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Prehistory comprises all events which took place before the creation of written records. This
page lists events from the evolution of the universe and the Earth to the origin of life and human
evolution, up to the invention of writing in approximately 4,000 BC. Note that many of these
dates are speculative or very rough estimates. For a timeline of historical events see: Timeline of
world history. For greater detail see the articles on the various geological periods.
Contents
[hide]
1 Human prehistory
2 Human evolution
3 Cenozoic
4 Complex life
5 Formation of the Earth
6 Formation of the universe
7 See also
8 References
Timeline from the evolution of modern humans to the invention of writing. All dates are
approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology,
archaeology, genetics, geology, or linguistics. They are all subject to revision due to new
discoveries or improved calculations.
7,000 years ago: late Neolithic civilizations, invention of the wheel and spread of proto-
writing.
9,000 years ago: Jiahu culture began in China
9,500 years ago: Çatal Höyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia
9,000-10,000 years ago: In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of
barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for
bread.[1] In early agriculture at this time, the Planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a
primitive Plow in subsequent centuries.[2] Around this time, a round stone tower, now
preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in Jericho.[3]
11,000 years ago: founding of the city of Jericho
12,000 years ago: land ice leaves Denmark and southern Sweden; start of the Holocene
epoch and Neolithic Age and end of the last Ice Age. Invention of agriculture is the
earliest given date for the beginning of the ancient era
c. 14,800 years ago: The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would
later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.[4]
c. 16,000 years ago: Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc
d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.[5]
c. 20,000 years ago: Chatelperronian culture in France.[6]
21,000 years ago: Last Glacial Maximum
22,000 years ago: the oldest known tally stick (the Ishango Bone)
25,000 years ago: first colonisation of North America. A hamlet consisting of huts built of
rocks and of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia in
the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been
found by archaeologists.[7]
c. 26,000 years ago: Women around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes,
bags, baskets, and nets.
c. 28,000-20,000 years ago: Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws
invented.
c. 28,500 years ago: New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.[8]
29,000 years ago: extinction of Homo neanderthalensis.
30,000 years ago: approximate age of Haplogroup X (mtDNA) and Haplogroup I
(mtDNA). A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere
Valley in what is today France.[9]
31,000 years ago: oldest known cave paintings
c. 32,000 years ago: Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
35 000 years ago: oldest known figurative art (Venus of Hohle Fels), age of the
Aurignacian culture
40,000 years ago: Cro-Magnon colonisation of Europe (Upper Paleolithic)
50,000 years ago: Modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East; age of Haplogroup
B (mtDNA)[10] In the next millennia, these human group's descendants move on to
southern India, the Malay islands, Australia, Japan, China, Siberia, Alaska, and the
northwestern coast of North America.[10]
60,000 years ago: out of Africa migration of modern humans; approximate age of
Haplogroup N (mtDNA), Haplogroup C (mtDNA) and Haplogroup A (mtDNA)
c. 75,000 years ago: Toba Volcano supereruption.[11]
80,000 years ago: approximate age of Haplogroup M (mtDNA)
90,000 years ago: time of Y-chromosomal Adam
100,000 years ago: earliest estimate for the domestication of dogs
125,000 years ago: peak of the Eemian Stage interglacial
150,000 years ago: time of mitochondrial Eve
160,000 years ago: split between Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens
200,000 years ago: appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa
Time from the earliest common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees to the emergence of
modern humans
[edit] Cenozoic
Time from the dawn of the Cenozoic era and the beginning of the age of mammals to the
beginnings of human evolution
65 million years ago: Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous
period (end of the Mesozoic era); start of the Tertiary period (Cenozoic era). End of the
age of the dinosaurs.
135 million years ago: end of Jurassic and beginning of Cretaceous Period. First birds.
195 million years ago: end of Triassic and beginning of Jurassic Period; first mammals.
251.4 million years ago: Permian mass extinction. End of Permian Period and of the
Palaeozoic Era. Beginning of Triassic Period, the Mesozoic era and of the age of the
dinosaurs.
280 million years ago: end of Carboniferous and beginning of Permian Period.
315 million years ago: the evolution of the first reptiles.
340 million years ago: beginning of the Carboniferous and the end of Devonian period
400 million years ago: beginning of the Devonian and the end of the Silurian period. First
insects.
420 million years ago: first creature took a breath of air
435 million years ago: beginning of the Silurian and the end of the Ordovician period
500 million years ago: e beginning of the Ordovician and the end of the Cambrian period
540 million years ago: beginning of the Cambrian and the end of the Precambrian period.
Time since the Cambrian explosion the emergence of most forms of complex life,
including vertebrates, arthropods, echinoderms and molluscs.
575 million years ago: oldest Animal fossils
580 million years ago: end of a possible Snowball Earth ice age
600 million years ago: first complex multicelled lifeforms
750 million years ago: beginning of a possible Snowball Earth ice age
1.8-2.1 billion years ago: earliest Eukaryotes
2.3 billion years ago: first known ice age
3.9 to 4.1 billion years ago: oldest cellular life (cyanobacteria)
3.7 to 3.9 billion years: age of the Mare Imbrium, the Lower Imbrian epoch
3.9 to 4.1 billion years ago: origin of life (cyanobacteria)
4.5 billion years: age of the Earth (see: Precambrian)
Timeline of Ancient history is the historical events in time of the documented ancient past from
the beginning of recorded history until the Early Middle Ages.
[edit] Prehistory
For events before recorded history, see Timeline of prehistory
The Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose
main ingredient was iron were prominent. The adoption of this material coincided with other
changes in some past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs
and artistic styles, although this was not always the case
4250 BC: the earliest known date, the beginning of the Egyptian calendar.
4th millennium BC: Sumerian cuneiform, history's oldest writing system.[1] This marks
the beginning of recorded history
3300 BC: Bronze Age begins in the Near East[2]
3300 BC: Newgrange Ireland
3300 BC: Hakra Phase of the Indus Valley Civilization begins
3200 BC: Cycladic civilization in Greece
3200 BC: Norte Chico civilization begins in Peru
3200 BC: Rise of Proto-Elamite Civilization in Iran
3100 BC: Skara Brae Scotland
c. 3000 BC: Stonehenge construction begins. In its first version, it consisted of a circular
ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.[3]
c. 3000 BC: Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine
3100 BC: First dynasty of Egypt
3000 BC: Jiroft civilization Begins in Iran
3000 BC: First known use of papyrus by Egyptians
2800 BC: Kot Diji phase of the Indus Valley Civilization begins
2800 BC: Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period in China
2700 BC: Minoan Civilization ancient palace city Knossos reach 80,000 inhabitants
2700 BC: Rise of Elam in Iran
2600 BC: Mature Harappan phase of the Indus Valley civilization (in present-day
Pakistan and India) begins
2600 BC: Emergence of Maya culture in the Yucatán Peninsula
2600 BC: Completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza
2200 BC: completion of Stonehenge.
2070 BC: Yu the Great established the Xia Dynasty in China
2000 BC: Domestication of the horse
1800 BC: alphabetic writing emerges
1700 BC: Indus Valley Civilization comes to an end but is continued by the Cemetery H
culture; The beginning of Poverty Point Civilization in North America
1600 BC: Mycenaean Greece
1600 BC: The beginning of Shang Dynasty in China, evidence of a fully developed
Chinese writing system
1600 BC: Beginning of Hittite dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region
1500 BC: Composition of the Rigveda is completed
1400-400 BC: Olmec civilization flourishes in Pre-Columbian Mexico, during
Mesoamerica's Formative period
1200 BC: The Hallstatt culture
c. 1200 BC: Theorized time of the Trojan War[4]
c. 1180 BC: Disintegration of Hittite Empire
1046 BC: The Zhou force (led by King Wu of Zhou) overthrow the last king of Shang
Dynasty; Zhou Dynasty established in China
1000 BC: Mannaeans Kingdom Begins
890 BC: Approximate date for the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey
800 BC: Rise of Greek city-states
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the
Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient
Rome. It refers to the timeframe of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.[5][6] Ancient history include
the recorded Greek history beginning in about 776 BC (First Olympiad). This coincides roughly
with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC and the beginning of the history of
Rome.[7][8]
776 BC: First recorded Olympic Games. The history of the Games is believed to reach as
far back as the 13th century BC but no older written record survives.[citation needed]
753 BC: Founding of Rome (traditional date)
745 BC: Tiglath-Pileser III becomes the new king of Assyria. With time he conquers
neighboring countries and turns Assyria into an empire
728 BC: Rise of the Median Empire
722 BC: Spring and Autumn Period begins in China; Zhou Dynasty's power is
diminishing; the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought
700 BC: the construction of Marib Dam in Arabia Felix
660 BC: purported date of the accession of Jimmu, the mythical first Emperor of Japan
653 BC: Rise of Persian Empire
612 BC: Attributed date of the destruction of Nineveh and subsequent fall of Assyria.
600 BC: Sixteen Maha Janapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") emerge. A
number of these Maha Janapadas are semi-democratic republics.
600 BC: Evidence of writing system appear in Oaxaca used by the Zapotec civilization
c. 600 BC: Pandyan kingdom in South India
586 BC: Destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem (Solomon's Temple) by the
Babylonians
563 BC: Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism is born as a prince of the
Shakya tribe, which ruled parts of Magadha, one of the Maha Janapadas
551 BC: Confucius, founder of Confucianism, is born
550 BC: Foundation of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great
549 BC: Mahavira, founder of Jainism is born
546 BC: Cyrus the Great overthrows Croesus King of Lydia
544 BC: Rise of Magadha as the dominant power under Bimbisara.
539 BC: The Fall of the Babylonian Empire and liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great
529 BC: Death of Cyrus
525 BC: Cambyses II of Persia conquers Egypt
c. 512 BC: Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia, subjugates eastern Thrace, Macedonia
submits voluntarily, and annexes Libya, Persian Empire at largest extent
509 BC: Expulsion of the last King of Rome, founding of Roman Republic (traditional
date)
508 BC: Democracy instituted at Athens
c. 500 BC: completion of Euclid's Elements
500 BC: Panini standardizes the grammar and morphology of Sanskrit in the text
Ashtadhyayi. Panini's standardized Sanskrit is known as Classical Sanskrit
500 BC: Pingala uses zero and binary numeral system
490 BC: Greek city-states defeat Persian invasion at Battle of Marathon
483 BC: Death of Gautama Buddha
480 BC: Invasion of Greece by Xerxes; Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis
479 BC: death of Confucius
475 BC: Warring States Period begins in China as the Zhou king became a mere
figurehead; China is annexed by regional warlords
469 BC: Birth of Socrates
465 BC: Murder of Xerxes
460 BC: First Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta
447 BC: Building of the Parthenon at Athens started
424 BC: Nanda dynasty comes to power.
432 BC: Construction of the Parthenon
404 BC: End of Peloponnesian War between the Greek city-states
400 BC: Zapotec culture flourishes around city of Monte Albán
399 BC: Death of Socrates
331 BC: Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela
326 BC: Alexander the Great defeats Indian king Porus in the Battle of the Hydaspes
River.
323 BC: Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon
321 BC: Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha.
305 BC: Chandragupta Maurya seizes the satrapies of Paropanisadai (Kabul), Aria
(Herat), Arachosia (Qanadahar) and Gedrosia (Baluchistan)from Seleucus I Nicator, the
Macedonian satrap of Babylonia, in return for 500 elephants.
300 BC: Construction of the world's largest pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Cholula,
begins in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico
273 BC: Ashoka the Great becomes the emperor of the Mauryan Empire
257 BC: Thục Dynasty takes over Việt Nam (then Kingdom of Âu Lạc)
250 BC: Rise of Parthia (Ashkâniân), the second native dynasty of ancient Persia
232 BC: Death of Emperor Ashoka the Great; Decline of the Mauryan Empire
230 BC: Emergence of Satavahanas in South India
221 BC: Qin Shi Huang unifies China, end of Warring States Period; marking the
beginning of Imperial rule in China which lasts until 1912. Construction of the Great
Wall by the Qin Dynasty begins.
207 BC: Kingdom of Nan Yueh extends from North Việt Nam to Canton
202 BC: Han Dynasty established in China, after the death of Qin Shi Huang; China in
this period officially becomes a Confucian state and opens trading connections with the
West, i.e. the Silk Road
202 BC: Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama
200 BC: El Mirador, largest early Maya city, flourishes
c. 200 BC: Chera dynasty in South India
185 BC: Sunga Empire founded.
149 BC–146: Third and final Punic War; destruction of Carthage by Rome
146 BC: Roman conquest of Greece, see Roman Greece
111 BC: First Chinese domination of Việt Nam in the form of the Nanyue Kingdom.
c. 100 BC: Chola dynasty rises in prominence.
49 BC: Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great
44 BC: Julius Caesar murdered by Marcus Brutus and others; End of Roman Republic;
beginning of Roman Empire
6 BC: Earliest theorized date for birth of Jesus of Nazareth
4 BC: Widely accepted date (Ussher) for birth of Jesus Christ
9: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Imperial Roman Army's bloodiest defeat
14: Death of Emperor Augustus (Octavian), ascension of his adopted son Tiberius to the
throne
29: Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
68: Year of the four emperors in Rome
70: Destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus.
79: Destruction of Pompeii by the volcano Vesuvius
117: Roman Empire at largest extent under Emperor Trajan
192: Kingdom of Champa in Central Việt Nam
200s: The Buddhist Srivijaya Empire established in the Malay Archipelago.
220: Three Kingdoms period begins in China after the fall of Han Dynasty.
226: Fall of the Parthian Empire and Rise of the Sassanian Empire
238: Defeat of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and Valerian (253–
260), by Shapur I of Persia, (Valerian was captured by the Persians).
280: Emperor Wu established Jin Dynasty providing a temporary unity of China after the
devastating Three Kingdoms period.
285: Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empires
313: Edict of Milan declared that the Roman Empire would be neutral toward religious
worship
325 Constantine I organises the First Council of Nicaea
335: Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
378: Battle of Adrianople, Roman army is defeated by the Germanic tribes
395: Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlaws all pagan religions in favour of Christianity
410: Alaric I sacks Rome for the first time since 390 BC
c. 455: Skandagupta repels an Indo-Hephthalite attack on India.
476: Romulus Augustus, last Western Roman Emperor is forced to abdicate by Odoacer,
a half Hunnish and half Scirian chieftain of the Germanic Heruli; Odoacer returns the
imperial regalia to Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno in Constantinople in return for the title
of dux of Italy; most frequently cited date for the end of ancient history
[edit] Maps
Eastern Hemisphere in 500 BC. Eastern Hemisphere in 323 BC.Eastern Hemisphere in 200 BC.
Centuries: 5th - 6th - 7th - 8th - 9th - 10th - 11th - 12th - 13th - 14th - 15th
This Timeline of early modern history covers events from the end of the Mediaeval period in
1492 to 1909.
[edit] 1492-1599
1492: Christopher Columbus reaches the New World; end of the Reconquista
1512: Michelangelo Buonarotti completes his painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
1514: Copernican Revolution
1517: Beginning of the Protestant Reformation
1519: Death of Leonardo da Vinci and his completion of the Mona Lisa
1521: Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
1522: First accredited circumnavigation of the Earth.
1533: Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
c. 1560: Thomas Tallis composes his 40-part motet Spem in alium
[edit] 1600-1799
1607: Founding of the Colony of Virginia
1609: First telescopic observations of Galileo
1611: Publication of the King James Bible. Performance of Shakespeare's last solo play,
The Tempest.
1618: Beginning of the Thirty Years War
1630: Founding of theMassachusetts General Court, oldest continuous extant elected
assembly
1642: Beginning of the English Civil War
1648: Treaty of Westphalia ends Thirty Years War
1651: End of English Civil War
1655: Completion of the Taj Mahal.
1687: Publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica
1707: Acts of Union 1707 create the Kingdom of Great Britain
1712: Thomas Newcomen invents the first commercially viable steam engine
1750: Johann Sebastian Bach composes his incomplete Art of Fugue
1756: Beginning of the Seven Years War
1757: British rule in India begins with victory at the Battle of Plassey
1763: End of the Seven Years War
1764: Invention of the spinning jenny and arguably, the Industrial Revolution
1776: Independence of the United States; publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam
Smith
1781: Discovery of the planet Uranus by William Herschel
1783: End of the American Revolution
1789: French Revolution
1796: Development of vaccination by Edward Jenner
[edit] 1800-1889
1804: World population reaches 1 billion
1805: Battle of Trafalgar
1810: Independence of Mexico
1816: Independence of Argentina
1822: Independence of Brazil
1824: Premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
1825: First isolation of aluminum
1831: Native Americans forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears
1840: Treaty of Waitangi signed in New Zealand
1846: Discovery of Neptune and its moon Triton. Mexican-American War begins.
1848: 1848 revolution. Mexican-American War ends.
1854: Crimean War begins
1856: Crimean War ends.
1857: Indian Mutiny; invention of the phonautograph, the first true device for recording
sound.
1859: Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species
1861: American Civil War begins
1865: American Civil War ends
1868: Meiji Restoration in Japan
1869: Creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev
1870: Franco-Prussian War begins.
1871: unifications of Germany and Italy. Franco-Prussian War ends.
1876: First long-distance telephone call by Alexander Graham Bell
1879: Thomas Edison tests his first light bulb
1880: First Boer War begins
1881: First Boer War ends.
1886: Karl Benz sells the first commercial automobile. Construction of the Statue of
Liberty
1889: Construction of the Eiffel Tower
[edit] 1890s
1890: Wounded Knee Massacre; death of Vincent van Gogh
1891: Chilean Civil War
1892: Basketball is invented.
1893: Women's suffrage is enacted for the first time in New Zealand
1894: First commercial film release and the invention of the gramophone record. Dreyfus
Affair begins.
1895: Volleyball is invented.
1896: 1896 Olympic Games, the first modern Olympic Games
1897: Benin Expedition of 1897 loots and burns Benin. Greco-Turkish War.
1898: Beginning of the Boxer Rebellion. Spanish-American War
1899: Second Boer War begins. Philippine–American War begins.
[edit] 1900s
1900: Galveston Hurricane kills 8000 people.
1901:Boxer Rebellion ends.
1902: Second Boer War ends. Philippine–American War ends.
1903: First controlled heavier-than-air flight of the Wright Brothers. Herero and
Namaqua Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century, begins in German South-West
Africa.
1904: Russo-Japanese War begins. Trans-Siberian railway is completed.
1905: Russo-Japanese War ends; 1905 Revolution; Albert Einstein's formulation of
relativity.
1906: 1906 San Francisco earthquake kills 3000. Dreyfus Affair ends.
1907: Herero and Namaqua Genocide ends.
1908: First commercial radio transmissions. The Ford Motor Company invents the
assembly line
1909: Independence of Panama.
This is a timeline of modern history, here defined as comprising the previous 100 years (i.e.
1910-2009).
11 See also
[edit] 1910s
See also: Timeline of World War I
1910: beginning of the Mexican Revolution
1911: Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole.
1912: Sinking of the RMS Titanic and the official dissolution of the Chinese Empire.
Balkan Wars begin
1913: Invention of the zipper and the crossword puzzle. Balkan Wars end.
1914: Beginning of World War I
1915: Start of the Armenian Genocide. The Lusitania is sunk.
1916: Easter Rising, the invention of the light switch and the implementation of daylight
savings time.Warlord Era begins in China.
1917: Russian Revolution; beginning of Russian Civil War
1918: End of World War I; Spanish flu pandemic
1919: Treaty of Versailles
[edit] 1920s
1920: Prohibition and Women's suffrage come into effect in the United States. League of
Nations is founded. Mexican Revolution ends.
1921: Independence of the Republic of Ireland; end of Russian Civil War
1922: March on Rome brings Benito Mussolini to power in Italy. Howard Carter
discovers Tutankhamen's tomb.
1923: Great Kanto Earthquake kills over 100,000 people in Tokyo, Japan.
1924: Death of Vladimir Lenin. FBI founded under J. Edgar Hoover.
1925: First televisual image created by John Logie Baird
1926: Hirohito is crowned Emperor of Japan
1927: The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie", is released. Joseph Stalin becomes leader of the
Soviet Union. World population reaches 2 billion
1928: Discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming. Warlord Era ends in China
1929: Wall Street crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression. First people
sent to the gulag in the Soviet Union.
[edit] 1930s
1930: Discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh. Salt March by Mohandas Gandhi. Dust
Bowl begins.
1931: Floods in China kill up to 2.5 million people. Independence of South Africa.
Construction of the Empire State Building.
1932: Franklin Roosevelt becomes President of the United States
1933: Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. New Deal begins in America.
Prohibition in US abolished.
1934: Dictatorships begin in Brazil and Bolivia. Mao Zedong begins the Long March
1935: Alcoholics Anonymous founded.
1936: Beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Dust Bowl ends. Great Purge begins under
Stalin.
1937: Japanese invasion of China, and the beginning of World War II in the Far East;
deaths of Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin
1938: Munich agreement hands Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Great Purge ends after
nearly 700,000 executions.
1939: End of Spanish Civil War; Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the
Soviet Union.Nazi invasion of Poland. Beginning of World War II in Europe
[edit] 1940s
See also: Timeline of World War II
1940: Nazis invade France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Katyn massacre in
Poland. Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland. Winston Churchill becomes
Prime Minister of Great Britain. Battle of Britain. The Blitz begins.
1941: Beginning of the Holocaust. Bombing of Pearl Harbor. Hitler commences the Nazi
invasion of the Soviet Union
1942: Battle of Midway. Battle of the Coral Sea. First and and second Battles of El
Alamein. Battle of Stalingrad. Guadalcanal Campaign begins. Internment of Japanese-
American citizens in the US begins. Manhattan Project begins.
1943: Battle of Stalingrad ends with surrender of the German Army. Warsaw Ghetto
uprising. Green Revolution begins.
1944: D-Day landings. First operational electronic computer, Colossus, comes online
1945: Bombing of Dresden. Battle of Berlin. End of World War II and the Holocaust.
Death of Hitler and Mussolini. Creation of the atomic bomb, and the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. United Nations founded. Chinese Civil War begins.
1946: Independence of Jordan. Nuremberg trials end. First Indochina War begins.
1947: Independence of India and Pakistan and the breaking of the sound barrier.
1948: Arab-Israeli War; Berlin Airlift; Marshall Plan; founding of the OECD and the
World Health Organization; assassination of Mohandas Gandhi; the independence of
Myanmar; beginning of apartheid in South Africa.
1949: Partition of Germany and Kashmir; creation of NATO; end of the Chinese Civil
War and establishment of the People's Republic of China; independence of Indonesia.
[edit] 1950s
1950: Beginning of the Korean War
1951: Colombo Plan comes into effect
1952: Detonation of the hydrogen bomb and the first scheduled flight by commercial jet.
Development of the first effective polio vaccine by Jonas Salk; Mau Mau Uprising begins
in Kenya.
1953: Independence of Cambodia, discovery of DNA and the isolation of the polio
vaccine, the first ascent of Mount Everest, the deposing of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran
and the end of the Korean War. Death of Joseph Stalin.
1954: Supreme Court of the United States decides Brown v. Board of Education, ordering
an end to racial segregation in public schools; Soviet Union generates first electricity by
nuclear power; First Indochina War ends; Algerian War begins.
1955: Signing of the Warsaw Pact. First Sudanese Civil War begins.
1956: Independence of Sudan and Tunisia and full independence of Pakistan.The
Hungarian uprising; the Suez crisis.
1957: Launch of Sputnik 1 and the beginning of the Space Age; independence of Ghana
and Tunisia; Treaty of Rome, which would eventually lead to the European Union; first
prescription of the combined oral contraceptive pill.
1958: Great Leap Forward begins in China. Independence of Chad, Gabon and the
Republic of the Congo; founding of NASA, the FAA and CND (and the creation of the
CND's symbol, the peace sign); invention of the optical disc and the cassette tape
1959: Cuban Revolution; independence of Cyprus and Singapore; admission of Alaska
and Hawaii into the United States; Dalai Lama exiled from Tibet; first documented AIDS
cases; beginning of the Vietnam War; discovery of "Lucy" in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
By this time, the gulag has been effectively disbanded, after over a million recorded
deaths.
[edit] 1960s
1960: Independence of Somalia, Togo and the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic
Republic of the Congo). Congo Crisis. Mau Mau Uprising ends; first (and to date only)
manned descent to the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench; construction of the
first laser; world population reaches 3 billion.
1961: Great Leap Forward ends in China after the deaths of roughly 20 million people.
Independence of Uganda; building of the Berlin Wall; first human spaceflight
1962: Cuban missile crisis, the independence of Algeria (with the end of the Algerian
War) and The Beatles' first record.
1963: Independence of Kenya; creation of Malaysia; Martin Luther King delivers his "I
have a Dream" speech; assassination of John F. Kennedy; launch of the first geostationary
satellite.
1964: Independence of Malta, Malawi and Tanzania; Civil Rights Act of 1964 abolishes
segregation in the USA. Colombian armed conflict begins
1965: Deaths of Winston Churchill and Malcom X. Anti-Communist purge in Indonesia
kills up to 500,000 people
1966: China's Cultural Revolution begins. Independence of Lesotho, Botswana and
Barbados
1967: Summer of Love; Six Day War
1968: Assassination of Martin Luther King, the Prague Spring and the May 1968 protests
in France. The Troubles begin in Northern Ireland
1969: Moon landings; Woodstock festival; creation of ARPANET, the earliest incarnation
of the Internet.
[edit] 1970s
1970: Ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Maiden flight of the Boeing
747. Bhola Cyclone kills 500,000 people in East Pakistan. Deaths of Jimi Hendrix and
Janis Joplin
1971: Bangladesh Liberation War ends in independence of Bangladesh. Invention of the
microchip. Idi Amin comes to power in Uganda
1972: Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday; First Sudanese Civil War ends.
1973: Beginning of the Watergate scandal. The Supreme Court of the United States
decides Roe v. Wade. Death of Pablo Picasso
1974: Turkish occupation of Cyprus. World population reaches 4 billion.
1975: End of the Vietnam War; death of Dmitri Shostakovich. Khmer Rouge regime in
Cambodia begins.
1976: First outbreak of the Ebola virus. Death of Mao Zedong. End of Cultural
Revolution
1977: Introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers; launch of the Voyager
spacecraft, currently the most distant man-made objects in the universe.
1978: Invention of artificial insulin; discovery of Pluto's moon Charon; independence of
Tuvalu; birth of the first test-tube baby. Deng Xiaoping commences ongoing Economic
reform in the People's Republic of China
1979: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Iranian Revolution and Iran hostage crisis. Arrival
of Pope John Paul II in Poland, eventually sparking the Solidarity movement. First space
station, Skylab, is launched. Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Implementation of China's One child policy. Idi Amin exiled. Smallpox eradicated.
Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia ends; 2000,000 people estimated to have been
murdered in The Killing Fields. Nicaraguan Revolution.
[edit] 1980s
1980: Independence of Zimbabwe and Vanuatu. Ronald Reagan is elected President of
the United States. Beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, Salvadorian Civil War and Contra War
1981: Independence of Palau. First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle.
1982: First Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Falklands War.
1983: End of 1982 Lebanon War. GPS becomes available for civilian use. Independence
of Brunei. End of dictatorship in Argentina. Second Sudanese Civil War begins
1984: Beginning of the 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia
1985: Live Aid. Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union. First use of
DNA fingerprinting. End of dictatorship in Brazil
1986: Challenger and Chernobyl disasters. Launch of the space station Mir. First close up
images of the planet Uranus. End of dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
Iran-Contra becomes public.
1987: Stock market crash of 1987. First Intifada begins. World population reaches 5
billion
1988: Perestroika begins. End of the Iran-Iraq War. End of dictatorship of Augusto
Pinochet in Chile. Pan Am Flight 103 falls over Lockerbie, Scotland. Myanmar Armed
Forces launch a military coup.
1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall; 1989 revolution and collapse of Communism in Europe.
Tiannanmen Square Massacre in China. End of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. End
of dictatorship in Paraguay and first direct Presidential election in Brazil since 1960.
Death of Emperor Hirohito. Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie. Exxon Valdez oil spill.
First close up pictures of Neptune. First Liberian Civil War begins.
[edit] 1990s
1990: Invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Reunification of
Germany. Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Gulf War begins. Contra War ends.
Myanmar Armed Forces place Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1991: Gulf War ends. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and independence of 15 former
Soviet republics. Boris Yeltsin becomes the first democratically elected leader of Russia.
Ten-Day War in Slovenia begins the Yugoslav Wars. Beginning of the Somali, Sierra
Leonian and Algerian Civil Wars. Final end of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
1992: Maastricht Treaty creates the European Union. Bill Clinton is elected President of
the United States. End of dictatorship in Albania and South Korea. End of Salvadorian
Civil War
1993: Velvet divorce between Czech Republic and Slovakia. Independence of Eritrea.
Oslo accords end First Intifada between Israel and Palestine.
1994: End of apartheid in South Africa and election of Nelson Mandela. Establishment of
NAFTA. First Chechen War begins. Rwandan genocide occurs.
1995: Establishment of the World Trade Organization. Srebrenica massacre; NATO
bombing raids in Bosnia; Dayton Accords signed. Assassination of Yitzak Rabin. North
Korean famine begins.
1996: First Congo War begins. First Chechen War ends. First Liberian Civil War ends.
End of dictatorship in Taiwan. Dolly the sheep becomes first successful cloned mammal.
1997: Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain. Transfer of sovereignty over
Hong Kong from UK to China. Lottery Uprising in Albania.
1998: Osama Bin Laden publishes a fatwa against the West. Kenya and Tanzania
bombings. Second Congo War begins. Good Friday Agreement brings an end to The
Troubles in Northern Ireland. North Korean famine kills an estimated 2.5 million people
by this point.
1999: Euro is established. Kosovo War ends the Yugoslav Wars. Hugo Chavez becomes
President of Venezuela. Second Chechen War and Second Liberian Civil War begin.Crisis
in East Timor leads to 1400 deaths. World population reaches 6 billion.
[edit] 2000s
2000: End of Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Second Intifada begins. George W. Bush is
elected President of the United States. Vincente Fox becomes the first opposition
President of Mexico. Vladimir Putin becomes President of Russia. British Army launch
Operation Palliser which effectively ends the Sierra Leone Civil War. International Space
Station begins operations.
2001: 9/11 attacks destroy the World Trade Center in New York. Afghan War begins.
Wikipedia founded.
2002: Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established. Algerian Civil War ends. Rose
Revolution in Georgia. Independence of East Timor.
2003: 2003 Invasion of Iraq begins. War in Darfur begins. The Human Genome Project is
completed. Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead. Second Liberian
Civil War ends
2004: Madrid train bombings. Boxing Day Tsunami occurs in Indian Ocean. Orange
Revolution in Ukraine
2005: Second Intifada ends. Second Sudanese Civil War ends. 7/7 attacks on London
Underground. Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Hurricane Katrina kills nearly 2000
people in the Gulf of Mexico. 80,000 are killed in an earthquake in Kashmir. The Kyoto
Protocol comes into effect. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran
2006: Independence of Montenegro. Second invasion of Lebanon. Mumbai bombings.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia, and thus Africa's first elected female
head of state.
2007: End of dictatorship in Nepal. Anti-government protests in Myanmar crushed by
ruling junta.
2008: Great Recession begins. Barack Obama is elected President of the United States.
Cyclone Nargis kills 133,000 in Myanmar. Gaza War begins. Russia invades Georgia.
2009: Gaza War ends. Election protests begin in Iran.Second Chechen War ends. Burj
Khalifa, the world's tallest skyscraper, opens in Dubai.