A mental timeline is the most powerful tool to stop getting lost in world history. Here are the 30 dates and events to know for a coherent overview.
Prehistory (up to -3000)
-3.3 million years: first stone tools.
-300,000: Homo sapiens appears in Africa.
-40,000: cave paintings (Chauvet, Lascaux later around -17,000).
-10,000: Neolithic revolution. Humanity becomes sedentary and agricultural.
Antiquity (-3000 to 476)
-3000: birth of writing in Mesopotamia (cuneiform) and Egypt (hieroglyphs).
-2600: Pyramid of Khufu.
-1750: Code of Hammurabi (Babylon), first major legal codification.
-509: founding of the Roman Republic.
-490: Greco-Persian Wars (Marathon).
-336: Alexander the Great ascends the throne.
-44: assassination of Julius Caesar.
0: presumed birth of Jesus.
476: fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Middle Ages (476-1492)
622: Hijra (starting point of the Islamic calendar).
800: Charlemagne crowned emperor.
1066: Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest of England.
1095-1099: First Crusade.
1215: Magna Carta in England.
1337-1453: Hundred Years’ War.
1348: Black Death, up to 50% of the European population dead.
1453: fall of Constantinople, end of the Byzantine Empire.
1492: Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas.
Early Modern (1492-1789)
1517: Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
1543: Copernicus publishes his heliocentric theory.
1618-1648: Thirty Years’ War.
1776: American Declaration of Independence.
1789: French Revolution.
Contemporary era (1789 to today)
1789: French Revolution.
1804: Napoleon becomes emperor.
1848: Springtime of Nations in Europe.
1861-1865: American Civil War.
1869: opening of the Suez Canal.
1914-1918: First World War.
1917: Russian Revolution.
1929: stock market crash, start of the Great Depression.
1939-1945: Second World War.
1945: atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
1947: independence of India.
1957: Sputnik, start of the space race.
1969: first steps on the Moon.
1989: fall of the Berlin Wall.
1991: collapse of the USSR.
2001: September 11 attacks.
Method to remember
Tie each century to a pivot event. 15th century = 1492. 18th = 1789. 20th = 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. This anchor avoids confusion.
Think in terms of major “ruptures.” Neolithic, Antiquity (Rome), fall of Rome (476), Renaissance (1492), Revolution (1789), world wars (20th).
Cross-reference with geography. Civilizations overlap. Rome exists at the same time as Han China, Mauryan India. The European timeline is not the world timeline.
Worth reading: major historical figures and the one on the great battles of history. SAPIRO offers world history quizzes with contextualized explanations behind each question.