100 Events That Changed the World

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  1. ca. 8000 B.C. Agriculture invented in the area of the Fertile Crescent
  2. ca. 4000 B.C. First civilization (Sumer) emerges
  3. ca. 2680 B.C. Great Pyramid of Khufu built at Gizah
  4. ca. 2000 B.C. Indo-Europeans invade Europe (present-day Iran)
  5. ca. 1790 B.C. Code of Hammurabi codified (Babylonia)
  6. ca. 1400 B.C. Phoenicians develop alphabet
  7. ca. 1300 B.C. Hebrews depart Egypt in Exodus (Sinai)
  8. ca. 1000 B.C. Iron Age begins (Anatolia)
  9. ca. 800 B.C. Homer compiles Iliad in Ionia
  10. 586 B.C. Jerusalem falls, Babylonian exile begins
  11. ca. 500 B.C. Basic Old Testament canon completed in Jerusalem
  12. 480 B.C. Greeks repel Persians (Battle of Marathon)
  13. ca. 480-430 B.C. Greek Golden Age flourishes in Athens
  14. 469-322 B.C. Greek philosophy develops (with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle)
  15. 336-323 B.C. Alexander the Great expands his empire to Bactria in Afghanistan
  16. 146 B.C. Rome destroys Carthage
  17. 45-44 B.C. Julius Caesar comes to power in Rome
  18. 31 B.C. Octavian ends Roman civil wars, begins Principate in Rome
  19. A.D. 4 Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem
  20. A.D. 30 Public ministry of Jesus ends in Jerusalem
  21. 312 Battle of Mulvian Bridge occurs, Constantine ends Christian persecution in the Balkans
  22. 330 Constantine accepts Christianity, moves Roman capital to Constantinople
  23. 476 Last Western Roman emperor deposed (Rome)
  24. 570 Mohammed is born in Mecca
  25. 622 Muhammad's Hijra Islamic community at Medina
  26. 733 Charles Martel defeats Muslims in Tours, France
  27. 800 Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome
  28. ca. 1000 Norse cross Atlantic to Vinland (Nova Scotia)
  29. 1054 Orthodox and Catholic churches (Eastern and Western) split between Rome and Constantinople
  30. 1066 Normans conquer England at Battle of Hastings
  31. 1095 Pope Urban II calls for First Crusade (Clermont-Ferand, France)
  32. 1215 King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede
  33. 1242 Mongols withdraw from the West
  34. 1292 Marco Polo publishes account of his travels (Venice)
  35. 1305-1377 Papacy's Babylonian Captivity forges on in Avignon, France
  36. 1347 Black Death arrives in western Europe (Messina, Sicily)
  37. 1453 Ottomans capture Constantinople
  38. ca. 1455 Moveable type first used in printing at Mainz
  39. 1492 Columbus begins his first transatlantic voyage from Palos de la Frontera, Spain
  40. 1498 Vasco da Gama sails to India
  41. 1505 Slave trade begins in Americas at Santo Domingo
  42. 1513 Niccolò Machiavelli writes The Prince in Florence
  43. 1517 Luther posts his 95 Theses at Wittenberg
  44. 1521 Cortés conquers Mexico, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)
  45. 1522 Magellan dies on voyage around world (Philippines)
  46. 1543 Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus Wittenberg
  47. 1545-1563 Council of Trent convenes
  48. 1573 Europeans discover uses for potatoes
  49. 1588 Spanish Armada defeated in the English Channel
  50. 1601 William Shakespeare writes Hamlet in London
  51. 1602 Dutch East India Company enters Spice Island trade (Indonesia)
  52. 1607 English settlers establish Jamestown (Virginia)
  53. 1610 Galileo observes the moons of Jupiter from Florence
  54. 1648 Thirty Years' War ends with Peace of Westphalia
  55. 1649 King Charles I executed
  56. 1687 Newton publishes Principia mathematica in London
  57. 1688 The Glorious Revolution occurs at Torbay, England
  58. 1712 Newcomen invents steam engine in Staffordshire, England
  59. 1713-1714 Peace of Utrecht ends War of the Spanish Succession
  60. 1722 Table of Ranks introduced by Peter the Great, St. Petersburg
  61. 1759 British defeat French at Quebec, Canada
  62. 1760 Industrial Revolution begins in England
  63. 1775 James Watt invents steam engine in Glasgow, England
  64. 1776 Americans declare independence from Britain (Philadelphia)
  65. 1789 French Revolution begins in Paris
  66. 1807 British abolish slave trade at Guyana
  67. 1812 Napoleon retreats from Moscow
  68. 1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo, Belgium
  69. 1825 Spain loses American empire at Bolivia
  70. 1832 Great Reform Bill passed in London
  71. 1842 Britain wins Opium War at Nanking, China
  72. 1848 European uprisings occur
  73. 1859 Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species from London
  74. 1867 South African diamonds discovered
  75. 1867 Russia sells Alaska to United States
  76. 1868 Meiji Restoration modernizes Japan
  77. 1869 Suez Canal opens
  78. 1870 Prussians defeat France, establish Germany
  79. 1885 European powers partition Africa
  80. 1905 Japanese defeat Russian fleet in Tsushima Straits
  81. 1905 Albert Einstein publishes his theory of relativity from Bern, Switzerland
  82. 1907 Pablo Picasso paints Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon in Paris
  83. 1914 Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo, leads to World War I
  84. 1917 Bolshevik Revolution defeats Imperial reign at St. Petersburg
  85. 1929 Stock market crashes, Depression begins
  86. 1939 World War II starts
  87. 1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
  88. 1945 Nazism defeated in Berlin
  89. 1945 Atomic bombs fall on cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
  90. 1947 India gains independence from Britain in New Delhi
  91. 1947 Transistor invented at Murray Hill, New Jersey
  92. 1948 Israel declares independence, achieves statehood
  93. 1949 Communists win in China (Beijing)
  94. 1949 Computer age begins
  95. 1957 Soviets launch Sputnik
  96. 1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
  97. 1975 United States loses Vietnam conflict
  98. 1989 Berlin Wall falls
  99. 1991 Soviet Union dissolves in Moscow
  100. 1994 White rule (apartheid) ends in South Africa