The 20th century, year after year

1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905

1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910

1 911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915

1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920

1921 | 1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925

1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930

1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935

1936 | 1937 | 1938

In August, the Soviet government was working hard to ease the mounting tensions in Europe. It aimed to cash in on the differences then existing between Britain and France on the one hand and the Nazi Germany on the other. Soviet, British and French military delegations met on August 11 to agree a common stand on repelling a possible aggression in Europe. The talks were doomed to failure from the very start, though, because Britain and France clearly frowned on any partnership with the Soviet Union, let alone full-scale military cooperation with Moscow. Frustrated by the western stonewalling, Stalin had no other choice than to notify the Germans that he was ready to discuss "normalization of relations" with the Third Reich. The negotiations with Britain and France were broken off and on August 23, 1938, the Soviet and German foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop met in Moscow to sign a 10 year non-aggression pact.

Meanwhile in Mongolia, Soviet and Mongolian troops were fighting pitched battles against Japanese invaders east of the Khalkhin-Gol river. Japan had been shocked to see its high hopes for a German attack in the west forcing the Soviet Union to fight on two fronts dashed by the signature of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty. The very successful Soviet and Mongolian advance nipped in the bud the aggressive Japanese plans…

In late November, a bundle of unresolved border disputes triggered a full-scale war between the Soviet Union and Finland. The Red Army crossed the Finnish border but was faced with unexpectedly strong resistance from the Finnish troops manning the almost impregnable Mannergheim Line of heavy defenses.

In the early hours of September 1, 1939, the German troops poured into Poland and, two days later, Britain and France entered the war, signaling the start of the Second World War - the biggest such conflict in living memory, fought by 61 nations comprising 80 percent of the world's entire human population. The war zone included Europe, Asia and Africa and a staggering 110 million people were drafted around the world. World War Two lasted six years - two years longer than World War One - and brought more destruction than any other war ever fought by man…

Aiming for a complete rout of the Polish army in high-speed armored warfare, Adolf Hitler amassed about 70 percent of his troops in the east providing considerable superiority in both manpower and military hardware. It was the deep and rapid thrusts of the German mechanized forces that decided the issue, in conjunction with the overhead pressure of the Luftwaffe, wrecking the Polish railway system and destroying most of the Polish air force before it could come into action. Exactly a month later, on October 2, Poland surrendered becoming the first victim of the German aggression and the Nazi theory of racial superiority. The victorious Germans started systematically annihilating the Polish Jews, intellectuals and taking hundreds of thousands more to slave labor in Germany.

The year 1939 brought the death of Zigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Also in 1939 the world was saddened by the death of the outstanding American silent movie superstar Douglas Fairbanks, best known for his roles of romantic lovers and the breathtaking stunts all of which he did himself.

The great operatic diva Yelena Obraztsova was born in Russia and John Steinbeck wrote his Pulitzer prizewinning novel, The Grapes of Wrath. His no less famous fellow countryman, Glen Miller wrote the Moon Valley Serenade and in the same year of 1939, the master of horror movies, Alfred Hitchcock crossed the Atlantic to make about 50 films in Hollywood.

The biggest cinematic buzz of the year, however, was made by the release of the Gone With the Wind American epic based on Margaret Mitchell's eponymous novel. Though not exactly in the same league with Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace masterpiece, Mitchell's book boasts the very lively and immediately recognizable character of its main heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, an ultimate survivor who is never bent by the odds. Thanks to the brilliant performance by Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, Gone With the Wind has gone down in the history of world cinema .

THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.

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