title: [The 20th century: 100 years of misfortune and splendor].
abstract: The 20th century has been one of the most intense and convulsive periods in the History of humanity. A century of paradoxes and contrasts, it began with optimism, it witnessed the apocalypse of two world wars, and finished with unimaginable scientific progress that gave us a new civilization that we cannot yet grasp. In this century, significant events happened that shaped our time and projected their results toward an immediate future. Some of these were providential in understanding man's life, fighting against illnesses and prolonging life, and others were of undeniable social importance for humanity. Some knowledge was based on the work of others. Philosophy was embedded in mathematics, as was science in philosophy, while politics and the economy exercised so decisive an influence in our way of feeling and living that culture and society were affected to the core. Within that century the biggest technological revolution of all the time was also created, as transcendent as it was unimaginable, which put mankind on the road to the stars with the moon landing and in the process created the information society whose signature symbol, the internet, emerged as a new demiurge. However, the 20th century, with all its misfortune and splendor, paradoxes and contrasts, creation and destruction, was the most transcendent in the whole of history and it bequeaths to the future a promising horizon in the search for a renovated meaning of life and a yearning for peaceful coexistence for the whole humanity.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Latinoamericano de Bioética y Derechos Humanos y Comisión de Bioética e Investigaciones Biomédicas, Hospital Universitario de Los Andes Mérida, CP 5101, Venezuela. eliexer@icnet.com.ve
authors.forename: Eliéxer
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Urdaneta-Carruyo
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D010684:Philosophy; D011158:Population Growth; D011203:Poverty; D012961:Sociology; D014857:Warfare