Twentieth Century
At the start of the century 25% of the world's trade was through British ports, 18% of this being to North America. Trans-oceanic travel was important at the start of the century with transatlantic liners competing for the "Blue Riband" for the fastest crossing. A significant event was the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. This led to the Global Maritime Distress Safety System and to the Iceberg Patrol. The rise of air travel led to a decrease in ocean travel but then, towards the end of the century, cruise ships became important again.
During the 20th century new types of cargo ships appeared - the container ship, the oil tanker and the gas container ship. Specialised ports for handling these were also developed.
Most warships used steam propulsion until the advent of the gas turbine in the mid part of the period. Steamships were superseded by diesel-driven cargo ships in the second half of the century. Submarines were mainly powered by a combination of diesel and batteries until the advent of nuclear marine propulsion in 1955.
There were two major wars against Germany and its allies that saw a massive expansion in naval fleets and the use of air power at sea, resulting in the construction of aircraft carriers that became the main centre of sea power. Both wars saw massive destruction of the British merchant fleet but new construction exceeded the rate of destruction. After World War II there was an initial drop in warship numbers but then the rise of the Soviet naval threat resulted in the Cold War with the construction of new warships and submarines. The reduction of the Soviet threat at the end of the century was offset by threats from other sources and piracy as well as sea-borne drug trafficking.
Cod War, offshore oil, gas and wind farms. Exploitation of wave power was started.
Read more about this topic: Maritime History Of The United Kingdom, Chronology
Famous quotes related to twentieth century:
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley’s footsteps....To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehoods and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“In the middle of the next century, when the literary establishment will reflect the multicultural makeup of this country and not be dominated by assimiliationists with similar tastes, from similar backgrounds, and of similar pretensions, Langston Hughes will be to the twentieth century what Walt Whitman was to the nineteenth.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)
“The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)