World Historical Timeline

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World Historical Timeline

It will be convenient to have a timeline of the major world events that I can refer to in my posts. Please let me know any errors that you may see. My goal is to provide a consistent and accurate timeline.

Note: I used c. to denote circa or about

I have added descriptive links to some events, and will try to add more links in the future.

Date

Event

Before 10k BCE

WebLink: WIKI: Last Ice Age

3.1k BCE

First king of Egypt, King Menes

2.5k BCE

WebLink: WIKI: Mohenjo Daro civilization in India

2.1k - 1.6k BCE

WebLink: WIKI: The Xia Dynasty of China

Before 1.7k BCE

Abraham came to Jerusalem from Ur (Old Testament)

1.4k BCE

City of Troy, kingdom of Crete, and other Greek cities

1.4k - 0.9k BCE

Olmec civilization in Mexico

776 BCE

First Olympiad

558-530 BCE

Cyrus ruled North India

Until 536 BCE

Daries I, II, III ruled North India; until Chandagupta, Persian and Greek kings ruled North India

563-483 BCE

Buddha Gotama

470-399 BCE

Philosopher Socrates

538 BCE

Old Testament was written

424-348 BCE

Plato: First Western philosopher whose writings survived intact

384 - 322 BCE

Aristotle: student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great

c. 333 BCE

Emperor Alexander's Empire peaks

323 - 325 BCE

Alexander the Great in India

268-231 BCE

Emperor Asoka ruled North India

307-276 BCE

King Devanampiyatissa in Sri Lanka

247 BCE

Ven. Mahinda in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

41 BCE

Beginning of the Roman Empire

29 BCE

Tipiṭaka written down in Sri Lanka

6–4 BC to 30–33 AD

Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ

31 BCE

Augustus becomes the first Roman Emperor and ruled until 14 CE

c. 150-250 CE

WebLink: WIKI: Life of Nagarjuna; considered to be the founder of Mahāyāna Buddhism

After 200 CE

Roman empire starts to decline

4th century CE

Buddhism introduced to Korea

380 CE

Christianity became the official religion in Roman empire

5th century CE

Burma adopts Theravāda Buddhism

412-434 CE

Buddhaghosa arrives in Sri Lanka and writes Visuddhimagga

552 CE

Buddhism enters Japan from Korea

589 CE

First Chinese commentaries written

586 CE

Beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe with the decay of the Roman empire

6th century CE

First diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet

570-632 CE

Prophet Muhammad

622 CE - (1258-1492) CE

WebLink: WIKI: Islamic Golden Age

618-907 CE

Chinese T’ang dynasty; golden age of Buddhism in China

1215 CE

King John signs the Magna Carta granting rights to English citizens

1280

WebLink: WIKI: Eyeglasses invented in Italy

c. 1420 - c. 1600

Renaissance in Europe starting in Florence, Italy

1450

Gutenberg in Germany invents the printing press

1492

Modern Age begins with the arrival of Columbus in America

1564–1642

Galileo Galilei

1596–1650

Rene Descartes

1610

Galelio announces observation of mountains on the Moon and the existence of four planets.

1642

Adding machine invented by Blaise Pascal

1643–1727

Isaac Newton

c. 1650 - c. 1800

WebLink: WIKI: European "Enlightenment"

1662

Fermat's Principle of Least Time

1678

Huygens' wave theory

1687

Newton published Principia Mathematica

1688

English revolution

1698

Steam engine invented by Thomas Savery

1749–1827

P.S. de Laplace

1774

Priestly isolates oxygen

1776

America declares independence from England

1789

French revolution period

1791

Steamboat invented by John Fitch

1798

Vaccination invented by Edward Jenner

1804

Locomotive invented by Richard Trevithick

1809–1882

Charles Darwin

1816

Huygens–Fresnel principle explaining light interference

1821

Faraday demonstrates the principle of the electric motor

1822

Charles Babbage designs his first mechanical computer

1826

Photography invented by Joseph Nicephore Niepce

1834

Refrigerator invented by Jacob Perkins

1835

Morse code invented by Samuel Morse

1837

American Samuel Morse invented telegraph

1842

Anaesthesia invented by Crawford Long

1843

Typewriter invented by Charles Thurber

1846

Rotary printing press invented by Richard M. Hoe

1859

Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

1868

Poisson explained Young's double slit experiment with Huygens–Fresnel principle

1869

Mendeleev produces the Periodic Table

1873

Maxwell states the laws of electro-magnetic radiation

1877

Phonograph invented by Thomas Alva Edison;Microphone invented by Emile Berliner

1878

Edison invents the incandescent lamp

1883

First skyscraper built in Chicago (ten stories)

1888

Hertz produces radio waves

1893

Wireless communication invented by Nikola Tesla

1895

Diesel engine invented by Rudolf Diesel

1898

Remote control invented by Nikola Tesla

1900

Planck develops quantum theory

1901

Vacuum cleaner invented by Hubert Booth

1903

Powered airplane invented by Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright

1905

Einstein proved that photon is a particle

1905

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

1907

Color photography invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere

1908

Henry Ford mass-produces the Model T

1919

London to Paris air service begins

1923

Sound film invented by Lee DeForest

1923

Edwin Hubble discovers the first galaxy other than Milky Way

1928

Antibiotics, penicillin invented by Alexander Fleming

1937

Jet engine invented by Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain

1937

Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine

1945

The atomic bomb

1951

Nuclear power reactor invented by Walter Zinn

1957

Sputnik I and Sputnik II: Sputnik I and Sputnik II are launched by the Russians

1958

The first integrated circuit, or silicon chip, is produced by the US Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce

1960

Laser invented by Theodore Harold Maiman

1961

Uri Gagarin is the first man in space

1965

The Big Bang theory confirmed by Penzias and Wilson

1969

Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon

1971

E-mail invented by Ray Tomlinson

1971

Floppy Disk invented by David Noble with IBM

1973

Ethernet invented by Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs

1973

Personal computer invented by Xerox PARC

1983

Camcorder invented by Sony

1990

World Wide Web invented by Tim Berners-Lee

2001

WebLink: WIKI: World center attack

2001

Digital satellite radio

2003

WebLink: WIKI: Completion of the Human Genome Project

2008

WebLink: NASA: Discovery of ice on Mars

2014

First comet landing

2014

WebLink: NASA completes a successful test flight of Orion spacecraft for future trips to Mars

2014

WebLink: INTERNETLIVESTATS: Number of websites on the internet reached 1 billion