How I define each cultural decade

[Comrade Funk]

American-centric, obviously.

1920s: June 1919 (Treaty of Versailles) - October 1929 (Stock Market Crash)
1930s: October 1929 (Stock Market Crash) - September 1939 (Invasion of Poland)
1940s: September 1939 (Invasion of Poland) - March 1947 (Truman Doctrine)
1950s: March 1947 (Truman Doctrine) - January 1964 (Beatles debut)
1960s: January 1964 (Beatles debut) - April 1970 (Beatles breakup)
1970s: April 1970 (Beatles breakup) - August 1981 (MTV launches)
1980s: August 1981 (MTV launches) - January 1992 (Nirvana goes #1)
1990s: January 1992 (Nirvana goes #1) - September 2001 (9/11)
2000s: September 2001 (9/11) - September 2008 (Financial Crisis)
2010s: September 2008 (Financial Crisis) - August 2018 (TikTok launches)
2020s: August 2018 (TikTok launches) - ?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Come to think of it's a bit annoying that the single most important event of all time in music and general culture happened in the middle of a decade (Revolution Summer was in 1985) meaning it doesn't really work as a marker for this. Although I would count the first Heroin 7" in 1991 as the beginning of the 90s.

[Rand]

Now do the same list, but Zimbabwe-centric.

[vitoNova]

I read Margaret Macmillan's Paris 1919 in college.  Book was dope.

A young cook named Ho Chi Minh even makes a surprise cameo appearance.

[Del Tachi]

Now do the same list, but Zimbabwe-centric.

1920s:  1922 (British South Africa Company administration ends) - 1930 (Land Apportionment Act)
1930s:  1930 (Land Apportionment Act) - 1939 (WWII involvement)
1940s:  1939 (WWII involvement) - 1953 (Britian creates Central African Federation)
1950s:  1953 (Britian creates Central African Federation) - 1965 (Smith declares independence)
1960s/70s:  1965 (Smith declares independence) - 1980 (Mugabe wins elections)
1980s:  1980 (Mugabe wins independence election) - 1987 (Mugabe changes constitution, becomes executive president)
1990s:  1987 (Mugabe changes constitution, becomes executive president) - 2000 (Mugabe suffers defeat on constitutional referendum)
2000s:  2000 (Mugabe suffers defeat on constitutional referendum) - 2009 (Mugabe reaches power-sharing agreement with Tsvangirai)
2010s:  2009 (Mugabe reaches power-sharing agreement with Tsvangirai) - 2017 (Mugabe resigns)
2020s:  2017 (Mugabe resigns) - present

[wnwnwn]

For Peru
1930 (fall of Leguia) - 1939 (end of the Benavides regime)
1939 - 1948 (Odria coup)
1948 - 1959 (Pedro Beltran enters the Prado cabinet),
1959 - 1969 (Agrarian reform)
1969 - 1980 (Free press returns)
1980 - 1990 (Fujimori goverment starts)
1990 - 2000 (Fujimori goverment ends)
2000 - 2011 (Ollanta goverment starts)
2011 - 2020 (Covid)
2020 - today

For reference, Pedro Beltran was a pro market economist who supported the agrarian reform idea, being a sort of contrast agaisnt the traditional upper class (as a Bryce Echenique novel references).

[Sirius_]

I don't think Tiktok was influential enough in 2018-19 for its launch to be used as a dividing line

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I don't think Tiktok was influential enough in 2018-19 for its launch to be used as a dividing line

As much as I hate to say it, March 13, 2020 probably has to be the dividing line.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

I don't think Tiktok was influential enough in 2018-19 for its launch to be used as a dividing line

As much as I hate to say it, March 13, 2020 probably has to be the dividing line.

TikTok also grew in influence, in no small part, because of the lockdown. COVID takes that honor, no contest.

I'd also swap out Nirvana for the LA riots.

[buritobr]

American-centric, obviously.

1920s: June 1919 (Treaty of Versailles) - October 1929 (Stock Market Crash)
1930s: October 1929 (Stock Market Crash) - September 1939 (Invasion of Poland)
1940s: September 1939 (Invasion of Poland) - March 1947 (Truman Doctrine)
1950s: March 1947 (Truman Doctrine) - January 1964 (Beatles debut)
1960s: January 1964 (Beatles debut) - April 1970 (Beatles breakup)
1970s: April 1970 (Beatles breakup) - August 1981 (MTV launches)
1980s: August 1981 (MTV launches) - January 1992 (Nirvana goes #1)
1990s: January 1992 (Nirvana goes #1) - September 2001 (9/11)
2000s: September 2001 (9/11) - September 2008 (Financial Crisis)
2010s: September 2008 (Financial Crisis) - August 2018 (TikTok launches)
2020s: August 2018 (TikTok launches) - ?

Mixed politics and music. It would be better to use one or the other as a criterium.

I like Nirvana, but the dissolution of the USSR was a much more important fact than Nirvana

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

The 90s started with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ended on 9/11/2001.

[DaleCooper]

The 60s should begin with the Kennedy assassination, although the Beatles are a pretty good pick too. The 90s should begin with the fall of the Soviet Union and end with 9/11. The 1990s really weren't as defined by a particular type of music as the 60s were.

I'm not so sure about the 80s. I feel like Ronald Wilson Reagan (666) getting elected should be the start of that one.

2020s is definitely COVID. No contest whatsoever.

[Comrade Funk]

It's boring to only use political moments

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's my categorization:

End of WW1
1920s
Black Friday
1930s
Pearl Harbor
1940s
Beginning of Korean War
1950s
Deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper
1960s
Woodstock
1970s
Disco Demolition Night
early 1980s
Revolution Summer
late 1980s
Fall of Soviet Union
1990s
9/11
2000s
Death of Osama bin Laden
2010s
Murder of George Floyd
2020s

I am kind of sympathetic though to an argument I've heard that there's a period roughly coterminous with the George HW Bush presidency that is neither truly 80s nor truly 90s and should be considered its own thing.

[Santander]

I am kind of sympathetic though to an argument I've heard that there's a period roughly coterminous with the George HW Bush presidency that is neither truly 80s nor truly 90s and should be considered its own thing.

I consider the last years of the Cold War to be a transition zone from the cultural 80s to the cultural 90s. It's hard to point at a single event in that period, no matter how significant, that serves as a clean breakpoint. The dissolution of the Soviet Union is a clear end of that transition period, but the world was changing so much that it's hard to lump those years in with the 1980s of John Hughes.

[DaleCooper]

Here's my categorization:

End of WW1
1920s
Black Friday
1930s
Pearl Harbor
1940s
Beginning of Korean War
1950s
Deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper
1960s
Woodstock
1970s
Disco Demolition Night
early 1980s
Revolution Summer
late 1980s
Fall of Soviet Union
1990s
9/11
2000s
Death of Osama bin Laden
2010s
Murder of George Floyd
2020s

I am kind of sympathetic though to an argument I've heard that there's a period roughly coterminous with the George HW Bush presidency that is neither truly 80s nor truly 90s and should be considered its own thing.

If we're talking about music-adjacent stuff, I think the Manson Family murders should be the end of the 60s, not Woodstock.

The peace & love stuff at Woodstock doesn't really set the stage for the 70s very well, even though it may serve as a good ending to the 60s.

[Wells]

All I know is that 9/11 truly started the 2000s, the financial crash started the 2010s, and COVID launched the 2020s. Consider the fall of the Soviet Union the start of the 90s too I guess.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Hot take: the Eighties were the true Disco Decade, not the Seventies. Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson were all Disco divas, Michael Jackson was Disco as hell, and British pop from Duran Duran through the Pet Shop Boys was Disco through and through. All bright lights, synthesizers, and cocaine - nothing more Disco, and nothing more Eighties.

New Wave, the essence of which was guitar pop, died at the end of the Seventies, not Disco. Those Disco synthesizers, those daily tranquilizers.

[dw93]

1930s: Stock Market crash of 1929 to Peal Harbor
1940s: Pearl Harbor to the Korean War
1950s: Korean War to JFK's Death
1960s: JFK's Death to the Paris Peace Accords
1970s: the Paris Peace Accords to the release of "Thriller."
1980s: Release of "Thriller" to The Gulf War
1990s: The Gulf War to 9/11
2000s: 9/11 to the 2008 Financial Crisis
2010s: The 2008 Financial Crisis to COVID
2020s: COVID to Present Day