History

We know quite a lot about the past from looking at the things it has left lying around; and the most detailed knowledge we have of the past comes from what people of the time wrote down. When they wrote it with intent to give a future reader a clear account – albeit usually with at least some bias – of what happened, we call it history; when they wrote it for other reasons (such as accounts to keep trade honest or to help an owner keep track of what he owns), one could argue that our interpretation of it is more archeological than historical, but we usually treat the reading of such records as history anyway (they are, if nothing else, more apt to be honest). As a result, the scope of history is limited to the era of written records – to which this page is devoted. For events prior to the invention of writing, see my time-line.

I measure time backwards from the present (nominally 2001 – see below for why) and all of history falls within the range of times ago that I'd naturally represent in kilo-years, a.k.a. millennia – writing emerged within the last ten millennia and anything more recent than a century (tenth of a millennium), while genuinely history, shades into current affairs and the mythology of present political realities, so I chose to leave it to others. If you want information on closer time-scales than the last century, seek elsewhere: and please be sensible enough to bear in mind that any author, whose writings you can hope to read, is close enough to the socio-political realities of the events discussed that you should engage your best talent for skepticism (especially if what they say agrees with your prejudices) in assessing the veracity of their accounts of the recent past.

One such elsewhere that may have a sobering impact on readers is Piero Scaruffi's list of wars and casualties, steadilly expanding outwards from the 20th century as he gathers more information. As Eric Bogle says at the end of No Man's Land (lyrics – PDF), even since the war to end wars, it has all happened again and again and again and again and again.

My main aim here is merely to record the time-line of our past, in which the order of events takes centre stage, even when the events in question are unrelated – proper histories generally (and properly) tell a cogent story of related events, ignoring unrelated events elsewhere; but, here, I want to provide the framework for seeing how those disparate stories' time-lines match up. As a result, although this page treats the last ten millennia because what we know of them is predominantly from written records, I include here the things we know from other sources.

51 yr ago: carbon dating's The Present

In contrast to my choice of 2001 as the present, there is a well-established precedent of using 1950 as The Present for purposes of dates before the present, a.k.a. BP. The reason for this is that this is when humanity's rash experiments with nuclear weapons so tainted the world with radioactive mess as to render carbon (and other isotopic decay methods of) dating after that date unreliable. Stuff deep enough in the ground at that date to not be tainted can still be dated, as long as it's not been chemically interacting with things living since then.

570 to 92 yr ago: superstitious law courts

1431, May 30, Rouen, France: Jean d'Arc burned at the stake for communing with spirits; April 1909, the same maid of Orleans was canonised on grounds of those spirits being deemed angelic.

134 yr ago: Alaska purchase
The USA bought Alaska off the Russian Tzar in 1867.
224 to 146 yr ago: Karl Friedrich Gauss
A gardener's son, born in Braunschweig, Germany in 1777 on April 30th, showed such early promise that Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick had him educated, thereby bestowing a huge blessing on Science and Mathematics.
249 yr ago
Great Britain (hence also its colonies) waited until 1752 to make the transition to the Gregorian calendar. September 1st was followed by September 13th. The same year, Great Britain also changed from March 25th as the start of the year to January 1st (although the tax year in the UK starts on April 1st, which looks suspiciously like a hold-over from this).
294 to 218 yr ago: Leonhard Euler
One of history's most prolific mathematicians, who introduced the now-conventional symbols to the square root of −1 and the base of the natural logarithms; he also introduced the f(x) notation for functions.
401 yr ago
Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake for his heresies. There is some debate as to whether his heterodox views on cosmology – identifying stars as suns, with planets of their own, in an infinite universe – contributed to The Inquisition's deciaion.
419 yr ago
Introduction of the Gregorian calendar (named after pope Gregory XIII), on October 15th 1582. In Roman Catholic countries, October 4th was followed by October 15th. Denmark, The Netherlands and protestant Germany made the switch in the 1600s.
475 yr ago
Thomas Digges publishes a re-telling of Copernicus without the outer celestial sphere, thus introducing the idea of an infinite universe. (In this, he may have been echoing Nocholas of Kues, who espoused similar ideas 540 or more years ago.)
474 to 372 yr ago: John Dee
A curious fellow, at least partially the inspiration for various figures in literature, from magicians to the secret agent 007.
The last 494 years: the era of flight
In 1507 a Scottish alchemist, John Damian, lept off the ramparts of Stirling castle, intent on flying to France. It's not clear how far he got, but modern researchers suspect he actually did fly a short way (before infamously breaking his leg on landing in a midden).
At least 830 years ago
Irish distillation of aqua vitae in abbeys, recorded in 1170 on Henry II's invasion. English taxes were being levied on the alembics used for this as early as 1276.
A millennium ago
Abulcais (Cordoba, 936–1031 CE) perfected the alembic, hence distillation of ethanol.
1130 years ago
Al Kindi (Baghdad, died 873 CE) improved distilling techniques to obtain rose essence.
1.591 k yr ago
Sack of Rome.
1.689 k yr ago: conversion of Constantine
The official date, 312 AD, at which the Roman Empire switched from oppressing christianity to promoting it. The oppression had actually been limited: there was official persecution in 249 AD under Decius and 303–304 AD under Diocletian, probably with other outbursts of varying officialness, but generally the Roman Empire protected all religious minorities from the general population's antipathy. The general population resented the christians because they didn't honour the gods, so all the bad things that happened were clearly their fault, the gods' punishment on the general population for tolerating the atheists in their midst (much as some who now call themselves christians now blame bad things on certain of their fellow citizens).
1.734 k yr ago
Athens sacked by Goths.
1.7 k yr ago
An edict of Diocletian records (in the attempt to fix) the prices of diverse goods; from Roman tax records, we also know the incomes of folk in various social classes. This video explores what that implies for the standard of living of three sample households.
2 ky ago: start of the common era
This is the nominal date of Christ's birth: but it's fairly clear that – even for those who accept the historical reality of the man in question – the late Roman and dark age tracking of dates, combined with poor back-tracking through the centuries in which years were referred to relative to the reigns of assorted rulers, introduced something like four years of inaccuracy. (For example, the biblical account of a bright star moving about the sky can fairly sanely be matched to Chinese records of a comet if we accept a four year discrepancy, while the claim that he was born in Herod's reign implies he was born in 4BCE or earlier.) The Christian system of year numbering refers to years since this nominal start-point as anno domini or AD; somehow, the world has been persuaded to use the same numbering but described as CE (for Common Era) instead of AD, despite religious and calendrical differences. The year before 1 CE (a.k.a. 1 AD or 754 AUC) is thus the first year before the common era, 1 BCE (a.k.a. 1 BC, the first year before Christ; I've heard that, technically, that's supposed to be before his circumcision, on the 8th day of his life, putting his birth on December 25th 1 BC – although I've also heard that, before his official birthday was set thus, the early church didn't care much about when he was born but placed it in spring); earlier years are correspondingly numbered backwards, so the n-th year BCE is (in the numbering I'm using here) 2000+n years ago – I chose 2001 CE as my nominal reference date to make that arithmetic easy ! Note that there is no year zero in the CE/BCE or AD/BC system.
2.045 k yr ago (45 BC, 709 AUC)
Introduction of the Julian calendar. The Romans had previously used a luni-solar calendar in which the insertion of leap months was determined by elected priests; consequently, the decisions had been more political than scientific, leaving the calendar 80 days behind the Sun in 46 BC. Caesar hired an Egyptian astronomer, Sosigenes, to sort out a better calendar, based on the Egyptian solar calendar. 46 BC was extended to get back in sync with The Sun – it was later known as The Year of Confusion – and the start of the year was shifted from March 15th (the Ides of March) to January 1st. (Thus 80 days were inserted but 74 of those days were counted as falling in the following year.) The conspirators who murdered him on the Ides of March the next year, 44 BC, thus did so on the former New Year's Day; I cannot help but suspect that contained some symbolism.
2.049 k yr ago: Caesar crosses the Rubicon
49 BCE, January 10th, Julius Caesar paused on the banks of the Rubicon, a river formally marking the border between Italy and Gaul, the province to which he'd been sent with his army. Roman law forbade him to bring his army out of his province: he had to return to Rome and present himself to the senate's judgement of how he'd fared in his campaign; but he knew political machinations were afoot by his enemies. If he took his army with him, he broke the law; if he didn't, he was defenceless against ruthless opponents. While he mulled this dilemma (according to his later account), some of his soldiers crossed the river to enjoy music being played by a shepherd on the other side; Caesar took this as his cue to take his army to Rome, thereby starting a civil war pivotal to the Roman republic's later tranformation into an empire.
2.264 to 2.146 k yr ago
The Punic wars; Rome and Carthage fought for dominance of the Mediterranean.
2.287 to 2.212 k yr ago: Archimedes
The nearest the Romans got to making a decisive contribution to mathematics was killing Archimedes on the beach at Syracuse in 212 BCE. Archimedes, aside from his prolific contributions to mathematics and physics, invented several machines of war which helped Syracuse keep the Romans at bay for some years. He was born around 287 BCE and narrowed the value of a famous constant to 223/71 < π < 22/7.
2.332 k yr ago: Alexandria
Alexander the Great established Alexandria as his capital for Egypt, in 332 BCE as part of his campaign of conquests. There may well have been an earlier settlment dating back to as much as 3 k yr ago. His general Ptolemy subsequently converted Alexandria into a centre of intellectual excellence. Euclid (born c. 325 BCE) was one of the first luminaries to flourish there.
2.336 to 2.323 k yr ago
The reign of Alexander III (The Great) of Macedonia; preceded by his father, Philip II, from 2.359 to 2.336 k yr ago.
2.6 to 2.2 k yr ago: the world is a sphere

The Pythagorean school of thought, in the 500s BCE, considered the world a sphere (and believed it to orbit the Sun); Aristotle (384–322 BCE) threw in some supporting evidence; Eratosthenes (276ish–196ish BCE) measured its curvature fairly accurately.

2.312 k yr ago: the Seleucid Era
Seleucus won a battle at Gaza that established his rule over a large part of Asia. This was the 1st year of the 117th Olympiad.
2.6 k yr ago
Foundation of Marseilles, by Greeks from the West of Asia Minor (now Turkey). Meanwhile, in Hallstatt, salt-miners were washing down blue cheese with beer.
2.8 to 2.2 k yr ago: the Axial Age
800 to 200 BCE, a period of major developments in philosophical/religious thinking across several civilisations stretching (at least) from Greece to China.
2.6 k yr ago
Thales invents the formalism of mathematical proof.
Since at least 2.7 k yr ago:
Cannabis has been used for its mind-altering effects.
2.775 or 2.753 k yr ago:
Rome founded: April 21, 753 BCE according to tradition; archeological evidence suggests c. 775 BCE. Rome was ruled by kings until 507 BCE. Some Roman historical records used the AUC dating system – Anno Urbis Conditae – which counts years from the founding, but not until long enough after the event that their traditional reckoning (as now extrapolated back from comparing with other sources using other dating systems) was out of sync with what archeology now claims.
2.776 k yr ago
The (first year of the) first Olympiad; these went in a four year cycle, so the second Olympiad stated in 772 BCE.
2.814 k yr ago
Carthage founded by Phoenician settlers fleeing from the political turmoil in the city of Tyre. (814 or 813 BCE, according to a not necessarily reliable source; confirmed apparently independently by another, which supplies the Phoenician name Qart-Hadasht as originally meaning New City.)
2.9 to 2.7 k yr ago
Villanovan or early Iron Age period in central Italy, followed by an Etruscan period from 2.7 to 2.48 k yr ago.
3.5 to 2.3 k yr ago
The Phoenecian civilisation in the Mediteranean coastline (c.1500 BCE to c.300 BCE). The originally Phoenecian city of Marseilles still thrives to this day.
3 k yr ago
Early proto-Canaanite (precursor of Hebrew, Greek and Latin alphabets) writing, on a shard of pottery, might be the oldest known text in the Hebrew language.
3.2 to 3.17 k yr ago
The late bronze age collapse. Several civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean collapse dramatically in the space of a few decades; only Egypt survives, severely diminished as a dark age begins.
3.3 to 2.7 k yr ago
The urnfield period of the late bronze age in western Europe.
3.39 to 3.37 k yr ago
Early North European beer. The Egtved girl was buried with, among other things, a bucket of beer. See below for evidence of even earlier beer.
3.55 to 3.07 k yr ago:
Egypt's new kingdom brought stability to an area spanning 1.2 Mm, from Nubia (now Ethiopia) in the South to Palestine in the North. Rough contemporaries include a Kassite state (3.53 to 3.16 k yr ago) in Lower Mesopotamia, an Assyrrian state (3.4 to 3.05 k yr ago) in Upper Mesopotamia, a Hittite new kingdom (3.4 to 3.2 k yr ago) in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and Cretan palatial civilisations (see the Aegean Bronze age, below). Biblical chronologies put Israel's conquest of Canaan at around 3.2 k yr ago, half way through this period.
3.628 k yr ago
The explosion of Thera, north of Crete, had a fairly drastic impact on eastern mediterranean cultures, but they recovered.
3.9 to 3.4 k yr ago:
the Aegean Bronze age

radiocarbon dating puts the volcanic eruption at Santorini, which heralded the age, between 1660 and 1613 BCE. Price and Thonemann divide the period on Crete into a first palace period, 1900–1750 BCE, and a second palace period, 1750–1430 BCE, after which Mycenaeans take control of Crete.

3.8 to 3.2 k yr ago: Iron metalurgy
Early extraction of iron from ores (as distinct from working naturally-occuring meteoric iron) may go back as far as 3.8 k yr in India; certainly by 3.2 k yr ago it was being practiced in southern India and (by hittites) in The Middle East.
3.8 k yr ago
Caananite script developed. Within about a century, 3.7 k yr ago, folk were writing sentences in it on household objects, such as an ivory comb. The first albphabet, this writing system was developed by folk who knew the Egyptian system. Mesopotamia and Egypt have had writing systems since 5.2 k yr ago, according to that article.
Around the same time, you've got Mesopotamian justice systems that depend on geometers to settle land disputes; and the student mathematicians are getting set artificial questions that depend on knowing Pythagoras's theorem and being able to solve simultaneous equations.
4 k yr ago: Banking

The Akkadian karrum (literally quay but meaning market and the traders associated therewith; the goods travelled by river, so arrived at the quay) of Ashur (later: Assyria) controlled trade, levying taxes, keeping its own warehouses and offering warehouse space to merchants; but also holding goods and money on behalf of private merchants and, thus, functioning as a bank of deposit.

4ish k yr ago: Pythagorean triples

Long before Pythagoras, a Babylonian wrote pythagorean triples on a clay tablet.

4 k yr ago: South American metal-working
Beginning around 4 k yr ago, people in South America began working metals, initially starting with naturally occurring copper and precious metals. This lead (eventually) to the reinvention of metalurgy (around 2 k yr ago).
4.1 to 3.8 k yr ago: Egypt's middle kingdom
had a secure border with Nubia (Ethiopia) to the South.
4.55 k yr ago: the Great Pyramid

Built for the pharoah Cheops, a.k.a. Khufu, and still not fully explored – but Dr. Zahi Hawass is working on it.

4.89 to 4.63 k yr ago
Folk in the Indus valley farm millet for harvest in the summer and pulses for a winter harvest. By 4.52±.06 k yr ago, they'd added horsegram to their summer harvest; by 4.285±.145 k yr ago, they had rice. They likely started with dry-land rice, possibly with some wet-land rice, before switching to more productive wet-land growing methods around 4 k yr ago.
2 to 5 k yr ago

The most recent common ancestor of all currently living humans is estimated to have lived between two and five millennia ago.

5 to 4.5 k yr ago
The (olive-skinned, brown-haired) farmers of Britain built Stonehenge. Then Yersinia pestis (a.k.a. The Black Death or, simply, The Plague) wiped out many of them. This paved the way for Eurasian steppe herders – pale-skinned, wagon-driving, speaking proto-Indo-European, with domesticated horses – to fill the gaps.
5.15 k yr ago: wheel
The Ljubljana Marshes Wheel is a wooden disk with a square hole for an axle; one may fairly guess that folk had been making wheels for a while before this, since wheels of this kind would mostly not survive.
5.3 k yr ago
Late Neolithic: Ötzi the iceman was killed, at age 45, but his body was preserved in an alpine glacier. His clothes suggest a pastoral and agricultural life-style. He is now believed to have no surviving relatives.
5.5 k yr ago
Uruk – home city of Gilgamesh (and writing, perhaps).
Early distillation in mesopotamian Iraq; a basic still was depicted around 3500 BC; probably for extracting plant oils as perfumes.
Metalurgy – after two thousand years of metal-working, people work out how to obtain metals from ores and combine them into alloys, starting with bronze, which had spread to India by about 4 k yr ago.
6 k yr ago
The dark-skinned, black-haired folk of the British Isles, who had blue-green eyes, were displaced by an olive-skinned, dark-haired population, whose language may well have been a cousin of modern Basque. These new arrivals brought with them, originally from Anatolia (modern Turkey), were farmers.
6 to 4 k yr ago: civilization emerges
climate change forced people to live together; and the ones who could cope with that became civilized (i.e. began living together in cities).
6ish k yr ago: beer brewing
Egyptians had breweries that are identifiable in the archeological record and their European contemporaries, even north of the Alps, were doing things to grains that look suspiciously like they were brewing too.
6 to 5 k yr ago: writing
The civilisations in and around Mesopotamia (from Egypt to the Indus) evolved writing – a prerequisite of history and a major boon to research, hence technology, of all kinds – out of their assorted systems of markings.
6.714 k yr ago
Start-point of the Julian day numbering system; its day 0 is 4714 BC, Nov 24 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar (see 419 yr ago); or 4713 BC Jan 1 in the proleptic Julian calendar (see 2047 yr ago).
7.3 k yr ago
Proto-writing in south-eastern Europe. Diverse cultures throughout the Eurasian-African super-continent have developed systems of marks (for example, on pottery – which, by now, has spread all over) for various purposes.
8.6 k yr ago
Ancient chinese proto-writing. There's some debate about what it was, what it was used for or exactly how long ago it happened, but they definitely made some interesting markings on tortoise shells.
8 to 7 k yr ago: metal-working
Balkan sites show the most ancient evidence of metal-working. Initially, people worked with naturally-occurring copper, precious metals and even iron.
10ish k yr ago
Mesopotamians begin using clay tokens to represent (at least) agricultural goods; in time, they take to enclosing sets of such tablets in sealed clay containers, then to marking such containers with symbols indicating what tokens are within; these markings ultimately develop into writing.

Sources

As in my pages on the scale of things, I link to relevant sources where practical: but books aren't amenable to HREFs and I may yet find some sites so worthy of plunder as to justify mentioning the site URL here as well as the URLs of particular quotes above.

See also

A video showing Europe and the Mediterranean, from 400 BCE to the present, with assorted borders and populations within those borders, as they've varied over time.


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