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900
Pueblo Uprising
The Anasazi people were a southwestern tribe that lived in the modern-day four-corners region between Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. They built and lived in apartment-style buildings made out of stone and adobe or sunbaked clay. A group of these buildings was called a pueblo. The largest one was in Mesa Verde, Colorado, with around 1,000 people living there. It was known as Pueblo Bonito, which is Spanish for Beautiful Village. It proved to Europeans that they should also be respected. -
1300
Start of the Black Plague
The Black Plague went to Northern Italy and spread throughout Europe, killing over 60% of the population. It was extremely contagious and one of the most deadly diseases ever. However, it did mean that laborers were in short supply and could demand better wages, spurring on the economy. The Black Plague was an early example of negative consequences of trade. -
1368
Ming Dynasty Founded
The Ming Dynasty in China began in 1368, when Hongwu, a peasant’s son, became the people’s hero by driving the Mongols out of China. He became emperor and worked on restoring agricultural land and helping China become powerful again. Hongwu also promoted Confucianism and traditional institutions, which brought stability to China. The Ming Dynasty really helped China prosper and gave it a strong foundation for today. -
1401
Florence Baptistery Door Competition
In 1401, the citizens of Florence, Italy needed a new Baptistery door, so they held a competition between Fillippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, a sculptor. Brunelleschi worked by himself in a closed room, but Ghiberti had the public tell him what they wanted in the door. Ghiberti was chosen to make the doors and he worked for more than 20 years on them. They are important because they are one of the oldest religious sites in Florence today. -
1415
Portugal Begins to Colonize the African Coast
Portugal developed and applied many sailing innovations, and the government was very supportive because Prince Henry, the king of Portugal’s son, was keen to explore overseas. The first place Portugal explored with Prince Henry was a city called Ceuta, in Northern Africa. This was his first time seeing wealth somewhere beyond Europe, and after conquering Ceuta, he went to Asia to try to do the same thing. The whole world was about to get explored and many trades and exchanges resulted from this. -
1452
Invention of the Printing Press
A Chinese system of printing by carving characters into blocks and pressing the blocks onto paper was modified by Johann Gutenburg, a craftsman from Germany. He used a movable version of the printing blocks, along with a machine he developed and some other new technologies, to create the first printing press. It reduced the amount of time needed to make a book, from 1 book every 5 months, to 500 books every 5 months. This helped spread knowledge during the Renaissance and afterwards, even today. -
1453
Constantinople Conquered by the Ottoman Empire
Mehmed II was the 7th sultan, or ruler, of the Ottoman empire. He was known as “the Conqueror” for victoriously waging war on the city of Constantinople, because it had power over the Bosporus Strait. After the war, he renamed the city Istanbul and allowed all kinds of people in it, including Jews, Chirstians, Muslims, Turks, and non-Turks. This was an early act promoting tolerance, which is something that is still valued today. -
1492
Potatoes Brought to Europe
In 1492, during the Columbian exchange, the Americas were being colonized by Europeans. Trade between the New World and Old World allowed many things, such as plants, animals, diseases, and food, took place. Potatoes were from the Americas and became integrated as a European staple due to their low price and nutritious value. Potatoes have influenced much of European culture since then. -
Jun 7, 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas
Other European nations besides Spain, such as England, France, and the Netherlands, wanted to create colonies in the Americas. However, Spain and Portugal had already made the Treaty of Tordesillas, splitting the Americas between Spain and Portugal. The other countries ignored the treaty and continued to struggle for control of North America. That is one way that people from all different countries ended up in America. -
1500
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Begins
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade started because the colonists in the Americas wanted cheap labor, but the indeginous people were dying from all of the European diseases. Europeans thought that since Africans already had immunity, they would work instead. They traded for Africans that had been captured in Africa and brought them to the New World. When the slave trade ended, over 9.5 million Africans had been captured to work as slaves in the Americas and the effects of this are still felt today. -
1508
Michaelangelo Paints the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo, a sculptor, was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1508 when he was 33 years old. The Sistine Chapel is the location where Popes are elected. The painting is made up of panels representing different Biblical stories. The Sistine Chapel is one of the most important religious sites for Catholics today. -
Oct 1, 1517
Martin Luther's 95 These Nailed to Church Door
Martin Luther lived in Germany, and in 1517, he took a public stand against the Church because of the selling of indulgences. He was angry because a friar named Johann Tetzel made it sound like indulgences allowed people to buy their way into Heaven. He wrote a list of 95 attacks against the Church for selling indulgences and his action started a religious reform. Today, there are 2 main branches of the Church: Catholic and Protestant. -
1521
Fall of Tenochtitlán
Hernando Cortés landed in Mexico and heard of the wealthy Aztec people, so he went to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán. Montezuma II, who was the leader of the Aztecs, willingly gave Cortés lots of gold, but Cortés wanted more. During 1520, some of Cortés’ followers, Conquistadors, killed some Aztec leaders. The Aztecs rebelled and a war started between the Conquistadors and the Aztecs. They conquered the Aztecs in 1521. This was when the Spanish culture first dominated South America. -
Shah Abbas Becomes Leader of the Safavid Empire
Shah Abbas started ruling the Safavid Empire in 1587. He became known as Abbas the Great because he combined elements from the Ottomans, Persians, and Arabs to create the golden age of the Safavid Empire. He wanted to convince Europeans that he was tolerant of other religions, so he allowed Christians in the empire. That allowed trade to grow between the Safavid empire and European countries. This started the strengthening of trade between Europe and the Middle East today. -
Formation of the Iroquois League
Northeastern tribes that lived east of the Mississippi River had many cultures who sometimes fought and sometimes formed alliances. The Iroquois League was an alliance formed by the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes to defend each other together and cooperate with the tribes in the League. Their connection was political, but other alliances were mainly based on trade, shared religion, and shared land. This was during the late 1500s. It gave them strong defense against explorers. -
Unification of Japan Under the Tokugawa Shogunate
In 1467, Japan had a civil war that left power in the hands of local, powerful samurai called daimyo. The daimyo were brutal rulers who were not united. One of the daimyo tried to unify Japan under him, but he died, and Hideyoshi took up the job. His ally won most of the daimyo’s loyalty by defeating his rivals and Japan was unified again, even though many daimyo ruled at the local level. The daimyo that unified Japan was Ieyasu and his rule was the Tokugawa Shogunate. Under it, they strenthened -
First Enslaved Africans Arrive in the British Colonies
In 1619, the very first Africans, Angolans, arrived in Virginia and were sold to colonists in the Jamestown settlement. They had been kidnapped by the Portugeuse, but on their way to New Spain, a privateer ship attacked them and the Angolans were kidnapped again and taken to Virginia. This was the first time Africans had been used as slaves in the British colonies and the Slave Trade was started as a result. Today we are still dealing with the divides that were created during slavery. -
Trial of Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was an astronomer whose findings conflicted with the teachings of the Church. He published a book saying what he found out, and the Church put him on trial because they were afraid that people would leave them and they would lose their power if Galileo’s findings and ideas were spread. At the trial, he agreed that what he wrote was false under the threat of torture. For the rest of his life, he lived under house arrest in Florence, Italy. In 1992, the Church approved his ideas. -
End of Thirty Years' War and Peace of Westphalia
During the Thirty Years’ War, many European nations had violent conflict which was initiated when the Bohemian king tried to make Catholicism mandatory. Protestants rebelled and a war that lasted for thirty years took place. At the end of it, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed and the power of the Holy Roman Empire was broken. Today, this has allowed the Netherlands to no longer be a colony of Spain, Sweden to be dominant in the Baltic region, and France to have power in the West. -
Maria Sibylla Merian Publishes Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium
Maria Sibylla Merian was a naturalist and artist who visited Suriname on an expedition to study the plants and insect species there. After two years of collecting and sketching different flora and fauna, she returned to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She published the book “Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium”, which was full of drawings and text about the stages of development in the insects in Suriname. It was a pioneer for works that focus natural history today.
