| 1950s | Beginning of green revolution |
| 1969–1979 | Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between the Soviet Union and United States |
| 1970 | Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons |
| 1981 | UN World Health Organization International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes |
| 1989 | United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child |
| 1994 | Zapatista Army for National Liberation insurrection in Chiapas, Mexico |
| 1997 | Chemical Weapons Convention goes into effect, banning the production of chemical weapons; Kyoto Protocol on global warming |
| 2000–2010 | Warmest decade in recorded history |
| 2001 | Al-Qaeda attacks on World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon |
| 2001 | U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan |
| 2003 | U.S.-led coalition invades Iraq; Human Genome Project completes sequencing of human genome |