2nd millennium
Encyclopedia
File:2nd millennium montage.png|From left, clockwise: In 1492, Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

; The American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

; The French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

; The Atomic Bomb from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

; An alternate source of light, the Light Bulb; For the first time, a human being
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....

 sets foot on the moon
Moon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...

 in 1969 during the Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

 moon mission; Aeroplanes
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...

 become the most-used way of transport though the skies; Napoleon Bonaparte, in the early 19th century, affects France and Europe on subjects of expansionism
Expansionism
In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies of governments and states. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth , more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base usually, though not necessarily, by means of military...

 and modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...

; Alexander Graham Bell's
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....

 telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

; In 1348, the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

 kills over 100 million people worldwide, and over half of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, in two years. (Background: An excerpt from the Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...

, the first printed-by-press book, in the 1450s)|500px|thumb
rect 3 3 253 191 New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...


rect 259 5 438 123 American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...


rect 445 4 559 159 French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...


rect 260 129 438 249 Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...


rect 5 212 110 375 Napoleon Bonaparte
rect 129 197 253 299 Telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...


rect 123 309 257 386 Aeroplanes
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...


rect 268 257 432 379 Moon landing
Moon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...


rect 446 165 560 296 Atomic Bomb
rect 440 303 514 387 Light Bulb
rect 1 1 566 394 Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...



The 2nd millennium was the thousand-year period that commenced on January 1, 1001 and ended on December 31, 2000, encompasses the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

, the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

, the Early Modern Age, the age of Colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

, industrialization, the rise of nation states, and culminates in the 20th century with the impact of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, widespread education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, and universal health care and vaccination
Vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

s in many nations. The centuries of expanding large-scale warfare with high-tech weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

ry (of the World Wars and nuclear bombs) are offset by growing peace movement
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

s from the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, the Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...

, religious campaigns warning against violence, plus doctors
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and health workers crossing borders to treat injuries and disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

 and the return of the Olympics as contest without combat.

Scientists prevail in explaining intellectual freedom
Intellectual freedom
Intellectual freedom is the right to freedom of thought and of expression of thought. As defined by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is a human right. Article 19 states:...

; humans take their first steps on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 during the 20th century; and new technology is developed by governments, industry, and academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...

 across the world, with education shared by many international conference
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...

s and journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

s. The development of movable type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, and the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 spread information worldwide, within minutes, in audio
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

, video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

, and print-image
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....

 format to educate, entertain, and alert billions of people by the end of the 20th century.

From the 16th century, humans migrated from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 to, what was to them, the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

, beginning the ever-accelerating process of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

. The interwoven international trade
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...

 led to the formation of multi-national corporations, with home offices in multiple countries. International business ventures reduced the impact of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 in popular thought.

The world population
World population
The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be  billion by the United States Census Bureau...

 doubled over the first seven centuries of the millennium, (from 310 million in AD 1000 to 600 million in AD 1700), and later increased tenfold over its last three centuries, exceeding to 6 billion in AD 2000.

Calendar

The 2nd millennium was a period of time that commenced on January 1, 1001, and ended on December 31, 2000. This is the second period of one thousand years Anno Domini
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....

.

The Julian calendar
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...

 was used in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 at the beginning of the millennium, and all countries that once used the Julian calendar had adopted the Gregorian calendar
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...

 by the end of it. So the end date is always calculated according to the Gregorian calendar, but the beginning date is usually according to the Julian calendar (or occasionally the Proleptic Gregorian calendar
Proleptic Gregorian calendar
The proleptic Gregorian calendar is produced by extending the Gregorian calendar backward to dates preceding its official introduction in 1582.-Usage:...

).

The current millennium is perhaps more popularly (albeit inaccurately) thought of as beginning and ending a year earlier, thus starting at the beginning of 1000 and finishing at the end of 1999. Many public celebrations for the end of the millennium were held on December 31, 1999–January 1, 2000—with few on the actual date a year later. The inaccuracy stems from the assumption that there is a year zero
Year zero
"Year zero" does not exist in the widely used Gregorian calendar or in its predecessor, the Julian calendar. Under those systems, the year 1 BC is followed by AD 1...

, however this is not the case for this calendar
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

.

Civilizations

The civilizations in this section are organized according to the UN geoscheme
UN geoscheme
The geoscheme was created on the basis of the classification M49 of the United Nations Statistics Division, which divides the world into 'macro-geographical regions' and subregions....

.
Civilizations of the 2nd millennium AD
Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
  • Fatimid Empire
  • Mamluk Sultanate
    Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
    The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt was the final independent Egyptian state prior to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in 1805. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. The sultanate's ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, Arabised...

  • Almoravid dynasty
  • Almohad dynasty
  • Saadi dynasty
    Saadi Dynasty
    The Saadi dynasty of Morocco , began with the reign of Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh in 1554, when he vanquished the last Wattasids at the Battle of Tadla....

  • Mali Empire
    Mali Empire
    The Mali Empire or Mandingo Empire or Manden Kurufa was a West African empire of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I...

  • Songhai Empire
    Songhai Empire
    The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...

  • Sokoto Caliphate
  • Funj sultanate of Sinnar
  • Ashanti Empire
    Ashanti Empire
    The Ashanti Empire , also Asanteman was a West Africa state of the Ashanti people, the Akan people of the Ashanti Region, now in Ghana. The Ashanti or Asante are a major ethnic group in Ghana, a powerful, militaristic and highly disciplined people of West Africa...

  • Kingdom of Dahomey
  • Ife
    Ife
    Ife is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. Evidence of inhabitation at the site has been discovered to date back to roughly 560 BC...

  • Oyo Empire
    Oyo Empire
    The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today southwestern Nigeria. The empire was established before the 14th century and grew to become one of the largest West African states encountered by European explorers. It rose to preeminence through its possession of a powerful cavalry and wealth...

  • Benin Empire
    Benin Empire
    The Benin Empire was a pre-colonial African state in what is now modern Nigeria. It is not to be confused with the modern-day country called Benin, formerly called Dahomey.-Origin:...

  • Kongo Empire
  • Merina Kingdom
    Merina
    The Merina are an ethnic group from Madagascar. The Merina are concentrated in the Highlands and speak the official dialect of the Malagasy language, which is a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language group derived from the Barito languages, spoken in southern Borneo. Their ancestors, the...

  • Buganda Empire
    Buganda
    Buganda is a subnational kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Ganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda, comprising all of Uganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala, with the exception of the disputed eastern Kayunga District...

  • Kingdom of Rwanda
  • Kingdom of Burundi
    History of Burundi
    Burundi is one of the few countries in Africa, along with its closely linked neighbour Rwanda among others, to be a direct territorial continuation of a pre-colonial era African state.-Kingdom of Burundi:...

  • Empire of Kitara
    Empire of Kitara
    The Empire of Kitara is a strong part of oral tradition in the area of the Great Lakes of Africa, including the modern countries of Uganda, northern Tanzania, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi...

  • Mutapa Empire
  • Maravi Empire
  • Luba Empire
  • Lunda Empire
  • Zulu Empire
  • Aztec Empire
  • Inca Empire
    Inca Empire
    The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...

     
  • Punjab Empire
  • Khmer Empire
    Khmer Empire
    The Khmer Empire was one of the most powerful empires in Southeast Asia. The empire, which grew out of the former kingdom of Chenla, at times ruled over and/or vassalized parts of modern-day Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and Malaysia. Its greatest legacy is Angkor, the site of the capital city...

  • Pagan Kingdom
    Pagan Kingdom
    The Pagan Kingdom or Pagan Dynasty was the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute the modern-day Burma...

  • Chola Dynasty
    Chola Dynasty
    The Chola dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which was one of the longest-ruling in some parts of southern India. The earliest datable references to this Tamil dynasty are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC left by Asoka, of Maurya Empire; the dynasty continued to govern over varying territory until...

  • Goryeo
    Goryeo
    The Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...

  • Song Dynasty
    Song Dynasty
    The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

  • Hoysala Empire
    Hoysala Empire
    The Hoysala Empire was a prominent South Indian Kannadiga empire that ruled most of the modern day state of Karnataka between the 10th and the 14th centuries. The capital of the Hoysalas was initially located at Belur but was later moved to Halebidu....

  • Seljuks
  • Mongol Empire
    Mongol Empire
    The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

  • Yuan Dynasty
    Yuan Dynasty
    The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

  • Ming Dynasty
    Ming Dynasty
    The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

  • Vijayanagara Empire
    Vijayanagara Empire
    The Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...

  • Qing Dynasty
    Qing Dynasty
    The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

  • Mughal Empire
    Mughal Empire
    The Mughal Empire ,‎ or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...

     
  • Byzantine Empire
    Byzantine Empire
    The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

     (330–1453)
  • Kingdom of England
    Kingdom of England
    The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

  • Holy Roman Empire
    Holy Roman Empire
    The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

  • Kingdom of France
    Kingdom of France
    The Kingdom of France was one of the most powerful states to exist in Europe during the second millennium.It originated from the Western portion of the Frankish empire, and consolidated significant power and influence over the next thousand years. Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, developed a...

  • French colonial empire
    French colonial empire
    The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...

     (1605–1960)
  • Kingdom of Hungary
    Kingdom of Hungary
    The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

  • Crown of Aragon
    Crown of Aragon
    The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...

  • Crown of Castile
    Crown of Castile
    The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...

  • Ottoman Empire
    Ottoman Empire
    The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

     (1299–1922)
  • Second Bulgarian Empire
    Second Bulgarian Empire
    The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

     (1185–1396)
  • Kievan Rus(880-1150)
  • Kingdom of Serbia
    Kingdom of Serbia
    The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...

     (1217-1346)
  • Serbian Empire
    Serbian Empire
    The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

     (1346-1371)
  • Kingdom of Poland
    Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569)
    The Kingdom of Poland of the Jagiellons was the Polish state created by the accession of Jogaila , Grand Duke of Lithuania, to the Polish throne in 1386. The Union of Krewo or Krėva Act, united Poland and Lithuania under the rule of a single monarch...

  • Spanish Empire
    Spanish Empire
    The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....

     (1402–1975)
  • Portuguese Empire
    Portuguese Empire
    The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

     (1415–1999)
  • Austrian Empire
    Austrian Empire
    The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

     (1526–1918)
  • British Empire
    British Empire
    The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

     (1583–1997)

  • Events

    The events in this section are organized according to the UN geoscheme
    UN geoscheme
    The geoscheme was created on the basis of the classification M49 of the United Nations Statistics Division, which divides the world into 'macro-geographical regions' and subregions....

    .
    Events of the 2nd millennium AD
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    11th Century
    11th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century is the period from 1001 to 1100 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era....


    1043 Eze Nri Ìfikuánim
    Eze Nri Ìfikuánim
    Eze Nri Ìfikuánim, was the first king of the Nri Kingdom. According to Igbo oral tradition, his reign started in 1043, although at least one historian puts Ìfikuánim's reign much later, around 1225 AD.-References:...

     becomes first king of Nri Kingdom

    1054 Almoravid dynasty established

    1060 Kingdom of Kanem converts to Islam
     
    1000 Cahokia
    Cahokia
    Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the area of an ancient indigenous city located in the American Bottom floodplain, between East Saint Louis and Collinsville in south-western Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 human-built earthwork mounds...

     (present-day Illinois
    Illinois
    Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

    , USA) becomes regional chiefdom
    Chiefdom
    A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...

     of Mississippian culture
    Mississippian culture
    The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....



    1008 The Tale of Genji completed
    The Tale of Genji
    is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...




    1005 Treaty of Shanyuan signed


    1044 Gunpowder recipe published
    Wujing Zongyao
    The Wujing Zongyao was a Chinese military compendium written in 1044 AD, during the Northern Song Dynasty. Its authors were the prominent scholars Zeng Gongliang , Ding Du , and Yang Weide , whose writing influenced many later Chinese military writers. The book covered a wide range of subjects,...




    1054 The East-West Schism divides the Christian church
    East-West Schism
    The East–West Schism of 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively...




    1088 The first university was founded
    University of Bologna
    The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...




    1095 First Crusade
    First Crusade
    The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...

     
    12th Century
    12th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and is sometimes called the Age of the...


    1143 Almohad dynasty take control from the Almoravids

    1171 Salah-ad-Din deposes Fatimid ruler of Egypt and establishes the Ayyubid dynasty

    1173 Ayyubids capture Qasr Ibrim in Nubia

    1100 Toltecs establish capital at Tula
    Toltec
    The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...



    1124 Arnaldur appointed first bishop of Greenland

    1175 Destruction of Toltec civilization
    Toltec
    The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...



    1117 The magnetic compass is used at sea
    Zhu Yu (author)
    Zhu Yu was an author of the Chinese Song Dynasty . He retired in Huang Gang of the Hubei province, bought a country house and named it "Pingzhou". He called himself "Expert Vegetable Grower of Pingzhou ". Between 1111 and 1117 AD, Zhu Yu wrote the book Pingzhou Ketan , published in 1119 AD...




    1120 Meng Yuanlao describes four-star dining in Kaifeng


    1150 Construction of Angkor Wat
    Angkor Wat
    Angkor Wat is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu,...



    1169 Averoes translates Aristotle
    Averroes
    ' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...

     
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    13th Century
    13th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era...


    1200 Kingdom of Mwenemutapa established in Zimbabwe

    1203 Sumaguru Kante of Sosso conquers kingdom of Ghana 

    1250 Mamluk soldiers take Egypt from the Ayyubids 

    1200 Chichén Itzá abandoned

    1200 Kingdom of Cuzco founded
    Manco Capac
    Manco Cápac was the legendary first Sapa Inca of the Kingdom of Cusco and a figure of Inca mythology. There are several versions of his origin story, which connect him to the foundation of Cusco.- Inti legend :In one myth, Manco Cápac was a son of the sun god Inti and Mama Quilla, and brother of...

     

    1200 Expansion of Chimú state of Chimor 

    1211 Genghis Khan Builds an Empire

    1215 Magna Carta
    Magna Carta
    Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...



    1260 Dedication of the Cathedral at Chartres

    1200 Tahitians colonize Hawaii 
    14th Century
    14th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1301 to December 31, 1400.-Events:* The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age....


    1324 Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca

    1365 Crusade led by king of Cyprus sacks Alexandria

    1375 Kingdom of Songhai breaks away from Mali
    Songhai Empire
    The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...

     


    1315 Founding of Tenochtitlan

    1350
    Norsemen abandon Greenland

    1350 War between Inca and Chimú

    1350 Coffee was first brewed

    1368 Zhu Yuanzhang ousts the Mongols from power

    1348 Black Plague


    1350 Emergence of fashion

    1382 Wyclif's Bible
    Wyclif's Bible
    Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395...


    1300 Polynesian immigration to New Zealand

    1300 Hawaiians develop class structure

    1300 Huge stone statues erected on Easter Island
    Moai
    Moai , or mo‘ai, are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Chilean Polynesian island of Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the...

      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    15th Century
    15th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, falls to emerging Ottoman Turks, forcing Western Europeans to find a new trade route....


    1400 capital of Sayfawa Dynasty
    Sayfawa dynasty
    Sayfawa dynasty or more properly Sefuwa dynasty is the name of the kings of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, centered first in Kanem in western Chad, and then, after 1380, in Borno ....

     moved to Borno
    Borno State
    Borno State is a state in north-eastern Nigeria. Its capital is Maiduguri. The state was formed in 1976 from the split of the North-Eastern State...



    1400 Funj settled Alodia
    Alodia
    Alodia or Alwa was the southernmost of the three kingdoms of Christian Nubia; the other two were Nobatia and Makuria to the north.Much about this kingdom is still unknown, despite its thousand year existence and considerable power and geographic size. Due to fewer excavations far less is known...



    1496 Spain conquers Melilla, Morocco

    1470 Incas conquer Chimú empire 

    1428 Aztecs conquer Atzcapotzalco, ally with Texcoco and Tlacopan, become the dominant state in Mexico


    1492 Voyages of Christopher Columbus
    Voyages of Christopher Columbus
    In the early modern period, the voyages of Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of great significance in world history. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for Castile, a country that later founded modern Spain...


    1407 Work begins on Forbidden City, Beijing
    Forbidden City
    The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum...



    1431 Ayutthaya conquers Angkor 


    1413 The invention of linear perspective


    1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople


    1455 Gutenberg Bible printed
    Gutenberg Bible
    The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...



    1400 Tongans build ceremonial centre at Mu'a
    16th Century
    16th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred....


    1546 Songhai Empire
    Songhai Empire
    The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...

     takes Niani

    1509 African slaves arrive in the Americas
    Atlantic slave trade
    The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...



    1517 Ottomans capture Egypt

    1535 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V conquers Tunis
    Conquest of Tunis
    The Conquest of Tunis in 1535 was an attack on Tunis, then under the control of the Ottoman Empire, by the Spanish Empire.-Background:In 1533, Suleiman ordered Hayreddin Barbarossa, whom he had summoned from Algiers, to build a large war fleet in the arsenal of Constantinople...



    1535 Europeans discover tobacco


    1537 Europeans discover potatoes
    Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
    Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in Colombia. He explored the northern part of South America. While successful in many of his exploits, acquiring massive amounts of gold and emeralds, he ended his career disastrously; and has been suggested as a possible model...




    1545 The discovery of silver in the Andes mountains
     

    1517 The Ninety-Five Theses published


    1543 Publication of On the Structure of the Human Body
    De humani corporis fabrica
    De humani corporis fabrica libri septem is a textbook of human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius in 1543....




    1596 Invention of the toilet

    1550 Maoris of New Zealand build fortified enclosures
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    17th Century
    17th century
    The 17th century was the century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the...


    1600 Kingdom of Rwanda founded

    1600 Dahomey Kingdom
    Dahomey
    Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...

     founded

    1644 Start of the Char Bouba
    Char Bouba war
    The Char Bouba war or the Mauritanian Thirty Years War, took place between 1644-74 in the tribal areas of what is today Mauritania and Western Sahara...


    1607 Virginia colony founded

    1624 Manhattan island purchased from Native Americans

    1697 Last Mayan resistance defeated 


    1610 Tea spreads to the world

    1637 Japanese prohibition against European contact


    1603 First performance of Hamlet


    1610 Galileo publishes his observations of Jupiter
    Galileo Galilei
    Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...




    1666 Discovery of gravitation

    1600 Tu'i Konokupolu dynasty take power in Tonga
    Tu'i Kanokupolu
    The Ha'a Tu'i Kanokupolu is the most junior of the Ha'a Tu'i in Tonga. They are generally refer to as the Kau Halalalo The Ha'a Tu'i Tonga, the most senior and Sacred Ha'a Tu'i in Tonga are generally refer to as the Kauhala'uta, The inland side of the roads...



    1642 Abel Tasman sights New Zealand
    18th Century
    18th century
    The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French and American revolutions. Philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers were dreaming about a better age without the Christian fundamentalism of...



    1700 Maravi Empire tears apart

    1754 Usman Dan Fodio
    Usman dan Fodio
    Shaihu Usman dan Fodio , born Usuman ɓii Foduye, was the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1809, a religious teacher, writer and Islamic promoter. Dan Fodio was one of a class of urbanized ethnic Fulani living in the Hausa States in what is today northern Nigeria...

     is born

    1799 Discovery of the Rosetta Stone
    Rosetta Stone
    The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...


    1742 Native American revolt against Spanish in Peru
    Juan Santos Atahualpa
    Juan Santos Atahualpa was a leader of an indigenous rebellion in the Andean jungle provinces of Tarma and Jauja, near what was then Spanish Peru in the mid 18th century....



    1776 United States Declaration of Independence published
    United States Declaration of Independence
    The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...


    1751 Chinese occupy Tibet


    1722 Bach composed the Well-Tempered Clavier


    1769 Invention of the steam engine
    Steam engine
    A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...




    1796 The first vaccination
     
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    19th Century
    19th century
    The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...


    1869 The Suez Canal opens

    1896 Battle of Adwa

    1879 Battle of Isandlwana
    Battle of Isandlwana
    The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom...



    1821 Bolívar liberates Venezuela


    1876 Menlo Park opens


    1876 First telephone transmission
    Invention of the telephone
    The invention of the telephone is the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims. The development of the modern telephone involved an array of lawsuits founded upon the patent claims of several individuals...




    1868 End of Japanese seclusion


    1830 First steam railway


    1859 Origin of Species


    1882 Germ theory proven
    Germ theory of disease
    The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases...


    1840 Treaty of Waitangi signed

    1845 New Zealand land wars
    New Zealand land wars
    The New Zealand Wars, sometimes called the Land Wars and also once called the Māori Wars, were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872...

    20th Century
    20th century
    Many people define the 20th century as running from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000, others would rather define it as beginning on January 1, 1900....


    1956 Suez Crisis
    Suez Crisis
    The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...



    1967 Six-Day War
    Six-Day War
    The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...



    1996 End of apartheid


    1903 First controlled, powered airplane flight


    1908 Ford builds the Model T


    1928 First television broadcast


    1917 The Russian Revolution


    1934 Mao's long march
    Long March
    The Long March was a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south...




    1945 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...



    1901 First transatlantic radio transmission


    1928 Discovery of penicillin
    Discovery of penicillin
    Alexander Fleming was the first to suggest that the Penicillium mould must secrete an antibacterial substance, and the first to isolate the active substance which he named penicillin, but he was not the first to use its properties...




    1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor

    1915 Australians and New Zealanders serve in the Gallipoli Campaign

    1985 Nuclear Free Zone established in New Zealand
    New Zealand's nuclear-free zone
    In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange barred nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones...


    Significant people

    The people in this section are organized according to the UN geoscheme
    UN geoscheme
    The geoscheme was created on the basis of the classification M49 of the United Nations Statistics Division, which divides the world into 'macro-geographical regions' and subregions....

    .

    Significant people of the 2nd millennium AD
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    11th Century
    11th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century is the period from 1001 to 1100 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era....

    Humai ibn Salamna
    Hummay
    Hummay was the founder and mai of the Sefuwa dynasty of the Kanem-Empire in the region of Lake Chad. He discarded the Sefuwa-Duguwa from power and ruled from 1068 to 1080. The dynasty founded by him was to survive until 1846. His rule had important consequences because of the spead of Islam...


    Eze Nri Ìfikuánim
    Eze Nri Ìfikuánim
    Eze Nri Ìfikuánim, was the first king of the Nri Kingdom. According to Igbo oral tradition, his reign started in 1043, although at least one historian puts Ìfikuánim's reign much later, around 1225 AD.-References:...


    Yahya ibn Ibrahim
      Shen Kuo
    Shen Kuo
    Shen Kuo or Shen Gua , style name Cunzhong and pseudonym Mengqi Weng , was a polymathic Chinese scientist and statesman of the Song Dynasty...


    Omar Khayyám
    Omar Khayyám
    Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....

    William the Conqueror
    William I of England
    William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...


    Basil II
    Basil II
    Basil II , known in his time as Basil the Porphyrogenitus and Basil the Young to distinguish him from his ancestor Basil I the Macedonian, was a Byzantine emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from 10 January 976 to 15 December 1025.The first part of his long reign was dominated...


    Samuel
     
    12th Century
    12th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and is sometimes called the Age of the...

    Abd al-Mu'min
    Abd al-Mu'min
    Abd al-Mu'min also known as Abdelmoumen El Goumi was a Zenata Berber prominent member of the Almohad movement. He became the first Caliph of the Almohad Empire .- Early life :...


    Saladin
    Saladin
    Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...


    Dunama I
    Dunama I
    Mai Dunama was the head of the Sayfawa confederacy during the early part of the twelfth century. He was supposedly the first Mai to take a pilgrimage to Mecca.-References:Gerald S. Graham, Thomas Hodgkin; Nigerian Perspectives: An Historical Anthology...

    Sapa Inca Minamoto no Yoritomo
    Minamoto no Yoritomo
    was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan. He ruled from 1192 until 1199.-Early life and exile :Yoritomo was the third son of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, heir of the Minamoto clan, and his official wife, a daughter of Fujiwara no Suenori, who was a member of the...


    Bhaskara II
    Genghis Khan
    Genghis Khan
    Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

    Richard I of England
    Richard I of England
    Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...

     
    13th Century
    13th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era...

    Sundiata Keita
    Sundiata Keita
    Sundiata Keita, Sundjata Keyita, Mari Djata I or just Sundiata was the founder of the Mali Empire and celebrated as a hero of the Malinke people of West Africa in the semi-historical Epic of Sundiata....


    Dunama Dabbalemi
    Dunama Dabbalemi
    Dunama Dabbalemi, of the Sayfawa dynasty, was the mai of the Kanem Empire, in present-day Chad, from 1203 to 1243.A fervent Muslim, Dabbalemi initiated diplomatic exchanges with sultans in North Africa and apparently arranged for the establishment of a special hostel in Cairo to facilitate...


    Mansa Uli
        Marco Polo
    Marco Polo
    Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

    Roy Mata
    Roy Mata
    Roy Mata was a powerful 13th century Melanesian chief from what is now Vanuatu. His elaborate grave, containing the bodies of over 25 members of his retinue, was discovered by French archaeologist Jose Garranger in 1967 and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2008. Garranger was able to locate...

    14th Century
    14th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1301 to December 31, 1400.-Events:* The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age....

    Kato Kintu
    Ibn Khaldun
    Ibn Khaldun
    Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun was an Arab Tunisian historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics...


    Muhammad Ture
    Acamapichtli
    Acamapichtli
    Acamapichtli was the first tlatoani, or ruler, of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, and founder of the Aztec imperial dynasty. He became ruler in 1375 and reigned for 19 years.- Family and early life :...

    Yongle Emperor
    Yongle Emperor
    The Yongle Emperor , born Zhu Di , was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China from 1402 to 1424. His Chinese era name Yongle means "Perpetual Happiness".He was the Prince of Yan , possessing a heavy military base in Beiping...


    Madhava
    Madhava of Sangamagrama
    Mādhava of Sañgamāgrama was a prominent Kerala mathematician-astronomer from the town of Irińńālakkuţa near Cochin, Kerala, India. He is considered the founder of the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics...


    Timur
    Timur
    Timur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...

    Johannes Gutenberg
    Jan Hus
    Jan Hus
    Jan Hus , often referred to in English as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague...

     
    15th Century
    15th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, falls to emerging Ottoman Turks, forcing Western Europeans to find a new trade route....

    Ilunga Tshibinda
    Ilunga Tshibinda
    Ilunga Tshibinda was a Kingdom of Luba emperor and Lunda. Tshibinda Ilunga was the second son of Ilunga Mbidi and younger brother Kalala Ilunga....


    Sonni Ali
    Sonni Ali
    Sonni Ali, also known as Sunni Ali Ber or "Sunni Ali", was born Ali Kolon. He reigned from about 1464 to 1492. Sunni Ali was the first king of the Songhai Empire, located in west Africa and the 15th ruler of the Sonni dynasty...


    Zara Yaqob
    Zara Yaqob
    Zar'a Ya`qob or Zera Yacob was of Ethiopia , and a member of the Solomonic dynasty...

    Moctezuma I
    Moctezuma I
    Moctezuma I , also known as Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, Huehuemotecuhzoma or Montezuma I , was the fifth Aztec emperor - king of Tenochtitlan...

    Hongxi Emperor
    Hongxi Emperor
    The Hongxi Emperor was the fourth emperor of the Ming Dynasty in China. He succeeded his father, the Yongle Emperor, in 1424. His era name means "Vastly bright".-Biography:...


    Guru Nanak Dev
    Guru Nanak Dev
    Guru Nanak was the founder of the religion of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. The Sikhs believe that all subsequent Gurus possessed Guru Nanak’s divinity and religious authority, and were named "Nanak" in the line of succession.-Early life:Guru Nanak was born on 15 April 1469, now...


    Suleiman
    Suleiman the Magnificent
    Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...

    Nicolaus Copernicus
    Nicolaus Copernicus
    Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....


    Leonardo DaVinci
     
      Africa America Asia Europe Oceania
    16th Century
    16th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred....

    Idris Aloma
    Orompoto
    Orompoto
    Orompoto was an Alaafin of Oyo, also the empire's titled ruler. He was the brother of his predecessor, Eguguojo. He was considered a skillful warrior and was known according to Oyo tales of his inadvertent victory at the battle of Illayi. While fighting his enemies, he lost three leaders of the...


    Ahmad al-Mansur
    Atahualpa
    Atahualpa
    Atahualpa, Atahuallpa, Atabalipa, or Atawallpa , was the last Sapa Inca or sovereign emperor of the Tahuantinsuyu, or the Inca Empire, prior to the Spanish conquest of Peru...

    Xu Guangqi
    Xu Guangqi
    Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...


    Shah Jahan
    Shah Jahan
    Shah Jahan Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) (Full title: His Imperial Majesty Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan...

    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...


    Ferdinand Magellan
    Ferdinand Magellan
    Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....


    Christopher Columbus
    Christopher Columbus
    Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...


    Otto Brunfels
    Otto Brunfels
    Otto Brunfels was a German theologian and botanist...

    17th Century
    17th century
    The 17th century was the century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the...

    Wegbaja
    Osei Tutu
    Okomfo Anokye
    Okomfo Anokye
    Okomfo Anokye was an Ashanti priest, statesman and lawgiver. He occupies a Merlin-like position in Ashanti history. A co-founder of the Empire of Ashanti in West Africa, he helped establish its constitution, laws, and customs....

    Powhatan
    Powhatan
    The Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...

    , Pocahontas
    Pocahontas
    Pocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...


    Squanto
    Squanto
    Tisquantum was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy.-Biography:Squanto's exact date of birth is unknown but many historians...

    Matsuo Basho
    Matsuo Basho
    , born , then , was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as a master of brief and clear haiku...

    Sir Isaac Newton
    Peter the Great
    Otto von Guericke
    Otto von Guericke
    Otto von Guericke was a German scientist, inventor, and politician...

     
    18th Century
    18th century
    The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French and American revolutions. Philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers were dreaming about a better age without the Christian fundamentalism of...

    Usman Dan Fodio
    Usman dan Fodio
    Shaihu Usman dan Fodio , born Usuman ɓii Foduye, was the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1809, a religious teacher, writer and Islamic promoter. Dan Fodio was one of a class of urbanized ethnic Fulani living in the Hausa States in what is today northern Nigeria...


    Opoku Ware I
    Opoku Ware I
    Katakyie Opoku Ware I was an Oyoko king or Asantehene - the ruler of the Ashanti - in the now-disbanded Ashanti Confederacy which occupied parts of what is now Ghana...


    Dossou Agadja
    Agadja
    Dossou Agadja was the fifth King of Dahomey. He succeeded Houessou Akaba, and ruled from 1708 to 1740. Akaba's only son, Agbo Sassa, was only ten years old when Akaba died, so as Akaba's brother, Agadja took the throne to become the fifth king...

    Benjamin Franklin
    Benjamin Franklin
    Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...


    Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...


    George Washington
    George Washington
    George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

    Qianlong Emperor
    Qianlong Emperor
    The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796...

    Napoleon I of France
    Napoleon I of France
    Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...


    Catherine the Great
    Adam Smith
    Adam Smith
    Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...


    Carl Linnaeus
    Kamehameha I
    Kamehameha I
    Kamehameha I , also known as Kamehameha the Great, conquered the Hawaiian Islands and formally established the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. By developing alliances with the major Pacific colonial powers, Kamehameha preserved Hawaii's independence under his rule...

    19th Century
    19th century
    The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...

    Moshoeshoe I
    Moshoeshoe I
    Moshoeshoe was born at Menkhoaneng in the Northern part of present-day Lesotho. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bamokoteli lineage- a branch of the Koena clan. In his early childhood, he helped his father gain power over some other smaller clans. At the age of 34...


    Shaka
    Shaka
    Shaka kaSenzangakhona , also known as Shaka Zulu , was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom....


    Menelik II
    Thomas Edison
    Thomas Edison
    Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...


    Simón Bolívar
    Simón Bolívar
    Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...


    Abraham Lincoln
    Abraham Lincoln
    Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

    Empress Dowager Cixi
    Empress Dowager Cixi
    Empress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....


    Mangal Pandey
    Mangal Pandey
    Mangal Pandey was a sepoy in the 34th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry of the English East India Company. He is widely known in India as one of its first freedom fighters...

    Charles Darwin
    Charles Darwin
    Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...


    Nikola Tesla
    Nikola Tesla
    Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...


    Karl Marx
    Karl Marx
    Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...


    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

    Te Kooti
    Te Kooti
    Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was a Māori leader, the founder of the Ringatu religion and guerrilla.While fighting alongside government forces against the Hauhau in 1865, he was accused of spying. Exiled to the Chatham Islands without trial along with captured Hauhau, he experienced visions and...

    20th Century
    20th century
    Many people define the 20th century as running from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000, others would rather define it as beginning on January 1, 1900....

    Mo Ibrahim
    Mo Ibrahim
    Dr. Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim is a Sudanese mobile communications entrepreneur and billionaire. He worked for several other telecommunications companies before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries...


    Nelson Mandela
    Nelson Mandela
    Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...


    Desmond Tutu
    Desmond Tutu
    Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...


    Max Theiler
    Max Theiler
    Max Theiler was a South African/American virologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever.-Career development:...

    Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...


    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...


    Harry S. Truman
    Harry S. Truman
    Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...


    John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy
    John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....


    George Gershwin
    George Gershwin
    George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...


    Pele
    Pelé
    However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...


    Michael Jackson
    Michael Jackson
    Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...


    Eddie Van Halen
    Eddie Van Halen
    Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...


    Jimi Hendrix
    Jimi Hendrix
    James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...


    Richard Nixon
    Richard Nixon
    Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...


    Mao Zedong
    Mao Zedong
    Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...


    Mahatma Gandhi
    Mahatma Gandhi
    Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...


    Gamal Abdel Nasser
    Gamal Abdel Nasser
    Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...


    Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
    Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
    Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....


    Ruhollah Khomeini
    Ruhollah Khomeini
    Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...

    Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...


    Winston Churchill
    Winston Churchill
    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...


    Charles de Gaulle
    Charles de Gaulle
    Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....


    Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Stravinsky
    Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....


    Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...


    Adolf Hitler
    Adolf Hitler
    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...


    Josip Broz Tito
    Josip Broz Tito
    Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...


    John Lennon
    John Lennon
    John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

    Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
    Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
    Israel "IZ" Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole was a Hawaiian musician.He became famous outside Hawaii when his album Facing Future was released in 1993...


    See also
    • Lists of people by nationality
    • :Category:People by century
    • :Category:People by nationality and period

    Inventions, discoveries, introductions

    Inventions, discoveries and introductions
    Communication and Technology Math and Science Manufacturing Transportation and
    Space exploration
    Warfare
    1. Printing press
      Printing press
      A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

    2. Telegraph
    3. Photography
      Photography
      Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

    4. Telephone
      Telephone
      The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

    5. Animation
      Animation
      Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

    6. Television
      Television
      Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

    7. Computer
      Computer
      A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

    8. Transistor
      Transistor
      A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...

    9. Satellite
      Satellite
      In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

    10. Internet
      Internet
      The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

    11. Electrostatic generator
      Electrostatic generator
      An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is a mechanical device that produces static electricity, or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current...

  • Calculus
    Calculus
    Calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...

  • Vaccination
    Vaccination
    Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

  • Atomic theory
    Atomic theory
    In chemistry and physics, atomic theory is a theory of the nature of matter, which states that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms, as opposed to the obsolete notion that matter could be divided into any arbitrarily small quantity...

  • Anesthesia
    Anesthesia
    Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...

  • Natural selection
    Introduction to evolution
    Evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. The biodiversity of life evolves by means of mutations, genetic drift and natural selection....

  • Genetics
    History of genetics
    The history of genetics started with the work of the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel. His work on pea plants, published in 1866, described what came to be known as Mendelian Inheritance...

  • Special relativity
    Introduction to special relativity
    In physics, special relativity is a fundamental theory concerning space and time, developed by Albert Einstein in 1905 as a modification of Galilean relativity...

  • Penicillin
    Penicillin
    Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....

  • DNA
  • Quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

  • Canned food
  • Plastic
    Plastic
    A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

  • Assembly line
    Assembly line
    An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...

  • Sliced bread
    Sliced bread
    Sliced bread is a loaf of bread which has been pre-sliced and packaged for convenience. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." This led to the popular phrase, "the greatest thing since sliced bread".- History :Otto...

  • Frozen food
    Frozen food
    Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved their game and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season. Freezing food slows down decomposition by turning water to ice, making it...

  • Nuclear reactor
    Nuclear reactor
    A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...

  • Food processor
    Food processor
    A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate various repetitive tasks in the process of preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food processors".Food processors are...

  • Bicycle
    History of the bicycle
    Vehicles for human transport that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German draisine dating back to 1817...

  • Steam engine
    Steam engine
    A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

  • Steam turbine
    Steam turbine
    A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....

  • Internal combustion engine
    Internal combustion engine
    The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

  • Steam locomotive
    Steam locomotive
    A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

  • Human flight
    Aviation history
    The history of aviation has extended over more than two thousand years from the earliest attempts in kites and gliders to powered heavier-than-air, supersonic and hypersonic flight.The first form of man-made flying objects were kites...

  • Moon landing
  • Space shuttle
    Space Shuttle
    The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

  • Space station
    Space station
    A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

  • GPS navigation
    Global Positioning System
    The Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...

  • Longbow
    Longbow
    A longbow is a type of bow that is tall ; this will allow its user a fairly long draw, at least to the jaw....

  • Rocket
    Rocket
    A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

    s
  • Aircraft carrier
    Seaplane tender
    A seaplane tender is a ship that provides facilities for operating seaplanes. These ships were the first aircraft carriers and appeared just before the First World War.-History:...

  • Nuclear weapon
    Nuclear weapon
    A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

  • Submarine
    History of submarines
    The history of submarines covers the historical chronology and facts related to submarines, manned autonomous boats that operate underwater...

  • Tanks
    Armoured warfare
    Armoured warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war....

  • Firearms
    History of firearms
    Gunpowder was invented in the 9th century and firearms in the 12th century in China. These inventions were later transmitted to the Middle East and to Europe.-Firearms in China:...


  • Centuries and decades

    11th century
    11th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century is the period from 1001 to 1100 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era....

    1000s9 of the 10 years of the decade are in this millenium 1010s
    1010s
    -Significant people:* Abu al-Qasim * Abu Nasr Mansur* Abu Rayhan al-Biruni* Alhacen * Avicenna * Basil II* Boleslaus I* Canute* Fujiwara no Michinaga* Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor* Malcolm II of Scotland* Sweyn I...

    1020s 1030s  1040s
    1040s
    -Significant people:* King Macbeth of Scotland * Godwin, Earl of Wessex * El Cid * Yaroslav I the Wise...

    1050s 1060s
    1060s
    -Significant people:* William the Conqueror* Harold Godwinson* Harald Hardrada* Edward the Confessor* Edgar the Atheling* Tostig Godwinson...

     
    1070s 1080s  1090s
    12th century
    12th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and is sometimes called the Age of the...

    1100s  1110s 1120s 1130s  1140s 1150s 1160s  1170s 1180s  1190s
    13th century
    13th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era...

    1200s  1210s 1220s 1230s  1240s 1250s
    1250s
    The 1250s decade ran from January 1, 1250, to December 31, 1259.-Events and trends:The decade was perhaps most dominated by the Mongols, who under the leadership of Möngke Khan continued their rapid expansion throughout Asia both to the east and west of their home territories...

    1260s
    1260s
    The 1260s is the decade starting January 1, 1260 and ending December 31, 1269.In Asia, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the supreme leader of the Mongol Empire, although his title was only partially recognized...

     
    1270s
    1270s
    The 1270s is the decade starting January 1, 1270, and ending December 31, 1279.In Europe, power struggles within the Holy Roman Empire escalated into civil war as the 23-year interregnum without an emperor came to an end...

    1280s
    1280s
    The 1280s is the decade starting January 1, 1280 and ending December 31, 1289.Europe in the 1280s was marked by naval warfare on the Mediterranean and consolidation of power by the major states. Ongoing struggles over the control of Sicily provoked lengthy naval warfare: after the Sicilian Vespers...

     
    1290s
    14th century
    14th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1301 to December 31, 1400.-Events:* The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age....

    1300s  1310s 1320s 1330s  1340s 1350s 1360s  1370s 1380s
    1380s
    -Births:* 1380** February 11 – Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Italian humanist ** September 8 – Saint Bernardino of Siena, Italian Franciscan missionary ** Ghiyath al-Kashi, Persian astronomer and mathematician...

     
    1390s
    1390s
    -1394:* Prince Henry the Navigator, explorer * Ulugh Beg, Timurid astronomer.-1397:* King Sejong the Great of Joseon, the humane scientist ruler of Korea* August 10 – Albert II of Habsburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire-1398:...

    15th century
    15th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, falls to emerging Ottoman Turks, forcing Western Europeans to find a new trade route....

    1400s  1410s 1420s 1430s  1440s 1450s 1460s
    1460s
    -Significant people:* Charles I , Duke of Burgundy, r. 1467–1477* Jean Fouquet of France , painter* Francis II , Duke of Brittany, r...

     
    1470s 1480s  1490s
    16th century
    16th century
    As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century lasted from 1501 to 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred....

    1500s  1510s 1520s 1530s  1540s 1550s 1560s
    1560s
    -Births:* Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher* William Shakespeare, English playwright* Edward Wright , English mathematician and cartographer...

     
    1570s 1580s  1590s
    17th century
    17th century
    The 17th century was the century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the...

    1600s  1610s 1620s
    1620s
    -Significant people:* Antonio Maria Abbatini of Rome , composer* George Abbot of England , Archbishop of Canterbury, held position 1611–1633...

    1630s
    1630s
    -Deaths:* November 6, 1632 – King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden...

     
    1640s 1650s 1660s  1670s 1680s  1690s
    18th century
    18th century
    The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French and American revolutions. Philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers were dreaming about a better age without the Christian fundamentalism of...

    1700s  1710s 1720s 1730s  1740s
    1740s
    - In Fiction :* The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy is set in the late 1740s....

    1750s 1760s  1770s 1780s  1790s
    19th century
    19th century
    The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...

    1800s  1810s
    1810s
    The 1810s decade ran from January 1, 1810, to December 31, 1819.- Napoleonic Wars:In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon and to besieged Cadiz...

    1820s
    1820s
    The 1820s decade ran from January 1, 1820, to December 31, 1829.- East Asia :* February 14, 1820 – Minh Mang starts to rule in Vietnam.* Java War * 1828 Siamese-Lao War: Siam invades and sacks Vientiane....

    1830s
    1830s
    - Wars :* The First Opium War between the United Kingdom and the Qing Empire of China started in 1839. It would end three years later with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on 29 August 1842.- Internal conflicts :* French Revolution of 1830...

     
    1840s
    1840s
    - Wars :*Mexican-American War was fought between Mexico and the United States of America. The latter emerged victorious and gained undisputed control over Texas while annexing portions of Arizona, California and New Mexico....

    1850s
    1850s
    - Wars :* Crimean war fought between Imperial Russia and an alliance consisting of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Second French Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire...

    1860s
    1860s
    The 1860s were an extremely turbulent decade with numerous cultural, social, and political upheavals in Europe and America. Revolutions were prevalent in Germany and the Ottoman Empire...

     
    1870s
    1870s
    The 1870s continued the trends of the previous decade, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. America was recovering from the Civil War. Germany declared independence in 1871 and began its Second Reich. Labor unions and strikes occurred worldwide in the later part of...

    1880s
    1880s
    The 1880s was the decade that spanned from January 1, 1880 to December 31, 1889. They occurred at the core period of the Second Industrial Revolution. Most Western countries experienced a large economic boom, due to the mass production of railroads and other more convenient methods of travel...

     
    1890s
    1890s
    The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade" - because William Henry Perkin's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion - and also as the "Gay Nineties", under the then-current usage of the word "gay" which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no...

    20th century
    20th century
    Many people define the 20th century as running from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000, others would rather define it as beginning on January 1, 1900....

    1900s  1910s
    1910s
    File:1910s montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Model T Ford is introduced and becomes widespread; The sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic causes the deaths of nearly 1,500 people and attracts global and historical attention; Title bar: All the events below are part of World War I ; French Army lookout...

    1920s
    1920s
    File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...

    1930s
    1930s
    File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...

     
    1940s
    1940s
    File:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...

    1950s
    1950s
    The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...

    1960s
    1960s
    The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

     
    1970s
    1970s
    File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

    1980s
    1980s
    File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

     
    1990s
    1990s
    File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

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