The Most Important Year Ever?

Following is a great article from Intelligent Life Magazine (related to the economist) about what a year really means in history. If you would like to see more contenders for the most important year ever, check out the other Intelligent Life staff’s picks.

Human history is full of pivotal years. But which was the most significant? Andrew Marr ponders some contenders.

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer 2009

It is a parlour game but a little more too: what was the most important year in human history? How we answer it says a lot about who we are. Christians might go for the birth of Christ, or his crucifixion (though would have to agree a year for each first) and Muslims, the Prophet’s migration to Medina in 622AD. For English patriots it might be Alfred’s defeat of the Vikings in 878, while Marxists could vote for the publication of “Das Kapital” in 1867.

But my contention would be that we are looking for a universally important year. In the absence of a truly universal religion, that would rule out a religious moment. In almost every case it rules out a national date too. One can argue that the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was crucial to the world–no independent England, no Britain, no British empire, a world of difference. But that requires too much speculative spooling forward to be convincing.