Talk:21st century

George W. Bush?

Seems a bit odd not to have a picture of George W. Bush, or at least acknowledge his historical significance and contribution to the 21st century. He is after all, perhaps the most pivotal (if not maligned) player of the 21st century to date. The Iraq War created entire new regions and destabilized many countries, leading to a refugee crisis, a humanitarian crisis, ongoing territorial disputes and much strife. The Patriot act, has been one of the most hotly contested political footballs of the last 20 years, leading to private citizens being arrested for leaking government documents, to the fallout over allied countries spying on each other.

Bush's presidency also lead to the TSA, which has impacted every country on the face of the earth, and completely changed the way people fly. Also the Bush presidency oversaw one of the worst financial crisises in US history. Not to mention many, many political leaders the world over have copied Bush's speeches and tactics when it came to Terrorism, like Blair, Sarkozy, Netanyahu, Cameroon, Macron, Obama, Salih.

Obama and Trump's presidency, while highly notable in the United States, did not have as many global connotations or set the stage for many of the issues regarding the early 21st century. Bush's presidency changed entire regions, created new countries, created several crisis, and destroyed the economy.

Bush is highly noteworthy, on a global level, even though most of his policies and character are viewed negatively ubiquitously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.4.21 (talk) 06:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Starting year

Currently the article lists the starting year of the century as 2000, right next to a comment stating that the starting year is 2001. Either the comment should be removed or the article should be changed to reflect the comment. Thoughts on which one? Thattransgirl (talk) 12:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Thattransgirl, I have found some lengthy discussions about this on talk pages in the past, e.g. at Talk:20th_century/Archive_3#Dates. However the manual of style gives a simple answer:

Treat the 1st century AD as years 1–100, the 17th century as 1601–1700, and the second millennium as 1001–2000; similarly, the 1st century BC/BCE was 100–1 BC/BCE, the 17th century BC/BCE was 1700–1601 BC/BCE, and the second millennium 2000–1001 BC/BCE.

Thanks to Gap9551 - who reverted the IP-edit - the article follows the MOS again. If thinking about changing from 2001 to 2000, then I'd think would be best to start a discussion on the MOS talk page because dozens if not hundreds of articles would be affected. – NJD-DE (talk) 15:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

A related issue which I have noticed in some century articles and century timeline articles is that the lists of events by year are grouped into 0-to-9 decades which, of course, do not fit neatly into 01-to-00 centuries, and consequently in some cases the wrong -00 year is included and the correct one is not included. Has this been discussed previously? --Blurryman (talk) 22:54, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Same old story

If you're going to link to Merriam Webster in your edit summary, you might want to read it properly. The relevant passage is Some people think the 22nd century will start January 1, 2100 and end December 31, 2199, with the 23rd century beginning on January 1, 2200. But there is a long history of people insisting that this is flat-out wrong for mathematical reasons: a century is by definition 100 years in length, and the first century started on January 1, 1, which means that when December 31, 99 rolled around only 99 years had passed; therefore, the first century of the current millennium didn't actually end until December 31, 100, and the second century didn't begin until January 1, 101. FDW777 (talk) 14:57, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Mass Surveillance

I think one of the defining developments in the 21st century is the rise of mass surveillance. There were the global surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden, and now there is the NSO Group's Pegasus scandal. Someone's ought to add this information to the article. (And if you do, thank you!)

Why are there no colons?

Just wondering why there are no colons for each year, listing the events? 134.204.224.36 (talk) 14:04, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

we need to change the structural format of this entry's section for history

why are events delineated by date in this article? I would like to change the history section for this entry into a narrative-based format. after all, this enry does cover the entire 21st century. Sm8900 (talk) 18:34, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, if it comes to timeline of events, we still can do that. 204.129.232.191 (talk) 17:50, 31 January 2023 (UTC)