The world in time
History
A map of what happened — civilisations, migrations, inventions, and transformations — from the deep human past to the present. The conditions in which thought, art, and politics took place.
Civilisations & events
Scroll downward — older above, newer below · 44 civilisations, 50 events
Era
Africa & Egypt
Near East
Europe & Mediterranean
Steppe & Central Asia
South Asia
East Asia
Americas
Prehistory
100,000 BC
↓
10,000 BC
Neolithic
10,000 BC
↓
3000 BC
Bronze Age
3000 BC
↓
1200 BC
Iron Age & Classical
1200 BC
↓
500
Medieval
500
↓
1500
Early Modern
1500
↓
1800
Modern
1800
↓
2030
Ancient Egypt
c. 3100 BC – 30 BC
Ancient Egypt
Africa & Egypt · c. 3100 BC – 30 BC
Three thousand years of pharaohs along the Nile. From the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt to Cleopatra's death.
Kingdom of Kush
c. 1070 BC – c. 350
Kingdom of Kush
Africa & Egypt · c. 1070 BC – c. 350
Nubian kingdom south of Egypt; for a time ruled Egypt itself as the 25th Dynasty.
Carthage
814 BC – 146 BC
Carthage
Africa & Egypt · 814 BC – 146 BC
Phoenician colony turned Mediterranean maritime empire. Salted by Rome after three Punic Wars.
Kingdom of Aksum
c. 100 – c. 940
Kingdom of Aksum
Africa & Egypt · c. 100 – c. 940
Trading empire on the Horn of Africa. One of the first major powers to adopt Christianity.
Mali Empire
1235 – c. 1670
Mali Empire
Africa & Egypt · 1235 – c. 1670
West African empire of gold and learning. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca crashed Egypt's gold market.
Sumer
c. 4500 BC – c. 1900 BC
Sumer
Near East · c. 4500 BC – c. 1900 BC
First cities, first writing, first empires. Uruk, Ur, Lagash — the cradle of civilisation.
Babylonia
1894 BC – 539 BC
Babylonia
Near East · 1894 BC – 539 BC
Mesopotamian power across Old and Neo periods. Hammurabi's code, Nebuchadnezzar's gardens, fall to Cyrus.
Assyrian Empire
c. 2025 BC – 609 BC
Assyrian Empire
Near East · c. 2025 BC – 609 BC
Militarised empire of the upper Tigris. At its peak the largest the world had yet seen.
Achaemenid Persia
550 BC – 330 BC
Achaemenid Persia
Near East · 550 BC – 330 BC
Cyrus through Darius and Xerxes. From the Indus to the Aegean — the first superpower.
Sasanian Empire
224 – 651
Sasanian Empire
Near East · 224 – 651
Last Persian empire before Islam. Zoroastrian state in centuries of conflict with Rome and Byzantium.
Islamic Caliphate
632 – 1258
Islamic Caliphate
Near East · 632 – 1258
Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid. From Arabia to Spain in a century; Baghdad as a centre of learning until the Mongol sack.
Ottoman Empire
1299 – 1922
Ottoman Empire
Near East · 1299 – 1922
Six centuries spanning three continents. Took Constantinople in 1453; dissolved after the First World War.
Minoan Civilisation
c. 3000 BC – c. 1100 BC
Minoan Civilisation
Europe & Mediterranean · c. 3000 BC – c. 1100 BC
Bronze Age maritime culture on Crete. Palaces at Knossos; collapsed in the wider Bronze Age unwinding.
Mycenaean Greece
c. 1600 BC – c. 1100 BC
Mycenaean Greece
Europe & Mediterranean · c. 1600 BC – c. 1100 BC
Warrior aristocracy of mainland Greece. The world remembered in Homer.
Classical Greece
c. 800 BC – 323 BC
Classical Greece
Europe & Mediterranean · c. 800 BC – 323 BC
City-states, drama, democracy, philosophy. The intellectual benchmark for everything that followed.
Rome
509 BC – 476
Rome
Europe & Mediterranean · 509 BC – 476
Republic, then empire. Engineering, law, citizenship, conquest — and a slow unwinding in the West.
Byzantine Empire
330 – 1453
Byzantine Empire
Europe & Mediterranean · 330 – 1453
Eastern Rome continued. Constantinople held for a thousand years after the West fell.
Holy Roman Empire
800 – 1806
Holy Roman Empire
Europe & Mediterranean · 800 – 1806
Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire — but a thousand-year stitching of central Europe.
British Empire
1583 – 1997
British Empire
Europe & Mediterranean · 1583 – 1997
Largest empire in history at its peak. From the East India Company to the handover of Hong Kong.
Scythians
c. 700 BC – c. 200
Scythians
Steppe & Central Asia · c. 700 BC – c. 200
Nomadic horse archers of the Pontic Steppe. Described — and feared — by Herodotus.
Xiongnu Confederacy
209 BC – 93
Xiongnu Confederacy
Steppe & Central Asia · 209 BC – 93
Steppe confederation north of Han China. Prompted the Great Wall and centuries of frontier policy.
Göktürk Khaganate
552 – 744
Göktürk Khaganate
Steppe & Central Asia · 552 – 744
First state to call its people 'Türk'. Stretched from Manchuria to the Black Sea.
Mongol Empire
1206 – 1368
Mongol Empire
Steppe & Central Asia · 1206 – 1368
Largest contiguous land empire ever. From Genghis Khan to the unwinding of the Yuan.
Timurid Empire
1370 – 1507
Timurid Empire
Steppe & Central Asia · 1370 – 1507
Timur's conquests rebuilt much of the Mongol world; his descendants founded the Mughals.
Indus Valley Civilisation
c. 3300 BC – c. 1300 BC
Indus Valley Civilisation
South Asia · c. 3300 BC – c. 1300 BC
Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: planned cities, sewerage, a script we still cannot read.
Vedic Period
c. 1500 BC – c. 600 BC
Vedic Period
South Asia · c. 1500 BC – c. 600 BC
Composition of the Vedas; emergence of caste, the Sanskrit language, and Indian thought.
Maurya Empire
322 BC – 184 BC
Maurya Empire
South Asia · 322 BC – 184 BC
First empire to unify most of the subcontinent. Ashoka turned to Buddhism after the Kalinga war.
Gupta Empire
320 – 550
Gupta Empire
South Asia · 320 – 550
Classical age of India. Mathematics, astronomy, literature — including the concept of zero.
Delhi Sultanate
1206 – 1526
Delhi Sultanate
South Asia · 1206 – 1526
Five Muslim dynasties ruling much of the subcontinent before the Mughals.
Mughal Empire
1526 – 1857
Mughal Empire
South Asia · 1526 – 1857
Persianate empire from Babur to the British. The Taj Mahal, the Peacock Throne, the Great Mughal currency.
Shang Dynasty
c. 1600 BC – 1046 BC
Shang Dynasty
East Asia · c. 1600 BC – 1046 BC
Earliest Chinese dynasty with written records. Oracle bones, bronze ritual vessels.
Zhou Dynasty
1046 BC – 256 BC
Zhou Dynasty
East Asia · 1046 BC – 256 BC
Longest Chinese dynasty by name. Confucius, Laozi, the Hundred Schools — the classical Chinese intellectual ferment.
Han Dynasty
206 BC – 220
Han Dynasty
East Asia · 206 BC – 220
Confucian state, Silk Road open, paper invented. The 'Han' in Han Chinese.
Tang Dynasty
618 – 907
Tang Dynasty
East Asia · 618 – 907
Golden age — cosmopolitan capital at Chang'an, classical poetry, woodblock printing.
Song Dynasty
960 – 1279
Song Dynasty
East Asia · 960 – 1279
Gunpowder, compass, movable type, paper money. The first proto-industrial economy.
Ming Dynasty
1368 – 1644
Ming Dynasty
East Asia · 1368 – 1644
After the Mongol Yuan: Han restoration, the Forbidden City, Zheng He's treasure fleets.
Qing Dynasty
1636 – 1912
Qing Dynasty
East Asia · 1636 – 1912
Manchu rulers, vast territorial expansion, then a long humiliation by industrial powers.
Tokugawa Japan
1603 – 1868
Tokugawa Japan
East Asia · 1603 – 1868
Two and a half centuries of shogunate, closed borders, ended by Perry's black ships.
Olmec
c. 1500 BC – c. 400 BC
Olmec
Americas · c. 1500 BC – c. 400 BC
First major Mesoamerican civilisation; the colossal stone heads. Mother culture of the Maya and Aztec.
Teotihuacan
c. 100 BC – c. 750
Teotihuacan
Americas · c. 100 BC – c. 750
Vast Mesoamerican city in the Valley of Mexico — pyramid avenues and apartments for tens of thousands.
Maya (Classic Period)
250 – 900
Maya (Classic Period)
Americas · 250 – 900
Hieroglyphic writing, advanced astronomy, calendar systems. Tikal, Palenque, Copán.
Mississippian Culture
800 – c. 1600
Mississippian Culture
Americas · 800 – c. 1600
Mound-building agricultural societies in eastern North America. Cahokia rivalled medieval European cities.
Aztec Empire
c. 1300 – 1521
Aztec Empire
Americas · c. 1300 – 1521
Triple Alliance from Tenochtitlán. Felled by Cortés and the diseases he brought.
Inca Empire
1438 – 1533
Inca Empire
Americas · 1438 – 1533
Largest empire in pre-Columbian Americas — Andean roads, quipu knot-records, terraced agriculture.
Out of Africa → Near East
c. 70,000 BC – 50,000 BC
Out of Africa
migration · c. 70,000 BC – 50,000 BC
Modern humans leave Africa in waves, dispersing across Eurasia and beyond over the following twenty thousand years.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
c. 3100 BC
Egyptian hieroglyphs
invention · c. 3100 BC
Pictographic-phonetic writing emerges in Egypt around the unification of the kingdoms.
Great Pyramid of Giza
c. 2560 BC
Great Pyramid of Giza
cultural · c. 2560 BC
Tallest human-made structure for nearly four thousand years. 2.3 million blocks, built for Khufu.
Suez Canal opens
1869
Suez Canal opens
invention · 1869
Direct shipping link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The world is geographically rewired.
Modern humans reach Europe → Europe & Mediterranean
c. 45,000 BC
Modern humans reach Europe
migration · c. 45,000 BC
Encountering Neanderthals along the way. Within fifteen thousand years, Neanderthals are gone.
Agricultural Revolution begins
c. 10,000 BC
Agricultural Revolution begins
invention · c. 10,000 BC
Wheat, barley, sheep, goats — the Fertile Crescent domestications. Independent inventions follow in China, Mesoamerica, the Andes.
Jericho founded
c. 9000 BC
Jericho founded
political · c. 9000 BC
One of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Walled settlement of perhaps two thousand people.
Wheel invented
c. 3500 BC
Wheel invented
invention · c. 3500 BC
Potter's wheels first, then transport. Mesopotamia and the European steppe are the two leading candidates.
Cuneiform writing
c. 3200 BC
Cuneiform writing
invention · c. 3200 BC
Sumerian wedge-script on clay tablets. The oldest writing system humans have decoded.
Code of Hammurabi
1750 BC
Code of Hammurabi
political · 1750 BC
Babylonian legal code carved on stone. 282 laws — an eye for an eye, in its original setting.
Phoenician alphabet spreads
c. 800 BC
Phoenician alphabet spreads
invention · c. 800 BC
A 22-letter consonant alphabet — the parent of Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and most others in use today.
Crucifixion of Jesus
c. 33
Crucifixion of Jesus
religious · c. 33
A Jewish preacher executed in Roman Judea. Within three centuries his followers become the imperial religion.
The Hijra
622
The Hijra
religious · 622
Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Medina. Year one of the Islamic calendar.
Cave paintings at Lascaux & Chauvet
c. 32,000 BC
Cave paintings at Lascaux & Chauvet
cultural · c. 32,000 BC
The earliest substantial figurative art that survives. Bulls, horses, lions painted by torchlight on cave walls.
Battle of Salamis
480 BC
Battle of Salamis
war · 480 BC
Greek fleet routs Persian invasion. Independence preserved; the classical Greek century follows.
Augustus becomes emperor
27 BC
Augustus becomes emperor
political · 27 BC
End of the Roman Republic. Two centuries of relative peace — the Pax Romana — follow.
Edict of Milan
313
Edict of Milan
religious · 313
Constantine and Licinius make Christianity legal. The empire's religious centre of gravity shifts.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
476
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
political · 476
Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus. The conventional marker for the end of antiquity in the West.
Charlemagne crowned
800
Charlemagne crowned
political · 800
Pope Leo III crowns the Frankish king Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day. Carolingian Europe.
Norman Conquest of England
1066
Norman Conquest of England
war · 1066
William of Normandy at Hastings. Old English absorbs Norman French; English law and aristocracy reshape.
First Crusade → Near East
1095 – 1099
First Crusade
war · 1095 – 1099
Urban II calls for the recovery of Jerusalem. Crusader states emerge in the Levant for two centuries.
Magna Carta
1215
Magna Carta
political · 1215
King John sealed a charter at Runnymede limiting royal power. The seed of constitutional government.
Fall of Constantinople
1453
Fall of Constantinople
war · 1453
Mehmed II takes the city after a fifty-day siege. The Byzantine Empire ends; the Ottoman one comes of age.
Gutenberg's printing press
1455
Gutenberg's printing press
invention · 1455
Movable-type printing of the Gutenberg Bible. Within fifty years, twenty million books printed in Europe.
Columbus reaches the Americas → Americas
1492
Columbus reaches the Americas
discovery · 1492
Three Spanish ships make landfall in the Bahamas. The Columbian Exchange begins — and Indigenous populations collapse.
Protestant Reformation
1517
Protestant Reformation
religious · 1517
Luther's Ninety-Five Theses split Western Christianity. A century of religious wars follows.
Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus
1543
Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus
discovery · 1543
Sun at the centre, not the Earth. The opening move of the Scientific Revolution.
Newton's Principia
1687
Newton's Principia
discovery · 1687
Universal gravitation and the laws of motion. The mathematical pattern beneath the world.
Industrial Revolution begins
c. 1760 – 1840
Industrial Revolution begins
invention · c. 1760 – 1840
Steam, iron, textiles, factories. Begins in Britain and reshapes economy, demography, and labour everywhere it spreads.
French Revolution
1789 – 1799
French Revolution
political · 1789 – 1799
Storming of the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon. Modern politics — left and right, citizen and nation — is born.
Origin of Species
1859
Origin of Species
discovery · 1859
Darwin publishes the theory of evolution by natural selection. Biology becomes a single subject.
Russian Revolution
1917
Russian Revolution
political · 1917
Tsar deposed, Bolsheviks take power. The first communist state; the Cold War's other pole.
Fall of the Berlin Wall
1989
Fall of the Berlin Wall
political · 1989
End of the Eastern Bloc, end of the Cold War. The end of history, briefly, looked plausible.
Indian Independence
1947
Indian Independence
political · 1947
Partition of British India into India and Pakistan. One of the largest migrations in human history follows.
First settlement of Australia
c. 50,000 BC
First settlement of Australia
migration · c. 50,000 BC
Modern humans cross from island Southeast Asia into Sahul (Australia and New Guinea), the earliest known sea-crossing.
First settlement of the Americas → Americas
c. 16,000 BC
First settlement of the Americas
migration · c. 16,000 BC
Humans cross the Bering land bridge and spread south. Within two thousand years they reach Patagonia.
Qin unifies China
221 BC
Qin unifies China
political · 221 BC
First emperor; standardised script, weights, axle-widths. The Great Wall begun in earnest.
People's Republic of China founded
1949
People's Republic of China founded
political · 1949
End of the civil war; communist victory under Mao. Reshapes the second half of the twentieth century.
American Independence
1776
American Independence
political · 1776
Thirteen colonies declare independence from Britain. The first modern republic on a continental scale.
First powered flight
1903
First powered flight
invention · 1903
The Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. Twelve seconds, then a century of aviation.
End of the Last Glacial Period
11,700 BC · global
End of the Last Glacial Period
catastrophe · 11,700 BC
The Pleistocene gives way to the Holocene. Sea levels rise, climates stabilise, and agriculture becomes possible.
Bronze Age Collapse
c. 1200 BC · global
Bronze Age Collapse
catastrophe · c. 1200 BC
Within decades, every major Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilisation falls or contracts. Causes still debated.
The Axial Age
c. 500 BC · global
The Axial Age
cultural · c. 500 BC
Across Eurasia, simultaneously: Confucius, Laozi, Buddha, the Hebrew prophets, the Greek philosophers. Karl Jaspers's term.
Black Death
1347 – 1351 · global
Black Death
catastrophe · 1347 – 1351
Bubonic plague kills perhaps a third of Europe and untold millions across Eurasia. Reshaped labour, religion, and demography.
First World War
1914 – 1918 · global
First World War
war · 1914 – 1918
Industrial war on a continental scale. Four empires fall; the modern Middle East is drawn on maps.
Second World War
1939 – 1945 · global
Second World War
war · 1939 – 1945
Total war on three continents. Sixty million dead; the Holocaust; nuclear weapons; the United Nations.
Atomic bomb
1945 · global
Atomic bomb
invention · 1945
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Humans gain the means to end their own civilisation in an afternoon.
Moon landing
1969 · global
Moon landing
discovery · 1969
Apollo 11. The first human steps on another world; watched live by a fifth of the planet.
World Wide Web
1991 · global
World Wide Web
invention · 1991
Tim Berners-Lee at CERN publishes the first website. Within twenty years, a third of humanity is online.
Smartphone era
2007 · global
Smartphone era
invention · 2007
The iPhone makes a pocket-sized networked computer the default. The web becomes ambient.
Res · 2026
“Not to know what has happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.”
Thought happens in time, and in time it happens somewhere. The philosophy timeline traces the parallel lineage of ideas.
See the lineage of thought