Vaclav Smil further collapses this to the decade of the 1880s, for which I think he&#x27;s got a strong case.<p>But yes, the 50 years from 1870 - 1920 essentially created the modern world as we know it.  Shy television, many plastics, antibiotics (though massive healthcare improvements had already been made), nuclear fission, lasers, transistors &amp; computers.<p>Robert J. Gordon&#x27;s <i>The Rise and Fall of American Growth</i> does a stellar job of detailing the various impacts of technology on the period 1870 - 2015, divided into roughly three fifty-year periods:  1870-1920, 1920-1970, and 1970-present.<p>The combination of electric motors and internal combustion engines seems most specifically powerful.