Jon's Slice of History
All the dates I want to learn about history, art & science.
Last updated
Feb 18, 2026
Cards
220
Dates
316
Links
124
Density
121
Timelines published by our users.
All the dates I want to learn about history, art & science.
Last updated
Feb 18, 2026
Cards
220
Dates
316
Links
124
Density
121
[Created (circa)]
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It served as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Built over a period of about 27 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only wonder that has remained largely intact.
[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.
[Birth]
Pythagoras influenced Plato, whose dialogues, especially his Timaeus, exhibit Pythagorean teachings.
[Death]
Pythagoras influenced Plato, whose dialogues, especially his Timaeus, exhibit Pythagorean teachings.
[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!
1 link[Created (Circa)]
The Histories, by Herodotus: considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs, establishing the genre and study of history in the Western world. It covers the rise of the Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars.
[Birth]
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.
2 links[Birth]
A Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, and taught Alexander the Great.
5 links[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.
3 links[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.
2 links[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.
2 links[Death]
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.
3 links[Death]
A Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, and taught Alexander the Great.
5 links[Reign Starts]
A Macedonian Greek general, historian and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the Ptolemaic Kingdom centered on Egypt and led by the Ptolemaic dynasty from [305] BC – [30] BC.
2 links[Birth (circa)]
An Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily - one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.
1 link[Reign Ends]
A Macedonian Greek general, historian and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the Ptolemaic Kingdom centered on Egypt and led by the Ptolemaic dynasty from [305] BC – [30] BC.
2 links[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.
2 links[Death (circa)]
An Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily - one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.
1 link[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.
[Birth]
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.
1 link[Death]
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.
[Death]
Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, and its last active ruler.
[Death]
Friend to Caesar. Didn’t get along too well with Augustus.
[Reign Start]
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.
1 link[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.
[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.
1 link[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.
1 link[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.
1 link[Birth]
A Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. Natural History is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire and was intended to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge.
1 link[Happened]
The siege of Jerusalem was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War, in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a brutal five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple.
1 link[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.
2 links[Death]
A Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. Natural History is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire and was intended to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge.
1 link[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.
2 links[Opened]
It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world.
1 link[End 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.
2 links[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.
1 link[Death]
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.
1 link[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.
2 links[Dissolved]
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.
[Birth]
An English monk and an author and scholar. He was one of the greatest teachers and writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, which contributed significantly to English Christianity.
1 link[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.
1 link[Death]
An English monk and an author and scholar. He was one of the greatest teachers and writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work made the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, which contributed significantly to English Christianity.
1 link[Birth]
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.
[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.
[Birth (circa)]
Ibn Sina, commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine as his most famous works include The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities until [1650].
1 link[Death]
Ibn Sina, commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers. He is often described as the father of early modern medicine as his most famous works include The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities until [1650].
1 link[Happened]
Also known as the East–West Schism, or the Great Schism, this is the break of communion between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches since [1054]. A series of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split. Prominent among these were whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque), the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction and more.
[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.
2 links[Reign Starts]
William I, usually known as William the Conqueror, was the first Norman king of England.
2 links[Created]
The Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales, ordered of King William I. The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, manpower, and livestock from which the value derived. It lists 13,418 places and 5,624 mills.
1 link[Reign Ends]
William I, usually known as William the Conqueror, was the first Norman king of England.
2 links[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.
[Start]
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.
[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.
[Created]
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar or simply the Templars, was a Catholic military order.
1 link[Created]
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.
1 link[Founded]
Notre-Dame de Paris, often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris.
[Created]
Magna Carta was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. First drafted to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons who demanded that the King confirm the Charter of Liberties, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown.
[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.
1 link[Birth]
His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, 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.
1 link[Birth]
from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period.
[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.
1 link[Death]
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.
1 link[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.
1 link[End]
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.
1 linkAfter 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.
1 link[Created]
The Ottoman Empire, also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. Founded by Osman I.
1 link[Settle]
Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages starting around this (approximate) date.
[Dissolved]
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar or simply the Templars, was a Catholic military order.
1 link[Happened]
Was a victory of the army of King of Scots, Robert the Bruce, over the army of King Edward II of England in the First War of Scottish Independence.
1 link[Death]
His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, 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.
1 link[Death]
from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period.
[Start]
The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy of Aquitaine and was triggered by a claim to the French throne made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fueled by emerging nationalism on both sides.
1 link[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.
3 links[Death]
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.
1 link[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.
1 link[End]
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.
3 links[Died]
Was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages".
1 link[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.
1 link[Built]
The Forbidden City is the imperial palace complex in the center of the Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of 24 Ming and Qing dynasty Emperors, and the center of political power in China for over 500 years from [1420] to [1924]. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world and the most famous palace in Chinese history, and the largest preserved royal palace complexes, having over 8500 rooms. It took just 14 year to build.
[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.
1 link[Created]
Date approximate. The first unsupported standing work of bronze cast during the Renaissance, and the first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity. It depicts David with an enigmatic smile, posed with his foot on Goliath's severed head just after defeating the giant. The youth is completely naked, apart from a laurel-topped hat and boots, and bears the sword of Goliath.
1 link[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.
4 links[Happened]
The capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire marked the end of the Middle Ages, and the end of the last remains of the Roman Empire. The fortifications were overcome with the use of gunpowder.
1 link[Dissolved]
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.
2 links[End]
The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy of Aquitaine and was triggered by a claim to the French throne made by Edward III of England. The war grew into a broader military, economic, and political struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fueled by emerging nationalism on both sides.
1 link[End 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.
1 link[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.
2 links[Birth]
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.
1 link[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.
1 link[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.
2 links[Start]
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.
3 links[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.
2 links[Painted]
By the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli in the Uffizi. Date is approximate.
1 linkBartolomeu Dias, sailing for the king of Portugal, becomes the first European navigator to round the Cape of Good Hope
1 link[End]
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.
1 link[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.
2 links[Lands]
Completed 4 voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European colonization of the Americas. His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon), were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
1 linkVasco da Gama reaches the southern coast of India, at Calicut, after sailing across the Indian Ocean from east Africa
1 linkBy the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. Date approximate.
1 linkPortuguese explorer Pedro Cabral, with a fleet of thirteen ships, makes landfall in Brazil
[Reign End]
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.
2 links[Reign Start]
Introduction of protestantism (needed divorce). Downfall of monestaries (for his coffers). Had 6 wives.
3 links[Published]
Considered to signal the birth of Protestantism and the Reformation, this document advances Luther's positions against what he saw as the abuse of the practice of clergy selling plenary indulgences.
5 links[Died]
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.
4 links[Start]
The Magellan expedition, sometimes termed the Magellan–Elcano expedition, was a Spanish expedition planned and led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. One of the most important voyages in the Age of Discovery, its purpose was to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to open a trade route with the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in present-day Indonesia. Magellan didn't survive the trip; only 18 of 270 did. The nearly 3-year voyage achieved the first circumnavigation of Earth.
1 link[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.
1 link[Start]
The longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people. A prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. He annexed much of the Middle East and large areas of North Africa, and his fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.
[New Testament Printed]
An English biblical scholar and linguist, William Tyndale became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English. His was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English translation to take advantage of the printing press, the first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation, and the first English translation to use Jehovah as God's name as preferred by English Protestant Reformers.
1 link[Founded]
A privately held Italian firearms manufacturing company operating in several countries. Its firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and military purposes. Founded in the [1526], Beretta is the oldest active manufacturer of firearm components in the world. Its inaugural product was arquebus barrels. They have supplied weapons for every major European war since [1650].
[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.
2 linksInspired 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.
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"
2 links[Published]
The seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. The book offered an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system, which had been widely accepted since ancient times.
2 links[Death & End of Reign]
Introduction of protestantism (needed divorce). Downfall of monestaries (for his coffers). Had 6 wives.
3 links[Published]
By Giorgio Vasari. It was first published in two editions with substantial differences between them; the first on this date and the second in 18 years later (which is the one usually translated and referred to). It has some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art.
[Reign Starts]
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.
4 links[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.
4 links[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.
1 link[End]
The longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people. A prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. He annexed much of the Middle East and large areas of North Africa, and his fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.
[Born]
A dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism.
1 link[Started]
Termed a "voyage of discovery", this expedition of 5 ships (including Drake's "Golden Hind") was in effect an ambitious covert raiding voyage and the start of England's challenge to the global domination of Spain and Portugal. En route he landed in present-day California.
2 links[Defeated]
The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in [1588] appointed by Philip II of Spain. They were to escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I, in order to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas. The Spanish Armada was defeated, reflecting a lasting shift in the balance of naval power in favour of the English.
1 link[Start]
A Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in this period. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well.
1 link[Birth]
Was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem.
2 links[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.
[Created]
French royal decree establishing toleration for Huguenots (Protestants). It granted freedom of worship and legal equality for Huguenots within limits, and ended the Wars of Religion. The Edict was revoked by Louis XIV, causing many Huguenots to emigrate.
2 links[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.
[Created]
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
3 links[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.
1 link[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.
3 links[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.
4 links[Reign Start]
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.
5 links[Published]
Is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as the word quixotic.
1 link[Happened]
The Gunpowder Plot, earlier called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. Guy Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.
2 links[Born]
A Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman.
2 links[Lands]
On this day, Janszoon made landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near what is now the town of Weipa in Australia. This is the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent. Janszoon proceeded to chart some 320 km (200 mi) of the coastline, which he thought was a southerly extension of New Guinea.
[Published]
Published by Johannes Kepler, between [1609] and [1619], these laws modify the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, replacing its circular orbits and epicycles with elliptical trajectories, and explaining how planetary velocities vary.
2 linksAn Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science. His championing of Copernican heliocentrism was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church.
2 links[Died]
A dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism.
1 link[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.
1 link[Start]
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.
2 links[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.
2 links[To]
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.
1 link[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.
5 links[Reign Start]
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.
1 link[Construction started]
The mausoleum, commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, was built in Agra. It and the grounds took about 22 years to complete.
1 link[Created]
Was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom. Established in England, it was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver. It was overseen by a Government minister, the Postmaster General.
Born in Pisa. Saw his middle finger in Florence.
2 links[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.
[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.
7 links[Happened]
The collective name for two peace treaties signed on this date in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, closing a calamitous period of European history that killed approximately eight million people.
1 link[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.
2 links[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.
1 link[Death]
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.
[End]
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.
[Published]
By Thomas Hobbes, concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. Written during the English Civil War, it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against all") could be avoided only by strong, undivided government.
[Birth]
An English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in [1676], he catalogued the southern celestial hemisphere and recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun.
2 links[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.
1 link[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.
[Death]
Was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem.
2 links[Published]
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by English poet John Milton. The poem concerns the biblical story of the fall of man; the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The first version, published in [1667], consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse.
1 link[Died]
A Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman.
2 linksJust at the limit of what his simple lenses could make out, and no one else would see them again for over a century.
[Start Reign]
Peter I was the Tsar of all Russia from [1682] and the first Emperor of Russia from [1721] until his death in [1725]. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until [1696]. Peter, as an autocrat, changed and expanded Russia into a huge empire and major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment.
1 link[Revoked]
French royal decree establishing toleration for Huguenots (Protestants). It granted freedom of worship and legal equality for Huguenots within limits, and ended the Wars of Religion. The Edict was revoked by Louis XIV, causing many Huguenots to emigrate.
2 links[Birth]
German composer and musician of the late Baroque period.
3 links[Published]
A book by Sir Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. The Principia forms a mathematical foundation for the theory of classical mechanics, and is generally considered to be one of the most important works in the history of science.
4 links[Start (circa)]
The Enlightenment, an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe, featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarch.
3 links[Happened]
The Glorious Revolution, also known as The Revolution of [1688], was the deposition of James II and VII. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II, and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange. The two ruled as joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland until Mary's death in 1694, when William became ruler in his own right. This revolution was fundamental in rejecting the idea of divine-right monarchy & establishing the principle that the monarchy was subject to parliamentary approval.
1 link[Birth]
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.
2 linksEngland 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.
[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.
[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.
2 links[Start]
The Georgian era is a period in British history named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of William IV, which ended with his death leading to Queen Victoria's reign.
[Bubble Burst]
The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in January [1711], created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations, and peaked in [1720] before suddenly collapsing to little above its flotation price. There was widespread fraud amongst the company directors and corruption in the Cabinet.
1 link[End Reign]
Peter I was the Tsar of all Russia from [1682] and the first Emperor of Russia from [1721] until his death in [1725]. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until [1696]. Peter, as an autocrat, changed and expanded Russia into a huge empire and major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment.
1 link[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.
2 links[Died]
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.
7 links[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.
4 links[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".
1 link[Reign Starts]
Frederick II was the monarch of Prussia, the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia. Accomplishments include his military successes in the Silesian wars, his reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power under his rule. He was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, stating that the ruler should be the first servant of the state.
1 link[Death]
An English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in [1676], he catalogued the southern celestial hemisphere and recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun.
2 links[End]
A Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in this period. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well.
1 link[Death]
German composer and musician of the late Baroque period.
3 linksReplacing the less accurate Julian Calendar of [-46], Britain adopted the Gregorian in this year, losing 11 days. Much of Europe had adopted it about 2 centuries prior. It also explains why the UK financial year begins on 6th April. The official start of the year used to be Lady Day (25th March), but London City refused to pay tax "early". Greece didn't adopt it until 1923. In the Gregorian calendar, year numbers evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except if evenly divisible by 400.
[Start]
A global conflict involving most of the European great powers, fought primarily in Europe and the Americas. One of the opposing alliances was led by Great Britain, primarily supported by Prussia. The other alliance was led by France, backed by Spain, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia. The Treaty of Hubertusburg ended the war between Saxony, Austria and Prussia, in [1763]. France's supremacy in Europe was halted, while Prussia confirmed its status as a great power, challenging Austria for dominance within the Holy Roman Empire.
1 link[Birth]
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.
[Date of Publication]
A satire by Voltaire, featuring Professor Pangloss.
1 link[Birth]
Known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a "light Scots dialect" of English. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world.
1 link[Start]
Approximate dates.
2 links[Start]
Catherine II, most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia during this time. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III. Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with a large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and with the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.
1 link[End]
A global conflict involving most of the European great powers, fought primarily in Europe and the Americas. One of the opposing alliances was led by Great Britain, primarily supported by Prussia. The other alliance was led by France, backed by Spain, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia. The Treaty of Hubertusburg ended the war between Saxony, Austria and Prussia, in [1763]. France's supremacy in Europe was halted, while Prussia confirmed its status as a great power, challenging Austria for dominance within the Holy Roman Empire.
1 link[Started]
It retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture.
1 link[Start]
A combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the [1769] transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita. Joseph Banks was the botanist. The voyage included New Zealand, and the east coast of Australia.
[End]
A combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the [1769] transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita. Joseph Banks was the botanist. The voyage included New Zealand, and the east coast of Australia.
[Reign Start]
The last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.
2 linksWe 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
3 links[Published]
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. The book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics.
1 link[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.
2 linksItalian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher, who on this date discovered, with his wife, animal electricity - that the muscles of a dead frog’s legs twitch’s when struck by an electrical spark.
[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.
2 links[First Untethered Flight]
The Montgolfier brothers were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune Annonay in Ardèche, France - and the first to build a balloon for human flight. One of their demonstrations in this year was made at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette and a crowd.
1 link[Proposed]
James Hutton, often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science on this day, by reading his Theory of Earth to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in which he proposed that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces still in operation today, acting over a very long period of time. This work was eventually published as a book 3 years later.
1 link[Reign Ends]
Frederick II was the monarch of Prussia, the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia. Accomplishments include his military successes in the Silesian wars, his reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power under his rule. He was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, stating that the ruler should be the first servant of the state.
1 link[Arrives]
Transportation to the Australian colonies began in [1788] when the First Fleet, composed of 11 British ships, carried between 750 and 780 convicts plus 550 crew, soldiers and family members, landed at Sydney Cove after an eight-month voyage. This date is celebrated as Australia Day, marking the beginning of British settlement.
[Started]
A series of political and societal changes in France, including the absolishment of the Ancien Régime, absolishment of feudalism, creation of a new constitution, and execution of Louis XVI. It ended with the Consulate seizing power in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte.
3 links[Published]
By Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. He defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." He advocated individual and economic freedoms, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, the decriminalising of homosexual acts & the abolition of slavery & punishment.
2 links[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.
[Reign End]
The last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.
2 links[Published]
By Mary Wollstonecraft. One of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives.
2 links[Invented]
A machine that quickly & easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in this year. It inadvertently led to an increase in the use of slaves, as its efficiency meant more cotton was needed - and that had to be done by hand. This boosted the economy of the Antebellum South.
[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.
1 link[Death]
Known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a "light Scots dialect" of English. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world.
1 link[End]
Catherine II, most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia during this time. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III. Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with a large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and with the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.
1 link[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".
2 links[Dissolved]
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.
1 link[Ended]
A series of political and societal changes in France, including the absolishment of the Ancien Régime, absolishment of feudalism, creation of a new constitution, and execution of Louis XVI. It ended with the Consulate seizing power in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte.
3 links[Start]
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.
[End (circa)]
The Enlightenment, an intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe, featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarch.
3 links[Published]
The second published novel (but third to be written) by English author Jane Austen, written when she was aged 20–21. A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
[Birth]
German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas.
1 link[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.
1 link[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.
[Happened]
A volcano on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia, then part of the Dutch East Indies, and its eruption was the most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded. The ash from the eruption column dispersed around the world and lowered global temperatures in an event sometimes known as the Year Without a Summer, the following year.
1 link[Published]
Mary Shelley, Percy. B Shelley and Lord Byron each tried to write the best horror story. Hers inspired by Galvanism.
2 links[Birth]
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.
2 links[Happened]
The Belgian Revolution was the conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. Partly because the Belgians were mostly Roman Catholic, contrasted with Protestant-dominated North of King William I. Leopold I was made King of the Belgians in [1831].
1 link[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.
1 link[Dissolved]
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.
2 links[End]
The Georgian era is a period in British history named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of William IV, which ended with his death leading to Queen Victoria's reign.
[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.
3 links[Departed]
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.
[Invented]
Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process. Invented by Louis Daguerre, the daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by [1856] with new, less expensive processes, such as ambrotype (collodion process), that yield more readily viewable images.
1 link[End]
Approximate dates.
2 links[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.
[Date of Publication]
A political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League. The text attempts to codify the core historical materialist idea that, as stated in the text's opening words, "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production.
[Completed]
It retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture.
1 link[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.
[Start]
A conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war arose from the 'Eastern Question' and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, with immediate causes involving the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land. It is often considered the first 'industrial' war due to the large-scale use of technologies like railways, steam-powered warships, and the electric telegraph.
2 links[Born]
A Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a period of 10 years, he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. His work is characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork.
David Livingstone was born on the 19th March 1813 in a mill town called Blantyre, in Scotland.
1 link[End]
A conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war arose from the 'Eastern Question' and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, with immediate causes involving the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land. It is often considered the first 'industrial' war due to the large-scale use of technologies like railways, steam-powered warships, and the electric telegraph.
2 links[Published]
A work of scientific literature that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. The book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection and presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution.
4 links[Published]
Charles Dickens wrote this.
1 link[Opened]
Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower.
1 link[Published]
On Liberty is an essay published by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, written with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. It applied Mill's ethical system of utilitarianism to society and state. Mill suggested standards for the relationship between authority and liberty. He emphasized the importance of individuality, which he considered a prerequisite to the higher pleasures—the summum bonum of utilitarianism.
3 links[Invented]
A rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented by Richard Jordan Gatling of North Carolina.
1 link[Start]
It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction
2 links[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.
1 link16th president of the USA, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, Lincoln's assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause, and included trying to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson.
2 links[End]
It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction
2 linksThe widespread introduction of antiseptic surgical methods was initiated by the publishing of the paper Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery by Joseph Lister, which was inspired by Louis Pasteur's germ theory of putrefaction. In this paper, Lister advocated the use of carbolic acid (phenol) as a method of ensuring that any germs present were killed.
1 link[Opened]
An artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest of Egypt). The 193.30 km long canal is a key trade route between Europe and Asia.
[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.
[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
3 links[Made]
On this date, Alexander Graham Bell made the first local telephone call to his assistant, saying "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you". He had won the patent, 3 days prior.
2 links[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.
2 links[Published]
A novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Some of these topics include an evaluation of the feudal system that existed in Russia at the time, politics, families, religion, morality, gender, and social class.
[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.
2 links[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.
1 link[Death]
German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas.
1 link[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.
[Date of Publication]
Written by Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer.
[Created]
Nintendo was founded as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards.
[Opened]
The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
1 link[Died]
A Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a period of 10 years, he created about 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. His work is characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork.
[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.
2 links[Invented]
Marconi was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave–based wireless telegraph system, for which he shared a Nobel Prize in Physics in [1909]. The invention builds on work of others, including Hertz and Maxwell.
1 link[Start]
The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa. The Witwatersrand Gold Rush caused a large influx of foreigners to the South African Republic, mostly British from the Cape Colony. They were not permitted to vote, and were regarded as "unwelcome visitors", so they protested to the British authorities in the Cape, which started the war.
[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.
3 links[Start Reign]
The Edwardian Era
[Established]
Australia became a nation in [1901] when 6 British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. On this day, Australia's first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, and federal ministers took the oath of office.
1 link[End]
The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa. The Witwatersrand Gold Rush caused a large influx of foreigners to the South African Republic, mostly British from the Cape Colony. They were not permitted to vote, and were regarded as "unwelcome visitors", so they protested to the British authorities in the Cape, which started the war.
The first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft. It used a 12 horsepower gasoline engine powering two pusher propellers.
[Production Starts]
It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting.
2 links[End Reign]
The Edwardian Era
[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.
1 link[Starts]
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.
2 links[Official Opening]
An artificial 82 km (51 mi) waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America.
1 link[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.
2 links[Created]
The first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace, founded by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The United States never joined. The United Nations replaced it.
1 link[Created]
The Irish Free State, was a state established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of the year before. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the Irish Republic—the Irish Republican Army (IRA)—and British Crown forces. It later departed from the British Commonwealth and become a republic, in [1949].
[Dissolved]
The Ottoman Empire, also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. Founded by Osman I.
1 link[Started Rule]
The 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.
[Discovered]
Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and microbiologist, discovered the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance in this year. He received the Nobel Prize about 2 decades later, together with Howard Florey & Ernst Chain who purified it (with others at Oxford).
1 linkIt 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.
[Start]
The Great Depression was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. Near its beginning was the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.
2 links[Created]
A landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in [1929] with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See.
1 link[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.
1 link[End]
The Great Depression was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. Near its beginning was the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.
2 links[End]
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.
1 link[Starts]
A global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. It was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease.
2 links[Ends]
A global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. It was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease.
2 links[Dissolved]
The first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace, founded by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The United States never joined. The United Nations replaced it.
1 link[Happened]
The partition of India divided British India into two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. The partition displaced between 10 and 20 million people along religious lines.
[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.
[Start]
Mao Zedong, known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese politician, Marxist theorist, military strategist, poet, and revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He led the country from its establishment in [1949] until his death in [1976], while also serving as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during that time. His theories, military strategies and policies are known as Maoism. These dates cover him as head of the CCP in the PRC.
2 links[Established]
The People's Republic of China, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, is the world's second-most populous country after India.
1 link[End Rule & Death]
The 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.
[Launch]
The first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries became depleted.
2 links[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. 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 famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
1 link[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.
3 links[End]
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. 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 famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
1 link[Imprisoned]
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.
2 links[Happened]
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on this day while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. He was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One.
1 link[Accepted]
Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of continental drift. Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated, around this date.
1 link[Happened]
Also known as the [1967] Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, it was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. When hostilities ceased, Israel had seized Syria's Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip.
[Assassinated]
An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination.
[Dissolved]
Was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom. Established in England, it was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver. It was overseen by a Government minister, the Postmaster General.
[Landed]
Apollo 11 was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface.
1 link[Ends]
Ruled from the end of the Spanish Civil War. He restored the monarchy in his final years, being succeeded by Juan Carlos, King of Spain, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.
1 link[End & Death]
Mao Zedong, known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese politician, Marxist theorist, military strategist, poet, and revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He led the country from its establishment in [1949] until his death in [1976], while also serving as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during that time. His theories, military strategies and policies are known as Maoism. These dates cover him as head of the CCP in the PRC.
2 links[Removed]
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.
3 links[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.
2 links