[ WP ] The year is 2101 , summarize the most plausible history of the 21st century as you would expect to find in that year 's history textbook .

**Okay, this got a little long... ** 
 
 -- -Initializing program: Nirvana University, Department of History, HIS107: The Making of the Modern World, 2010-2099 -- - 
 
 -- -loading... loading… -- - 
 
 -- -connecting to neuro-cortical implant -- - 
 
 -- -Begin Cortical Upload. Welcome to class, Student -- - 
 
 Continuing from where your previous class, HIS106, left off, four themes become increasingly more important to human society at the dawn of the 21st Century. They are: technology, terrorism, supranationalism, and Simplicity 
 
 In 2010, as you remember, many important forces were competing to shape a rapidly changing world. The United States of America continued to play its role as global hegemon while fighting an increasingly blurry war on terror. Russia and China were emerging as potential global competitors, while Europe continued to tie together under the European Union. Islam vs. the West seemed to be the new theme of the world now that the Cold War had ended. Energy crises, fossil fuel dependence, and climate change were threatening to bring the rapid growth of the last century to a screaming halt. 
 
 However, few in 2010 would have had the foresight to tell you that of all the important forces at work in their time, the most important one was in their pocket. 
 
 In 2007, AppleSoft Computing ( then Apple Inc. ) released the iPhone. Within three years, smartphones came to dominate the Western market and fundamentally change the way people lived their lives. Always-connected became the new standard. People could communicate, share, work, play, manage finances, trade stocks, shop, order food, ask for directions, and more, from anywhere in the world with a few clicks of a button. The changes this would bring about were not immediately obvious, though perhaps they should've been. Observing a New York City subway car in 2007, five years later in 2012, and ten years later in 2017, would show you that a fast-growing majority of people were becoming completely immersed, and dependent on, their smartphones. This trend of technological dependence would continue to grow and shape the world. 
 
 Many Westerners in 2015 feared an emergent Russia and China, but the economic crises that shuttered both nations in the second half of the decade put those fears to a grinding halt. Many Americans in 2015 saw their nation as on the decline, when in fact, the United States would rise to newer heights than ever before its final fall. Throughout the 2010s and 2020s, the world's need for oil and natural gas continued to grow, and with new technologies and new deposits discovered, the United States became the world's leading producer of both. In 2021, the global petrol-state alliance OPEC collapsed as many member states could no longer compete with the cheap oil and natural gas coming out of the United States and Canada. Many nations suffered grave economic collapse. Of the former petrol-states, only two managed to stave off disaster. Norway, which had reinvested its oil wealth into education, technology, and infrastructure at home, became a European technology hub. The Gulf Republic ( an alliance of the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the former Iranian province of Bushehr ) formed into a supranational entity. Following the 2019 Blue March where millions of oppressed migrant workers toppled the royal family in Dubai, the Gulf Republic scrapped its Islamist laws and became an international party paradise renowned for alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other, stranger vices. 
 
 In 2025, the United States and European Union were the world's firm economic powerhouses. South Korea had outpaced Japan and Taiwan as East Asia's leading business and technological destination. Japan, with its crashing population, was no longer an important player in global politics. It was, however, a continuing exporter of culture and technology. Advances in connectivity and software continued to emerge out of Western tech hubs like Silicon Valley, the North Carolina Research Triangle, Britain's Silicon Fen, Norway's Oslo-Lillestrøm, and the exploding tech center of Santiago, Chile. Meanwhile, innovations in robotics and mechanical engineering came mostly out of South Korea and Japan. 
 
 Though no state could challenge the West ’ s supremacy, terrorist attacks by both foreign and domestic forces continued to increase across North America and Europe. While the United States continued to focus on Islamist terrorism, attacks from Russian, East Asian, Latin American, and domestic terrorists with political rather than religious motivations quickly caught up to Islamist groups. Small terror attacks hit the West at least once a month. Major ones like the 2019 Miami Beach nightclub bombing ( 215 dead, Venezuelan People ’ s Liberation Army ), 2020 Los Angeles car bombs ( 61 dead, Islamic State ), 2024 Berlin Tiergarten Massacre ( 140 dead, Nationalist Army of Russia ), and 2026 siege on the U.S. Embassy in Beijing ( 38 dead, Dragon's Army ) constant dominated Western media. In 2025, the very citizens that had been outraged at the NSA scandal ten years ago were begging their governments for increased surveillance, drones in domestic skies, and more military funding. 99 % of planned terrorist attacks were caught, but so many were being planned that no surveillance was enough. In 2024, a Ted Cruz-Cory Booker ticket soared to victory in the US Presidential election with the promise of recalling US troops around the world and creating a `` Fortress America'' at home. Similar movements were underway in Canada, Australia, and Europe. In 2026, anti-foreign sentiment finally reached a fever pitch in Europe. The EU instituted immigrant restrictions for the first time, and a twenty-foot-high wall stretching from Finland to the Mediterranean Sea began construction. 
 
 Technology's role in daily Western life continued to grow. Google launched its Glass product in 2017 to a negative reception and plummeting sales ( many attribute Google's eventual 2024 bankruptcy to the failure of Glass ). It was n't until 2025 that the market came to accept wearable technology. The Monocle, a slim glass panel with a frame that attached to the ear, was launched by Chilean company Kaskada. Smaller, faster, more intuitive, and easier on the eyes than Glass, the Monocle was a worldwide success, doing everything that smartphones did and more. Users could communicate, browse the internet, play games, use countless apps, and much more on the Monocle, using eye movements to move their cursor. Within two years, smartphones were all but dead, and the Monocle and its many competitors were ubiquitous in any Western city. People found it increasingly hard to have face-to-face conversations, as anyone could be engaged in their Monocle at any time without the other person knowing. 
 
 The 2030s saw a rise of the Fierce Liberals, an international political movement in the West that emphasized liberal social and economic policies combined with hawkish, ruthless defense and foreign policies. The United States and Canada merged in 2036, with the thirteen provinces gaining individual statehood. As part of the deal, the USA instituted single-payer healthcare under the Canadian model, and the capital was moved from an increasingly blighted and crime-ridden Washington DC to Buffalo, New York, a city whose green policies, state-of-the-art transportation and ubiquitous free wifi led to many labeling it as the `` model new city'' of the 21st century. The European Union removed Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania from its membership, citing an inability to develop economically. With the partition of Belgium between the Netherlands and the new state of Wallonia, Brussels became a special, federal European district belonging to no state. Australia and New Zealand merged into the Federation of Australasia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore formed the East Asian Free Trade Area. Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and the Brazilian states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul formed the Southern Cone Associative Area. In 2034, eight entities ( North America, European Union, Switzerland, Israel, the Gulf Republic, Australasia, East Asia, and the Southern Cone ) formed the United Democratic Coalition ( UDC ), an alliance that would soon become the central dividing line of global politics. 
 
 The years 2034-2055 were known as the Pax Democratica. The tide of the terror surge was finally halted in the mid-2030s by radical security methods and a near-universal lock on immigration into the UDC. But ubiquitous surveillance was the new norm, with very few crimes ( including victimless ones ) going unpunished. Marijuana was legal everywhere in the West, but harder drugs were persecuted with a vengeance. In 2037, Hawaii became the first jurisdiction on earth to legalize cocaine, mdma, lsd, heroin, and countless other drugs for recreational use. By 2040, drugs were legal or decriminalized almost everywhere in the UDC. The nations of the UDC were economically prosperous and ostensibly democratic, but civil unrest and dangerous political ideas were quickly tracked down and silenced by a surveillance state and militarized police. Almost every day, new stories hit headlines featuring breaches of civil rights by the government and police across the UDC. However, as long as the economy was good and technology expanded, most citizens seemed not to mind. 

