In forty-five years the world acquires powered flight, mass-produced cars, radio, cinema, the assembly line and two industrial wars fought with all of them. This band is where machines become faster than the people using them, and where the street itself changes character: wires overhead, painted advertising at eye level, vehicles competing with pedestrians for the same surface, and signage everywhere because there is suddenly something to advertise. It is also the last stretch in the collection where almost every object in a scene was made by a named factory in the same country, which makes the details unusually specific. Cars, aircraft and enamel signs will date a scene here to within a decade, and often to within five years.
A 1900 street is horse-drawn with a tram line down the middle; a 1930 street is motorised, wired and signposted. Watch the roadway: setts and cobbles give way to asphalt, kerbs gain painted markings, and traffic signals appear from the 1920s. Overhead, tram wires, telephone lines and electric supply cables multiply until they are removed again after the war. Advertising moves from painted gable ends to enamel plates and neon, and typography — sans-serif capitals, art deco geometry — becomes its own dating tool.
Flight, from stunt to schedule
Aircraft go from fragile wire-braced biplanes to all-metal monoplanes with retractable gear inside thirty years, and each generation is unmistakable. Fabric over wood with external bracing reads pre-1930; stressed-skin aluminium with enclosed cockpits reads the mid-1930s onward. Airfields change with them — grass strips and canvas hangars give way to concrete runways and control towers. Airships occupy a narrow window that closes hard in 1937, which makes them one of the sharpest date markers available.
Towers on frames
Steel-frame construction plus the safety elevator produces the setback skyscraper, and the 1920s and 1930s put a recognisable silhouette on American skylines. Because the frame carries the load, façades become thin: stone cladding, terracotta panels and large plate-glass windows hang on the structure rather than holding it up. Riveted frames read earlier, welded ones later. Cranes on the skyline are useful too — a derrick climbing a steel frame is a scene about the future, and usually well documented to the month.
Turning points, 1900 – 1945
1903–1914
Powered flight becomes real
Fragile biplanes turn from demonstrations into military and postal aircraft within a decade.
1913
The moving assembly line
Mass production collapses the cost of a car and puts private vehicles into ordinary streets for the first time.
1917
Revolution and the modern crowd
Mass political mobilisation is photographed and filmed as it happens, creating a visual language of banners, uniforms and public squares.
1930s
Streamlining
Art deco and streamline styling reach trains, cars, radios and buildings simultaneously, giving the decade its instantly readable look.
1939–1945
Industrial war
Factories, aircraft and cities are all targets, and reconstruction after 1945 resets the built environment across Europe and Asia.
How to date a scene from this period
Rule of thumb: Vehicles date this band to within a decade. Body shape, wheel size and headlamp style change faster than architecture does.
Cars
Open bodies with high wheels read 1900s–1910s; enclosed saloons with running boards read 1920s–1930s; integrated wings and faired headlamps read late 1930s onward.
Aircraft
Wire-braced biplanes before 1930, all-metal monoplanes after. Retractable undercarriage and enclosed cockpits push you past the mid-1930s.
Signage
Painted gable advertising, then enamel plates, then neon. Sans-serif and geometric deco lettering spreads through the 1920s and 1930s.
Clothing
Hats are near-universal until the 1950s, so use hemlines and silhouette instead: ankle-length before the war, knee-length in the 1920s, longer and more structured in the 1930s.
Wires and poles
Tram catenary, telephone lines and electric distribution proliferate through the 1920s. Their absence in an urban scene points earlier than 1910.
Three things you can see straight away
Early aircraft, open-cab cars and trams sharing the same roadway.
Overhead wiring, painted advertising and enamel signage.
Steel-framed towers with setbacks, elevators and plate glass.
11 scenes from 1900 – 1945
Every entry is a real location with real coordinates, rebuilt as a 360° panorama. Open the full story for the background and the clues, or drop straight into the scene and try to date it yourself.
Steam-powered barges churn through the Thames beneath Tower Bridge in the heart of London during the Edwardian era, with industrial smokestacks dotting the misty skyline.
What dates it: Bascule leaves and high-level walkways: a bridge built to open, unlike any other Thames crossing.
French aviator Louis Blériot's monoplane approaches the white cliffs of Dover after completing the first flight across the English Channel from France.
What dates it: A single-wing aircraft with wing-warping controls and a three-cylinder Anzani engine — no biplane struts.
Thousands of spectators surround Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget airfield after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
What dates it: A single-engine high-wing monoplane with no forward windscreen — a fuel tank sat where the view should be.
1900 – 1999 · 12 timed multiple-choice questions built from the moments on this page. Date them, place them, order them — the historical note appears once you commit to an answer.
1900 to 1945 — the first half of the twentieth century, from the arrival of powered flight and mass production to the end of the Second World War. The contemporary band picks up immediately afterwards, when reconstruction and standardised building change the look of cities again.
What is the most reliable clue in a twentieth-century scene?
Vehicles. Car and aircraft design changed on a commercial cycle of a few years, was photographed constantly, and is well catalogued, so body shape alone will usually get you inside a decade — faster than architecture, which may be fifty years old already.
Why do these scenes feel more crowded with objects?
Because mass production put manufactured goods into ordinary hands. A 1930s street contains more distinct designed objects — signs, vehicles, fittings, packaging — than a 1730s street contains in total, and each one is a potential clue.
Do wartime scenes appear in the game?
The collection focuses on documented civic and cultural moments rather than combat. Where the wars appear, it is through their effect on ordinary places — construction, reconstruction, and the changes they forced on cities.
Try dating modern era scenes yourself
No captions, no sign-up — just the place in 360°, a map and a year slider.