3100 BCECivilization
Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
Tradition credits King Menes with joining the two lands and founding the first dynasty at Memphis.
Source: Toby Wilkinson, 2010
Archive index
Events
22 records
3100 BCE2560 BCEMonument
Construction of the Great Pyramid
Khufu's tomb at Giza rose to 146 metres and stayed the tallest structure on earth for 3,800 years.
Source: Mark Lehner, 1997
1754 BCEPolitical
The Code of Hammurabi
282 laws cut into a two-metre basalt stele, published where any literate subject could read them.
Source: Martha T. Roth, 1995
776 BCECultural
The First Olympic Games
A single foot race at the sanctuary of Zeus becomes the Greek world's shared calendar.
Source: Nigel Spivey, 2004
508 BCEPolitical
Athenian Democracy Established
Cleisthenes reorganises Attica into ten tribes and hands sovereignty to the assembly of citizens.
Source: Josiah Ober, 1996
432 BCEMonument
The Parthenon Completed
Fifteen years of work on the Acropolis end with a temple whose columns are deliberately imperfect.
Source: Mary Beard, 2003
399 BCEPolitical
The Trial of Socrates
A jury of 501 Athenians condemns a philosopher for impiety; he drinks hemlock rather than flee.
Source: Plato, -399
283 BCEDiscovery
Founding of the Library of Alexandria
The Ptolemies attempt to collect every book in the world in one harbour city.
Source: Roy MacLeod, 2000
130 BCEDiscovery
The Silk Road Opens
Han envoys reach Central Asia and stitch together a 6,400 km commercial and cultural corridor.
Source: Peter Frankopan, 2015
44 BCEPolitical
The Assassination of Julius Caesar
Sixty senators stab the dictator perpetuo at the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March.
Source: Suetonius, 121
30 BCEBattle
Actium and the End of Ptolemaic Egypt
After defeat at Actium, Cleopatra VII dies and Egypt becomes a Roman province.
Source: Duane W. Roller, 2010
330 CEPolitical
The Founding of Constantinople
Constantine dedicates a new Rome on the Bosphorus, at the hinge of Europe and Asia.
Source: Judith Herrin, 2007
476 CEPolitical
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus and sends the imperial regalia east.
Source: Peter Heather, 2005
1453Battle
The Fall of Constantinople
After a 53-day siege, Ottoman forces breach the Theodosian Walls and the Roman Empire ends.
Source: Steven Runciman, 1965
1455Discovery
Gutenberg Prints the Bible
Movable metal type turns the reproduction of text from a craft into an industry.
Source: Elizabeth Eisenstein, 1983
1512Cultural
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Michelangelo finishes four years of fresco over 500 square metres of Vatican ceiling.
Source: Ross King, 2003
1503Cultural
Leonardo Begins the Mona Lisa
A portrait of a Florentine merchant's wife, carried unfinished across the Alps and never delivered.
Source: Walter Isaacson, 2017
1517Cultural
Luther's Ninety-Five Theses
An academic objection to indulgences becomes, via the printing press, a continental schism.
Source: Diarmaid MacCulloch, 2003
1521Battle
The Fall of Tenochtitlan
A siege, an epidemic, and tens of thousands of indigenous allies end the Mexica empire.
Source: Camilla Townsend, 2019
1789Political
The French Revolution Begins
The storming of the Bastille turns a fiscal crisis into the founding event of modern politics.
Source: William Doyle, 1989
1760–1840Discovery
The Industrial Revolution
Coal, steam and the factory system reorganise work, cities and population in eighty years.
Source: Emma Griffin, 2010
1969Discovery
Apollo 11 Lands on the Moon
Eight years after the commitment, two people walk on another world and come back.
Source: Andrew Chaikin, 1994