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11,000 BCE
Hunting
the only way for people to feed themselves was by hunting and gathering. This form of food production was very difficult and time consuming, and thus limited population growth. -
19
Climate Changes
climate changes caused many of the environments around the world to change, specifically in the Middle East. These climate changes caused many of the plants and animals that people gathered and hunted to die off, forcing them to improvise. Rather than looking for food, they kept the food in close proximity by planting grains and herding goats. -
Period: 1500 to
Scientific Revolution
Galileo had paved the way for a new physics and opened the path for the incredible discoveries of perhaps the greatest physicist of all time, Isaac Newton. Newton changed the way humanity looked at the world, in terms of timeless and discoverable laws of nature. Sir Francis Bacon, writing before Newton, predicted that science and technology could dramatically transform the world for human benefit. In this, he proved among the most prescient thinkers of history. -
Nov 15, 1532
The battle of Cajamarca
Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro along with another 168 conquistadors. They went to South America to attack the Incan Emperor Atahualpa and his 80,000 warriors. Even tough they were highly outnumbered Pizarro managed to conquest the whole Incan Empire in just one day slaughtering thousands in the process. The Spanish had guns that they where not so effective but the loud bangs frightened the Incans who have never seen guns before. -
Settling on the Cape of Good Hope
The first European settlers came to Southern Africa in the mid-1600’s and began settling on the Cape of Good Hope. The area around the Cape of Good Hope lies at a similar latitude as Europe, and so the temperatures and climates are almost exactly the same. This allowed the Europeans to establish prosperous farms in Southern Africa. -
Modern economic growth began in England
A unique combination of forces spurred this growth in economic life that eventually spread to the entire world. Agricultural productivity started to rise and rural areas were able to produce a surplus for the industrial workforce. Topography, river ways, canals, ports, and mineral deposits in combination with market incentives, rule of law, and a university‐led scientific outlook all helped boost growth. -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution is one of the most significant changes in recent human history. The transition included people moving from countryside to larger cities, going from hand production to the use of machines, increased use of steam power and going from wood and other bio-fuels to the use of coal. For the first time in recent history the living standard of the masses of ordinary people began experienced a sustainable growth. -
Watt Steam Engine
James Watt improved on a previous steam engine design, and patented his Watt steam engine. His invention made it possible to efficiently and economically harness massive amounts of energy from coal deposits. -
Invisible Hand
Adam Smith was the first economist to explain the workings of a modern economy in terms of specialization and the division of labor. He gave us the idea of the Invisible Hand, by which individuals acting out of their own narrow self-interest, trading in the marketplace, bring about a rise in productivity and therefore the “wealth of nations.” -
Period: to
Kondratiev Waves of Technology throughout the years
the steam age (1780–1830), the age of steel production and railway building (1830–1880), the age of electricity (1880–1930), the age of the automobile, of the chemical industry and of aviation (1930–1970), and the age of information and communication technologies (1970–2010). -
Main Technological Leader
The United States has been the main technological leader for well over a century and has had a per capita growth rate of 1.7% per year since approximately 1820. For most of the world, economic growth has been about catching up with the technological leader through a process of diffusion. However economic growth does not ripple through the world homogeneously. -
Three Guns
Thousands of Dutch settlers, called the Voortrekkers, moved north of the Cape into the interior of Southern Africa and with them, they brought firearms. Most men carried two to three guns with them at all times. Even as the Europeans encountered hostile African tribes like the Zulu, they were able to rely on their guns to quickly and easily decimate the opposing indigenous forces. -
The Communist Manifesto
Marx and his coauthor Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848 as a kind of ironic tribute to the power of the new industrial economy and the breakthroughs in industrial technology. A new world indeed had arrived, one that would overrun the old and create a new global age, in part based on European colonial domination powered by the new industrialization. -
Period: to
The Marginal Revolution
There are four main reasons for this period: the focus in economics turned from the classical long-term development, that is the theory of population, welfare and growth, towards shorter terms. The use of mathematics became more and more common, though Jevons did not particularly contribute to this development. In 1870's, the general view in economics took a more mathematical approach. The generation of economist was among the first to have a formal education in economics. -
Invading Central Africa
European colonizers began invading central Africa. They used the forced labor of the indigenous people to harvest Africa’s natural resources and also to construct trains to export those resources out of central Africa. Modern Zambia is now shaped by this colonization. Towns and cities grow up next to the mines and railroads that were established by Europeans, and are developed in the European model. -
Rebuilding
The First World went through a period of rebuilding after World War II. Then endogenous technological growth took hold and living standards rose rapidly. In the Second World, industrialization first seemed dynamic, but then came to a halt. This prompted political and economic reforms. -
Period: to
The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. It was the longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the 20th century. The depression originated in the U.S, after the fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 (known as Black Tuesday). The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries rich and poor. -
World Economic Division
By 1945, and until the end of the Cold War in 1991, the world economy was divided in four parts: the “First World” (United States, Western Europe and Japan), the “Second World” (Communist countries), the “Third World” (the unaligned newly independent postcolonial countries), and the “Fourth World” (the poorest of the poor countries). -
Moore's Law
the CEO of Intel Gordon Moore noted that the transistor count on an integrated circuit was doubling roughly every 18 to 24 months. This phenomenon, dubbed Moore's law, has been observed for roughly 58 years -
Communist
economic development under Communist systems was basically screeching to a halt, which prompted some of the Second World countries to begin reform. -
Catch-up Growth in China
Deng Xiaoping came to power in China and opened the country to a market system, international trade and foreign investment. These reforms unleashed catch‐up growth in China. -
Period: to
Era of Globalization
the world entered an era of globalization. Facilitated by technological breakthroughs, systems of production became global. These global production systems became centered around large multinational companies dividing their value chain of production among countries to take advantage of differences in wages, skills and transport conditions. -
Lehman Brothers Collapsed
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the US, doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. -
Zambia Malaria
In modern Zambia, germs and disease have become the prevailing shapers of society. Malaria is the number one killer of African children under the age of five. They live in high density urban areas, and the rate of infection has increased dramatically.This rapid increase of malaria infection in young children has caused many women to miss work in order to care for their sick children. -
Billions in damages
In 2017, Texas’s estimated losses from Hurricane Harvey were $125 billion; Hurricane Sandy caused about $71 billion of damages in 2012. According to Morgan Stanley, climate disasters have cost North America $415 billion in the last three years, much of that due to wildfires and hurricanes. -
Climate Changes affects Economic
Warmer temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather will damage property and critical infrastructure, impact human health and productivity, and negatively affect sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism. The demand for energy will increase as power generation becomes less reliable, and water supplies will be stressed. Damage to other countries around the globe will also affect U.S. business through disruption in trade and supply chains. -
Air Pollution
Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone. The economic benefits from tackling air pollution are significant: in the 15 countries that emit the most greenhouse gas emissions, the health impacts of air pollution are estimated to cost more than 4% of their GDP.
