The 1930s were humanity's darkest, bloodiest hour. Are you paying attention?

It's times like this that we can look to the past to remember to learn from our mistakes. The 1930s were a decade that was haunted by mass poverty, world war, and violent extremism. And while we hope to never repeat the mistakes of our past we can take it as a chance to learn from this era's lessons and avoid its mistakes. Just mentioning the 1930s is to evoke the period when human civilization entered its darkest, most bloody chapter. You don't even have to be specific, just mention of the decade is enough. The 1930s is not so much a label for a period but rather a two-word warning from history. And nothing could echo that sediment more then the broadcast made by the Prince of Wales last December when Prince Charles warned of a return to the 'dark days of the 1930s' in the Thought of the Day message. It's like the response people had to reports that Donald Trump was to maintain his private security force even when he had reached the White House.

Because the 1930's remembered by multiple evils, the phrase can be used to conjure up several emotions.It was a decade that centered on Hitler and Nazism and the failure to resist them, along with the brownshirts and Goebbels to appeasement, Munich, and Chamberlain. It is also a decade that refers to the Great Depression, the dust bowl, the soup kitchens, the dole queue and the Jarrow.

In recent months, you may have heard the 1930s invoked more than ever, as a way to describeand to warn of the shifts under way in both Europe and the United States of America.With the surge of populist, nationalist movements in Europe, and their apparent counterpart in the United States which has stirred unhappy memories and had commentators and others reaching for the past to see if today might echo what happened 80 years ago. It seems that the 1930s is a time that is referred to time and time again as it's the history we know, and a time that most people the world over do not want to return. According to the view of the British school curriculum, it was Hitler and the Nazis who long ago displaced the Tudors and Stuarts as the core, which are compulsory subjects of the past. It is this time in is history to include the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s where human affairs were at their darkest moments. And a time that many people fear may occur again with the present state and the direction in which the world seems to be heading.

And part of the reason that we keep returning to that period is that it can justifiably claim to be the foundation stone of our modern world. It is a time in which the international and the economic foundation still stands today, even if it looks both shaky and threatened today, the world was built in reaction to the havoc that was wreaked in the 30s and the time immediately afterward. The United Nations, the Bretton Woods, the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund were all born of a worldwide resolve to not repeat the mistakes of the 30s. The world of 2017 is in part shaped by the trauma that happened in the 1930s. This is just one of the trending stories you will find on The Guardian. Other trending topics you will find on the site include the world, sports, football, business, celebrity recent news, lifestyle, fashion, environment, travel, today's top celebrity news and so much more. **