Ptolemy

[Birth]

Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, & geographer who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. One of his books canonized a geocentric model of the Universe that was accepted for more than 1,200 years until Copernicus.

Euclid

[Died (circa)]

His Elements served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the early 20th century.

Euclid

[Born (circa)]

His Elements served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the early 20th century.

Pythagoras

[Death]

Pythagoras influenced Plato, whose dialogues, especially his Timaeus, exhibit Pythagorean teachings.

Bologna university

[Created]

It is the oldest university in continuous operation in the world, and the first degree-awarding institution of higher learning.central role in the sciences during the Italian renaissance. It's alumni include Dante Alighieri, Nicholas Copernicus and Umberto Eco.

Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press

Descartes

[Birth]

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist who invented analytic geometry, linking the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra. Descartes has often been called the father of modern philosophy, and is largely seen as responsible for the increased attention given to epistemology in the 17th century. He laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Spinoza and Leibniz, and was later opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

Bacon's Inductive Reasoning

[Introduced]

Francis Bacon published a book, Novum Organum, and suggested that a (complex form of) inductive reasoning based on careful, empirical observations. This was influential in the develoment of the scientific method.

Isaac Newton

[Born]

Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.

Royal Society

[Created]

The Royal Society is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles, including promoting science and its benefits. It was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world.

Newton’s Principia

[Published]

Newcomen atmospheric engine

[Start]

The start of the steam era. The engine was operated by condensing steam drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating a partial vacuum which allowed the atmospheric pressure to push the piston into the cylinder. Watt's engine improved the (inefficient) design considerably.

A Treatise of Human Nature - David Hume

[Published]

A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Impressed by Isaac Newton's achievements in the physical sciences, Hume sought to introduce the same experimental method of reasoning into the study of human psychology, with the aim of discovering the "extent and force of human understanding".

Euler

[Death]

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus.

Smallpox Vaccine

[Developed]

The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. On this date, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated.

James Clerk Maxwell

[Birth]

Responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon.

Gregor Mendel's laws of inheritance

[Formulated]

Was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot. He established many of the rules of heredity, founding the modern science of genetics.

Four-stroke engine

[Created]

In this year, Otto commercialised the first internal combustion engine - a four-stroke engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft.

Edison Light Bulb

[Invented]

Edison's carbon-filament incandescent light bulbs, the first electric light bulbs, were demonstrated and became commercially available on this date. Tungsten filaments were invented elsewhere 25 years later.

James Clerk Maxwell

[Death]

Responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon.

Louis Pasteur

[Death]

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health and much of modern medicine.

Dante Alighieri

[Birth]

His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio,[6] is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin.

Dante Alighieri

[Death]

His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio,[6] is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin.

Italian Renaissance

[From]

Approximate dates. Sometimes called the Long Rennaisance. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.

Canterbury tales

[Published]

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. Unfinished at time of death.

Leonardo Da Vinci

[Born]

Was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. His magnum opus, the Mona Lisa, is his best known work and often regarded as the world's most famous painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

By the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. Date approximate.

Raphael

[Death]

Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Shakespeare

[Born]

Was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

Baroque Period

[Start]

.

Velasquez

[Birth]

A Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period.

Rembrandt van Rijn

[Born]

A Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman.

Shakespeare

[Died]

Was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

Velasquez

[Death]

A Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period.

Rembrandt van Rijn

[Died]

A Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman.

Gulliver's Travels

[Published]

Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a prose satire by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.

Johann Sebastian Bach

[Death]

German composer and musician of the late Baroque period.

Candide

[Date of Publication]

A satire by Voltaire, featuring Professor Pangloss.

Amadeus Mozart

[Death]

A prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire.

Pride and Prejudice

[Published]

Written by Jane Austen

Frankenstein

[Published]

Mary Shelley, Percy. B Shelley and Lord Byron each tried to write the best horror story. Hers inspired by Galvanism.

A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens

[Published]

Charles Dickens wrote this.

Richard Wagner

[Death]

German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas.

Nintendo

[Created]

Nintendo was founded as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards.

Treasure Island

[Published]

An adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, telling a story of "buccaneers and buried gold". The novel was originally serialised two years earlier.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

[Published]

A dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale by English writer George Orwell. Orwell, a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian state in the novel on Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.

Virgil

[Death]

An ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. One of Rome's greatest poets.

Aeneid

[Published]

A Latin epic poem, written by Virgil, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans.

Al-Andalus

[Start]

Al-Andalus was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula, the former Islamic states in modern Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula. It became a major educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

Alfred the Great

[Death]

Was King of the West Saxons, and then King of the Anglo-Saxons, until his death. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England. After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English, rather than Latin.

First Crusade

[End]

The first of a series of religious wars, it was initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by this time the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself.

Cosimo de' Medici Ruling Florence

[Start Rule]

An Italian banker and politician who established the Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth as a banker, and inter-marriage with other powerful and rich families. He was a patron of arts, learning and architecture. He spent over 600,000 gold florins(approx. $500 million inflation adjusted) on art and culture, including Donatello's David, the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity.

Spanish Inquisition

[Created]

Bet you weren't expecting this. Established by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. About 4000 people executed.

Granada War

[End]

Fought during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada, it lasted 10 years, and ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending the last remnant of Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula.

Henry VIII

[Death & End of Reign]

Introduction of protestantism (needed divorce). Downfall of monestaries (for his coffers). Had 6 wives.

Elizabeth I

[Death & Reign End]

Was Queen of England and Ireland. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed when Elizabeth was two years old.

James VI and I

[Reign End]

Was King of Scotland as James VI prior to becoming King of England & Ireland as James I. This period called the Jacobian Era. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, though both were ruled by James.

English Civil War

[Start]

These conflicts were also concerned with how the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland should be governed. The outcome was threefold: the trial and the execution of Charles I; the exile of his son, Charles II; and the replacement of English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England, which then (as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland) unified the British Isles under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell and briefly his son Richard.

Charles I of England

[Reign End]

Was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland until his death by execution. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. After his succession, Charles quarrelled with the English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. He believed in the divine right of kings, and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who thought his views too Catholic.

Industrial Revolution

[Start]

Approximate dates.

United States Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.. Part of American Revolutionary War

Battle of Waterloo

[Happened]

The Battle of Waterloo was fought near Waterloo, in what is now Belgium. Napoleon’s army was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition - the British (Duke of Wellington) and the Prussian (von Blücher). The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Industrial Revolution

[End]

Approximate dates.

World War 1

[Ends]

It was fought between two coalitions, the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting occurred throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died as a result of genocide, while the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war.

Spanish Civil War

[Start]

Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the unstable Second Spanish Republic, in alliance with anarchists of the communist and syndicalist variety, fought against an insurrection by the Nationalists, an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists, led by a military group among whom General Francisco Franco soon achieved a preponderant role.

Stalin

[End Rule & Death]

2nd leader of Russia, following death of Lenin. Stalin's health had started to deteriorate towards the end of World War II. He had a party with Malenkov, Molotov, Beria, and Khrushchev the night before, and the next day had a stroke.

Titus

[Started Rule]

Titus Caesar Vespasianus was a member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death. Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a military commander, serving under his father in Judea during the First Jewish–Roman War.

Nelson Mandela

[Released]

Nelson Mandela was released on this date, after serving 27 years in prison. He became president of South Africa 4 years later, after the country's first multiracial general election.

Mark Antony

[Death]

Friend to Caesar. Didn’t get along too well with Augustus.

Caesar Augustus

[Death and Reign End]

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor. He was designated heir to Julius Caesar, but had to compete with Mark Antony etc. before eventually ruling 17 years later. His status as the founder of the Roman Principate (the first phase of the Roman Empire) has consolidated a legacy as one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana.

Black Death in Europe

[Start]

The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa.

Julius Caesar

[Birth]

A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator until his assassination. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Alexander the Great

[Birth]

Was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders. During his stay in Egypt, he founded Alexandria.

Battle of Hastings

[Happened]

This battle was fought between the Norman-French army of William the Duke of Normandy (aka William the Conquerer), and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. This began the Norman conquest of England.

Kublai Khan (China rule)

[Start]

Grandson of Genghis Khan. In this year, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty and formally claimed orthodox succession from prior Chinese dynasties. The Yuan dynasty came to rule over most of present-day China, Mongolia, Korea, southern Siberia, and other adjacent areas. The Yuan eventually conquered the Song dynasty and Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to rule all of China proper.

Tutankhamun

[Death]

Tutankhamun ruled during the end of the 18th Dynasty. He took the throne at 8 or 9 years of age under the viziership of his eventual successor, Ay. His nearly intact tomb was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, in excavations funded by Lord Carnarvon.

House of Plantagenet (England)

[Dissolved]

Was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. They held the English throne during these dates. Under the Plantagenets, England was transformed. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which had served to constrain their royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer considered an absolute monarch in the nation—holding the prerogatives of judgement, feudal tribute, and warfare—but now also had defined duties to the kingdom, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by their conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as by the establishment of the English language as the primary language.

English Reformation

Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment of his marriage (first requested of Pope Clement VII in 1527), the English Reformation began as more of a political affair than a theological dispute. The break with Rome was effected by a series of Acts of Parliament, ending in the Act of Supremacy, making Henry "Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England"

Henry VII

[Reign Start]

The first monarch of the house of Tudor. Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet. Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, a half-brother of Henry VI of England and a member of the Welsh Tudors of Penmynydd. During Henry's early years, his uncle Henry VI was fighting against Edward IV, a member of the Yorkist Plantagenet branch. He attained the throne when his forces, supported by France, Scotland, and Wales, defeated Edward IV's brother Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the culmination of the Wars of the Roses.

Battle of Bosworth Field

[Happened]

The Battle of Bosworth or Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England. The battle was won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists. Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became the first English monarch of the Tudor dynasty by his victory and subsequent marriage to a Yorkist princess. His opponent Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed during the battle, the last English monarch to die in combat.

Witch persecutions in Scotland

[Legalized]

Scotland had the most persecutions in Great Britain, about 5000. Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act of this year, both the practice of witchcraft and consulting with witches were capital offences.

House of Tudor

[End]

Monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I. The reformation featured heavily as Henry VIII replacing the pope as the head of the Church of England but maintaining Catholic doctrines, Edward imposing a very strict Protestantism, Mary attempting to reinstate Catholicism, and Elizabeth arriving at a compromise position that defined the not-quite-Protestant Church of England.

Thirty Year's War

[End]

One of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of what is now modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%. Some interpret the end of this war as the end of the Reformation.

Acts of Union

England and Scotland continued as two separate states sharing a monarch (James 1/6), who directed their domestic and foreign policy, along with Ireland, until the Acts of Union during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Anne, Queen of England.

Witch persecutions in Scotland

[Abolished]

Scotland had the most persecutions in Great Britain, about 5000. Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act of this year, both the practice of witchcraft and consulting with witches were capital offences.

French Revolution

[Ended]

Abolishing Ancien Régime, replacing it with constitutional monarch, later execution Louis XVI and ending with appointment of Napoleon as First Consul, signalling the end of the revolution.

Napoleonic Wars

[End]

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against an array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of French domination over most of continental Europe.

Queen Victoria

[Start Reign]

She reigned until she died. Her reign of almost 64 years was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

German Unification

[Happened]

Spurred on by the Franco-Prussian war, and following somewhat the example set of France of becoming a "nation", Germany's states unified to form the country of Germany. King Wilhelm I of Prussia became the German Emperor.

Queen Victoria

[End Reign / Death]

She reigned until she died. Her reign of almost 64 years was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Equal Franchise Act

It was not until the Equal Franchise Act that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million. A decade before only women who had some property rights were allowed.

World War 2

[Ends]

.

Berlin Wall

[Created]

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR.

Berlin Wall

[Dissolved]

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR.

Byzantine Empire

[Created]

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire for another 1000 years, until the fall of Constantinopole to the Ottoman Empire. Constantine moved the seat of the Roman empire to Constantinople, which he founded as a second Rome on the site of Byzantium.

Marco Polo returns to Venice

After a 24 year trip to Asia, exploring many places along the Silk Road until they reached Cathay (China). They were received by the royal court of Kublai Khan.

Bartolomeu Dias sails around Cape of Good Hope

Bartolomeu Dias, sailing for the king of Portugal, becomes the first European navigator to round the Cape of Good Hope

Vasco da Gama reaches India

Vasco da Gama reaches the southern coast of India, at Calicut, after sailing across the Indian Ocean from east Africa

Francisco Pizarro executes Atahuallpa

Inspired by the success of Cortés in Mexico, Francisco Pizarro arrives in Peru, and capitalizing on the unrest in the Incan empire, quickly captures the Inca emperor, whom he executes in this year. The Spanish spread across Ecuador and Chile, adding much of South America to Spain’s empire.

Dutch East India Company

[Created]

The United East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock company in the world, granting it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be bought by any resident of the United Provinces and then subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets (one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange). It is sometimes considered to have been the first multinational corporation. It was a powerful company, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.

First transatlantic steam-ship voyage

[Set off]

SS Great Western, was a wooden-hulled paddle-wheel steamship with sails the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic, and the initial unit of the Great Western Steamship Company. She was the largest passenger ship in the world for 2 years. Designed by British civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Bristol to New York. A ship that had steam as secondary power, SS Savannah, crossed 19 years prior.

East India Company

[Dissolved]

It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with Qing China. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies

Titanic

[Sank]

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died.

Roman Empire

[Start]

It included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. In reality, Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the Republic, though parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century AD, when Roman control in Europe, Africa, and Asia was strengthened.

Parthenon

[Started Construction]

The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon was built in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. It took about 10 years to build, and a further 5 to decorate.

Creation of New Town, Edinburgh

[Started]

It retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture.

Irish Potato Famine

[Start]

A period of starvation and disease in Ireland that had a major impact on Irish society, with the most severely affected areas being in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant. Roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25%. The proximate cause of the famine was a potato blight that infected potato crops throughout Europe during this period, causing an additional 100,000 deaths outside Ireland and influencing much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions during this period.

Irish Potato Famine

[End]

A period of starvation and disease in Ireland that had a major impact on Irish society, with the most severely affected areas being in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant. Roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25%. The proximate cause of the famine was a potato blight that infected potato crops throughout Europe during this period, causing an additional 100,000 deaths outside Ireland and influencing much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions during this period.

Great Leap Forward

[Start]

The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes. Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius

[Happened]

The most famous and largest of the eruptions. The event destroyed several towns and minor settlements in the area, at the time part of the Roman Empire. Pompeii and Herculaneum were obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits.

Plato

[Death]

An ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. In Athens, Plato founded the Academy, a philosophical school. His actual name was Aristocles. Plato was an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy. He raised problems for what later became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy.

Thomas Aquinas

[Birth]

An Italian Dominican friar and priest, who was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. He was a prominent proponent of natural theology. Known for his book, Summa Theologica and more.

William of Ockham

[Birth]

Was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the 14th century. He is commonly known for Occam's razor, and also produced significant works on logic, physics and theology.

The Prince

[Publication Date]

A political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. Not printed until 5 years after his death. The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the "effectual" truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[Birth]

A Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[Death]

A Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought.

The Communist Manifesto

[Date of Publication]

Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

An Essay on the Principle of Population

[Published]

By Thomas Robert Malthus, an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography, this book observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. ie. humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the "Malthusian trap".