Nineteen hundred — threshold of the modern era

The year 1900 was greeted with great hopes: electricity, automobiles, cinema, and the telephone promised unprecedented progress. No one suspected the two world wars ahead. It was the last year of the relatively peaceful 'Belle Époque'.

On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented his quantum theory of radiation, introducing constant h. This day is considered the birth of quantum physics — a scientific revolution that changed the understanding of the nature of reality.

Bernardo Bertolucci's film '1900' (Novecento, 1976) is an epic saga about the fates of two Italian families from 1900 to 1945. The four-hour masterpiece with De Niro and Depardieu is considered a pinnacle of Italian cinema.