Download General Timelines – World History

WORLD HISTORY
General Timelines – World History
Medieval 500-1400
Early Middle Ages 500-1000
High Middle Ages 1000-1300
Late Middle Ages 1300-1400
Renaissance 1400-1550
Reformation 1500-1600
Enlightenment 1650-1780
Age of Revolution 1780-1830
Age of Liberalism 1850-1910
World at War & Interwar Years 1910-1950
Modern History 1950-present
Ancient World
Before Writing
Billions of Years -- a scientific theory
Dinosaurs, Birds, and Survival -- 245 to 65 million years ago
Genes, Ageing and Evolution -- a theory natural selection and the lifespan of creatures
Biology, the Brain and History -- history versus biological determinism
Hunters, Gatherers, Farmers and Gods -- to 4001 BCE
Origins of War -- tribal raiding to empire
The Middle East and Africa
The Sumerians -- religious continuity, writing, conquest, a concept of sin and paradise
Africa and Egypt to 1750 BCE -- from south of the Sahara to civilization on the Nile
Sargon and the Vanishing Sumerians -- Mesopotamia, sin and the Amorites
Myths of Creation and a Great Flood -- literature surviving the Sumerians
Hammurabi : Babylon -- Hammurabi's conquests, dynasty and its fall to 1550
The Middle East to 1050 BCE -- Hyksos, Egyptians, Hittites, Hurrians and Aramaeans
From Abraham to David -- stories of Abraham, Moses and King David
Solomon, Prophets and Punishment to 640 BCE -- Israel to the "lost tribes" and the Assyrian Empire
Zoroastrians and Judaism to 400 BCE -- a Jewish state within the Persian Empire
Civilization in India
Ancient India and Hinduism to 1000 BCE -- lost civilization, invasion, conquest and caste
The Upanishads and India to 500 BCE -- new cities and attitudes
Jains and Buddhists to 450 BCE -- rebellion against Hinduism
Hindu Epic Literature -- the Ramayana and Mahabharata
The Maurya Empire and a Dark Age -- 320 BCE to 185 CE
The Gupta Empire and Hinduism -- to CE 550
The Far East
The Shang and Zhou Dynasties -- to 1000 BCE on the North China plain
Confucius, Taoists and Change, to 260 BCE -- argument and war
The Qin and Han Dynasties -- 350 BCE to CE 306
China and Korea, 300 to CE 500 -- Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, disintegration and rule by murder
The Ancient Japanese -- 300 BCE to CE 500
Greeks, Alexander, Hellenism and Jews
Europe before 1000 BCE -- agriculture, the Mycenae Greeks, Minoans and a dark age
The Greeks to 480 BCE -- Homer, class rule and the birth of philosophy
Ancient Greeks, Democracy and Decline -- to the 300s BCE
Ideas from Anaxagoras to Aristotle -- 480 to 322 BCE
Alexander the Great -- 356 to 323 BCE
Alexander's Empire Disintegrates -- to 246 BCE
Hellenistic Societies to 222 BCE -- trade, diffusions, prosperity and misery
Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics and Skeptics -- 400 to 200 BCE
Jews, the Septuagint and Tradition -- to 200 BCE
Rome, Jews and Christians
The Rise of Rome -- 753 to 221 BCE
Roman Empire, Republic and Politics by Violence -- to 79 BCE
Judea and Civil War -- 150 to 63 BCE
From Republic to Emperor Augustus -- 73 BCE to CE 14
Jews and Christians in Rome's Golden Age --- the Essenes, Jesus, and Christianity organizes
Family Rule from Tiberius to Nero -- CE 14 to 65
Rome, from Golden Age to Political Chaos -- from prosperity to decay under the Severans
Rome's Decline and Christianity's Ascent -- to CE 306
Rome's Christian Emperors -- to CE 410
Augustine Influences Christianity -- to CE 420
Remnants of the Roman Empire to CE 500 -- Rome disintegrates
Persia under the Sassanids
Ardashir and the Persians, to CE 241 -- Persian culture and the Sassanid Empire begins
Manichaeism, a Universalist Faith -- CE 210 to 276 the Zoroastrian priesthood against religious innovation
The Sassanids to CE 500 -- Shapur the Great, war, weakness, communist revolution, and defeat
Africa, Oceania and America
The Americas to 1000 BCE -- and benefits prior to agriculture
Southeast Asia and Oceania to 1000 BCE -- migrations
Africa, Iron and Empire to CE 500 -- aggressions, migrations, iron and empire
The Americas, Southeast Asia and Oceania to CE 500 -- migrations, order, disorder and demise
Middle Ages
Making Way for Islam
Justinian's War for the Second Coming -- 501 to 565 CE
Persia and Constantinople Make Way for Islam -- CE 541 to 630
Islam to CE 680 -- Muhammad the Prophet, expansion and successions
Islam, Fragmentation and Core Beliefs, to CE 1200 -- Abbasids and a Golden Age
Early Medieval Europe
Darkness and Monasteries: Europe in the 500s -- demons, ordeals, medicine by prayer, violence
Slavs, Bulgars, and Magyars, to 927 -- into the Balkans
Spain to CE 1000 -- from the Visigoths to Muslims and Europe's leading city, Córdoba
Britain, from Arthur to William of Normandy -- to 1066
Continental Europe to 1054 -- Charlemagne and problems within Christianity
Asians to the Conquest of Constantinople
India, from 501 to 1200 -- Islam arrives
Japan, 501 CE to the mid-1100s -- from Shinto vs Buddhism through the Asuka, Nara and Heian periods
Medieval Japan to 1333 -- the Kamakura period
China to 1126 -- Bloody struggles, Confucianists vs Taoists vs Buddhists, the Sui and Song dynasties
Ghengis Khan and the Mongols -- to the gates of Vienna and conquest of China (edited Jan/2008)
China from the Mongols to the Ming -- withdrawal as a great power
The Mamelukes -- out of chaos a succession of Islamic warlords
Timur (Tamerlane) -- rise to power, conquest and mosque building
The Turks, Balkans and Constantinople, to 1500 -- the Ottomans into Thrace, the Balkans and
Constantinople
Christendom, Africa and the Americas, to CE 1500
Europe, the Church and Economic Growth to 1300 -- plague, crusades, heretics, ideas and medieval
barbarity
Europe and the Terrible 1300s -- plague, depopulation, intellectual change, war, the end of chivalry
Europe in the 1400s -- more Hunred Years' War, growth of the state and travel on the sea
African Empires to CE 1500 -- the kingdom of Askum and Africa in general (edited Feb/2008)
Maya, Aztec, Inca, Inuit: before Columbus -- to CE 1500
16th-19th Centuries
Europe, Africa and the Americas
Europeans and Africans in the 1500s -- maritime trade to Asia and Africa
Spain into the Americas, to 1600 -- guns and germs from South America to New Mexico
The Portuguese in America, to 1600 -- Brazil, conquest and slavery
Martin Luther's Revolution, to 1530 -- discontent, Luther's protest and spread of the movement.
Religious Wars in France, 1530 to 1610 -- to the toleration championed by Henry IV
Europe in Conflict, 1523 to 1588 -- England, the continent, Protestantism and power conflicts
The Mid-East and India
Iran, the Safavids and Ottomans, to 1629 -- Shia and Sunni Muslims
The Last of the Safavids, to 1722 -- Iran, from Shah Abbas I to dynastic and military decline
India, Mughals, Sikhs and Europeans, to 1700 -- India fragmented and violent
Decline of Islamic and Ottoman Power, to 1700 -- economic stagnation and military decline
The Far East to 1700
China from Ming to Qing -- integration, rebellion, conquest
Japan, 1333 to 1700 -- the economy and wars for power among landowners
Korea's Joseon Dynasty -- monarchy from the 1390s, Japan's intrusion and independence
The Indonesian Archipelago, to 1700 -- Hindus, Muslims and the Dutch
The Americas, Europe and Africa to 1700
Latin America to 1700 -- including New Mexico, Texas and the Portuguese in Brazil
The Thirty Years' War -- 1618-48, origins, witches, pogroms, Peace of Westphalia
European Literature and Science, to Galileo --- 1580 to 1642, from Shakespeare to the astronomers
The Dutch against Tradition, to 1700 -- prosperity and a modern liberal order
Stagnation and Decline in Spain -- the landed and their value dominate
England, from King James I to Charles II -- civil war and the road to tolerance and liberalism
England from Charles II to Isaac Newton -- William and Mary, Hobbes, Locke and Newton
Russia before Peter the Great -- troubles, women and economic inferiority
The French, Dutch and English in America -- north from Florida, 1550 to 1700
African Empires, Slavery and Europeans, 1550 to 1700 -- empires of blacks and white intrusions
War and Revolution in Europe and America
Britain, France and the Enlightenment -- politics, religion and science in the 1700s
Sweden, Russia and the Great Northern War, to 1740 -- failure and a new age of liberty in Sweden
War and 18th Century Europe -- what monarch rules where
The American Revolution -- 1707 to 1791, from social change to ratification of the Constitution
First Barbary War -- U.S. policies from 1770s to 1805, and Marines to the shores of Tripoli
The French Revolution -- France in the 1700s (edited Jan/2008)
Napoleonic Era in Europe and the Americas, to 1815
Britain and Ireland, 1779 to 1803 -- dissent and rebellion
Haiti, 1789 to 1806 -- great hopes
War of 1812 -- Britain and the United States
Napolean's Wars, Mistakes and Fall -- too close to the sun
Conservative Order and Social Upheaval in Europe
New Conservative Order to 1820 -- an alliance of victors against change
The Greek War of Independence -- massacres, divisions and big power intervention
Revolt and Reaction to the 1830s -- Spain, Russia, Germany, Belgium, Poland and France.
Revolutions of 1848 -- 1840 to 1848, discontent
Revolutions Lost, 1848 -- coalitions divide
Reaction and Reform to 1850 -- conservatives win
The World and Imperialism to the 1860s
World Economies and Rise of the West -- world economies and rise of the West
Africa and Slavery, 1801 to 1860 -- empire, trade, Boers, and guns to Africans
Imperialism to the Crimean War -- British, Dutch, the Middle East, China, Russia
India's Sepoy Mutiny -- 1857-58, an attempt at independence
The Taiping Rebellion and Second Opium War -- China, 1842 to 1870, still under Manchu rule
Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand, to 1870 -- the West in Oceania
The Americas to the 1860s
Independence in Latin America -- 1808-1839 (edited Jan/2008)
Canada and the United States, 1814 to 1846 -- the U.S. to Jackson; rebellion and reform in Canada
The Mexican War and U.S. Expansion to the Pacific -- 1836-48
Antebellum and Civil War in the United States -- 1845-65
Ideas in the 1800s
Adam Smith, Socialists and Liberals -- 1750 to 1883, economics, society and ideas
Health, Geology, Biology, Sociology, to 1900 -- science, Darwin, intelligent design and atheism
Religion, Philosophy and History, 1801-1900 -- orthodoxy versus new ideas
Power, Nationalism and Imperialism to 1900
The United States, 1865 to 1900 -- reconstruction, westward expansion and economic development
Russia and Empire, 1856 to 1903 -- tsars, student revolutionaries and bomb throwers
Japan from Tokugawa to Meiji -- power struggles, Confucianism, Shinto and Buddhism
Nationalism and Empire in Europe, 1850 to 1900 -- unifications, the Balkans, wars, the Paris Commune
Britain Overseas and in Ireland, 1865 to 1885 -- Jamaica, the Middle East, Africa, Ireland
Class and Economic Progress in Europe, 1850 to 1900 -- wages, status, economics and prospect for
revolution
European Imperialism to 1900 -- scramble for colonies, Kipling, and attempts to explain imperialism
The United States and Empire, to 1899 -- bird droppings, trade, Hawaii, and war with Spain
1946 – Present
Victors and Colonialism
Victors against the Defeated -- retributions, expropriations, occupations
The United Nations -- founding, purpose
The U.S. and British in Asia, to 1960 -- withdrawal from colonialism
Independence for Indonesia -- the Dutch fight but lose a colony
French Colonialism -- Madagascar, North and Subsaharan Africa, Indochina and Algeria
Black Africans into the Sixties -- socialism and free enterprise
The Cold War into the Sixties
The Cold War Begins -- Truman, Stalin, Mao
Ronald Reagan in Hollywood -- Reagan versus communists
The Korean War -- occupation, China intervenes, negotiations
The Cold War, 1953-60 -- Eastern Europe, nuclear terror, Cold War mindsets
Cuba, Castro and Eisenhower -- Castro overthrows Batista, Eisenhower responds
Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs -- Illusions and failure
Cuban Missile Crisis -- a disagreement over what is defensive and offensive
Kennedy Assassination -- Lee Harvey Oswald
Che Guevara, 1960-67 -- revolutionary, Bolivia and death
Anti-Communism and Military Regimes in Greece and Indonesia
Democracy and Dictatorship in Greece -- to 1974
Indonesia and the Great Slaughter -- Sukarno loses power, 1965 to 1967
More Latin America, into the 21st century
Latin America into the 1960s -- general
Guatemala into the 1950s -- from Ubico, to the overthrow of Arbenz and the Armas regime
The Dominican Republic, Trujillo Juan Bosch -- the struggle for democracy
Brazil into the 1960s -- from Getulio Vargas to the overthrow of João Goulart
Juan Peron and Argentina -- coup, Eva, decline and fall (edited Feb/2008)
Argentina, 1966-88 -- military dictatorship, murder and disappearance (edited Feb/2008)
Chile to the Overthrow of Allende -- 1932 to 1973
The Rule of Augusto Pinochet -- Chile, 1973 to 1989
Nicaragua to 1990 -- Somoza dictatorship, the Sandinistas and the United States
Civil War in El Salvador -- El Salvador from the early 1930s to 1992
Guatemala to the 21st century -- Civil war and democracy, from Reagan to Clinton
India and Pakistan to the 21st century
Untouchable in India: Bhimroa Ramji Ambedkar -- a leader who lived from 1891 to 1956.
India and Pakistan to 1966 -- democratic India, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
India and Pakistan to 2002 -- Kashmir, Hindus and Muslims, Pakistan's Sharif and Musharraf
Japan and China
Japan's Economic Recovery -- from hunger to economic boom
Mao's China -- leaps, Sino-Soviet dispute, Red guards and capitalist roaders
China under New Leadership -- Deng Xiaoping, Tiananmen troubles, ten years later
Racial Equality, Vietnam, and Unrest in the U.S. and Europe
The United States and Equal Rights, 1947-65 -- the human rights movement
The United States and Vietnam -- French and U.S. involvements, postwar opinions
Failed Radicals in Europe and Japan -- unrest in France, Germany, Italy, Japan's Mishima
The Sixties and Seventies from Berkeley to Woodstock -- Berkeley, the Panthers, dissipation
Jonestown -- Jim Jones takes his people to mass suicide
Africa into the 1990s
Idi Amin Dada Oumee -- Uganda to 1979
The Continent of Africa -- from the 1980s, population, politics and economies in general
Socialist Experiment in Tanzania -- to 1985
South Africa and the End of Apartheid -- from the 1960s to 1994
Algeria and Civil War -- the early 1990s
Rwanda and Ethnic Quotas -- from the 1960s to 1994
Children at War in Liberia and Sierra Leone -- Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor, to 2003
New Directions in the West and East Europe
Religion from Vatican II to Hare Krishna -- new values, conservatism, diffusions and gurus
Political Conservatives in the West -- Hayek, Kirk, Strauss, Buckley, Ayn Rand, Reagan, Thatcher, Spain,
Sweden
The Soviet Union Disintegrates -- Brezhnev, Gorbachev and reforms, freedoms in 1989 (edited Feb/2008)
Yugoslavia Disintegrates -- 1919 to the war in Kosovo
The Middle East
Arabs and Jews to 1950 -- from World War II to the creation of Israel
Jews Flee Arabic Homelands -- attacks on Jews and the disappearance of ancient communities
Muslims and Israelis to the 1967 War -- Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Western intellectuals, Nasser, crises
Israel, Occupation and Violence, 1967-76 -- Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Yon Kipper War,
terror
Saudi Arabia, to the 1970s and Beyond -- modernization, 1974 oil embargo, foreign relations
The Iranian Revolution -- the Shah against dissent, victory for Islamic reactionaries
The Siege of Mecca and the Birth of al Qaeda -- summary of a book by Yaroslav Trofimov
Muslims and Israelis, 1976-88 -- Camp David, the U.S. in Lebanon, war in Afghanistan, intifada
Israelis and Palestinians, 1991 to 2000 -- Rabin, Suicide bombers, Arafat, Netanyaho, Barak and Sharon
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to 2000 -- from Afghanistan to the attack on the U.S.S. Cole
Saddam Hussein and War in 1991 -- from rise to power to Gulf War One
The Road to Gulf War Two, 1991-2000 -- Saddam Hussein and Iraq during the Clinton administration.
The Road to Gulf War Two, 2001 to March 2003 -- Road to war during the Bush administration.
Occupation versus Liberation -- Baghdad from April to September 2003
Ideological Trends into the 21st Century
Knowledge, Science, and Religion -- creationism, soul, epistemology, fundamentalism, change
Economic and Political Philosophy -- organizing and distributing wealth, the state, fanaticism.
The Linguistics Wars -- Biology, Communication and Clarity, from Chomsky to Lakoff and Pinker.
Major U.S. History Supreme Court Cases
1803
Marbury v. Madison was the first instance in which a law passed by Congress was declared unconstitutional. The
decision greatly expanded the power of the Court by establishing its right to overturn acts of Congress, a power not
explicitly granted by the Constitution. Initially the case involved Secretary of State James Madison, who refused to seat
four judicial appointees although they had been confirmed by the Senate.
1819
McCulloch v. Maryland upheld the right of Congress to create a Bank of the United States, ruling that it was a power
implied but not enumerated by the Constitution. The case is significant because it advanced the doctrine of implied
powers, or a loose construction of the Constitution. The Court, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, would sanction laws
reflecting “the letter and spirit” of the Constitution.
1824
Gibbons v. Ogden defined broadly Congress's right to regulate commerce. Aaron Ogden had filed suit in New York
against Thomas Gibbons for operating a rival steamboat service between New York and New Jersey ports. Ogden had
exclusive rights to operate steamboats in New York under a state law, while Gibbons held a federal license. Gibbons lost
the case and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision. The Court held that the New York law
was unconstitutional, since the power to regulate interstate commerce, which extended to the regulation of navigation,
belonged exclusively to Congress. In the 20th century, Chief Justice John Marshall's broad definition of commerce was
used to uphold civil rights.
1857
Dred Scott v. Sandford was a highly controversial case that intensified the national debate over slavery. The case
involved Dred Scott, a slave, who was taken from a slave state to a free territory. Scott filed a lawsuit claiming that
because he had lived on free soil he was entitled to his freedom. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney disagreed, ruling that
blacks were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Taney further inflamed antislavery forces by
declaring that Congress had no right to ban slavery from U.S. territories.
1896
Plessy v. Ferguson was the infamous case that asserted that “equal but separate accommodations” for blacks on
railroad cars did not violate the “equal protection under the laws” clause of the 14th Amendment. By defending the
constitutionality of racial segregation, the Court paved the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws of the South. The lone
dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, protested, “The thin disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations…will not
mislead anyone.”
1954
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka invalidated racial segregation in schools and led to the unraveling of de jure
segregation in all areas of public life. In the unanimous decision spearheaded by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court
invalidated the Plessy ruling, declaring “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place”
and contending that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Future Supreme Court justice Thurgood
Marshall was one of the NAACP lawyers who successfully argued the case.
1963
Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteed a defendant's right to legal counsel. The Supreme Court overturned the Florida felony
conviction of Clarence Earl Gideon, who had defended himself after having been denied a request for free counsel. The
Court held that the state's failure to provide counsel for a defendant charged with a felony violated the Fourteenth
Amendment's due process clause. Gideon was given another trial, and with a court-appointed lawyer defending him, he
was acquitted.
1964
New York Times v. Sullivan extended the protection offered the press by the First Amendment. L.B. Sullivan, a police
commissioner in Montgomery, Ala., had filed a libel suit against the New York Times for publishing inaccurate information
about certain actions taken by the Montgomery police department. In overturning a lower court's decision, the Supreme
Court held that debate on public issues would be inhibited if public officials could sue for inaccuracies that were made by
mistake. The ruling made it more difficult for public officials to bring libel charges against the press, since the official had
to prove that a harmful untruth was told maliciously and with reckless disregard for truth.
1966
Miranda v. Arizona was another case that helped define the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. At the center of
the case was Ernesto Miranda, who had confessed to a crime during police questioning without knowing he had a right to
have an attorney present. Based on his confession, Miranda was convicted. The Supreme Court overturned the
conviction, ruling that criminal suspects must be warned of their rights before they are questioned by police. These rights
are: the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and, if the suspect cannot afford an attorney, to have one
appointed by the state. The police must also warn suspects that any statements they make can be used against them in
court. Miranda was retried without the confession and convicted.
1973
Roe v. Wade legalized abortion and is at the center of the current controversy between “pro-life” and “pro-choice”
advocates. The Court ruled that a woman has the right to an abortion without interference from the government in the first
trimester of pregnancy, contending that it is part of her “right to privacy.” The Court maintained that right to privacy is not
absolute, however, and granted states the right to intervene in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
1978
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that providing
greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. In other words, affirmative
action was unfair if it lead to reverse discrimination. The case involved the University of Calif., Davis, Medical School and
Allan Bakke, a white applicant who was rejected twice even though there were minority applicants admitted with
significantly lower scores than his. A closely divided Court ruled that while race was a legitimate factor in school
admissions, the use of rigid quotas was not permissible.
2003
Grutter v. Bollinger upheld the University of Michigan Law School's consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions. In
her majority opinion, Justice O'Connor said that the law school used a “highly individualized, holistic review of each
applicant's file.” Race, she said, was not used in a “mechanical way.” Therefore, the university's program was consistent
with the requirement of “individualized consideration” set in 1978's Bakke case. “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with
legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified
individuals of every race and ethnicity,” O'Connor said. However, the court ruled that the University of Michigan's
undergraduate admissions system, which awarded 20 points to black, Hispanic, and American-Indian applicants, was
“nonindividualized, mechanical,” and thus unconstitutional.
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