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200,000 BCE
When humans first used spears
Such evidence suggests that early humans created throwing spears as early as 500,000 years ago in Africa. -
3300 BCE
The invention of the longbow
The longbow was invented by the Celts in Wales. But was not really used by the English military until the 1300's. The longbow is an incredibly strong piece of wood roughly 6 feet tall and 5/8 inch wide. -
3000 BCE
The invention of the bow and arrow
Although archery probably dates back to the stone age, the earliest people have known to have regularly used bows and arrows were the Ancient Egyptians, who adopted archery around for hunting and warfare. -
3000 BCE
When horses were first domesticated
Humans acquire their most important single ally from the animal kingdom when they domesticated the horses. They made transportation faster and more efficient. -
904 BCE
The invention of gun powder
Gunpowder was invented in China and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century. Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes. -
618 BCE
The development of the first hand-cannon
Hand cannons were rudimentary and brutish, but they were the first firearms used during combat in recorded history. Although there have been claims of gunpowders discovery in Europe, the ancient Chinese are generally credited with the original recipe. -
Period: 499 BCE to 449 BCE
Greco Persian Wars
The Greco-Persian Wars were two conflicts that occurred between 490 and 479 BCE and pitted the Persian Empire against the Greek city-states. The conflict began after Athens and Eretria gave assistance to the Ionians in their rebellion against Persia and its ruler, Darius. -
Period: 431 BCE to 404 BCE
The Peloponnesian War
The origins of such a conflict are complex. The primary causes were that Sparta feared of the growing power and influence of the Athenian Empire. -
300 BCE
The development of the trebuchet
In medieval wars the trebuchet and other siege engines were used to attack castles and destroy defences. Trebuchets catapulted huge boulders, smashing down walls. They could also be used to fire diseased bodies and dead animals into a besieged castle or walled city. -
Period: 264 BCE to 146 BCE
Punic Wars
The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. -
Period: 1095 to 1492
Crusades
The Crusades were organized by western European Christians after centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. Their primary objectives were to stop the expansion of Muslim states, to reclaim for Christianity the Holy Land in the Middle East, and to recapture territories that had formerly been Christian. -
Period: 1337 to Oct 19, 1453
One Hundred Years War
The war started because Charles IV of France died in 1328 without an immediate male heir. -
Period: 1519 to 1521
Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire
In 1519, Hernan Cortes and his small army of conquistadors, driven by gold-lust, ambition and religious fervor, began the audacious conquest of the Aztec Empire. By August 1521, three Mexican emperors were dead or captured, the city of Tenochtitlan was in ruins and the Spanish had conquered the mighty empire. -
Development of the flintlock musket
The flintlock was developed in France. Though its exact origins are not known, credit for the development of the true flintlock is usually given to Marin le Bourgeoys, an artist, gunsmith, luthier, and inventor from Normandy, France. -
Period: to
Thirty years war
The Thirty Years War began as a religious civil war between the Protestants and Roman Catholics in Germany that engaged the Austrian Habsburgs and the German princes. The war soon developed into a devastating struggle for the balance of power in Europe. -
Development of the first submarine
Leonardo da Vinci sketched a primitive submarine around 1515, and in 1578, William Bourne drafted the first design for a submersible craft. In 1620, the first successful submarine was built by Cornelius Drebbel and tested in the Thames River, where it completed a three-hour journey. -
Period: to
English Civil War
The English Civil Wars stemmed from conflict between Charles I and Parliament over an Irish insurrection. The main causes were over money and religion. -
Period: to
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were wars which were fought during the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte over France. They started after the French Revolution ended and Napoleon Bonaparte became powerful in France in November 1799. War began between the United Kingdom and France in 1803. -
The development of the revolver handgun
Samuel Colt submitted a British patent for his revolver in 1835 and an American patent (number 138) for a Revolving gun, and made the first production model on March 5 of that year. Another revolver patent was issued to Samuel Colt on August 29, 1839. -
Period: to
The Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion began in the southern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of religious persecution against the God Worshipping Society. -
The invention of the first ironclad warship
The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in November of 1859 -
Period: to
The American Civil War
The scholars immediately disagreed over the causes of the war and disagreement persists today. Many maintain that the primary cause of the war was the Southern states desire to preserve the institution of slavery. Others minimize slavery and point to other factors, such as taxation or the principle of states rights. -
The invention of the first machine gun
The first Gatling guns were used in the American Civil War. These guns were rapid-firing, but they depended on the arm of the operator to crank out the bullets. In 1884, Hiram Maxim invented the first machine gun. -
Period: to
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion formed in response to both foreign and domestic internal tensions. Western powers like the US and the nations of Europe had come to wield significant commercial, political, and religious influence across China. -
Period: to
World War I
The immediate cause for World War 1 was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his pregnant wife Sophie. -
The development of the first fighter aircraft
The first jets developed during World War II and saw combat in the last two years of the war. Messerschmitt developed the first operational jet fighter, the Me 262A, primarily serving with the Luftwaffe's JG 7, the world's first jet-fighter wing. -
The development of the first tank
The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916, with mixed results; many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. -
Period: to
Russian Civil War
The civil war occurred because after November 1917, many groups had formed that opposed Lenin's Bolsheviks. -
Period: to
World War II
The Second World War was started by Germany in an unprovoked attack on Poland. -
The development of the AK-47
The automatic device is a gas-operated, 7.62×39mm assault rifle, developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is the originating firearm of the Kalashnikov rifle (or "AK") family. -
The use of the first atomic bomb
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay on Japanese city of Hiroshima. The “Little Boy” exploded with about 13 kilotons of force, leveling five square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people instantly. -
Period: to
Cold War
The Cold War was the geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle between two world superpowers, the USA and the USSR, that started in 1947 at the end of the Second World War and lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991. -
Hydrogen bomb testing
Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first test of a full-scale thermonuclear device, in which part of the explosive yield comes from nuclear fusion. It was detonated on November 1, 1952 by the United States on the island of Elugelab in Enewetak Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy. -
Period: to
Rwandan Genocide
The genocide took place in the context of the Rwandan Civil War, a conflict beginning in 1990 between the Hutu-led government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). -
Period: to
The Second Congo War
It was a conflict that took place largely in the territory of Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). The war began in 1998 and officially ended in 2003 when a Transitional Government took power. -
The development of the M.O.A.B
Thermobaric bombs generally detonate in two stages: a small blast creates a cloud of explosive material which is then ignited, generating a devastating pressure wave. A significant part of the effect of weapons like the MOAB is said to be psychological - to instil terror by the massive force of the blast.