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The 20th century was unlike any before it. In prehistory, the time leading up to the invention of writing around 3200 B.C.E, man experienced insights into the world around him at a glacial pace by comparison. In the 5000 years that followed there was relatively little progress. Even when considering the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, all building on each other in the engine of man’s potential; Nothing compares to the 20th century.
With that said let us quickly summarize what was discussed about the 19th century. The maturation of some social and political ideas, the birth of Marxism as an example. Gradualism continuing on in the British Isles and the end of slavery in the industrialized world. The main impact, I would argue, in the 19th century was specifically the maturation of the industrial revolution. For good reason the American Civil War is considered the first “modern” war, with railways, factories, and many of the facets of societies in the 20th Centuries playing an essential role in keeping the Union together.
Comparing 1800 to 1900 is not the same as the comparison between 1700 and 1800. To best grasp the amount of change that occurred in the 19th century one would have to travel the gap between perhaps the year 1600 and 1800. The level of human advancement arguably having taken as much of a leap forward in one century as previously could have only been accomplished in two. Extending this function further backwards into man’s past and connecting the events and discoveries allowing for this decidedly exponential growth quickly paints the image of how the 20th century began.
Do not assume that this trend continued at the same rate, if anything it accelerated to a degree that still boggles historians’ minds today. In the year 1901 an American newspaper publication predicted that manned flight would not be achieved for millions of years, and in 1903 a machine built with the hands of only two men and powered by an engine with the power of only 12 horses flew a man over 30 yards, approximately 28 meters in civilized terms.
Already only 3 years into this last century and man has truly flown for the first time.
There is something to be said about war and its relation to the advancement of the human race. Most modern historians, generals, and politicians agree that although no longer possible in the same fashion as it once was, war does have an energizing effect on the populace. I argue that in the Second World War this was only achieved because a country was able to not worry about attacks on their mainland as they supplied the remainder of an alliance which quickly fell at the hands of the Germans, but I digress. For good or ill this effect was first noticed on this massive scale to which it is discussed today during the Great War.
By 1914 the machines of war allowed for the horrid conditions of what was called the Western Front. The machines of the Great War included the machine gun, gas and gas mask, tanks, submarines, and airplanes: all of which can be said to have “matured” during the conflict. The vehicles of war led to a stalemate which lasted four long years. A multitude of other factors also contributed to this in varying degrees. President Wilson’s unwillingness to join the war until 1917 is a new argument that has found growing academic acclaim in recent years.
The airplane saw the most improvement, second only to the tank which saw its invention during this period, notably a far better replacement to the armored car. Submarines and the change in the mentality of marine warfare also helped to set the stage for the largest conflict in history.
Once the United States joined the war and the provisional government of Russia in the east fell to the Bolsheviks it was only a matter of time until the German Empire came to its end. With the treaty of Versailles in September of 1918 it can be said that the first domino had been placed into position for the Second World War. Now just 2 decades into the 20th century and I argue the level of achievement achieved in the previous century has already occurred. 3 decades in and airplanes are now flying thousands of kilometers over the course of hours, the machines of man with the implements of mechanization have helped on the battlefield, in industry, and in agriculture. Even with the effects of the Great Depression the majority of people on Earth are living better lives than their parents and comparably impossible lives to their grandparents.
Hitler rises to power, democracy fades from Germany and much of Europe. The other European countries are slow to respond until Hitler sets his sights on Poland.
Some historians argue that Hitler had an opportunity to attack Poland in September of 1939. What the effects on the world might have been are unclear and have been written about in alternate history for decades since. Regardless, what happened in reality is on May 10th, 1940 the largest military operation that has ever been successfully executed involving the entirety of the German and Italian Armies invading Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Yugoslavia, and perhaps most importantly, France began the Second World War. By July of 1940 all of the countries listed above were fully under the control of either Germany or Italy. Later in the summer in part thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet Union invaded both Finland and the Baltic States while the Germans along with Italy captured the remaining free Balkan States. At the same time Germany simultaneously invaded both Norway and Sweden and by the fall of the same year they had capitulated.
Over the winter into 1941 Germany and Italy continued their joint operations, now in Northern Africa. The plan according to the Fuhrer and Mussolini was to remove the remaining Allied Forces' colonial holdings to weaken their economies and war machines. In February of 1941 the Suez Canal fell into German hands, which would have forced the remaining British and French fleets to sail around the Horn of Africa if not for the subsequent naval invasion and eventual total control both Germany and Italy held over virtually the whole of North Africa by the end of the first full year of the conflict, this also allowed the Italians to invade Portugal from Morocco and establish full control of the Mediterranean along with Germany. Unfortunately for the Italians tensions rose between them and Spain, leading to a conflict which would keep Italy occupied until 1943.
At the same time in Northern Europe with the fall of both Sweden and Norway, Germany was readily able to assist the Soviets after their own victory over the Balkan States in the invasion of Finland, resulting in the nation capitulating in the winter of 1941, admittedly holding out longer than expected. Historians have argued since before the war that the Soviet Union was poised to attack Finland a full year earlier, it is believed that Hitler in a private meeting with Stalin convinced him to hold off on his attack until the Germans could assist. As both the leaders hated each other's ideologies to a degree that would go unmatched until the Cold War, it is unclear how this negotiation went anywhere at all. Its occurrence itself has come into question in recent decades, however, several dozens Russian and German soldiers years after the war claim to have either witnessed or been posted at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg while the meeting took place sometime in October of 1939. Whatever the reasons may be, by June of 1941 the only remaining bastion of democracy in Europe was Great Britain.
In the summer of 1941 the Soviet Union transferred the majority of its forces to its border between the Black and Caspian seas and Stalin utilizing the “Blitzkrieg” tactics that had taken Europe last year in order to quickly drive through and capture the remaining territory not belonging to either Germany or Italy between the Suez Canal and the British Raj. At the same time this allowed Stalin to increase his ties in the Far East, he was very public about potentially assimilating whatever power survived the Japanese onslaught later that decade. Having little to no wish to get involved beforehand.
The Italians, now realizing their position in the Iberian Peninsula was crumbling, transferred the bulk of their forces to the South of France and Portugal to prepare for a massive land invasion, and their navy moved into position in order to begin blockading any imports from reaching Spain. What remained was focused on once again attempting to conquer Ethiopia.
Germany found itself in a constant naval battle with the United Kingdom, with seemingly endless supplies flowing from the United States, the battle for the British Isles was looking to be even more troublesome than the invasion of the whole of the European mainland. With the majority of its Navy occupied around the British Isles, there was very little support for the continuing push down through Africa, still progressing but at a much slower rate after taking the Belgian Congo in August of 1941.
By October of 1941 with the war at a stalemate in both South Africa and over the skies and in the seas of England, operations into South England began to occur continuously as the cities of Brighton and Dover were nearly bombed out of existence: any coastal city along the English Channel would eventually suffer a similar fate. In December after the attack on the Pacific bases by the Japanese, the Germans and Italians also declared war on the United States. The supply line from the United States to the British Isles was now more under threat than ever before. Remarkably supplies were still somehow able to make it through, but at a much greater cost of men and machines alike. The Germans never loosened up their attacks on the convoys but with an ever growing number of ships on either side of the conflict the battles remained in a stalemate.
Through a series of events the Enigma code was broken in 1941, eventually of course the Germans had discovered and invented an even more cryptic device to encode transmissions by 1942. This led to the invention of the transistor in 1943 which allowed computers to become much smaller and far better at cracking codes. By 1944 the newer code would be cracked again, and again the Germans devised an even crazier contraption having been able to smuggle a transistor back into Germany. This of course was a ploy as secretly the integrated circuit was already in production by late 1944 and with the new power of computational devices it cracked the newer German code only a few days into 1945.
At the same time German scientists deploy the V1 “Flying Bomb” in 1943, and by 1944 the V2 Rocket also went into operation, both types of weapons bombing England and Wales as frequently as possible. By 1945 the V3, a much larger guided version of the V2 was also bombing the British Isles as far away as Northern Scotland from the launch sites in eastern Germany.
Lastly the Jet fighter is often cited as one of the most impressive technologies that made advancements during the Second World War. Over the course of the war the Jet fighter went from a novelty in the testing stages at the beginning of the war to one of the most advanced killing machines driven by men on the planet. The Germans were first to develop and utilize a Jet fighter, with the Me 262 engaging in testing during 1942 and pushed into service by 1943 in order to assist in the battle of Britain. The British and Americans were quick to react as their propeller driven aircraft proved to be almost no match for these new combatants. Just two weeks after the Me 262 was deployed into service the American P-59 joined it in the skies over the English Channel, followed by the P-80 just six months later. The English Gloster Meteor which would remain in service for an unprecedented 30 years did not see service until late into 1943 but remained a very reliable aircraft that was later deemed vital to winning the war. Several other Jet Fighters also saw service in the Battle of Britain, for example: Britain's Dh. 100, Sea Hawk, Dh 112, DH Sea, Gloster Javelin, and Supermarine Attacker; The American FH Phantom, FR-1, F-86D, F-89, F-94, and F3D; The German He 162, He 280, and Messerschmitt P.1101. These went into service at varying times between 1944 and 1947, some with token participation and others essential to the war effort on both sides of the conflict.
The Soviet Union during this time also had several jet aircrafts but none went into service before 1945. That year the Mig-9 and Yak-15 both saw operation over the skies of China, although the Soviet Union denied any involvement in China before 1946, several Japanese soldiers still reported shooting at “unidentified faster than usual aircraft” in the skies over Beijing. With that said both kinds of aircraft now joined by the Yak-17, Mig-15, and Yak-23 were later confirmed by United States military intelligence to have been flying over Chinese airspace into 1947, with some accounts stating that Soviet planes never really left the skies after the Second World War.
Italy would not join the Jet fighter scene until the G.80 in 1946 which never saw combat and of the two prototypes built and tested only one survived the war. The other exploded shortly after take off.
In Japan the Nakajima Kikka, developed in the early summer of 1945 was in development throughout the remainder of the rest of the war. Development halted after the attacks on the mainland later that year. Some of the prototypes were used in kamikaze attacks up until the unconditional surrender.
The combinations of these three technologies contributed directly to the post war economic boom, often integrated into each other they opened up whole new markets and fields of research.
I would like to pause at this time to acknowledge the tremendous amount of resistance fighting that occurred throughout the conquered areas of the globe. Far from the front line these individuals helped considerably in weakening Germany and Italy internally. The War could have gone very differently if not for their help.
Japan: in a hundred years they had gone from another Oriental nation to the modernized power that was barreling through China. Any hint of their weakness to European powers was disintegrated by the Nanjing Massacre in January of 1938. On December 7th, 1941 several U.S and military installations were attacked across the Pacific, including a land invasion of the Philippines and Alaskan Islands. By January of 1942 the Philippines was fully under Japanese control, followed by Guam in February, Midway and Wake Islands in March, and the Hawaiian Islands by the end of May. Despite all of this the Doolittle raid, the raid on Tokyo by sixteen B-25 bombers in April of 1942 defined the tone of the conflict. Despite major losses the United States appeared to be committed to winning the war. The single plane which managed to land in Vladivostok sent a clear message to Stalin as well: the Americans were significantly stronger than was even internationally recognized.
In June of 1942 the Japanese split off a fourth of their forces that focused now on the British, French, and Dutch territories in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Their incredibly skilled air force continued to provide unprecedented levels of support in all the naval invasions they underwent. Their push continued through the summer of 1942, the last remaining British regiments surrendering in Northern Australia in early September with little notable resistance occurring after December. All that remained was the British Raj.
The bulk of the Japanese force conglomerated in Pearl Harbor, including 7 of the 10 carriers. (The total number grew to 16, 13 of which patrolled the coast of America by 1945.) From the island the Japanese carried out major operations to clear out the remainder of the American Pacific fleet. This would never truly be accomplished, the carriers and their fleets in the Pacific playing a mostly successful game of cat and mouse in the coming years. In truth the Japanese military strategy depended too much on an American public that would not support the war. As the war in the Western Pacific dragged on into 1943 and 1944 without any substantial gains any hope of changing the hearts and minds of Americans was gone.
The French would continue to be a nuisance until a full year later. There were some remaining pockets of resistance in French Indochina, even as the Japanese took full control of Burma, Siam, and continued on through China. And despite being surrounded on all sides, the French fought until the last man. A famous story in the ranks of the French army states that on December 24th, 1943 possibly the last living enlisted French soldier was killed after having snuck into the residence of Yuitsu Tsuchihashi, the Governor General appointed by the Empire of Japan and shouted, “Liberté, Égalité, Frater-” as grenades chained to his belt turned the residence into a fireball. The details of the story are shrouded in gossip and exaggeration, but Yuitsu Tsuchihashi did indeed die in a house fire on the 24th of December in 1943.
1944 saw the continued battles in both China and the Western Pacific. The Second World War, just like the Great War, turns into a war of attrition, one where the trenches are bodies of water. The Americans this time have the greater technological advantage, with advances in computational technology in England and other associated innovations, radar becomes much clearer at even longer distances. The precision reached the point by the end of 1944 where a land based anti-battleship gun can shoot a target at 30 miles with a 1 in 10 chance of hitting the target. When paired with the fact that the Pacific coast of America had been turned into a sea wall this meant that no Japanese ship could reach the coast. The Canadian Pacific coast is patrolled by the quickly rebuilt Pacific fleet. The Panama Canal at this time has been turned into a fortress with American submarines patrolling as far out as 500 miles into the Pacific to ensure nothing gets past.
After a peace treaty between Italy and Spain in the fall of 1943 Italy agreed to pull out of the Iberian Peninsula, having suffered heavy losses. Portugal is made a puppet of Spain and a fascist government is put in place. The remainder of Italy’s military might is sent to quell rebellions in almost all of their conquered regions. They would make no further territorial gains in 1944 and experience their first losses in 1945.
On March 23rd of 1945 F.D.R launched Operation Manifest Destiny and the entirety of the Pacific Fleet, now nearly four times the size in both ships and men that it was in 1941, set sail in the night. Utilizing the New Moon and radar technology in order to guide the ships out past the Japanese patrols that were a hundred miles off the coast. The Japanese code was already broken years prior but thanks to the integrated circuit computers could predict the future positions of Japanese ships better than people. General MacArthur was quoted as saying, “We’re sailing directly towards the enemy so they can’t see us.” Now equipped with a mix of P-51s and F-80s the potential of the carriers was going to be fully realized.
On April 1st 1945 Hawaii was invaded by 52,000 American troops supported from the land and air by a barrage of weaponry thought impossible 5 years prior. On April 9th, 1945 the Hawaiian Islands were back under American control and immediately B-29 bombers shipped along with the fleet began to fly missions out to any island they could reach. B-45a’s with a shorter range make runs supported by P-51s on any Japanese ships detected within range of the largest fleet in history. On April 10th, 1945 with the passing of F.D.R the moral grounds necessary to carry the Americans to the islands of Japan was guaranteed.
The battle of Guam, Midway, and Wake Islands sees the majority of the Japanese fleet destroyed, along with a good portion of its seasoned aviation force. Only 4 Japanese carriers remained by the time the Americans reached the Philippines in May of 1945.
In July of 1944 the United States tested a weapon that was unlike any the world had ever seen. Having made half a dozen of these weapons by the time the invasion of the main Philippine island came around, it seemed natural to test its combat effectiveness. So on May 8th of 1945 for the first time in history an atomic bomb was used on people. Throughout the rest of the summer of 1945 the subsequent invasions of Northern Australia, French Indochina, and the islands of the Dutch East Indies alongside the continued island hopping reaching Iwo Jima went much quicker than expected. 8 atomic weapons were used in total between May and September of 1945, and led to the U.S push into Japanese territory being remembered as “Atomic Manifest Destiny” or more often just as “Atomic Destiny”.
The Battle of Iwo Jima was necessary in order to have a landing strip long enough to support fully loaded B-29s flying over the mainland of Japan. Since the speed at which atomic weapons could be made was still slow, but with the yields ever increasing, traditional carpet bombing with hundreds of planes became the preferred strategy. On a cold October morning the attack began, and into November it went, remembered as the deadliest conflict in American History with over 8400 American soldiers dying on the island. However, by December of 1945 every major city of Japan had been carpet bombed at least somewhat, with Tokyo getting the brunt of the attacks.
By this time America had decided to halt the production of atomic bombs in order to focus on the development of hydrogen bombs, with the yields orders of magnitude greater than those of atomic bombs, reaching into megatons of TNT. March of 1946 saw the test of the first hydrogen bomb, its yield was 3 times greater than expected. The only issue was that the device was 21 tons. At least that would have been an issue if the British had not been able to steal the blueprints of a V3. Upscaled even further, a suborbital hop of several thousand kilometers allowed the 21 ton behemoth to be sent to Hiroshima in June of 1946.
The Japanese refused to surrender and only two months later a second hydrogen bomb was sent to Nagasaki. When the Japanese further refused to surrender, a coup overthrew Hirohito when he tried to radio the country and Operation Downfall was set into motion. Another two months and with four times the yield a bomb was dropped on the city of Tokyo. If this last attack did not convince the Japanese to surrender then Operation Downfall was set to commence on the morning of December 7th of 1946. A few hours before the Operation was executed, an official with the highest rank that survived, a major in the Japanese army surrendered to the American forces, unconditionally.
Immediately following the surrender American troops and aid flooded the main islands. For the first time the effects of nuclear radiation on a country is fully realized. In 1939 Census data recorded the Japanese population at 71.4 million people. The United State’s own census of the island accounted for only 44.2 million people. With 4 million estimated to have died during the war itself and the remaining 23 million dying from radiation exposure in the time between the surrender and the completion of the census in late-December of 1947. The bombings of Japan were then seen as the most horrible atrocities committed during the war until the extermination of the Jewish people from the Old World was confirmed later in 1947.
Meanwhile in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, also on March 23rd of 1945 the joint forces of America, Great Britain, Canada, and the remaining forces of almost all the conquered European nations conduct the largest military operation from the sea ever: the largest military operation ever attempted, but with the main force in Europe completely failing it was not entirely successful. However, in the Belgian Congo, Morocco, Algerian France, and perhaps most importantly in the Suez Canal the landings successfully established beach heads from which millions of allied troops would pour in. The fight for the entire continent of Africa was initially very slow, but with the help of local rebellious groups and perhaps more importantly the eventual short supply of new recruits to the front line, the territories of France and the United Kingdom in Africa were declared free of the Axis powers by September 2nd of 1945. This was technically incorrect, as the western defensive line of the Suez Canal still held. Now unable to allow ships through anymore as a contingent of the American Pacific fleet was able to blockade the south end. Despite this, the decision was made to defend the Suez Canal at all costs. At the time both Hitler and Mussolini hoped that if they were able to hold back the Allies at this key position that they could eventually begin to push back, but with supplies of oil and rubber from the conquered Japanese territories no longer coming through, it became a question of when the Suez Canal would fall into the hands of the Allies.
Keeping the Suez Canal was actually fairly easy before Africa was taken. Another large reason that Africa was taken so quickly was the strategic retreat of troops to a defensive line 10 miles from the canal itself, this became the last portion of Africa the Axis would ever hold. The Axis entrenched themselves on either side of the canal, with fall back lines going all the way to the waterline. It is key to remember that the United Kingdom at one point had territory in the Arabian Peninsula, which was of course conquered by the Axis 4 years earlier. This territory's inhabitants, whether inspired by a drive for freedom, or the secret flow of money and weapons that had been set into motion as soon as the United States cleared everything up to the Red Sea, revolted in October of 1945. Assisted by American and English troops the front line was driven all the way back to the Suez from the East to the line of men and steel 10 miles from the canal itself within just a few days.
During this time it is now clear that the Soviet Union was improving its position in Asia, with the Americans pushing the Japanese to their mainland, the Soviets indirectly cleared up the scraps in China. During the years prior China was undergoing a civil war between the communists and nationalists over control of the country. The Soviet Union heavily funded the communist side and by 1946 any internal power struggle on the mainland was gone. The island of Taipei held out for another 7 years before the Soviet Union conducted a successful nuclear attack on the island. The Tsar Bomba used on western side of the island was originally supposed to be 100 megatons, but it was later doubled to 200 megatons when Stalin became aware of the yield and was unimpressed, stating that the Soviet Union should be at least 10 times stronger than the United States. As up until that point the strongest weapon the U.S. had ever used was the 20 megaton hydrogen bomb on Tokyo and the subsequent bombings of Germany. In actuality the engineers created two 100 megaton bombs and dropped them 20 miles apart from two different Jet Bombers under the same name for the duration of the mission. The engineers, commanders, pilots, and anyone else who was involved on the Soviet side agreed it was better to do so rather than explain to Stalin what the Soviet Union physically, in a universal sense, could not do. The end result of a “200 megaton” fusion explosion on Taipei was the complete and total devastation of the island. Ultimately the Soviets were unable to gain any utility from capitulating the island because the attack destroyed all the infrastructure and all but a handful of inhabitants. This nuclear attack is what led to what at the time seemed like a temporary end to the use of nuclear weapons in war.
To clarify, the Soviet Union obtained the atomic and hydrogen bomb in 1947 when an American couple who were working on the Manhattan project disclosed the research to the Soviets. The couple was publicly executed by firing squad in 1949. To further clarify, the Soviet Union solidified its power in the East to an extent that allowed for what is now known as the Sino-Soviet union, the result of which was the absorption of Mongolia, China, and Korea into the Soviet Union by 1951. The countries in the Middle East excluding the British Raj, Turkey, and the newly formed state of Israel were also absorbed at varying times throughout the early 1950s French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies experiencing their own communist revolutions and joining the Soviet Union in that decade as well. This would play a major role in the Soviets ability to maintain their economy despite its structure. The amount of resources and political power this took cannot be overstated, and is the reason the Soviets did not participate in World War 2 until after the Allies had a beachhead in France and could confirm victory over the last stronghold of fascists.
At exactly midnight on January 1st, 1946 Allied Forces on the ground from the west and east and by sea from the south launched a three-way offensive on the Suez Canal. As the defending forces were estimated to have numbered 1.5 million, the Allies decided to have 3 million men drive the main offensive line, on each side of the canal. The navy was a small contingent from the Pacific fleet that had sailed across the Indian Ocean but it was only small in comparison to the rest of the fleet in the Pacific. 5 battleships drove the main push up the canal while 3 carriers with an ample amount of escorting cruisers, destroyers, and submarines stayed 20 miles back providing air support. The Grumman F9 Cougar carrier based bomber ran all of the bombing sorties, outrunning any manned flak cannon and assisting the battleships in the destruction of anything that looked like an enemy strongpoint. The Axis forces, taken by surprise, initially put up comparably little resistance. However, an hour into the offensive and on the eastern side of the battle the Allies had managed to push a mile from the canal itself, the western side had only pushed the Germans back to their next closest fallback line, 7 miles from the canal. As for the naval bombardment from the south, heavy damage on the fortifications was incurred, but a comparably equal amount of damage had also been dealt to the advancing ships. By hour two the Axis was pushed off of the east but on the west the line was drawn exactly where it had been an hour ago. The naval bombardment had cleared a path for the shipping of troops along the southern end of the canal.
Just as the first troops landed on the western side of the Suez Canal a large atomic detonation occurred at the southern end of the canal, incidentally about half a mile up the canal from where allied troops were now fording over. The Germans, in complete secrecy, had managed to develop an atomic bomb just a few weeks prior. The 18 kiloton device was deployed as a water mine three miles into the Suez Canal. Triggered by the U.S.S Iowa sailing up the Suez, the explosion itself incinerated the Iowa and within a matter of seconds had killed tens of thousands of allied troops. As the seconds progressed, footage and first hand accounts from miles away tell of the massive fireball that looked hotter than the sun. The air blast, first destroying or injuring men and machines, and only resulting in a loud bang as it ran past the divisions on the western front and the remaining ships on the southern end of the canal.
For a brief moment after the explosion, all fighting ceased. Most men on either side were stuck in a sense of awe at having actually seen one in person for the first time. Most higher officials were struck more by the fear in the knowledge that the Germans had the A-bomb. Most accounts taken of the battle have differing inconsistencies but all enlisted men talk of the minute of terror. As the de facto cease fire appeared to have lasted almost exactly a minute. Then of course, from a disputed side of the line, a shot rang out, and the fighting continued. As the minutes passed, the area surrounding the recently detonated bomb was dead silent. The casualties from the bomb itself were eventually determined to number in the hundreds of thousands, actual deaths from the bomb are still unknown because of the following. The troops far enough away from the explosion on the East side were ordered to create a line two miles from the fording point that formed what looked to be the top right corner of a circle. The sole surviving battleship, the U.S.S Missouri, having been two miles south of the entrance of the canal itself and sustaining little damage, was ordered to push on through past the point where the Iowa had virtually been erased from existence. Unbeknownst to the majority of people alive at the time it was clear that if the Germans had an A-bomb they only had enough uranium or plutonium for one, and even if they didn’t, the bombings of the German mainland were in full swing by then and the infrastructure required to construct A-bombs were some of the first targets to be destroyed. The harm caused by radiation damage was also kept largely a secret until after the bombings of Japan, despite the American higher ups having full knowledge of the effects the H-bomb was still used on the Germans.
By hour three of the battle as the commanders of the Allies had suspected approximately 700,000 Axis troops, half of the surviving force, crossed the Suez at the same point. The Battleship Missouri was ordered to fire, but from its position now 3 miles up the canal. The majority of German troops crossed back over to the eastern side of the canal but found that a more than expected number of allied troops had survived. It suddenly became a little easier to push on the western front. However, the radiation was starting to have an effect on both sides. The Axis and Allies were locked in a stalemate on the eastern side on the line drawn by the Allies, and this particular segment of the fighting is perhaps the greatest source of the infamous nature of the battle. Men would for seemingly no reason suddenly collapse, others received burns to their body from what seemed like the inside, lesions and other indescribable effects were witnessed. By hour four more men had died from the effects of radiation than the now limited fighting that was occurring on the line. On the western side the line had been pushed to the canal itself on the northern end. The southern end on the other hand had only moved three miles. The Battleship Missouri was still holding its position and for the most part had appeared to clear out any resistance in its immediate area.
Hour five saw the Eastern front grow quiet once again, in reality we now know it was due to the radiation more than the fighting, but up until the 1970s the true nature of the effect of radiation at the Battle for the Suez Canal was not known. All the surviving men on the eastern front, German and American, would die at some point in the coming days. The western front had worn down the defending Axis side to a few square miles of territory that was defended by perhaps a quarter million remaining men. The Allies on the western side had taken few casualties and now outnumbered them 12:1. By Hour six the remaining Axis forces on the western side surrendered to the Allies. In total 4.4 million people died in the single deadliest attack in history. Many historians claim this to be the climax of war, of all of war. As after this single “greatest” battle men's hearts would begin to beat for endeavors other than the territorial squabbles of a single planet. (Eisenhower).
On January 3rd, 1946 the Suez Canal was declared free of the Axis powers. Over the course of the following months the Mediterranean Sea was flooded with American ships and men, the Battle for Britain ended in a victory for the Allies as the Axis could no longer compete with American industry at full force. The British Navy was finally free to conduct naval invasions of Norway and Sweden, and was able to sail its own forces into the Mediterranean. At this time secret talks were held at Yalta in the Ukraine, a province of the Soviet Union with Stalin over his own involvement in the war. He bluntly stated that he would only work with the Capitalists if they could incentivize him to attack, and could provide capital in case of collateral damage. The point was taken and in early March of 1946 the first and second operations at establishing beachheads in Italy, Sicily, France, and the Netherlands were undertaken within days of each other. At this point, after the Axis powers had been beaten severely in the months leading up to the attacks; The battles went fairly easily. The Soviet Union declared war on the Axis powers on March 8th, 1946. In May of 1946 Italy capitulated, its territory in the Balkans having been freed by Soviet Forces while the Americans and British took care of the Italian Peninsula itself. France was liberated by July of the same year, followed in August by the Benelux region. Germany managed to hold on to its own territory well into the fall, but the first Allied troops officially crossed into what was recognized as German territory in November of 1946 with complete air superiority achieved in December.
With the Atomic Destiny in the Pacific Ocean it was clear to Germany that the Americans not only had atomic bombs but had somehow managed to develop these even more powerful hydrogen bombs as well. Months after the 20 megaton detonation over Tokyo in particular with no major nuclear attacks since it was clear to Hitler that the next bomb to be dropped would be over a major German city. At this point he had retreated to his bunker where he would eventually die. The United States, having seen the effects of the bomb in Japan knew that attacking anything less than Berlin itself would result in a conflict being drawn out a full year longer than was necessary. The debate raged on mostly between Great Britain and the United States over whether or not to use the hydrogen bombs, there were seven of them by January of 1947. The Soviet Union had progressed only a dozen miles past the Polish border at that point, and the Americans were two hundred miles from Berlin on the western end. The main argument was over the number of people who would die needlessly because of a decision to not drop the bomb, or to drop it. Eventually the camp for dropping the weapon won. In the evening of January 31st of 1947 a hydrogen bomb with the same yield as the one sent to Tokyo was launched from the Scottish rocket sites on a V3, reaching Berlin less than 30 minutes later.
Hitler refused to surrender, and Hamburg received the same treatment as Berlin at the exact same time of 9 o’clock in the evening, but on February 1st. Hitler still refused to surrender, and at the exact same time on February 2nd, 1947 this time Dresden was wiped off the map. This was mostly for show, as all the major cities had been evacuated after Berlin, whether or not the Americans knew this was another question. On the morning of February 3rd, 1947, a German soldier driving a car on the remains of the autobahn with “white flags”, that were really just white shirts and socks tied to sticks or brooms that were either taped to the side or sticking out of the back seats, drove into an American army base with one hand up and another at 12 o’clock on the steering wheel. After very slowly getting out of the car and after being thoroughly searched was escorted to General Patten. Speaking rather clear English the man identified himself as one of the guards of the Fuhrerbunker and stated, “The man is dead and we are all tired, please stop destroying our country” Hitler had committed suicide with his wife, Eva Braun, the night before. The story was not immediately believed but at the exact same time of February 3rd, 1947 no bomb was dropped. Allied troops over the course of the next few weeks slowly pushed further into the country, after no resistance was encountered and after over a hundred million deaths across most of the known world managed to save the world from a fascist nightmare, and 9 atomic and 6 hydrogen bombs later, the Second World War was declared over on February 21st of 1947.
The destroyed countries would take between 3 to 8 years to rebuild, depending upon whether or not they were on the western side of Europe. This economic reality later evolved into the now famous statement that Winston Churchill was quoted as saying that an Iron Curtain had fallen over eastern Eurasia: everything east of Germany was effectively under Soviet control, with the Warsaw Pact having been founded in 1948. In the meantime, the concentration camps in Europe were found, but their true purpose was not discovered until during the Nuremberg trials when confessions of the successful elimination of the Jewish people from the Old World came out. “Those who did not escape are burning in hell,'' stated one German officer. This would eventually lead to the founding of the state of Israel in 1950 mostly intended as a buffer state to the parts of the Middle East now controlled by the Soviet Union. At the close of the decade, NATO: “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” was founded as a direct response to the Warsaw Pact.
January 1st, 1955. I am keen to pause our advance for a short while in order to summarize what we just experienced. I am also not the first to split the 20th century into 2 distinct categories. This was most likely first done in 1955, as the events of the second half of the century, so far, are in stark contrast to the first. Let us not get ahead of ourselves. So, where is the world? Well, there are now two clear superpowers inhabiting the Earth: NATO, and the Warsaw Pact. For clarity, I will be referring to NATO as the United Nation and the Warsaw Pact as the Soviet Union. As I am always keen on consistency in my writing in obvious hindrance to history. To compensate for that I will quickly remind you that in reality NATO, which from the start had a confusing name, contained all the released democracies in Europe and by the end of the second half of the century every democratic and capitalist or mildly socialist nation on Earth. Not too difficult to conceive when you consider the altruism of the United States in South America which solidified the favoritism politicians gave democracy in the region starting as early as the end of the Gilded Era with Teddy Roosevelt, and the massive amount of aid that went to Africa, Europe, and Oceania following the Second World War. Turning into the United Nation sometime in between, it is hard to pinpoint exactly when, as many governments for a time acted as local legislators to the greater supranational governmental body long before the United Nation was officially recognized as an actual singular governing body. Most historians cite that date, but I argue that it is as ambiguous as it should be, the second half of the 20th century is the founding date for the United Nation. When it comes to the Soviet Union however, a founding date is much clearer. Following Indian Independence in 1949 when Gandhi had finished converting the country towards communism from the eastern border with Germany to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic to Indian Oceans following the “Eurasian Unification” on September 4th, 1959 it was all the Soviet Union.
As the political stage for the latter half of the 20th century was being set it was being held up by and simultaneously supporting the second most important component that would play into the rest of human history: research. Immediately following the end of the war, several major expeditions to the launch and research sites of the Germans were sent out by the Soviets and Americans. Many important German scientists were also captured by both sides, and given the choice to work on rocket and jet propulsion technologies or to be tried for war crimes in the same vein as the political leaders, who were executed by the end of the 1940s; not a single scientist chose not to work in their field. As stated previously rocket and computer-based technologies took a major leap forward in the 1940s. So much so that the landscape of those fields in the 1950s would have been indescribable to those working in them in the 1930s. That fact solidified by the very thing that splits the 20th century in two: the Space Race.
It began on a cold and dreary morning on January 2nd of 1955. On top of a U.N. rocket at the NASA launch site in southern Florida sat a 300-kilogram probe equipped with a simple communication device and a 16mm camera. The first artificial satellite, while far from the first object to reach the height at the later defined 100 kilometers high Karman line, remembered more than the V3 because it achieved the very first orbit. For 3 months it circled the Earth, taking pictures and sending back pings, informing ground-based radio installations of its position. Stalin was reportedly so distraught when he heard the news that it caused him to have his first stroke. The Soviet Union had of course known about NASA, but since their establishment in 1952, even to the infamous KGB, it was believed that they were at least 4 years away from an orbital rocket, which would have put the Soviet Space Program (SSP) years ahead of NASA’s believed schedule.
Around the free world Explorer 1 became a hero, and around the world, it became a household name. Sputnik 1, which very plausibly could have been the first satellite, launched an astounding 6 months ahead of schedule in March of 1955. In April however the Explorer 1 satellite performed the very first fuel ignition in space using the then-experimental liquid hydrogen fuel, the onboard computer powered by rudimentary solar panels calculating the exact time and place in the orbit to burn in order for Explorer 1 to land in U.N. territory. Then when it reached a certain speed and altitude the on-board computer deployed the parachutes and it safely landed 20 miles outside of Moab, UT. This ability had been kept a secret from all but three teams of engineers, and was meant entirely as a show of technological superiority to the Soviet craft they knew was not far behind them. Sputnik 1 remained in orbit of Earth until August of 1956 but burned up upon re-entry into the atmosphere, only managing to hold the title of longest on-going space mission until of course Explorer 3 took that title in 1958.
The Soviet Union was slow to start in the space race because of the vast majority of its resources diverted in trying to finalize its hold over Eurasia, which gave the U.N. an advantage in terms of space exploration in the first few years. Until the 1990s not much was known about what exactly occurred between the end of the second world war and the Eurasian Unification. Most often it is simply called the Unification. It has recently been argued that the lack of violence was more a result of fears that the U.N. was beginning to dominate geopolitics and therefore the leaders of China and India saw no other choice other than to accept the Soviet Union’s plan. However, in the Soviet Union itself, it is widely believed that everything went so peacefully because communism is theorized to temper the human spirit. Debate on this subject has only increased since the reforms of 1991.
July of 1955 saw the launch of Explorer 2: the shell was a carbon copy of Explorer 1, however, the rocket itself contained two stages, the first completing a simple orbital insertion, and the 2nd propelled Explorer 2 into a fly-by past the Moon, during which the first images were taken that were neither of Earth or taken from the Earth. The craft itself then performed an additional third ignition in order to land on the Earth again, this time near the Trinity test site in Nevada. From then on all images would be returned digitally in order for Explorer 3 to save enough mass to be able to land on the Moon. Launched from Earth and landed on the Moon in February of 1956, thanks in part to an RTG (Radio Thermoelectric Generator), yet another experimental technology at the time, it was able to stay in operation for far longer than was suspected. It was unclear if the heaters aboard the spacecraft would be able to survive the lunar night, but in fact the engineers did an excellent job, and the RTG was able to keep the spacecraft running until 1970.
Sputnik 2, 3, and 4 followed and were the first of what would come to be called “sister missions”. This is because of the common practice of assuming a machine to be feminine in nature. If there are any answers I can not give you, it is why men chose to consider their machines to be “ladies”. The three craft were launched within hours of each other in April of 1956 all with the same goal in mind: landing on the surface of the Moon. Of the three launched, only one was successful in reaching the surface at a survivable speed, but it was a message to the U.N. that the Soviet Union was not going to be left behind in this race for space.
The Year 1957 saw the Soviets launch the first dogs and the U.N. launch the first apes into space: The first animals to ever leave the Earth’s biosphere. The U.N. in a typical fashion used what would come to be known as the Mercury Capsule to send Henry and Surjo into orbit in the fall of that year. This typical fashion hardly needs defining, the U.N will always try to kill two birds with one stone, especially if it means staying ahead of the Soviet Union. The Mercury Capsule, designed to carry two persons or apes, was rated for human spaceflight. Yuri Gagarin would become the first man in space on top of the Vostok 1, orbiting the Earth 3 times on March 3rd of 1958. Valentina Tereshkova followed to become the first woman in space, completing 8 orbits on March 8th. This overshadowed the first U.N citizens in space, an American and British Astronaut aboard the Mercury Capsule on March 21st. Incidentally, these were also the first people to sleep, eat, and use the restroom in space: the spacesuits they used were prototypes of the ones for long-duration space missions. The space toilet had not yet been invented, although after this mission it was certainly on the drawing board. They returned to Earth on the 24th of March to a much rockier celebration than was received by the Cosmonauts.
Throughout 1959 and 1960 unmanned and manned missions went up alike, the Soviet Union achieved the first spacewalk, the first mission flown by 2 female cosmonauts, and the first meet up of two craft in space, including the exchange of crew members. The U.N achieved the first mission to spend a week in space and with the development of the Gemini capsule the first three-person crew in space, which not only met up but were also able to dock with another Gemini craft, fully manned. In May of 1961 the U.N launched an unmanned pod the size of roughly two Gemini craft put together, because it was just that, this “Sky-lab” included experiments designed to be done in microgravity. The first scientist in space was accompanied by two air force veterans who had never flown in space, to show the extent to which computers could automate delicate procedures. Gemini 5 docked with Sky-Lab and all three men broke records for time spent in space, returning in July of the same year. The same month that the Soviet Mars 4 inserted itself into the first orbit of the Red Planet, Mars 3: its sister, burned its engines for too long and is assumed to have become the first Artificial Meteorite to crash land on Mars.
1961 also saw the first set of Pioneer Probes, sent at various times throughout the year to Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. The first communication satellites, the first weather satellites, and the first GPS satellite as well, although the U.N didn’t complete their network until 1965, the Soviets completed theirs in 1964. On the ground 1961 saw Arpanet come online, the precursor to the internet. Most importantly 1961 saw John F. Kennedy announced the Apollo program, with the stated goal of having a permanent base on the Moon before the decade was out. By 1962 the first five-person craft, the centerpiece of the Apollo missions, was performing manned tests in orbit of the Earth, and historically in September of 1962, around the Moon. Apollo 3 completed a total of 12 Lunar orbits. The Soviet Union at the same time expanded more on the side of space habitation itself. Stalin was strongly influenced by the idea of Homo-Sapiens-Cosmos, of a race of humans engineered to live in space without the need of planets, engineering their own homes out in the depths of space itself. In line with this, the SSP launched the first component of Salyut 1 in January of 1961, artificially docked it to the Science Lab a week later, and the docking port section the week after that. Designed to carry a maximum of 9 people, as 3 Soyuz spacecraft, each capable of manning 3 people, could dock at once. The first crew came aboard in March, followed by the second and third in April. Plans for Salyut 2, a far larger space station were already in action, Stalin’s vision seemed to take over his mental state throughout the last few years of his life.
The realities of Stalin’s past have come back to haunt his memory, an estimated hundred and fifty million people died directly because of his regime and policies within the union. Yet, he is responsible for the birth of what many people today hold very dear. The infrastructure of what space would look like in the information age was laid down because of him, an interesting coincidence if nothing else perhaps. In order to complete Stalin’s vision, ever-larger spacecraft had to be made, with that came ever larger construction and launch facilities, built to scales for unimaginable reasons in the 1960s and completely necessary in later decades. Salyut 1 is notable, but Salyut 2 is perhaps where the future was truly born. The first module was launched in October of 1961. Its first component met up with Salyut 1 in orbit. That first component was to become the center of the first space station with artificial gravity. Throughout 1962 the rotating crews of Salyut 1 assisted in the orbital assembly of mass-produced near identical and interlocking components of the ring section. This is a partially correct statement, although from the outside the 32 components of the ring looked identical, on the inside they were arranged as either laboratories, housing centers with cabins, meeting areas, a library and gym, and most importantly: lavatories. Each person was assumed to require 8 meters of private space, each of the 32 sections was roughly 40 cubic meters in size, a quarter of the ring section was reserved for cabins, giving you 320 cubic meters of housing, for 40 people. The original central component was also added onto with two docking ports, ones for the far larger craft than the Soyuz craft which docked to Salyut 1. Each one could individually accommodate 5 Soyuz craft, far more than was needed in terms of populating the station of course, but just like a city it was conceived, some of the arriving ships would only be carrying cargo. 40 people would require a lot of food and water, and generate a lot of waste. Construction was completed in September of 1962, the Oxygen atmosphere of the ring was activated in October of 1962, and two of the new series of Soyuz craft, capable of seating 6, arrived in November with the preliminary skeleton crew of three people. Towards the end of his life, perhaps because of his lifelong mistrust of humans, Stalin demanded Salyut 2 be as automated as possible. Of the 9 cosmonauts who were aboard Salyut 1, all of them volunteered to serve aboard Salyut 2 historically without hesitation. Yuri Gagarin, on his 3rd flight into space, would never return to Earth.
The twelve men and women worked to solve all the unforeseen problems of a large installation in space. One of the more infamous ones was the smell which developed after a few months, but with the advent of better filtration systems, “Necessity is the mother of invention, but bad smells are like that one uncle”, one cosmonaut is quoted as saying. Through 1963 Salyut 2 is credited with the invention of the water reclaimer, hydroponics, and pets in space. It turned out to be more of a testing bed for how to live in space than the future of mankind as claimed by Stalin, but it was completely necessary in order for that future to come about: without Salyut 2, modern space stations would not have been possible.
On February 17th of 1963 at the age of 85 Stalin died, and with him so did many of the more totalitarian aspects of the Soviet Union, the communist party able to once again hold sway for the first time since the purges of the 1930s. The focus was turned away from Stalin’s vision mostly out of spite and political drama, I need to legally state that is simply my opinion. The almost overnight shift of the SSP to beating the U.N to the Moon was so drastic many in the government questioned if Stalin’s death had been planned in advance. Thankfully, enough people in the government were sympathetic to Stalin’s vision that Salyut 2 was allowed to continue. However, a majority of resources were diverted to getting a Soviet on the Moon before the Americans. Thanks to the innovations occurring on Salyut 2 both NASA and SSP could reduce the risk of lunar missions, and beyond. Not because they were sharing technology, but because the CIA made it their primary mission to steal foreign secrets.
The 60s were important years in understanding the Solar System. While man only travelled to the Moon, his instruments travelled much further and transmitted stories about all of our closest neighbors. Just like a woman looking for gossip. The Explorer probes had a success rate of about 60% and returned the first close images of Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. Later in the decade, the Explorer Mission Extension Program began designing automated missions to travel as far away as the Oort cloud. With designs for Venetian and Martian landers, long-term survey craft of the gas-giants, and saw the initial proposal of Rovers. For a full catalog of all explorer missions please review the index.
On the ground also in February of 1963 the first personal computer was unveiled by IBM. Creatively named the “IBM PC” It unveiled to the public the concept of an operating system and a graphical user interface. Although a watered down version of the Computers being used by NASA the power suddenly in the hands of the public later assisted by the creation of the public Arpanet for member states of the United Nation in 1965 greatly increased the speed of innovation. The Soviet Union would also create a separate better monitored internet for their citizens, but in the late 70s as personal computers were banned in the home. According to the state, The People’s Interconnected Computer Network accessible at Universities, Libraries, and Government offices was free of any capitalist lies as an entirely free flow of information would compromise the minds of the youth, and give them access to immoral pornography for next to no cost.
The United Nation launched Apollo 4 and 5 concurrently in April of 1963. Apollo 4 with a skeleton crew of two pilots and a lunar base module, and Apollo 5 a few hours afterwards with another skeleton crew consisting of a pilot and a geologist aboard a lunar descent vehicle. After rendezvousing in lunar orbit the first part of the lunar base, a small hexagonally shaped bubble of aluminum and glass docked with the descent vehicle: a platform with a booster and four unretractable legs. A sole pilot remained in orbit while the other three headed down to the surface. The pilot programmed the Apollo 5 Command Module to remain in orbit while departing back to Earth aboard the Apollo 4 Command Module, marking the beginning of Neil Armstrong's long career. The three remaining people aboard the descending base would of course also descend upon the pages of history. Digital cameras in a higher resolution than a year prior aboard the craft captured the stunning detail of the lunar surface, challenged only by the views of the Astronauts. An estimated 60% of the world witnessed the touchdown and Alan Shepard stepping humanity's first foot on the Moon. Over the course of the next few hours the three Astronauts assembled the base, itself sat atop the lunar lander in case of a need for an immediate evacuation.
Eugene Cernan, the first scientist to leave low Earth Orbit, along with pilots Alan and Buzz Aldrin inflated experimental habitation modules on the surface surrounding the lander. Made of newly designed flexible meta-materials. Far larger in volume than their current base, but untested and for their first few months of operation used mostly as pressurized storage of lunar regolith.
The landing site, chosen because of its proximity to water, for staying hydrated, hydrogen fuel, and alcohol. Unfortunately no suitable drilling site was discovered and the crew was relieved two weeks later by Apollo 6, a fully crewed mission with a fuel tank module and a lunar descent module. Apollo 5 united with their Command Module leaving the lander in orbit, once Apollo 6 rendezvoused both Apollo 5’s and 6’s Lunar Modules descended to the lunar surface.. In late May of 1963 a large concentration of lunar water was discovered 60 meters below the surface just a few hundred meters from the original landing site. Apollo 7 rotated the crews once again in June of 1963, escorted by two unmanned vehicles carrying a nuclear reactor module for the base on the surface, and a hydrogen-fuel refining module. By this time the base itself was set on the surface and temporary landing pads had been constructed for the two Lunar Landers. Apollo 8, launching in tandem with two unmanned vehicles carrying an aquaponics module and a fluid tank module, for all the before mentioned fluids, descended to the surface in July of 1963.
The difference this time being that the Apollo 7 crew remained on the surface while both Lunar modules ascended and descended, twice, once for the cargo, and a second time for the crew. Once the assemblage of modules was completed, looking exactly like a bumpy field of half-domes, the ten astronauts from across the U.N came together to do a televised event from the original module. Beginning the period of human history where mankind had a continual presence on the Moon.
Through the remainder of 1963 and 1964 U.N’s Lunar Exploration program appeared to slow down, in reality the next set of Apollo Missions (15-20) would be a new class. The Expanded Lunar Lander program designed both a Crewed and Cargo lander, capable of seating up to 8 people and 40 kilotons respectively. The Command Module Mk II, also capable of seating 8 people, would not launch until 1965.
In the seas and in the air the reality of rocket and computer technology continued the state of a situation that was all but a war and so the state of affairs remained cold rather than hot. Designs could now be simulated in Computers, with every passing year the density of computing tripled. Huge modular servers sat in strategic centers around the world calculating away the shape of craft that would carry us to the stars, and of designs like the SR-71, the first vehicle designed with a computer and the last with a slide-rule. Stealthier and quieter ships required more malleable materials, smoother surfaces, stranger looking designs. In the realm of propaganda war films had better computer generated illustrations and the very first video games and training programs arose.