March 19, 2024
Major Events in History

Timeline and Summary of the Major Events in History

(Last Updated On: April 16, 2021)

Major Events in History- History is the examination of the past, originated from the Greek word, historia, meaning “inquiry, or knowledge acquired by the investigation. Events occurring before the invention of writing methods are thought of as prehistory.

“History” is an umbrella time period that pertains to previous occasions in addition to the reminiscence, discovery, assortment, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these occasions.

Historians place the previous in context utilizing historic sources corresponding to written paperwork, oral accounts, ecological markers, and materials objects together with artwork and artifacts.

History additionally contains the educational self-discipline which makes use of narrative to explain, study, query, and analyze a sequence of previous occasions, and examine the patterns of trigger and impact which might be associated with them. Historians search to know and symbolize the previous via narratives.

They usually debate which narrative finest explains an occasion, in addition to the importance of various causes and results. Historians additionally debate the character of history and its usefulness by discussing the examination of self-discipline as an end in itself and as an approach to offering a “perspective” on the issues of the present.

Stories widespread to a specific culture, however not supported by exterior sources (such as because the tales surrounding King Arthur), are often categorized as cultural heritage or legends. History differs from fantasy in that it’s supported by proof.

However, ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the character of history which have advanced over the centuries and proceed to alter immediately.

The modern examination of history is wide-ranging and contains the examination of particular areas and the examination of sure topical or thematic components of the historic investigation. History is usually taught as a part of main and secondary education, and the educational study of history is significant self-discipline in college research.

Herodotus, a Fifth-century BC Greek historian is usually thought of (throughout the Western custom) to be the “father of history”, or, the “father of lies”.Along together with his modern Thucydides, he helped type the foundations for the modern examination of human history.

Their works proceed to learn immediately, and the hole between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides stays some extent of rivalry or method in modern historic writing. In East Asia, a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was identified to be compiled from as early as 722 BC though solely 2nd-century BC texts have survived.

Major Events in History

The following table illustrates the major events in history along with respective timeline:

Time Events
10000 BCE Middle East people domesticated goats and dogs.
9500 BCE Settled farming began.
6000 BCE Copper was discovered.
5000 BCE Sumerian civilization evolved between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Later it became popular as Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).
5000 BCE The first calendar of 365 days, 12 months, and 30 days invented.
3500 BCE Bronze was discovered in Egypt.
3100 BCE The first dynasty of Egypt.
3000 BCE Early writing.
2600 BCE Indus Valley civilization.
2560 BCE Great Pyramid of Giza.
2000 – 1200 BCE Iron Age.
1800 BCE Alphabetic writing appeared.
1700 BCE End of Indus Valley Civilization.
1400 BCE The water clock is invented in Egypt.
1027 BCE In China, the Chou Dynasty began.
850 BCE Homer had written the epic “Iliad and Odyssey”.
776 BCE Olympic Games first recorded.
753 BCE The city of Rome was established by Romulus.
653 BCE Rise of Persian Empire.
600 BCE Sixteen Maha Janapadas emerged in India.
586 BCE The First Temple in Jerusalem (Solomon’s Temple) was destroyed by the Babylonians.
550 BCE Pythagoras (Greek scholar) studied the movements of celestial bodies and mathematics.
509 BCE The founding of the Roman Republic after the exclusion of the last Roman King.
508 BCE Democracy introduced in Athens.
500 BCE Panini standardized the Sanskrit grammar and its morphology in the text Ashtadhyayi.
500 BCE Pingala learned the uses of the zero and binary numeral systems.
499 BCE Greco-Persian Wars.
490 BCE Battle of Marathon.
338 BCE In the Battle of Chaeronea, king Philip II defeated the combined forces of the Greek city-states Athens and Thebes.
337 BCE Philip II had created a strong and unified nation in Macedonia. He hired Aristotle (the Philosopher) to tutor his son, Alexander.
336 BCE Philip II was assassinated and Alexander became king.
331 BCE In the Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia.
326 BCE In the Battle of the Hydaspes River, Alexander the Great defeated Indian king Porus
323 BCE Death of Alexander at Babylon
300 BCE The Great Pyramid of Cholula constructed
221 BCE Qin Shi Huang unified China and the beginning of Imperial rule (in China)
221 BCE The Qin Dynasty began the construction of the Great Wall of China
206 BCE After the death of Qin Shi Huang, Han Dynasty established in China
200 BCE Paper is invented in China
124 BCE China’s Imperial University was established
111 BCE First Chinese domination of Việtnam as the Nanyue Kingdom
4 BCE Birth of Jesus Christ (Widely accepted date)
Major Events in History: Common Era (CE)
29 CE Jesus Christ crucified
70 CE The armies of Titus destructed Jerusalem
78 CE Origin of Saka Era in India
79 CE Mount Vesuvius erupted and destructed Pompeii and other towns (in Italy)
220 CE After the fall of the Han Dynasty, three Kingdoms period begins in China
378 CE The Germanic tribes defeated a Roman army in the battle of Adrianople
570 CE Prophet Mohammed (the founder of the Muslim religion) born
581 CE Sui Dynasty came to China
613 CE Muhammad had commenced preaching publicly in his hometown, Mecca
622 CE Muhammad Migrated from Mecca to Medina
623 CE Muhammad abandoned Saturday as the Sabbath and made Friday a special day of the week
632 CE Muhammad died
660 CE The Quran, the holy book, was published for the first time
793 CE Scandinavians approached the island of Lindisfarne, Scotland by boat and they attacked monks and robbed their monastery. It is the first recorded raid by the Vikings
800 CE Gunpowder was invented
1050 CE An ancient tool of navigation namely The astrolabe” was first used in Europe
1077 CE Construction of the London Tower began
1117 CE The University of Oxford is established
1150 CE The University of Paris is established
1199 CE Europeans first used compasses
1209 CE The University of Cambridge is established
1215 CE John of England sealed the “Magna Carta
1298 CE Marco Polo published his itinerary of China, along with Rustichello da Pisa.
1299 CE Osman I established the Ottoman Empire
1347 CE The Black Death withered Europe for the first (of many times). In the first year, an estimated 20 to 40% of the population was thought to have perished.
1389 CE Battle of Kosovo (in Serbia)
1397 CE The Medici bank was established in Florence
1461 CE King Loius XI of France started postal service
1492 CE Christopher Columbus discovered a route going to the New World (i.e. Caribbean Islands and America)
1498 CE Vasco da Gama arrived in India
1503 CE Leonardo da Vinci started making the painting of Mona Lisa; however, completed it after three years
1506 CE Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain
1632 CE The city of Boston is founded
1636 CE Harvard University is established in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
1652 CE Dutch East India Company founded the city Cape Town in South Africa
1666 CE The Great Fire of London
1683 CE China conquered the Kingdom of Tungning and annexes Taiwan
1687 CE Isaac Newton published “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”
1694 CE The Bank of England is established
1697 CE The earliest known first-class cricket match had taken place in Sussex
1710 CE The world’s first copyright legislation, Britain’s Statute of Anne (also known as Copyright Act 1709), took effect
1724 CE Japan began successful forest management reform and subsequently, timber cutting was reduced
1765 CE In France, a twenty-eight volume of the encyclopedia was completed
1776 CE In the USA, second Continental Congress meeting and declaration of independence July 4)
1781 CE The Spanish settlers founded the city of Los Angeles
1783 CE In the USA, King George declared the thirteen colonies as “free and independent”
1783 CE In the USA, based on the state’s 1780 constitution, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled slavery illegal
1785 CE Napoleon Bonaparte became a lieutenant in the French artillery
1787 CE The United States Constitution is written in Philadelphia and submitted to the states for ratification
1787 CE The slaves freed from London established Freetown (West Africa) i.e. present-day Sierra Leone
1795 CE The first graphite pencils were used
1789–1799 CE French Revolution
1797 CE Napoleon’s invasion and partition of the Republic of Venice ended over 1,000 years of independence of the Serene Republic
1801 CE Napoleon (of France) defeated Austria
1804 CE Haiti attained its independence from France and became the first black republic
1805 CE In Milan (Italy), Napoleon was crowned as the King of Italy
1805 CE In the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon decisively defeated an Austrian-Russian army
1814 CE Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba.
1815 CE Napoleon escaped; however, he was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo (in June) and exiled to Saint Helena Island
1820 CE Discovery of Antarctica
1821 CE Napoleon Bonaparte died (at Saint Helena Island, where he was exiled)
1823 CE Monroe Doctrine was declared by US President James Monroe
1825 CE The two railway station at Stockton and Darlington (the first public railway in the world) was opened
1833 CE Slavery Abolition Act banned slavery throughout the British Empire
1835 CE Vaccination became mandatory in Britain
1838 CE Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolutionary selection and specialization
1840 CE New Zealand is established, as the Treaty of Waitangi is signed between the Māori and British
1841 CE Richard Owen, first time, used the word “dinosaur”
1842 CE First-time Anaesthesia was used
1845-49 CE The Irish Potato Famine that leads to the Irish diaspora
1848-58 CE California Gold Rush
1848 CE Karl Marx wrote Communist Manifesto
1849 CE Roman Republic’s constitutional law became the first to abolish capital punishment
1854 CE Crimean War (fought between Russia and Turkey)
1856 CE World’s first oil refinery founded in Romania
1859-69 CE Suez Canal constructed
1859 CE The first successful oil well was drilled in northern Pennsylvania (USA)
1859 CE John Tyndall, a British scientist, described the concept that carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor trapping heat in the atmosphere. Further, he suggested that the changing in the concentration of gases could bring climate change
1861 CE Russia abolished serfdom
1861-65 CE American Civil War, took place between the Union and seceding Confederacy
1862 CE The first paper money was issued in the United States
1865 CE President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated
1868 CE Michael Barrett was the last person to be publicly hanged in England
1869 CE Dmitri Mendeleev created a Periodic table
1869 CE The Suez Canal route opened that linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea
1871 CE Royal Albert Hall opened in London
1872 CE The first National Park i.e. Yellowstone National Park is established
1886 CE Burma was presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday gift
1886 CE Karl Benz sold the first commercial automobile
1887 CE Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story, ‘A Study in Scarlet’
1889 CE Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris
1891 CE The German government initiated the first public old-age pension scheme
1892 CE For the first time, Fingerprinting was officially adopted.
1893 CE New Zealand became the first country to enact women’s suffrage
1894 CE The first commercial film was released by Jean Aimé Le Roy
1896 CE Olympic Games revived in Athens, Greece
1898 CE Britain obtained a 99-year lease of Hong Kong from China
1900 CE Hawaii became an official USA territory
1901 CE In Stockholm (Sweden), the first Nobel Prize ceremony was held
1901 CE Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest President of the United States
1904 CE Russian Japanese War
1905 CE Albert Einstein’s formulation of relativity
1908 CE First commercial radio transmissions
1911 CE Xinhai Revolution in China overthrows the Qing Dynasty
1912 CE End of the Chinese Empire and the Republic of China established
1912 CE First Balkan War began
1912 CE Woodrow Wilson elected as the 28th President of the United States
1913 CE Second Balkan War and Treaty of Bucharest too place
1914 CE Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo that triggered World War I
1914 CE Panama Canal opened
1915 CE The first use of poison gas at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Second Battle of Ypres
1916 CE The implementation of a daylight saving time system
1917 CE Russian Revolution ended the Russian Empire
1917 CE The United States joined the Allies (countries) for the last 17 months of World War I
1918 CE End of World War I
1918 CE Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus declared their independence from Russia.
1919 CE The Treaty of Versailles redrew European borders.
1919 CE League of Nations founded in Paris.
1920 CE Greece restores its monarchy after a referendum.
1920 CE The International Court of Justice founded at Hague in the Netherlands.
1921 CE Adolf Hitler became Führer (guide, leader) of the Nazi Party.
1922 CE The Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished Ottoman Sultanate.
1923 CE Time Magazine was published the first time
1923 CE Turkish War of Independence ended and Kemal Atatürk became the first President of the newly established Republic of Turkey. The capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara
1924 CE Death of Vladimir Lenin (of Russia); the rise of Stalin.
1924 CE The Caliphate was abolished by Kemal Atatürk.
1924 CE The US Federal Bureau of Investigation established under J Edgar Hoover.
1925 CE Benito Mussolini gains dictatorial powers in Italy and adopted the title of ‘Duce’.
1925 CE Mein Kampf (an autobiography of the National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler) was published.
1927 CE Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union.
1927 CE The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland officially became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
1927 CE The BBC was granted a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom.
1928 CE Mickey Mouse was created at the Walt Disney Studio.
1929 CE Wall Street crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression
1929 CE Vatican City has given the status of a sovereign State.
1929 CE Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.
1930 CE First FIFA World Cup hosted
1931 CE Construction of the Empire State Building
1931 CE Statute of Westminster created the British Commonwealth of Nations
1931 CE Japan invaded Manchuria (China) and occupied it until the end of World War II
1932 CE Franklin D Roosevelt is elected President of the United States
1932 CE The Nazi party became the largest single party in the German parliament
1933 CE Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany
1935 CE Persia became Iran
1937 CE Japanese invaded China
1937 CE The Irish Republican Army attempted to assassinate King George VI of the UK
1938 CE Munich agreement that handed over Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany
1939 CE Nazi invasion of Poland that triggered the beginning of World War II
1940 CE Nazis invaded France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway
1940 CE The Soviet Union annexes the Baltic states
1940 CE Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1941 CE Attack on Pearl Harbor that forced the USA to join World War II
1941 CE Hitler invaded the Soviet Union
1943 CE Battle of Stalingrad ended with over two million casualties and the retreat of the German Army
1943 CE Tehran Conference participated by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin; all agreed to launch Operation Overlord.
1943 CE Green Revolution began.
1944 CE Chechen insurgency ended with the deportation of the entire Chechen population.
1944 CE The first operational electronic computer, Colossus, introduced
1944 CE D Day (Military terms associated with Invasion of Normandy)
1945 CE Battle of Berlin
1945 CE Yalta Conference
1945 CE The atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan)
1945 CE End of World War II in Europe. The Holocaust ends after (about) 12 million deaths
1945 CE Death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini
1945 CE Potsdam Conference (World War II) divided Europe into Western and Soviet blocs
1945 CE United Nations founded
1946 CE First images had been taken of the Earth from space
1948 CE Beginning of apartheid in South Africa
1948 CE Division of North and South Korea
1949 CE Creation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
1949 CE Germany partitioned as the Soviet socialist German Democratic Republic and the NATO-backed Federal Republic of Germany
1949 CE Establishment of the People’s Republic of China under the leadership of Mao Zedong
1951 CE Treaty of San Francisco terminated the Occupation of Japan and formally concluded hostilities between Japan and the US
1952 CE Egyptian Revolution under Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk and terminated British occupation
1953 CE Stalin died
1954 CE The first time, the Soviet Union generated electricity by nuclear power
1955 CE Warsaw Pact signed
1957 CE Beginning of the Space Age with the launch of Sputnik I
1958 CE NASA, the US Federal Aviation Authority, and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) established
1959 CE Cuban Revolution
1962 CE Cuban missile crisis
1962 CE Sino-Indian War
1963 CE The assassination of John F Kennedy
1965 CE Deaths of Winston Churchill
1968 CE Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated while the Poor People’s Campaign
1969 CE Muammar Gaddafi overthrew King Idris of Libya in a Coup d’état and established the Libyan Arab Republic
1973 CE The first space station, Skylab, was launched
1975 CE First Cricket World Cup hosted
1976 CE The first outbreak of the Ebola virus
1978 CE Birth of the first test-tube baby
1979 CE Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of the UK
1985 CE Mikhail Gorbachev became Premier of the Soviet Union
1985 CE The first use of DNA fingerprinting
1986 CE Chernobyl disasters
1989 CE Fall of the Berlin Wall
1990 CE Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW)
1990 CE Gulf War began
1990 CE After 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela released
1991 CE Gulf War ended after US withdrawal and failed to uprise
1991 CE Dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent independence of 15 former Soviet republics
1991 CE Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation
1991 CE The first Website has been put online and made available to the public
1992 CE Maastricht Treaty created the European Union
1993 CE Velvet divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia
1994 CE End of apartheid in South Africa and subsequent election of Nelson Mandela the great leader
1994 CE Opening of the Channel Tunnel
1995 CE Establishment of the World Trade Organization
1997 CE Transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the UK to China
1997 CE Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident in Paris, France
1998 CE Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
1999 CE Euro is introduced
2001 CE Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Washington, DC
2001 CE Wikipedia founded.
2003 CE Iraq War began that triggered worldwide protests.
2003 CE The space shuttle, Columbia, collapsed (while landing) nearby Texas (USA); all the seven astronauts (including Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla) died in the accident.
2005 CE Angela Merkel became Germany’s first woman Chancellor.
2006 CE Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the President of Liberia. She was the first elected female head of state in Africa.
2006 CE Execution of Saddam Hussein.
2008 CE Stock markets plunge across the world.
2008 CE The Monarchy system terminated in Nepal.
2009 CE The world’s tallest skyscraper, Burj Khalifa (in Dubai), has been built.
2010 The largest oil spill in US history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico.
2011 CE Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, and Kim Jong-Il were killed.
2011 CE Iraq War ended.
2013 CE Deaths of Hugo Chávez, Nelson Mandela, and Margaret Thatcher.
2015 CE The United States and Cuba resumed diplomatic relations.
2016 CE American voters elected the most diverse congress yet, as the total number of women of color in the Senate increases from one to four.
2017 CE More than 600,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar pushed across the border into neighboring Bangladesh, leading to a humanitarian crisis in that country.
Robert Mugabe’s Ouster.
2018 CE Justice, the ‘American Way’ – US Missile Attack in Syria
A Terrifying Double Disaster – Indonesia Quakes
2019 CE In April, Emperor Akihito formally stepped down after a 30-year reign, becoming the first Japanese monarch in some 200 years to abdicate.
2020 CE COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the entire world.
2021 CE 2021 is scheduled to host most major events that were originally scheduled for 2020, including the 2020 CONCACAF Nations League Finals, Eurovision Song Contest, UEFA Euro 2020, 2020 Summer Olympics, 2021 Copa América, and Expo 2020

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