20th century

The 20th century began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000. It was the last century of the 2nd millennium. It did not start at the same time as the 1900s which went from January 1, 1900 to December 31, 1909.
The 20th century saw two world wars, the Soviet Union rise and fall, the coming of the telephone, sound recording, movies and television, airplanes, atomic weapons, genetics and DNA, computers and electronics in general. Science and industrialization spread; medicine became more scientific. World population growth was greater during this century than any previous one.
Significant people
World leaders
Africa
Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Cote d'Ivoire
Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia
Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya
Idi Amin, Uganda
Nelson Mandela, South Africa
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt
Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana
Julius Nyerere, Tanzania
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya
Cecil Rhodes, South Africa
Haile Selassie, Ethiopia
Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegal
Americas
William McKinley, USA
Theodore Roosevelt, USA
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, USA
Harry S. Truman, USA
Dwight D. Eisenhower, USA
John F. Kennedy, USA
Richard Nixon, USA
Ronald Reagan, USA
George H. W. Bush, USA
Bill Clinton, USA
Wilfrid Laurier, Canada
William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada
Pierre Trudeau, Canada
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Argentina
Fidel Castro, Cuba
Raul Castro, Cuba
Juan Peron, Argentina
Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina
Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentina
Salvador Allende, Chile
Augusto Pinochet, Chile
Emiliano Zapata, Mexico
Pancho Villa, Mexico
Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, Ecuador
Leon Febres Cordero, Ecuador
Sixto Duran Ballen, Ecuador
Asia
Mao Zedong, People's Republic of China
Deng Xiaoping, People's Republic of China
Pol Pot, Cambodia
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
Mahatma Gandhi, India
Indira Gandhi, India
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia
Jawaharlal Nehru, India
Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, India
Emperor Hirohito, Japan
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Sun Yat-sen, Republic of China
Chiang Kai-shek, Republic of China
Achmad Sukarno, Indonesia
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore
Europe
Kemal Ataturk, Turkey
Neville Chamberlain, United Kingdom
Winston Churchill, United Kingdom
Margaret Thatcher, United Kingdom
Charles de Gaulle, France
Eamon de Valera, Ireland
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, Austria-Hungary
Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany
Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
Adolf Hitler, Germany
Helmut Schmidt, Germany
Helmut Kohl, Germany
Gerhard Schroder, Germany
Benito Mussolini, Italy
Francisco Franco, Spain
Adolfo Suarez, Spain
Jozef Pilsudski, Poland
Josip Broz 'Tito', Yugoslavia
Milan Kucan, Slovenia
Slobodan Milosevic, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Olof Palme, Sweden
Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania
Lech Walesa, Poland
John Paul II, World
Middle East
Anwar Sadat, Egypt or United Arab Republic
David Ben-Gurion, Israel
Golda Meir, Israel
Menachem Begin, Israel
Hafez el Assad, Syria
Saddam Hussein, Iraq
King Hussein, Jordan
Russia and Soviet Union
Tsar Nicholas II
Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Leon Trotsky
Nikita Khrushchev
Leonid Brezhnev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin
Vladimir Putin
Scientists and physicians
David Attenborough
Niels Bohr
Ernst Chain
Francis Crick
Albert Einstein
Enrico Fermi
Frederick Banting
Howard Walter Florey
Sigmund Freud
Kurt Godel
Werner Karl Heisenberg
Hans Krebs
Jacques Monod
Linus Pauling
Frederick Sanger
Erwin Schrodinger
John von Neumann
Nikola Tesla
Alan Turing
James Watson
Economics and business
John Maynard Keynes
Milton Friedman
Henry Ford
Steve Jobs
David Rockefeller
Donald Trump
Bill Gates
Aerospace pioneers
Robert H. Goddard
Wernher Von Braun
Neil Armstrong
Yuri Gagarin
Charles Lindbergh
Alan Shepard
Valentina Tereshkova
Wright Brothers
John Glenn
John Young
Military leaders
Charles de Gaulle
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Douglas Haig
Douglas MacArthur
Bernard Montgomery
George Patton
Erwin Rommel
Leon Trotsky
Mao Zedong
Georgy Zhukov
Religious figures
Grigori Rasputin
Tobey Maguire
Pope John XXIII
Pope John Paul II
Mother Theresa of Calcutta
The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Rev. Billy Graham
Mahatma Gandhi
Artists
Salvador Dali
Marcel Duchamp
Jacob Epstein
Wassily Kandinsky
Henri Matisse
Joan Miro
Amedeo Modigliani
Piet Mondrian
Henry Moore
Pablo Picasso
Jackson Pollock
Bob Ross
Andy Warhol
Singers, actors, actresses and bands
Aaliyah
ABBA
AC/DC
Aerosmith
Andy Griffith
Ava Gardner
Anthony Hopkins
Alain Delon
Audrey Hepburn
Akira Kurosawa
Alfred Hitchcock
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Al Pacino
Bud Spencer
Barry White
Bette Davis
Brigitte Bardot
Barbra Streisand
Betty Grable
Billie Holiday
Black Sabbath
Bob Dylan
Bob Marley
Bobby Darin
Bruce Willis
Burt Reynolds
Bruce Lee
Boney M
Bee Gees
Beach Boys
Clark Gable
Carole Landis
Charlie Chaplin
Clint Eastwood
Chuck Berry
Chuck Norris
Cher
Danny DeVito
Donna Summer
Duran Duran
David Bowie
Dennis Hopper
Doris Day
Dustin Hoffman
Elizabeth Taylor
Eric Clapton
Elvis Presley
Elton John
Eddie Murphy
Frank Sinatra
George Lucas
Greta Garbo
Green Day
Groucho Marx
Genesis (band)
Guns N' Roses
Gene Hackman
Gary Cooper
Grace Kelly
Heath Ledger
Harrison Ford
Humphrey Bogart
Ingrid Bergman
Iggy Pop
Iron Maiden
Ian McShane
Yul Brynner
Jack Nicholson
James Dean
James Stewart
James Cameron
James Brown
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Janis Joplin
Jim Morrison
Jimi Hendrix
Judas Priest
John Hurt
John Travolta
John Wayne
Johnny Depp
Julie Andrews
Junius Matthews
Katharine Hepburn
Kirk Douglas
Kraftwerk
Kurt Cobain
Kiss (band)
Led Zeppelin
Lana Turner
Lauren Bacall
Leonardo DiCaprio
Luciano Pavarotti
Louis Armstrong
Lucille Ball
Madonna (entertainer)
Mae West
Metallica
Meryl Streep
Marlon Brando
Marilyn Monroe
Marlene Dietrich
Mary Pickford
Michael Jackson
Michael Dapaah
Phil Spector
Pink Floyd
Prince (musician)
Public Enemy
Queen (band)
Robert De Niro
Robert Redford
Roger Moore
Ray Charles
Ron Howard
Steven Spielberg
Sylvester Stallone
Sean Connery
Sophia Loren
Sigourney Weaver
Simon & Garfunkel
Sharon Stone
Sandra Dee
Sex Pistols
Spike Milligan
Sterling Holloway
Stevie Wonder
Tupac Shakur
Tina Turner
The Doors
The Beatles
The Ramones
The Rolling Stones
The Pointer Sisters
The Velvet Underground
U2
Walt Disney
Will Ferrell
Writers and Poets
Albert Camus
Anton Chekhov
Jorge Luis Borges
Samuel Beckett
Noam Chomsky
Charles Bukowski
Cid Corman
E. E. Cummings
T. S. Eliot
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Allen Ginsberg
Alamgir Hashmi
Seamus Heaney
Ernest Hemingway
James Joyce
Franz Kafka
Jack Kerouac
Philip Larkin
Antonio Machado
George Orwell
Wilfred Owen
Ezra Pound
Marcel Proust
Ayn Rand
Jean-Paul Sartre
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Gary Snyder
J. R. R. Tolkien
Virginia Woolf
W. B. Yeats
Emma Goldman
Rabindranath Tagore
Sports figures
Ayrton Senna
Muhammad Ali
Chris Benoit
Larry Bird
Sir Donald Bradman
Roberto Clemente
Ty Cobb
Franz Beckenbauer
Fausto Coppi
Wilfredo Gomez
Wayne Gretzky
Sir Edmund Hillary
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Martina Navratilova
Diego Maradona
Rene Higuita
Sir Stanley Matthews
Christy Mathewson
Jesse Owens
Jack Nicklaus
Pele
Jackie Robinson
Boris Becker
Babe Ruth
O. J. Simpson
Tris Speaker
Mike Tyson
Hulk Hogan
Ted Williams
People widely known for something bad
Idi Amin
Mohamed Atta
Bonnie and Clyde
Ted Bundy
James Burke (gangster)
Al Capone
Mark David Chapman
Leon Czolgosz
Jeffrey Dahmer
John Dillinger
Pablo Escobar
John Wayne Gacy
Carlo Gambino
Ed Gein
Nathuram Godse
Joseph Goebbels
Emma Goldman
John Gotti
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Tom Horn
Saddam Hussein
Jim Jones
Theodore Kaczynski
Osama Bin Laden
Lucky Luciano
Charles Manson
Timothy McVeigh
Benito Mussolini
Lee Harvey Oswald
Carl Panzram
Gavrilo Princip
Sacco and Vanzetti
Jack Ruby
James Earl Ray
Harold Shipman
Bugsy Siegel
O. J. Simpson
Sirhan Sirhan
Josef Stalin
Aileen Wuornos
Mao Zedong
Years
Note: movie years before or after the twentieth century are in italics.