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The Neolithic Revolution impacted Mesopotamia, and later the entire world

The Neolithic Revolution marked the transition from Hunter-Gatherer to Agriculture

This Revolution changed the way humans get food forever

https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/neolithic-revolution

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Gunpowder invented (9th-10th Century CE)  

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Gunpowder invented (9th-10th Century CE)  

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Gunpowder impacted China when it was first used for fireworks, It later impacted the entire world.

The invention of Gunpowder was an accident, Taoist pharmacists created It. It was a byproduct of their research into the so-called ‘elixir of life,’”

Gunpowder changed the way warfare was fought for the rest of human history. Cannons, rifles, and pistols come out of this invention

https://www.thecollector.com/history-of-gunpowder/

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Due to the availability of books, more people became educated, and major cities became the epicenters of knowledge, wealth, and business.

The printing press impacted the world because it was used to pass information around.

https://odp.library.tamu.edu/mediacommunication2e/chapter/how-the-printing-press-helped-in-shaping-the-future/#:~:text=With%20more%20people%20getting%20educated,will%20continue%20to%20do%20so.

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The Industrial Revolution first began in Great Britain in in 18th century and it started spreading from there to other parts of the world.

The importance was that it spread all over the world so countries could have a change.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution

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Industrial Revolution | Definition, History, Dates, Summary, & Facts

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Industrial Revolution, in modern history, the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. The process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world, driving changes in energy use, socioecon…

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Steam engine invented (1769 – James Watt’s improved version)

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Steam engine invented (1769 – James Watt’s improved version)

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The Steam Engine impacted Britain, European countries, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The Impact of the Steam Engine was big because things could get transported more easily.

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2166/the-steam-engine-in-the-british-industrial-revolut/#:~:text=By%201800%2C%20Britain%20boasted%20over,uses%20across%20every%20major%20industry.

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The Steam Engine in the British Industrial Revolution

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Steam power was one of the most significant developments of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) in Britain. First invented as a pump in the 1690s, a host of inventors tweaked designs and tinkered…

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The French Revolution impacted France

It was important and impacted France because France revolted against the king and queen.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/french-revolution/#:~:text=Many%20historians%20now%20regard%20the,and%20the%20growth%20of%20nationalism.

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French Revolution - The National Archives

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1789 is one of the most significant dates in history - famous for the revolution in France with its cries of ‘Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!’ that led to the removal of the French upper classes.

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The Haitian revolution mostly impacted the Caribbean and France.

It was important because was when the Haitian people started attacking the French and revolting against the French.

https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/haitian/pages/part8.html#:~:text=The%20news%20of%20the%20Haitian,planters%20went%20to%20take%20refuge.

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Internal combustion engine invented (19th century, c. 1859)

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Internal combustion engine invented (19th century, c. 1859)

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It impacted continents like Europe and North America.

it is important because this engine was better because it was powered by gas instead of coal.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/internal-combustion-engine-0

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Invention of the Machine gun (The Maxim Gun) (1884)

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Invention of the Machine gun (The Maxim Gun) (1884)

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it impacted a lot of European nations and some colonies.

The importance was that it was included in the Boer war, Spanish the American War.

https://guides.loc.gov/machine-gun-its-history-development-and-use#:~:text=First%20invented%20in%201884%20by,guns%20killed%20about%201%2C500%20warriors.

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The Russian Revolution impacted mostly Russia.

The reason for the Russian Revolution was because of a massacre.

https://www.history.com/articles/russian-revolution

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Russian Revolution: Causes, Timeline & Bolsheviks | HISTORY

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The Russian Revolution was a series of uprisings from 1905 to 1917 led by peasants, laborers and Bolsheviks against the failed rule of the czarist Romanovs.

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The Chinese Revolution impacted mostly China.

The impact was that it ended up in a civil war.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev

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On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920's. The creation of the PRC also completed the long process of governmental upheaval in China begun by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The "fall" of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades.

The Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921 in Shanghai, originally existed as a study group working within the confines of the First United Front with the Nationalist Party. Chinese Communists joined with the Nationalist Army in the Northern Expedition of 1926-27 to rid the nation of the warlords that prevented the formation of a strong central government. This collaboration lasted until the "White Terror" of 1927, when the Nationalists turned on the Communists, killing them or purging them from the party.

After the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, the Government of the Republic of China (ROC) faced the triple threat of Japanese invasion, Communist uprising, and warlord insurrections. Frustrated by the focus of the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek on internal threats instead of the Japanese assault, a group of generals abducted Chiang in 1937 and forced him to reconsider cooperation with the Communist army. As with the first effort at cooperation between the Nationalist government and the CCP, this Second United Front was short-lived. The Nationalists expended needed resources on containing the Communists, rather than focusing entirely on Japan, while the Communists worked to strengthen their influence in rural society.

During World War II, popular support for the Communists increased. U.S. officials in China reported a dictatorial suppression of dissent in Nationalist-controlled areas. These undemocratic polices combined with wartime corruption made the Republic of China Government vulnerable to the Communist threat. The CCP, for its part, experienced success in its early efforts at land reform and was lauded by peasants for its unflagging efforts to fight against the Japanese invaders.

Japanese surrender set the stage for the resurgence of civil war in China. Though only nominally democratic, the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek continued to receive U.S. support both as its former war ally and as the sole option for preventing Communist control of China. U.S. forces flew tens of thousands of Nationalist Chinese troops into Japanese-controlled territory and allowed them to accept the Japanese surrender. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, occupied Manchuria and only pulled out when Chinese Communist forces were in place to claim that territory.

In 1945, the leaders of the Nationalist and Communist parties, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, met for a series of talks on the formation of a post-war government. Both agreed on the importance of democracy, a unified military, and equality for all Chinese political parties. The truce was tenuous, however, and, in spite of repeated efforts by U.S. General George Marshall to broker an agreement, by 1946 the two sides were fighting an all-out civil war. Years of mistrust between the two sides thwarted efforts to form a coalition government.

As the civil war gained strength from 1947 to 1949, eventual Communist victory seemed more and more likely. Although the Communists did not hold any major cities after World War II, they had strong grassroots support, superior military organization and morale, and large stocks of weapons seized from Japanese supplies in Manchuria. Years of corruption and mismanagement had eroded popular support for the Nationalist Government. Early in 1947, the ROC Government was already looking to the island province of Taiwan, off the coast of Fujian Province, as a potential point of retreat. Although officials in the Truman Administration were not convinced of the strategic importance to the United States of maintaining relations with Nationalist China, no one in the U.S. Government wanted to be charged with facilitating the "loss" of China to communism. Military and financial aid to the floundering Nationalists continued, though not at the level that Chiang Kai-shek would have liked. In October of 1949, after a string of military victories, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC; Chiang and his forces fled to Taiwan to regroup and plan for their efforts to retake the mainland.

The ability of the PRC and the United States to find common ground in the wake of the establishment of the new Chinese state was hampered by both domestic politics and global tensions. In August of 1949, the Truman administration published the "China White Paper," which explained past U.S. policy toward China based upon the principle that only Chinese forces could determine the outcome of their civil war. Unfortunately for Truman, this step failed to protect his administration from charges of having "lost" China. The unfinished nature of the revolution, leaving a broken and exiled but still vocal Nationalist Government and Army on Taiwan, only heightened the sense among U.S. anti-communists that the outcome of the struggle could be reversed. The outbreak of the Korean War, which pitted the PRC and the United States on opposite sides of an international conflict, ended any opportunity for accommodation between the PRC and the United States. Truman's desire to prevent the Korean conflict from spreading south led to the U.S. policy of protecting the Chiang Kai-shek government on Taiwan.

For more than twenty years after the Chinese revolution of 1949, there were few contacts, limited trade and no diplomatic ties between the two countries. Until the 1970s, the United States continued to recognize the Republic of China, located on Taiwan, as China's true government and supported that government's holding the Chinese seat in the United Nations.

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Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian

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On October 1, 1949, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920's.

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The Green Revolution begins (1940s–1960s)

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The Green Revolution begins (1940s–1960s)

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The Green Revolution started in Mexico

The impact in Mexico was that there was a lot of hunger in the country.

https://www.treehugger.com/green-revolution-history-technologies-and-impact-5189596

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Green Revolution: History, Technologies, and Impact

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The Green Revolution decreased hunger for millions, but its legacy has been complicated by serious social and environmental impacts.

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The Cuban revolution impacted Cuba because their were things happening in Cuba.

It was the beginning of Cuba's intervention in foreign conflicts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution#:~:text=The%20revolution%20also%20marked%20the,suppressed%20by%20the%20revolutionary%20government.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power. Among those opposing the coup was Fidel Castro, then a novice attorney who attempted to contest the coup through Cuba's judiciary. Once these efforts proved fruitless, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953.

Following the attack's failure, Fidel Castro and his co-conspirators were arrested and formed the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) in detention. At his trial, Fidel Castro launched into a two-hour speech that won him national fame as he laid out his grievances against the Batista dictatorship. In an attempt to win public approval, Batista granted amnesty to the surviving Moncada Barracks attackers and the Castros fled into exile. During their exile, the Castros consolidated their strategy in Mexico and subsequently reentered Cuba in 1956, accompanied by Che Guevara, whom they had encountered during their time in Mexico.

Returning to Cuba aboard the Granma, the Castros, Guevara, and other supporters encountered gunfire from Batista's troops. The rebels fled to the Sierra Maestra where the M-26-7 rebel forces would reorganize, conducting urban sabotage and covert recruitment. Over time the Popular Socialist Party, once the largest and most powerful organizations opposing Batista, would see its influence and power wane in favor of the 26th of July Movement. As the irregular war against Batista escalated, the rebel forces transformed from crude, guerrilla fighters into a cohesive fighting force that could confront Batista's army in military engagements. By the time the rebels were able to oust Batista, the revolution was being driven by a coalition between the Popular Socialist Party, the 26th of July Movement and the Revolutionary Directorate of 13 March.

The rebels, led by the 26th of July Movement, finally toppled Batista on 31 December 1958, after which he fled the country. Batista's government was dismantled as Castro became the most prominent leader of the revolutionary forces. Soon thereafter, the 26th of July Movement established itself as the de facto government. Although Castro was immensely popular in the period immediately following Batista's ouster, he quickly consolidated power, leading to domestic and international tensions. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution"). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist-Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.

The Cuban Revolution had significant domestic and international repercussions, particularly with regard to Cuba-United States relations, which were severely damaged and remain strained despite attempts at reconciliation, such as the Cuban thaw in the 2010s and 2020s. In the revolution's aftermath, Castro's government initiated a program of nationalization, centralized the press, and consolidated political power, which transformed Cuba's economy and civil society, alienating both segments of the Cuban population and the United States. Castro's authoritarianism, combined with economic challenges, contributed to the Cuban Exodus, with many fleeing to the United States. The revolution also marked the beginning of Cuba's interventions in foreign conflicts, including in Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia and the Middle East. Several rebellions, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, occurred between 1959 and 1965, and were suppressed by the revolutionary government.

The Republic of Cuba at the turn of the 20th century was largely characterized by a deeply ingrained tradition of corruption where political participation resulted in opportunities for elites to engage in wealth accumulation. Cuba's first presidential period under Don Tomás Estrada Palma from 1902 to 1906 was considered to uphold the best standards of administrative integrity in the history of the Republic of Cuba. However, a United States intervention in 1906 resulted in Charles Edward Magoon, an American diplomat, taking over the government until 1909. Although Magoon's government did not condone corrupt practices, there is debate as to how much was done to stop what was widespread especially with the surge of American money coming into the small country. Hugh Thomas suggests that while Magoon disapproved of corrupt practices, corruption still persisted under his administration and he undermined the autonomy of the judiciary and their court decisions. On 29 January 1909, the sovereign government of Cuba was restored, and José Miguel Gómez became president. No explicit evidence of Magoon's corruption ever surfaced, but his parting gesture of issuing lucrative Cuban contracts to U.S. firms was a continued point of contention. Cuba's subsequent president, José Miguel Gómez, was the first to become involved in pervasive corruption and government corruption scandals. These scandals involved bribes that were allegedly paid to Cuban officials and legislators under a contract to search the Havana harbour, as well as the payment of fees to government associates and high-level officials. Gómez's successor, Mario García Menocal, wanted to put an end to the corruption scandals and claimed to be committed to administrative integrity as he ran on a slogan of "honesty, peace and work". Despite his intentions, corruption actually intensified under his government from 1913 to 1921. Instances of fraud became more common while private actors and contractors frequently colluded with public officials and legislators. Charles Edward Chapman attributes the increase of corruption to the sugar boom that occurred in Cuba under the Menocal administration. Furthermore, the advent of World War One enabled the Cuban government to manipulate sugar prices, the sales of exports and import permits. While in office, García Menocal hosted his college fraternity, in the 1920 Delta Kappa Epsilon National Convention, the first international fraternity conference outside the US, which took place in Cuba. He was responsible for creating the Cuban Peso; until his presidency Cuba used both the Spanish Real and US Dollar. President Menocal left the Cuban national treasury in overdraft and therefore in precarious financial situation. Menocal supposedly spent $800 million during his 8 years in office and left a floating debt of $40 million.

Alfredo Zayas succeeded Menocal from 1921 to 1925 and engaged in what Calixto Masó refers to as the "maximum expression of administrative corruption". Both petty and grand corruption spread to nearly all aspects of public life and the Cuban administration became largely characterized by nepotism as Zayas relied on friends and relatives to illegally gain greater access to wealth. Gerardo Machado succeeded Zayas from 1925 to 1933, and entered the presidency with widespread popularity and support from the major political parties. However, his support declined over time. Due to Zayas' previous policies, Gerardo Machado aimed to diminish corruption and improve the public sector's performance through an "honest administration", which had been referred to as moralización, from 1925 to 1933. While he was successfully able to reduce the amounts of low level and petty corruption, grand corruption still largely persisted. Machado embarked on development projects that enabled the persistence of grand corruption through inflated costs and the creation of "large margins" that enabled public officials to appropriate money illegally. Under his government, opportunities for corruption became concentrated into fewer hands with "centralized government purchasing procedures" and the collection of bribes among a smaller number of bureaucrats and administrators. Through the development of real estate infrastructures and the growth of Cuba's tourism industry, Machado's administration was able to use insider information to profit from private sector business deals. Many people objected to his running again for re-election in 1928, as his victory violated his promise to serve for only one term. As protests and rebellions became more strident, his administration curtailed free speech and used repressive police tactics against opponents. Machado unleashed a wave of violence against his critics, and there were numerous murders and assassinations committed by the police and army under Machado's administration. The extent of his involvement in these is disputed, though Russell Porter makes the claim that Machado confessed to being involved. Though the extent of Machado's participation in such violent acts is unknown, he has since been described as a dictator. In May 1933, Machado was forced out as newly appointed US ambassador Sumner Welles arrived in Cuba and initiated negotiation with the opposition groups for a government to succeed Machado's. A provisional government headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada (son of Cuban independence hero Carlos Manuel de Céspedes) and including members of the ABC was brokered; it took power on 12 August 1933 amidst a general strike in Havana.

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada subsequently was offered the position of President by ambassador Sumner Welles. He took office on 12 August 1933, and Welles proposed that "general elections may be held approximately 3 months from now so that Cuba may once more have a constitutional government in the real sense of the word." Céspedes agreed, and declared that a general election would be held on 24 February 1934, for a new presidential term to begin on 20 May 1934. However, on 4-5 September 1933, the Sergeants' Revolt took place while Céspedes was in Matanzas and Santa Clara after a hurricane had ravaged those regions. The junta of officers led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista and students proclaimed that it had taken power in order to fulfill the aims of the revolution; it briefly described a program which included economic restructuring, punishment of wrongdoers, recognition of public debts, creation of courts, political reorganization, and any other actions necessary to construct a new Cuba based on justice and democracy. Only five days after the coup, Batista and the Student Directory promoted Ramón Grau to the role of President. The ensuing One Hundred Days Government issued a number of reformist declarations but never gained diplomatic recognition from the US; it was overthrown in January 1934 under pressure from Batista and the US ambassador. Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government. The corruption was not curtailed under Mendieta and he resigned in 1935 after unrest continued, and their followed a number of interim and weak presidents under the guidance of Batista and the US. Batista, supported by the Democratic Socialist Coalition which included Julio Antonio Mella's Communist Party, defeated Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution in the 1940 election, and served a four-year term as President of Cuba. Batista was endorsed by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), which at the time had little significance and no probability of an electoral victory. This support was primarily due to Batista's labor laws and his support for labor unions, with which the Communists had close ties. In fact, Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, saying Grau and others were "fascists" and " reactionaries".

Senator Eduardo Chibás dedicated himself to exposing corruption in the Cuban government, and formed the Partido Ortodoxo in 1947 to further this aim. Argote-Freyre points out that Cuba's population under the Republic had a high tolerance for corruption. Furthermore, Cubans knew and criticized who was corrupt, but admired them for their ability to act as "criminals with impunity". Corrupt officials went beyond members of congress to also include military officials who granted favours to residents and accepted bribes. The establishment of an illegal gambling network within the military enabled army personnel such as Lieutenant Colonel Pedraza and Major Mariné to engage in extensive illegal gambling activities. Mauricio Augusto Font and Alfonso Quiroz, authors of The Cuban Republic and José Martí, say that corruption "pervaded in political life" under the administrations of Presidents Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío Socarrás. Prío was reported to have stolen over $90 million in public funds, which was equivalent to one fourth of the annual national budget. Prior to the Communist revolution, Cuba was ruled under the elected government of Fulgencio Batista from 1940 to 1944. Throughout this time period, Batista's support base consisted mainly of corrupt politicians and military officials. Batista himself was able to heavily profit from the regime before coming into power through inflated government contracts and gambling proceeds. In 1942, the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was "very worried" about corruption under President Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as "endemic" and exceeding "anything which had gone on previously". British diplomats believed that corruption was rooted within Cuba's most powerful institutions, with the highest individuals in government and military being heavily involved in gambling and the drug trade. In terms of civil society, Eduardo Saenz Rovner writes that corruption within the police and government enabled the expansion of criminal organizations in Cuba. Batista refused U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's offer to send experts to help reform the Cuban Civil Service. Batista didn't run in the 1944 election, and Partido Auténtico party member Ramón Grau was elected president, and oversaw extensive corruption during his administration. He had Carlos Prío Socarrás serve turns as Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor and Prime Minister. On the next election 1 July 1948, Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico which presided over corruption and irresponsible government of this period. Prío was assisted by Chief of the Armed Forces General Genobebo Pérez Dámera and Colonel José Luis Chinea Cardenas, who had previously been in charge of the Province of Santa Clara.

With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. On 10 March 1952, Batista and his collaborators seized military and police commands throughout the country and occupied major radio and TV stations. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile.

Batista, after his military coup against Prío Socarras, again took power and ruled until 1959. Under his rule, Batista led a corrupt dictatorship that involved close links with organized crime organizations and the reduction of civil freedoms of Cubans. This period resulted in Batista engaging in more "sophisticated practices of corruption" at both the administrative and civil society levels. Batista and his administration engaged in profiteering from the lottery as well as illegal gambling. Corruption further flourished in civil society through increasing amounts of police corruption, censorship of the press as well as media, and creating anti-communist campaigns that suppressed opposition with violence, torture and public executions. The former culture of toleration and acceptance towards corruption also dissolved with the dictatorship of Batista. For instance, a Cuban student stated, "however corrupt Grau and Prío were, we elected them and therefore allowed them to steal from us. Batista robs us without our permission." Corruption under Batista further expanded into the economic sector with alliances that he forged with foreign investors and the prevalence of illegal casinos and criminal organizations in the country's capital of Havana.

In the decades following the United States' invasion of Cuba in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on 20 May 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and a period of U.S. military occupation. Batista became president for the second time in 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections. Although Batista had been relatively progressive during his first term, in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns. While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure, Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy, especially sugar-cane plantations and other local resources. Although the US armed and politically supported the Batista dictatorship, later US president John F. Kennedy recognized its corruption and the justifiability of removing it.

During his first term as president, Batista was supported by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist. In the months following the March 10, 1952 coup d'état, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, put into motion a lawsuit against Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts, as the coup was perceived as being a "de facto, revolutionary overturn of the constitution". After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952.

Rafael García Bárcena, a professor of philosophy, founded the National Revolutionary Movement ( Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario - MNR), consisting largely of middle-class members. In March 1953, the MNR had planned to attack and seize control of the barracks at Camp Colombia, but police had been alerted to the plot, with the conspirators being rounded up and tortured. In all, fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment for the attack plot.

Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered an upwards of 126 fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations. On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo only to be decisively defeated by the far more numerous government soldiers following a call to withdraw when Fidel Castro realized a lack of adequate knowledge about the barracks, as well as the lack of weapon experience amongst the recruited fighters, would ultimately lead to failure. It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting most of the rebels and their leader fled to the mountains. The exact number of rebels killed is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that five were killed in the midst of battle, and an additional fifty-six were executed after being captured by the Batista government. Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro. Among the dead was Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.

Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community. In October 1953, Fidel was sentenced to fifteen years in the Presidio Modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to thirteen years. However, on 15 May 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release.

Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. On 12 June 1955, the revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. A month later, in July, Fidel met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Mexico, the latter joining his cause. Raúl and Fidel's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty.

By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became more common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs. These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries. Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on 30 November 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).

While the Castro brothers and the other 26 July Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956, an Auténtico guerrilla group comprising upwards of thirty rebels, brought together by Reynold García, attacked the Domingo Goicuría Barracks in the Matanzas province. A total of fifteen rebels died, with five killed during battle and the remaining ten captured and executed. At least one rebel had been executed by Pilar García, Batista's garrison commander. Florida International University historian Miguel A. Bretos was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. In his 2011 biography, titled Matanzas: The Cuba Nobody Knows', he wrote: "That day the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."

Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958

The yacht departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and eighty others, even though the yacht was designed to accommodate twelve people with a maximum of twenty-five. The yacht landed in Playa Las Coloradas on 2 December, in the southern municipality of Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs. This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the Movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants - while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains.

The group of survivors included Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The dispersed survivors, alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men would link up again - with the help of peasant sympathizers - and would form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. A number of female revolutionaries, including Celia Sánchez and Haydée Santamaría (the sister of Abel Santamaría), also assisted Fidel Castro's operations in the mountains.

At approximately 3:21 pm on 13 March 1957 the student opposition group Directorio Revolucionario 13 de Marzo stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The DR's leader, student José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castelló Aldanás (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray), Rolando Cubela Secades and Faure Chomón (both later Comandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).

The plan, as explained by Faure Chaumón, was to attack the Presidential Palace and occupy the radio station Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building in order to announce the death of Batista and call for a general strike. The Presidential Palace was to be captured by fifty men under the direction of es:s:Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo (brother of Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo) and Faure Chaumón, with support from a group of 100 armed men occupying the tallest buildings in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace (La Tabacalera, the Sevilla Hotel, the Palace of Fine Arts). However this secondary support operation was not carried out, as the men failed to arrive at the scene due to last-minute hesitation. Although the attackers reached the third floor of the palace, they did not locate or execute Batista.

The Humboldt 7 massacre occurred on 20 April 1957 at apartment 201 of the Humboldt 7 residential building when the National Police led by Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura Novo assassinated four participants who had survived the assault on the Presidential Palace and in the seizure of the Radio Reloj station at the Radiocentro CMQ Building.

Juan Pedro Carbó was sought by police for the assassination of Col. Antonio Blanco Rico, Chief of Batista's secret service. Marcos "Marquitos" Rodríguez Alfonso began arguing with Fructuoso, Carbó and Machadito; Joe Westbrook had not yet arrived. Marquitos, who gave the airs to be a revolutionary, was strongly against the revolution and was thus resented by the others. On the morning of 20 April 1957, Marquitos met with lieutenant colonel Esteban Ventura Novo and revealed the location of where the young revolutionaries were, Humboldt 7. After 5:00 pm on 20 April, a large contingent of police officers arrived and assaulted apartment 201, where the four men were staying. The men were not aware that the police were outside. The police rounded up and executed the rebels, who were unarmed.

Frank País was a revolutionary organizer affiliated with the 26th of July Movement who had built an extensive underground urban network. He had been tried and acquitted for his role in organizing an unsuccessful uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of Castro's landing at the end of November in 1956. On 30 June 1957, Frank's younger brother Josué País was killed by the Santiago police. During the latter part of July 1957, a wave of systematic police searches forced Frank País into hiding in Santiago de Cuba. On 21 July, País had hid in Raúl Pujol Arencibia's home. An ongoing search in the area forced the two men to relocate, however. On 30 July he was in a safe house with Pujol Arencibia, despite warnings from other members of the Movement that it was not secure. The Santiago police under Colonel José Salas Cañizares surrounded the building. Frank and Raúl attempted to escape. However, an informant betrayed them as they tried to walk to a waiting getaway car. The police officers drove the two men to the Callejón del Muro (Rampart Lane) and shot them in the back of the head. In defiance of Batista's regime, País was buried in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the olive green uniform and red and black armband of 26 July Movement.

On 6 September 1957 elements of the Cuban navy in the Cienfuegos Naval Base staged a rising against the Batista regime. Led by junior officers in sympathy with the 26th of July Movement, this was originally intended to coincide with the seizure of warships in Havana harbour. Reportedly individual officials within the U.S. Embassy were aware of the plot and had promised U.S. recognition if it were successful.

The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks, and other technology such as napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later arms embargo in 1958. On the other side, the Cuban rebels were supplied by Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito.

According to Tad Szulc, the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement, the purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded.

While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Comandante Yanqui" William Alexander Morgan, who was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army after going AWOL. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station.

Thereafter, on 14 March 1958, the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador Arthur Gardner, weakening the government's mandate further. Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista.

Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare.

In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the forests and mountains of Oriente Province. The escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence. Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control.

In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use propaganda to their advantage. A pirate radio station called Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory. Castro's affiliation with the New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda. The radio broadcasts were made possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a Cuban exile in Puerto Rico.

Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano ( Summer), known to the rebels as la Ofensiva. The Cuban army sent an upwards of approximately 10,000 soldiers into the mountains, half of them untrained recruits whom had little experience with treking and fighting through rocky terrain. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army.

The Battle of El Jigüe, albeit commonly referred to as the Battle of La Plata (1958), was a surprise attack on Fidel's base in Sierra Maestra, planned by Cuban army major general Eulogio Cantillo who put Battalion 17 and Battalion 18, commanded by Fidel's former peer at the University of Havana José Quevedo Pérez, on the front lines. The battle spanned from 11 to 21 July 1958 and is widely considered to be a "turning point" in the revolution.

However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

The Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July-8 August 1958) was the last battle of Operation Verano. The battle was a trap, designed by Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo to lure Fidel Castro's guerrillas into a place where they could be surrounded and destroyed. The battle ended with a cease-fire which Castro proposed and which Cantillo accepted. During the cease-fire, Castro's forces escaped back into the mountains. The battle, though technically a victory for the Cuban army, left the army dispirited and demoralized. Castro viewed the result as a victory and soon launched his own offensive.

Battalion 17 began its pull back on 29 July 1958. Castro sent a column of men under René Ramos Latour to ambush the retreating soldiers. They attacked the advance guard and killed some 30 soldiers but then came under attack from previously undetected Cuban forces. Latour called for help and Castro came to the battle scene with his own column of men. Castro's column also came under fire from another group of Cuban soldiers that had secretly advanced up the road from the Estrada Palma Sugar Mill.

Batista sent a personal representative to negotiate with Castro on 2 August. The negotiations yielded no result but during the next six nights, Castro's troops managed to slip away unnoticed. On 8 August when the Cuban army resumed its attack, they found no one to fight.

Castro's remaining forces had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

General elections were held in Cuba on 3 November 1958. The three major presidential candidates were Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Partido del Pueblo Libre, Ramón Grau of the Partido Auténtico and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the Coalición Progresista Nacional. There was also a minor party candidate on the ballot, Alberto Salas Amaro for the Party of Cuban Unity. Although Andrés Rivero Agüero won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, he was unable to take office due to the Cuban Revolution.

This was the last competitive election in Cuba, the 1940 Constitution of Cuba, the Congress and the Senate of the Cuban Republic, were quickly dismantled shortly thereafter.

In December 1958, Fidel Castro ordered his revolutionary army to go on the offensive against Batista's army. While Castro led one force against Guisa, Masó and other towns, another major offensive was directed at the capture of the city of Santa Clara, the capital of what was then Las Villas Province.

Three columns were sent against Santa Clara under the command of Che Guevara, Jaime Vega, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Vega's column was caught in an ambush and completely destroyed. Guevara's column took up positions around Santa Clara (near Fomento). Cienfuegos's column directly attacked a local army garrison at Yaguajay. Initially numbering just 60 men out of Castro's hardened core of 230, Cienfuegos's group had gained many recruits as it crossed the countryside towards Santa Clara, eventually reaching an estimated strength of 450 to 500 fighters.

The garrison consisted of some 250 men under the command of a Cuban captain of Chinese ancestry, Alfredo Abon Lee. The attack began on 21 December.

Battle of Santa Clara and Batista's flight

On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan "El Mejicano" Abrahantes Fernández, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed, and had captured the city of Cienfuegos by 2 January.

Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra as the new president, and began appointing new members to Batista's old government.

Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning of 1 January, and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on 8 January after a long victory march. His initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January 1959, dozens of Fulgencio Batista's supporters and members of the armed forces and police were arrested and accused of war crimes and other abuses. On January 11, a revolutionary court in Santiago de Cuba sentenced 4 individuals to death after a 4-hour summary trial. The court was also presided over by Rebel Army Commander Raúl Castro, who was in command of the Oriente province. The Santiago rebels sentenced 68 more men to the death penalty, Raúl Castro declared that "if one was guilty, all were also guilty." The men were shot in a mass execution at San Juan Hill, on January 12, 1959.

The Cuban Revolution gained victory on 1 January 1959, and liberal lawyer Manuel Urrutia Lleó returned from exile in Venezuela to take up residence in the presidential palace. Urrutia Lleó had campaigned against Batista's governing during the 1950s and supported the July 26 Movement, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959. The new provisional government consisted of other Cuban political veterans and pro-business liberals including José Miró, who was appointed as prime minister.

Once in power, Urrutia swiftly began a program of closing all brothels, gambling outlets and the national lottery, arguing that these had long been a corrupting influence on the state. The measures drew immediate resistance from the large associated workforce. The disapproving Castro, then commander of Cuba's new armed forces, intervened to request a stay of execution until alternative employment could be found.

Disagreements soon arose in the new government concerning pay cuts, which were imposed on all public officials on Castro's demand. The disputed cuts included a reduction of the $100,000 a year presidential salary Urrutia had inherited from Batista. On 16 February, following the surprise resignation of Miró, Castro had assumed the role of prime minister; this strengthened his power and rendered Urrutia increasingly a figurehead president. As Urrutia's participation in the legislative process declined, other unresolved disputes between the two leaders continued to fester. His belief in the restoration of elections was rejected by Castro, who felt that they would usher in a return to the old discredited system of corrupt parties and fraudulent balloting that had marked the Batista era.

Urrutia was then accused by the newspaper of buying a luxury villa, which was portrayed as a frivolous betrayal of the revolution and led to an outcry from the general public. He denied the allegation issuing a writ against the newspaper in response. The story further increased tensions between the various factions in the government, though Urrutia asserted publicly that he had "absolutely no disagreements" with Fidel Castro. Urrutia attempted to distance the Cuban government (including Castro) from the growing influence of the communists within the administration, making a series of critical public comments against the latter group. Whilst Castro had not openly declared any affiliation with the Cuban communists, Urrutia had been a declared anti-communist since they had refused to support the insurrection against Batista, stating in an interview, "If the Cuban people had heeded those words, we would still have Batista with us ... and all those other war criminals who are now running away". Castro resigned from his position as commander-in-chief, citing the controversy around Urrutia as cause. In the aftermath of Castro's resignation, angry mobs surrounded the Presidential Palace, and Urrutia then resigned. Castro was reinstated into his position, and a growing political sentiment in Cuba associated Fidel Castro with the only source of legitimate power. Fidel Castro soon replaced Manuel Urrutia with Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado as President of Cuba. Dorticós was a member of the Popular Socialist Party.

The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government, it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution. After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba in January 1961. The Key West-Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in which Brigade 2506 (a CIA-trained force of 1,500 soldiers, mostly Cuban exiles) landed on a mission to oust Castro; the attempt to overthrow Castro failed, with the invasion being repulsed by the Cuban military. The U.S. embargo against Cuba is still in force as of 2025, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump. The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s, and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015. The Trump administration reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's embargo against the country.

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

The Soviets' attitude of optimism changed to one of concern for the safety of Cuba after it was excluded from the inter-American system at the conference held at Punta del Este in January 1962 by the Organization of American States. This coupled with the threat of a United States invasion of the island was really the turning point for Soviet Concern, the idea was that should Cuba be defeated by the United States it would mean defeat for the Soviet Union and for Marxism-Leninism. If Cuba were to fall, "other Latin American countries would reject us, claiming that for all our might the Soviet Union had not been able to do anything for Cuba except to make empty protests to the United Nations" wrote Khrushchev. The Soviet attitude towards Cuba changed to concern for the safety of the island nation because of increased US tensions and threats of invasion making the Soviet-Cuban relationship superficial insofar as it only cared about denying the US power in the region and maintaining Soviet supremacy. All of these events led to the two countries quickly developing close military and intelligence ties, which culminated in the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, an act which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

The 1970s and 1980s were somewhat of an enigma in the sense that the two decades were filled with the most prosperity in Cuba's history, and it adopted and enacted several brutal features of socialist regimes from the Eastern Bloc. This period is marked as the Sovietization of the 1970s and 1980s. On 11 July 1972, Cuba joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), officially joining their trade with the Soviet Union's socialist trade bloc. That along with increased Soviet subsidies, better trade terms, and better, more practical domestic policy led to several years of prosperous growth. Moreover, Cuba was able to strengthen its foreign policy with both communistic, anti-US imperial and non-communistic countries (albeit not including those in North America and Latin America).

Cuba maintained close links to the Soviets until the Soviet Union's collapse and disbandment of COMECON in 1991. The end of Soviet economic aid and the loss of its trade partners in the Eastern Bloc led to an economic crisis and period of shortages known as the Special Period in the Time of Peace in Cuba.

Since the conclusion of the Cuban Revolution, a steady stream of emigration from Cuba has commenced. This stream has included various migration waves which each had unique push and pull factors, motivating emigrants' exit from Cuba. The first exodus of " Golden exiles" (1959-1962) consisted of the mainly upper and middle class emigrants. These emigrants were motivated to leave because they were typically either Batistianos, or professionals within industries that were nationalized by Fidel Castro. The later Freedom Flights (1965-1970) typically consisted of emigrants fearful of censorship and human rights abuses in Cuba. The Mariel boatlift (1980) consisted of emigrants greatly looking for better economic prospects in the United States. And, the rafter crisis (1994) was sparked by the Special Period, and many emigrants left for better economic prospects outside Cuba.

The constant exodus has had a profound effect on US-Cuba relations. According to authors John Scanlan and Gilburt Loescher, United States acceptance of Cuban emigrants after the 1959 Cuban Revolution was done in hopes to undermine the Fidel Castro government. The acceptance of Cuban emigrants during the Freedom Flights was done in hopes of weakening the Cuban economy by draining it of workers. The United States also was generally able to paint a negative picture of Cuba by participating in the mass emigration of many who disliked Cuba and wished to flee the island. The Department of State painted Cuban emigrants in the 1960s as freedom-seeking refugees. By the Mariel boatlift the United States had lost its total aggressive foreign policy towards Cuba and instead viewed the island as a nuisance rather than a security threat. The Mariel boatlift was soon canceled after it was initiated and received little public American support. Fidel Castro benefited from the exile because he was able to remove disloyalty by directly removing disloyal citizens from Cuba. The emigration of Mariel exiles set the precedent of the first homosexual immigrants being allowed into the United States, on the grounds that they were ultimately anti-communist refugees. Social analyst Kelly M. Greenhill argues that the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis was in part engineered by the Cuban government to push social problems out of Cuba and threaten the creation of a humanitarian crisis for the United States. This threat would stimulate fears of Cuban immigrants in the United States as was seen previously during the Mariel boatlift and would be able to change United States policy towards Cuba in Cuba's favor,

The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia.

Castro's victory and post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions as influenced by the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe after the 1917 October Revolution. In line with his call for revolution in Latin America and beyond against imperial powers, laid out in his Declarations of Havana, Castro immediately sought to "export" his revolution to other countries in the Caribbean and beyond, sending weapons and troops to Algerian rebels as early as 1960. In the following decades, Cuba became heavily involved in supporting Communist insurgencies and independence movements in many developing countries, sending military aid to insurgents in Ghana, Nicaragua, North Yemen, and Angola, among others. Castro's intervention in the Angolan Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly significant, involving as many as 60,000 Cuban soldiers.

The beliefs of Fidel Castro during the revolution have been the subject of much historical debate. Fidel Castro was openly ambiguous about his beliefs at the time. Some orthodox historians argue Castro was a communist from the beginning with a long-term plan; however, others have argued he had no strong ideological loyalties. Leslie Dewart has stated that there is no evidence to suggest Castro was ever a communist agent. Levine and Papasotiriou believe Castro believed in little outside of a distaste for American imperialism. As evidence for his lack of communist leanings they note his friendly relations with the United States shortly after the revolution and him not joining the Cuban Communist Party during the beginning of his land reforms.

At the time of the revolution the 26th of July Movement involved people of various political persuasions, but most were in agreement and desired the reinstatement of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and supported the ideals of Jose Marti. Che Guevara commented to Jorge Masetti in an interview during the revolution that "Fidel isn't a communist" also stating "politically you can define Fidel and his movement as ' revolutionary nationalist'. Of course he is anti-American, in the sense that Americans are anti-revolutionaries".

Fulgencio Batista was a mixed-race individual, and his armies frequently consisted of Afro-Cubans of poor economic backgrounds. Batista's officers were often of non-white heritage, and of poor economic background, who often used the army to better their social mobility. In contrast, Fidel Castro was white, and a descendent of wealthy land owners. For these reasons, the struggle against Batista often expressed racist overtones.

Members of the Partido Auténtico often referred to Batista as the "black beast" or the "bad mulatto". Members of the 26th of July Movement often suspected that Afro-Cubans were supporters of Batista. Cuban sociologist Carlos Moore claims that during the revolution it was common to hear jokes ridiculing Batista's Spanish proficiency, and table manners, because he was considered a black idiot. The historian Louis A. Pérez claims that white Cubans often claimed that Batista's coup was the beginning of a barbaric descent into the "law of the jungle", inferring Batista's rule was that of black savagery.

Historian Mark Q Sawyer claims that 26th of July Movement often published literature that attacked Batista using racist stereotypes. The Senator Rolando Masferrer, who led a Batistiano paramilitary in Cuba, often claimed that the 26th of July Movement would "return blacks to slavery" if successful in overthrowing Batista.

Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, Jorge Risquet and José Nivaldo Causse in 1958

The importance of women's contributions to the Cuban Revolution is reflected in the very accomplishments that allowed the revolution to be successful, from the participation in the Moncada Barracks, to the Mariana Grajales all-women's platoon that served as Fidel Castro's personal security detail. Tete Puebla, second in command of the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon, has said:

Women in Cuba have always been on the front line of the struggle. At Moncada we had Yeye ( Haydée Santamaría) and Melba (Hernández). With the Granma (yacht) and 30 November we had Celia, Vilma, and many other compañeras. There were many women comrades who were tortured and murdered. From the beginning there were women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. First they were simple soldiers, later sergeants. Those of us in the Mariana Grajales Platoon were the first officers. The ones who ended the war with officers' ranks stayed in the armed forces.[page needed ]

Before the Mariana Grajales Platoon was established, the revolutionary women of the Sierra Maestra were not organized for combat and primarily helped with cooking, mending clothes, and tending to the sick, frequently acting as couriers, as well as teaching guerrillas to read and write.

Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernández were the only women who participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, afterward acting alongside Natalia Revuelta, and Lidia Castro (Fidel Castro's sister) to form alliances with anti-Batista organizations, as well as the assembly and distribution of "History Will Absolve Me". Celia Sánchez and Vilma Espin were leading strategists and highly skilled combatants who held essential roles throughout the revolution. Tete Puebla, founding member and second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, said of Celia Sánchez, "When you speak of Celia, you've got to speak of Fidel, and vice versa. Celia's ideas touched almost everything in the Sierra."

There were many foreign presences in Cuba during this time. Esther Brinch was a Danish translator for the Danish government in 1960's Cuba. Brinch's work covered the Cuban Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis. A collection of Brinch's archival materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center.

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31. ^ Duany, Jorge (1 January 1999). "Cuban communities in the United States: migration waves, settlement patterns and socioeconomic diversity". Pouvoirs dans la Caraïbe Revue du Centre de recherche sur les pouvoirs locaux dans la Caraïbe (11): 69-103. doi:10.4000/plc.464.

32. ^ Copeland, Ronald (1983). "The Cuban Boatlift of 1980: Strategies in Federal Crisis Management". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 467: 138-150. doi:10.1177/0002716283467001010. ISSN 0002-7162. JSTOR 1044933. S2CID 143306587.

33. ^ Scanlan, John; Loescher, John (1983). "U. S. Foreign Policy, 1959-80: Impact on Refugee Flow from Cuba". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 467. Sage Publications: 116-137. doi:10.1177/0002716283467001009. JSTOR 1044932. S2CID 145239730.

34. ^ JR., JULIO CAPÓ (2010). "Queering Mariel: Mediating Cold War Foreign Policy and U.S. Citizenship among Cuba's Homosexual Exile Community, 1978-1994". Journal of American Ethnic History. 29 (4): 78-106. doi:10.5406/jamerethnhist.29.4.0078. ISSN 0278-5927. JSTOR 10.5406/jamerethnhist.29.4.0078.

35. ^ Greenhill, Kelly (2002). "Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis†". International Migration. 40 (4): 39-74. doi:10.1111/1468-2435.00205.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power.

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Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface of the moon (1969)

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Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface of the moon (1969)

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It affected the whole world also because nobody has landed on the moon.

The impact was that the United States was the first to land on the moon.

https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/july-2019/how-the-moon-landing-changed-the-world

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The cultural critic: Anthony Lambert

The cultural impact of the moon landing is all around us, forever a reminder of spectacular possibilities.
Mankind's giant leap: Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Pic credit: NASA.
Spectacles are large events that demand universal focus, and they have the power to fixate and transform cultures. In the sitcom Big Bang Theory, the science geeks direct a laser onto a retro-reflector left by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon. Leonard exclaims "Don't you see what we've done? It's the only definitive proof that there are man-made objects on the moon placed there by a species that only 60 years before had just invented the airplane." They have connected with something spectacular.

The landing of Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969 was, quite simply, the biggest thing that had ever happened. EVER. And it may well still be. For scholars of visual media and cultural studies, interest is in how the spectacle of the moon landing works, with respect to America and the global mediascape in the late 1960s, and the ongoing effects of the spectacle on culture and representation in our contemporary lives.

The moon landing has offered a visual architecture of the modern spectacle. In the CNN documentary Apollo 11 (2019), unseen footage reveals the visual motifs, cues and tropes that have informed films and stories over the past half-century, including the 12-part HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon (1998), and the 1996 Apollo 11 docudrama, which followed from the Apollo 13 film made in 1995, starring Tom Hanks. The 2019 documentary enlivens the 'real footage' by reproducing the actual moon landing in high-resolution digital scans that are fully immersive.

The landing of Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon on 20 July 20 1969 was, quite simply, the biggest thing that had ever happened. EVER. And it may well still be.

Whilst numerous other popular documentaries and feature films have been made, including the dramatic First Man (2018) and the Australian comedy The Dish (2000), the cultural impact of the event also lies in its easy incorporation into the stories and images of popular programs and film franchises: TV shows such as Futurama, Dr Who, and Timeless, as well as the Men in Black and Transformers films have all used aspects of the moon landing story as part of larger stories about science, fantasy, good and evil.

The large-scale media coverage of the original achievement managed the world's attention through distraction from the Vietnam War, and the culmination of the 'space race', which offered a celebratory account of American/Western human and technological development. In recent film and television from Big Bang Theory to First Man, the moon landing continues to powerfully inform representations of humanity, space, the world and the universe.

The event lives on through what is repeated and circulated in popular culture - not only as the measure of achievement but as the postmodern reminder of spectacular possibilities.
Dr Anthony Lambert is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University.
The planetary scientist: Craig O'Neill

The Apollo mission transformed our understanding of our own planet.
Rocky route: Apollo 11 carried the first geologic samples from the Moon back to Earth, including 50 rocks. Pic credit: NASA.
In 2002 I was lucky enough to have dinner with an Apollo-17 astronaut, Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt - the only scientist ever to walk on the moon, and a geologist. Dr Schmitt was giving a public lecture at Sydney University, and as a geoscience grad student studying planets, I scored an invite. As the only other earth scientist, the organisers sat me next to Harrison - a terrible idea for the rest of the table, as we proceeded to talk about rocks for the next three hours.

Harrison's experience on the Apollo program is a point of pride in the earth science community - the true skill required for a scientist on the ground in an alien environment isn't astronomy. It's geology. And nowhere have the Apollo missions cast a longer shadow than in the earth sciences.

The Apollo missions were a turning point for planetary science ... the samples have powered 50 years of science and continue to be worked on today.

The Apollo mission samples showed that Earth and moon came from the same body. The isotope signatures of both - the "DNA" of rocks - are uncannily similar. However, the moon had some major differences. It was very dry, had a very small core, and much of the crust was an unusual rock rich in a mineral called feldspar.

Together these observations led to a model for the formation of the Earth-moon system via a giant impact, where a Mars-sized object hit the growing Earth, ejecting material to eventually form the moon.

The moon's surface is also very old. Most of Earth's earliest record has been destroyed, yet the moon provides a time-capsule of this period. It showed that the early moon, and by inference the Earth, started life mostly molten, covered by deep "magma oceans". The Apollo samples allowed us to date the epic impact craters forming at the time, and constrain the flux of asteroid impactors bombarding the early solar system. Soon after this period ended, evidence for life appears on Earth, which may have had to wait until these ocean-vaporising impacts ceased.

The Apollo missions were a turning point for planetary science. Previously accessible only by astronomy, planetary bodies were now accessible to missions, and sample return - and thus the whole arsenal of analytical tools geochemistry could bring to bear. The Apollo samples have powered 50 years of science, and continue to be worked on today.

It's been a long time since Harrison Schmitt, with Eugene Cernan, were the last humans to walk on the moon, and we are long overdue for a new generation of scientists to follow in their footsteps.
Associate Professor Craig O'Neill is Director of the Planetary Research Centre at Macquarie.
The historian: Chris Dixon

The moon landing showed the world what political will can achieve. Today, humanity urgently needs to find that will again.
Mission milestone: The moon landing was a huge moment in US and world history and became a cause for national celebration like this New York parade for the returned Apollo 11 crew Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong. Pic credit: NASA.
The moon landing did not transform life on Earth. Yet it was a moment of profound historical significance. Coming near the end of a decade in which Americans had spent as much energy fighting themselves as they had expended in an ultimately unwinnable war in the jungles and rice paddies of faraway Vietnam, many Americans saw the success of July 1969 as a reassuring sign that the United States still had the right stuff. While some were contending that America in the 1960s was a generation lost in space, the moon landing suggested there was, perhaps, still time left to start again.

Of course, the moon landing was much more than an American moment. The grainy black-and-white TV image of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon represented a transcendent, unifying moment. This was not just an American triumph, but a sign that all peoples, regardless of nation, race, or faith, were inhabitants of the same precarious planet.

Amid the technological triumphalism and soaring rhetoric associated with the moon landing, it is often forgotten that President John F. Kennedy's 1961 pronouncement that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade had not been greeted with universal acclaim. Sceptical of the project's feasibility, and concerned about its expense, some Americans worried that a failure to reach Kennedy's ambitious goal might repeat the embarrassment and humiliation that had followed the Soviets' 1957 launch of Sputnik.

Although the United States sent a further six missions to the moon, Apollo 11 proved a tough act to follow.

Perhaps because the space race was so inseparable from the Cold War, during the 1960s the US government invested vast resources to the quest to reach the moon. Harnessing the best and the brightest of the nation's scientific minds, the space program demonstrated the positive possibility of large-scale government investment in projects of national and international significance. Even if the public purse permitted, it is doubtful that the United States would today have the political will to invest the resources necessary for such an ambitious exercise.

It is one of the ironies of history that it was Richard Nixon - who had narrowly and contentiously lost to John Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election - who welcomed the Apollo 11 astronauts back to Earth. Acclaimed as heroes, Armstrong and his fellow crewmembers rode in ticker-tape parades in Chicago and New York City, addressed a joint sitting of the US Congress, and embarked on a world tour that took them to 22 countries.

Although the United States sent a further six missions to the moon, Apollo 11 proved a tough act to follow. Apollo 13 nearly ended in disaster, and by December 1972, when Apollo 17 completed its mission, the trip to the moon had become almost routine, if not passé.

And while Neil Armstrong's description of "a small step for [a] man, but a giant leap for mankind" highlighted the unbounded optimism of that moment, the decades since have seen the increasing militarization of space and a growing cynicism toward the type of scientific endeavour that made the moon landing possible. As the planet that Armstrong and other astronauts contemplated from afar grapples with the challenge of climate change, it is incumbent on all of use to demand, and generate, the same type of political will that put a man on the moon.
Professor Chris Dixon is Head of the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie.
The engineer: Noushin Nasiri

Technology developed during the Apollo Mission has made everyday life easier - and safer.
Fiction to reality: Wireless headsets, cordless tools, swipe cards and memory foam hospital beds are among the NASA inventions now used in everyday household items back on Earth.
The day before the launch of Apollo 11, Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, held a sign at the Kennedy Space Centre that read: "$12 a day to feed an astronaut. We could feed a starving child for $8." The total cost of the Apollo program was $US25.4 billion, more than $US100 billion in today's money. Fifty years later, some may still wonder if the moon landing was a waste of money, and also may question, like Abernathy, why we spend so much money to explore space when we could be more focused on improving the quality of life of people here on Earth.

From memory foam to wireless headsets, NASA inventions have contributed to improving lives of people on this planet.

The answer, however, is quite complicated as it is difficult to put a value on something of the magnitude of the moon landing. And the reality is that space exploration has brought us numerous benefits. From memory foam to wireless headsets, NASA inventions have contributed to improving lives of people on this planet. The former, which is being used in helmets as well as hospital beds, was created in the 1970s by NASA to absorb the energy of crashes during landing and increase astronauts' chances of survival. The latter was initially developed to improve the astronauts' communications while in the spacecraft.

Another example is cordless tools such as the cordless drill, screwdriver and vacuum, which are common in households around the world. Although these tools were generally invented before the moon landing, NASA took away the complications of tangled cords. Through a collaborative project with Black & Decker, NASA made the daily lives of the masses easier by developing these lightweight, battery-powered and portable tools.

The catastrophe also led to new technology. After the three astronauts of Apollo 1, the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, died in a fire in the spacecraft cabin during a launch test, NASA engineers designed and fabricated space suits made of fire-resistant material. That material has since been used in the outfitting of firefighters, race-car drivers and soldiers to help protect their lives in the case of fire.

NASA's innovations are not limited to hardware technologies, with sophisticated software tools developed by its scientists also changing the lives of millions. One great example is the software they designed to manage complex space systems which later was utilised in developing the swipe-card devices we use every single day.

Fifty years ago, on 20 July, the science fiction fantasy became the reality when Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon; and now, we should be wondering how different life would be without the many NASA technologies that are taken for granted.
Dr Noushin Nasiri is a Lecturer in Materials Engineering at Macquarie's School of Engineering.

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The cultural critic: Anthony Lambert The cultural impact of the moon landing is all around us, forever a reminder of spectacular possibilities. Mankind's giant leap: Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Pic credit: NASA.

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Digital Revolution begins (20th century, c. 1950s)

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Digital Revolution begins (20th century, c. 1950s)

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The digital revolution affected the whole world.

The importance is that the world is going through new forms of technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age#:~:text=The%20digital%20revolution%20converted%20technology,analog%20to%20digitally%20recorded%20music.

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The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947, and the optical amplifier in 1957. These technological advances have had a significant impact on the way information is processed and transmitted.

According to the United Nations Public Administration Network, the Information Age was formed by capitalizing on computer miniaturization advances, which led to modernized information systems and internet communications as the driving force of social evolution.

There is ongoing debate concerning whether the Third Industrial Revolution has already ended, and if the Fourth Industrial Revolution has already begun due to the recent breakthroughs in areas such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology. This next transition has been theorized to harken the advent of the Imagination Age, the Internet of things (IoT), and rapid advancements in machine learning.

The digital revolution converted technology from analog format to digital format. By doing this, it became possible to make copies that were identical to the original. In digital communications, for example, repeating hardware was able to amplify the digital signal and pass it on with no loss of information in the signal. Of equal importance to the revolution was the ability to easily move the digital information between media, and to access or distribute it remotely. One turning point of the revolution was the change from analog to digitally recorded music. During the 1980s the digital format of optical compact discs gradually replaced analog formats, such as vinyl records and cassette tapes, as the popular medium of choice.

Humans have manufactured tools for counting and calculating since ancient times, such as the abacus, astrolabe, equatorium, and mechanical timekeeping devices. More complicated devices started appearing in the 1600s, including the slide rule and mechanical calculators. By the early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had produced mass-market calculators like the arithmometer and the enabling technology of the punch card. Charles Babbage proposed a mechanical general-purpose computer called the Analytical Engine, but it was never successfully built, and was largely forgotten by the 20th century and unknown to most of the inventors of modern computers.

The Second Industrial Revolution in the last quarter of the 19th century developed useful electrical circuits and the telegraph. In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith developed electromechanical tabulating and calculating devices using punch cards and unit record equipment, which became widespread in business and government.

Building on the complexity of the Z1 and Z2, German inventor Konrad Zuse used electromechanical systems to complete in 1941 the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. Also during World War II, Allied engineers constructed electromechanical bombes to break German Enigma machine encoding. The base-10 electromechanical Harvard Mark I was completed in 1944, and was to some degree improved with inspiration from Charles Babbage's designs.

A Pennsylvania state historical marker in Philadelphia cites the creation of ENIAC, the "first all-purpose digital computer", in 1946 as the beginning of the Information Age.

In 1947, the first working transistor, the germanium-based point-contact transistor, was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs. This led the way to more advanced digital computers. From the late 1940s, universities, military, and businesses developed computer systems to digitally replicate and automate previously manually performed mathematical calculations, with the LEO being the first commercially available general-purpose computer.

Digital communication became economical for widespread adoption after the invention of the personal computer in the 1970s. Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs mathematician, is credited for having laid out the foundations of digitalization in his pioneering 1948 article, A Mathematical Theory of Communication.

In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Their concept, forms the basis of CMOS and DRAM technology today. In 1957 at Bell Labs, Frosch and Derick were able to manufacture planar silicon dioxide transistors, later a team at Bell Labs demonstrated a working MOSFET. The first integrated circuit milestone was achieved by Jack Kilby in 1958.

Other important technological developments included the invention of the monolithic integrated circuit chip by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, made possible by the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni. In 1963, complementary MOS (CMOS) was developed by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor. The self-aligned gate transistor, which further facilitated mass production, was invented in 1966 by Robert Bower at Hughes Aircraft and independently by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs.

In 1962 AT&T deployed the T-carrier for long-haul pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital voice transmission. The T1 format carried 24 pulse-code modulated, time-division multiplexed speech signals each encoded in 64 kbit/s streams, leaving 8 kbit/s of framing information which facilitated the synchronization and demultiplexing at the receiver. Over the subsequent decades the digitisation of voice became the norm for all but the last mile (where analogue continued to be the norm right into the late 1990s).

Following the development of MOS integrated circuit chips in the early 1960s, MOS chips reached higher transistor density and lower manufacturing costs than bipolar integrated circuits by 1964. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted by Moore's law, leading to large-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The application of MOS LSI chips to computing was the basis for the first microprocessors, as engineers began recognizing that a complete computer processor could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip. In 1968, Fairchild engineer Federico Faggin improved MOS technology with his development of the silicon-gate MOS chip, which he later used to develop the Intel 4004, the first single-chip microprocessor. It was released by Intel in 1971, and laid the foundations for the microcomputer revolution that began in the 1970s.

MOS technology also led to the development of semiconductor image sensors suitable for digital cameras. The first such image sensor was the charge-coupled device, developed by Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs in 1969, based on MOS capacitor technology.

A visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet (created via The Opte Project)

In the 1970s, the home computer was introduced, time-sharing computers, the video game console, the first coin-op video games, and the golden age of arcade video games began with Space Invaders. As digital technology proliferated, and the switch from analog to digital record keeping became the new standard in business, a relatively new job description was popularized, the data entry clerk. Culled from the ranks of secretaries and typists from earlier decades, the data entry clerk's job was to convert analog data (customer records, invoices, etc.) into digital data.

In developed nations, computers achieved semi-ubiquity during the 1980s as they made their way into schools, homes, business, and industry. Automated teller machines, industrial robots, CGI in film and television, electronic music, bulletin board systems, and video games all fueled what became the zeitgeist of the 1980s. Millions of people purchased home computers, making household names of early personal computer manufacturers such as Apple, Commodore, and Tandy. To this day the Commodore 64 is often cited as the best selling computer of all time, having sold 17 million units (by some accounts) between 1982 and 1994.

In 1984, the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting data on computer and Internet use in the United States; their first survey showed that 8.2% of all U.S. households owned a personal computer in 1984, and that households with children under the age of 18 were nearly twice as likely to own one at 15.3% (middle and upper middle class households were the most likely to own one, at 22.9%). By 1989, 15% of all U.S. households owned a computer, and nearly 30% of households with children under the age of 18 owned one. By the late 1980s, many businesses were dependent on computers and digital technology.

Motorola created the first mobile phone, Motorola DynaTac, in 1983. However, this device used analog communication - digital cell phones were not sold commercially until 1991 when the 2G network started to be opened in Finland to accommodate the unexpected demand for cell phones that was becoming apparent in the late 1980s.

magazine predicted that CD-ROM would be the centerpiece of the revolution, with multiple household devices reading the discs.

Digital ink and paint was also invented in the late 1980s. Disney's CAPS system (created 1988) was used for a scene in 1989's The Little Mermaid and for all their animation films between 1990's The Rescuers Down Under and 2004's Home on the Range.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. The "Web 1.0 era" ended in 2005, coinciding with the development of further advanced technologies during the start of the 21st century.

The first public digital HDTV broadcast was of the 1990 World Cup that June; it was played in 10 theaters in Spain and Italy. However, HDTV did not become a standard until the mid-2000s outside Japan.

The World Wide Web became publicly accessible in 1991, which had been available only to government and universities. In 1993 Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina introduced Mosaic, the first web browser capable of displaying inline images and the basis for later browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first financial institution to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994. In 1996 OP Financial Group, also a cooperative bank, became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe. The Internet expanded quickly, and by 1996, it was part of mass culture and many businesses listed websites in their ads. By 1999, almost every country had a connection, and nearly half of Americans and people in several other countries used the Internet on a regular basis. However throughout the 1990s, "getting online" entailed complicated configuration, and dial-up was the only connection type affordable by individual users; the present day mass Internet culture was not possible.

In 1989, about 15% of all households in the United States owned a personal computer. For households with children, nearly 30% owned a computer in 1989, and in 2000, 65% owned one.

Cell phones became as ubiquitous as computers by the early 2000s, with movie theaters beginning to show ads telling people to silence their phones. They also became much more advanced than phones of the 1990s, most of which only took calls or at most allowed for the playing of simple games.

Text messaging became widely used in the late 1990s worldwide, except for in the United States of America where text messaging didn't become commonplace till the early 2000s.

The digital revolution became truly global in this time as well - after revolutionizing society in the developed world in the 1990s, the digital revolution spread to the masses in the developing world in the 2000s.

By 2000, a majority of U.S. households had at least one personal computer and internet access the following year. In 2002, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported having a mobile phone.

In late 2005 the population of the Internet reached 1 billion, and 3 billion people worldwide used cell phones by the end of the decade. HDTV became the standard television broadcasting format in many countries by the end of the decade. In September and December 2006 respectively, Luxembourg and the Netherlands became the first countries to completely transition from analog to digital television. In September 2007, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported having broadband internet at home. According to estimates from the Nielsen Media Research, approximately 45.7 million U.S. households in 2006 (or approximately 40 percent of approximately 114.4 million) owned a dedicated home video game console, and by 2015, 51 percent of U.S. households owned a dedicated home video game console according to an Entertainment Software Association annual industry report. By 2012, over 2 billion people used the Internet, twice the number using it in 2007. Cloud computing had entered the mainstream by the early 2010s. In January 2013, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported owning a smartphone. By 2016, half of the world's population was connected and as of 2020, that number has risen to 67%.

In the late 1980s, less than 1% of the world's technologically stored information was in digital format, while it was 94% in 2007, with more than 99% by 2014.

It is estimated that the world's capacity to store information has increased from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986, to some 5,000 exabytes in 2014 (5 zettabytes).

A university computer lab containing many desktop PCs

A timeline of major milestones of the Information Age, from the first message sent by the Internet protocol suite to global Internet access

Library expansion was calculated in 1945 by Fremont Rider to double in capacity every 16 years where sufficient space made available. He advocated replacing bulky, decaying printed works with miniaturized microform analog photographs, which could be duplicated on-demand for library patrons and other institutions.

Rider did not foresee, however, the digital technology that would follow decades later to replace analog microform with digital imaging, storage, and transmission media, whereby vast increases in the rapidity of information growth would be made possible through automated, potentially- lossless digital technologies. Accordingly, Moore's law, formulated around 1965, would calculate that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

By the early 1980s, along with improvements in computing power, the proliferation of the smaller and less expensive personal computers allowed for immediate access to information and the ability to share and store it. Connectivity between computers within organizations enabled access to greater amounts of information.

Hilbert & López (2011). The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information. Science, 332(6025), 60-65.

The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes (EB) in 1986 to 15.8 EB in 1993; over 54.5 EB in 2000; and to 295 (optimally compressed) EB in 2007. This is the informational equivalent to less than one 730- megabyte (MB) CD-ROM per person in 1986 (539 MB per person); roughly four CD-ROM per person in 1993; twelve CD-ROM per person in the year 2000; and almost sixty-one CD-ROM per person in 2007. It is estimated that the world's capacity to store information has reached 5 zettabytes in 2014, the informational equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the earth to the sun.

The amount of digital data stored appears to be growing approximately exponentially, reminiscent of Moore's law. As such, Kryder's law prescribes that the amount of storage space available appears to be growing approximately exponentially.

The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986; 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993; 1.2 (optimally compressed) zettabytes in 2000; and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007, the information equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day.

The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way Telecommunications networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986; 471 petabytes in 1993; 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000; and 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, the information equivalent of six newspapers per person per day. In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and ability to share information in businesses and homes globally. A computer that cost $3000 in 1997 would cost $2000 two years later and $1000 the following year, due to the rapid advancement of technology.

The world's technological capacity to compute information with human-guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10 ⁸ MIPS in 1986, to 4.4 × 10 ⁹ MIPS in 1993; to 2.9 × 10 ¹¹ MIPS in 2000; to 6.4 × 10 ¹² MIPS in 2007. An article featured in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution in 2016 reported that:

Digital technology has vastly exceeded the cognitive capacity of any single human being and has done so a decade earlier than predicted. In terms of capacity, there are two measures of importance: the number of operations a system can perform and the amount of information that can be stored. The number of synaptic operations per second in a human brain has been estimated to lie between 10^15 and 10^17. While this number is impressive, even in 2007 humanity's general-purpose computers were capable of performing well over 10^18 instructions per second. Estimates suggest that the storage capacity of an individual human brain is about 10^12 bytes. On a per capita basis, this is matched by current digital storage (5x10^21 bytes per 7.2x10^9 people).

Genetic code may also be considered part of the information revolution. Now that sequencing has been computerized, genome can be rendered and manipulated as data. This started with DNA sequencing, invented by Walter Gilbert and Allan Maxam in 1976-1977 and Frederick Sanger in 1977, grew steadily with the Human Genome Project, initially conceived by Gilbert and finally, the practical applications of sequencing, such as gene testing, after the discovery by Myriad Genetics of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene mutation. Sequence data in GenBank has grown from the 606 genome sequences registered in December 1982 to the 231 million genomes in August 2021. An additional 13 trillion incomplete sequences are registered in the Whole Genome Shotgun submission database as of August 2021. The information contained in these registered sequences has doubled every 18 months.

During rare times in human history, there have been periods of innovation that have transformed human life. The Neolithic Age, the Scientific Age and the Industrial Age all, ultimately, induced discontinuous and irreversible changes in the economic, social and cultural elements of the daily life of most people. Traditionally, these epochs have taken place over hundreds, or in the case of the Neolithic Revolution, thousands of years, whereas the Information Age swept to all parts of the globe in just a few years, as a result of the rapidly advancing speed of information exchange.

The Scientific Age began in the period between Galileo's 1543 proof that the planets orbit the Sun and Newton's publication of the laws of motion and gravity in in 1697. This age of discovery continued through the 18th century, accelerated by widespread use of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg.

The Industrial Age began in Great Britain in 1760 and continued into the mid-19th century. The invention of machines such as the mechanical textile weaver by Edmund Cartwrite, the rotating shaft steam engine by James Watt and the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, along with processes for mass manufacturing, came to serve the needs of a growing global population. The Industrial Age harnessed steam and waterpower to reduce the dependence on animal and human physical labor as the primary means of production. Thus, the core of the Industrial Revolution was the generation and distribution of energy from coal and water to produce steam and, later in the 20th century, electricity.

The Information Age also requires electricity to power the global networks of computers that process and store data. However, what dramatically accelerated the pace of The Information Age's adoption, as compared to previous ones, was the speed by which knowledge could be transferred and pervaded the entire human family in a few short decades. This acceleration came about with the adoptions of a new form of power. Beginning in 1972, engineers devised ways to harness light to convey data through fiber optic cable. Today, light-based optical networking systems at the heart of telecom networks and the Internet span the globe and carry most of the information traffic to and from users and data storage systems.

Three stages of the Information Age

There are different conceptualizations of the Information Age. Some focus on the evolution of information over the ages, distinguishing between the Primary Information Age and the Secondary Information Age. Information in the Primary Information Age was handled by newspapers, radio and television. The Secondary Information Age was developed by the Internet, satellite televisions and mobile phones. The Tertiary Information Age was emerged by media of the Primary Information Age interconnected with media of the Secondary Information Age as presently experienced.

Stages of development expressed as Kondratiev waves

Others classify it in terms of the well-established Schumpeterian long waves or Kondratiev waves. Here authors distinguish three different long-term meta paradigms, each with different long waves. The first focused on the transformation of material, including stone, bronze, and iron. The second, often referred to as Industrial Revolution, was dedicated to the transformation of energy, including water, steam, electric, and combustion power. Finally, the most recent metaparadigm aims at transforming information. It started out with the proliferation of communication and stored data and has now entered the age of algorithms, which aims at creating automated processes to convert the existing information into actionable knowledge.

The main feature of the information revolution is the growing economic, social and technological role of information. Information-related activities did not come up with the Information Revolution. They existed, in one form or the other, in all human societies, and eventually developed into institutions, such as the Platonic Academy, Aristotle's Peripatetic school in the Lyceum, the Musaeum and the Library of Alexandria, or the schools of Babylonian astronomy. The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came up when new informational inputs were produced by individual innovators, or by scientific and technical institutions. During the Information Revolution all these activities are experiencing continuous growth, while other information-oriented activities are emerging.

Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, including Shannon's (1949) Information Theory and Wiener's (1948) Cybernetics. Wiener stated: "information is information not matter or energy". This aphorism suggests that information should be considered along with matter and energy as the third constituent part of the Universe; information is carried by matter or by energy. By the 1990s some writers believed that changes implied by the Information revolution will lead to not only a fiscal crisis for governments but also the disintegration of all "large structures".

The term information revolution may relate to, or contrast with, such widely used terms as Industrial Revolution and Agricultural Revolution. Note, however, that you may prefer mentalist to materialist paradigm. The following fundamental aspects of the theory of information revolution can be given:

1. The object of economic activities can be conceptualized according to the fundamental distinction between matter, energy, and information. These apply both to the object of each economic activity, as well as within each economic activity or enterprise. For instance, an industry may process matter (e.g. iron) using energy and information (production and process technologies, management, etc.).

2. Information is a factor of production (along with capital, labor, land (economics)), as well as a product sold in the market, that is, a commodity. As such, it acquires use value and exchange value, and therefore a price.

3. All products have use value, exchange value, and informational value. The latter can be measured by the information content of the product, in terms of innovation, design, etc.

4. Industries develop information-generating activities, the so-called Research and Development (R&D) functions.

5. Enterprises, and society at large, develop the information control and processing functions, in the form of management structures; these are also called "white-collar workers", "bureaucracy", "managerial functions", etc.

6. Labor can be classified according to the object of labor, into information labor and non-information labor.

7. Information activities constitute a large, new economic sector, the information sector along with the traditional primary sector, secondary sector, and tertiary sector, according to the three-sector hypothesis. These should be restated because they are based on the ambiguous definitions made by Colin Clark (1940), who included in the tertiary sector all activities that have not been included in the primary (agriculture, forestry, etc.) and secondary (manufacturing) sectors. The quaternary sector and the quinary sector of the economy attempt to classify these new activities, but their definitions are not based on a clear conceptual scheme, although the latter is considered by some as equivalent with the information sector.

8. From a strategic point of view, sectors can be defined as information sector, means of production, means of consumption, thus extending the classical Ricardo-Marx model of the Capitalist mode of production (see Influences on Karl Marx). Marx stressed in many occasions the role of the "intellectual element" in production, but failed to find a place for it into his model.

9. Innovations are the result of the production of new information, as new products, new methods of production, patents, etc. Diffusion of innovations manifests saturation effects (related term: market saturation), following certain cyclical patterns and creating "economic waves", also referred to as "business cycles". There are various types of waves, such as Kondratiev wave (54 years), Kuznets swing (18 years), Juglar cycle (9 years) and Kitchin (about 4 years, see also Joseph Schumpeter) distinguished by their nature, duration, and, thus, economic impact.

10. Diffusion of innovations causes structural-sectoral shifts in the economy, which can be smooth or can create crisis and renewal, a process which Joseph Schumpeter called vividly "creative destruction".

Porat (1976) measured the information sector in the US using the input-output analysis; OECD has included statistics on the information sector in the economic reports of its member countries. Veneris (1984, 1990) explored the theoretical, economic and regional aspects of the informational revolution and developed a systems dynamics simulation computer model.

More recent estimates have reached the following results:

the world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 7% between 1986 and 2007;

the world's technological capacity to store information grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 25% between 1986 and 2007;

the world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunications networks grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 30% during the same two decades;

the world's technological capacity to compute information with the help of humanly guided general-purpose computers grew at a sustained compound annual growth rate of 61% during the same period.

Eventually, Information and communication technology (ICT)-i.e. computers, computerized machinery, fiber optics, communication satellites, the Internet, and other ICT tools-became a significant part of the world economy, as the development of optical networking and microcomputers greatly changed many businesses and industries. Nicholas Negroponte captured the essence of these changes in his 1995 book, Being Digital, in which he discusses the similarities and differences between products made of atoms and products made of bits.

The Information Age has affected the workforce in several ways, such as compelling workers to compete in a global job market. One of the most evident concerns is the replacement of human labor by computers that can do their jobs faster and more effectively, thus creating a situation in which individuals who perform tasks that can easily be automated are forced to find employment where their labor is not as disposable. This especially creates issue for those in industrial cities, where solutions typically involve lowering working time, which is often highly resisted. Thus, individuals who lose their jobs may be pressed to move up into more indispensable professions (e.g. engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, scientists, executives, journalists, consultants), who are able to compete successfully in the world market and receive (relatively) high wages.

Along with automation, jobs traditionally associated with the middle class (e.g. assembly line, data processing, management, and supervision) have also begun to disappear as result of outsourcing. Unable to compete with those in developing countries, production and service workers in post-industrial (i.e. developed) societies either lose their jobs through outsourcing, accept wage cuts, or settle for low-skill, low-wage service jobs. In the past, the economic fate of individuals would be tied to that of their nation's. For example, workers in the United States were once well paid in comparison to those in other countries. With the advent of the Information Age and improvements in communication, this is no longer the case, as workers must now compete in a global job market, whereby wages are less dependent on the success or failure of individual economies.

In effectuating a globalized workforce, the internet has just as well allowed for increased opportunity in developing countries, making it possible for workers in such places to provide in-person services, therefore competing directly with their counterparts in other nations. This competitive advantage translates into increased opportunities and higher wages.

The Information Age has affected the workforce in that automation and computerization have resulted in higher productivity coupled with net job loss in manufacturing. In the United States, for example, from January 1972 to August 2010, the number of people employed in manufacturing jobs fell from 17,500,000 to 11,500,000 while manufacturing value rose 270%. Although it initially appeared that job loss in the industrial sector might be partially offset by the rapid growth of jobs in information technology, the recession of March 2001 foreshadowed a sharp drop in the number of jobs in the sector. This pattern of decrease in jobs would continue until 2003, and data has shown that, overall, technology creates more jobs than it destroys even in the short run.

Industry has become more information-intensive while less labor- and capital-intensive. This has left important implications for the workforce, as workers have become increasingly productive as the value of their labor decreases. For the system of capitalism itself, the value of labor decreases, the value of capital increases.

In the classical model, investments in human and financial capital are important predictors of the performance of a new venture. However, as demonstrated by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it now seems possible for a group of relatively inexperienced people with limited capital to succeed on a large scale.

A visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet

The Information Age was enabled by technology developed in the Digital Revolution, which was itself enabled by building on the developments of the Technological Revolution.

The onset of the Information Age can be associated with the development of transistor technology. The concept of a field-effect transistor was first theorized by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. The first practical transistor was the point-contact transistor, invented by the engineers Walter Houser Brattain and John Bardeen while working for William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947. This was a breakthrough that laid the foundations for modern technology. Shockley's research team also invented the bipolar junction transistor in 1952. The most widely used type of transistor is the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1960. The complementary MOS (CMOS) fabrication process was developed by Frank Wanlass and Chih-Tang Sah in 1963.

The invention of the transistor enabled the era of mainframe computers (1950s-1970s), typified by the IBM 360. These large, room-sized computers provided data calculation and manipulation that was much faster than humanly possible, but were expensive to buy and maintain, so were initially limited to a few scientific institutions, large corporations, and government agencies.

The germanium integrated circuit (IC) was invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in 1958. The silicon integrated circuit was then invented in 1959 by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor, using the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni, who was in turn building on Mohamed Atalla's silicon surface passivation method developed at Bell Labs in 1957. Following the invention of the MOS transistor by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, the MOS integrated circuit was developed by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA in 1962. The silicon-gate MOS IC was later developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968. With the advent of the MOS transistor and the MOS IC, transistor technology rapidly improved, and the ratio of computing power to size increased dramatically, giving direct access to computers to ever smaller groups of people.

The first commercial single-chip microprocessor launched in 1971, the Intel 4004, which was developed by Federico Faggin using his silicon-gate MOS IC technology, along with Marcian Hoff, Masatoshi Shima and Stan Mazor.

Along with electronic arcade machines and home video game consoles pioneered by Nolan Bushnell in the 1970s, the development of personal computers like the Commodore PET and Apple II (both in 1977) gave individuals access to the computer. However, data sharing between individual computers was either non-existent or largely manual, at first using punched cards and magnetic tape, and later floppy disks.

The first developments for storing data were initially based on photographs, starting with microphotography in 1851 and then microform in the 1920s, with the ability to store documents on film, making them much more compact. Early information theory and Hamming codes were developed about 1950, but awaited technical innovations in data transmission and storage to be put to full use.

Magnetic-core memory was developed from the research of Frederick W. Viehe in 1947 and An Wang at Harvard University in 1949. With the advent of the MOS transistor, MOS semiconductor memory was developed by John Schmidt at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1964. In 1967, Dawon Kahng and Simon Sze at Bell Labs described in 1967 how the floating gate of an MOS semiconductor device could be used for the cell of a reprogrammable ROM. Following the invention of flash memory by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba in 1980, Toshiba commercialized NAND flash memory in 1987.

Copper wire cables transmitting digital data connected computer terminals and peripherals to mainframes, and special message-sharing systems leading to email, were first developed in the 1960s. Independent computer-to-computer networking began with ARPANET in 1969. This expanded to become the Internet (coined in 1974). Access to the Internet improved with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1991. The capacity expansion from dense wave division multiplexing, optical amplification and optical networking in the mid-1990s led to record data transfer rates. By 2018, optical networks routinely delivered 30.4 terabits/s over a fiber optic pair, the data equivalent of 1.2 million simultaneous 4K HD video streams.

MOSFET scaling, the rapid miniaturization of MOSFETs at a rate predicted by Moore's law, led to computers becoming smaller and more powerful, to the point where they could be carried. During the 1980s-1990s, laptops were developed as a form of portable computer, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) could be used while standing or walking. Pagers, widely used by the 1980s, were largely replaced by mobile phones beginning in the late 1990s, providing mobile networking features to some computers. Now commonplace, this technology is extended to digital cameras and other wearable devices. Starting in the late 1990s, tablets and then smartphones combined and extended these abilities of computing, mobility, and information sharing. Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) image sensors, which first began appearing in the late 1960s, led to the transition from analog to digital imaging, and from analog to digital cameras, during the 1980s-1990s. The most common image sensors are the charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor and the CMOS (complementary MOS) active-pixel sensor (CMOS sensor).

Electronic paper, which has origins in the 1970s, allows digital information to appear as paper documents.

By 1976, there were several firms racing to introduce the first truly successful commercial personal computers. Three machines, the Apple II, Commodore PET 2001 and TRS-80 were all released in 1977, becoming the most popular by late 1978. Byte magazine later referred to Commodore, Apple, and Tandy as the "1977 Trinity". Also in 1977, Sord Computer Corporation released the Sord M200 Smart Home Computer in Japan.

April 1977: Apple II.

Steve Wozniak (known as "Woz"), a regular visitor to Homebrew Computer Club meetings, designed the single-board Apple I computer and first demonstrated it there. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at US$500 each from the Byte Shop, Woz and his friend Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer.

About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer. It had color graphics, a full QWERTY keyboard, and internal slots for expansion, which were mounted in a high quality streamlined plastic case. The monitor and I/O devices were sold separately. The original Apple II operating system was only the built-in BASIC interpreter contained in ROM. Apple DOS was added to support the diskette drive; the last version was "Apple DOS 3.3".

Its higher price and lack of floating point BASIC, along with a lack of retail distribution sites, caused it to lag in sales behind the other Trinity machines until 1979, when it surpassed the PET. It was again pushed into 4th place when Atari, Inc. introduced its Atari 8-bit computers.

Optical communication plays a crucial role in communication networks. Optical communication provides the transmission backbone for the telecommunications and computer networks that underlie the Internet, the foundation for the Digital Revolution and Information Age.

The two core technologies are the optical fiber and light amplification (the optical amplifier). In 1953, Bram van Heel demonstrated image transmission through bundles of optical fibers with a transparent cladding. The same year, Harold Hopkins and Narinder Singh Kapany at Imperial College succeeded in making image-transmitting bundles with over 10,000 optical fibers, and subsequently achieved image transmission through a 75 cm long bundle which combined several thousand fibers.

Gordon Gould invented the optical amplifier and the laser, and also established the first optical telecommunications company, Optelecom, to design communication systems. The firm was a co-founder in Ciena Corp., the venture that popularized the optical amplifier with the introduction of the first dense wave division multiplexing system. This massive scale communication technology has emerged as the common basis of all telecommunications networks and, thus, a foundation of the Information Age.

Economy, society, and culture

Manuel Castells captures the significance of the Information Age in The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture when he writes of our global interdependence and the new relationships between economy, state and society, what he calls "a new society-in-the-making." He cautions that just because humans have dominated the material world, does not mean that the Information Age is the end of history:

"It is in fact, quite the opposite: history is just beginning, if by history we understand the moment when, after millennia of a prehistoric battle with Nature, first to survive, then to conquer it, our species has reached the level of knowledge and social organization that will allow us to live in a predominantly social world. It is the beginning of a new existence, and indeed the beginning of a new age, The Information Age, marked by the autonomy of culture vis-à-vis the material basis of our existence."

Thomas Chatterton Williams wrote about the dangers of anti-intellectualism in the Information Age in a piece for The Atlantic. Although access to information has never been greater, most information is irrelevant or insubstantial. The Information Age's emphasis on speed over expertise contributes to "superficial culture in which even the elite will openly disparage as pointless our main repositories for the very best that has been thought."

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947, and the optical amplifier in 1957.

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A wheel is a circular frame of hard material that may be solid, partly solid, or spoked and that is capable of turning on an axle. The idea of wheeled transportation may have come from the use of logs for rollers.

https://www.britannica.com/technology/wagon-vehicle

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The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s. The Protestant Reformation was a 1500s movement that created Protestantism, a branch of Christianity that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/protestant-reformation/

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The Protestant Reformation that began with Martin Luther in 1517 played a key role in the development of the North American colonies and the eventual United States.

# data[].attributes.body
On this day in 1794, young inventor Eli Whitney had his U.S. patent for the cotton gin approved. This invention would greatly impact the social and economic conditions that led to the Civil War.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-cotton-gin-a-game-changing-social-and-economic-invention

# data[].attributes.body
Long before Samuel F. B. Morse electrically transmitted his famous message "What hath God wrought?" from Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844.

There were signaling systems that enabled people to communicate over distances.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/samuel-morse-papers/articles-and-essays/invention-of-the-telegraph/

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The first Airplane was invented (Wright brothers)  (1903)

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The first Airplane was invented (Wright brothers)  (1903)

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For centuries, humans took to the sky by balloons, kites, and gliders. Midwestern bicycle shop owners who created a world-changing technology: the Wright brothers.

https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/wright-brothers

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The first Airplane was invented (Wright brothers)  (1903)

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Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite in 1907. Launching the modern plastics industry and revolutionizing manufacturing processes and everyday items.

https://www.plasticsengineering.org/2024/04/bakelite-the-vintage-plastic-that-shaped-the-future-004261/#!

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The Model T was introduced to the world in 1908. Henry Ford wanted the Model T to be affordable, simple to operate, and durable.

https://corporate.ford.com/articles/history/the-model-t.html

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of the Somme, which took place from July to November 1916. It began as an Allied offensive against German forces along the Western Front of World War I, near the Somme River in France.

https://www.history.com/articles/battle-of-the-somme

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Other British and French forces had more success to the south, though these gains were limited compared to the devastating losses sustained on that first day of battle.

But British Field Marshal Douglas Haig was determined to press on with the offensive, and over the next two weeks, the British launched a series of smaller attacks on the German line, putting increasing pressure on the Germans and forcing them to divert some weapons and soldiers from the Battle of Verdun.

Early on the morning of July 15, British troops launched another artillery barrage followed by a massive attack, this time on Bazentin Ridge, in the northern part of the Somme. The assault took the Germans by surprise, and the British were able to advance some 6,000 yards into enemy territory, occupying the village of Longueval.

But any small advance continued to come at the expense of heavy casualties in this long and deadly war of attrition, with the Germans losing 160,000 soldiers and the British and French more than 200,000 by the end of July.

Near the end of August, with German morale running low due to lost ground both on the Somme and at Verdun, Germany's General Erich von Falkenhayn was replaced by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. The command change marked a change in German strategy: They would build a new defensive line behind the Somme front, conceding territory but allowing them to inflict even more casualties on the advancing Allied troops.

On September 15, during an attack at Flers Courcelette, the British artillery barrage was followed by an advance of 12 divisions of soldiers accompanied by 48 Mark I tanks, making their first-ever appearance on the battlefield.

But the tanks were still early in their development stages, and many of them broke down before making it to the front line. Though the British were able to advance some 1.5 miles, they sustained some 29,000 casualties and fell short of a true breakthrough.

As October began, bad weather stymied another Allied attack, with soldiers struggling to cross muddy terrain under fierce fire from German artillery and fighter planes. The Allies made their final advance of the battle in mid-November, attacking the German positions in the Ancre River valley.

With the arrival of true winter weather, Haig finally called the offensive to a halt on November 18, ending the bloody battle of attrition on the Somme, at least until the following year. Over 141 days, the British had advanced just seven miles and had failed to break the German line.

More than anything else, the Battle of the Somme-and especially its devastating first day-would be remembered as the epitome of the brutal and seemingly senseless carnage that characterized trench warfare during World War I. British officers, especially Haig, would be criticized for continuing the offensive in spite of such devastating losses.

Many of the British soldiers who fought at the Somme had volunteered for army service in 1914 and 1915 and saw combat for the first time in the battle. Many were members of so-called Pals battalions, or units that were made up of friends, relatives and neighbors in the same community.

In one poignant example of a community's loss, some 720 men from the 11th East Lancashire battalion (known as the Accrington Pals) fought on July 1 at the Somme; 584 were killed or wounded.

The Allied victory at the Somme-despite its horrific costs-inflicted serious damage on German positions in France, spurring the Germans to strategically retreat to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917 rather than continue battling over the same land that spring.

Though the exact number is disputed, German losses by the end of the Battle of the Somme probably exceeded Britain's, with some 450,000 soldiers lost compared with 420,000 on the British side. The surviving British forces had also gained valuable experience, which would later help them achieve ultimate victory on the Western Front.

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Battle of the Somme: Casualties & Who Won | HISTORY

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The Battle of the Somme was a deadly Allied offensive against German forces along the Western Front of World War I, near the Somme River in France.

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Radar or Radio Detection and Ranging is a system designed to detect other aircraft. Ships, or other objects. This system can also decipher the speed and direction these objects are traveling.

https://www.spartan.edu/news/the-history-of-radar/

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An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki – 1945

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An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki – 1945

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On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan by the United States. On Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/august-9/atomic-bomb-dropped-on-nagasaki

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An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki – 1945

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On November 29, 1972, Pong—the groundbreaking electronic video game was released by the American game manufacturer Atari Inc. Essentially launching what is now the $200+ billion home video game industry.

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On April 30, 1993, four years after publishing a proposal for an idea of linked information system. Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-30/world-wide-web-launches-in-public-domain

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A Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook. A social media website he had built in order to connect Harvard students with one another.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/february-4/facebook-launches-mark-zuckerberg

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Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone,e a touchscreen mobile phone. With an iPod, camera,a and Web-browsing capabilities, among other features at the Macworld convention in San Francisco.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-9/steve-jobs-debuts-the-iphone

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ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot built on top of OpenAI's foundational large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and its predecessors.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/05/19/a-short-history-of-chatgpt-how-we-got-to-where-we-are-today/

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Picture an AI that truly speaks your language - and not just your words and syntax. Imagine an AI that understands context, nuance, and even humor.

This is no longer just a futuristic concept - it's the reality of ChatGPT.

A Short History Of ChatGPT: How We Got To Where We Are Today
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ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot built on top of OpenAI's foundational large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and its predecessors.

This chatbot has redefined the standards of artificial intelligence, proving that machines can indeed "learn" the complexities of human language and interaction.

Let's delve into the fascinating history of ChatGPT, charting its evolution from its launch to its present-day capabilities.

The Genesis of ChatGPT

OpenAI released an early demo of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, and the chatbot quickly went viral on social media as users shared examples of what it could do. Stories and samples included everything from travel planning to writing fables to code computer programs. Within five days, the chatbot had attracted over one million users.

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, and John Schulman. The founding team combined their diverse expertise in technology entrepreneurship, machine learning, and software engineering to create an organization focused on advancing artificial intelligence in a way that benefits humanity.

Elon Musk is no longer involved in OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the current CEO of the organization.

OpenAI is currently valued at $29 billion, and the company has raised a total of $11.3B in funding over seven rounds so far. In January, Microsoft expanded its long-term partnership with Open AI and announced a multibillion-dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs worldwide.

GPT's Major Milestones

The journey of ChatGPT has been marked by continual advancements, each version building upon previous tools.

GPT-1, the model that was introduced in June 2018, was the first iteration of the GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) series and consisted of 117 million parameters. This set the foundational architecture for ChatGPT as we know it today. GPT-1 demonstrated the power of unsupervised learning in language understanding tasks, using books as training data to predict the next word in a sentence.

GPT-2, which was released in February 2019, represented a significant upgrade with 1.5 billion parameters. It showcased a dramatic improvement in text generation capabilities and produced coherent, multi-paragraph text. But due to its potential misuse, GPT-2 wasn't initially released to the public. The model was eventually launched in November 2019 after OpenAI conducted a staged rollout to study and mitigate potential risks.

GPT-3 was a huge leap forward in June 2020. This model was trained on a staggering 175 billion parameters. Its advanced text-generation capabilities led to widespread use in various applications, from drafting emails and writing articles to creating poetry and even generating programming code. It also demonstrated an ability to answer factual questions and translate between languages.

When GPT-3 launched, it marked a pivotal moment when the world started acknowledging this groundbreaking technology. Although the models had been in existence for a few years, it was with GPT-3 that individuals had the opportunity to interact with ChatGPT directly, ask it questions, and receive comprehensive and practical responses. When people were able to interact directly with the LLM like this, it became clear just how impactful this technology would become.

GPT-4, the latest iteration, continues this trend of exponential improvement, with changes like:

● Improved model alignment - the ability to follow user intention

● Lower likelihood of generating offensive or dangerous output

● Increased factual accuracy

● Better steerability - the ability to change behavior according to user requests

● Internet connectivity - the latest feature includes the ability to search the Internet in real-time

Each milestone brings us closer to a future where AI seamlessly integrates into our daily lives, enhancing our productivity, creativity, and communication.

The Wide-Ranging Influence of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has had a profound influence on the evolution of AI, paving the way for advancements in natural language understanding and generation. It has demonstrated the effectiveness of transformer-based models for language tasks, which has encouraged other AI researchers to adopt and refine this architecture.

The model's success has also stimulated interest in LLMs, leading to a wave of research and development in this area.

ChatGPT has had significant impacts across various industries, including:

● Customer service: Companies are leveraging ChatGPT to automate responses to common inquiries.

● Education: ChatGPT is being used to create intelligent tutoring systems capable of providing personalized assistance to students.

● Content creation: Journalists, copywriters, and content creators are using ChatGPT to generate creative ideas, draft articles, and even write poetry.

● Businesses: All kinds of professionals are using the chatbot to automate tasks like drafting emails or writing code.

● Healthcare: Providers and staff can leverage the chatbot for use cases like clinical decision support, medical recordkeeping, analyzing and interpreting medical literature, and disease surveillance.

● Entertainment: ChatGPT can be used to generate video game storylines and movie scripts, write dialogue, and improve gaming.

Other companies are taking note of ChatGPT's tsunami of popularity and are looking for ways to incorporate LLMs and chatbots into their products and services.

Microsoft is in the process of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language understanding into its core products. GitHub Copilot uses OpenAI's Codex engine to provide autocomplete features for developers. Bing, the search engine, is being enhanced with GPT technology to challenge Google's dominance. Microsoft is planning to integrate ChatGPT functionality into its productivity tools, including Word, Excel, and Outlook, in the near future.

Google just recently removed the waitlist for their own conversational chatbot, Bard, which is powered by LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications).

ChatGPT: A New Chapter in AI's Story

ChatGPT's journey from concept to influential AI model exemplifies the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. This groundbreaking model has driven progress in AI development and spurred transformation across a wide range of industries. But the journey is far from over.

As we move forward, we can expect ChatGPT and similar AI-powered chatbots to continue shaping our world in unexpected and exciting ways. To stay on top of the latest on new and emerging business and tech trends, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and check out my books, Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World andThe Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society.

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A Short History Of ChatGPT: How We Got To Where We Are Today

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ChatGPT is reshaping the world's interactions with technology and influencing a wide range of industries. Learn more about its inception, key milestones, and wide-ranging impact.