| 1919 | Treaty of Versailles; Freudian psychology gains popularity; Keynes publishes The Economic Consequences of the Peace; Rutherford splits the atom; Bauhaus school founded |
| 1920s | Existentialism, Dadaism, and surrealism gain prominence |
| 1922 | Eliot publishes The Waste Land; Joyce publishes Ulysses; Woolf publishes Jacob’s Room; Wittgenstein writes on logical positivism |
| 1923 | French and Belgian armies occupy the Ruhr |
| 1924 | Dawes Plan |
| 1925 | Berg’s opera Wozzeck first performed; Kafka publishes The Trial |
| 1926 | Germany joins the League of Nations |
| 1927 | Heisenberg formulates the “uncertainty principle” |
| 1928 | Kellogg-Briand Pact |
| 1929 | Faulkner publishes The Sound and the Fury |
| 1929–1939 | Great Depression |
| 1933 | The National Socialist Party takes power in Germany |
| 1935 | Release of Riefenstahl’s documentary film Triumph of the Will |
| 1936 | Formation of Popular Front in France |