The New Era

It's often said that we live in changing times and that the pace of technology and social revolutions seem to be almost exponential.  Since the beginning of the millennium we have seen 9/11, the birth of the Euro, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, the Asian tsunami, the Japan earthquake, 3D printing and drone strikes.  But is our era really any different from the past or do we just look at it through our own myopic viewpoint?

The French have the term fin de siecle (literally end of the century) to describe the turn of the previous century but also the political and cultural changes that were happening at that time.

The Scream, Edvard Munch, 1893

Many 'isms' apply to this period: rationalism, materialism, surrealism, positivism, pessimism, social Darwinism and nationalism, which led to the upheavals of the First World War, which in turn led to fascism and the Second World War.  

HG Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895, in which the protagonist travels to the distant future to learn what becomes of humanity and witnesses a dying earth.  The irony for me is that if I had a time machine, top of my list of destinations would be to head right back to where he came from: the late Victorian era and the turn of the twentieth century.

Here are some random fascinating events that were happening around this time:

The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889.  It was the tallest building in France until 2004 with the completion of the Millau Viaduct, which I have previously blogged about here and referred to in this blog here.

Wikipedia

New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the vote in 1893.

Kate Sheppard, 1905

In London, the first proper 'Tube' railway was opened in 1890.  It ran from the City of London to Stockwell (about 5km), under the Thames.

London Underground

By the time of the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, London's population had reached 6.6 million and it has not varied greatly since then.  In 1801 it was less than a million, making the fin de siecle a time of great change, for Londoners at least.