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2020

year

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ25337 ↗
Source-derived summary

2020 (MMXX) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2020th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 20th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 1st year of the 2020s decade.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global social, societal and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns, and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Geospatial World also called 2020 "the worst year in terms of climate change" in part due to major climate disasters worldwide, including major bushfires in Australia and the western United States, as well as extreme tropical cyclone activity affecting large parts of North America. A United Nations progress report published in December 2020 indicated that none of the international Sustainable Development Goals for 2020 were achieved.

The year also saw the rise of social protests and activism amidst the ongoing pandemic. The murder of George Floyd was widely condemned and lead to worldwide protests and unrest that lasted until 2023. In addition, elections commenced in numerous nations in 2020. Most notably, the 2020 U.S. presidential election where Democrat and eventual 46th president Joe Biden won against incumbent Republican Donald Trump. Trump refused to concede the presidency, leading directly into an attack on the US Capitol early the following year.

Time magazine used its sixth ever X cover to declare 2020 "the worst year ever," although the cover article itself did not go as far, instead saying, "There have been worse years in U.S. history, and certainly worse years in world history, but most of us alive today have seen nothing like this one."

Health

The outbreak of COVID-19 began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2020” is year. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through year, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2020, 2023, 2019—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, year is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “year” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25337. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2023 and 2019.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2020”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2020 primary sources, 2020 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2020”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2020” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.