limited space a blog post can usefully avail itself of, individual months have been collapsed into conventional (not astronomical) seasons. Below, a year’s “winter” indicates January-February; “spring,” March-May; “summer,” June-August; and “autumn,” September-November. December risks ambiguity in this setup, since every winter is spread over two legal years: we resolve this by making an exception and naming December when crucial events occurred in a given year’s final month.

Our previous timelines are as follows:

The Stone and Bronze Ages
The Early Iron Age
Classical Antiquity I
Classical Antiquity II
The Early Middle Ages
The High and Late Middle Ages
Early Modernity
The Eighteenth Century
The Revolutionary Period
⇒ Late Modernity (YOU ARE HERE)
Postmodernity

The Western Hemisphere:
North America

The Progressive Era (1876-1929)

1877—Unofficially-brokered Compromise of 1877 confirms election of President Hayes (Republican candidate) in exchange for effectively ending Reconstruction in former Confederate states; in subsequent years, state laws compromising 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments passed in much of South (e.g. segregationist policies).
1884—Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions enshrines 8-hour workday as among essential fair working conditions.
1886—Haymarket Affair: unknown person throws bomb, killing 11; 8 anarchist labor activists tried for conspiracy, court allows serious due process breaches against defendants (e.g., majority of jury admit to bias against defendants, yet judge permits them to serve): all convicted, 7 sentenced to death; public outcry over blatant miscarriage of justice prompts Illinois governor to commute sentences of convicted who ask clemency: 2 do so; 1 dies by suicide; 4 refuse (on grounds of innocence), are executed.
1892—Anna Julia Cooper publishes A Voice From the South, work on women’s, racial minority rights; Ida B. Wells publishes Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
1896—Plessy v. Ferguson upholds segregation as constitutional, so long as “separate but equal” facilities are provided in both racial sectors; qualification widely ignored.
1898—Spanish-American War: US victory; Theodore Roosevelt founds, serves in First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, to public accolades; US acquires previously Spanish colonies of Cuba, Guam, Philippines, Puerto Rico.
1901—Assassination of President McKinley by anarchist gunman; V.P. Roosevelt succeeds to presidency.
1903—Booker T. Washington publishes The Negro Problem, essay collection on Black rights including “The Talented Tenth” by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1904-1914—US takes over, completes construction of Panama Canal.

1912—RMS Titanic on maiden voyage from Southampton, Great Britain to New York, US strikes iceberg approx. 550 miles off Newfoundland coast; approx. 1500 passengers drown.

1917—US joins Allies in World War I.

1918—Beginning of “Spanish flu” pandemic; Central Powers surrender.

1920—End of “Spanish flu” pandemic.

1923-1929—Presidency of Calvin Coolidge, generally held to correspond to “Roaring Twenties.”

1929—Stock market collapse triggers Great Depression.

The Great Depression (1929-1941)

1932—First election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR).

1933-1938—FDR institutes New Deal, series of sweeping economic reforms intended to relieve Great Depression.

1941, summer—US-Japanese relations cool due to Japanese imperial activities in Pacific, especially seizure of French Indochina.

The Second World War (1941-1945)

1941, December—Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: US joins Allies in World War II.

1942, winter—Internment of Japanese-American civilians begins on FDR’s orders, affecting approx. 120k Japanese-American residents, citizens.

1942, summer—Mexico, Brazil join Allies. Battle of Midway: Allied victory, Japanese advance in Pacific halted; US embarks on Guadalcanal campaign, first US Naval offensive of war.
1942, autumn—Release of Casablanca, now considered among finest films in history.
1942, December—Manhattan Project to develop atomic bomb begins.

1943, autumn—Tehran Conference among Churchill, FDR, Stalin, planning European strategy, especially Operation Overlord.

1944, summer—D-Day: Allied invasion of France begins. Battle of Saipan: Allied victory. Bretton Woods Conference meets to discuss post-war economic order.

1944, autumn—4th election of FDR, only US President to be elected 4 times.

1944, December—US Supreme Court rules internment illegal; interned Japanese-Americans begin to be released.
1945, winter—Yalta Conference among Churchill, FDR, Stalin to discuss post-war political order.

1945, spring—Death of FDR in office, Harry Truman accedes to presidency. Nazi leaders commit suicide or flee country; surrender of Germany ends World War II in Europe (“V-E Day”).

1945, summer—Atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki; surrender of Japan fully ends World War II: Allied victory. Japan occupied by US.

The Eastern Hemisphere:
Europe/Eurasia

The Belle Époque ([1871]-1914)

1888—Murders of “Jack the Ripper,” first serial killer to attain media notoriety; culprit never identified.

1895-1897—Imprisonment of Oscar Wilde.

1899—Sigmund Freud publishes first major work, The Interpretation of Dreams.
1901—Death of Queen Victoria, accession of Edward VII.

1904-1905—Russo-Japanese War (fought for control of Korea, Manchuria): Japanese victory.
1905—Einstein formulates theory of special relativity.
1912—RMS Titanic on maiden voyage from Southampton, Great Britain to New York, US strikes iceberg approx. 550 miles off Newfoundland coast; approx. 1500 passengers drown.

The Great War (1914-1920)

1914, summer—Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Serbian Gavrilo Princip; Austro-Hungarian Empire declares war against Serbia; European alliance system triggers WWI between Central Powers (Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, German, Ottoman Empires), Entente Allies (France, Great Britain, Empire of Japan, Montenegro, Russian Empire, Serbia—later joined by Belgium [1914], Italy [1915], Portugal, Roumania [1916], Brazil, China, Greece, US [1917], Siam [1918]); Germany invades Belgium (violating its neutrality, sovereignty) as part of Schlieffen Plan.
1914, autumn—Trench warfare begins.
1915, spring—Second Battle of Ypres: Germany uses chlorine gas against Allied trenches, inaugurating modern chemical warfare; Battle of Gallipoli begins; sinking of British ship Lusitania, carrying 128 American passengers.
1916, winter—End of Battle of Gallipoli: Centralist victory; Battle of Verdun: Allied victory.
1916, summer—Battle of the Somme: stalemate; more than 1 million casualties, among the deadliest battles in human history.
1917, spring—Tsar Nicholas II abdicates; Russian Revolution, establishing Russian Republic under Aleksandr Kerensky; US enters war on Allied side.
1917, autumn—First Battle of Cambrai: Allied victory; first major use of tanks in warfare; October Revolution in Russia, replacing Republic with Soviets; Soviet government withdraws Russia from war.
1918, winter—Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany, Soviet Union: USSR deprived of Baltic, Finnish, Polish, Ukrainian lands. Beginning of “Spanish flu” pandemic.
1918, autumn—German Revolution begins, forces kaiser to abdicate: struggle ensues between provisional government, regional Communist insurrections; Central Powers surrender; Austrian monarchy collapses, declarations of independence from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia.
1919, winter—Paris Peace Conference opens (setting in which fallout of war between various parties is settled).
1919, spring—Nationalist movement under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk begins Turkish War for Independence between Turkish nationalists, selection of Entente Allies (Britain, France, Greece, US, joined by Armenia, Georgia).
1919, summer—Treaty of Versailles between Allies, Germany: Germany compelled to grant territory to Belgium, Free City of Danzig, Denmark, France, Lithuania, Poland, demilitarize Rhineland, pay indemnities to Allies, surrender colonies in Africa, Pacific* to control of League of Nations. German Revolution concludes with adoption of Weimar Constitution.
1919, autumn—Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye between Allies, Austria confirms abolition of Habsburg monarchy, full separation of Hungary, independence of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, imposes further territorial concessions to Italy, Roumania, Yugoslavia, loss of sole Austrian colony to China.
1920, summer—Treaty of Trianon between Allies, Hungary; Treaty of Sèvres between Allies, Turkey (formerly Ottoman Empire).

The Interwar Period (1920-1933)

1920—End of “Spanish flu” pandemic.
1921-1928—Ernest Hemingway resides in Paris, part of American expatriate community that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound.
1922—Benito Mussolini, leader of fascisti (Italian fascist party), succeeds in coup against Italian administration; fascist dictatorship set up in effect in Italy, retaining king as figurehead. G. K. Chesterton converts to Catholicism.
1923—Turkish War for Independence ends with abolition of sultanate, establishment of Republic of Turkey. Beer Hall Putsch, attempted coup led by Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff, Ernst Röhm, et al. fails; though gaining notoriety for oratory, Hitler convicted of high treason; writes, publishes Nazi manifesto Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) while imprisoned; obtains good-behavior release after serving one year of five year sentence.
1923-1940—Dorothy L. Sayers publishes “Peter Wimsey” mysteries.
1924—Death of Franz Kafka: Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, ignores instructions from deceased to destroy stories, publishes them. Death of Vladimir Lenin, first head of USSR; Joseph Stalin replaces him.
1927—Chinese Civil War between nationalist, Communist parties begins.
1929—Stock market collapse triggers Great Depression. Leon Trotsky expelled from USSR by Stalin.
1931—Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo established in northern China.

The Second World War (1933-1946)

Prelude, January 1933-September 1939

1933—Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany by lawful means; panic following Reichstag fire (act of arson by Communist secretly encouraged by Nazis) results in full seizure of power by Nazi leadership; SA (colloq. “Brownshirts”) conduct campaign of petty terrorism to normalize anti-Semitic violence; first concentration camp opens at Dachau (initially/publicly with main purpose of imprisonment).
1934—Night of the Long Knives: Hitler purges Nazi party leadership, especially of remaining “Strasserist” (anti-capitalist) elements from SA, even personal friend Ernst Röhm.
1935—Italy invades Abyssinia, earning sanctions from League of Nations. Anti-Semitic “Nuremberg Laws” enacted in Germany: Jews, “first-degree Mischlinge” declared non-citizens (culmination of increasing bans from professions, e.g. civil service, law, medicine, education, farming, fine arts); Gentile-Jewish marriages, extramarital relations illegalized.**
1936—Germany remilitarizes Rhineland, first major violation of Treaty of Versailles. Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia flees country, appeals to League of Nations for support against Italy; appeal denied, sanctions soon lifted.
1936-1939—Spanish Civil War fought between Republicans (a.k.a. Loyalists: mostly anarchists, Communists, Basque separatists, Catalan separatists), Nationalists (partisans of fascist Francisco Franco): Nationalist victory.
1936-1937—George Orwell participates in Spanish Civil War on Loyalist side; accused of Trotskyism by pro-Soviet faction, forced to flee country.
1937—Anschluß of Austria. Surrender of Abyssinia to Italy. Outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese War between both governments of China, Empire of Japan. J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit.
1938—Nazi annexation of Sudetenland leaves Czechoslovakia (among stated targets of conquest in Mein Kampf) effectively defenseless; British negotiations at Munich waive possible defense of Czechoslovakians; Kristallnacht (“the Night of Broken Glass”), major outbreak of anti-Semitic violence passively tolerated by civil authorities.
1939, spring—Collapse of Czechoslovakia: Slovakia declares independence, Ruthenia claimed by Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia (modern Czechia) declared German protectorate; Czech government-in-exile set up in Britain. Italy invades, conquers Albania.
1939, summer—Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression between German Reich, USSR.

First Movement, September 1939-June 1941

1939, autumn—Nazi, Soviet invasions of Poland officially trigger World War II, fought between Allies (at outset: Britain, China, France, Nepal, Poland, Saudi Arabia), Axis powers (at outset: Germany, Italy, Japan). USSR remains officially neutral. Poland rapidly overrun, partitioned.
1940, spring—Opening of Auschwitz, notorious concentration camp later used as extermination camp: over 1 million inmates would be murdered here (most by gassing on arrival). Nazi invasions of Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg (but not Sweden, Switzerland); Nazi sympathizers put in power in all cases (though Denmark proves to have strong passive resistance to Nazi ideology). Election of Winston Churchill, staunch anti-Nazi Conservative, as Prime Minister of Britain.
1940, summer—Surrender of France: northern, western France occupied by Nazis; remainder of country placed under collaborationist government at Vichy; beginning of French Resistance (a.k.a. “Free France”), underground, international movement against Nazis; Battle of Britain (Nazi air campaign against British Isles) begins.
1940, autumn—Battle of Britain ends: Allied victory. Italy begins six-month campaign to conquer Greece.
1941, spring—Bulgaria joins Axis; Nazi puppet state of Croatia established from previous Yugoslav territory. Beginning of Battle of Greece. Liberation of Abyssinia from Italy, return of emperor from exile. British obtain “Enigma” cryptographic machine (device used by Germans for security purposes, crucial to Allied code-breaking).

Second Movement, June 1941-June 1944

1941, summer—End of Battle of Greece: Axis victory; Nazis occupy mainland, then islands. Official (unpublicized) Nazi policy changes from forcible expulsion of European Jews to genocide (a.k.a. “the Shoah“); German invasion of USSR; Soviets declare for Allies, enact “scorched earth” policy against invaders; Hungary, Slovakia, Roumania join Axis. C. S. Lewis gives radio talks which become basis of Mere Christianity.
1941, autumn—First use of Zyklon B gas in concentration camps; yellow star badge imposed on all Jews over age 6 in German-occupied territories. Beginnings of Siege of Leningrad (modern Petrograd), Battle of Moscow.
1941, December—US joins Allies.

1942, winter—Battle of Moscow ends: Allied victory.
1942, spring—German Reichstag meets for last time, declares Hitler to have power of life and death over all citizens, dissolves itself. Allied bombing of Cologne, mostly killing German civilians. Albert Camus publishes L’Étranger (“The Stranger”).
1942, summer—Reinhard Heydrich, member of Nazi top brass, succumbs to wounds from assassination attempt by Czechoslovakian Resistance; multiple slaughters of Czech civilians in retaliation. Beginning of Battle of Stalingrad (modern Volgograd).

1942, December—Manhattan Project begins in US.
1943, winter—Siege of Leningrad broken, Battle of Stalingrad ends: Allied victories. Uprisings in Warsaw Ghetto; native German anti-war White Rose movement executed.
1943, spring—Josef Mengele assumes position as chief medical officer at Auschwitz. Allied invasion of Italy (via Sicily) begins.
1943, summer—Mussolini deposed, arrested; later escapes.
1943, autumn—Italian government surrenders to Allies; “Italian Social Republic” (a.k.a. “Republic of Salò”), Nazi puppet state, founded. Moscow Declarations by “Big Four” (Britain, China, US, USSR) impose demand for unconditional surrender on Axis. Lebanon obtains independence from France. Tehran Conference among Churchill, FDR, Stalin, planning European strategy, especially Operation Overlord.
1944, spring—Friedrich Hayek publishes The Road to Serfdom; premier of Jean-Paul Sartre‘s play No Exit. Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Battle of Monte Cassino: Allied victory; Rome occupied by Allies.

Third Movement, June 1944-April 1945

1944, summer—D-Day: Allied invasion of France begins. Operation Valkyrie (attempt mainly by officers of Wehrmacht to assassinate Hitler) fails. Bretton Woods Conference meets in US to discuss post-war economic order. Warsaw Uprising begins. Liberation of Paris.
1944, autumn—Finland breaks off relations with Germany, signs Moscow Armistice with USSR. Defeat of Warsaw Uprising by Nazis. Jewish prisoners attempt revolt in Auschwitz.
1944, December—Beginning of Battle of the Bulge, last major Axis offensive of war.
1945, winter—Soviet forces reach Warsaw, liberate Auschwitz. End of Battle of the Bulge: Allied victory. Yalta Conference among Churchill, FDR, Stalin to discuss post-war political order.
1945, spring—Hitler issues “Nero Decree” to destroy all military, industrial, commercial, communications facilities be destroyed ahead of Allied advance; Albert Speer, placed in charge of implementation, disobeys order. Lynching of Mussolini. Suicide of Hitler, Josef Goebbels (chief propaganda minister), other Nazi leaders also commit suicide or flee country; surrender of Germany. V-E Day (“victory in Europe”).

Postlude, May 1945-November 1946

1945, summer—USSR declares war on Japan; atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki; surrender of Japan fully ends World War II. Defendants list prepared for Nuremberg Trials. Orwell publishes Animal Farm.
1945, autumn—Beginning of Nuremberg Trials (international tribunal condemning 24 captured Nazi leadership as war criminals): chief defendants include Herman Göring (head of Luftwaffe), Wilhelm Keitel (head of Wehrmacht), Arthur Seyss-Inquart (instrumental in Anschluß), Alfred Rosenberg (major racial theorist), Wilhelm Frick (coauthor of Nuremberg Laws).
1946, autumn—Nuremberg Trials conclude: of 24 defendants, 1 commits suicide before trial, 1 found medically unfit, 3 acquitted (later receiving sentences from German de-Nazification courts), 19 found guilty; of condemned, 7 sentenced to imprisonment (3 for life), 1 (Göring) commits suicide before execution, 6 executed.

Europe is a seething cauldron of hate, and a bomb that may devastate the entire world may explode at any minute ...

Rabbi Harry E. Schwartz, quoted in The Nassau Daily Review of 1 Nov. 1934

*In modern terms, these territories are Cameroon, Micronesia, Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, and Togo (though not corresponding precisely to their modern borders).
**The term Mischlinge can be translated as “hybrids,” though the sense of the word is more in line with the English word “mongrels”; the term “miscegenate” is, very distantly, akin. The ludicrous use of “degree” occurs here because persons who were anything from a quarter to half Jewish by descent could be approved for Reich citizenship, but (obviously, to the Nazi mind) priority would be given to those whose “miscegenation”—viewed literally, their crime of being born—was only in the second degree (i.e., a quarter or less of Jewish descent). Though unrelated to the Jews and indeed an Indo-Aryan people by origin, Roma, or the Romani people (once referred to as “Gypsies”), were also persecuted by the Reich, though laws endangering them date as far back as the late years of the Weimar Republic.

Gabriel Blanchard is a freelance author contracting with CLT. He lives in Baltimore, MD.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like some of our earlier posts on relevant topics and people of this period. This was the time of Russian Anton Chekhov, Americans Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Britons Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes, and its “wars and rumors of wars” invite reflection both on that subject and on democracy, tyranny, beauty, and (especially in light of some impoverished ideas of its meaning that became popular in this era) the concept of man himself.

Published on 3rd September, 2025 (the eighty-sixth anniversary of the beginning of World War II). Page image of The Fall of Turgon’s Tower (2007) by the late Tom Loback, an illustration of the sacking of the city of Gondolin (an important episode in The Silmarillion). The source for today’s quote can be found here (or, if that link should malfunction, at the site NYS Historic Newspapers, on p. 35 of the day’s paper).

Texts in Context:Timeline of Late Modernity,1876-1946