Units 3 and 4 Timeline Study Guide

1407 CE

Zheng He began his first voyage to the "Western Seas" to promote tributary trade to Ming China.

1453 CE

Sultan Mehmet II conquered the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, renaming it Istanbul.

1478 CE

The Grand Duke Ivan III defeated the principality of Novgorod, and claimed to rule all of the Russians.

1492 CE

Christopher Columbus, sponsored by Spain, reached the Americas, making landfall in the Bahamas.

1494 CE

The Treaty of Tordesillas is signed, dividing the newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal.

1498 CE

Vasco da Gama reached the shores of India, establishing a sea route to Asia for Portugal.

1501 CE

The Safavid Dynasty was founded by Ismail I using gunpowder weapons and a modern bureaucracy.

1505 CE

The Portuguese established a fort at Kilwa in East Africa, expanding their influence in the Swahili Coast trade.

1510 CE

The Portuguese captured Goa in India, establishing a strategic base for trade and control in the Indian Ocean region.

1517 CE

Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation with the publication of his Ninety-Five Theses.

1517 CE

Sultan Selim I conquered Egypt and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina reinforcing his claim as caliph.

1519 CE

Magellan led the Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific to open a new maritime trade route to Asia.

1521 CE

Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire of Central America for Spain.

1526 CE

Babur established a new state in northern India, which would soon grow to become the Mughal Empire.

1529 CE

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to the Hapsburg capital of Vienna, but failed to capture it.

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to the Hapsburg capital of Vienna, but failed to capture it.

1543 CE

Portuguese mariners are the first Europeans to reach Japan.

1550s CE

Under Czar Ivan IV, Russia turned southward and conquered the Muslim Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan.

1550s CE

Africans were forced to work on sugar plantations in the Caribbean islands after the arrival of sugar to Brazil.

1556 CE

Akbar led the Mughal Empire's expansion east into Bengal, and southwards to the central Indian Deccan.

1570 CE

The Ming Empire required all taxes be paid in silver.

1571 CE

Spain set up a colony in the Philippines for trans-Pacific trade from its colonies in the Americas.

1588 CE

Britain defeats the ships of the Spanish Armada and becomes ruler of the Atlantic Ocean.

1595 CE

Shah Abbas I built an army of enslaved people known as ghulams from Christian slaves taken from Armenia and Georgia.

1600 CE

The British East India Company is established and sets up trading posts in India.

1600s CE

The "time of troubles" saw Russia fall into civil war, divided between two nobles who claimed the throne.

1608 CE

Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City, marking the beginning of permanent French settlement in Canada.

1613 CE

A unified Russia re-emerged when a new ruler, Michael Romanov, was elected as emperor, or czar.

1631 CE

Shahjahan began the building of the Taj Mahal, a white marble mausoleum in memory of his wife Mumtaz Maha.

1644 CE

As peasant uprisings contributed to the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty captured Beijing.

1650s CE

The Safavids fought with the Mughal Empire in their eastern provinces and in Afghanistan.

1652 CE

Calvinist Dutch farmers set up a colony in southern Africa near the Cape of Good Hope

Calvinist Dutch farmers set up a colony in southern Africa near the Cape of Good Hope.

1657 CE

Aurangzeb imposed Sharia laws and brought back the jizya tax that Hindu residents had to pay in return for protection.

1664 CE

The English captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch, renaming it New York, and solidifying English control in the region.

1682 CE

Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River, claiming the entire river basin for France.

1721 CE

Under Czar Peter the Great, a war with Sweden finally led to the annexation of the Baltic Coast.

1722 CE

The Yongzheng Emperor cracked down on corruption and reformed the financial administration of the Qing Empire.

1726 CE

The last shah of the Safavid Dynasty is assassinated.

1735 CE

The Qianlong Emperor conducted a series of military campaigns that eliminated the Turk and Mongol threats to China.