Your help with an experiment please.

Discussion in 'History' started by nicolaou, Jun 6, 2004.

  1. nicolaou Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5
    This is a little experiment I'm conducting. To prevent the results from becoming skewed I won't be divulging the nature of the test until it has been completed - then I will explain all.

    All I would like from the forum members here is that you answer the question below - briefly. In fact, only a date is required but if the date you have selected is rather obscure you may choose to explain what happened on that date in a sentence or two.


    QUESTION:

    What is the most important date in human history since the beginning of the 19th century?


    N.B Posters who recognise my avatar from other boards will likely know what this is all about, please don't spoil the experiment or take part in it as your answer could not be guaranteed to be impartial.

    I'll give a full accounting of this test once the thread appears 'spent' or has reached about 50 responses.

    Many thanks,

    Nic'
     
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Picking just one date from 2 centuries is very difficult. A hell of a lot of significant events have happened in those centuries. I don't think I can give an answer.
     
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  5. nicolaou Registered Senior Member

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    Trust me - that is a significant answer in itself!
     
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  7. kazakhan Registered Abuser Registered Senior Member

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    Today....!
     
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  8. dmcm01 Guest

    well i'd have to say the dropping of the bomb at hiroshima or perhaps when ghandi beat the british

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  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I don't know the month and day, but the Treaty of Versailles. As I have stated in many other threads, I think that set the entire rest of the 20th Century in motion.

    Germany is humiliated in a way that was no longer characteristic of European warfare.
    Hitler easily captures the hopes of the depressed German people.
    A strong Germany forces Stalin to devote a huge portion of the USSR's meager GDP to defense, destroying the consumer economy and making even housing and reliable utilities hard to come by. The world will never know whether communism could have worked.
    WWII gives Hitler the secrecy and the crazed population that allowed him to perpetrate the Holocaust.
    WWII turns the USSR into a world power and hands them half of Europe that is still functioning much better than Russia itself.
    WWII routs the Japanese out of China, allowing Mao to take over.
    The Allies' victory in WWII and European guilt over the Holocaust emboldens the dying British Empire to take Palestine and hand it over to the Jews, rather than making Europe a nice friendly place for them to live.
    A strong USSR forces the USA into a Cold War.
    The Cold War turns the nations ringing the USSR, including the entire Middle East, into nothing but puppet states for the USA and USSR. The citizens lose control over their own destiny.
    The USSR eventually collapses under its own weight and the Cold War ends. But the mess it made of the Middle East haunts the entire human race for years, decades, or generations to come.
     
  10. Mephura Applesauce, bitch... Valued Senior Member

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    june 17th 1801
    I am not going to tell you what happened, though. that would spoil the fun.
     
  11. genteel Registered Senior Member

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    Well if we look at the world as a whole, I would have to say it would be transportation. Big leap would be, May 15 1902- In a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore reportedly becomes the first person to fly a powered airplane. That has changed a lot of things from business, to immigration. We get around much faster.
     
  12. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    7,057
    1914 - when the lights went out all over Europe.
    The world lost it's innocence (although the US lost a lot of it's innocence in the Civil War).
     
  13. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    9,686
    Well, the most important day for me personally has to be my birthday. If it had never happened, I wouldn't be born and wouldn't be able to ponder what was the most important day in the last two centuries.

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    But, I suppose you want a real answer? Hmmm.... Well, I'd say that it would be a day where several important things happened rather than one. Pity I can't think of any. I was going to say Einsteins birthday, but the day is less important than the day he formulated relativity for the first time. Hmmm..... Important is a tricky word. Does it mean the most significant? Does it mean the day that effects us to this day the most? Does it mean a day where if the events had not occurred the world would be vastly changed? Hmmm..... I keep thinking of things from an American point of view, which may not be so important to the world in general. Hmmm...

    Ok, got it, the day Eli Whitney came up with the cotton gin. That is what started the industrial revolution (well, maybe it was just a symptom of an idea that was coming anyway. But I've made my choice and I'm sticking to it.) If it had not occurred, who knows where we'd be.
     
  14. thecurly1 Registered Senior Member

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    1,024
    June, 28 1914.

    I really hate trying to nail history down to a date or a single event, but often times one battle or a moment changes the world.

    Of course everyone knows the Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand. This gave Austro-Hungry the excuse to crackdown on Serbia, which drew Russia in. When Russia came in, the Germans came in, followed by the French, the English and everyone else in Europe.

    The US will follow. After awhile the Germans sent an Iron Boxcar with one Vladimir Lenin abord to St. Petersburg. From there he sparks the Bolshevik Revolution, ousting the Russians from the war and beginning the longest totalitarian enterprise of the 20th century: Soviet Communism.

    As we move forward, we see the balkanization of Eastern Europe and the defeat, minus the humiliation of Germany. This part comes to bite the world in the ass 20 years later.

    WWII is largely an outgrowth of WWI. The Great Depression is likely caused, granted in part, to mistakes made during the war. The New Deal grows outta the Depression.

    WWII blows up everything again, and begins the Cold War, which very nearly kills Western civilization and freemen from all over the world.

    After WWI Churchill and the British, along with the French go into the Middle East, colonize and create some havoc. This, indirectly, helps lead to a culture of humilitation among the Arabs, which again indirectly contributes to the War on Terror.

    The thing is that assassination has many outgrowths, but at each bubble along the time line from 1914-2004 other events and people had to contribue otherwise each bubble wouldn't have occured. The New Deal would have not happened without the progressive movement that preceeded WWI and so on....

    That's why I don't like using "a date," however it is fun!
     
  15. Enigma'07 Who turned out the lights?!?! Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think you can accuratly say that one date was most influencial, as they all relate to each other like dominoes. 26 December 1898 was the date that the Currie's discovered radium. That was pretty big.
     
  16. maxzuk Registered Senior Member

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    July 20, 1969
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    October 29, 1962
    The Cuban Missile Crisis ends, the closest the world has come to nuclear armaggedon.
     
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  18. vodooeconomist Registered Member

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    September 8th, 1966 of course. Why? I'll give you a hint: It involves a Canadian who can't sing, a fake Russian, a stereotypical Scotsman, a Southern doctor, the first black woman in an authoritative role on TV, a logical alien, and continually dying, er, expendable security persons.
     
  19. Porfiry Nomad Registered Senior Member

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    4,127
    January 1st, 1800. Everything that happened afterwards was a consequence of that day, thus making it the most "influential" day. Y'know, temporal causality.
     
  20. slotty Colostomy-its not my bag Registered Senior Member

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    July 20 1969. We start our journey to the stars.
     
  21. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    January 6, 1897.
     
  22. nicolaou Registered Senior Member

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    Thank you all for your responses so far.

    There are a couple of you who will be very surprised at 'the company you keep' when I explain what this is about. I've set the date of Saturday 26th June to close the experiment so just two more weeks to go.

    Nic'
     
  23. Kunax Sciforums:Reality not required Registered Senior Member

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    there are no single best day, so i choose everyday

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    edit:
    theres a long time to the 26th.
     

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