Very often people say, "Things were better back in my day!", constantly criticising the era they live in, even when it is a time of grand achievements. So I asked myself: could it really be true? Are the old folks right when they say the past was idyllic and the present is always getting worse?

Why don't we play a little game then? Let's travel through the various decades of the entire 20th century and see if the grass of the past was truly that green. Let's start with the first decade of the last century, namely the one running from 1900 to 1910.

The first decade of the 20th century is often remembered as part of the Belle Époque. But what on earth is the Belle Époque? It is a rather long historical period, stretching from 1871 to the outbreak of the First World War. After decades of instability, Europe experienced a long period of peace among the major powers. This, combined with the Second Industrial Revolution, created an unshakeable faith in science and technology. People thought that human progress was unstoppable and that it would defeat every evil, from disease to poverty. These were decades in which people could truly plan for the long-term future, and the first decade of the 1900s is effectively the ultimate manifestation of this feeling of optimism and confidence.

1900–1910: The Dawn of the Century (and of the Drama).

Great discoveries and technological progress.

Let's start right off with a bang. The year was 1901. Guglielmo Marconi manages to send a radio signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland. That was the first transatlantic radio transmission, marking the beginning of the era of global communications.

How he succeeded is unbelievable. All the greatest scientists of the time called him crazy, claiming it was an impossible mission because radio waves, travelling in a straight line, would get lost in space due to the curvature of the Earth (there were already "flat-earthers" for radio waves). Marconi ignored them completely and went his own way. He positioned himself in Newfoundland, while his assistants were in Cornwall. To receive the signal, Marconi flew an antenna tied to a kite right in the middle of a storm. And it worked: three small clicks, three "beeps", forming the letter S in Morse code. If we can talk on the phone all over the world today, it is thanks to that first transmission. This is a positive thing.

Two years later, in 1903, we witness perhaps two of the most extraordinary events in modern history. In Kitty Hawk, on Christmas Eve, something unthinkable happened, almost a miracle: the "Flyer" took flight. What was the flyer? A contraption of wood, canvas, and iron wires, with a propeller and a lightweight motor, capable of staying in the air for barely 12 seconds. That very brief flight changed everything. The Flyer was the creation of the Wright Brothers, two brilliant bicycle repairmen who, starting from nothing, revolutionised the concept of transportation forever and allowed humanity to fulfil its oldest desire: to be able to fly. Flight is indeed excellent because it allows people and goods to fly, but it also made it possible to drop bombs from above. The glass is half full.

And then we have Marie Curie. Sometime earlier, this woman had discovered radioactivity, allowing medicine to take enormous steps forward thanks to the invention of the X-ray. In 1903, she becomes the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize (for physics). Unfortunately, at that time a woman on her own could not win the Nobel, so she had to share the prize with her husband Pierre and Henri Becquerel, even though the brains behind the research were hers. Still, it was a great step toward that equality people were trying to achieve.

Connecting right to that incredible and enormous energy unleashed from atoms, in 1905, Albert Einstein enters the chat. In that single year, he publishes four scientific papers that completely overturn our understanding of the universe, including the theory of special relativity and the famous equation $E = mc^2$. Those papers are still the bible for astrophysicists today (many of his theories were proven experimentally only recently), but, ironically for a deeply pacifist scientist, that formula linking mass and energy also laid the theoretical foundations for the future creation of the atomic bomb. If you look at Einstein's work for what it is, it is something incredible; if you look at the applications, we are far from anything positive. The atomic bomb effectively held the world hostage for decades during the Cold War.

In 1907, Leo Baekeland invents Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic in history. At the time, it was seen as a miracle: insulating, indestructible, cheap. You could make anything from phones to billiard balls out of it. That material was the spark for the development of all those plastics we have used for more than a century. We made production cheap on one hand, but on the other hand, that discovery laid the foundation for the plastic problem and all the issues it brings when it needs to be thrown away. So much for "things were better back then"; they were just setting up our trash!

Let's move forward a couple of years and land in 1908, the year Henry Ford introduces the legendary Ford Model T to the market. This car will change the history of industry forever. Even though the famous moving assembly line with the conveyor belt would only arrive five years later, in 1913, it is precisely with the Model T that Ford designs the idea of mass production based on standardised and interchangeable parts.

Mr Ford managed to drastically cut production and sales costs, making the automobile – for the first time in history – a good accessible to the masses and no longer a luxury for a select few. If today we have supermarkets overflowing with cheap, standardised goods, we owe it precisely to that industrial philosophy that revolutionised the entire world.

However, that discovery laid the foundation for excessive productionand, therefore, for waste, especially food waste.

Society and Culture.

Society, too, understood as a fluid entity of people, was changing. This continuous technological transformation led people to think outside the box and experiment with something new and never seen before.

In 1900, Sigmund Freud – a well-known character I stay away from because it frightens me how often he is right about the human psyche – publishes The Interpretation of Dreams, laying the foundations of psychoanalysis. In short, he writes an essay where, for the first time, he says, "Dreams have meanings that must be interpreted so that the patient's original pain can be understood." If today an artificial intelligence can tell you what the dream you just recounted means, Mr Freud is the answer at the origin of it all.

In the same year, the grand Paris World's Fair took place, the first of the new century. If you are not quite clear on what the Expo is, it is that mega global event (which today happens every five years) where every country sets up its own pavilion and brings the best it has to offer technologically and culturally, just like what happened recently in Milan and Dubai. That 1900 edition saw over 50 million visitors flock to celebrate the innovations of the new century, including cinema and escalators. It was also the Expo that consecrated the famous Eiffel Tower: a crazy iron structure actually created for the 1889 edition, which was supposed to be demolished and instead remained there, luckily for Paris and the entire world.

In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes the Manifesto of Futurism in the newspaper Le Figaro, launching the artistic and cultural movement centred on speed and modernity. This is just a side note, given that the Futurist movement does not last very long.

Things change in sports too. 1903 saw the first edition of the Tour de France, the most famous stage race in the world.

At the end of the decade, seeing the success of the Tour de France, on May 13, 1909, at 2:53 in the morning, the first Giro d'Italia starts. 127 riders, roads that calling "dirt roads" is a compliment, bikes that weighed as much as iron gates, and they even raced at night. A little light-hearted note: in 1909 riders would stop at taverns to drink red wine to make the pain in their legs go away. Now that was a heroic sport.

In the same year as the Giro d'Italia, the concept of the "department store" is born. With mass production and the assembly line, it is in this decade that shopping becomes a pastime and not just a necessity. The consumerism of the middle class is born, along with illuminated shopfronts and modern advertising. If today women sometimes want to go shopping at the mall on the weekend, it is because of this moment... and because of Henry Ford, who standardised production.

Explorations.

It was not a period of great continental geographical discoveries. From 1492 until the mid-nineteenth century, the blank spaces on the map of the world had been progressively filled: by the early 1900s, the geography of the planet was mostly known. There remained, however, the two most extreme and inhospitable frontiers: the poles. On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole for the first time (although this record is still today a matter of heated academic debate compared to that of his rival Frederick Cook). It was a historic moment for world exploration, which, shortly thereafter, with the subsequent conquest of the South Pole, would close the era of great maps to be completed forever.

Geopolitics and Conflicts.

The Boxer Rebellion occurred in 1900. Here we border on unintentional comedy. In 1900, China decides it has had enough of Westerners with the Boxer Rebellion. Yes, because China was a colony. Who were the Boxers? A secret society of Chinese nationalists (their real name was "The Righteous and Harmonious Fists", hence "Boxers") were convinced that, thanks to special martial arts and magical rituals, they could dodge foreign bullets. They decide, therefore, to leave scorched earth around everything Western or Christian.

What happened next makes you laugh. To put down the revolt, an alliance (the famous "Eight-Nation Alliance"), never seen before, joins together: Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These guys arrive in China with machine guns, and the Boxers discover very quickly that kung fu and magic do not make you dodge bullets from rotating-barrel machine guns.

In 1901, Queen Victoria dies, bringing an end to the Victorian era after a reign of 63 years. That period was effectively one of the most prosperous, powerful, and long-lived in British history. Her successor, Edward VII, will lead the country through this decade of transition, setting the stage for his son George V, who will find himself on the throne right during the First World War and will witness the beginning of the end of the colonialism that Queen Victoria had brought to its peak.

1904-1905. Honestly, I didn't even know that Japan and Russia had ever had any kind of relationship; instead, not only did they have one, but they slaughtered each other too. This was the first time in the modern era that an Asian power managed to sensationally defeat a major European power.

Right in the middle of this conflict, in January 1905, the idyll definitively collapses with Bloody Sunday, the event that will kick off the first real Russian revolution. The people hated the Czar's tyranny more and more, resources were scarce, and the rulers were walking a very thin line. When a huge crowd protested peacefully in St Petersburg to demand reforms, the demonstration was suppressed in blood with rifle fire. The people, already furious, got even more pissed off, sparking strikes and revolts throughout the country. Czar Nicholas II, who cared quite a bit about keeping his head firmly attached to his neck, realised the stupidity of his actions, did a U-turn, and granted the creation of the Duma (the parliament). It was, in fact, just a way to postpone the inevitable. This deadly combination – military defeat and internal revolts – accelerated the irreversible crisis of Czarist Russia that would culminate, in 1917, in the collapse of the monarchy and the subsequent October Revolution, with the resulting birth of communism.

If in Russia they were good and ready to upend the system, the situation in Europe was certainly no better. Two events to note are the Tangier diplomatic crisis (1905) and the Bosnian Crisis (1908).

The year was 1905. France wanted to take over Morocco. To do so, it had already secretly made a deal with Great Britain (the famous Entente Cordiale). The German Emperor Wilhelm II felt left out of the division of Africa. So, in March 1905, he landed in Tangier and declared that Morocco must remain a free and independent state, openly challenging the French. Wilhelm II hoped in this way to isolate France and blow up the Anglo-French agreement. Instead, the following year (at the Algeciras Conference), Great Britain, Italy, and even the United States sided with France.

The result? Germany was left isolated, and France got control over Morocco anyway. It was the first true grand dress rehearsal for the alliances that would clash in 1914.

Then, in 1908, another round, another crisis. Bosnia-Herzegovina was already administered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but formally it still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of a moment of chaos in Turkey, in 1908 Austria decided to annex it, for all intents and purposes. Serbia went into a rage (because it wanted Bosnia to create "Greater Serbia") and asked for help from Russia, its historical protector. Russia threatened to intervene militarily against Austria. At that point Germany entered the chat, siding with Austria and issuing an ultimatum to Russia: "Either you accept the annexation or we go to war." Russia, still weak after the beating it took from Japan in 1905, had to back down and swallow the humiliation.

Practically everything was ready for the First World War. All that was needed was someone to pull the trigger.

In 1906, however, what shook – and quite a lot – was not society but the planet. On April 18, San Francisco is hit by a devastating earthquake, followed by three days of uncontrollable fires that destroy 80% of the homes, leaving half the population homeless. But the true gem of human absurdity lies in how they tried to put out the flames: the firefighters, left without water because the pipes had exploded underground, decided to use dynamite to demolish buildings and create a firewall. It sounds like a good idea; too bad they didn't know how to use explosives well, ending up setting fire to buildings that were still intact.

Staying on the topic of earthquakes, on December 28, 1908, one of the greatest natural disasters of the century occurs. A devastating earthquake followed by a tsunami razes Messina and Reggio Calabria to the ground, causing over 80,000 deaths. It was the first major global emergency covered by media all over the world.

Health, Civil Rights, and Education: real life.

Since we have talked about scientists in tuxedos, Parisian exhibitions, and gentlemen reading Freud in cafés, let's take a reality check. How did people really live between 1900 and 1909 if you weren't a noble or a rich bourgeois? Let's look at the three pillars of human dignity.

Health: if you passed the age of 5, you were a superhero.

Today we complain if there is a line at the emergency room, but in the first decade of the 1900s, health was a gamble. Average life expectancy in Europe barely exceeded 45 years. Illnesses that you treat today with a 5-euro antibiotic (spoiler: penicillin won't be invented until 1928) sent you to the Creator in three days back then. Tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, and even tetanus from a rusty nail were death sentences. Infant mortality was through the roof: one in four children did not reach their fifth year of life. In hospitals, hygiene was still a matter of opinion, and Marie Curie's X-ray was just born. In short, if you had appendicitis, the only real anaesthesia accessible was a rosary and a lot of hope.

Civil Rights: Women made it into the Nobels but not into the polling booths.

Shall we talk about civil rights? Good, in 1900 half the world's population (women) literally had no right to vote in almost any civilised country. In the first decade of the century, in Great Britain, the Suffragettes started getting serious about demanding the right to vote, and the state responded by arresting them and beating them during demonstrations. Not to mention workers' rights: people worked 12-14 hours a day, six days a week, with no vacation, no sick leave, and no pension. If you got an arm amputated in a factory on Ford's assembly line, the owner fired you and hired the unemployed guy waiting outside the gate. Civil and trade union rights were not "guaranteed"; they were science fiction that people died for in the streets.

Education: knowing how to sign with an X was already an achievement.

Compulsory elementary school existed on paper almost everywhere in the Western world, but the reality of the situation was that classrooms remained empty. At the beginning of the twentieth century, global illiteracy was a gigantic plague: even in great powers like industrial Europe or the United States, millions of people could neither read nor write, and signing documents with an "X" was the norm.

The reason was purely economic. Children from peasant or working-class families did not go to school to learn grammar; they were sent into the fields to hoe, into textile factories, or straight into the mines to gather coal. Child labour was not an illegal exception; it was the absolute and structural norm of the economy of the time: hands were needed to bring bread home. In this scenario, higher education and university were not a right but an ultra-exclusive elite club triple-locked and reserved only for the children of the rich.

Brief Reflections.

So, dear old folks, was the grass of the past really greener?

The answer is a resounding no. The first decade of the 1900s was a fascinating era, but it was a world that was unjust, tiring, violent, and sitting on a ticking time bomb. Things were better only if you were part of that 1% that could afford the luxury of ignoring reality. For everyone else, life was a daily struggle for survival.

And if you think this decade was eventful, know that things are about to get infinitely more dramatic. Fasten your seatbelts, because in the next post we will enter the fabulous and tragic 1910s. Spoiler: between "unsinkable" ocean liners going straight to the bottom and a world war that will wipe out four empires, there will be very little to be happy about.

M.