Future History (2010)/Part 1

Based from The Near Future of Our World (2011-2200) *HD* (April 13, 2010) (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syKJP1lnjQA)
==The Timeline==
2011 - China's Three Gorges Dam is Completed
2013 - The new One World Trade Center in New York is completed standing around 105 stories or 1,776 feet tall
2014 - NASA begins development of the next generation of space travel after the space shuttle's retirement back in 2010.
2016 - US Military leaves Afghanistan
2016 - US Vehicles will average 34 Miles Per Gallon (Europe and Japan will average around 50 Miles Per Gallon)
2019 - The Aral Sea disappears completely from the map
2020 - Glacier National Park and other regions are becoming ice free
2020 (P) - Lifelike CGI: Computer-generated people used in the latest video games and movies now achieve a wholly lifelike appearance, making them almost indistinguishable from reality.
2021 - Lake Mead at Hoover Dam has run dry leading to a severe water crisis in the southwestern parts of the USA, affecting 25 million people and leaving several major cities in peril.
2025 - Much of China is now highly urbanized. Its booming economy has led to the construction of literally tens of thousands of new skyscrapers all over the country. There are now over 200 cities with more than a million inhabitants
2027 - Death of Queen Elizabeth II, making her the longest reigning monarch in British history - surpassing Queen Victoria's reign by 12 years. She died at age 101, the same age as her mother back in 2002. (P)
2029 - Lake Chad disappears from the map due to the combined effects of drought, irrigation and human activity severely impacting over 30 million Africans
2030 - AI is widespread. Technology is accelerating exponentially, especially in the fields of computing, nanotechnology, medicine, and neuroscience (P)
2031 - World War Three might occur sometime at or before this point after a severe attack on Iran and/or Israel sets the entire Middle East into fiery conflagration. Once America is firmly entrenched into the Middle East with the majority of her first-line units, North Korea is to attack South Korea. Then, with America's forces stretched well beyond the limit, China is to invade Taiwan ushering the start of World War Three.
2032 - First manned mission to Mars
2033 - Hypersonic airliners are entering service. This next generation airplane can fly from Europe to Australia in under 4 hours with a cruising speed of Mach 5, or about 3,800 mph.
2035 - Ice-free summers in the Arctic due to global warming.
2036 - Self-driving vehicles are widespread. These use a combination of advanced GPS, AI, and lane-changing technology to carry passengers to their destination automatically.
2039 - US population reaches 400 million with big population growths in northern, urban areas.
2040 - World population reaches 8.5 billion
2042 - Manned follow-up missions to Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. These tiny moons are found to contain pockets of water ice, along with carbon and silicates - greatly increasing their potential for colonization.
2044 - The last surviving veterans of World War II are passing away. A small number of them reach their 120th year, allowing them to attend the 100th anniversary commemorations of D-Day, on 6th June 2044.
2045 - Global food and water shortages are rising. The demand for food and fresh water is far outstripping the supply. Climate change is devastating entire regions, turning vast areas of farmland and forest into arid desert, creating literally tens of millions of refugees.
2050 - 45% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed; largely due to a lack of enforcement in the so-called protected areas.
2055 - Global population plateaus at 9 billion, with nearly a quarter of the people over 60 years old.
2057 - Individual PCs of today have Al systems equivalent to all of the human brains which ever existed on Earth. Computers take over most high-level business and government tasks.
2060 - Global mass migrations occur as large swathes of Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia, Southern Europe and Latin America are being ravaged by a combination of severe drought. creeping desertification, torrential flooding and rising sea levels.
2065 - First mining operations on the Moon, specifically for Helium-3, for use in the reactors of fusion power plants on Earth
2070 - Expansion of Moon bases. Building on the success of the Helium-3 extraction programs, a whole series of bases are appearing on the Moon to extract other minerals
2075 - New York and other major coastal cities are being flooded due to rising sea levels and extreme weather.
2080 - Construction of a transatlantic tunnel. With hyper fast magnetic trains up to 4,000 mph, passengers using the tunnel can be delivered from Europe to America in under an hour.
2090 - West Antarctica is among the fastest growing areas in the world. Melting of surface ice has resulted in conditions appropriate for large-scale human settlement. Its northern peninsula is now home to a multitude of towns and conurbations, with a total population numbering in the millions
2099 - Sea levels rise nearly two meters, displacing hundreds of millions of people
2100 - 83% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed due to the combined impacts of logging, drought, forest fires, desertification, agriculture and industrial expansion.
2102 - Much of the world is controlled by Al. Large-scale automation across every industry has led to vast swathes of human employees being replaced by virtual or robotic counterparts, mostly in service based roles.
2105 - Nomadic "floating cities" are roaming the oceans since many of the world's cities lie partially submerged due to rising sea levels.
2110 - Terraforming of Mars is underway in order to make the Red Planet habitable for humans.
2120 - The International Space Elevator is now in operation. Rising from the Pacific Rim, this mega-structure is thousands of miles high built entirely from carbon nanotubes.
2150 - Interstellar travel is becoming possible. Around this time, various private commercial spacecraft are sent to Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, Wolf 359 and other neighboring star systems, taking around 40 years to reach their destination.
2210 - A global re-wilding effort is underway. Human activity in the 19th through 22nd centuries led to the catastrophic decline and wholesale collapse of the natural world with about 90% of plant species gone.
==The World in 2200==
The average person of today is likely to spend the vast majority of their time in a virtual reality of some kind. Physical society and culture still exists - but almost everyone now eschews it, in favor of the Godlike capabilities they can experience online.
== See Also ==
Next: Future History 2010: The Far Future (Based from Our Future: How It Ends *HD*)
Category:Future History (2010)
Category:All Future Histories