The 21st century so far
Eight shocks that made the world we live in — from the dot-com crash to Gaza. What happened, how — and the shockwave that never stopped.
Last updated: October 2026
The century is a quarter done and it has already rewritten the rules several times over. These eight reports trace the shocks in order — money, war, money again, revolt, a moving border, terror, plague, and Gaza — each signed by one of our correspondents, writing as a historian: facts, zero slant.
The story in images
The shocks in order
- 2000–2002Turning point
The dot-com crash: when the future went on sale
Between March 2000 and October 2002, the NASDAQ shed nearly four-fifths of its value — and the internet’s first age of innocence ended.
- 2001Turning point
September 11, 2001: the day the century turned
On September 11, 2001, hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 2,977 people — and the world that followed was not the world that came before.
- 2008Turning point
2008: the year the money stopped believing
From subprime defaults to the fall of Lehman Brothers — how a mortgage crisis born in America became a global recession in 2008.
- 2010–2012Turning point
The Arab Spring: 2010–2012, when the street spoke
From a single act of protest in Sidi Bouzid to the fall of presidents — how the Arab Spring of 2010–2012 shook a region and scattered its fates.
- 2013–2014Turning point
Crimea 2014: the border that moved
On November 21, 2013, a suspended agreement set Kyiv ablaze; by March 18, 2014, Russia had signed Crimea’s annexation — and a European border had moved.
- 2013–2019Turning point
ISIS: the caliphate that burned bright and died small
On June 10, 2014, Mosul fell; nineteen days later a caliphate was proclaimed. It took five years to erase it from the map — on March 23, 2019, at Baghouz, the territorial caliphate ended.
- 2020–2022Turning point
The COVID era: the world stops, 2020–2022
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic — and within weeks the world shut down. Two years that rewrote the state, the economy, and everyday life.
- 2023 –Turning point
Gaza: the war the world watched
October 7, 2023 was the trigger; the catastrophe was what followed. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 74,016 Palestinians killed as of September 26, 2026.