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1894 CE

This year falls in the Age of revolutions and empire (1789–1914). Revolutions in France, Haiti and Latin America overturn old regimes, and industry, beginning in Britain, changes work, cities and war. European powers and the United States expand their reach, and by 1914 much of Africa and Asia is under colonial rule.

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Within fifteen years

Ruler · Twentieth century · ChinaMao Zedong1893–1976Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1943 and the central figure of the People's Republic of China, proclaimed in 1949. He held party leadership until his death in 1976. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were carried out under his authority.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · ItalyAntonio Gramsci1891–1937Sardinian Marxist, cofounder of the Italian Communist Party, imprisoned by the Fascist regime. The Prison Notebooks develop cultural hegemony and the war of position.
Ruler · Twentieth century · GermanyAdolf Hitler1889–1945Dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, born in 1889, founder of the Nazi regime and starter of World War II in Europe. His government murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust and millions of others. He killed himself in his Berlin bunker on 30 April 1945 as Soviet troops closed in.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · AustriaFriedrich August von Hayek1899–1992Austrian-born British economist and political philosopher. Author of The Road to Serfdom (1944) and "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945). Shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · AustriaLudwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Austrian born thinker, heir to a steel fortune he gave away, who wrote two philosophies: the Tractatus of 1921, then the Investigations, published after his death, which undid it. He lived 1889 to 1951, teaching at Cambridge between wars.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · GermanyMartin Heidegger1889–1976German thinker whose Being and Time of 1927 remade philosophy around the question of being. He joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and served as rector of Freiburg, a fact that shadows his towering influence. He lived 1889 to 1976.
Country · AustraliaAustralia1901–Australia is a continent country in the southern hemisphere, the only state that covers a whole continent. Six British colonies federated in 1901. It is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
Ruler · Twentieth century · ChinaChiang Kai-shek1887–1975Leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party after Sun Yat-sen, and the Nationalist side of the war with Japan and the civil war. His government retreated to Taiwan in December 1949.
Ruler · Twentieth century · JapanHirohito1901–1989Emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989, born in 1901, who reigned through Japan's wars and its rebirth. The military ruled in his name during the invasions of China and the Pacific War. His radio broadcast of surrender on 15 August 1945 was the first time most Japanese had heard his voice.
Era · Twentieth centuryTwentieth century1901–2000
Country · CubaCuba1902–Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean. Spain ruled it for four centuries until the United States intervened in 1898. Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution made it a communist state, which it remains.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · AustriaKarl Popper1902–1994Austrian born British thinker who redrew the line between science and nonsense: a theory is scientific only if it can be proven wrong. His Open Society attacked historicism and totalitarian thought. He lived 1902 to 1994.
Country · PanamaPanama1903–Panama is the narrow isthmus joining North and South America, home to the Panama Canal. It separated from Colombia in 1903 with American backing. It is a presidential republic.
Ruler · Twentieth century · ItalyBenito Mussolini1883–1945Fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, born in 1883, the first of the twentieth century's fascist rulers. His March on Rome in 1922 made him prime minister, and he built a one party state glorifying war and the Roman past. Deposed in 1943, he was executed by partisans in 1945.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · FranceJean-Paul Sartre1905–1980French existentialist who taught that existence precedes essence: we are condemned to be free. Being and Nothingness of 1943 built the system; his plays and novels carried it to the public. He refused the Nobel Prize in 1964 and lived 1905 to 1980.
Country · NorwayNorway1905–Norway is a Scandinavian country of fjords and mountains. It was joined to Denmark and then Sweden for centuries before voting for independence in 1905. Oil found in the North Sea made it one of the richest countries in the world.
Ruler · Twentieth century · United StatesFranklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Thirty second president of the United States, 1933 to 1945, born in 1882, the only president elected four times. His New Deal programs fought the Great Depression, and he led America through nearly all of World War II. He died in office in April 1945, weeks before Germany's surrender.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · GermanyHannah Arendt1906–1975German Jewish thinker who fled the Nazis and became America's great theorist of totalitarianism. The Origins of Totalitarianism of 1951 traced the camps to imperialism and mass society. She lived 1906 to 1975.
Ruler · Twentieth century · TurkeyMustafa Kemal Ataturk1881–1938Founder of the Republic of Turkey, 1881 to 1938, who built a modern secular state from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. His victory in the Turkish War of Independence ended the Allied partition of Anatolia. As president from 1923 he abolished the caliphate, replaced Arabic script with Latin, and remade Turkish law and education.
Country · BulgariaBulgaria1908–Bulgaria is a Balkan country on the Black Sea, heir to medieval Bulgarian empires. It won autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 and full independence in 1908. It is a parliamentary republic and a member of the European Union.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · FranceSimone de Beauvoir1908–1986French thinker whose Second Sex of 1949 founded modern feminist philosophy with the line one is not born, but becomes, a woman. Sartre's lifelong partner and his sharpest critic, she wrote ethics, novels, and memoirs. She lived 1908 to 1986.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · United StatesWillard Van Orman Quine1908–2000American logician who dominated analytic philosophy after the war. His Two Dogmas of Empiricism of 1951 attacked the analytic synthetic distinction and made philosophy continuous with science. He taught at Harvard and lived 1908 to 2000.