The Most Overrate Events of the 20th Century
Decade-by-Decade Rankings and Analysis
Obviously the voting was heavily weighted toward current events rather than
historical ones. The trauma from last week's media frenzy is much more vivid
than one from a stale old frenzy in the half-forgotten past. For example, here
it is, less than a year later, and already the impeachment of the president
seems less like a momentous historic landmark, and more like a vague nightmare
that's quickly fading in the face of new day-to-day realities.
To try to overcome this bias toward fresh memories, I've rearranged the
results into decade-by-decade rankings. Even this is not a perfect solution
because declaring an event "overrated" is a two-part process. First,
people have to go on and on about something; then you have to decide that it's
not worth going on and on about. Therefore, if an event fades completely from
our collective memory, it won't show up on our list. Likewise, if an event
remains in our memory because we think that it's pretty gosh-darn important,
then it won't appear in our list either. The events listed here are those which
have been remembered, but -- in the minds of many -- could easily be forgotten
(or de-emphacized) without any great loss to our heritage.
- 1900s:
- 1900: Sigmund Freud publishes "The Interpretation of Dreams"
(#18)
- 1901: Queen Victoria of England dies (#22)
- 1909: The probable expedition of Robert Peary to the North Pole (#45)
- 1905: Battle of Tsushima (#54)
- (Comment: I'm surprised that so many people have even heard of the
battle of Tsushima, let alone consider it overrated. I imagine that this is an
indication of the heavily male Internet's pre-occupation with military affairs.)
- 1910s:
- 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to some teenagers at Fatima (#4)
- 1912: The Titanic rams an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic (#16)
- 1914: The passenger pigeon goes extinct (#36)
- (Comment: Poor pigeons. You people are cold.)
- 1919: The Chicago Black Sox scandal at the World Series (#39)
- 1920s:
- 1929: 7 Chicago gangsters are gunned down in the St. Valentine Day's
Massacre (#15)
- 1926: Sex Symbol: Rudolph Valentino (#49)
- 1921: Sacco and Vanzetti tried for murder in Boston (#55)
- 1926: Gertrude Ederle swims the English Channel (#90 - tie)
- 1927: Charles Lindbergh flies across the Atlantic (#90 - tie)
- 1930s:
- 1936: King Edward VIII of the UK abdicates in order to marry Wallis
Simpson (#27)
- 1937: Amelia Earhart disappears (#28)
- 1935: Bruno Hauptmann is tried for the kidnapping/murder of the Lindbergh
baby (#30)
- 1939: Film: "Gone With The Wind" (#50)
- 1940s:
- 1947: Something mysterious crashes near Roswell, New Mexico (#7)
- 1945: The marriage that turned Eva Duarte into Evita Peron (#23)
- 1946: New suburbs built at Levittown (#71)
- 1946: Film: "It's A Wonderful Life" (#76)
- 1950s:
- 1950: Book: "Dianetics" by L. Ron Hubbard (#6)
- 1956: Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco (#42)
- 1953: Playboy Magazine is first published (#58 - tie)
- 1959: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper are killed in plane
crash (#58 - tie)
- 1960s:
- 1967: Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis (#17)
- 1962: Painting: "Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢" by Andy Warhol
(#25)
- 1963: The Profumo sex/spy scandal in the UK (#26)
- 1968: George Wallace runs for president (#35)
- 1970s:
- 1974: Patty Hearst is kidnapped (#8)
- 1975: Jimmy Hoffa disappears (#13)
- 1977: Elvis Presley dies (#29)
- 1972: Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate is burglarized (#57)
- 1980s:
- 1980: TV: JR is shot (#9)
- 1983: TV: Sam and Diane kiss on "Cheers" (#19 - tie)
- 1984: Sex Symbol: Madonna (#19 - tie)
- 1986: The Oprah Winfrey Show goes into national syndication (#21)
- 1990s:
- 1995: Monica Lewinsky nails President Clinton (#1)
- 1995: OJ Simpson is tried for the murder of his ex-wife and an innocent
bystander (#2)
- 1997: Film: "Titanic" (#3)
- 1994: Paula Jones accuses Clinton of sexual harassment (#5)
Least Overrated Events of the Decades:
As I mentioned earlier, there are basically two ways for an event to fail to
become overrated:
- If no one's heard of it.
- If everyone's heard of it, but they still think it's mighty important.
- 1900s:
- 1903: Invention: The airplane (0 pts.)
- 1901: Invention: Radio (2 pts.)
- 1900: Invention: Kodak Brownie camera (3 pts.)
- 1905: Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (4 pts.)
- 1908: The Ford Model T debuts (6 pts.)
- 1910s:
- 1917: Invention: Battle tank (1 pt.)
- 1918: Influenza sweeps across the planet (2 pts.)
- (3 pts.)
- 1913: Book: "Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence
- 1914: The Battle of the Marne
- (4 pts.)
- 1913: Music: "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky
- 1915: The Lusitania is torpedoed by a German U-Boat
- 1920s:
- (2 pts.)
- 1920: American women get the right to vote
- 1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
- 1929: Stock market crash
- (3 pts.)
- 1926: Book: "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
- 1929: Book: "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
- 1930s:
- 1938: Invention: Xerographic copying (0 pts.)
- 1936: Music: "Peter & the Wolf" by Sergei Prokofiev (1 pt.)
- 1930: Mohandas Gandhi leads a peaceful revolt again British rule in India
(2 pts.)
- 1939: Book: "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck (2 pts.)
- (3 pts.)
- 1932: Book: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
- 1936: Film: "Modern Times"
- 1938: Invention: Nylon
- 1940s:
- (1 pt.)
- 1942: The Battle of Midway
- 1943: Invention: Scuba gear
- 1945: Invention: ENIAC, the electronic computer
- 1949: Play: "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller
- (2 pts.)
- 1940: Film: "The Grapes of Wrath"
- 1940: British troops evacuate Dunkirk
- 1941: Book: "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler
- 1945: Nuremberg Trials begin
- 1947: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier
- 1950s:
- 1952: First hydrogen bomb exploded (0 pts.)
- 1 pt.
- 1950: Battle of Inchon
- 1954: Film: "On the Waterfront"
- 1957: The satellite Sputnik is launched (2 pts.)
- (3 pts.)
- 1952: Book: "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
- 1952: Book: "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
- 1954: Brown v. Board of Education: US Supreme Court desegregates schools
- 1960s:
- (0 pts.)
- 1960: Book: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
- 1962: Film: "Lawrence of Arabia"
- (1 pt.)
- 1961: The Berlin Wall is built
- 1967: Christiaan Barnard performs the 1st heart transplant
- (2 pts.)
- 1964: The Civil Rights Act
- 1967: Film: "The Jungle Book"
- 1970s:
- 1975: TV: "Saturday Night Live" debuts (0 pts.)
- (1 pt.)
- 1975: Film: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
- 1979: The American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, is seized
- (2 pts.)
- 1975: Book: "Humboldt's Gift" by Saul Bellow
- 1978: Nobel Peace Prize: Begin (Israel) + Sadat (Egypt)
- 1980s:
- 1989: Communists surrender power monopoly in East Europe (0 pts.)
- 1989: The Berlin Wall is torn down (1 pt.)
- 1985: Book: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry (3 pts.)
- (4 pts.)
- 1980: Film: "Raging Bull"
- 1980: Book: "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy O'Toole
- 1990s:
- 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched (2 pts.)
- 1991: The Soviet Union breaks apart (5 pts.)
- 1993: Peace in the Mideast: Israel and the PLO (7 pts.)
- 1993: Film: "Schindler's List" (10 pts.)
- 1994: Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa (11 pts.)
- Your votes for the most overrated aspects of the 20th Century:
- My opinion on which are the most overrated
aspects of the 20th Century
to Table of Contents
Last updated February 1999
Copyright © 1999 Matthew White