History Timeline

Beringia

40,000 BCE

Between 40,000 - 8,000 BCE. During the Last Ice Age, the water levels of the oceans was lower and exposed much of the land between Northwest Alaska and Far East Russia. It was once part of a migration route for both people and animals. Today it is separated by water and has been for several thousand years. Despite this, the people of these 2 areas share a similar language, traditions, and dependence on their environment.

Stone Age

10,000 BCE

10,000 BCE - 3,500 BCE. There were 3 major periods (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic). Fire was a huge technological advantage during this period. The people during this time also made many tools made out of stone.

Neolithic Revolution

8000 BCE

Began the first societies. They were hunter-gathers and clans (extended families). Men would hunt meat, women gathered vegetables, fruits, and nuts. This was the beginning of agriculture.

City - Çatalhöyük

7000 BCE

Çatalhöyük.is a Neolithic city in modern day Turkey. Hunter-gathers built and eventually decided to settle permanently.

Cities - Harappa & Mohenjo-Daro

6500 BCE

Harappa & Mohenjo-Daro were two cities in the Indus River Valley now Pakistan/Western India.They were expertly planned cities that flourished.

City - Faiyum

6000 BCE

Mother of invention. The City of Faiyum in south Egypt is a prehistoric agricultural center along the Nile River Valley. It was a thriving region.

Old Kingdom

2686 BCE

Between 2686 - 2181 BCE. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt (not yet called “Pharaoh”) became a living god who ruled absolutely and could demand the services and wealth of his subjects. This was a true Monarchy.

Sumerian Empire

2330 BCE

The Sumerian Empire: The earliest empire was the Sumerian. there were civilizations before this time, but the Sumerians were the first to introduce Imperialism (the forceful taking of neighboring lands)

King Sargon Dynasty

2220 BCE

King Sargon ruled for 50 years and then handed the power to his son and then Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin. These three
generations of rulers became the first Dynasty ( the long ruling of a place by successors within the same! family) After Naram-sin died, the Akkadian Dynasty collapsed. After, Babylon emerged as an empire.

The Mayan Empire

2000 BCE

It was a civilization with the only fully developed written
language pre-ColumbianAmericas. They are known for their art,
architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. The
Empire sat in Central America where southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are today. Many Mayan cities highest state of development was around 250 CE - 900 CE until the Spanish arrived.

Middle Kingdom

2000 BCE

2000 BCE - 1700 BCE. After the Old Kingdom collapsed, Egypt entered a period of weak Kings and a loss of unification that dated back to King Narmer.

Babylonian Empire

1792 BCE

One Amorites leader by the name of Hammurabi was crowned King of Babylon and proceeded to defeat and control the rest of the Sumerian city states.

The Greeks

1700 BCE

Greece in general is rocky and hilly which caused the cities in Greece to become isolated and self-reliant like little countries or "city-states". The most advanced, early Greek civilizations were the Minoans and the Myceneans.

Shang Dynasty

1600 BCE

The Shang Dynasty is the first recorded Chinese dynasty for there is documentary and archaeological evidence. They ruled north and central China. They were advanced in the science and art of metal bronze copper iron and gold. They worshipped many Gods. They had a highly developed calendar (360 days)

Phoenicians

1550 BCE

The Phoenicians were not much of a military empire but commercial one. They occupied the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Their major cities were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad.

New Kingdom

1500 BCE

1500 BCE - 30 BCE. Most people think of the New Kingdom whenever they think of Egypt. It was the period that stretched over 1500 years The New Kingdom contained some of Egypt's most famous pharaohs, including, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun.

Trojan War

1194 BCE

According to the ancient tales, the war began after the abduction of the beautiful Mycenaean Queen Helen of Sparta by Paris, a Prince of Troy in Turkey. Helen's husband, Menelaus, convinced his brother (King Agamemnon) to lead the expedition. The entire War was a siege of the city, and lasted for more than 10 years.

Trojan Horse

1184 BCE

One morning, the Trojans woke up to find the Greeks had left their camp, and left a giant wooden horse outside the gates of Troy. Princess!Cassandra tried to warn them it was a bad idea to accept it but they didn't listen, and instead pulled the gift inside. When nite fell the horse opened up and a group of Greeks led by Odysseus climbed out and destroyed the city.

Greek Dark Ages

1100 BCE

1100 BCE - 750 BCE. After the Trojan Wars the Mycenaeans went through a civil war. The country was weak and a tribe called the Dorians took over.

Archaic Period

750 BCE

750 BCE - 480 BCE. This is the period when there was developments in art specifically through the style of pottery and sculpture.

Hanging Gardens

539 BCE

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. According to legend were created by Emperor legend Nebuchadnezzar II for his Persian wife Queen Amytis.

Emperor Justinian

521 BCE

German had destroyed the Roman Empire and Justinian was keen on returning the Roman Empire to its' former glory by any means necessary. His first war (with Persia) ended with a treaty favorable to Justinian. Justinian very! nearly succeeded in rebuilding the Old Roman Empire.

Persian Empire

500 BCE

They are where Iraq and Iran currently are today. I was one of the largest empires in human history. It stretched from eastern Africa to India.This rise to power occurred just as the civilizations in Greece and Egypt were growing in strength and power.

Alexander the Great

336 BCE

He crushed a rebellion in the Greek city-state and went out to conquer the Persian Empire since it was not as strong as it once was.

General Julius Caesar

49 BCE

General Julius Caesar was a general leading an Army to cross the Rubicon River, the boundary between Gaul, to the north, and Italy.This was an illegal action forbidden.

Clovis - warlord

481

Clovis was in charge of Gaul which is South France and northern Italy. He was the leader of the barbarian group called "Franks" but was shrewder and less violent than some of the other warlords rose to power after the fall of the Roman Empire. He was called "King of the Franks" and as a Catholic had the support and assistance of the Catholic Church in Rome.

The Dark Ages (The Middle Ages)

500

Countries in western and in central Europe it was known as "The Dark Ages" because of the lack of construction. generations lived and died. There was no education, and no culture to pass down to other generations. It was a time of decline, of cruel warlords, of plagues, inquisitions and crusades. It was 1000 years of no progression.

Muhammad - Persia

570

In Persia, a man named Muhammad was born in Mecca and became the Prophet of an entire worldwide faith. He started the faith called Islam with a large number of followers to take over the city of Mecca. When Muhammad died in 632 CE he left no successor and because of this there was a split in the faith of Islam. The 2 sects are the Shiites and the Sunnis.

Battle of Tours

723

When Clovis died in 511 CE his kingdom was divided among his son. France was still divided until 700's CE when a palace official, Charles Martel, reunified the Kingdom. He defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 723 CEThe Muslims had been occupying Spain for sometime and tried to trickle into the land of The Franks.

Charlemagne & Carloman I

768

Charlemagne was the King of the Franks (768 CE), King of Italy (774 CE), as well as the first emperor to rule Western Europe (800 CE) since the Western Roman Empire's collapse. Both Charlemagne and his brother Carloman I co-ruled these areas until Carloman I's sudden death in 771. Due to unexplained circumstances, Charlemagne was determined as the undisputed ruler of the Frankish Kingdom.

The Vikings

793

The Vikings were not Christians. Before 790 CE they were mostly unknown, and the last recorded raid lasted for about 300 years. They first invaded Britain in 793 CE until 1066 CE (the year that William the Conqueror became King of England after the famous Battle of Hastings).

Leif Erikson

950

Leif's father, Erik the Red (950 CE - 1003 CE) had a violent temper, just like his father before him. Leif's grandfather Thorvald was banished from Norway for committing the crime of manslaughter. Erik and his family sailed west and settled in Iceland and later was exiled for 3 years for "some killings" (982 CE). He eventually sailed around to Greenland. Lief heard about a man (Bjarni) who claimed to have sighted America, in which case they would be the first European to see America.

Battle of Hastings

1051

A dispute between who would be the successor to the thrown broke out between William, a Norman and Harold Godwin. William was the cousin of King Edward the Confessor an Anglo-Saxon. King Edward promised William to be next, but on his deathbed he granted the kingdom to another, King Harold II, head of the leading noble family in England, and the son of Edward's sworn enemy. A war broke out and William invaded England. In the end Harold was killed. William was later crowned king (1066 CE).

The Crusades

1066

Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims. It started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups.

Marco Polo

1269

much of Polo’s childhood was spent parentless, was raised by an extended family. His mother had died and his father and uncle, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, were in Asia for much of Polo's youth. The two men's journey brought them into present-day China. They joined a diplomatic mission to the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol grandson of Genghis Khan, who had conquered Northeast Asia.

The Inca Empire

1300

The Inca Empire (western coast of South America including Chile and Peru), were very skilled people at managing a government that controlled 12 million people. They built roads that connected north Chan-Chan and Talca in the far south. The capital was Machu Pichu.

The Aztec Empire

1325

The Civilization was somewhat of a more recent civilization. They migrated from the south into what is now Central Mexico. A war broke out when They attempted to honor the Toltec people by making the daughter of! a prominent Toltec man their ceremonial Queen and sacrificing her to be the bride of their prophet.
The Aztecs took refuge in the Lake Texcoco swamp and reclaimed an island by building a complex systems of drainage canals.

The Black Plague

1397

The Black Plague attacked Constantinople and Byzantine Emperor Justinian and though he survived it, he was forever disfigured from it. “The!Black!Plague” was one that was hit in Europe during the “Dark Ages.” It is possible it came from the Crusades, or brought back along the Silk Road. The first known experience of Black Plague in Europe occurred in 1397 CE when 12 Italian ships docked. Many of the men aboard were already dead and others gravely ill. It came from rats carrying fleas.

Renaissance - De Medici Family - Italy

1434

They were like The Godfather – a Mafia Family that used intimidation, violence and murder to consolidate and expand their power. The Family found and bankrolled many visionaries of this New Age, including the artists Boticelli, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Galileo and Leonardo Da Vinci. In addition, the De Medici Family supported the performing arts and the development of architecture. If any single group started the Renaissance, it was the De Medici Family.

The Spanish Expulsion

1478

As many as 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. Many Jews converted to Catholicism. These converts were referred to as "Pigs" by Spanish Jews and were often accused of secretly continuing to practice Judaism. These "secret Jews" became special targets of the Inquisition.

Christopher Columbus

1492

He hypothesized that there was an all water route to Asia if he went east to go west. He knew that the earth was round, but he never imagined going all the way around the world. His intent was to get rich and spread news of his new found glory and riches. He was finally able to sell his idea to the King and Queen of Spain, providing him with 3 ships for his first voyage. He never reached North or South America until his fourth voyage. He never actually discovered the land he was searching for.

The Tainos

1492

1492 - 1504. Columbus mislabeled this group of native people as “Indians” and were actually a diverse mix of other tribes spread out among the smallest and larger islands of Caribbean. The Tainos were advanced people who relied on agriculture, hunting, and fishing. Current information about them corresponds with the descriptions written by Columbus and other European sailors who ventured to the New World.

Nostradamus

1495

Catherine De Medici, Queen of France, was a supporter and admirer of Nostradamus.

The New World

1565

Explorers came from European countries to explore the New World. The Portuguese were more interested in exploring Africa and the West Indies, so they didn't have much influence on the New World. The Dutch (1600's) had limited influence on the New World because they focused much of their energy on the Northeastern U.S.The greater influence was explorers from England, France and Spain before America became independent.

The Lost Colony of Roanoke, Virginia

1584

Sir Walter Raleigh of England was ordered by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a secure hold of the Americas so England could scout out the resources and claim territory of it. After much exploration they decide that Roanoke would be the perfect place to start England's first colony.

John White

1584

Artist John White traded small trinkets with the native people for food. As winter set in, food became scarce tensions grew between the colonists and natives. Because of the tensions, war broke out, and the supply ships went back to England. 15 men were to stay and "hold down the fort". When the ships returned 3 years later the clone was missing and the words "CROATOAN" was carved into a tree. The Lost Colony is still a mystery til this day.

Squanto

1605

Squanto and several other men of the Patuxet tribe were kidnapped, taken by Spanish explorers to Spain and sold into slavery. Although slavery is a bad thing, Squanto was treated well by the Spanish (learned Spanish) and they later released him to England. While in England, Squanto met an officer and hired him to serve as an interpreter in interactions with the Native people. He lived with people in a small village and spoke their language.

Jamestown, Virginia - Pilgrims

1606

One hundred and five passengers departed from England in December of 1606 and reached the Virginia coast in late
April, 1607. The passengers came ashore and work began on the settlement.

Captain John Smith - Pocahontas

1606

A legend, which is probably not true, tells of how John Smith was saved from execution by Powhatan’s 11 year old daughter Pocahontas. This is where the legend gets weird. In order to make Pocahontas more interesting, she often is depicted as an adult today. There is no evidence of a romance between them, obviously, because she was only a child.

Slavery

1619

The first slaves were brought to America in 1619 and worked in tobacco fields in Jamestown. Both tobacco and cotton became ideal products in demand and in 1795 Eli Whitney built a machine that could make it more efficient to remove the seeds from cotton plants. Although he, himself was against slavery, the invention backfired and made it so that the government would need more slaves to keep up with the demand.

The Mayflower Compact

1620

It is often glorified as the first document of Democracy in the New World, was written and signed on board the ship before they went ashore. It was probably written to make peace with the Pilgrims and non-Pilgrim colonists who wanted to go to Jamestown. They landed in December with a difficult winter ahead of them with little food and improper clothes. Desperate, they soon stole food from Indian. Many died from scurvy (lack of vitamin C).

French and Indian War (1756 to 1763)

1756

From 1756 -1763, The French and Indian War was also called the "Seven Year War". It was a war between Britain and the French in which they fought for colonial domination in North America, the Caribbean, and in India. The English finally did win the battle but it also resulted in debt and nearly destroying the English government. This debt caused tension leading to the Revolutionary War. Parliament was desperate to obtain tax from the colonies and restore the profits from the East India Company.

Acts

1763

1763 - 1774. Numerous Acts were established in order to rebuild the British government after the very expensive war of the French and Indian War. The Navigation Acts, The Sugar Act, The Molasses Act, The Townshend Act, The Stamp Act, The Tea Act, The Intolerable Acts.

Sons of Liberty

1773

The Sons of Liberty are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773 reacting to the Tea Act. This resistance led to the Intolerable Acts and a mobilization of the colonial militia.

Lexington and Concord

1775

The Continental Congress was divided. Some wanted to keep the peace, others thought that the peace was overdue. British General Gage sent out units of British soldiers quartered in Boston. Their destinations were Lexington,Massachusetts where they would capture Colonial leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, then Concord where they would seize weapons and gunpowder.

Declaration of Independence

1776

The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement written up on July 4th 1776 by a nation’s people in America to assert that they have the right to choose their own government.

Article's of Confederation

1781

The Continental Congress passed the Articles of Confederation. This was similar to the Constitution, but gave far less power to the central government and far more to the individual states.

The Constitution

1787

The Constitution of the United States established America’s national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. At the 1787 convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. It started with "We the people..."

The Bill of Rights

1791

The Bill of Rights are the first 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections, such as freedom of speech and religion, that became part of the Constitution in 1791. Today, there are 27 constitutional amendments. Americans often think they live in a democracy. We don’t, we live in a Republic.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

1804

President Jefferson (3rd president) oversaw the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory from France (1803), and sent Lewis and Clark on an expedition from 1804–1806 to explore the new west.

The War of 1812

1812

In the War of 1812, British put restrictions on U.S. trade and America’s desire to expand its territory. A negotiation was signed on December 24, 1814 called the Treaty of Ghent which officially ended the war.

The Trail of Tears

1830

White Americans who lived on the western frontier often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered, because they felt that the people who occupied that area didn't deserve that land. President George Washington, believed that the best way to solve this “Indian problem” was simply to “civilize” the Native Americans.

Five Civilized Tribes - Trail of Tears

1831

Many Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee people embraced these customs and became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.” Andrew Jackson was an advocate for, what he called, "Indian Removal". This resulted in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of acres of land from Indian nations to white farmers. Jackson signed Indian Removal Act. They made the travel on foot (bound in chains and marched in double file lines). Thousands died along the way.

The Civil War

1861

the Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865. The war resolved 2 main issues (1) whether the US would be an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and (2) whether it would continue to have the distance of slaves. The North was against slavery, while the South was for it. The North eventually won and preserved America as one nation and ended slavery.

Reconstruction

1865

The North may have won the Civil war, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced new challenges. President Andrew Johnson passed restrictive "black codes" to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans.

Radical Reconstruction

1867

Radical Reconstruction gave African Americans as well as former slaves the rights to vote and have a voice in government. Although the Ku Klux Klan would reverse the changes brought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

Wounded Knee

1890

Not to leave the Native Americans out, They were repeatedly being shunned and ignored by the U.S. Government after The Battle of Little Big Horn. Shortly after this battle a Medicine Man at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota named "Wovoka" instituted a new religion called The Ghost Dance. In 1890, police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, (a famous Sioux chief) who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer. they murdered him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.

Plessy vs Ferguson

1896

On May 18th, 1896, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" principle of Jim Crow laws in the segregated American South is legal. A 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. The Supreme Court rejected Plessy's argument, and ruled that the law between whites and blacks was not unconstitutional. As a result, Jim Crow laws made it "separate but equal" in the south.

World War I

1914

The event that sparked World War I started in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a chain of events: Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbia government for the attack. The war lasted until 1918. 16 million people died.

The Great Depression

1929

1929-1939. The stock market crashed which led to The Great Depression. What made it worse was the 1930s Dust Bowl. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the economic programs known as the New Deal. About 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.

World War II

1939

World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six years until the Allies defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945.

The Cold War

1947

1947 -1991. The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear disaster.

The Korean War

1950

1950-1953. It was a war between North Korea and South Korea. Some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war, but on July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. Although it is still divided today.

Malcolm X

1950

Malcolm X was an African American civil rights leader prominent in the Nation of Islam. Until his 1965 assassination, he vigorously supported black nationalism.

Vietnam War

1955

The Vietnam War pitted communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against South Vietnam and the United States. The war ended when U.S. forces withdrew in 1973 and Vietnam unified under Communist control two years later.

Bus Boycotts

1955

1955 - 1956. The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement.

The Space Race

1957

1955-1975. It was a competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, to see who could achieve firsts in spaceflight capability.

NASA

1958

NASA is formed as the U.S. begins ramping up efforts to explore space.

The Berlin War

1961

In 1961, the Communist government (East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “antifascist wall" between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of the Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily wanted to keep the fascist people away from the Western. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when East German Communist Party announced that citizens could cross the border whenever they pleased.

Martin Luther King Jr.

1963

American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington demanded jobs and freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.

Richard Nixon

1972

A huge scandal came out that Richard Nixon was being investigated for the instigation and cover-up of the burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex In Washington. Some very strong evidence pointed to Nixon that he had planned the cover-up the burglary to protect his own reelection campaign. Rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and a possible conviction by the Senate, he resigned, effective August 9, 1974.

Gulf War

1990

1990 - 1991. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm.

9/11

2001

The Islamic extremist group, al Qaeda, hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States on September 11th, 2001. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 attacks.

Iraq War

2003

Conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government.