The Ten Most Important Events in the Nineteenth Century

Discussion in 'History' started by tim840, Feb 7, 2009.

  1. tim840 Registered Senior Member

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    I was thinking, so much happened in the twentieth century, it's hard to pick just ten events that you can call the "most important." The 1800s were pretty eventful too, but I think it might be a bit easier to come up with ten events that can be defined as the most important. Here's my list:

    Louisiana Purchase
    Napoleonic Wars
    Uprisings of 1848
    Crimean War
    Taiping Rebellion
    American Civil War
    Unification of Germany & Italy
    Meiji Restoration
    Berlin Conference
    Boxer Rebellion / Open Door Policy
     
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    What about the discovery of electromagnetism, say?
     
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  5. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    10 most important in the last century? (this alone should attest to my memory)
    i'll try . . .
    1. industrial revolution.
    and there it ends.
    yeah, i should read more.
     
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  7. River Ape Valued Senior Member

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    Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species
    Nikola Tesla invents AC motor
    Lumiere Brothers invent Cinema
    Congress of Vienna
    British suppress Indian Mutiny
    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
    Alfred Nobel invents Dynamite
    British invent Soccer
    . . . perhaps worthy of consideration
     
  8. camilus the villain with x-ray glasses Registered Senior Member

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    I was thinking the same thing. I was gonna say one word, FARADAY.
     
  9. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    #1 - invention of the birth control pill
     
  10. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    How about the discovery that germs cause disease?
     
  11. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Depending upon where you lived in the world during the 19th century would also be a very important thing to factor in. I'm sure in China things were being accomplished as well as other countries that we never were told about.
     
  12. Xylene Valued Senior Member

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    OK, here's my list, almost all military;

    1) 1802--Louisiana Purchase
    2) 1807--end of slavery in the British Empire
    3) 1812-14--end of British attempts to take back the US
    4) 1815--Waterloo, end of Napolean
    5) 1848--Revolutions all over Europe
    6) 1857-8--Indian Mutiny
    7) 1863--Proclomation ending slavery in USA
    8) 1865--Battle of Sadowa, decided the contest between Austria and Prussia
    9) 1870-1--Consolidation of Germany under Bismark
    10) 1894-5--Japanese begin territorial expansion into the rest of Asia by defeating China and taking Korea, holding it for 50 years until 1945.
     
  13. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    No military or national event can compare to the advances in science of the 19th century


    Developments in electicity, engines, and of course, the discovery of germs causing disease are far far more important than any purchase
     
  14. Tyler Registered Senior Member

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    I think Fifa recently proved that the Chinese invented soccer more than 1000 years ago.
     
  15. Meursalt Comatose Registered Senior Member

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    And yet, oddly enough, war (or the preparation for it) is the single most significant catalyst for most scientific advances.
    "Necessity is the mother of invention". That is why wars are important. Without conflict, civilisations wither and stagnate.

    Reading half of what you people post these days is like watching a recent movie which supposedly depicts life in the 1940's. No one smokes cigarettes... or if they do, it's in the name of "gritty realism".

    It's like watching 6 year olds on current affairs programs having their opinions aired for the effect it will have on the emotions of the audience.

    Its repulsive to have "history" used to further private agendas warped by current morality.
     
  16. sniffy Banned Banned

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    2,945
    Trade and commerce were at least as significant to scientific advances as war. Trade leads to riches; riches lead to armies; armies lead to war to garner greater riches.



    [/QUOTE]

    Much of history is repulsive and warped.
     
  17. Sawklwrd Banned Banned

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    According to mainstream science, electromagnetism is irrelevant.

    "Magnetism...is a joke in astronomy." -- Phil Plait, writer, August 2008

    "There's no observational evidence that I know of that indicates electric and magnetic forces are important on cosmological scales." -- Jeremiah P. Ostriker, astrophysicist, 1991

    "He [Velikovsky] invents electro-magnetic forces capable of doing precisely what he wants them to do. There is no scientific evidence whatever for the powers of these forces." -- Martin Gardner, mathematician, 1957

    "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- Lord Kelvin, physicist, 1895
     
  18. Naturelles Future Scientist Registered Senior Member

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    I go with electromagnetism MICHAEL FARADAY changed the world forever!

    Charles Darwin also finally brought some sense into this world!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  19. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    My first choice.

    Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease. His experiments supported the germ theory of disease http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease


    Pasteur's later work on diseases included work on chicken cholera. During this work, a culture of the responsible bacteria had spoiled and failed to induce the disease in some chickens he was infecting with the disease. Upon reusing these healthy chickens, Pasteur discovered that he could not infect them, even with fresh bacteria; the weakened bacteria had caused the chickens to become immune to the disease, even though they had only caused mild symptoms.

    His assistant Charles Chamberland (of French origin) had been instructed to inoculate the chickens after Pasteur went on holiday. Chamberland failed to do this, but instead went on holiday himself. On his return, the month old cultures made the chickens unwell, but instead of the infection being fatal, as it usually was, the chickens recovered completely. Chamberland assumed an error had been made, and wanted to discard the apparently faulty culture when Pasteur stopped him. Pasteur guessed the recovered animals now might be immune to the disease, as were the animals at Eure-et-Loir that had recovered from anthrax.

    In the 1870s, he applied this immunisation method to anthrax, which affected cattle, and aroused interest in combating other diseases.
     
  20. takandjive Killer Queen Registered Senior Member

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    Weren't antiseptics invented in the 19th century?
     
  21. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Joseph Lister came from a prosperous Quaker home in Upton, Essex, a son of Joseph Jackson Lister, the pioneer of the compound microscope.

    After six years he earned a professorship of surgery at the University of Glasgow. At the time the usual explanation for wound infection was that the exposed tissues were damaged by chemicals in the air or via a stinking "miasma" in the air. The sick wards actually smelled bad, not due to a "miasma" but due to the rotting of wounds. Hospital wards were occasionally aired out at midday, but Florence Nightingale's doctrine of fresh air was still seen as science fiction. Facilities for washing hands or the patient's wounds did not exist and it was even considered unnecessary for the surgeon to wash his hands before he saw a patient. The work of Ignaz Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes were not heeded.

    Lister became aware of a paper published (in French) by the French chemist Louis Pasteur which showed that rotting and fermentation could occur without any oxygen if micro-organisms were present. Lister confirmed this with his own experiments. If micro-organisms were causing gangrene, the problem was how to get rid of them. Pasteur suggested three methods: filter, heat, or expose them to chemical solutions. The first two were inappropriate in a human wound, so Lister experimented with the third.

    Lister moved from Scotland to King's College Hospital, in London, and became the second man in England to operate on a brain tumor[citation needed]. He also developed a method of repairing kneecaps with metal wire and improved the technique of mastectomy. His discoveries were greatly praised and he was made Baron Lister of Lyme Regis in 1897 and became one of the twelve original members of the Order of Merit and a Privy Councillor in the Coronation Honours in 1902.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister,_1st_Baron_Lister
     
  22. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    In a few thousand years when people look back on the 19th century, they probably won't give much of a damn about whatever wars or political events occurred. They will probably just think of it as "The beginning of the age of electricity" or "the beginning of biology" or something similar.
     
  23. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    My first choice too
     

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