The History of Ups and Downs: How good and hard times are temporary

A timeline showcasing ups and downs of human history.

The 2020s, the decade we are living in is a turning point in history, but this does not mean that those times are good times. The economic inequality, the cost of living, crime and many other problems in our society have been rising a lot in the recent years, and the future is uncertain.

However, this is nothing new. There have been a lot of eras in the history of mankind when things had starting to change, whether they have been good times nor hard times.

The Ancient Romans

Let’s start from the ancient times, the ancient empires of Egypt, Rome, China and many others. The Roman Empire was the most significant empire in the ancient history, since they had the hegemony over most of Europe and Middle East. The Romans had many inventions that changed the world, like the Latin script, early economics, the Aqueduct, military strategy and many others. But how did the Romans rise? Let’s see.

The rise

After the Rome had conquered Italy after it’s victory in the Pyrrhic War in 275 BC, it was the beginning of it’s rise as the leading empire in the world. In the beginning, Rome only had Carthage as it’s rival, which Rome fought in the Punic Wars in the 3rd century BC. The Romans won the wars, which changed the course of the ancient history. They expanded their empire further all the way to Spain in the west, and to the Anatolia in the east. Due to the war and military glory being an essential part of the Roman aristocratic ethos and political life, it was important for the Romans to fight large and tiny wars against barbarians.[1]

As the Romans were conquering the Europe and the Middle East, they did experience a lot of civil development too during their rise. The Romans had developed a lot of infrastructure, culture, economy, science and an archaic form of a republic. The Romans had a senate and a democracy where the people could participate, but there were some emperors who led the country through dictatorship and tyranny. In terms of economy, the Romans invented the concept of business days[1], which is one of the most significant inventions they had invented. The Romans did also have a market economy and was one of the most earliest ”capitalist” societies in history. [2]

However, during the rise of Rome, there were some economical and social problems in the Roman society, which included their reliance on the loot from their wars. When the larger-scale money flow from the loot from wars ended, it caused a lot of poverty and discontent in the Roman society. The beginning of the 1st century BC were turbulent times for the Roman Republic. They had fought wars in Northern Africa and the Middle East, but the Italians were fed up due to their demanded sacrifices in the Numidian and German wars. The civil unrest had erupted into a civil war, which was the end of the Roman democracy. The emperor Sulla had managed to stabilize the empire through reforms which empowered the Senate.

The peak

After Caesar had died, the Roman Republic had a decade of division, before Rome was reunited under a new Roman Empire. Augustus Caesar was the founding father of the new empire, and had stabilized the empire and improved it. The Roman Empire continued growing after the death of Augustus, thanks to the efforts of the Antonine and Flavian emperors, such as Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. Hadrian had grown the empire to the size the empire was in 117 AD when it peaked.

The empire had seen many great developments during the 2nd century AD, like the Colosseum, urban development, and many cultural advancements in the empire, including literature, theatre, higher education, and philosophy. You might have seen the beauty of the Ancient Roman cities and culture, but in modern standards the Roman Empire was more brutal, since they had slavery.

The fall

The Roman Empire started to fall after it’s peak in the 2nd century AD. In the 3rd century AD, it saw the rise of the Christianity, which challenged the Roman native religion. The military was under an anarchy, with little to no organization. The Roman Empire was divided to Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium. The Western Romans had to deal with the barbarians pillaging their empire, which made matters worse for them. And so, the Roman Empire had fallen in 476 AD.

After Rome, but before the Middle Ages

The time period before the Middle Ages, but after the fall of the Roman Empire is usually dubbed ”the dark ages”, but in the whole world, those ages weren’t necessarily dark. The Middle East and Northern Africa was flourishing with the golden age of Islam, blossoming in prosperity. The Abbasid Dynasty had a vast empire spanning from Morocco to Iran. The Islamic golden age was the reason why so many countries have Islam as their majority religion. The Baghdad house of wisdom wasn’t only for Muslims only, but also Christians and Jews collaborated and worked in harmony together there.[3]

Meanwhile in Europe, there wasn’t really a successor for the Roman Empire, but there were three notable empries, like The Carolingian and Frankish Empires had which had shaped the French and German cultures, and were the empires that layed the groundwork for the Middle Ages. The Vikings had a moderately large, and longer-lasting empire which did last until the 11th century. The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 marked the end of the Viking Era, and the Scandinavian Kingdoms were Christianized afterwards.[4]

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages weren’t good times per se, but those times are good to be called ”The Middle Ages”. The Middle Ages were the times of Crusades, when the Europeans sent many men to fight for the Christianity in the Holy Land or Israel/Palestine. There were some architectural beauty constructed during that time, like the Cathedrals across the Europe, and the European population had grew significantly before the Black Death.[5]

Mongol Invasions and the Black Death

The 13th and 14th centuries were turbulent times for Europe. The Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan had begun his invasions to Europe, but he had failed to conquer all of Europe.[6] The late 13th century and the early 14th centuries weren’t bad times per se, but when the Black Death came, it shaked Europe hard. Then there was the 100-year war between England and France, which obviously didn’t mean they were good times.[7]

Renaissance and the Age of Exploration (and exploitation)

The Renaissance in Europe were the times when things weren’t that good, but still better than the Middle Ages, due to the many advances in culture, commerce, science and weapon technology during that era, including the invention of printing press, paper, advanced compass and gunpowder. [8]Christopher Columbus had founded the new world called the Americas, which kickstarted the age of exploration and exploitation, when the Europeans started to explore the world and exploit the colonies through unethical practices. There were some wars fought in Europe too, but the wars did not really make the times worse.[9]

The Industrial Revolution and other revolutions

The 18th century were some revolutionary times, to say. England had invented the first real steam machine, and had a head start in the Industrial Revolution. The United States of America had declared independence, and some other colonies in Central and Southern Americas did get independence too. Revolutions weren’t only an American thing, since there were Revolutions in Europe too, like in France, Austria, Germany and Italy.[10] France had two revolutions during that era, the first French Revolution in 1789 and the second one in 1848.[11] During the 19th century, Europe looked towards Africa, and decided to start colonizing it. Asia was not spared, since the French took most of Indochina and the British, French and Portuguese took some Southern Chinese cities. The British took Hong Kong, the French took Guangzhouwan and the Portuguese took Macau.[12][13][14]

”Beautiful Era”

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century before the First World War was called the ”Beautiful era” or ”La Belle Epoque” in French. The reason why the era was called that was because during that era Europe, especially France were enjoying the peace, prosperity and cultural blossoming during that era.[15] The United States were having a progressive era, when the USA was led by a progressive leadership which fought the social issues and inequality the industrialization had caused for the nation, including anti-trust laws, anti-corruption laws, women’s suffrage and the prohibition.[16] The prohibition didn’t really end well.[17] In Asia, things weren’t that good. China was beaten by the world powers, and Japan conquered Korea. The Japanese conquest of Korea was a turning point in the Asian history.

First World War

After archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, the First World War had begun. The Entente was the coalition of Britain, France, Serbia and Russia, and the Central Powers were the coalition of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.[18] Italy was in the Central Powers in the beginning of the war, but later Italy joined the Entente. The Entente won the war, and Russia turned red after the Russian Revolution in 1918[19], and thus, the Soviet Union was born.

Roaring Twenties, Great Depression and the Rise of Evil

The post-war decade of 1920s were called ”The Roaring Twenties”, when the economy prospered, the culture blossomed as the sound of Jazz music and speakeasies filled the air. New technology, like radio, film spreaded a lot as the developed world electrified. The new electrical appliances made the lives of the peoples even better, and the spare downtime made the entertainment industry boom. [20]

The party stopped in 1929, when the stock market collapsed, causing a worldwide economic crisis all around the world, affecting millions of people. Millions of people lost their jobs and became impoverished.[21] The Great Depression was also a factor in the rise of a new ideology called Fascism. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, due to the German people being so miserable, and wanting to have a strong leader. Adolf Hitler began his world conquest by annexing Austria, taking Sudetenland and Czechia, and invading Poland, which started the Second World War. Japan also invaded China, which started the Second World War. [22]

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War, the Axis powers had an upper hand, due to Hitler managing to conquer most of Europe, taking over the Benelux countries and France fast, Norway and Denmark, and most of the Eastern Europe. In 1943, the German Reich was at it’s peak, but after the failure in Stalingrad and the D-Day invasion, Germany started to fall. Italy failed to conquer most of Mediterranean, and had fallen in 1945, the same year Germany fell. Meanwhile in Asia, Japan had managed to take most of the Asia, but had also fallen thanks to the help of the Soviet Union and the United States of America. After WW2, world was not in peace, since there was another war coming, which would not necessarily fought the old-fashioned way, the Cold War.[23]

Cold War

The prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s

The 1950s were a decade of both crisis and prosperity. As the both superpowers, the USA and the USSR’s tensions grew, the Western world and Japan had started to recover from the Second World War, and the recovery had started an era of economic boom. There was also a baby boom, which had caused the world population to rapidly rise after the very small drop it did in the Second World War. The European colonial empires had started to fall when they decided to say au revoir to their colonies in Africa and Asia, who had been struggling for independence.[24]

The new colonies did not prosper, since the Europeans had plundered their resources and left them in poverty.[25] Also some nations of the world started to focus on sending their men, women and some animals to the outer space.[26] The United States was the first to send the first human on the moon. The 1960s were an also an era of progressivism, when the issues of civil rights, gender equality and LGBT rights became more relevant.[27]

The in-between era of the 1970s

The beginning of the 1970s were the start of an oil crisis, when the price of fuel sky-rocketed, causing a global economic crisis, but as bad as the Great Depression.[28] The progressivism of the 60s continued in the 70s, when the women’s rights and LGBT rights were progressed further. Many western nations legalized homosexuality in the 60s[29], and legalized abortion in the 70s[30]. The tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States weren’t that bad in the 70s, due to the detente in 1969, but had ended in 1979 due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The 1970s saw many advancements in computing, when the first home computers were made, but they were quite slow.[31] After Mao Zedong’s death, China had opened itself to the west, which had started the rise of China.[32]

The golden era of the 1980s

The 1980s would be considered a golden era, due to the many cultural, economic and technological advancements in that decade. The personal computers became faster and more popular[33], a new form of enterntainment called video games became more popular with the home consoles being more faster and some of them even better than the arcade machines. The home video made it possible to watch movies in the comfort of your own home, and even record some of your own. Although the tensions became more sour with the Soviet Union, in the end the relations were improved due to the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev opening up to the west[34]. The Eastern bloc was crumbling in the 1980s, with the Berlin Wall falling in 1989[35].

Post-Cold War and Pre-9/11 Era (The 1990s)

The 1990s could be considered the decade of peace in the western world, when the Cold War was over, and the economical, cultural and technological prosperity from the 80s continued to the 90s. However, some countries did have an economic crisis, like Japan[36], Finland[37] and most of the Asian countries[38]. The 90s in Eastern Europe were some tough times, since after the fall of the Soviet Union some Post-Soviet countries were in turmoil.[39] The 1990s weren’t perfectly peaceful and prosperous times, but compared to the other decades, the decade was more peaceful. There still were some wars raging in the world, so the 90s weren’t fully peaceful. The doomsday clock was at it’s lowest ever position[40], since the threat of a nuclear war was no longer a big threat, although the climate change was started to become more of an issue.[41]

After 9/11

After a new millennium started, there was a year of peace, but in 2001, the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack.[42] The terrorist attack sparked the war on terror, and many surveillance laws targeting people’s privacy were put in place in order to counter terrorism.[43] The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s told that the world peace was threatened. In Europe, Russia had invaded Georgia in 2008[44], which had told that Russia wasn’t as friendly country to the West. There weren’t put any sanctions on Russia as big as in 2022, but the Western countries weren’t happy about the invasion. In 2014, Russia had annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and had started an armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which had escalated in 2022. [45]

Political polarization in the West had started to rise in the 2010s, when populist political leaders like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and some others had risen to power through the many people polarized by the social media.[46] Mostly, the social media had caused the people to become more polarized, due to the populist politicians getting their voice heard thanks to them getting more traction through the algorithms which favor the ones who get the most traction.

Current Situation and Conclusion

The 2020s have been so far a turbulent decade. The decade had started with a global COVID-19 pandemic[47], which had shaken the global economy, and destabilized societies of many countries in the world. In 2022, Russia had declared a full-scale war on Ukraine[48], which had shown that the world peace was over. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had re-heated in late 2023[49], when Hamas had launched a surprise attack on Israel. China’s relations with the United States and some other Western countries had turned sour[50], as the country had been threatening to invade Taiwan, and had been rising to become the new superpower of the world.

So, there you go. We have had a long history of ups and downs, good times and bad times. Although one human cannot change the world, but a group of people in a democratic society, can influence what will happen in the future. The bigger the group, the better. Who knows what happens tomorrow, since time will tell.

Sources

From the eyes of Eltskale