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1915 CE

This year falls in the Twentieth century (1901–2000). Two world wars, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, the Cold War and the end of most colonial empires fall in this century. It also brings mass air travel, nuclear weapons, antibiotics and computers.

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Within fifteen years

Philosopher · Twentieth century · AlgeriaAlbert Camus1913–1960Algerian born French writer who made the absurd, the clash between our hunger for meaning and a silent world, the theme of his work. The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus appeared in 1942. Nobel Prize 1957; he died in a car crash in 1960.
Country · FinlandFinland1917–Finland is a northern European country between Sweden and Russia. It declared independence from Russia in 1917. It fought the Soviet Union twice in the Second World War and kept its independence, later becoming a prosperous republic.
Event · Twentieth century · RussiaThe Cheka1917–1922All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, founded 20 December 1917 (7 December Old Style) under Felix Dzerzhinsky. Early Soviet secret police with power of summary execution.
Country · AlbaniaAlbania1912–Albania is a country in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea. It declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. After decades of hardline communist rule under Enver Hoxha, it became a parliamentary republic in the early 1990s.
Country · AustriaAustria1918–Austria is a landlocked country in central Europe, once the heart of the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburgs ruled much of central Europe from Vienna for centuries, until the empire collapsed in 1918. The modern republic regained full sovereignty in 1955 and has been neutral since.
Ruler · Twentieth century · RomaniaNicolae Ceaușescu1918–1989General secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 and president from 1974 until his overthrow and execution in December 1989.
Country · PolandPoland1918–Poland is a large country in central Europe. Its medieval kingdom was partitioned out of existence in the late eighteenth century. Poland returned to the map in 1918, suffered terribly in the Second World War, and became a republic again in 1989.
Country · AfghanistanAfghanistan1919–Afghanistan is a landlocked country at the crossroads of central and south Asia. It won full independence from Britain in 1919. Decades of war since 1978 have made it one of the most battered countries in the world.
Country · South AfricaSouth Africa1910–South Africa is the southernmost country in Africa and its most industrialized. The Union of South Africa formed in 1910; apartheid ruled from 1948 until Nelson Mandela's election in 1994. It is a parliamentary republic.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · United StatesJohn Rawls1921–2002American thinker whose Theory of Justice of 1971 revived political philosophy. Behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing your place in society, you would choose fair rules for all. He taught at Harvard and lived 1921 to 2002.
Country · MongoliaMongolia1921–Mongolia is a vast, sparsely populated country between Russia and China. In the thirteenth century Genghis Khan built the largest land empire in history from here. The modern state dates from 1921 and is a parliamentary republic.
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.
Country · IrelandIreland1922–Ireland is an island country in the North Atlantic, west of Britain. Most of the island became independent from Britain in 1922 after a war of independence. It is a parliamentary republic; the six counties of Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom.
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.
Civilization · Twentieth century · Soviet UnionSoviet Union1922–1991The Soviet Union was the world's first communist state, spanning Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. It industrialized by force, beat Nazi Germany, and became a nuclear superpower. It dissolved peacefully in 1991.
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.
Country · TurkeyTurkey1923–Turkey is a transcontinental country, mostly in Anatolia with a foothold in Europe. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the republic in 1923 from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. It is a presidential republic bridging Europe and the Middle East.
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.
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 · CambodiaPol Pot1925–1998Leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, 1925 to 1998, whose regime killed about a quarter of his country's people. The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and emptied the cities, forcing everyone into rural labor. Driven out by Vietnam in 1979, he led a guerrilla remnant until his death.
Ruler · Twentieth century · CubaFidel Castro1926–2016Leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, born in 1926, who made a communist state ninety miles from Florida. His 26th of July Movement overthrew the Batista dictatorship in January 1959. He survived the Bay of Pigs invasion, brought Soviet missiles to Cuba in 1962, and ruled for nearly half a century.
Philosopher · Twentieth century · FranceMichel Foucault1926–1984French thinker who studied how power works through prisons, clinics, and the categories of knowledge itself. Discipline and Punish of 1975 showed the modern soul as a product of surveillance. He lived 1926 to 1984.
Event · Twentieth century · ChinaChinese Civil War1927–1949War between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, interrupted by the war against Japan, ending in communist victory in 1949.