World History Timeline

BCE

200,000 BCE	Homo sapiens
50,000 BCE	Settlement of Australia
25,000 BCE	Settlement of the Americas
10,000 BCE	Last Ice Age ends
8,000 BCE	Neolithic Revolution
5,500 BCE	Mesopotamia civilizations
4,000 BCE	Wheel invented
3,400 BCE	Writing invented
3,300 BCE	Indus Valley Civilization
3,100 BCE	Ancient Egypt
2,750 BCE	Gilgamesh rules
2,700 BCE	Pyramids
2,400 BCE	Stonehenge
2,000 BCE	Minoan civilization
1,700 BCE	Code of Hammurabi
1,800 BCE	Ancient China
1,531 BCE	Hittites invade Babylon
1,457 BCE	Battle of Megiddo
1,333 BCE	Tutankhamun succeeds Akhenaten
1,200 BCE	Moses leads Exodus
1,126 BCE	Nebuchadnezzar I rules Babylon
1,250 BCE	Trojan War
1,070 BCE	Kingdom of Kush established
1,020 BCE	Saul becomes first king of Israel
1,000 BCE	David becomes second king of Israel
961 BCE	Solomon becomes third king of Israel
814 BCE	Carthage  founded by the Phoenicians
800 BCE	Homer writes The Iliad and The Odyssey
776 BCE	Olympic Games established
551 BCE	Confucius
480 BCE	Buddha + Battle of Thermopylae
460 BCE	Hippocrates
431 BCE	Peloponnesian War
399 BCE	Socrates executed
390 BCE	Rome sacked by Gauls
336 BCE	Philip II of Macedonia assassinated
323 BCE	Alexander the Great dies
264 BCE	First Punic War
221 BCE	Shi Huangdi unites China as first emperor
218 BCE	Hannibal starts Second Punic War
73 BCE	Spartacus riot
44 BCE	Caesar assassinated
30 BCE	Anthony and Cleopatra commits suicide
27 BCE	Augustus becomes first Roman emperor
5 BCE	Jesus born

BC

9	Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
30	John the Baptist executed
41	Caligula assassinated
59	Agrippina murdered
68	Nero dies
73	Masada siege
79	Vesuvius erupts
80	Colosseum completed
105	Cai Lun invents paper
161	Marcus Aurelius becomes Emperor
284	Diocletian becomes Emperor
330	Constantine the Great founds Constantinople
313	Edict of Milan
410	Alaric sacks Rome
428	St. Patrick begins missionary work
433	Attila the Hun attacks Western Europe
440	Leo the Great becomes Pope
475	Romulus Augustus becomes last Emperor
476	Odoacer sacks Rome
590	Gregory the Great becomes Pope
610	Muhammad receives first Islamic revelation
793	Vikings sack Lindisfarne
1002	Leif Ericsson discovers America
1066	Battle of Hastings won by William the Conqueror
1095	Pope Urban II sets off First Crusade
1099	Jerusalem invaded by crusaders
1111	Henry V becomes the Holy Roman Emperor
1139	Alfonso becomes first king of Portugal
1174	Saladin conquers Syria
1210	Francis of Assisi founds Franciscan Order
1215	Magna Carta
1227	Genghis Khan dies
1258	Siege of Baghdad
1275	Marco Polo enters the service of Kublai Khan
1297	William Wallace wins the Battle of Stirling Bridge
1314	Robert the Bruce wins the Battle of Bannockburn
1321	Dante Alighieri finishes The Divine Comedy
1346	The Black Death reaches Europe
1368	Ming dynasty formed
1415	Henry V wins The Battle of Agincourt
1431	Joan of Arc burned at the stake
1438	Inca empire established
1440	Johannes Gutenberg invents printing press
1478	Spanish Inquisition established
1453	Fall of Constantinople
1492	Christopher Columbus reaches America
1498	Vasco da Gama reaches India
1503	Leonardo da Vinci paints Mona Lisa
1512	Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling
1517	Martin Luther sets off the Reformation
1521	Ferdinand Magellan killed
1532	John Calvin starts Protestant movement
1533	Henry the 8th excommunicated
1543	Copernicus proposes Heliocentrism
1547	Ivan the Terrible crowned Tzar of Russia
1562	John Hawkins transports first African slaves to America
1588	Spanish Armada defeated
1600	British East India Company founded
1609	Galileo Galilee observes stars with his telescope
1616	William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes die
1618	Defenestrations of Prague sets of Thirty Years’ War
1620	Mayflower Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth
1637	Tulip mania in Holland
1648	Shah Jahan builds the Taj Mahal
1648	Treaty of Westphalia
1661	Louis the 14th declares: L'etat, c'est Moi!
1666	Great fire of London
1683	Great Turkish War begins
1687	Isaac Newton introduces laws of motion and gravity
1703	Peter the Great founds St Petersburg
1765	James Watt sets off the Industrial Revolution
1770	James Cook lands in Botany Bay
1773	Boston Tea Party
1776	United States Declaration of Independence
1789	French Revolution set off by the Storming of the Bastille
1789	George Washington elected first US president
1803	Louisiana Purchase
1805	Battle of Trafalgar
1812	War of 1812
1815	Battle of Waterloo
1829	George Stephenson builds his Rocket
1836	Battle of the Alamo
1839	First Opium War
1845	Texas annexation
1845	Irish potato famine
1848	Communist Manifesto
1849	California Gold Rush
1853	Crimean War begins
1854	David Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls
1859	Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species
1861	American Civil War begins
1863	Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
1867	Alaska purchased from Russia
1869	Suez Canal and Transcontinental Railroad opens
1871	Otto von Bismarck unites Germany
1876	Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone
1876	Battle of Little Bighorn
1879	Thomas Edison invents light bulb
1885	Berlin Conference partitions Africa
1890	Wounded Knee Massacre
1896	Nobel Prize established
1899	Boxer Rebellion
1901	Queen Victoria dies
1903	Wright Brothers make first powered flight
1905	Albert Einstein publishes theory of special relativity
1909	Robert Peary reaches the North Pole
1911	Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole
1912	Titanic sinks
1914	World War I begins
1917	Russian Revolution
1920	Alcohol Prohibition
1927	Charles Lindbergh flies across Atlantic
1928	Alexander Flemming discovers penicillin
1928	Stalin succeeds Lenin
1929	Wall Street Crash
1933	Franklin D. Roosevelt launches New Deal
1933	Adolf Hitler becomes German Chancellor
1936	Spanish Civil War begins
1937	Hindenburg disaster
1939	World War II begins
1941	Attack on Pearl Harbor
1945	Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1945	United Nations established
1947	India and Pakistan gain independence
1948	Mahatma Gandhi assassinated
1948	Israel founded
1949	NATO established
1950	Korean War begins + Tibet occupied by China
1953	Fidel Castro starts Cuban Revolution
1955	Vietnam War begins
1961	Berlin Wall built
1963	John F. Kennedy assassinated
1968	Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
1968	Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
1969	Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon
1972	Munich Massacres
1974	Richard Nixon resigns after Watergate scandal
1978	Iranian Revolution
1979	Margaret Thatcher elected prime minister
1980	Iran-Iraq war
1981	Anwar Sadat assassinated
1982	Falklands War
1985	Mikhail Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader
1986	Chernobyl and Challenger disasters
1989	German Reunification
1990	Hubble Space Telescope launched
1991	Soviet Union collapses
1993	European Union created
1994	Free elections in South Africa
1996	Taliban conquers Afghanistan
2001	September 11 attacks
2003	Saddam Hussein captured
2004	Boxing Day Tsunami
2005	Hurricane Katrina
2007	iPhone touchscreen smartphone released
2008	Barack Obama elected president
2010	Deepwater Horizon explosion
2019	COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic begins