Short Outline of World History Timeline: Modern 5.

1949 CE
Partition of Germany into the Soviet socialist (East) and German Democratic Republic (West).

1949 CE

Partition of Kashmir.

1949 CE

People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong established.

1949 CE

The Republic of China relocates to Taiwan. The exodus of the remnants of the Kuomintang-ruled government of the Republic of China to the island of Taiwan in December 1949, at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

1949 CE

On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union secretly detonates its first atomic bomb.

1950 CE

North Korea invaded South Korea, June 1950. At least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. The Korean War (1950-1953).

1951 CE
The Colombo Plan, a multilateral fund, to boost Asian economic and social development.

After Japan's surrender in 1945 and the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the United States, between 1945 and 1952.

1952 CE

Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II, in 1952, at the age of 25.

Photo of Queen Elizabeth II in Royal Dress. c1953

1952 CE

A hydrogen bomb, a type of nuclear bomb, was detonated on November 1, 1952, by the United States.

1952 CE
First effective polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk.

1953 CE

DNA was first identified in the late 1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher and many other scientists added to the information about the DNA molecule. James Watson and Francis Crick were able to use these findings to determine the three-dimensional double helix structure of DNA in 1953.

1953 CE

Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, 29 May 1953.

1954 CE

Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional.

1955 CE

Nikita Khrushchev in control of the Soviet Union.

1955 CE

The first antiprotons were created by Berkeley Lab's Bevatron in 1955, at the energy particle accelerator.

1955 CE

Warsaw Pact, a collective defense treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955.

1955 CE
The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. The communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.

1956 CE

The Hungarian Revolution.

1957 CE

Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, world's first artificial satellite.

1957 CE

The Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (or EEC).

1958 CE

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established in 1958.

1959 CE

The Great Chinese Famine, between the years 1959 and 1961.

1959 CE

Independence of Cyprus.

1959 CE
World population reaches 3 billion.

1960 CE

The combined oral contraceptive pill, first approved for contraceptive use in the United States, in 1960.

A combined oral contraceptive pill that includes a combination of Gestodene (79%) and Ethynylestradiol (21%).

1960 CE

The independence of seventeen African nations.

1960 CE
European Free Trade Association formed.

1960 CE
The Sino-Soviet split.

1961 CE

Mao's Great Leap ends after tens of millions of deaths, with estimates ranging between 18 million and 45 million deaths. 

1961 CE

Construction of the Berlin Wall. 

1962 CE

The Cuban Missile Crisis. A dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

1962 CE

Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the first American orbital spaceflight, which took place on February 20, 1962.

1963 CE

 Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington.

1963 CE

Assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

1964 CE

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, USA. 

1964 CE

Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface.

1965 CE

Joseph Mobutu becomes dictator of the Congo.

1965 CE

 Indonesia's anti-communist purge, kills hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.

1965 CE

Singapore separated from Malaysia, 9 August 1965, to become an independent and sovereign state.

1965 CE

Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of the Philippines. He ruled as a dictator under martial law from 1972 until 1981.

1965 CE

The Indonesian army destroyed Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI), after a group calling themselves the “30th September Movement”, kidnapped six generals in a mismanaged attempt to weaken the army.

1966 CE

The Cultural Revolution, in China under Mao, from 1966 until 1976; purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. The Guangxi Massacre (cannibalism also occurred) and many were persecuted or died during the Cultural Revolution. Chinese paintings were torn apart, and Chinese temples were desecrated.

1967 CE

A social phenomena, the summer of 1967, when thousands of young supporters of the counterculture flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.

1967 CE
Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria.

1968 CE
Assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

1968 CE

Leonid Brezhnev sent a massive invasion force to crush the Prague Spring.

May 1968 protests in France.

1968 CE

The three-decade conflict between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British or Protestant), called the Troubles begins in Ireland.

1969 CEApollo 11 landed humans on the Moon.

1969 CE

The Stonewall riots, a series of violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community against a police raid on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City.

1969 CE

Muammar Gaddafi overthrows King Idris of Libya in a Coup d'état.

1969 CE

Woodstock music festival was held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York.

1969 CE

The Boeing 747 revolutionized air travel.

1968 CE

Followers of Charles Manson's cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski's Beverly Hills, California, home,

1970 CE

More than a million people died in Nigeria as a result of the civil war.

1970 CE

The Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the bombing in neutral Cambodia by United States military forces.

1970 CE

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

1971 CE

Independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan. 

1971 CE

Idi Amin seizes power in Uganda. 

1972 CE

Mass shooting occur on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, dubbed Bloody Sunday, when British soldiers shoot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment, without trial.

1972 CE

First Sudanese Civil War.

1973 CE

Chilean coup d'état.

1973 CE

Arab–Israeli War.

1973 CE

Watergate break-in and coverup led to the impeachment of President Nixon for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.

1973 CE

Skylab was the first space station operated by the United States.

1973 CE

Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.

1974 CE

Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Many Greek-Cypriots became internally displaced people.

Greek Cypriot prisoners taken to Adana camps in Turkey

1974 CE

Portugal begins transition to democracy. 

1974 CE

Discovery of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) in Tanzania.

World population reaches 4 billion in 1974.

1975 CE

The Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War.

1975 CE

Victory for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More than a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime. Khmer Rouge regime overthrown, 1979.

1976 CE

First outbreak of the Ebola virus. 

1976 CE

Steve Wozniak invented the Apple I computer and sells it to Steve Jobs. In the following year, the introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers. 

1977 CE

Launch of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts,

1978

Artificial insulin is invented.

1978 CE

900 members of James Jones cult die in a mass murder-suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch. 

1978 CE

First test-tube baby.

1978 CE

Cambodian-Vietnamese War begins. Uganda–Tanzania War begins. War in Afghanistan (1978–present).

1978 CE
China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, implemented a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms. In the following year, implementation of China's One-child policy.

Deng Xiaoping, 6 April 1976

1979 CE

Smallpox eradicated.

1979 CE

Soviet–Afghan War begins. 

1979 CE

The Iran hostage crisis, a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran. 

1979 CE

A partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station and radiation leak, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

1980 CE Rhodesia, becomes Zimbabwe and gains independance.

1980 CE
Iran–Iraq War.

1980 CE
Azaria Chamberlain goes missing from a tent in a campground near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory, Australia.

1980 CE

John Lennon is fatally shot in front of his New York City home by crazed fan.

1981 CE

First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle.

1981 CE

The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place on Wednesday 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral in London, UK.
 

1981 CE

The AIDS epidemic officially begins.
 

 

Short Outline of World History Timeline: Modern 4

1901 CE
Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901. Six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia.

1902 CE

Second Boer War ends.

1903 

The 1903 Wright airplane was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft. It was designed and built by the Wright brothers.

1903 CE

The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, factions of the Russian socialist movement emerged in 1903, following a dispute in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

1903 CE

The Teddy Bear was invented in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt.

1904 CE

The Russo-Japanese War was fought during 1904 and 1905 between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria.

1904 CE

President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, asserting the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the economic affairs of states in the Caribbean and Central America, if they were unable to pay their international debts.

1905 CE

Albert Einstein's formulation of relativity.

1907 CE

A peasants' revolt in Romania. About 11,000 die.

1908 CE
The Ford Model T automobile (known as the Tin Lizzie, Leaping Lena, jitney or flivver) was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908.

1925 Ford Model T touring, built at Henry Ford’s Highland Park Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. This example now resides in Australia, owned by the founder of FordModelT.net, ModelTMitch

1908 CE

Messina earthquake kills over 70,000 people.

1910 CE

George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India.

1910 CE

In 1910, the Earth was to pass through the tail of Halley's Comet, which caused extreme public panic, that the apocalypse was coming.

1911 CE

Xinhai Revolution in China overthrows the last imperial dynasty, Qing Dynasty.

1911 CE

Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole.

1911 CE

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, led to the deaths of 146 workers and the implementation of many workplace safety reforms.

1911 CE

Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus.

1912 CE

End of the Chinese Empire and Republic of China established.

1912 CE

Morocco becomes a protectorate of France.

1912 CE

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg.

RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912. F.G.O. Stuart

1912 CE

The Chinese nationalist party is founded. The Kuomintang.

The Balkan Wars consisted of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913.

1913 CE

Niels Bohr makes foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory.

1913 CE

Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line enabling the mass production of an entire automobile.

1913 CE

Yuan Shikai tried to install himself as as the Hongxian Emperor of China.

1914 CE

Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, triggering the start of World War I.

1915 CE

The British ocean liner, RMS Lusitania, was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 miles (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers and crew.

1915 CE

The Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder and expulsion of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians carried out in Turkey and adjoining regions.

1916 CE

Easter Rising in Ireland.

Sackville (now O'Connell) Street, Dublin, after the 1916 Easter Rising.

1915 CE

Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in Ottoman Turkey, at dawn on 25 April 1915.

 WW1 Trench Warfare, 28 April 2016

1916 CE

Grigory Rasputin is assassinated.

1917 CE

Abolition of the monarchy in 1917 and beginning of Russian Revolution.

1917 CE

Independence of Poland and Finland.

1918 CE

The Hundred Days Offensive defeats Germany. Armistice of 11 November 1918 ends World War I.

1918 CE

Spanish flu pandemic.

1918 CE
The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death by communist revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918.

1918 CE

The defeat of the Ottomans led to the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.

1919 CE

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919; forced Germans to pay substantial financial penalties and Germany lost about 13% of its territory.

1919 CE
Establishment of the Weimar Republic after the collapse of the German Empire.

1919 CE

The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace.

1919 CE

The Italian National Fascist Party is established by Benito Mussolini.

1919 CE

Egyptian Revolution of 1919. Turkish War of Independence begins.

1919 CE

Ernest Rutherford discovers the proton.

1929 CE
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.

New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of prohibition

1920 CE

Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian lawyer, led a successful campaign for India's independence from the British.

1921 CE

Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party.

1922 CE

Irish Free State is established, ending the three-year Irish War of Independence. The Province of Northern Ireland is created within The United Kingdom.

1922 CE

Egypt gains independence from the United Kingdom.

1922 CE

Howard Carter discovers Tutankhamun's tomb.

Harry Burton: Tutankhamun tomb photographs: c1922

1922 CE

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991.

1922 CE

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 was signed by major nations to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction.

1925 CE

Benito Mussolini was the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945.

1923 CE

Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic caused considerable internal political instability.

1924 CE

After the death of Lenin, Joseph Stalin won the leadership power battle. Trotsky was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union in February 1929 and he spent the rest of his life in exile.

1924 CE
Kemal Atatürk abolished the caliphate and founded Turkey as a modern secular state.

1925 CE

Mein Kampf is published.

1926 CE

Scottish engineer, John Logie Baird, one of the inventors of the mechanical television, demonstrated the first working television system on 26 January 1926.

1926 CE

Hirohito became the 124th emperor of Japan and was the longest-lived and longest-reigning historical Japanese emperor and the second longest-reigning monarch in the world.

1927 CE

The Jazz Singer, a film released in 1927, was the first feature-length motion picture with a synchronized recorded music score and lip-synchronous singing and speech.

1927 CE

The provisional Parliament House, opened in 1927, served as the home for Australia's Federal Parliament until 1988.

1927 CE

Chinese Civil War begins.

1927 CE

World population reaches 2 billion.

1927 CE

Charles Lindbergh made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927.

1928 CE

Discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming.

1928 CE

The Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928 is an international agreement in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve disputes or conflicts.

1929 CE

The Wall Street Crash was a major stock market crash that occurred in 1929 and led to the Great Depression.

Unemployed men queued outside a depression soup kitchen opened in Chicago by Al Capone, February 1931

1931 CE

Floods in China kill up to 2.5 million people.

1931 CE

The 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, the Empire State Building, was built in 1931.

1931 CE

The Chinese Soviet Republic was established in November 1931, by future Communist Party of China leader, Mao Zedong.

1932 CE
Soviet famine of 1932–33.

1932 CE
BBC World Service, the world's largest international broadcaster, began broadcasting in 1932.

1933 CE

Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany and in the following year, Hitler declares himself Fuhrer of Germany.

1935 CE

Conquest of Abyssinia by Benito Mussolini. In the following year, Italy annexes Ethiopia.

1936 CE

Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom from 20 January 1936, until his abdication on 11 December of that year.

1936 CE

The last known thylacine, dies in Hobart Zoo.

Thylacine (juvenile in foreground) pair in Hobart Zoo. c1921

1937 CE

Japanese invasion of China. The Nanking Massacre, committed by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of China.

1937 CE

The Irish Republican Army attempts to assassinate King George VI.

1938 CE

Anschluss unifies Germany and Austria. Munich agreement hands Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Great Purge ends after nearly 700,000 executions. Kristallnacht in Germany,

1939 CE
End of Spanish Civil War; Francisco Franco becomes dictator of Spain. Nazi invasion of Poland triggers the beginning of World War II in Europe.

1940 CE

Nazis invade France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.

1941 CE

Operation Reinhard begins the main phase of The Holocaust.

1941 CE

The attack on Pearl Harbor, a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day.

1941 CE

The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

1943 CE

Battle of Stalingrad ends with over two million casualties and the retreat of the German Army.

1944 CE

D-Day landings in Normandy. Liberation of Paris. The Siege of Leningrad ends with Soviet victory after over a million deaths.

British Forces during the Invasion of Normandy 6 June 1944
Troops of 3rd Infantry Division on Queen Red beach, Sword area, circa 0845 hrs, 6 June 1944.

1944 CE

The world's first programmable electronic digital computer, Colossus, was invented by British codebreakers to aid the deciphering of German coded radio messages.

1945 CE

Allied bombing of Dresden. Battle of Berlin. Yalta Conference.

The end of the Second World War, 2 September 1945. About 75 million people died in World War II, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians, from genocide, massacres, bombings, disease, and starvation.

1946 CE

Philippines independent from USA.

1947 CE

Independence of India and Pakistan and beginning of First Indo-Pakistani War.

1947 CE

The Truman Doctrine, to contain Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War, was announced by President Harry S Truman. The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947.

1948 CE

The Marshall Plan was an American initiative passed in 1948 for foreign aid to Western Europe.

1948 CE

Founding of the OECD and the World Health Organization (WHO).

1948 CE

Assassination of Mohandas Gandhi.

1949 CE

Creation of NATO.
 

Short Outline of World History Timeline: Modern 3.

1801 CE

Giuseppe Piazzi, an Italian Catholic priest established an observatory at Palermo and discovered the first dwarf planet, Ceres.

1801 CE

Thomas Jefferson elected President of the United States.

1801 CE

The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merge to form the United Kingdom.

1801 CE

The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII,

1802 CE

Ludwig van Beethoven performs his Moonlight Sonata for the first time.

1803 CE

The United States more than doubles in size when it buys out France's claims in North America with the Louisiana Purchase. 

1804 CE

Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French.

1804 CE

World population at 1 billion.

1804 CE

In the sixteenth century, laudanum, which was opium in an alcoholic solution, was used as a painkiller. Morphine first isolated in 1804.

1807 CE

The first successful steamboat was the Clermont, built by American inventor Robert Fulton in 1807.

1807 CE

Britain declares the Slave Trade illegal.

1807 CE

Sir Humphry Davy, isolated, by using electricity, a series of elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry.

Sir Humphry Davy, Bt, by Thomas Phillips

18010-20s

The Latin American wars of independence.

1812-15
War of 1812 between the United States and Britain.

1813 CE

"Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen, published anonymously in three volumes in 1813.

1814 CE

The first successful steam engine locomotive was built by the British Engineer George Stephenson called Blücher, in 1814.

1818 CE
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein.

1819 CE

Peterloo massacre in England. Cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people, who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

1820 CE

Discovery of Antarctica.

1821-30 CE

Greek War of Independence and Greece breaks away from the Ottoman Empire.

1822 CE

The first rotating device driven by electromagnetism was built by the Englishman Peter Barlow in 1822.

1825 CE

The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives.

1826 CE

Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine.

1828 CE

Black War in Tasmania leads to the near extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

Truganini (c. 1812 – 8 May 1876) was a woman widely considered to have been the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian

1829 CE

Robert Peel founds the Metropolitan Police Service, with the Metropolitan Police Act, which set up the first disciplined police force, for the Greater London area.

1839 CE
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is established.

1836 CE

HMS Beagle entered Sydney Harbour with the 26-year old Charles Darwin on board, HMS Beagle, January 12, 1836.

1837 CE

Samuel Morse independently developed and patented a recording electric telegraph in 1837.

1837-1901 CE

Queen Victoria's reign.

1839-1860 CE

The First and Second Opium Wars.

1840 CE

The Treaty of Waitangi is signed by the Māori and British.

1844 CE

First publicly funded telegraph line in the world, between Baltimore and Washington.

1846 CE

The Lunacy Act's, of Great Britain, most important provision was a change in the status of mentally ill people to patients.

1845-49

The Irish Potato Famine leads to the Irish diaspora.

1846 CE

Successful anaesthesia for surgery was first demonstrated in 1846.

1846-1847 CE

Mormon migration to Utah.

1846 CE

The Communist Manifesto published.

1848 CE
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855).

1850 CE
By 1850 a transatlantic cable had been laid between England and France, for telegraph communications.

1850 CE

The Taiping Rebellion, caused massive political and religious upheaval, lasting from 1850 to 1864, between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At least 20 million people died.

1851 CE

The Great Exhibition in London was the world's first international World Fair.

The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851

1851 CE

Gold rush begins in Australia.

1853 CE

On July 8, 1853, commodore Matthew Perry, commander of the United, used “gunboat diplomacy” to force the Japanese to agree to open trade.

1853-56 CE

Crimean War between France, the United Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

1855 BC

Bessemer process enables steel to be mass-produced.

1857 CE

Indian Rebellion of 1857.

1858 CE

Invention of the phonautograph is the earliest known device for recording sound.

1859 CE

Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species".

1861 CE
The American Civil War, fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the northern United States (loyal to the Union) and the southern United States (that had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy).

Union soldiers entrenched along the west bank of the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Virginia,
Created: 1 May 1863

1861 CE

Emperor Alexander II finally abolished Russian serfdom (serfs were unfree peasants ) in the emancipation reform of 1861.

1861 CE

James Clerk Maxwell publishes "On Physical Lines of Force". Maxwell's equations, describe how electric charges and electric currents create electric and magnetic fields.

1863 CE 

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation issued by United States President, Abraham Lincoln.

1863 CE

Formation of the International Red Cross is followed by the adoption of the First Geneva Convention in 1864.

1863 CE

On January 10, 1863, the London Underground, or the "Tube", opened to passengers.

1863 CE

The French scientist Paul-Jean Coulier developed a method to transfer latent fingerprints on surfaces to paper using iodine fuming in 1863. It allowed the London Scotland Yard to start fingerprinting individuals and identify criminals using fingerprints in 1901.

1865 CE

Gregor Mendel, by experimenting with pea plant breeding, developed three principles of inheritance that described the transmission of genetic traits.

1866 CE

Japan embarks on a program of rapid modernisation.

1869 CE

First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States.

1871 CE

The feudal system is dismantled in Japan.

1874 CE

The Home Rule Movement is established in Ireland.

Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) addressing a meeting. Library of Congress

1875-1900

26 million Indians die in India due to famine.

1876-1879 CE

13 million Chinese die of famine in northern China.

1870s CE

The Gilded Age was an era from the 1870s to about 1900 in the USA, when the country became more prosperous, with unprecedented growth in industry and technology.

1877 CE

Thomas Edison invents the phonograph, 1877. In 1879, Edison tests his first light bulb.

1880

The First Boer War (December 1880 to March 1881). The Second Boer War (11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902).

1881 Ce

Tsar Alexander II is assassinated.

1881 CE

Pogroms (anti-Semitic violence) begin in the Russian Empire.

1881 CE

Godalming, Surrey, England, became the first place in the world to have public electricity supply and electric street lighting.

1881 CE

Laws are passed in France establishing free, secular education.

1885 CE

First car with internal combustion engine is created by Karl Benz. Benz sells the first car in the following year.

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen, 1885

1886 CE

Burma is presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday present.

1890 CE

The last battle in the American Indian Wars, the Battle of Wounded Knee.

1893 CE

New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote.

1894 CE

First gramophone record.

1895 CE

First commercial film is screened, on December 28, 1895, at the Grand Cafe in Paris.

1895 CE

Wilhelm Röntgen identifies x-rays.

1896 CE

Philippines free from Spanish rule.

1896 CE

Klondike Gold Rush in Canada.

1897 CE

The Greco-Turkish War of 1897, fought between the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire, over Crete.

1898-1900 CE
The Boxer Rebellion, was an anti-imperialist, anti-foreign, and anti-Christian uprising in China. "Boxers” was the name that foreigners gave to a Chinese secret society known as the Yihequan (“Righteous and Harmonious Fists”).

1901 CE

On 1 January 1901, the six existing self-governing British colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia.

Short Outline of World History Timeline: Modern 2.

1701-2 CE
The Daily Courant and The Norwich Post become the first daily newspapers in England.

1703 CE
Saint Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great; it is the Russian capital until 1918.

1705 CE
George Frideric Handel composed his first opera, Almira, when he was 19 years old.

1706 CE
The first English-language edition of the Arabian Nights is published.

1707 CE

The Acts of Union, passed by the English and Scottish Parliaments in 1707, led to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

1707 CE

Mount Fuji erupts in Japan for the first time in 10000 years.

Mt.fuji from R469 in Yuno, Japan

1707 CE

The Mughal–Maratha Wars were fought between the Maratha Empire and the Mughal Empire from 1680 to 1707 (India).

1708-9

Famine kills one-third of East Prussia's population.

1710 CE

The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710, is regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

1710-11

Ottoman Empire fights Russia. 

1714 CE

George I, Elector of Hanover becomes King of Great Britain and Ireland. Early in his reign, he appeared to be unable to speak English. 

The Jacobite risings, or the War of the British Succession, were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746.

1716 CE

The Sikh Confederacy (from 1716-1799) was a collection of small to medium sized political Sikh states, governed by barons, along the present-day India-Pakistan border.

1720 CE

The economic bubble, a British stock market mania, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble.

1722 CE

The Afghan conquest of Iran. Afghans ousted from Iran 1729.

1729

The Methodist revival began in England with a group of men, including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles, as a movement within the Church of England. 

1733 CE

Letters on the English, written by Voltaire, based on his experiences living in England between 1726 and 1729, was published first in English in 1733.

1740-1

Famine in Ireland kills ten percent of the population.

1741 CE

Pope Benedict XIV issues Immensa Pastorum principis against slavery.

1742 CE

The first water-powered cotton mill, Marvel's Mill, begins operation in England.

"The Cotton Mill on the River Nen", from Noble and Butlin's 1746 map of Northampton - the earliest known pictorial representation of a cotton mill.

1744 CE

The First Saudi State is founded by Mohammed Ibn Saud.

1750

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period.

1754-1763 CE

The French and Indian War, is fought in colonial North America, mostly by the French and their allies against the English and their allies. 

1755 CE

Richard Cantillon, an Irish-French economist is credited with the discovery of economic theory and the first to consider the critical role of entrepreneurship in the economy. 

1756 CE

The Seven Years' War was a global war fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved all five European great powers of the time plus many of the middle powers and spanned five continents. 

1757 CE

The Battle of Plassey signals the beginning of formal British rule in India.  

1762-1796 CE

Reign of Catherine the Great of Russia.

1770 CE

In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain.

1770 CE

The Bengal famine of 1770 kills one-third of the Bengal population.

1769 CE
Mayer Rothschild and his five sons established an international banking dynasty from humble beginnings in Frankfurt, Germany and invented modern banking.

1771 CE

Richard Arkwright, the pioneer of the factory system, combined power, machinery, semi-skilled labour and the new raw material of cotton to create mass-produced yarn.

1776 CE

The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

1776 CE

Scottish moral philosopher, Adam Smith, publishes The Wealth of Nations, which described the industrialised capitalist system that was replacing the mercantilist system.

1778 CE

James Cook becomes the first European to land on the Hawaiian Islands. Cook is killed by Hawaiian natives at Kealakekua Bay in the following year.

Replica of the sailing ship Endeavor by James Cook, Dennis4trigger

779–1879

Xhosa Wars between British and Boer settlers.

1783 CE

The French Montgolfier Brothers were the inventors of the first practical hot air balloon.

1783 CE

The Treaty of Paris, signed by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War.

1776 CE
 English Bill of Rights, 1776

1787 CE

The United States Constitution is written.

1788 CE
The first settlement at Sydney, Australia, in 1788, consisted of about 850 convicts and their naval guards and officers, led by Governor Arthur Phillip.

1789 CE

George Washington is elected the first President of the United States.

1789 CE

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789. This human rights document emerged largely from the ideals of the Enlightenment.

1789 CE

The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789 and ending in 1799.

1792 CE

 The New York Stock & Exchange Board is founded.

1803 CE

The French Revolutionary Wars lead into the Napoleonic Wars, which last from 1803–1815.

1793 CE

The last king of France, Louis XVI, before the French Revolution of 1789, was married to Marie Antoinette and both were executed for treason by guillotine in 1793.

Portrait of Marie-Antoinette of Austria, 1775

1794 CE

Darug people of the Hawkesbury and Penrith, NSW, raid farms and murder settlers until Governor Macquarie dispatchs troops from the British Army 46th Regiment in 1816. The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars.

Aboriginal method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield, National Museum of Australia

1796 CE

English country doctor, Edward Jenner, introduced the vaccine for smallpox. Jenner called his new method "vaccination" after the Latin word for cow.

1799 CE

Napoleon stages a coup d'état and becomes First Consul of France.

1799 CE

In 1799, the 14th Tuʻi Kanokupolu, Tukuʻaho was murdered, which sent Tonga into a civil war for fifty years.

Short Outline of World History Timeline: Modern 1.

1501 CE

The Renaissance sculpture, the statue of David, was created between 1501 and 1504, by Michelangelo.

1503

Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa and three years later, completes it.

1505 CE

The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China, from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. Zhengde Emperor ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty.

1506 CE

The first Muslim kingdom in Java, called Demak, in Indonesia, built by Sultan Trenggono.

1506 CE
The Catholic Church arrived in the Kingdom of Congo shortly after the first Portuguese explorers reached its shores in 1483. Catholicism becomes state religion in 1506.

1508-12
Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Alex Proimos

1509 CE
The Battle of Diu in 1509, was the culmination of global trade and the beginning of Portuguese dominance of the Spice trade and the Indian Ocean.

1509 CE
The “great plague" afflicted various parts of England in 1509.

511 CE
The Portuguese annexed Malacca in August 1511.

1512 CE
Copernicus proclaims the sun the center of the solar system.

1513 CE
Niccolò Machiavell writes, "The Prince", a treatise on political power.

1513 CE
Jorge Álvares is the first European to reach China by sea during the Age of Discovery.

1516-17 CE

The Ottomans gain control of Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant.

1517 CE

Martin Luther nailed a list of grievances against the Catholic Church to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, 31 October 1517. The catalyst for the Protestant Reformation.

1518 CE
The documented outbreak of smallpox in 1518, in Hispaniola, was “the first epidemic of record”.

The sweating sickness was a mysterious and contagious disease that struck England and later, continental Europe in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. Death often occurred within hours.

1518 CE

The dancing plague, possibly a psychogenic illness, caused people to dance in the streets in Strasbourg, Alsace (now modern-day France). Between 50 and 400 people danced for days.

1519-22 CE

An expedition led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Elcano is the first to Circumnavigate the Earth.

1519 CE
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire begins.

1521 CE
The fall of Belgrade to the Ottoman Empire.

1521 CE

The Portuguese attempt to invade Ming Dynasty China.

1524 CE

Great Peasants' Revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525.

1526 CE
The Ottomans defeat the Kingdom of Hungary. 

1527 CE

The sack of the city of Rome and the end of the Italian Renaissance.

1529 CE

The Austrians defeat the Ottoman Empire. 

1534 CE

The Ottomans capture Baghdad.

1536 CE

Between 1536 and 1541, Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries, in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their income and disposed of their assets. The Church of England breaks away from the Roman Catholic Church.

1536 CE

The Inquisition was formally established in Portugal in 1536, after beginning in Spain some years earlier.

1536 CE
William Tyndale is burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English.

1562 CE

The French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots (Reformed/Calvinist Protestants) rage in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598.

1563 CE
Between 1563 and 1665, London experienced four plagues that each killed one fifth of the city's inhabitants. Bubonic plague epidemics originated in China in 1331.

1565 CE

Colonisation of the Phillipines began when Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi arrived from Mexico in 1565.

1566-1648
Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands.

1579 

Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world.

1583 CE

Located in Klampenborg, North of Copenhagen (Denmark), Bakken opened in 1583 and is the oldest operating amusement park in the world.

1585 CE

Colony at Roanoke founded in North America.

1586 CE

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England.

1588 CE
The English defeated the Spanish Armada's fleet of 130 ships sent by Spain in 1588 to invade England. 

Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588, c 1796

1590 CE

Shakespeare is believed to have written his very first play, Henry VI, Part One, 1590-91.

1592-1598 CE

Korea, with the help of the Chinese Ming Dynasty, repels two Japanese invasions.

1600 CE

The East India Company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600.

1601 CE

The Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills about one-third of Russias.

1603

First permanent Dutch trading post is established in Banten, West Java.

1606 CE

Captain Willem Janszoon and his crew aboard the ship Duyfken becomes the first recorded Europeans to sight and make landfall in Australia.

The 1999 replica of Duyfken under sail in c. 2006, Rupert Gerritsen

1607 CE

The first permanent English colony in North America is settled, at Jamestown, Virginia.

1609 CE
The Dutch East India Company establish a factory in Hirado, Japan.

1611

The first publication of the King James Bible.

1616 CE
In 1616, Dirk Hartog, sailing off course, en route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, landed on an island off Shark Bay, West Australia.

1619 CE

In 1619, the first 19 or so Africans to reach the English colonies arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia, near Jamestown, brought by English privateers, who seized them from a captured Portuguese slave ship.

1620
The first English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims from Plymouth, arrive on the Mayflower, to the New World in 1620.

1622 CE

Algonquian natives kill 347 English settlers outside Jamestown, Virginia (one-third of the colony's population).

1625 CE
New Amsterdam, a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan. In 1664, the English took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York City.

1625 CE

Charles I, was the king of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625, until his execution in 1649.

1626 CE
St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican completed.

1627 CE
In 1627 the south coast of Australia was accidentally discovered by François Thijssen, a Dutch explorer.

1632 CE

The Taj Mahal was built around 1632.

Taj Mahal, Agra © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons

1640 CE
Torture is outlawed in England.

1641 CE

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 led to sectarian killing, which still shapes Anglo-Irish politics today.

1641 CE

The first major philosopher of the early modern era, René Descartes, publishes Meditations on First Philosophy.

1642 CE

Abel Tasman, during his voyage in 1642, was the first known European expedition to reach Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) and New Zealand and to sight Fiji.

The Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam took place from the 16th through 18th centuries and turned Iran, which previously had a Sunni majority, into a Shia Islam majority.

1642 CE

The Roman Inquisition tried Galileo in 1633 and found him "vehemently suspect of heresy", sentencing him to indefinite imprisonment. Galileo was kept under house arrest until his death in 1642.

1642 CE

Beginning of English Civil War, conflict that will end in 1649 with the execution of King Charles I.

1643 CE

Louis XIV crowned King of France. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history.

1644 CE

The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming dynasty. The subsequent Qing dynasty rules until 1912.

1645-1669 CE

Ottoman war with Venice. The Ottomans invade Crete and capture Canea.

1647 CE

Seven-year-old Mehmed IV becomes sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

1647 CE

The Great Plague of Seville (1647–1652) was a massive outbreak of disease in Spain that killed up to a quarter of Seville's population.

1648 CE
The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.

1649-1653 CE

 The conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell.

1652 CE

Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa.

1660 CE

The Royal Society of London, for Improving Natural Knowledge, was founded on 28 November 1660.

1660 CE
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland took place in 1660, when King Charles II returned from exile in Europe.

1662 CE

Blaise Pascal invented the first public transit system in Paris in 1662, using horse drawn buses.

1662 CE

Sylva, by the English writer John Evelyn, was first presented in 1662, as a paper to the Royal Society. It was published as a book two years later in 1664, and it is recognised as one of the most influential texts on forestry ever published.

1665 CE

In 1665, Robert Hooke used a microscope about six inches long with two convex lenses and discovered cells.

1665 CE

The Great Plague, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. Originated in China in 1331.

1666 CE

The Great Fire of London swept through the central parts of the English city from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666.

1667-1699 CE

The Great Turkish War stops the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Europe.

1670 CE

The Hudson's Bay Company, a fur-trading enterprise headquartered in London, began operations on the shores of Hudson Bay in 1670. Founded in New France (Modern-day Canada).

1673 CE

Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek, using a single-lensed microscopes of his own design, was the first to experiment with microbes.

1675 CE

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK, was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II.

1682 CE

La Salle, a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America, claims Louisiana for France.

1683 CE

China conquers the Kingdom of Tungning and annexes Taiwan.

1687 CE

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a work in three books by Isaac Newton, in Latin, first published 5 July 1687, states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics; Newton's law of universal gravitation; and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion. 

Title page of "Principia", first edition (1687). Zhaladshar

1688 CE

The Revolution of 1688, was the deposition and subsequent replacement of James II and VII as ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland by his daughter Mary II and his Dutch nephew and Mary's husband, William III of Orange.

1689 CE,

A Letter Concerning Toleration, by John Locke, argues that having more religious groups actually prevent civil unrest. Locke also publishes Two Treatises of Government, which outlines Locke's ideas for a more civilized society based on natural rights and contract theory.

1689 CE

A border established between Russia and China.

1690 CE

The Battle of the Boyne, was a battle in 1690, between the Catholic James II and the Protestant William III, who had overthrown James as king of England.

1692 CE

Salem witch trials in Colonial Massachusetts.

1692-94 CE

Famine in France kills 2 million people.

1694 CE

The Bank of England was established in 1694.

1696-7 CE

Famine in Finland wipes out almost one-third of the population.

1698 CE

Thomas Savery invented the first commercially used steam powered device.

Fire pump, Savery system, 1698.PHGCOM

 

Short Outline of World History Timeline: 5th to 15th centuries/ Middle Ages

481 CE
Clovis who becomes King of the Franks 481 rules until 511. Converts to Christianity (AD. 496).

490 CE
Battle of Mount Badon and according to legend, British forces led by Arthur defeat the invading Saxons.

Buddhism reaches Burma and Indonesia.

527 CE
In 527, Justinian I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire, until 565. His legacy was the uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which is still the basis of civil law in many modern states. Under the Justinian Dynasty, particularly the reign of Justinian I, the Empire reached its largest territorial point, reincorporating North Africa, southern Illyria, southern Spain, and Italy into the Empire.

538 CE
Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Korea, either in 538 or 552 CE.

541 CE
The Plague of Justinian afflicted the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire and was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, with deaths of an estimated 25–100 million people during two centuries of recurrence (541–542 AD, with recurrences until 750).

570 CE
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was born in Mecca in Saudi Arabia in 570 CE.

597 AD
The first organised attempt to convert the British people to Christianity by Augustine in 597 AD.

622 CE
In 622, Muhammad flees to the town of Medina, known as the Hegira, Arabic for "flight." And so, the first year of the Islamic calendar began in 622 CE.

626 CE
The Siege of Constantinople in 626 by the Sassanid Persians and Avars.

658 CE

Cædmon, the earliest English poet whose name is known, who cared for the animals at the monastery Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey). Composed "Cædmon's Hymn" between 658 and 680 CE.

Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire, was founded in 657, Wilson44691

532 CE

Death of Muhammad.

638 CE

Jerusalem captured by the Arab army, mostly Muslims, but with contingents of Syrian Christians.

645 CE
The Soga clan falls in Japan.

674–678 CE

Islamic armies defeated at Constantinople, forestalling Islamic conquest of Europe.

698 CE
Byzantine rule in North Africa ends when Arabs destroy Carthage.

711 CE

Muslim army defeated the Visigoth army in Spain and by 720, Spain was largely under Muslim (Moorish) control.

712 CE

Buddhism in Pakistan took root some 2,300 years ago under the Mauryan king Ashoka. However, in 712 CE, Muslims established a state in Sind (modern day Pakistan).

732 CE
Battle of Tours halted the advancement of the Muslims (Moors) in southwestern Europe.

735 CE

The Venerable Bede, one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholars dies. He wrote many scientific, historical and theological works.

746 CE

Greeks take back Cyprus from the Arabs.

The Sanctuary and Temple of Apollo Hylates at Kourion, Cyprus

751 CE
The Battle of Talas, a military engagement between the Abbasid Caliphate, along with their ally, the Tibetan Empire, against the Chinese Tang dynasty. In July 751 AD. The Chinese were defeated and China's westward expansion came to an end.

757 CE
Offa was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757, until his death in July 796.

768 CE

Beginning of Charlemagne's reign. He was King of the Franks and later became the Holy Roman Emperor.

772 CE
From 772, Charlemagne conquers Saxony and forcibly converts Germanic pagans to Catholicism.

787 CE
The Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 in Nicaea, to restore the use and veneration of icons.

793 CE

Sack of Lindisfarne. Viking attacks on Britain begin. The first English monastery raided by Vikings was in 793 at Lindisfarne. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the Vikings as "heathen men".

794 CE

The Heian period, the last division of classical Japanese history begins, running from 794 to 1185.


Beowulf, an Old English epic poem, was produced between 975 and 1025.

795 CE

The first recorded Viking raid in Ireland occurred in 795 AD when the Vikings plundered and burned the church on Lambeg Island, Dublin.

796 CE

The death of Offa marks the end of Mercian supremacy in England.

By the late 8th century, the Muslim Empire had conquered all of Persia and parts of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) territory including Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.

814 CE

After Charlemagne died in 814. Europe was in chaos, as there was no central government. Around 900 CE, some nobles began building castles to protect their lands from Viking raids and also collecting taxes, enforcing laws and raising armies. This was the era of Feudalism. 

826 CE

Arabs conquer Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia, 826–827.

865 CE
Danish raiders first begin to settle in England.

868 CE
In the words of the British Library, "the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book, is the Diamond Sūtra, a Tang-dynasty Chinese version dated back to 11 May 868.

870 CE
Iceland was first settled around 870.

871 CE

King Alfred the Great ruled Wessex from 871 to 899 and successfully defendied his kingdom against Viking invaders.

882 CE
In 882 CE, Kievan Rus', a loose federation of East Slavic and Finnic peoples in Europe forms under the reign of the Varangian Rurik dynasty. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestors.

893 CE
One of the earliest surviving biographies was written by Asser, a Welsh monk, called the "Life of King Alfred", in 893 CE.

900 CE
End of the Classic Period of Maya history.

907 CE

Tang Dynasty ends and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms begins in China.

911 CE

The Viking Rollo and his tribe settle in what is now Normandy.

914 CE

Sri Kesari Warmadewa was the first king of Bali to leave a written inscription. He authored the inscription on the 914 CE Belanjong pillar. 

927 CE

King Aethelstan the Glorious unites the heptarchy of the Anglo-Saxon nations of Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria founding the Kingdom of England.

960 CE

Song Dynasty begins, China.

960 CE

Westminster Abbey was founded in London, England, in 960 CE. However, today's building dates from the reign of Henry III in the 13th century.

  

988 CE

Volodymyr I of Kiev makes Christianity the national religion (Ukraine, Russia).

1000 AD
The Japanese epic "The Tale of Genji" is often called the world’s first novel. Following the life and romances of Hikaru Genji. It was written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, just after 1000 AD.

1001 CE
Leif Erikson, the Norse explorer from Iceland, was the first known European to set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland).

1025 CE
An encyclopedia of medicine in five books is compiled by Persian Muslim physician-philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and completed in 1025.

1054 CE
The East-West Schism of 1054, was the break between what are now the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches. One major factor being the use of religious images, by the Western Church.

Construction on the Great Zimbabwe city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe began in the 11th century and continued until it was abandoned in the 15th century.

A closeup of Great Zimbabwe ruins, Macvivo

1066 CE

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades England and becomes king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 CE.

1077 CE

In 1077, construction begins on the Tower of London, on the north bank of the River Thames in central London.

1086 CE

Domesday Book, the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror.

1088 CE

The University of Bologna is founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (hence studiorum), it is the oldest university in the world.

1095 CE
The first of 9 major crusades, which would continue into late 13th century. to capture the Holy Land, and to repel the Seljuk Turks from the Byzantine Empire occurred in 1095 CE.

1096 CE

The University of Oxford began teaching as early as 1096 CE.

1119 CE

The Knights Templar were a Catholic military order founded in 1119, headquartered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 

1135 CE

The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1135 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. 

1150 CE

The University of Paris, known as the Sorbonne, emerged around 1150.

1154 CE

In 1154, Henry II institutionalised common law in England, by creating a unified court system "common" to the country.

1158 CE

The Hanseatic League, a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds, for northern and central Europe, was founded 1158.

1160 CE

Construction of Notre-Dame de Paris began in 1160.

1171 CE

King Henry II of England commenced the Norman invasion of Ireland, marking the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English and, later, British involvement in Ireland.

1192 CE

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan. He ruled from 1192 until 1199.

1215 CE

The Magna Carta, a charter of rights is agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, on 15 June 1215.

1237–1240 CE

The split of Kievan Rus' into three components (present day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) followed from the Mongol invasion of Europe.

1258 CE
The Siege of Baghdad by the Mongols, which lasted from January 29 until February 10, 1258, is considered to mark the end of the Islamic Golden Age.

1274 CE

The Summa Theologiae, the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential works of Western literature, published 1274.

1279 CE

All of China is under the rule of Kublai Khan as the emperor.

1296 CE

The English invasion of Scotland in 1296.

1299 CE

The Ottoman Empire is founded by Osman I and would last over 600 years.

1305 CE

Sir William Wallace, who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence was executed for treason.

1337 CE

The Hundred Years' War from 1337 to 1453, between the House of Plantagenet, rulers of England and the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France.

1346
The Black Death swept through the Middle East and Europe in the years 1346-1353. Believed to have wiped out as many as 50% of Europe's population by its end.

1364 CE
The first modern documented astrarium clock was completed in 1364 by Giovanni de' Dondi.

The astrarium made by Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio showed hour, year calendar, movement of the planets, Sun and Moon. Reconstruction, Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan.

1378 CE

The Western Schism, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417, in which two men (by 1410 three) simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and each excommunicated one another.

1380 CE

Chaucer begins to write The Canterbury Tales.

1381 CE

The Peasants' Revolt, a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381.

1389 CE

After the Battle of Kosovo in Serbia in 1389, the Turkish empire continued to spread over the Balkans, to finally reach Vienna.

1399 CE

End of Plantagenet Dynasty, beginning of the Lancaster lineage in England.

1405 CE

Zheng He, born Ma He, to a Muslim family in China, travels to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, and East Africa from 1405 to 1433.

1417 CE
In 1417, Pope Martin V becomes the pope and the Western Schism is resolved.

1429 CE

The battle at Orléans and Joan of Arc's role finally drive the English from continental Europe.

1434 CE

The rise of the Medici family in Florence.

The illusionism of The Arnolfini Portrait painted in 1434 was remarkable for its time.

Van Eyck - Arnolfini Portrait, 1434 oil painting

1438 CE

The Inca civilisation begins expanding and the Inca Empire is born.

1439 CE

Invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg.

Picture of a copy of the Gutenberg Bible owned by the US Library of Congress, taken by Mark Pellegrini

1443 CE

King Sejong of Korea, created hangul, the native phonetic writing system for the Korean language.

1453
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the Byzantine Empire's capital by the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453.

1464 CE
The Dardanelles Gun, was cast in bronze in 1464, by Munir Ali, Turkish military engineer.

1485 CE

"Le Morte d'Arthur" was first published in 1485 by William Caxton and is today one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature in English. 

1485 CE

The Battle of Bosworth Field, was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York.

1492 CE

Age of discovery begins when Christopher Columbus reaches the New World.

1494 CE

The Treaty of Tordesillas was an agreement between Portugal and Spain to divide ownership rights of land found outside of Europe between them.

1499 CE

The naval Battle of Zonchio, part of the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1499–1503, is the first naval battle that used cannons in ships. Ottoman fleet defeats Venetians.