Download Major Dates and Turning Points

Major Dates/Turning Points in World History
(These dates give preference to political events/interactions…keep that in mind)
Period 1
- 250,000 years ago: migrations out of Africa
- 12,000 BCE: Humans begin settlements
- 10,000 BCE: Agricultural Revolution
- 3500 BCE: First civilization in Mesopotamia (Sumerians)
Period 2
- 500s-300s BCE: Chinese belief systems emerge (Daoism, Legalism, Confucianism)
- 500s – 400s BCE: Establishment of Buddhism
- 330s and 320s BCE: Alexander the Great
- 27 BCE: Establishment of the Roman Empire (Emperor Augustus)
- 330s CE and after: Adoption of Christianity in Roman Empire (Constantine,
Theodosius)
- 476 CE: Fall of the Western Roman Empire
- 220 CE: Fall of the Han Dynasty
- 300s CE and after: Establishment of Buddhism in China
- 250-900 CE: “Golden Age” of the Mayans
Period 3
- 622 and after: Establishment and spread of Islam
- 1258: Mongols sack Baghdad (end of Abbasid Empire)
- 1453: Ottomans conquer Constantinople (end of Byzantine Empire)
- 1200-1450: Time of the Mongols
- 800s: Printing invented in China
- 1000s: Gunpowder invented in China
- Early 1400s: Zheng He’s maritime expeditions
- 1340s: Worst wave of Black Death
- 1095: First Crusade launched
- 1054: Official split of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy
- 600s-1300s: Feudalism in Japan and Europe
Period 4
- 1492: Columbus reached the Americas for Spain
- 1498: Vasco da Gama reached the Indian Ocean for Portugal
- 1520s and 1530s: Spanish conquests in the Americas
- 1500-1800: Russian Expansion/Conquests
- 1600s: British East India Company arrives in India
- 1500-1800: Sugar Trade, Silver Trade, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Columbian
Exchange
- 1517: Protestant Reformation in Europe (Martin Luther)
- 1600s and 1700s: Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment in Europe
Period 5
- 1789: French Revolution (and the beginnings of Nationalism)
- 1780s: Industrial Revolution begins in Britain
- Early 1800s: Abolition movement in Britain
- 1871: Establishment of Germany as a nation-state
- 1875-1900: Scramble for Africa (colonization)
- Early 1800s: Independence revolutions in Latin America
- 1888: Brazil abolishes slavery (the last to do so in the Americas)
- 1858: Indian Rebellion (after which the British government takes direct control of
India from the British East India Company)
- 1840-1900: Ottoman Reforms (Tanzimat, Young Ottomans, Young Turks)
- 1840s and 1850s: Opium Wars (2 of them, China loses)
- 1850-1864: Taiping Uprising/civil war in China
- 1860-1900: Spheres of Influence established in China
- 1899-1901: Boxer Rebellion in China
- 1853: Matthew Perry “opens up” Japan to the West
- 1870-early 1900s: Meiji Restoration and Industrialization in Japan
Period 6
- 1914-1918: World War I
- 1929-1940s: Great Depression
- 1933-1945: Hitler
- 1937: World War II in Asia begins
- 1939: World War II in Europe begins
- 1945: End of World War II
- 1923: Turkey established by Ataturk
- 1917: Communist Revolution in Russia
- 1991: Soviet Union falls (and the Cold War ends)
- 1911: Qing Dynasty collapses
- 1949: China becomes Communist (Mao Zedong in charge)
- 1976 to present: Deng Xiaoping in charge and economic “opening up” and growth
- 1947: Partition of India/Pakistan
- 1950s and 1960s: Decolonization in Africa
- 1994: End of Apartheid in South Africa