The 20th century began, as the previous one had, with war.
This time it was a war in Europe. World War I people called it. Why? Because this was an international conflict, the world’s first.
A second such conflict took place less than 25 years later. This one was called World War II. In between, the United States and the world suffered a Great Depression. A depression is a time of huge economic decline. People lost their jobs. People lost their savings. Banks failed. Businesses closed. The depression lasted until the beginning of U.S. involvement in World War II. When that war ended, suburbs – towns on the borders of large cities – grew. And the country looked inward. Many saw great injustices being done because of race. The struggle to right those wrongs through the civil rights movement grew in strength through the end of the century and beyond.
