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10,000 BCE
The Neolithic Revolution
This marked the emergence of the sedentary lifestyle of farming cereal grains, which replaced the hunter-gatherer lifestyle many humans lived by at the time. This shift led to the appearance of permanent settlements in which many advancements were made. One of which being methods of creating food and drink. -
6000 BCE
The Invention of Pottery
The invention of pottery allowed people to contain and store other things such as wine. This allowed the storage and transportation of goods that might go bad if transported by different methods. -
4300 BCE
The Expansion of Settlements
Out of a need to have protection and a abundance of food, smaller towns began band together forming much larger towns that would be surrounded by fields. These fields would produce grains that were necessary to make their food and drink. -
3400 BCE
The Appearance of Writing
The earliest pieces of writing made by ancient civilizations date back to 3400 BCE. This allowed early civilizations to be able to record information in simpler ways. In turn it allows us to learn about the daily life of people back in their time. We also learn about the food they ate and what they drink and how they do so, the drink mentioned being beer. -
2500 BCE
Rations a Payment
In ancient Egypt it was recorded that workers on the pyramids were paid in beer and bread. Thus proving that ancient civilizations were able form a work force able to complete large scale projects, and would be able to feed them. -
2100 BCE
Medicine in Ancient Civilizations
In Mesopotamia a list of medical recipes was found. Many of the mixtures for medicines contained beer since beer was boiled where as water was not. -
700 BCE
The Mass Production of Wine
This was the first instance of a culture producing goods for exportation to make a profit rather than live off what they produced. This method of producing goods and living off their profit has been used by many civilizations and is still followed today. -
100 BCE
The Separation of People by Drinks
In Roman society an easy way to determine the status of an individual would be to see the quality of wine that the person would drink. The classification of people based of the quality of food rather than the quantity being given began to create larger gaps between each class in a society in the western world. -
170
Greek and Roman Medicine
In Greece and Rome physicians believed that sickness in the body was caused by an imbalance of four humors inside their body. Properties of foods like temperature and moisture determined what would be used in a certain situation, one such substance being wine. This method of figuring out sickness and how to cure it became the basis for medicine in western civilization for over one thousand years. -
Jan 1, 600
The First Ban of Alcohol
When Muhammad witnessed a fight between two of his disciples it led to the ban of alcoholic beverages such as wine. As well as being set as a duty that all Muslims must follow it became the first action ever set to prevent the consumption of food to all people in a specific group. -
Jan 1, 970
The Technological Superiority of the Arabs
In Cordoba the largest library in the city was constructed and was latter filled with thousands of books. The library and the whole city were the biggest that could be found in all of western Europe. The importance of learning in the Arab world led to the creation of many inventions and ideas that went on to allow Europeans to expand across the Atlantic ocean. Some of these things being the astrolabe, new navigational techniques, and the process of distillation. -
Jan 1, 1440
The Beginning of African Enslavement
When Europeans found sugar which was originally grown by the Arabs it encouraged European cultures to attempt to grow it. However it required a massive amount of man power to grow sugarcane as well as process it into a usable form. This led to the Portuguese to begin barter for saves in west Africa. This first instant of mass enslavement for the production of crops became a model for latter European nations, resulting in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. -
Dec 8, 1500
Denial of Trade
After the Ming dynasty took hold in China, it was noticed that the Chinese empire was the most prosperous and expansive civilization on the Eurasian continent. This resulted in the Chinese closing down their borders to prevent cultural diffusion. This action made European countries do all that was in their power to open trade routes into China. -
Jun 1, 1511
The Exception to the Prohibition
When coffee was found and introduced to the Arab world, it was questioned whether or not the drink would be considered to be an intoxicant. For hundreds of years any drink that was ever thought to have been intoxicating was banned due to laws that prohibited the consumption of them. The side affect to coffee seemed to many people to be the opposite of that of alcohol, but at the same time people had a craving for the drink. This made people reconsider how the law was meant to be interpreted. -
The Impact of Rum
When the colony of Barbados was first inhabited the crop that was most profitable and grew best in the location was sugar cane. The production of sugar cane allowed rum to also be produced. This drink was able to be made cheaply and allowed early colonies to feed their inhabitants cheaply and without importing from across the Atlantic ocean. Besides being important in Caribbean colonies it was also used to develop the North American colonies and feed the British navy. -
The Freedom of Speech
The introduction of coffee as well as the coffee house from the Arab world led to people beginning to feel confident enough to speak openly about many topics. The freedom to be able to speak what is on a person's mind allowed people to question preexisting ideas and produce ideas of their own. -
The Eastern British Empire
When King Charles the second was married to Catherine of Braganza a part of the dowry was the right to trade with the Portuguese and two trading ports. This gave England direct access to trade with eastern cultures including China. This access made the people of England want goods that were produced exclusively in China including tea. -
Breaking the Monopoly on Coffee
Ever since people originally began to crave coffee most of the supplies were grown in Arabia, and from there it would be made sure that the coffee beans were made sterile and then shipped for consumption in other countries. Since the Europeans didn't want the coffee supplies to be be controlled by a single foreign nation they decided to produce a supplies of their own. This became one of the first notions that if a specific group had a monopoly on a product they would manipulate the market. -
Testing of Theories
Around this year larger lectures began to take place in coffee houses, these would involve the use of scientific equipment that was used to test proposed theories. This and many other examples show how people began to question theories that were accepted many years ago, allowing people to learn for themselves what the reality of a concept was. -
The Molasses Act
The act was passed to discourage the import of goods like molasses from foreign colonies and instead acquire them from other English colonies. Since the production of molasses by English colonies was inferior to that of the French, the people of New England decided to smuggle molasses ignoring the molasses act. This first act of defiance would eventually lead to the revolutionary war which would then encourage many other colonies to do the same latter in time. -
Industrialization
At this time the first spinning mill was created to enhance the production rate of textiles. This made it so only specialized workers were needed in the production of a good instead of being skilled in multiple crafts. Many people were hired to work in these large spinning mill and tea was essential in quenching their thirst. -
The Tea Act
Since the British East Indian Company had to pay an import duty on the vast amounts of tea that they had stored, they decided to get the government to intervene to decrease the amount of smuggling while increasing the sale of legal tea. This plan upset the colonists who relied heavily on imports from smugglers, when some of the first ships arrived in the Boston harbor they were prevented from unloading and the cargo was emptied into the ocean. -
Dominance of Trade in the East
The increase of desire for Chinese imports such as tea and silk, made taking over all trade in the east essential to keep up with the growing demands for these items. The nation with the largest presence in the east was the Dutch, A war series of wars began between the Dutch and the British leading to the removal of the dutch from the east. Trade with China at this time became so important to nations that they would try to cut out any competition to ensure that they had more occasions to trade. -
A Different Ideal Government
In France many liberties that were enjoyed by the English were not given to the majority of people. When people began to question the current society and compare it to that of the English it was found that their current system was unfavorable. This ultimately led to the French Revolution which called for a change in how the government was run. Like in many other places that came in contact with coffee it resulted in the desire for freedom of speech. -
The Tax on Whiskey
After the resolution of the Revolutionary war the United States of America amassed an international debt. The solution to the problem was to tax all distilled drinks as soon as they were produced, this was especially harsh on those in the west who required it to feed themselves. This led to the Whiskey Rebellions that occurred over this tax and resulted in the federal government putting down the rebellions and sent the message that the federal government was to be obeyed. -
Patent Medicines
In the nineteenth century it was popular for people to create fake remedies and sell them to the public in hopes of making a profit. The recipes to many of these concoctions usually included addictive substances to give a positive feeling affect towards the user. One of such medicines ended up being one of the most popular beverages in the US for the next few decades, that drink being Coca-Cola. -
The End to American Isolationism
Since the founding of the US it had been favorable for the country to stay out of foreign affairs whenever it could. This policy was eventually ended when the US was dragged into World War II through the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor. This resulted in the US being much more involved in world affairs then it had ever been before, this also led to many american goods to be spread across the globe including soda. -
The Iron Curtain
After World War II the Soviet Union and the US divided Germany among each other and later blocked off their own portions from the other. This created a situation where each side was unaware of what could have been going on each others side, this raised tensions between the nations and prevented any interaction with countries behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet blockade also made it favorable for american soda companies to sell their products in the Soviet Union due to less competition. -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
When the Berlin wall fell it signaled the end of communism in eastern Europe. This led to many goods from the western world to be introduced to many people who were previously under Soviet rule. This made it so that buying western made products would have been preferred over buying anything locally made, making western made soda more popular in the east. -
The Iraq War
In Iraq a growing feeling of anti-Americanism had emerged and led to conflict between groups in the Middle East and the US. Many attacks have also been done towards american companies in more passive ways, one of such companies being Coca-Cola since it embodied american ideas.
