Talk:1900s

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Standard headings[edit]

I cannot see a section of "important personalities" on other decades and don't think that is the best description of Freud. Is there anyway of getting standard headings for the decades? BozMo (talk)

Lawrence Hargrave[edit]

The only references I find to Lawrence Hargrave indicate that his work took place in the 1880s and 1890s. This appears to be the only reference to this "stable wing" design in the 1990s. Can someone please confirm or remove this entry? -Harmil 28 June 2005 11:40 (UTC)

Quick Description[edit]

I was thinking, since the 1910's-2000's(the rest of the 20th century, plus some of the 21st) each have their own descriptions, maybe this should have one as well. Thanks for the time. -Chris, Nov. 28 2005 6:03pm

What was this decade called?[edit]

How did people refer to the 1900s in the 1900s, does anybody know? -- Bungopolis 07:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The aughts? Voortle 21:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe they called it the 1900s? -- Anomynous 19:28, 25 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.199.18.136 (talk)

I would like to know myself. Was it really the aughts? What about 1800-1810, would that be the eighteen aughts, similar to the eighteen twenties? Are we in the two-thousand aughts or the two-thousand zeros? Does anyone know? GalaxyMage@aol.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.142.21.43 (talk) 09:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't comment on what it was called during the nineteen hundreds itself. However, in my experience, from at least the 1950s on, the 1900s universally referred to the (aprox.) 1st decade of the 20th century: as in, "in the nineteen hundreds" could not, prior to 2000, really mean anything other than 1900 to 1909. Personally, I feel that using, e.g., 1900s to (almost) mean the, e.g., 20th C., presumably to avoid having to remember to subtract one when forming individual years, is just lazy. It's a bit like misspelling words correctly ending in 'ize', like 'realize', with an 's': to avoid having to remember the few that correctly end in 'ise', like 'improvise' and 'circumcise', etc. See Fowler's Modern English Usage or Hart's Rules.

I do see the symmetry, or is it orthogonality, of the terminology of 'oughs'/'aughts'/'naughts', 'tens', 'twenties', 'thirties', etc., referring to ten year periods and 'hundreds' to centuries. However, I still remain strongly prejudiced against this use of 'hundreds'. The only real arguments that I have against this are as follows:

It is illogical to have one term for the first ten years of the current/contextual century that, when applied to another century, refers to the whole hundred years. This may not be as clear-cut an issue in the context of the 21st C., because twenty hundreds feels somehow uncomfortable in comparison to nineteen hundreds or eighteen hundreds, or even twenty one hundreds. So, perhaps, it remains to be seen what the common usage will be for the decade just passed, whether there is a conflict with any numerically similar usage for the 21st C to 1900s for the 20th C., and whether this TBD common usage affects common usage for other centuries and first decades.

There would then be no clear equivalent for the first decade to the numerical forms 1810s, 1820s, etc.; whereas, 1800s for a century is so close a synonym to 19th C., it feels unnecessary.

On the latter point, R. Ritter (The Oxford Guide to Style: 2002, §7.10.4, p181) has a relevant comment: "The difference between labeling a decade 'the twenties' rather than 'the 1920s' is that the word form connotes all the social, cultural, and political conditions unique to or significant in that decade, while the numerical form is simply the label for the time span. This is not to say that the two cannot be used together for variation in text, but in doing so it is useful to attempt some distinction in context between aura and era". To me, this highlights that there is a specific need for a numerical form, in addition to any form such as the aughts (or oughs), that refers to the period 00 to 09. What this might be other than 1900s or 1800s, etc., is not clear to me.

Anyway, I suggest that, as a minimum, the clause in the opening section should be modified from "although this term can equally be used for the years 1900–1999" to "although this term is also used for the years 1900–1999", or better yet "although this term is used by some for the years 1900–1999", which removes or at least downgrades the tacit acceptance that it is correctly a (near) synonym for the 20th C. I will leave this as a suggestion for now, and consider the mod when there has been time for comment. 20.133.0.13 (talk) 14:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

20th Century?[edit]

Since when was the 20th Century as a whole ever referred to as the 1900s? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.171.163.185 (talk) 13:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The 20th century began on January 1st of 1901 and ended with December the 31st of Y2K. The 1900s, by most definitions, began with the year 1900 and ended with the year 1999. 2603:6011:A400:259:15F0:B290:6096:7CA8 (talk) 01:32, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The 1900's refers to the years 1900-1909, it's literally in the first sentence of this article. 51.9.106.150 (talk) 10:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great work![edit]

I tried to fix it up as much as I could. In my opinion, the Technology section might still need to be shortened a bit. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The selection of notable events in the montage[edit]

We need to reach a consensus on the final selection of images included in the 1900s montage on the top of the page through a discussion (and not through edit wars) which would include (hopefully) many Wikipedians.

The current montage is composed of the following images:

File:Fil-American War Feb 04,1899.jpg

Please share your opinion on this matter BELOW supplying reasons for or against the current images included and/or supply alternative suggestions. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 20:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Image Fil-American War Feb 04,1899.jpg needs to be replaced - it is a non-free image of a 1899 event. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a heavy bias to United States in this selection. How about Modernism, the funeral of Queen Victoria, Comet Halley, Fauvism, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Second Anglo-Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, 1905 Russian Revolution, colonialism as per Congo Free State, the Porfiriato for starters. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 01:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested additions[edit]

Henri Matisse, Le bonheur de vivre (1905-6), Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA. A painting that was called Fauvist and brought Matisse both public derision and notoriety.
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907. Re-invented the art of painting, all of Picasso's friends even Henri Matisse and Georges Braque were upset when they saw this painting.
Declaration of the Young Turk Revolution by the leaders of the Ottoman millets in 1908
Battle of Spion Kop during the Second Boer War
Homeless survivors of the earthquake in Messina, in 1908, under a tent.