Significant dates in the history of inventions, technology, & thought or A chronology of the applied sciences.

3,000,000 Human remains in Olduvai gorge, East Africa
1,800,000 Dmanisi, Georgia (Caucasus Mountains) fossil skulls of human ancestors found among the oldest outside of Africa.
1,600,000 Acheulean tradition emerged as veritable revolution in stone-age technology, River Somme, France.
200,000 end of the Acheulean tradition of hand-ax technology.

* Pleistocene (2.588 mya to 11,700 years ago)

Tens of thousands of years ago

Middle stone age

400,000 DNA from a human femur found in a cave in Spain called Sima de los Huesos (“the pit of bones”) in shows common ancestry for three hominin lines: today's humans, Denisovans, & Neanderthals – New York Times
300,000 Evidence of widespread fire use by humans
164,000 coastal South Africa humans expanded their diet to include shellfish and other marine resources, perhaps as a response to harsh –spreading aridity due to ice age– conditions.
140,000 Widespread drought in Africa force more hominin populations on extensive migrations
• Sea level is much lower as ice age advances.
50,000-40,000 Burial practiced by Neanderthals & others.
             Mount Toba a volcano at the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupted 74,000 years ago among the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history.
70,000- 60,000 the migration out of Africa, by way of Yemen and Arabia to South Asia
44,000 early evidence for the origin of modern human behavior [BBC News] in South Africa.
40,000 mitochondrial DNA evidence for humans in Australia.

37,300 hand paintings in El Castillo Cave, Spain among the oldest art expression found.
35,000 Paleolithic (old stone) tool complex ATLATL
34,000 – cave remains of humans [homo sapiens] in Sri Lanka.
32,000 Neanderthal evidence in Payre, France in Rhône River valley.
30,000-25,000 Art, artifacts, and cave murals painted.

20,000 year old cave painting Altamira, Spain (now a coastal valley on the Bay of Biscay).

19,000 years ago last glacial maximum, with lower sea levels up to 100 meters less than now.

* Holocene (11,700 years to present)

Thousands of years ago

NEW STONE AGE – Neolithic

10,000 Domestication of some key Plants and Animals

10,000 – 9,000 BCE Neolithic 25 acre site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey with snake, bull, crane, and fox motifs in bas relief. Gobeklitepe – "later remains, which date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, or about 8000 B.C., are less elaborate."
8,350 BCE Earliest founding of JERICHO, in Israel's rift valley, a ten acre city
8,000 BCE Neolithic cultural complex - farming, herding & sedentary life.

Earliest map found in CATAL HUYUK [ occupation dates to 7200 BCE or older, the site name means "forked mound" residence of 10,000 people estimated. ]
7,000 BCE Earliest copper smelting

6,550 BCE Farming in Greece and the Danube basin
6,000 BCE pottery and woolen textiles in Asia Minor

CATAL HUYUK established as a 32 acre city in Anatolia
Earliest rice culture, THAILAND, CHINA, & INDIA
Copper mining and smelting with tin in Yugoslavia
Ebla, a trading center in Syria founded

5,000 BCE Mesopotamian hydraulic advances in irrigated farms
4,000 BCE Earliest BRONZE castings and plow perfected
3,500 BCE Lung Shan urban center of China
           Wheel and plough in Mesopotamia & the lateen sail in Egypt
3,200 BCE Uruk, first true city in Mesopotamia is home to "large-scale sculpture in the round and relief carving appeared for the first time, together with metal casting using the lost-wax process . . ." – "Uruk: The First City," MET
3,100 BCE Egyptian kingdom coalesces around Memphis
           Cuneiform pictographic writing in SUMERIA

3,000 BCE spread of copper making, Bronze in Thailand

arable farming practiced in Africa
pottery in Ecuador and Colombia

2,750 BCE Indus Valley civilization center at Mahenjo Daro (Pakistan) and eventually throughout the Ganges plain.

2,500 BCE Stonehenge site in southern England began & remains an early Bronze Age site for a thousand years or more.

B.C. means BCE, before the common era.

These dates are in terms of thousands of years ago.

Graduated by hundreds of years.

domestication | foundations | Egypt | Han & Rome | Medieval | Renaissance

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Incipient Civilizations

2,685 BCE OLD KINGDOM of EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
2,590 to 2,550 BCE Great PYRAMID at GIZEH or Giza Egypt, tomb built by Cheops, or Khufu.

2,500 BCE Desiccation of N. Africa and domestication of the
           HORSE in central Asia
2,500 BCE Syrian urbanization in the fertile crescent


Head of an Egyptian from the Old Kingdom, 2200 BCE.

2,350 - 2,300 BCE Oldest Ebla tablets in the cuneiform script.

Documentary evidence from these tablets depict an economy of Ebla, in Syria [photographed on right] having been based on a tight integration among extensive agriculture, livestock breeding – with special regard for goats, sheep, and cows – and exploitation of Lebanon's mountains, from the Amanus to the Taurus rivers, for timber, copper, and silver.

Written language on fired tablets, Ebla library; EBLA was a commercial city of
           260,000 persons; were taught writing, astronomy, botany, mining, arithmetic.

2,000 BCE Origins of what we call the Minoan culture of Crete:
     Knossos, in Crete.

Evidence for earliest Greeks in the Peloponnesian region, and the Hittites in Anatolia
     Bronze metal working in Peru,
      widespread use of sails in the Aegean Sea

1,900 BCE Settlements in MELANESIA by earliest INDONESIANS
1,750 BCE Hammurabi codifies BABYLONIAN LAWS
1,700 BCE Hittites develop iron weapons in Turkey

Chinese Oracle Bones for divination.

1,600 BCE Shang Dynasty of China’s BRONZE AGE
           Mycenaean Civilization in Greece
1,567 BCE Egyptian “NEW KINGDOM” established spread of craftsmanship,
            Archimedean screw for lifting water spreads in Asia.

1,550 BCE Aryans allegedly destroy the Indus Valley cultures
1,500 BCE Ideographic script in China
                 “linear B” language of Crete
                 Hittite Cuneiform writing
1,450 The destruction of MYCENEAN GREEKS
                 BRAHMA worship in INDIA, earliest VEDIC writings

1,370 BCE AKHENATON teaches MONOTHEISM in EGYPT
1,300 BCE MELANISIAN settlers reach FIJI ISLANDS
1,200 BCE Hebrew EXODUS from EGYPT
1,150 BCE OLMEC CULTURE of central MEXICAN HIGHLANDS
1,100 BCE Spread of the PHOENICIANS in the Mediterranean
                      who develop modern alphabetical script
1,027 BCE Shang DYNASTY replaced by the CHOU in China
1,000 BCE Etruscans settle in ITALY

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Ancient Heritage

tool adapting

900 BCE founding of the NUBIAN Kingdom of KUSH, Africa
814 founding of Carthage
800 the earliest UPANISHADS, sacred HINDU texts
780 well field system originated in Northern China
776 earliest Hellenic OLYMPIC GAMES
753 Founding of Rome (by traditional dating)
750 Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey first written down
650 earliest coins in LYDIA, ASIA MINOR

Klepsydra: A Greek time keeping device.

585 THALES of MILETUS predicts an eclipse, founder of rationalist school of Greek Philosophy
558 ZOROASTER writes in PERSIA (Zarathustra)
550 Deutero-Isaiah historian earliest writings of the Hebrew Torah (BIBLE)
520 Death of Lao-Tzu Chinese mystic and teacher
500 Hieroglyphic writing in Mexico
486 Death of Siddartha (THE BUDDHA)
479 Death of Confucius founder of the CHINESE MANDARINATE & civil service exams to fill jobs in the Imperial-dynastic bureaucracy – Period of philosophical diversity – early Hundred Schools emerging.
479 Classical age of Greek literature, drama, philosophy, science and craftsmanship spreads

350 BCE Apex of the "Hundred Schools" of Chinese Philosophical thought.
290 creation of the LITERARY Library of ALEXANDRIA, Egypt eventually stored 500,000 volumes
240 The earliest discoverable record of "Halley's comet," recorded by Chinese observers, in the records of the Grand Historian, Shiji.
210-200 alleged origin of the compass in China, as lodestones used for direction finding.

142 BCE Romans erect first stone bridge over the Tiber
112 Opening of the "Silk Road" from China to W. Asia
100 Camel introduced to Saharan Africa for long distance transport
89 Roman citizenship extended to all of ITALY
80 An astronomical computational device with finely meshed gears is lost at sea, off of the Island of Antikithera, south of the Greek Peloponnesus, later found in the 1901.
49 Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul begins
31 BATTLE OF ACTIUM, Augustus is Roman Emperor

A.D. = ANNO DOMINE : “in the year of our Lord” or c.e. [now, the common era]

43 c.e. Roman conquest of Britain begins.
70 c.e. The construction of China's Grand Canal begins for what is eventually a 600 mile long north-south transportation canal.

79 August 24^th, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, beside the Bay of Naples, Italy.
83 Wang Ch'ung refers to the uses of a lodestone (compass) in China for divination.

100 Dried Chrysanthemums as an insecticide [containing pyrethrum] in China.
105 earliest use of PAPER in China.
116 Trajan (Roman Emperor) conquers MESOPOTAMIA.
150 Earliest extant SANSKRIT texts from India.
        Buddhism reaches CHINA from Tibet and India.
        Ptolemy's Geographica (Geography) includes an atlas of the known world [Eurasia & Africa ].
151 evidence of a smallpox-like disease in Han Dynasty China
165 An epidemic ravages the Roman Empire (one in ten died) symptoms of which were described by Galen.
        Later called: SMALLPOX by modern diagnosticians.
170 Galen of Pergamum (physician) uses the pulse as a diagnostic indicator of health & later compiles his medical writings.

200 BHAGAVAD GITA set down in writing in INDIA.
           codification of the Hebrew laws completed in Galilee. The founding codification, was the Mishnah. Compiled by Judah ha-Nasi in about 200 C.E., it embraces within its six orders the whole framework of Jewish law (the Sefer Gezerata, known to have been in existence prior to the Mishnah, was a Sadducean code, apparently mainly a criminal one) see Judah the Prince.

The Roman Forum's Via Sacra, or sacred way.

200s Roman –vs.– Persian ongoing rivalry for control of the Levant, Arabian sea, and Asia Minor.
209 Chinese develop porcelain.
271 MAGNETIC COMPASS used ritually throughout CHINA for situating temples.
285 Confucianism reaches JAPAN.

Bust of Emperor Constantine.
285-337: Constantine the Great -born- he later "Christianized" the Roman Empire.
293 DIOCLETIAN reorganizes the Roman Empire.

300 Chen Zhuo, Chinese astronomer makes the most accurate star charts from earlier maps.
           Hopewell culture in the Mississippi Valley.
           MAYAN culture thrives in Guatemala and the Yucatan, Mexico.
           Settlement of Eastern Polynesia completed from the Papua New Guinean descendants of people who settled western Polynesia a thousand years earlier.
302 foot stirrup spreads from ALTAI into CHINA, earliest extant depiction in China.
312-337 Constantine was Roman Emperor, who in 312 called the Council of Nicaea in 324.
330 Constantine made Constantinople ( Byzantium; today's Istanbul ) the new capital of Rome.
365 Crete - Sicily - Libya and Egypt – EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI OF JULY 21, 365 ¹
370s Hypatia the Egyptian philosopher & mathematician born in Alexandria, a center of learning.

400 The Chinese discover steel-making by forging both cast iron and wrought iron together.
404 The LATIN VULGATE (Bible) composed from Greek.
479 The eruption of Mt. Etna in Sicily recorded.
482-511: Clovis, King of the Franks (Merovingian dynasty of France)
497 Aryabhata 1st, Indian mathematician & astronomer suggests correctly that the Earth rotates on its axis.

520 Advanced mathematics (DECIMAL SYSTEM) taught in Hindu universities
          includes quadratic equations & ALGEBRAIC COMPUTATION
529 BENEDICTINE Monasticism established in Europe
531 Halley's comet (not yet called that) intersects Earth's orbit. Building of the Hagia Sophia started and completed in six years.
534 Roman Emperor JUSTINIAN promulgates a LEGAL CODE: the Corpus Juris Primum
541–542 – a pandemic spread across the Roman Empire (Eastern or Byzantine), especially affecting the capital of Constantinople & Greece.

600 the spread of smallpox from India to Europe with great virulence.
618 Tang Dynasty in China comes to power making Chang'an the seat of imperial rule.
625 PROPHET MUHAMMAD begins his fundamentalist mission of religious reform
632 the death of Muhammad
645 Buddhism spreads to Tibet
690 ARABIC replaces Greek & Farsi as the major language of Asia Minor (Western Asia)

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Medieval Synthesis

technical exaptation

730 Block PRINTING introduced in China.
738 Evidence for stirrups used by Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks.
751 PAPER making spreads from CHINA to ISLAMIC countries.
760 ARABS adapt the INDIAN numerals, Algebra & Trigonometry.
762 Baghdad founded as the seat of the Abässid Empire and for 500 years was the center of learning in western Asia.
768 Carolus Magnus –Charlemagne- King of the Franks, illiterate promoter of writing & reading. Creates missi dominici, a subordinate managerial system.
788 MOORS build the great MOSQUE in CORDOBA, Spain.

820-830 Al-Khowarizmi, the Arabic mathematician, explains Hindu numbers and methods of Algebra.
837 A Chinese astronomical account [April 9-11] detailing an appearance of what is now Halley's comet.
853 Earliest (extant) printed book in CHINA.
863 creation of the CYRILIC Alphabet in Slavic Europe.
888 The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture: Early evidence of BLOCK PRINTING.
907 the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in China
910 CLUNIAC reform of the Benedictine monasticism.
935 earliest text of the KORAN completed.
970 Chang Ssu-Hsün invents a chain drive for a mechanical clock in China.
973-1048 Al-Biruni wrote History of India and introduced Hindu numerals to the Arabs.

1000 SONG DYNASTY witnessed a flowering of the CHINESE culture in books, gunpowder, astronomy, metallurgy, painting & ceramics.
           Seven days to the week calendar, a device brought from Persia to China
           use of IRON tools in ZIMBABWE.
          Avicenna's Canon of Medicine was a five-volume compilation of Greek and Arabic diagnostics.
1005 Science library: Dar al-ilm, founded in Cairo, Egypt.
1045 MOVABLE TYPE Printing developed in China.
1066 Norman Invasion of England brings French feudalism.
1086 Shen Kua's Dream Pool Essays are a scientific account of erosion, sedimentation, & uses of compasses for navigation in China.
1092 Su Sung's astronomical clock ran by water power until 1126, in China.
1096 FIRST CRUSADE of the FRANKS to ASIA MINOR.

1100 Earliest UNIVERSITIES in EUROPE

SALERNO: medicine
BOLOGNA: law
PARIS: theology & law

1100 Omar Khayyam’s RUBAIYYAT composed, he was also an astronomer & mathematician who took steps to unify geometry with algebra.
          Flourishing of Muslim / Christian renaissance
          centered in TOLEDO, SPAIN
             (translation of ancient science & philosophy into Arabic, Latin, & Spanish)
1107 Chinese use multiple color printing
1117 earliest mention in China of a compass used for navigation
1142-1145 Euclid's Elements and Arabic Algebra [ Al Khowarizmi, c. 830 ] becomes available in Latin to European scholars.
1154 CHARTRES cathedral began in France (GOTHIC STYLE).
1150 Chinese develop the earliest rockets.
1160 VERNACULAR languages spread to replace LATIN in
          Italy, France, England, Portugal, Netherlands, Scandinavia and Spain.
1176-77 Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon printed in Fulda, Germany, in Latin.
1189 Herault, France is the place of the earliest paper mill in Europe.
1193 ZEN BUDDHIST sect founded in JAPAN.

1220 Leonardo Fibonacci in his Book of the Abacus, introduces the '0', zero to Europe.
1226 Death of St. Francis of Assisi.
1250 the world's population reached about 235 million.
1258 The Mongol Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan leads the destruction of Baghdad; the caliphate suffers a devastating blow by the Mongols.
1269 Peter Perigrinus writes a description of a needle laden compass after the 1190 work by Alexander Neckam {St. Albans, England} that referred to a magnetic compass in Europe.
1273 Marco Polo reached the Pamir mountains of western Mongol dominated China.
1274 SUMMA THEOLOGICA of Thomas Aquinas published.
1275 Marco Polo having journeyed from Venice reached CHINA.
1290 eyeglasses perfected in ITALY.
1291 the origins of the SWISS CONFEDERATION.

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Medieval Commercial Revolution

1320 early phase of the ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
1337 ANGLO-FRENCH HUNDRED YEARS (150) WAR begins
1339 building of the KREMLIN undertaken
1347-1348 BLACK DEATH or BUBONIC PLAGUE initially infects EUROPE
1398 Tammerlane invades India and sacks Hindu DELHI
1400 death of CHAUCER
1402 Tammerlane defeats the OTTOMANS in ASIA MINOR
1405 Ming Dynasty of China sends out several world naval expeditions
1415 Earliest PORTUGUESE conquests in west AFRICA
1432 was the earliest paper making mill in Switzerland.
The Formicarius was written between 1436 and 1438, by Johannes Nider a member of the theological faculty at the University of Vienna; describing sermons for everyday services, but examining sorcery, demonic association, & witchcraft as obstacles to the Dominican reform movement of which he was an advocate.
1445 Johannes Gutenberg of MAINZ, GERMANY prints the first book in EUROPE

1453 The destruction of CONSTANTINOPLE by the OTTOMANS
1454 Johannes Gutenberg prints the Bible in Mainz (Germany) Holy Roman Empire.
1472 Initial astronomical observance in the west of a comet by Regiomantus of Nuremberg–later referred to as Haley's Comet in England.
1481 Earliest evidence of a lock used on a European canal by the brother's Dominico
1482 earliest translation of Euclid's Elements in Europe
1490 the earliest paper making mill in England.
1492 RECONQUISTA of the IBERIAN Peninsula achieved
          expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain
          Columbus’ first voyage to the WEST INDIES
1493 A Spanish Pope divides the world in two between Portugal and Spain.
1494 French invasion of the Italian Peninsula
1497 Nicholas Copernicus 1st recorded astronomy observation – the moon traversed a star
1498 A Latin translation of Aristotle is completed by Aldus Manutius

Map of Medieval London.

1501 Erasmus publishes "In Praise of Folly" in the Netherlands
1509 the small WATCH invented by PETER HENLE of NUREMBERG, Germany
1510-12 N. Copernicus [Nicholas Kopernicus] hypothesizes that the Sun, not the Earth is the center of the planets, & creates a mathematical proof for that relationship
1519-1522 Magellan's voyage around the world, completed by Juan Sebastián del Cano, proves the extent of the Earth as a spherical body
1525 Widespread introduction of the POTATOE in Europe from the ANDES of PERU &
          Maize from Ecuador & Mexico.

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Scientific Revolution

1543 Nicholas Kopernicus -- Copernicus, posthumously publishes DE REVOLUTIONIBUS ORBIS
1546 Gerhardus Mercator, Flemish map maker, asserts the Earth has magnetic poles.
1548 Mexican silver mines at Zacatecas worked by the Spanish
1559 tobacco spreads through Europe from North America (first seen by Columbus in 1493, West Indies)
1560 Portuguese begin SUGAR PLANTATION AGRICULTURE in Brazil
          having brought the sugar cane plants from Indonesia, India, and Arabia
1565 founding of the Spanish mission at St. Augustine, Florida
1569 Mercator's map of the world: Cosmographia published
1574 Earliest European treatise on drugs & construction of the Strasbourg clock
1575 The Uraniborg observatory built by Tycho Brahe for his King of Denmark
1582 On October 4, Pope Gregory reformed the calendar dropped eleven days making it 10/15.*
1585 Simon Stevin, Dutch scientist, proposes the "law of equilibrium."
1593 GALILEO devises a THERMOMETER
1595 in upper Austria there is a peasant revolt
1595 Spanish invasion lands in Cornwall, England and sacked the city of Penzance.
1609 Telescope perfected by the Dutch
1610 Galileo demonstrates the telescope from top of the Venetian campanile
1620 first weekly newspapers in AMSTERDAM, Netherlands
1633 Galileo's heresy trial; found guilty by the Holy Inquisition, in Rome
1636 earliest Protestant College in North America
1642 PASCAL perfects the ADDING MACHINE
1653 TAJ MAHAL completed
1656 Bernini begins the work on St. Peters in ROME
1657 Christian Huygen’s perfects PENDULUM CLOCKS
1661 young Isaac Newton went to study at Cambridge
1662 ROYAL SOCIETY founded in LONDON
1665 Robert Hooke publishes Micrographica, based on studies of microscopic organisms
1666 Academie des Sciences established in PARIS
1705 Sir Edmond Halley determines the periodic appearance of the comet bearing his name.

The bridge over the Severn River near Coalbrookdale is an example of pig iron's enduring application.

1709 Abraham Darby adapts COKE SMELTING to the making of PIG IRON.
1714 MERCURY THERMOMETER perfected by FAHRENHEIT.
1730 Thomas Newcomen builds a STEAM ENGINE (1 cylinder) for mining to pump water.
1751 The first volume of Denis Diderot's Encyclopedia published in Paris.
1752 Protestant European nations adopt the Gregorian calendar reforms.
1756 The beginning of the Seven Years War, worldwide between U.K. & France.
1759 Sir Edmond Halley had predicted the return of this comet with a 76 year cycle.
1759 Diderot's Encyclopedia is suppressed in France as being too liberal & atheistic.
1760 Jared Eliot, of Connecticut, writes the first agricultural advice book in the British colonies.
1762 Harrison’s navigational CHRONOMETER.
1769 James Watt’s CONDENSOR assisted STEAM ENGINE.

1781, March 13: John and Caroline Herschel telescopically discover the planet Uranus

1783 Montgolfier brother's initial balloon flight over Paris' River Seine
1790 LAVOISIER’S Elements of Chemistry published

Oliver Evans' mechanized flour mill & milling spreads in north USA.
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

1792 Cartwright produces a steam powered weaving loom
1793 France adopts Lavoisier’s metric, decimal systems
1796 Jenner concocts a SMALLPOX vaccine, London

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Nineteenth Century "Progress"

1800 Oliver Evans ’ Steam boat, dredge, and wagon built
1801 Allesandro Volta constructs a chemical battery
1808 Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrates electric lighting [electric powered lamp]
1811 ROTARY PRINTING PRESS PERFECTED
1812 Cylinder PRINTING PRESS perfected by LONDON TIMES
1820 Hans Christian Oersted reveals the existence of ELECTRO-MAGNETIC FIELDS as both Hans Christian Oersted and Andre Marie Ampere discovered that an electric current produces a magnetic field.
1821 Michael Faraday was impressed by Oersted's findings and as a result the conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy by electromagnetic means was first demonstrated by Faraday in 1821. Basically, a free-hanging wire was dipped into a pool of mercury, in which a permanent magnet was placed. When a current flowed through the wire, the wire rotated around the magnet
1825 first steam railroad in Great Britain: Stockton and Darlington Railway in by George Stephenson using a steam powered coal train of 36 wagons
1826 earliest PHOTOGRAPHIC image by Joseph N. Néipce, in France [U.T. Austin library]
1830 Canterbury, England: George Stephenson conducted the earliest passenger-carrying steam RAILWAY
1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction the principle for creating an ELECTRIC MOTOR & GENERATOR by M. FARADAY
1835 Joseph Henry perfects the essential parts for electric telegraphy, such as the electrical relay that enables long-distance transmission of the electromagnetic current.
1838 Michael Faraday discovers that electric current causes phosphorescent glow in a gas-filled tube
1839 Charles Goodyear initiates the production of rubber condoms discovering vulcanization
          Louis J. Daguerre perfects his silver image on copper plate photography; called daguerreotypes
1840 Justus von Liebig's Organic Chemistry examines the exchanges of carbon and nitrogen in plants and animals
1844 Samuel F. B. Morse sends a telegraphic coded message from Baltimore to Washington D.C.
1846 Elias Howe patented a lock-stitch sewing machine
1851 The Great International Exhibition's, Crystal Palace built by Joseph Paxton, at London, England
            Isaac M. Singer patented a continuous-stitch sewing machine
1854 Paris and London were connected by telegraph cables
1855 Michael Faraday complains in a letter to the London Times (a newspaper) about the pollution of the Thames River by sewage. He said in part: "The smell was very bad, and common to the whole of the water. It was the same as that which now comes up from the gully holes in the streets. The whole river was for the time a real sewer."
Fossil remains of extinct trilobites.

1859 Charles Darwin publishes, ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
1861 Louis Pasteur formulates the GERM THEORY of morbidity after aiding the wine industry
1862 Abraham Lincoln signs the transcontinental railway act
          Celluloid demonstrated by Alexander Parkes
1863 LONDON constructs the first underground mass railway
1864 Lincoln sets aside YOSEMITE VALLEY as a PARK
1865 James Clerk Maxwell's’ ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY
          Rudolf Clausius invents the term entropy having described the degradation of available energy over time
          PULP PAPER begins to replace RAG PAPER --making newspapers cheaper.
1867 DAS KAPITAL (vol.1) published by KARL MARX
1868 AIR BRAKES invented by WESTINGHOUSE
1869 Completion of the Suez Canal begun a decade earlier by Ferdinand de Lesseps
       GOLDEN SPIKE driven at Promontory Point, UTAH linking Chicago to San Francisco by railroad

1870 Celluloid distilled
1871 U.S. Fish Conservation undertaken
1874 NEW YORK displays the ELECTRIC TRAM
1876 PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL exhibition
          Alexander Graham BELL patents his TELEPHONE – long distance voice, communication.
1877 PHONOGRAPH designed

1878 Earliest commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Conn.
       Russians build first OIL TANKER
       Earliest electric street lighting LONDON
       CATHODE RAY TUBE designed

1879 THOMA A. EDISON’S ELECTRIC LIGHT BULB
1882 First hydro-electric plant WISCONSIN
1884 BICYCLE perfected in BRITAIN
1885 DAIMLER & BENZ perfect the AUTOMOBILE
          William Stanley builds a TRANSFORMER (electrical)
1887 NICOLA TESLA perfects the INDUCTION MOTOR
1888 Dunlop invents the pneumatic tire
1892 WORLD’S COLUMBIAN exhibition CHICAGO's "White City," commemorates Columbus' landings in the West Indies.
          TESLA devises the A. C. MOTOR
1895 Roentgen discovers “X-RAYS”
          MARCONI demonstrates WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, radio waves
1896 Henri Becquerel discovers radiation accidentally exposing a hidden photographic plate to uranium crystals.
1899 Thomson discovers negatively charged ELECTRONS
          Ebenezer Howard’s GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW published modern URBAN PLANNING principles

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Twentieth Century "Futurism"

Georges Braque, Still life with violin, 1911. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France .

1900 MAX PLANK formulates the QUANTUM THEORY of matter and energy transformations
          SIGMUND FREUD’S an INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
1901 Air ship –dirigible– flown by Alberto Santos-duMont. Shipwreck in Greece recovered; later reveals a device with sophisticated gearing system of fine technology.
1903 Western Regional Reclamation undertaken by
          Theodore Roosevelt as a means of water conservation in the arid regions
          Dec. 17, WRIGHT BROTHERS successfully fly at KITTY HAWK
1905 ALBERT EINSTEIN’S seminal contributions on LIGHT, HEAT, ENTROPY, & GRAVITY

1906, November 12: A. Santos-Dumont builds the aeroplane "14 bis" --
                    first sustained air flight in Europe, is 722 feet long @ 15 feet altitude.
1908 controlled flight by Wright brothers in France
1909 A. Santos-Dumont builds the aeroplane "demoiselle" at 55 MPH
1910 The development of PLASTICS
1912 PANAMA PACIFIC exhibition SAN FRANCISCO commemorates the opening of the Panama canal
1912 Victor Hess, in Austria discovers Cosmic rays or cosmic radiation in a hot air balloon
1913 HENRY FORD’S conveyor-belt-built MODEL T FORD automobile

1914-1918 The First World War, called the "Great War"

Belleau-Wood, France; summer 1918: the final German offensive action.

1915 Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity published
1919 LORD RUTHERFORD splits ATOMS in GREAT BRITAIN
1920 Astronomical measurements support Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, light rays bend around massive celestial bodies
          first widespread RADIO BROADCASTING regularly
1923 TB TUBERCULOSIS VACCINE perfected in FRANCE
1928 Hoover Dam project commemorated River Conservation
1929 GREAT CRASH on the New York Stock Exchange
          . . . . . start of the Great Depression
1932 Discovery of the Neutrons in ATOMIC NUCLEI

1933 Japanese occupation of & puppet regime in Korea
1934 initial scientific interest in cloning research begins
1936 TELEVISION TRANSMISSION perfected
          Japan launched invasion of China where it used biochemical weapons
1937 Jet engine tested in BRITAIN
          NYLONS created in USA
1938 Hahn & Strassman create fission experimentally in a German lab
1939 Lise Meitner interprets fission experiment correctly
             BRITISH perfect RADAR
             Penicillin developed by British and Canadians
             Swiss concoct DDT as an organo/phosphate pesticide
             HELICOPTER invented in the USA
1939 [September] -1945 [September] – World War Two
                German blitzkreig warfare against Poland launched in late summer.

1940 use of early CYCLOTRON

Nazi invasion took less than sixty days to defeat France

1942 first electronic COMPUTER “Eniac” used by military

12/2/1942 ENRICO FERMI conducts the first SUSTAINED NUCLEAR CHAIN REACTION in a GRAPHITE lined CORE
1943 Penicillin successfully used in the treatment of disease.

7/17/1945 ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO: first ATOMIC BOMB blast at the TRINITY TEST SITE
          7/18/45 “the day after Trinity.”
             (J. Robert Oppenheimer argued that this fission bomb test is revolutionary as it taps the weak nuclear force.)

1946 Xerography process perfected by Chester Carlson for photographic duplication of documents.
1947 earliest SUPERSONIC FLIGHT

USA --Bell Labs-- invents TRANSISTOR – a keystone technology– for the electronics or the digital revolution.

1948 antibiotics produced for medicinal therapy
1949 USSR test its first Atomic Bomb
1951 first NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS in the U.S. & U. K.

1952 US tests first Hydrogen fission-fusion bomb at Eniwitok, 11/6
          CONTRACEPTIVE PILL perfected in the USA
          COMPUTER CHIP crafted in BELL LABORATORIES

1953 the structure of DNA MOLECULE described by Watson, Wilkins, Franklin & Crick.

USSR explodes a Hydrogen Bomb

1954 US Hydrogen Bomb testing in Bikini atoll the South Pacific Ocean.
1957 Soviet Union launches the first SATELLITE in SPACE,
1957 The contraceptive pill released as a treatment for gynecological disorders.
1958 earliest recorded data of carbon dioxide fluctuations from atop the Hawaiian Islands
1960 first optical microwave laser constructed, contraceptive pill FDA approved
1961 Soviet Union first orbits a person in SPACE
1961 US announces a race to the Moon with USSR
1967 China explodes a Hydrogen Bomb test
1967 The first quark detected at Stanford Linear Accelerator; SLAC
1969 Anglo-French test flight of the Supersonic Transport, SST
1969 Neil Armstrong walks on the LUNAR SURFACE, July 20.

1973 ARAB OIL EMBARGO
1975 first HOME COMPUTER KITS for personal computers available in USA
1977, Discovery of deep sea (dark), bacterial-based communities along Hydrothermal Vents beside a spreading tectonic ridge among the Galápagos Islands, Pacific Ocean.
             "Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are considered to be one of the most spectacular ecosystems on Earth." {Pub Med}
            √ These findings amounted to oceanography having redefined marine biology.      {Cristina Luiggi}

1980 USA and USSR possess 50,000 nuclear [fissionable] warheads [intercontinental ballistic missiles] combined

Walter Alvarez argues, based on an iridium clay layer as evidence, that a meteor destroyed the dinosaur's life support system at the end of the Cretaceous Era.

1982 Cruise MISSILES deployed by the USA in EUROPE
          first genetically altered bacteria patented to produce insulin
1983 CD, compact disc commercially mass produced
          first mission of the US space shuttle
1984 Nucleic acid analysis reveals humans and Chimpanzees share 99% of similar DNA.

Thames flood barrier is opened, largest in the world.
Apple MAC short for Macintosh home computer & mouse introduced.

1985 British Antarctic Survey documents a growing ozone hole
1986 Reactor Number 4 Chernoby Nuclear Facility, Ukraine, explodes 26 April killing 28 workers and eventually leading to the removal of over 350,000 people from an 18 mile radius around the damaged light water graphite moderated, fission reactor. See: Chernobyl Diary.

1986 last two DUSKY SEASIDE SPARROWS face extinction in DISNEY WORLD, FLORIDA; USA.

Space shuttle "Challenger" explodes on take off

1989 Warmest year on record (until that time)
1989 Collapse of Eastern European Communism and the Soviet Union

Eighty nations sign the Montreal Protocol to ban CFCs.

1990 English Channel tunnel completed by the French & British as a rail system between Dover & Calais.
1992 First Persian Gulf / US-Iraqi War.

1993 Czechoslovakia Breaks in Two: Czech Republic (Bohemia & Moravia) & Slovak Republic (Slovakia)
1998 Warmest year on record surpasses previous record holder.
1998, June: an international team of Japanese and U.S. physicists unveiled strong evidence that elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos have mass (or weight).

1999 Y-2K scare concerning computers precedes the end of the year.
2000 June, initial working genome of the human species published.

Twenty-first century

2001, first intentionally cloned domestic animal, Dolly, a sheep.

2001, two passenger aircraft are used to destroy the World Trade Center in NYC and another commercial airliner is flown into the Pentagon by people bearing Saudi Arabian passports on September 11.

2002, European Union takes a step to making carbon dioxide and other polluting industrial emissions a commercial medium of exchange in adopting a "carbon trading system" to reduce stationary sources of greenhouse gases.

2003, Space shuttle disintegrates on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere due to faulty and damaged heat shield killing all aboard.

2003, Second Persian Gulf / US-Iraqi War (in 2007 becomes the longest war in US history).

2004, European Union admits nine eastern European nations to the original pact.

2004, Bar-code reader, auto-teller and credit card converge to make first fully automated consumer store in Germany.

2004, Japanese investors announce plans to develop a high-speed train working on the principle of magnetic levitation (Mag-lev) rather than conventional rails and direct current electrical power to connect Tokyo with Osaka.

2005, Chinese mag-lev train operates in Shanghai.

2005, New Orleans floods after levees break under tidal pressure from two hurricanes whose winds drive high storm tides directly up a poorly designed barge canal. The city is evacuated, whole districts are destroyed; thousands died, over a million people are displaced.

2006, fourth year of the Iraqi invasion or Second Persian Gulf (US-Iraqi) War.

2007, cellulosic ethanol from grass (switch grass) suggested as a source of alcohol for fuel as petroleum hits a record high price of $88.00 per barrel in world markets.

2008, petroleum tops $112 per barrel, food riots worldwide,
2008, May – 63,000 dead in a typhoon that hit coastal Myanmar.

2008, bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium artificial life is synthesized, the initial step and new approach to engineering organisms.

2008, petroleum reaches $178 per barrel on world markets in summer.

2008, August-October, collapse of the global economic system --Second Great Depression, by 2010 leading to 9 then 11 million Americans without jobs [ 8 million in 2012 ].

2010, The element 117, of the Periodic Table of Elements created in a particle accelerator in Dubna, Russia.

Ununseptium (now named Tennessine) was an extremely heavy combination of berkelium & calcium isotopes.

The new element existed for only the tiniest fraction of a second before vanishing again — and it must be independently created elsewhere (Oak Ridge) before it earns a permanent spot on the periodic table of the elements. . . . — Ununseptium is on the upward part of that arc suggesting that what physicists call "islands of stability" may exist, at which the heaviest elements of all could last for months or years.

2007 to 2010 A widespread drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers. "the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record." PNAS; National Academy of Sciences

2011, The Arab Spring so named for mass uprisings in North Africa and the Near-east: revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, & Syria.

          Saturday, March 12-16, there were a series of explosions at Nuclear reactors following earthquake and tidal waves that hit Honshu island, Japan.
Radioactive material was detected outside the Fukushima plant; the largest nuclear explosion destroys the electrical generating plant.

2011, withdrawal of USA military from Iraq at Iraqi's request.

2012, Asians, Blacks, Hispanics and mixed ethnicity made up 50.4 percent of all births, becoming a majority for the first time in US.
          Higgs-boson detected in the CERN subatomic particle accelerator.
          Most extensive drought in two-thirds of the US in over eighty years.

2013, amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach 400 parts per million for the first time.

          November 8, largest recorded typhoon strikes central Philippines killing 6009 people.

          December 14, Chinese succeed in soft landing a robot (probe) on the moon's surface
                                     in the area called the Bay of Rainbows.

2014, Russia annexed Crimea (Ukraine) despite EU & US protests.

2015, four-year-long Syrian Civil War, killed more than 200,000 people with as many as 9 million forced to flee their homes seeking safety in Europe and farther abroad; September Russia invaded Syria.

2016, US auctions off air wave frequencies to assure speedier telecommunications.

2016, Four chemical elements confirmed: 113, 115, 117, 118 on the Periodic Table of Elementsby the IUPAC

2016, June 26 reopening of the Panama Canal extension. Reuters reported at 7:50 AM local time the initial ship began the 50 mile long passage from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans. This new facility faces challenges like an adequate supply of fresh water needed from surrounding rain-forested watersheds to move necessary water in these giant locks.

go here to make a calendar for any year in the past

Notes

^1: "However, the crustal block that extends from the islands of Kythera/Antikythera islands to southwestern Crete appears to be the source region of great and very destructive earthquakes and tsunamis. This is the tectonic block where on July 21, 365 AD the great earthquake generated a mega tsunami in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, there have been many more historic earthquakes in the region and some have also generated destructive tsunamis." {George Pararas-Carayannis; Science of Tsunami Hazards, Vol. 30, No. 4, (2011)of Tsunami Society International} .

^2: Characterization of Bacterial Communities in Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents From Three Oceanic Regions. T He et al. Mar Biotechnol (NY) 18 (2), 232-241. 2015 Dec 01.
"Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are considered to be one of the most spectacular ecosystems on Earth. Microorganisms form the basis of the food chain in vents controlling the vent communities. However, the diversity of bacterial communities in deep-sea hydrothermal vents from different oceans remains largely unknown." Abstract Marine Biotechnology April 2016, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp 232–241 Characterization of Bacterial Communities in Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents from Three Oceanic Regions.

^3: Cristina Luiggi. The Scientist, "Life on the Ocean Floor, 1977: The discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents along the Galápagos Rift revealed a biological Garden of Eden." September 1, 2012.

20,000 year old cave painting Altamira, Spain (now a coastal valley on the Bay of Biscay).

The Roman Forum's Via Sacra, or sacred way.

Map of Medieval London.