Portal:2020s

Clockwise from top-left:

• An image of SARS-CoV-2, a virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic; COVID-19 became a global pandemic in 2020 and was deemed an international public health emergency until 2023.
• The January 6 United States Capitol attack over claims of electoral fraud during the 2020 presidential election; the decade witnessed widespread democratic backsliding as many countries shifted from liberal democracy to authoritarianism.
• The Artemis II flyby of the Moon, the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, was launched in 2026, with the crew breaking the record for the furthest humans have been from Earth.
• In December 2024, Syrian rebels celebrate the fall of the Assad regime, ending 62 years of Ba'athist rule.
• Israel invades the Gaza Strip, in response to the October 7 attacks in 2023. Throughout the decade, the war spilled over into major parts of the Middle East.
• Russia launches a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, starting a new phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which has been ongoing since 2014.
• ChatGPT, the commercial engine of domestic AI usage as a symbol of the AI boom during the decade.
• The July Revolution in Bangladesh, described as the world's first Gen Z revolution, spread around the world against democratic backsliding, political corruption, and authoritarianism, where young protesters overthrow their governments.

The 2020s (pronounced "twenty-twenties" or "two thousand (and) twenties") is the current decade of the Gregorian and Julian calendars that began on 1 January 2020 and will end on 31 December 2029.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath marked the early 2020s, which triggered a global economic recession, sustained rise in global inflation, and supply chain crisis. Governments worldwide issued stay-at-home orders during the early pandemic, leading to a widespread use of teleconferencing, online learning, e-commerce, and food delivery services.

Politically, the 2020s has seen a rise in populist and anti-establishment movements across the world on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum, along with anti-government demonstrations and revolts. The decade saw an escalation of military conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, the Gaza War since 2023, the 2025 Twelve-Day War, 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela and the 2026 Iran war. By the middle of the decade, multiple journalists, economists, and political scientists increasingly began to refer to China as a superpower due to its enormous influence in the fields of geopolitics, technology, manufacturing, economics and culture.

Technology has continued to evolve in the 2020s. Throughout the decade, generative artificial intelligence-based applications, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, became widespread, allowing users to instantly generate sophisticated texts, images, and media. The growth of cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence has led to the cryptocurrency bubble and AI bubble. The United States has led space exploration, including with the James Webb Space Telescope and Ingenuity Mars helicopter in 2021, and the Artemis II crewed lunar flyby in 2026. (Full article...)