writetime    = 00:00:00 00/02/1970
current_time = 14:03:07 07/32/2025

  10,000,000,000  ya  Big Bang
   5,000,000,000  ya  Earth
   3,400,000,000  ya  First life on earth
     700,000,000  ya  First animals
      65,000,000  ya  Dinosaurs extinct
       2,600,000  ya  Genus Homo
       2,500,000  ya  Start of last ice age
         400,000  ya  Use of fire
         200,000  ya  Homo sapiens
          40,000  ya - 10,000 ya  Paleolithic period
          10,000  ya  Plants and animals domesticated
           7,000  ya - 2,000 ya Neolithic period
 8000bc  First Egyptian settlements
 7350bc  Earliest fortress (Jericho)
 3200bc  Egyption hieroglyphics
 3000bc  Cuneiform writing developing
 2800bc-2500bc  Sumeria
 2700bc-1000bc  Egyption pyramid building
 2565bc  Sphynx built
 2000bc-1500bc  Abraham lived (approx.)
 1800bc+  Hammurabi (approx.)
 1500bc  Syllabic writing begun
 1343bc-1325bc  Tutankhamen
 1100bc~  Destruction of Troy
 962bc  King David of Israel dies
 927bc-850bc  Elijah
 882bc-798bc  Elisha
 850bc  Homer lives
 800bc  Greeks start using vowels
 777bc-692bc  Isaiah
 630bc-550bc  Zoroaster
 605bc-562bc  Nebuchadnezzar II king of Babylonia
 550bc-529bc  Cyrus the Great king of Persia
 521bc-486bc  Darius I king of Persia
 490bc  Battle of Marathon (Persia defeated)
 486bc-465bc  Xerxes I king of Persia
 484bc-425bc  Herodotus lives
 480bc  Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis
 461bc-429bc  Pericles rules Athens
 431bc-404bc  Pelopenesian War
 399bc  Socrates dies
 386bc  Plato founds Academy
 359bc-336bc  Philip II of Macedon rules
 336bc-323bc  Alexander the Great rules
 335bc  Aristotle founds Lyceum
 323bc-285bc  Ptolemy I king of Egypt
 313bc-244bc  Via Appia built
 300bc  Euclid's Elements
 273bc-232bc  Asoka ruler in India
 264bc-241bc  First Punic War
 237bc  Hamilcar Barca begins conquest of Spain
 218bc-201bc  Second Punic War
 218bc-217bc  Hannibal crosses Alps
 149bc-146bc  Third Punic War (razing of Carthage)
 133bc  Gracchi brothers agrarian reforms
 106bc-43bc  Cicero
 71bc  Spartacus dies
 53bc  Crassus dies
 51bc-30bc  Cleopatra queen of Egypt
 48bc  Pompey murdered
 45bc-44bc  Julius Caesar dictator
 43bc-32bc  Second Triumvirate
 31bc  Battle of Actium (Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra)
 27bc-14  Augustus emperor
 14-37  Tiberius I emperor
 29  Jesus crucified
 37-41  Caligula (Gaius Caesar) emperor
 41-54  Claudius I emperor
 46-120  Plutarch
 54-68  Nero Emperor
 64  Great Fire of Rome
 79  Eruption of Vesuvius
 117-138  Hadrian emperor
 122-126  Hadrian's Wall
 161-180  Marcus Aurelius emperor
 270-275  Aurelian emperor
 284-305  Diocletian emperor
 286  Diocletian divides empire into east and west
 305-337  Constantine I emperor
 324  Constantinople Established
 325  Council at Nicaea declares divinity of Jesus thus condemning Arianism
 379-395  Theodosius I last Roman emperor to rule united empire
 397  Augustine's "Confessions"
 400-600  Anglo-Saxons invade and colonize England
 405  Jerome's "Vulgate" translation of Bible
 410  Sacking of Rome by Visigoths (Alaric)
 431  Saint Patrick made bishop of Ireland
 431  Council of Ephesus declares Nestorianism heretical
 451  Defeat of Huns at Chalons
 451  Fourth Ecumenical council at Chalcedon condemns Monophysite heresy
 452  Attila invades Rome
 475-476  Romulus Augustulus last Roman emperor of the West
 476  Odoacer invades Rome
 481-751  Merovingians rule Franks
 481-511  Clovis king of Franks
 493  Theodoric (Ostrogoth) assassinates Odoacer
 523  Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy"
 529  Benedict founds Benedictine order
 529  Athens' school of philosophy closed
 532-537  Hagia Sophia constructed
 534  Justinian code promulgated
 535  Justinian I reconquers west (Belisarius)
 542-594  Plague strikes Europe
 568-572  Lombards invade Italy
 590-604  Gregory I (the Great) pope
 596  Saint Augustine to Britain
 614  Persians capture Jerusalem
 616  Visigoths capture Spain
 622  Mohammed establishes in Medina
 622  Isidorus of Seville publishes the encyclopedic "Etymologies"
 638  Muslims capture Jerusalem
 639-640  Pepin the Elder rules
 642  Fall of Alexandria to Arabs (burning of library)
 664  Catholic church becomes official English church at Synod of Whitby
 700  Beowulf written (approx.)
 711  Muslims invade Spain
 715-741  Charles Martel rules
 725-735  Saint Boniface converts Germans
 731  "Venerable" Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation"
 732  Charles Martel defeats the Saracens at the Battle of Poitiers
 787  Second Council of Nicaea validates veneration of images
 800  Charlemagne crowned emperor by Pope Leo III
 827  Muslims conquer Sicily
 871  Danes capture London
 875-877  Charles II (the Bald) rules
 886  Alfred the Great retakes London from Danes
 911  Rollo given domain of Normandy
 955  Otto I defeats Magyars
 962-973  Otto I first "Holy Roman Emperor"
 965  Arabs take Sicily
 987-996  Hugh Capet king of France
 997-1038  Stephen I king of Hungary
 1000  Leif Ericson in America (approx.)
 1010  Avicenna's "The Canon of Medicine" (approx.)
 1016-1035  Canute rules (first England, then Denmark and Norway)
 1042-1066  Edward the Confessor king of England
 1054  Schism between East and West Christian churches
 1056-1106  Henry IV Holy Roman emperor
 1060  Normans take Sicily
 1066  Norman Conquest
 1066-1087  William the Conqueror king of England
 1073-1085  Gregory VII pope (Hildebrand)
 1075-1122  Investiture Controversy
 1078  Anselm's "Discourse"
 1086  Domesday Book
 1088-1099  Urban II pope
 1095-1270  Crusades
 1095  Bologna University founded
 1095  Song of Roland
 1098  Cistercian order founded
 1099  Jerusalem captured by Crusaders
 1122  Concordat of Worms (ends Investiture Controversy)
 1123  Abelard's "Sic et Non"
 1149  University of Oxford founded
 1154-1189  Henry II king of England
 1160  Averroes "Generalities of Medicine"
 1160  University of Paris founded
 1170  Assassination of Thomas a Becket
 1176  Battle of Legnano (defeat of Barbarossa by Lombard League)
 1180-1223  Philip II king of France
 1187  Saladin captures Jerusalem
 1189  Frederic I (Barbarossa) initiates Third Crusade
 1189-1199  Richard I (the Lionhearted) king of France
 1190  Maimonides publishes "Guide for the Perplexed"
 1191-1197  Henry VI Holy Roman Emperor
 1199-1216  John king of England
 1200  Cabala written (approx.)
 1206-1227  Genghis Kahn rules
 1208  Saint Francis founds Franciscans
 1208-1229  Albigensian Crusade
 1214  Saint Dominic founds Dominicans
 1215  Magna Carta
 1216-1272  Henry III king of England
 1222  Padova University founded
 1260-1294  Kublai Kahn rules
 1265-1273  Aquinas' "Summary Treatise of Theology"
 1267  Roger Bacon's "Opus Majus"
 1271-1290  Marco Polo's travels
 1272-1307  Edward I king of England
 1284  Cambridge University founded
 1300  Giotto's "Stigmatization of St Francis"
 1309-1378  Avignon seat of papacy
 1321  Dante's "Divine Comedy"
 1324-1349  William of Ockham publishing
 1327-1377  Edward III king of England
 1327-1351  Petrarch's "Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura"
 1337-1453  Hundred Years War
 1347-1351  Plague
 1351-1353  Boccaccio's "Decameron"
 1364-1405  Tamerlane rules
 1378-1417  Great Schism
 1387-1400  Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"
 1415  Jan Huss burned at the stake
 1430-1435  Donatello's "David"
 1433-1460  Henry the Navigator king of Portugal
 1434  Cosimo de Medici establishes family dynasty of Florence
 1450  Gutenberg's printing press
 1453  Fall of Constantinople
 1455-1485  War of the Roses
 1469-1492  Lorenzo de Medici rules Florence
 1469-1470  Malory's "The Death of Arthur"
 1473-1481  Sistine Chapel constructed
 1474-1504  Isabella I queen of Castille
 1479-1516  Ferdinand V king of Aragon
 1485  Battle of Bosworth Field
 1488  Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope
 1492  Reconquest of Spain from Moors
 1492  Columbus's journey
 1492-1503  Alexander VI pope (Cesare Borgia's father)
 1493-1519  Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor
 1498  Savonarola hanged
 1501  Michelangelo's "David"
 1503-1513  Julius II pope (began construction of St. Peter's)
 1503-1506  Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
 1509  Erasmus' "In Praise of Folly"
 1509-1510  Raphael paints "School of Athens"
 1509-1547  Henry VIII king of England
 1513  Machiavelli's "The Prince"
 1513-1521  Leo X (Medici) pope
 1515-1547  Francis I king of France
 1516  More's "Utopia"
 1517  Luther's "Ninety-five Theses"
 1517  Jerusalem captured by Ottomans
 1519-1558  Charles V Holy Roman Emperor
 1519-1522  Magellan's circumnavigation
 1519-1521  Cortes' conquest of Mexico
 1529  Suleiman's seige of Vienna
 1531-1533  Pizarro's conquest of Peru
 1532-1534  Rabelais' "Gargantua" and "Pantagruel"
 1534  Loyola founds Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
 1541  Calvin returns to Geneva
 1543  Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium"
 1545-1563  Council of Trent
 1547-1584  Evan IV (the Terrible) czar of Russia
 1547-1553  Edward VI king of England and Ireland
 1547-1559  Henry II king of France
 1547-1559  Catherine de Medici queen of France
 1553-1558  Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary") queen of England
 1555  Peace of Augsburg
 1556-1598  Philip II king of Spain (1580 of Portugal)
 1558-1603  Elizabeth I queen of England
 1559-1560  Francis II king of France
 1560-1574  Catherine de Medicis in power
 1565  Founding of Saint Augustine
 1571  Battle of Lepanto
 1572  Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre
 1580  Montaigne's "Essays"
 1585  Roanoke Island colony
 1588  Spanish Armada
 1589  Marlowe's "The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus"
 1589-1610  Henry IV king of France
 1590-1611  Shakespeare publishing
 1592-1605  Clement VIII (Medici) pope
 1594-1619  Kepler's Laws
 1598  Edict of Nantes
 1600  Giordano Bruno burned
 1600  Gilbert identifies electricity
 1603-1625  James I king of England
 1605-1615  Cervante's "Don Quixote"
 1607  Founding of Jamestown
 1610-1643  Louis XIII king of France
 1610-1617  Marie Medici regent of France
 1611-1632  Gustavus II (Adolphus) king of Sweden
 1618  Defenestration of Prague
 1618-1648  Thirty Years' War
 1620  Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum (Indications Respecting the Interpretation of Nature)
 1620  Mayflower lands
 1624-1642  Richelieu adviser to France
 1625-1649  Charles I king of England
 1629  Edict of Nantes abrogated
 1632-1654  Christina queen of Sweden
 1633  Galileo's trial
 1636  Harvard University founded
 1637  Descarte's "Discourse on Method"
 1641-1651  English Civil Wars
 1642  Rembrandt's "Night Watch"
 1643-1715  Louis XIV king of France ("The Sun King")
 1645-1676  Alexis I Mikhailovich czar of Russia
 1648  Treaty of Westphallia
 1648  George Fox founds the Society of Friends ("Quakers")
 1649-1660  English Commonwealth (Cromwell)
 1651  Hobbes' "Leviathan"
 1656  Pascal's "Provincial Letters"
 1660-1685  Charles II king of England
 1660  Hooke's Law
 1662  Boyle's Law
 1667  Milton's "Paradise Lost"
 1669  Moliere's "Tartuffe"
 1675  Leibniz invents calculus
 1677  Spinoza's "Ethics Demonstrated with Geometric Order"
 1682-1725  Peter I (the Great) Russian czar
 1685-1688  James II king of England, Scotland and Ireland
 1685  Edict of Nantes revoked
 1687  Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica"
 1689-1702  William III and Mary king and queen of England
 1690  Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"
 1693  College of William and Mary established
 1701-1714  War of the Spanish Succession
 1701  Yale University founded
 1702-1714  Anne queen of England
 1710  Berkeley's "Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge"
 1713  Peace of Utrecht
 1714-1727  George I king of England
 1715-1774  Louis XV king of France
 1719  Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"
 1725  Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"
 1726  Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"
 1727-1760  George II king of England
 1729  Bach's "Passion"
 1733-1735  War of the Polish Succession
 1738  John Wesley founds Methodism
 1740-1748  War of the Austrian Succession
 1740  Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature"
 1740  University of Pennsylvania founded
 1740-1780  Maria Theresa queen of Hungary and Bohemia
 1747  Franklin's kite experiment
 1754-1763  French and Indian War
 1756-1763  Seven Years' War
 1759  Voltaire's "Candide"
 1760-1820  George III king of England
 1762  Rousseau's "The Social Contract"
 1762-1796  Catherine the Great empress of Russia
 1774-1792  Louis XVI king of France
 1774  Priestley discovers oxygen
 1776  US Declaration of Independence
 1776  Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"
 1776  Paine's "Common Sense"
 1777  Coulomb's Law
 1781  Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"
 1781  Lavoisier explains combustion
 1787  Mozart's Don Giovanni
 1787-1788  "The Federalist" published
 1789-1799  French Revolution
 1789  Bentham's "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation"
 1790  Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"
 1793  Godwin's "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice"
 1794  Fichte's "The Science of Knowledge"
 1798  Malthus' "An Essay on the Principle of Population"
 1799-1815  Napoleonic Wars
 1801-1825  Alexander I emperor of Russia
 1803  Dalton's atomic theory
 1807  Hegel's "The Phenomenology of Mind"
 1808  Goethe's "Faust"
 1811  Avogadro distinguishes atoms and molecules
 1811-1816  Luddite revolts
 1812  War of 1812
 1814-1824  Louis XVIII king of France
 1817  Ricardo's "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation"
 1818  Shelley's "Frankenstein"
 1819  Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"
 1819  Schopenauer's "The World as Will and Idea"
 1819  University of Virginia founded
 1820-1830  George IV (regent 1811-20) king of England
 1823  Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony"
 1824-1830  Charles X king of France
 1830-1837  William IV king of England
 1830-1842  Comte's "Course of Positive Philosophy"
 1830-1848  Louis Philippe king of France
 1830  Stendhal's "Red and Black"
 1831  Faraday establishes relationship between electricity and magnetism
 1831  Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
 1833  Slavery eliminated in British colonies
 1835  Babbage computer design
 1837-1901  Victoria queen of England
 1837  Morse developes Telegraph
 1838  Dicken's "Oliver Twist"
 1839-1843  First Opium War
 1840  Joule and Helmholz establish conversation of energy in electric circuits
 1843  Kierkegaard's "Either/Or"
 1845  Poe's "The Raven"
 1846-1848  Mexican-American War
 1848  Revolutions of 1848
 1848  Marx's "Communist Manifesto"
 1848-1871  Napoleon III rules France
 1848  Mill's "Principles of Political Economy"
 1850  Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter"
 1851  Melville's "Moby Dick"
 1853-1856  Crimean War
 1853-1855  Compte de Gobineau's "Essay on the Inequality of Human Races"
 1854  Thoreau's "Walden"
 1855  Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
 1855-1881  Alexander II emperor of Russia
 1856-1860  Second Opium War
 1857  Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"
 1859  Darwin's "Origin of the Species"
 1861  Russia eliminates serfdom
 1861-1865  American Civil War
 1861-1871  Italy reunited
 1862  Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons"
 1866  Dostoyevky's "Crime and Punishment"
 1866  Mendel's Law of genetics
 1869  Tolstoy's "War and Peace"
 1869-1876  Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung"
 1869-1870  Mendeleyev and Meyer independently formulate periodic law
 1870  Pope Pius IX proclaims the doctrine of Papal Infallibility
 1873  Maxwell's "Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism"
 1876  Bell Patents Telephone
 1877  Bell developes phonograph
 1878-1900  Humbert I king of Italy
 1880  Zola's "Nana"
 1881-1894  Alexander III emperor of Russia
 1882  First electric power plant
 1883  Stevenson's "Treasure Island"
 1886  Nietzche's "Beyond Good and Evil"
 1890  James' "Principles of Psychology"
 1894-1917  Nicholas II czar of Russia (last)
 1896  Marconi developes radio
 1897  Stoker's "Dracula"
 1898  Spanish American War
 1899-1902  Boer War
 1900  Boxer Rebelion
 1900  Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams"
 1901-1910  Edward VII king of England
 1902  Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
 1904  Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard"
 1905  Einstein's paper on relativity
 1906  Sinclair's "The Jungle"
 1909  Millikan measures electron charge
 1910-1936  George V  king of England
 1913  Husserl's "A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology"
 1914-1918  World War I
 1917  Russian Revolution
 1919  Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace"
 1922  U.S. 19th amendment grants suffrage to women
 1922  Lewis' "Babbitt"
 1922  Eliot's "Waste Land"
 1922  Joyce's "Ulysses"
 1922-1943  Mussolini rules Italy
 1925  Kafka's "The Trial"
 1925  Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby"
 1927  Heidegger's "Being and Time"
 1933  Hitler comes to power
 1936  Edward VIII  king of England
 1936-1952  George VI king of England
 1936-1939  Spanish Civil War
 1939-1975  Franco rules Spain
 1939-1945  World War II
 1939  Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"
 1942  Camus' "The Stranger"
 1943  Sartre's "Being and Nothingness"
 1945  First Digital Computer built
 1948  Israel independent state
 1948  Transistor developed
 1949  Orwell's "1984"
 1949  Miller's "Death of a Salesman"
 1950-1953  Korean War
 1952  Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"
 1952-  Elizabeth II queen of England
 1953  Watson and Crick determine structure of DNA
 1954-1975  Vietnam War
 1959  Cuban revolution
 1962  Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
 1962  Cuban Missile Crisis
 1967  Six-Day War
 1973  Arab-Israeli War (and Oil Embargo)
 1979-1980  Iranian Hostage Crisis
 1982  Faulkland Islands War
 1989  Fall of Berlin Wall
 1990-1991  Gulf War
 1991  Dissolution of USSR
 2001  Destruction of World Trade Center
total: 461
66
395