Historical Timelines: Key Events

1200-1450 Post Classical Era

• Key Events and Developments:

  • 1202: Fourth Crusade
  • 1206: Delhi Sultanate comes to power
  • 1215: Magna Carta signed in England
  • 1258: Mongol Invasions Begin
  • 1299: Osman creates Ottoman Empire
  • 1300: Little Ice Age Begins
  • 1312: Great Schism begins
  • 1324: Mansa Musa does pilgrimage to Mecca
  • 1325: Tenochtitlan built in Aztec Empire
  • 1337: Hundred Years' War begins
  • 1347: Ibn Battuta travels
  • 1358: Hanseatic League formed in Europe
  • 1368: Ming Dynasty begins in China
  • 1370: Tamerlane gains power
  • 1378: Black Death
  • 1400: Lateen Sail in use
  • 1405: Zheng He voyages
  • 1438: Inca Empire Expands
  • 1441: Portuguese slave trading begins in West Africa
  • 1450: Ottoman Empire gains power in Europe

Timeline of Early Modern Era 1450-1750

• Key Events and Developments:

  • 1350-1500: Renaissance begins
  • 1453: Ottoman Empire gains Constantinople
  • 1454: Sikhism Created
  • 1464: Songhai Empire formed
  • 1478: Spanish Inquisition Begins
  • 1492: Columbus reaches Caribbean, Muslims and Jews expelled from Spain
  • 1498: Vasco De Gama lands in India
  • 1499: China Forbids sea trade
  • 1501: Ismail I rules Safavid Empire
  • 1517: Martin Luther writes 95 Theses
  • 1518: Neo-Confucianism formed in China
  • 1520: Suleiman gains power in Ottoman Empire
  • 1521: Martin Luther excommunicated, Hernan Cortes defeats Aztecs
  • 1526: Mughal empire created
  • 1530: Plantations becomes Portuguese in Brazil
  • 1532: Francisco Pizarro defeats Inca Empire
  • 1543: Scientific Revolution Begins
  • 1545: Council of Trent
  • 1547: Ivan IV (Terrible) becomes Tsar of Russia
  • 1550: Slave trade
  • 1556: Akbar begins rule of Mughal Empire
  • 1598: Edict of Nantes
  • 1600: Tokugawa Shogunate formed in Japan, British East India Company formed
  • 1602: Dutch East India Company formed
  • 1607: Jamestown founded
  • 1613: Romanov Dynasty
  • 1624: Ana Nzinga formed in Ndongo
  • 1632: Taj Mahal built
  • 1640: Prussia is formed
  • 1642: English Civil War
  • 1643: Louis XIV of France takes power
  • 1644: Qing Dynasty in China
  • 1651: Enlightenment begins
  • 1652: Dutch Settle in South Africa
  • 1682: Peter the Great takes power in Russia
  • 1688: Glorious Revolution in England
  • 1750: Slave trade

Timeline of Modern Era 1750-1900

• Key Events and Developments:

  • 1750: Slave trade
  • 1754: Seven Years War
  • 1762: Catherine the Great Rules Russia
  • 1765: Steam Engine Invented
  • 1774: Russo-Turkish War
  • 1775: American Revolution Begins
  • 1780: Tupac Amaru Rebellion in Peru
  • 1780s: Haitian Revolution
  • 1787: Establishment of Freetown in West Africa
  • 1789: French Revolution Begins
  • 1791: Independence in British Empire
  • 1799: Napoleon in Power
  • 1808: Start of Latin American wars
  • 1810: Rebellion in Mexico
  • 1815: Serbia gets independence from Ottoman Empire
  • 1821: Greece gets independence from Ottoman Empire
  • 1833: Slavery prohibited in British Empire
  • 1840: Opium War
  • 1848: Communist Manifesto written
  • 1850: Taiping Rebellion begins in China
  • 1853: Crimean War, Commodore Perry arrives in Japan
  • 1856: Second Opium War
  • 1861: Start of U.S. Civil War
  • 1868: Meiji Restoration begins
  • 1869: Suez Canal Opens
  • 1870: Unification of Italy
  • 1871: Unification of Germany
  • 1884: Berlin Conference
  • 1885: Indian National Congress Created
  • 1890: King Leopold's Reign over Congo
  • 1898: Spanish American War, Boxer Rebellion
  • 1899: Boer War starts in South Africa

Timeline of Contemporary Period 1900-Present

• Key Events and Developments:

  • 1903: Airplane Created
  • 1904: Russo-Japanese War, U.S. Builds Panama Canal
  • 1905: Maji Maji Rebellion in East Africa
  • 1910: Mexican Revolution
  • 1911: Qing Dynasty falls, Republic of China Created
  • 1914: WWI starts, Franz Ferdinand assassinated
  • 1915: Armenian Genocide
  • 1917: Zimmerman Telegram, Russian Revolution
  • 1918: Fourteen Points, End of Ottoman Empire
  • 1919: Treaty of Paris ends WWI
  • 1920: League of Nations Created
  • 1922: USSR created
  • 1928: Stalin 5 Year Plan
  • 1929: Great Depression starts
  • 1930: Salt March in India
  • 1931: Japan invades Manchuria
  • 1933: Hitler in Power in Germany
  • 1934: Mao Zedong does Long March
  • 1936: Franco in power in Spain, Spanish Civil War starts
  • 1941: Vaccine for Polio
  • 1945: United Nations created, Marshall Plan
  • 1947: Truman Doctrine
  • 1948: Berlin Airlift, Apartheid created.
  • 1949: NATO founded, Communist Party in power in China
  • 1950: Korean war starts
  • 1955: Warsaw Pact Created, Vietnam War Starts.
  • 1956: Suez Crisis
  • 1959: Cuban Revolution.
  • 1961: Berlin Wall Built
  • 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
  • 1966: Cultural Revolution
  • 1967: Six Day War
  • 1979: Soviets invade Afghanistan, Iranian Revolution
  • 1989: Tiananmen Square
  • 1990: Rwanda Civil War
  • 1994: Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa
  • 2001: 9/11 Terrorist Attack