The events listed in this post come largely from the 1870’s. Some begin in that decade but have ramifications still being felt today. All of the information is from the Wikipedia Year by Year Breakdown of World History and various links found on that initial page.
- Arts and Culture
In Germany, from 1871 to 1878, Prime Minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck launched the Kulturkampf, or “Culture War,” against the Catholic Church throughout the German Empire. It was a move made largely to secularize and Protestantize the new German state. The religious persecution was focused on Prussia in an attempt to eradicate the largely Catholic Polish population there. In some areas of the German Empire the Kulturkampf was involved with rising German nationalism. It also resulted in increased Polish resistance and the push from the Poles for an independent Poland.
- Science, Technology and Ideas
The period beginning in 1871 and ending in 1914 is known as the Second Industrial Revolution. This period roughly coincides with the American Gilded Age. The United States was one of the major powers who greatly benefited from this period’s technological innovations. Nations with industrial capacity but inadequate natural resources found themselves able to establish empires from which they could extract the resources necessary for their continued imperialism. For obvious reasons, this period ends in 1914, because eventually, you have to run into somebody else who has new and expensive guns too.
- Social Change (issues of gender, race, class, immigration)
In 1874, The Home Rule Movement is established in Ireland. With the growth of nationalism came the desire in Ireland for a free Irish state. This desire was expressed politically by the formation of the Home Rule League in the 1870’s, as well as poetically, in William Butler Yeats’ “Easter, 1916.” Ireland is still not fully independent.
- War, Politics, and Nature.
The Anglo-Zulu War took place in South Africa during the year 1879. The British Empire was interested in the area because of the recent discovery there of large deposits of diamonds. The war resulted in the disbanding of the large and unified Zulu Nation creating in the area a turmoil always accompanying the loss of central authority. The area remained one of contention and varying interests and would see several more wars in the near future.
These events do indeed have ramifications: stirrings of Irish independence, histories of colonization and decolonization in Africa that have shaped that continent irreparably; German nationalism that exploded in WW1 and WW2, and the second industrial age that altered the world in so many ways. Great post!