Timeline of the human condition | Milestones in evolution and history

II. HUMAN ANCESTRY AND EVOLUTION 1. Evolution of life on Earth
4,000,000,000	earliest life on Earth: single-celled prokaryotic Archaea (Hadean Eon, 3.7-4.2 billion years ago), each a vesicle of inherited genes composed of stable DNA, instructing the translation of RNA in ribosomes into proteins that catalyse metabolic reactions, fuelling reproduction → planet Earth harbouring the only life in the Universe?
3,500,000,000	photosynthesising bacteria amongst the Archaea (Archean Eon), converting sunlight into chemical energy to fuel cellular activity → cyanobacteria the most abundant of all organisms ever existing on Earth
3,400,000,000	earliest atmospheric oxygen, present at low levels (Archean Eon)
3,260,000,000	a gigantic meteorite strikes Earth (Archean Eon ), triggering a global tsunami, boiling the world’s ocean, lowering sea level, darkening the sky, churning up nutrients for iron-cycling microbes
3,200,000,000	emergence of Earth’s first continents from the ocean (Archean Eon, 3.3 to 3.2 billion years ago), supporting microbial mats in Earth’s first land ecosystem
2,330,000,000	the Great Oxygenation Event: 1-10 million years of rapidly accumulating atmospheric oxygen (Proterozoic Eon), a product of photosynthesis and energy source for complex life
2,100,000,000	early multicellular life, with cell-to-cell signalling and coordinated responses (Proterozoic Eon) → the human body containing 28-36 trillion cells in hundreds of mutually-dependent types, plus a similar order of commensal microbes without which we die
1,640,000,000	earliest Eukaryotes amongst the Prokaryotes (Proterozoic Eon ), arising from the merger of an archaeon with a bacterium: single-celled and multicellular; sexual reproduction with meiosis and recombination of genetic material from two parents
1,500,000,000	giant viruses associating with red algae (Proterozoic Eon ): viruses present from the dawn of cellular life?
1,000,000,000	earliest fungi amongst the Eukaryotes (Proterozoic Eon ): shallow-water estuarine Ourasphaira giraldae
890,000,000	earliest Metazoa – animals – amongst the Eukaryotes: ctenophore ‘comb jellies’ with neurones and muscles, yet no sense of self, segregating from fungal lineages (Proterozoic Eon ?)
717,000,000	massive volcanism and outgassing triggers Snowball Earth glaciation lasting 56 million years : the most extreme interval of icehouse climate in Earth’s history → further brief snowball episodes
700,000,000	Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event: 100 million years of rising photosynthesis with lengthening days as Earth’s rotational speed slows, improving conditions for complex life
635,000,000	earliest stem Cnidaria amongst the animals (early Ediacaran Period ), ancestor of jellyfish and immortal hydra: nervous system and sleep/wake cycle → without sleep we die
550,000,000	earliest bilaterian animals, with left-right symmetry (Ediacaran Period): burrowing Ikaria with mouth and gut; segmented Yilingia with paired legs and musculature; roundworm Uncus, earliest of now the most plentiful animal group
540,000,000	explosion in animal diversification over 20 million years (earliest Cambrian Period ); emergence of modern body plans, resolving to phyla over 40 million years
535,000,000	earliest chordates amongst the bilaterians (Early Cambrian Period): pharyngeal gill slits, notochord and brain → unique cognitive abilities of the human brain
520,000,000	ancestral vertebrates amongst the chordates (Cambrian Period), with stomach, gill arches, camera-type eyes, and olfactory organ → human olfaction connecting directly to memory and emotion
520,000,000	earliest acute visual perception: compound and stalked eyes of stem arthropods (Cambrian Period) → vision catalysing animal diversification
500,000,000	first colonisation of land by plants: algae of the Middle Cambrian Period , probably facilitated by fungi → continental greening that creates soils, Earth’s single most biodiverse habitat, and meanders rivers
480,000,000	radiation of vertebrates (Ordovician Period), possibly facilitated by genome duplication: aquatic with a mineralised skeleton, armour and scales
445,000,000	mass extinction in two pulses across 1 million years, eliminating more than three-quarters of all species (Late Ordovician Period ), linked to volcanic activity
430,000,000	evolution of paired nostrils amongst the fishes (Silurian Period), a prerequisite to the development of jaws → human nose detecting more than 1 trillion odours
420,000,000	earliest jawed vertebrates amongst the fishes (Late Silurian Period) → diversification of feeding niches; capacity for yawning and empathy, omnipresent across disparate modern lineages; synovial joints
407,000,000	earliest acoustic communication, by aquatic vertebrates (Early Devonian Period): sound production and hearing for signalling, displaying and surveillance
407,000,000	earliest woody stems of vascular plants (Early Devonian Period, France, Gondwana ) → evolution driven by hydraulic constraints, pre-adapting plants for taller morphologies
395,000,000	earliest tetrapods amongst the vertebrates (Devonian Period, Poland, Euramerican shallow marine lagoons ): limbs replacing paired fins; still fully aquatic
390,000,000	earliest forests (Devonian Period, Britain, Euramerica ) → three-dimensional terrestrial habitat, trees connected by mycorrhizal fungi; rising atmospheric O₂ and diminishing CO₂
380,000,000	earliest vertebrate multi-chambered heart (placoderm fish, Devonian Period, Australia, Gondwanan onshore reefs ) → the human heartbeat a hearty, heartless or heartfelt rhythm, broken by emotional trauma
375,000,000	mass extinction in a series of pulses across 20 million years, eliminating more than two-thirds of all species (Late Devonian Period ), linked to climatic cooling
350,000,000	earliest land vertebrates (Early Carboniferous Period, Britain, Euramerica ): semi-aquatic amphibian tetrapods, with blinking eyes and tongues → human tongues detecting sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savoury tastes
340,000,000	earliest fully terrestrial tetrapod vertebrates, laying amniote eggs (Carboniferous Period, Britain, Euramerica )
305,000,000	earliest evidence of parental care of offspring by a tetrapod: a varanopid synapsid (Carboniferous Period, Nova Scotia, Pangaea )
251,900,000	Earth’s largest mass extinction, eliminating four-fifths of all species during 61,000 years (Permian-Triassic transition ), caused by hot and acidifying CO₂ emissions from vocanic Siberian Traps , amplified by mega-El Niños → rapid biotic recovery
233,000,000	dawn of the modern world: major biological turnover linked to volcanism (Late Triassic Period ) → rapid diversifications and originations of conifers, insects, dinosaurs, reptiles and stem mammals
210,000,000	earliest warm-blooded stem mammals (Late Triassic ): faster metabolism sustaining endothermy in a cooler climate
201,300,000	mass extinction event, eliminating more than two-thirds of all species (Triassic-Jurassic transition), linked to volcanic CO₂ from the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province , equivalent to projections for CE 21ˢᵗ century anthropogenic emissions
178,000,000	earliest true mammals amongst the terrestrial vertebrates (Jurassic Period ): lactation, fur and endothermy; REM sleep; natural lifespan of 3,200 somatic mutations → humans averaging 47 annually
150,000,000	evolutionary transition to birds from therapod dinosaurs (Late Jurassic ): Archaeopteryx, with feathered body and wings, active flight, toothed beak and bony tail
135,000,000	major radiations of flowering plants and their insect pollinators in the Early Cretaceous Period : an “abominable mystery” (Charles Darwin, 18 79)
101,500,000	aerobic bacteria embed into oxic sediment of the South Pacific Gyre (Cretaceous Period ), reviving after 101.5 million years to grow into microbial communities
92,000,000	earliest mammal louse (Cretaceous Period ) → body-, pubic- and head-lice, bedbugs, screwworms and botflies, fleas, ticks, scabies and chiggers amongst the ectoparasites of modern humans, with 300 worm and 70 protozoan endoparasites
66,000,000	abrupt mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, with three-quarters of all species, following the springtime impact of a 10-km wide asteroid at Chicxulub, Mexico (Cretaceous-Paleogene transition ) → rapid diversification of flowering plants and mammals
65,000,000	radiation of placental mammals (post-Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary): placenta, and birth of well-developed young → now occupying every continent and ocean
55,000,000	earliest primates amongst the mammals (Eocene Epoch ): brachiation
44,000,000	divergence of Old World from New World primates (Eocene Epoch ): colour vision, opposable thumbs, sociality; capacity to grieve, as in other mammals, and to recognise deceptions; extended sexuality → extreme in humans
34,000,000	freezing over of Antarctica , henceforth shrouding the continental landmass in ice
30,000,000	a virus embeds its DNA into a primate’s genome, evolving into an endogenous retrovirus → active in modern humans: domesticated and territorial, protecting the placenta
25,200,000	earliest hominoids (apes) amongst the Old World primates (Tanzania, Oligocene Epoch ): tailless, enlarged brain; dawn of speech in contrasting vowel sounds – no language without vowels
16,800,000	earliest hominids (great apes) amongst the hominoid gibbons in Asia : larger body size and sexual dimorphism; complex tool kits; play, empathy, gesturing, long-distance communication by drumming; capacity for self-medication, as in other animals
13,000,000	hominids Pierolapithecus catalaunicus in Spain , and Nyanzapithecus alesi in Kenya , possible ancestors of hominins and modern apes respectively, the former with upright posture; capacity for playful teasing
7,000,000	earliest hominin Sahelanthropus, then Orrorin and Ardipithecus, amongst the hominids in Africa : reduced canines, arboreal habit, bipedal capability
4,200,000	replacement of the earliest hominins by Australopithecus spp. in Africa: fully upright, bipedal and free-striding gait
3,300,000	earliest knapped stone artefacts: Lomekwian tools (Kenya ); hominin technological behaviour? → Paranthropus sp. using Oldowan tools by c. 2.8 million years ago

2. Human evolution
2,800,000	earliest human, Homo sp., amongst the hominins (Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia ): rounded chin as Australopithecus afarensis, but smaller and slimmer molars as the later Homo habilis
2,700,000	range expansion of hominin genus Paranthropus (East Africa), co-existing with humans
2,600,000	incorporation of meat and marrow into generalist diets of hominins (Africa); hunting by ambush, stalking, and endurance pursuit of prey?
2,600,000	earliest stone tools produced by humans (Gona, Ethiopia ): Oldowan tools, chopping through flesh, bone, bark
2,588,000	start of the current geological period of Quaternary glaciation, possibly initiated by a supernova blast 150-300 light-years away, luminous as the full Moon
2,400,000	Homo habilis in Africa, using stone tools for cleaving meat from bone
2,120,000	earliest evidence of human ancestors outside of Africa: tool-using hominins in Shangchen, northern China
2,000,000	early Homo erectus, direct ancestor of modern humans, coexisting with Australopithecus – soon extinct, and Paranthropus (South Africa): delayed maturity, enlarged brain and smaller teeth
1,800,000	migrations of Homo erectus from Africa to Eurasia (Georgia ; to Lantian in northern China by 1.63 million years ago; to Java by 1.5 million years ago?); ecological success underwritten by postmenopausal care of young?
1,770,000	earliest evidence of extended childhood, characteristic of modern humans (11-year old Homo, Dmanisi, Georgia ), linked to slow development of baby teeth
1,700,000	earliest stone hand axes (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania ): Acheulean tools, standardised for butchering, cutting, stripping, hammering, drilling → population mobility
1,500,000	earliest control of fire, by Homo erectus (Koobi Fora, Kenya ): uniquely human capability, extending the day with firelight → cooked food improving nutrient uptake by 780,000 years ago; widespread use of fire by 400,000 years ago
1,500,000	male-male alliances in Homo erectus social groups (Ileret, Kenya ): cooperative networks, perhaps including unrelated individuals
1,450,000	hominins butchering and consuming other hominins (Koobi Fora, Kenya)
1,400,000	earliest organic tools: a hand axe made from hippopotamus bone (Konso-Gardula, Ethiopia ); perhaps conscious symbolism, or proforma: copying multistep know-how from others → cumulative culture by 600,000 years ago
1,400,000	replacement of Homo habilis by Homo erectus in Africa, also dispersing into eastern Europe and spreading west, establishing in Europe at least by 900,000 years ago
1,000,000	extinction of Paranthropus (South Africa), our last remaining sibling genus
1,000,000	ancestral humans undergo the first of a series of bifurcations into weakly differentiated populations connected by gene flow (pan-Africa) → no single birthplace of modern humans
900,000	population bottleneck for the ancestors of modern humans in Africa, reducing from c. 100,000 to 1,300 individuals, persisting for c. 100,000 years during drastic climate change → diaspora from Africa to Europe
900,000	Homo antecessor in western Europe (Gran Dolina, Spain ), closely related to the last common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans
900,000	flint scrapers associated with Homo antecessor (Gran Dolina, Spain), suitable for preparing animal hides → clothing?
800,000	earliest cannibalism, in Homo antecessor (Gran Dolina, Spain), practised throughout human history; social motivation?
700,000	rise of Homo heidelbergensis in Africa and Europe, possible ancestor of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis; supplementing meat with starchy plants
700,000	diminutive Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores , probable descendent of Homo erectus
500,000	earliest abstract markings: a zigzag engraving on a freshwater-mussel shell by Homo erectus (Trinil, Java ) → uniquely human capacity for abstraction
500,000	earliest use of stone-tipped spears, by Homo heidelbergensis (Kathu Pan, South Africa ) for hunting large game
476,000	earliest wooden construction (Kalambo Falls, Zambia ), of interlocking logs joined by a cut notch: walkway, platform, or shelter?
450,000	rise of Neanderthals Homo neanderthalensis across Europe: similar brain size but fewer neurones compared to modern humans
430,000	Denisovans diverge from Neanderthals (southern Siberia) → Tibetan Plateau and Laos by 160,000 years ago; subsequent interbreeding, possibly also with Homo erectus
400,000	multiple hominin dispersals across Arabia (Nefud Desert ), during windows of desert greening at four-, three-, two- and one-hundred thousand years ago
400,000	earliest evidence of food storage for later consumption: bone marrow (Qesem Cave, Israel ) → food economy, incentivised by anticipation of future need
320,000	long-distance transport of obsidian for fine blades and points, and ochre for pigments (Olorgesailie, Kenyan rift valley ): trade? → technological transition to Middle Stone Age during intensifying climate swings
315,000	earliest evidence of our species, Homo sapiens (Jebel Irhoud, Morocco ): facial and dental structure similar to modern humans, yet still archaic elongation of the braincase
300,000	wood age of Homo heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis (Schöningen, Germany ): spears, throwing sticks, shafts, digging and piercing sticks, designed and carved from fire-hardened wood
250,000	replacement of Homo heidelbergensis by Homo neanderthalensis in Europe, and by Homo sapiens in Africa over the subsequent 100,000 years
230,000	earliest anatomically modern Homo sapiens, in eastern Africa (Omo-Kibish, Ethiopia ): chin and tall cranial vault
210,000	Homo sapiens enter Eurasia (Greece ): first of multiple dispersals out of Africa by humans with early modern traits, including globular braincase and descended larynx facilitating spoken language
200,000	recurrent interbreeding of Homo sapiens with Homo neanderthalensis (Eurasia and subsequently Siberia) → accumulation of modern traits through gene flow
200,000	earliest adhesive: birch tar used by Neanderthals for hafting stone tools (Campitello, Italy ) → pyro technology

III. CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 3. Hunter-gatherer nomads
176,000	earliest social construction: underground edifices built from broken stalagmites by Neanderthals (Bruniquel Cave, France ) → material culture, augmenting the natural space
170,000	widespread use of clothing, setting humans apart from all other animals, evidenced in the divergence of clothing lice from head lice (Africa)
160,000	coastal shellfish harvested by Homo sapiens in southern Africa , and by Neanderthals in the western Mediterranean → fatty acids boosting cognitive development
142,000	earliest symbolic ornaments: marine-shell beads made by humans in Morocco , spreading to the Levant: conscious experience of selfhood; painted beads by Neanderthals in Spain by 115,000 years ago
126,000	Homo with mix of archaic-human and Neanderthal traits (Nesher Ramla, Israel ): stone-tool industry, cooking meat; cultural exchange with humans?
125,000	prelude to Earth’s Last Glacial Period: global average temperature never again as high until CE 2021, during intensifying anthropogenic warming
125,000	Neanderthals living and working in large groups (northern European plain ), evidenced by butchered 13-tonne elephants, each provisioning 100 people for a month
120,000	burial of dead, by anatomically modern humans in Qafzeh Cave, Israel , and by Neanderthals in Tabun Cave, Israel : mortuary rituals, mourning the dead
110,000	last appearance of Homo erectus (Ngandong, Java ), 1.89 million years after its first appearance → the longest enduring species of human
105,000	hoarding of non-utilitarian objects by Homo sapiens: crystals and ostrich eggshell fragments (Kalahari, southern Africa )
100,000	possible first arrival of Homo sapiens in East Asia , attracted to verdant landscapes produced by strengthening monsoons
100,000	toolkit for mixing and storing pigments: ochre, charcoal, bone, hammerstones, grindstones and abalone-shell containers (Blombos Cave, South Africa ) → complex human cognition
100,000	earliest human etchings on rock: cross-hash decorations or symbols (Blombos Cave, South Africa) → conceptual imagination
90,000	manufacture of bone harpoons, for hunting catfish (Semliki river, DR Congo )
90,000	fisher-hunter-gatherer Neanderthals eating mussels, crab, eels, sea bream and shark, dolphins and seals, hoofed game and waterfowl; pine-nut economy (Figueira Brava, Portugal )
78,000	earliest symbolic human burial, a 3-year old Homo sapiens (Panga ya Saidi Cave, Kenya ): funerary practices by our ancestors
77,000	construction of bedding from sedges, topped with aromatic leaves containing insecticidal and larvicidal chemicals (Sibudu rock shelter, South Africa )
77,000	early modern Homo sapiens present in southeast Asia (Tam Pà Ling Cave, Laos ), possibly migrating through as early as 86,000 years ago, settling at least by 68,000 years ago
75,000	earliest jewellery fashions: shifts in styles of threaded shell beads (Blombos Cave, South Africa)
73,000	earliest drawing by humans: criss-crossed lines on a grindstone drawn with red-ochre crayon (Blombos Cave, South Africa)
71,000	earliest heat-treatment of bladelets, for atlatl darts or arrows (Pinnacle Point, South Africa ): communication of complex technology → emergence of the modern mind
70,000	cooking of crushed pulse seeds by Neanderthals (Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan ): tolerance of bitter and astringent tastes → food culture
65,000	rapid colonisation of Australia by humans during 5,000 years (ancient Sahul): maritime exploration; transecting the continent along superhighways
64,800	earliest symbolic cave paintings by Neanderthals (La Pasiega Cave, Spain )?
61,700	bow-and-arrow technology, with bone arrowhead (Sibudu rock shelter, South Africa); a sprung bow the earliest instrument to hold energy for controlled release
60,000	earliest number symbols: notched-bone tally marks by Neanderthals (Les Pradelles, France ) → uniquely human number culture, record keeping, seasonal calendars
60,000	symbolic burial of dead by Neanderthals (La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France ): funerary practices
60,000	beginning of range expansion by modern humans out of Africa into Eurasia, enduring 10,000 years → ancestors of all modern non-Africans; onset of behavioural modernity
54,000	modern humans, Homo sapiens, settling briefly in western Europe (Grotte Mandrin, France )? – preceded by and preceding Neanderthal settlements
51,200	earliest representational art: figurative painting of anthropomorphic figures with a pig (Leang Karampuang, Sulawesi ) → narrative storytelling
51,000	a giant deer’s phalanx bone becomes a Neanderthal artist’s canvas, prepared by scraping and boiling before etching (Harz Mountains, Germany )
50,000	earliest use of string: a cord of three-plied bark fibres (Abri du Maras, France ) → clothing, mats, baskets, nets, rope and ladders, bowstrings, snares and fishing lines, watercraft
50,000	earliest eyed needle, made from bone by Denisovans (Denisova Cave, Siberia ), suitable for tailoring garments
50,000	Neanderthal fire-lighting technology (France): striking flint axes with mineral pyrite → wood the predominant fuel for cooking and heating until the CE 19ᵗʰ century
50,000	Eurasian Homo sapiens co-existing with Homo floresiensis (soon extinct) and Homo luzonensis, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans
48,500	a giant virus freezes into permafrost of Yukechi alas, Siberia , melting back to virulent activity 48,500 years later → pandemic risk
48,000	self-medication by Neanderthals, with pain-killing salicylic acid in poplar leaves, and antibiotic-producing Penicillium mould (El Sidrón, Spain )
46,000	anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, established in Europe (Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria ; Ilsenhöhle, Germany ), mating with Neanderthals, spreading eastwards.
46,000	complex processing of food plants by anatomically modern humans (Niah Cave, Borneo ): detoxifying yam, Dioscorea hispida
45,000	extinction of giant flightless mihirung thunder birds, hastened by human exploitation of their eggs (Australia)
44,000	figurative painting of therianthropes hunting anoa and pigs (Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4, Sulawesi ): mythological stories
42,000	earliest musical instruments: bone and ivory flutes (Swabian Jura, Germany), stirring the emotions with harmony, melody, rhythm, timbre → no human society without music
42,000	earliest record of fish-hooks, manufactured from broken shell (Jerimalai shelter, East Timor ): deep-sea fishing for pelagic tuna and parrotfish, sharks and marine turtles
41,500	most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, lasting 500 years, degrading stratospheric ozone, driving global climate shifts and extinction events
40,000	anatomically modern humans replace Neanderthals, our last remaining sibling species
40,000	full development of language; personal names facilitating efficient social bonding through gossip → now over 7,000 living languages, over 2,000 vanishing
40,000	earliest habitual footwear (Tianyuan, China ), opening permafrost regions to occupancy; widespread across Russia by 27,000 years ago → hay socks by 5,000 years ago
40,000	earliest figurative sculpture: an ivory figurine of a therianthrope with lion’s head and human torso (Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany )
40,000	earliest images of human form: hand stencils (Maros karsts, Sulawesi ; Lubang Jeriji Saléh, Borneo )
37,000	earliest artistic representation of human form: engravings of vulvas (Abri Castanet, France ): fertility symbol?
35,000	earliest animation in cave art (Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, France ): breaking down animal movement, prefiguring cinema
35,000	earliest fully human sculpture and female imagery: a mammoth-ivory ‘Venus’ figurine (Hohle Fels, Germany ): fertility totem?
34,000	cultural identity exhibited in personal ornaments fashioned from stone, shell, ivory, bone, and teeth from humans and animals (Gravettian technocomplex, pan-European)
32,600	processing of heat-dried wild oats with grindstones (Grotta Paglicci, Italy ; soon appearing across Europe, Australia), to make flour for storage and cooking
32,000	fruits of the campion Silene stenophylla freeze in Siberian tundra , regenerating from cryobiosis 32,000 years later into fertile plants
32,000	possible first human incursions into the Americas (Mexico ), certainly within the next 11,000 years (New Mexico ), migrating along the coast from Siberia?
31,000	earliest surgical amputation, of a child’s lower leg (Liang Tebo, Borneo ); the amputee surviving for 6 to 9 years, then burial
30,000	earliest woven fabrics, made from dyed fibres of wild flax (Georgia ) → baskets, textile clothing
29,500	earliest stone statuette: ochre-tinted oolitic limestone Venus of Willendorf (Austria )
27,000	possible first human incursions into South America (Santa Elina, Brazil ); colonising Peru by 15,000 years ago; humans henceforth occupying every continent except Antarctica
25,000	a coronavirus epidemic sweeps through East Asia, driving genetic adaptations still present in modern humans
24,000	use of poison arrows, with wooden ricin applicator (Lebombo mountains, South Africa )
24,000	a bdelloid rotifer freezes into ice in the Alayeza river (Russian Arctic ), reviving 24,000 years later to full vigour
23,000	fisher-hunter-gatherer brush huts (Sea of Galilee, Levant ): sealed floor, hearth, berry and seed stockpiles, grindstones, sleeping area with grass bedding
23,000	earliest fishing-net sinkers (Sea of Galilee, Levant) → modern industrial fishing currently in 55% of ocean area, covering 4× agricultural area
23,000	first domestication: dogs from grey wolves Canis lupus (Siberia or Japan), for companionship, hunting technology, and pulling sledges → 700 million dogs by CE 21ˢᵗ century
20,000	earliest pottery vessels (Xianrendong Cave, China ): cooking food in pots during the Last Glacial Maximum → Early-Holocene cultural transmission across Northern Eurasia
20,000	beginning of sea-level rise from deglaciation in a warming global climate; stabilising at today’s 120-m higher levels by c. 10,000 years ago
19,000	replacement of early modern humans across Eurasia by the ancestors of today’s populations
16,000	a quaking aspen sapling grows into a tree amongst other clones of the same root system, some perhaps 64,000 years older, spreading across 40 ha over the next 16,000 years (Utah, North America )
15,000	introgression of last remaining Denisovans into the modern human genome? Anatomically modern humans henceforth the only hominin
15,000	colonisation and occupation of North America by humans, from northeastern Siberia over the Bering land bridge, bringing their dogs
15,000	semi-permanent forager settlements of Natufians (Ain Mallaha, Levant ), evidenced by presence of house mice
15,000	earliest record of a string instrument: the musical bow (cave painting at Trois Frères, France ) → music initiated outside the body
15,000	earliest thaumatrope (Laugerie-Basse rock shelter, France ): an optical toy, creating movement by juxtaposition of images
14,400	evidence of baking bread: unleavened flatbread from wild einkorn and club-rush tubers (Shubayqa, Jordan ); caries from consumption of starchy foods
14,000	earliest lime plaster, used as an adhesive for hafting (Kebaran culture, North Sinai ) → mortar by 1000 BCE
13,400	earliest evidence of large-scale inter-communal violence: projectile and blunt-force trauma (Jebel Sahaba, Sudan ) → warfare and conflict driving human misery
13,000	earliest record of ritual torture, by strangulation (Addaura Cave engravings, Sicily )
13,000	earliest record of artistic expression through dance, as rite of passage (engravings in Sicily ; paintings in India ): rhythms that elevate the spirit → collective desire for cosmic order
12,800	climate shift contributing to megafaunal extinctions and human cultural changes (Younger Dryas): triggered by a comet airburst over North America and Europe ?
12,300	earliest evidence of humans using tobacco (West Desert, North America )
12,000	domestication of Cannabis (East Asia) → breeding for hemp-type and drug-type varieties by c. 1800 BCE
12,000	oldest record of a culturally transmitted ritual practice (Cloggs Cave, Australia ): ceremonial use of fat-smeared sticks through 12,000 years, at least to 1887
12,000	extinction of megafauna including woolly mammoths from continental Eurasia and North America, caused by human hunting and climate change
11,700	start of the Holocene Epoch within the Quaternary Period, characterised by warm and stable climate until the late CE 20ᵗʰ century
11,700	in the North American Mojave desert , a seed germinates and grows into a deadly creosote bush, which segments to sprout new stems, sprouting and segmenting for 11,700 years
11,600	earliest monumental ritual art (Shigir, Siberia ): 5-m tall larchwood plank carved with human forms and signs → complex ideas expressed by hunter-gatherers

4. Agricultural farming and settlements
BCE 9500		cultivation of wild barley and oats around village settlements (Fertile Crescent) → dawn of farming on the Anatolian peninsula; storable grains sustaining population growth
9500		earliest monumental temple (Göbekli Tepe, Anatolia ): carved stone stelae up to 4-m tall serving ritualistic purposes; associated skull cult; ceremonial porridge and beer
9500		earliest calendar (Göbekli Tepe, Anatolia), recording 12 lunar months of a 365-day year anchored by spring and autumn equinoxes, and the Younger Dryas comet strike c. 1,300 years earlier
9500		earliest use of brick architecture: sun-dried mudbricks (Anatolia and the Levant, spreading to Mesopotamia) → fired bricks by 3000 BCE (China)
9000		earliest continuous settlements (southern Levant), including Jericho : stone and mudbrick architecture developing into a walled city of up to 3,000 people → modern cities of 30 million people
9000		domestication of grapes (Western Asia and Caucasus): selection for palatability, hermaphroditic reproductive mode, muscat flavour and skin colour
9000		earliest record of storytelling in an extended narrative scene (Sayburç, Anatolia ): the subject as the body of the work, the art as the spirit that animates it, sustaining its relevance through the ages
9000		earliest artistic representation of human sexual intercourse: 10-cm phallic sculpture of sensual and tender intimacy (‘Ain Sakhri, Levant )
9000		earliest record of fire-stick farming (Australia ): mosaics of frequent and low-intensity fires set early in the dry season, reducing the intensity of subsequent natural fires
8400		domestication of goats and sheep (Fertile Crescent and Anatolia) → milk, meat, wool, hide and capital from 1.2 billion sheep and 1.1 billion goats by CE 2019, rising trend
8100		*global population of humans passes 5 million*; annual energy use per person averages 1,700 kWh, 2.4× the resting metabolism
8000		continental ice-sheets withdraw from Europe and North America
8000		domestication of cattle, from aurochs (Near East and Indus Valley) → haulage, milk, meat, hide and capital from 1.5 billion head of cattle by CE 2019, rising trend
8000		domestication of wheat (Mesopotamia): hybrid vigour efficiently converting solar energy into food energy, aided by earthworms → 772 million tonnes per year by CE 2017, using 218 million ha of land: peak production?
8000		domestication of the bottle gourd Lagenaria siceraria, indigenous to Africa, in the Americas from Asian stock: global diffusion for containers, musical instruments, fishing floats
7500		domestication of cats, from Near Eastern wildcats Felis silvestris lybica (Middle East) → 400 million domestic cats by CE 20ᵗʰ century, a substantial threat to wildlife
7200		earliest large-scale representations of complete human forms: lime plaster statues 1-m tall (‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan )
7000		domestication of maize (Mexico) → 1.15 billion tonnes per year by CE 2019 using 197 million ha; with wheat and rice accounting for 60% of all human calorie supply, using 4% of global land area
7000		domestication of the potato (Andes, southern Peru) → 370 million tonnes per year by CE 2019, using 17 million ha of land; a food-security crop worldwide, not a globally traded commodity
7000		domestication of pigs (Anatolia and China) → meat, hide, bristles, capital and medical research from 1.0 billion pigs by CE 2015: peak production?
7000		big-game hunting practised by males and females (Wilamaya Patjxa, Andean highlands ) → hunting mostly not the preserve of men in recent hunter-gatherer societies
7000		emergence of privilege and elite status within communities (Ba`ja, Jordan ), evidenced by an elaborate necklace in a child’s tomb
7000		rise of Transeurasian languages, with the spread of millet farming from the Liao River Valley (north-eastern China) → 80 languages now spoken from Tokyo to Istanbul
6900		earliest use of bee products: beeswax lining pottery vessels (Çatalhöyük, Anatolia ), spreading rapidly across Eurasia from the 5ᵗʰ millennium BCE for technological and cultural functions
6700		extinction of woolly rhinos (northeast Siberia), caused by human hunting, following millennia of climate-driven habitat loss and fragmentation
6500		earliest mining of metal: heating, hammering and grinding copper into projectile points (Great Lakes, North America )
6500		earliest cattle dairying (north-western Anatolia), for milk and its products of cheese and ghee: protein and fat obtained without killing the capital asset
6500		beginning of a wave of migrations from the Middle East northwest through Anatolia, spreading farming practices into Europe
6100		rise of languages with subject-verb-object syntax – as in English – from a subject-object-verb root (Proto-Indo-European, southern Caucasus) → carried into Europe with migrations; other syntaxes arising later
6000		domestication of rice (Asia) → 763 million tonnes per year by CE 2018, using 166 million ha of land, with potential to boost yield by more than a third through genetic modification
6000		explorations of up to 1.5 km into deep underground caves (Saint-Marcel cave network, France ): engagement with the subterranean environment
6000		foraging for honey (Mesolithic painting in the Araña Caves, Spain ) → 90 million beehives by CE 2019
6000		earliest grape wine and viniculture (South Caucasus ) → wine as a social lubricant, medicine and commodity throughout western civilisation
6000		earliest forts (central Siberian taiga ): a hunter-gatherer innovation → diversity within fortified settlements
5900		start of the Copper Age (Fertile Crescent), spread of copper smelting for weapons and tools
5800		cultivation of cotton Gossypium barbadense (north Peru); G. arboreum cultivated in Pakistan by 5500 BCE → clothing, fishing nets, sheets, towels, rugs, wadding
5600		cultivation of poppies for opium (western Mediterranean), widespread by 4500 BCE, domestication by 3100 BCE → psychoactive, medicinal and alimentary uses
5500		flooding of the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea: perhaps the great flood of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the biblical flood of Noah’s Ark
5500		earliest salt production, by evaporation of brine (Provadia-Solnitsata, Bulgaria ): preserving food, enhancing flavour → high consumption in Western diet, with no evolutionary precedent
5480		extraordinarily large influx of cosmic rays from an abnormal Sun, possibly caused by solar proton events → potential for DNA damage on a global scale
5200		earliest use of bitumen, for waterproofing reed-bundle boats (As-Sabiyah, Kuwait ) → 65 billion tons of asphalt in roads and pavements by CE 2020
5200		earliest seaborne trading networks (Aegean for obsidian, Persian Gulf for Ubaid pottery), with mast and sail technology: the earliest harnessing of natural forces to replace human labour
5100		ritual landscape of large-scale mustatil monuments (western Saudi Arabia ): entranceways to courtyards, chambers, orthostats; associated cattle cult
5050		earliest burials by ritualistic mummification (Chinchorro culture, Atacama Desert ), some involving disassembly of the body
5000		earliest imitation of social prestige (Iberian Peninsula): simulating amber bead jewellery from mollusc shells coated in pine resin mixed with beeswax and pigment
5000		early cultivation of forest gardens (Pacific Northwest, North America): transplantation, stewardship and management of non-domesticated hazel shrubs
5000		cultivation of sugarcane (Indo-China); spreading to Africa and the Americas, slave labour providing sugar to Europe and North America from CE 16ᵗʰ century → most productive biofuel
5000		domestication of bananas from Musa acuminata and subsequent hybridisations (Papua New Guinea) → 1 trillion bananas produced annually by 2020; rising trend, subject to disease risks
5000		domestication of tobacco (Andean Highlands, South America), spreading to North America by 1520 BCE → smoking kills 100 million people worldwide in CE 20ᵗʰ century, the worst preventable killer
5000		domestication of donkeys (East Africa), spreading rapidly throughout Eurasia → first land-based transport: pack animals for carrying materials and water, transforming society
4800		earliest artistic representation of introspection: Thinker and Sitting Woman figurines (Hamangia culture, Cernavodă, Romania ) → capacity for soul-searching and contemplation
4500		monogamous relationships and patrilineal descent through seven generations of a western European farming community (Gurgy ‘les Noisats’, France )
4200		earliest construction of wheels, by potters for crafting wheel-coiled bowls (southern Levant and northern Mesopotamia)
4000		domestication of chili pepper Capsicum (Tehuacán Valley, Mexico ), spreading rapidly into South America; brought to Europe by Columbus CE 1492 → now used daily by a quarter of the global population
4000		earliest use of indigo blue, from Indigofera species, for dyeing cotton fabric (Huaca Prieta, Peru ); use in Egypt by 2400 BCE, China by 1000 BCE
4000		earliest folk tale? A smith willingly trades his soul with the devil for skill to weld together any materials; his wish comes true, he welds the devil to a tree and keeps his soul (Indo-European)
4000		earliest board games (Egypt), moving pieces on a track according to outcomes determined by a throw stick → computers outperform humans in all board games by CE 2016 and in strategy games by CE 2022
3700		preliterate knowledge of science: geology, physics, geometry and astronomy, used in megalith construction (Dolmen of Menga, Spain ) → engineering expertise by trial-and-error
3600		earliest direct evidence of malaria infection (Leubingen, Germany ) → by 2020 malaria sickening 240 million people worldwide, killing 600,000
3600		earliest engineering of water delivery and storage, for people, animals and irrigation (Jawa, Jordan ) → landscape engineering of dams, levees, ditches in China by 3100 BCE
3500		earliest ploughs for tilling soil (Italy ): harnessing domestic animals for work; landscape engineering for crops
3500		rising human fertility, enabled by earlier weaning of babies fed with milk of domestic ruminants (southern Britain)
3500		domestication of horses (Central Asian steppes), revolutionising mobility, economy, warfare → widespread mobility from 2200 BCE; transport, haulage, cavalry, meat and capital; 59 million horses by CE 2019
3400		earliest wheeled wagons (Germany, Slovenia, Near East) → breakthrough in haulage and locomotion: mechanical advantage equalling ratio of wheel to axle radii, moderated by friction; nanoscale wheel and axle by CE 2007
3300		start of the Bronze Age (Near East), bronze replacing copper for weapons, tools, nails, utensils; mixing of Eurasian peoples → rapid westward spread of farming, conversion of forest to dairy pasture
3300		cultivation of cacao trees for chocolate (upper Amazon ) → domestication in Mesoamerica by 1600 BCE, sacrificing productivity for stimulant and disease-resistance genes
3300		earliest numeral systems: pictograms of economic units on clay tablets (Uruk, Mesopotamia) → cuneiform sexagesimals in Mesopotamia by c. 3200 BCE, and hieroglyph decimals in Egypt by 3100 BCE
3200		full writing (cuneiform in Mesopotamia, hieroglyphics in Egypt), on clay tablets using the rebus principle → bookkeeping, instruction, commemoration, scripture, prayer, historical records
3200		earliest evidence of all-out warfare (north-central Iberia , c. 3380-3000 BCE): extended conflict amongst young male warriors
3150		organic medicinal remedies from herbal wines (Abydos, Egypt )
3100		earliest evidence of the plague (Latvia ), possibly driving 3ʳᵈ millenium BCE Neolithic decline and migrations across Europe and Asia; infectious diseases dominate Holocene causes of death, shaping the course of history
3100		association of love-making with war-mongering (Inanna, Sumerian goddess of love and war, Uruk): human capacity to unite passion with lust, joy with glory, loyalty with brutality, conquests with casualties
3100		development of governance systems with the rise of Uruk (Mesopotamia ), Sumerian city of 30,000 residents, and cities of the Indus Valley → class divisions, institutionalised slavery: living off the labour of others
3050		earliest standard weights (Mesopotamia) for balance scales, and cubit length (Egypt by 2700 BCE): objective frames of reference for valuing commodities → integration of markets across Western Eurasia within 2 millennia
3000		earliest abacus, replacing tables of multiplication, reciprocals, powers (Sumerian and Old Babylonian, 3ʳᵈ millennium BCE) → nanoscale abacus storing numerical information in individual molecules by CE 19 96
3000		emergence of herpes HSV-1 virus causing cold sores (Europe), passed from parent to child; later spread more rapidly by romantic kissing, originating in Mesopotamia c. 2500 BCE
3000		cultivation of oil palm (west and central Africa) → palm oil now the most-consumed of all fats, from 411 million tonnes of oil-palm fruit per year by CE 2019 using 28 million ha, largely converted tropical forest
3000		global agricultural land use per person peaks at 2.72 ha → 0.66 ha by CE 2016 with improvements in yield
3000		synthesis of glass (Phoenicia) for beads → vessels by 1500 BCE; lenses by 700 BCE; CE 1ˢᵗ century mirrors and window glass; 7ᵗʰ century stained-glass windows; 13ᵗʰ century eyeglasses; late-20ᵗʰ century float-glass skyscrapers
3000		earliest metal swords, for combat and prestige (Arslantepe, Anatolia ) → essential battle weapons through nearly 5 millennia to CE 1918 and the end of World War I
3000		westward migration of steppe herders, integrating with Western European farmers over 500 years, introducing the wheel and Indo-European languages: first pan-European culture
2800		*global population of humans passes 50 million*; annual energy use per person averages 2,100 kWh, 3× the resting metabolism
2720		in the North American White Mountains a seedling grows into a bristlecone pine tree, which sustains production of viable seeds over a lifespan extending beyond 4,700 years
2650		earliest measurement of the hour, as one-twelfth part of the day or night (Shulgi, King of Ur, Mesopotamia )
2650		magnetic compass, used to orient chariots (Emperor Hoang-Ti, China, recorded in the Zizhi Tongjian CE 1084, Thoung Kian Kang Mou edition) → navigation at sea by CE 300, Tsin dynasty, China
2650		earliest management of wildlife exploitation: every fisher and hunter taxed one-tenth of their take (pharaoh Djoser, Egypt, recorded in the Famine Stela )
2650		earliest massive architectural monuments: step pyramid tomb of pharaoh Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt ; contemporaneous pyramidal architecture in Caral-Supe, Peru ; megalith at Stonehenge, Britain
2600		earliest explicit use of zero, for levelling masonry (Meidum, Egypt ) → use as place value in 4ᵗʰ century BCE Babylonia, as nought by CE 150 in Alexandria, as nothing by CE 357 in Maya Mesoamerica, as algebraic number by CE 628 in India
2550		earliest dictionary: cuneiform tablets translating between Sumerian and Eblaic (Ebla, Syria )
2550		earliest writing on papyrus: Diary of Merer, documenting construction of the Great Pyramid (Wadi al-Jarf harbour, Egypt ) → parchment displacing papyrus by 200 BCE, ancient Greece; paper from pulp by 100 BCE, China
2550		architectural precision: the Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt ), taller than any other building in the world for 3,800 years
2500		earliest locks (Egypt): door bolts → emergence of private ownership and privacy; possessions under lock and key by 1500 BCE, for unguarded secrecy
2500		earliest urban drains and sewers for dwelling houses (Indus Valley , southern Mesopotamia and Minoan Crete)
2500		earliest animal husbandry to produce a hybrid: the kunga, foal of a female domestic donkey and male wild ass (Umm el-Marra, Syria ), used in diplomacy, ceremony, warfare
2350		earliest government reforms, addressing taxes and corruption (Uru-KA-gina, King of Lagash and Girsu, Mesopotamia) → modern corruption suppressed by long exposure to democracy
2340		first emperor of a state: Sargon the Great, Akkadian Empire (expanding across Mesopotamia, Levant, Anatolia) → beginnings of artistic emphasis on the person of the ruler as an individual
2300		earliest mechanical pump: the shaduf, a counterpoise for lifting buckets of river water (Mesopotamia) → suction pump by CE 12 06
2300		earliest records of marriage (Akkad): an economic pact for child rearing, men tending to conceive later in age than women → a loving relationship particularly in Western nations; now declining globally
2200		decline of Bronze-Age civilisations in Egypt, ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, and terminal decline of Indus Valley civilisation, caused by centuries of drought beginning c. 2200 BCE
2100		earliest code of law, applying general principles to particular cases (Code of Ur-Nammu, Sumerian King of Ur, Mesopotamia )
2030		earliest recorded poetry (Nippur, Iraq ): a Sumerian love poem of passionate ardour, expressing an emotional truth about the human spirit
2000		extinction of last remnant population of woolly mammoths, on Wrangel Island, Arctic Sea
2000		earliest shift from fuelwood to coal (Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, China), for smelting copper, cooking, heating; mining by 1600 BCE → peak global coal production of 8.2 billion tonnes/year in CE 2013?
2000		earliest poetic depictions of emotional weeping (goddess Ningal lamenting the destruction of Ur, Mesopotamia): uniquely human tearful crying in response to helplessness, protecting against aggression
1900		earliest map of a territory: 3-dimensional topography covering 30 km of the Odet river valley, sculpted to scale on a schist rock slab (Tumulus de Saint-Bélec, France )
1900		establishment of a 7-day week (Assyria and Babylonia)
1850		earliest alphabetic script (Proto-Sinaitic, Sinai, Egypt) → economy of signs
1850		earliest architectural arch, a Canaanite gate (Ashkelon, Israel ) → breakthrough in construction of gateways, vaults, doors, windows, bridges: converting tensile stress into compressive stress
1825		earliest record of contraception: Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, prescribing crocodile dung (Lehun, Egypt ) → distinction of sexual intercourse from reproduction
1800		earliest record of lipstick (graveyard, Marḫaši civilisation, Mesopotamia ), made from red hematite darkened with manganite and braunite: artificial enhancement of allure

5. Empires and conquests
BCE 1800		beginnings of complex societies: Babylonian civilisation in Mesopotamia, 1800 BCE; Olmec civilisation in Mesoamerica, 1800 BCE; Shang dynasty in China, 1600 BCE; New Kingdom in Egypt, 1600 BCE
1800		earliest extraction and working of iron (Anatolia) → alloying with carbon to make steel in Cyprus by 1100 BCE
1800		earliest prose fiction: The Epic of Gilgamesh (in cuneiform on clay tablets, Ur, Mesopotamia), a heroic story of the tragicomedy of life, love won and lost, and inevitable death
1780		first female ruler of a royal dynasty: Pharaoh Nofrusobek, Middle Kingdom, Egypt
1750		earliest principles of property insurance, against faulty construction that results in loss or damage (Code of Hammurabi, Babylonian Susa ): proportionate compensation
1750		earliest cultivation of the tea plant Camellia sinensis (China, early 2ⁿᵈ millennium BCE) → now the most frequently consumed beverage worldwide, with many health benefits
1700		earliest transcribed lullaby (Old Babylonian, 1950-1530 BCE) → universally soothing experience of lullabies across cultures
1650		domestication of chickens (Thailand) from red junglefowl → meat and eggs from 25.9 billion chickens by CE 2019 and rising, 5× the biomass of all wild birds
1650		harvesting of latex from the Castilla elastica tree to make rubber for balls and figurines (Mexico): the first plastic polymer → unsurpassed sliding friction and durable elasticity
1650		earliest team sport: rubber-ball game played in an architectural ballcourt (Paso de la Amada, Mexico ) → social compacts; decapitation rituals by CE 500
1650		earliest porcelaneous high-fired ceramics (Piaoshan kiln, China ): fragile when whole, indestructible as broken shards → true porcelain by early CE, China
1650		earliest stencils of archetypes, for hyperbolae, ellipses and spirals, used in the Gathering of Crocus wall painting (Thera, Aegean Sea ): knowledge of the foundations of geometry
1630		earliest planetary observations, of the motions of Venus (reign of Ammisaduqa, king of Babylon )
1550		reckoning with fractions and geometry (Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Thebes, Egypt )
1520		first accurate timepiece: an outflow water-clock (Amenemhet, court of Amenhotep I, Thebes, Egypt ) measuring night-time; shadow clocks and sundials regulating daytime worker shifts
1500		earliest depiction of joyful and uninhibited celebration by ordinary people (Minoan Harvester Vase, Agia Triada, Crete ); happiness sought and found in meeting a need
1400		earliest colonisation of Remote Oceania (Mariana archipelago ) → migrations to all Pacific archipelagos over the next 3 millennia; women settling, men dispersing
1370		early depiction of empathy: sister-in-law and brother of Ramose (Funeral Banquet limestone relief, tomb of Vizier Ramose, Thebes, Egypt ): matching heart rhythms
1330		early depictions of mutual affection: Nefertiti holding the hand of her husband pharaoh Akhenaten, and gentleness: Ankhesenamun anointing her husband pharaoh Tutankhamun (Egypt ); meaning in life found in engagement with others
1300		earliest notated music: Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (in cuneiform, Ugarit, Syria ); the singing voice carrying further than the spoken voice, conveying feeling
1200		sea-going trade in silver and dyes by Phoenicians, connecting the Levant with western Europe across the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean
1180		beginning of 300 years of drought extending from Spain to India, contributing to the demise of the Mycenaean civilisation (ancient Greece)
1050		start of the Iron Age (Aegean; Britain by 800 BCE), iron replacing bronze for tools and weapons
1000		use of hydraulic plaster, mixing lime with silicates (Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel ) → concrete in Ancient Rome by CE 70, the dominant building material of modern times
1000		earliest depiction of the cosmos: a bronze disc inlaid with gold symbols of the Sun, Moon, and stars including the Pleiades cluster (Nebra, Germany )
950		first Jewish temple (King Solomon, Jerusalem ) → rise of Judaism for a chosen people
900		earliest centre of higher learning (Taxila, Indus Valley ) → Plato’s Academy, ancient Greece by 387 BCE; Taixue, China by CE 3; Al-Karaouine, Morocco by CE 859; European medieval universities
900		accurate prediction of lunar eclipses (Berlin Gold Hat, Germany)
900		standardisation of value: adoption of cowrie shells as money (Middle Western Zhou period, China) → cowrie monetary systems in Asia and West Africa during 3 millennia to modern times
820		earliest professional army (Lacedaemonians of Sparta, ancient Greece , described by Xenophon, 388 BCE), sustained by a social contract: duties rewarded with citizenship → militarily-assured power
776		first Olympic games (Olympia, Peloponnesus , 776 BCE): a 4-yearly truce bringing together athletes to compete for the symbolic reward of an olive wreath → revival in CE 1896
750		earliest cast iron artefacts (Tianma-Qucun cemetery, China ); widespread use for implements in China from 450 BCE → cannons, wheels, pipes, engine parts, buildings
700		fraudulent impersonation, parodying kingship: a letter supposedly written by mythological King Gilgamesh some 2,000 years earlier (Sultantepe, Anatolia )
700		mythologies about gods, portraying eternal truths about humans (Hesiod’s Theogony, ancient Greece): dramas of love and sorrow, evil, retribution, power and glory, destiny, deceit, jealousy and fulfillment
700		first book of European literature: The Iliad (Homer, ancient Greece), an epic poem on the pathos of loss and suffering caused by war
700		Archimedes’ Screw, used to irrigate Sennacherib’s elevated garden (river Tigris at Nineveh, Babylon ), described by Archimedes 4 centuries later
650		earliest collection of scholarly texts, on 32,000 cuneiform tablets: the Library of Ashurbanipal (Nineveh, Babylon)
630		earliest use of coinage (Ionia or Lydia, Anatolia): many denominations of stamped electrum, a gold-silver alloy → government-controlled economy of transaction costs
600		first circumnavigation of the African continent, by Phoenicians sailing 26,000 km during 3 years, clockwise from the Red Sea (reported by Herodotus in The Histories 430 BCE)
550		earliest cartography: a map of the known world, by Anaximander (ancient Greece, c. 550 BCE, reported in Strabo’s Geographica 7 BCE)
550		first Persian Empire (Cyrus the Great, Persia), connecting the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley → code of just rule that respects others’ faiths
550		training in surgery and anatomy, described in the Susruta Samhita (northern India, 6ᵗʰ century BCE)
550		professional policing, investigating criminal cases, addressing injustices (the paqūdu of Babylonia c. 550 BCE)
500		earliest construction of geoglyphs depicting imaginary beings and intersecting straight lines (Nazca Pampa, Peru , 500 BCE to CE 500), visible from space
500		height of Greek civilisation (slave society of ancient Greece , 6ᵗʰ to 4ᵗʰ centuries BCE) → foundations of Western philosophy, ethics, poetry, drama; first democracy 508 BCE
500		construction of a navigable canal from the Nile to the Red Sea (Darius I of Persia) → Suez Canal by CE 1869, the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia
500		earliest direct evidence of cannabis used as a psychoactive substance (Jirzankal Cemetery, China ) → modern narco-trafficking spread by counter-drug interdiction
470		early appeal to the principle of sufficient reason: nothing comes from nothing (Parmenides, ancient Greece) → law of conservation of mass by CE 1773, except perhaps in black holes
450		invention of a 360° zodiac (Babylonia) → longitudes of planets
450		collection of the sayings of Confucius (551-479 BCE, China ) into the Analects, founding Confucianism, with a role for every person in society, and universal education
450		collection of the Torah and other scriptures into the Hebrew Bible → Christian Old Testament 500 years later, including the divine authority of the Ten Commandments
400		Siddhārtha Gautama (the Buddha, c. 480-400 BCE, Ancient India ) lays the foundations of Buddhism, with joy as a calling towards the path of nirvana; rebirth in hell for misconduct
400		recognition of non-binary gender designation (Mahābhārata epic poem, India)
400		counterfactual thinking (Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, ancient Greece), encompassing regrets and relief about unfulfilled possibilities: what might have been
400		earliest in-patient hospitals (King Paṇḍukābhaya, Sri Lanka) → professional care for the sick
400		Hippocratic Oath (ascribed to Hippocrates, c. 400 BCE), swearing to uphold medical standards → modern versions still a rite of passage and moral compass for clinicians
375		idea that justice and virtue are inherent qualities of inner harmony (Plato’s Republic, ancient Greece): limits to the liability of external forces for conduct → moral conscience of Christianity
375		idea of enlightenment as the discomforting experience of layered reality (allegory of the cave, in Plato’s Republic, ancient Greece): possibility of truth beyond intelligible reality
364		first sighting of another moon: Jupiter’s Ganymede, discovered with the naked eye (Gan De, China) → rediscovery by Galileo Galilei in CE 1610, using a 20× telescope
350		concept of time-velocity space (Babylonia): displacement of Jupiter calculated as the area under a graph of its velocity over time, foreshadowing integral calculus
350		development of formal systems of reasoning, by logical deduction from axioms and postulates (Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ancient Greece) → scientific disciplines
350		understanding of the emotions as dimensions of feeling that affect judgement (Aristotle’s Rhetoric, ancient Greece): anger, love, fear, shame, kindness, pity, envy, emulation
350		political theory of social welfare (Aristotle’s Politics, ancient Greece): a state tax on assets of affluent citizens for distribution amongst the poor
320		compilation of the Tao Te Ching (China) on peace and war, founding Taoism in ritual cultivation of life’s inherent natural and spiritual forces, benefitting all
300		mass persuasion, using silver coins stamped with the head of previous legendary ruler Alexander the Great (Lampsacus, Anatolia ): appropriating history to glorify the present
300		earliest economic exploitation of chicken outside East Asia (Southern Levant); now the world’s most ubiquitous species of livestock, a principle source of protein
300		postulation of Euclidean geometry of flat surfaces (Euclid of Alexandria, ancient Greece) → first printed edition of Euclid’s Elements, CE 1482
280		first hypothesis that Earth revolves around the Sun (Aristarchus of Samos, ancient Greece, reported in Archimedes’ The Sand Reckoner, c. 260 BCE)
250		first estimation of π within known limits (Archimedes, ancient Greece), describing circles, discs, spheres, cones, orbits, loops, spirals and waves, using methods that anticipate CE 17ᵗʰ century calculus
250		earliest accurate estimates of the circumference, diameter and tilt of a spherical Earth (Eratosthenes, ancient Greece, c. 250 BCE, reported by Pliny CE 77)
250		earliest watermills (Egypt; Anatolia by 50 BCE, reported in Strabo’s Geographica 7 BCE), milling grain, processing ore; the first machines to harness a natural force for mechanical work
220		construction of the Great Wall, stretching 1,900 km (Emperor Qin Shi Huang, China ) → 21,196 km in total length by the Ming dynasty to CE 1644
200		fusion of Indian cultures and traditions into Hinduism, with worship posthumously rewarded by favourable rebirth; torment in hell for sinners → currently the third most populous religion, after Christianity and Islam
200		widespread adoption of seed drills (Han dynasty, northern China); reinvention by Jethro Tull in CE 1701, Britain → production efficiency heralding the dawn of modern agriculture
130		earliest attempt to map the night sky (Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue c. 130 BCE, Rhodes), accurate to within 1° → astronomy as predictive science
100		first analogue computer: Antikythera Mechanism of bronze gears, mechanising solar and lunar epicycles and eclipses, and motions of the planets in the known cosmos (Antikythera, ancient Greece ); unsurpassed for 1,400 years
100		earliest positional system of decimal fractions, for algorithmic calculations with positive and negative numbers using counting rods (China)
100		establishment of the Silk Roads, for overland trade between East Asia and southern Europe → China’s CE 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, opening routes to trade and investment in 70 economies
BCE 27		establishment of the Roman Empire (Europe), enduring c. 600 years → expanding infrastructures of roads, using designs that still prevail, and aqueducts, lead-pipe plumbing and sanitation; self-strengthening concrete; leap years
CE 30		death of Jesus of Nazareth and transcribing of his life in the New Testament → rise of Christianity, promising salvation from sin for those of righteous sentiment, with heaven as reward, otherwise fear hell
77		earliest encyclopaedia (Pliny the Elder, Italy, Naturalis Historia books 1-5, 6-10, 11-17, 18-23, 24-31, 32-37 CE 77)
100		maritime trade routes between Africa, India, China, for spices, medicines, fabrics; connecting to Ancient Rome through Alexandria
100		use of paper for writing and painting begins to supplant bamboo and silk in China (Emperor He, Eastern Han dynasty, c. 100)
100		in the North American Blue Mountains , a colony of the fungus Armillaria ostoyae extends its network of branching hyphae during 1,900 years to cover 9.6 km² with a c. 10,000-tonne subterranean mycelium
132		invention of the seismoscope (Zhang Heng, China, 132), detecting earthquakes 600 km away; the first device to enhance the reach of sensory perception since the orb-weaving spider first outsourced hearing to its web
150		development of the astrolabe from celestial globes, locating Sun and stars in relation to the equator (Ptolemy, Alexandria, c. 150) → determination of latitude
150		earliest industrial complex: watermills of Barbegal (France , 2ⁿᵈ century), producing 25 tons/day of hardtack biscuits for local harbours
250		constructed wetlands for a circular economy of freshwater (Central America, Classic Maya period, 250-900), using aquatic microbes, zooplankton and plants to remove contaminants and pathogens
290		firing of natural gas in southwest China, to boil brine for salt (Bowu zhi c. 290), and to pipe into homes for lighting (Huayang Guo Zhi c. 340) → 3.9 trillion m³/year of global gas extraction by 2018 and rising
290		use of mineral oil in central China, to lubricate axles and to seal water tanks (Bowu zhi c. 290, reported in Shui Jing Zhu c. 500) → 5.0 billion tonnes/year of global oil extraction by 2018: peak production?
300		beginning of central Europe’s 300-year Migration Period: cultural and socioeconomic turmoil coinciding with climatic variability; 6ᵗʰ century Mongolian Avar warriors overwhelming the eastern Roman Empire
400		spread of urbanisation, with cities of over 100,000 people in Roman , Chinese and Mesoamerican empires (Teotihuacan, Mexico , covering 18 km² c. 400) → specialisation of trades and occupations
430		human desire for personal relations with god, communicated to the masses as a king’s privilege (India): Hindu ruler Kumaragupta I depicted on coins feeding a sacred peacock
517		observation that free-falling bodies accelerate independently of their masses (John Philoponus, Alexandria, On Aristotle’s Physics 51 7) → proved in 16 87 for gravitational pull on bodies in a void; confirmed in space by 2022
532		invention of anno Domini, or AD (Dionysius Exiguus, Romania, 532); called anno aerae nostrae vulgaris by Johannes Kepler in 1615, now Common Era, or CE → no calendar year zero
536		crop failures across the northern hemisphere caused by extreme cold following volcanic eruptions in Iceland; then bubonic plague (536-547) → century of economic stagnation
550		earliest block printing on paper (China, c. 550) → widespread use of printed books in 11ᵗʰ century Song dynasty China
620		discovery of Antarctica by Polynesian Māoris (Hui Te Rangiora on the vessel Te Ivi o Atea, from New Zealand, early 7ᵗʰ century) → numerous visits over subsequent centuries
628		introduction of rules governing the use of zero in number systems (Brahmagupta, India, Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta 628): birth of modern algebra
632		death of the prophet Muhammad (Medina, Arabia , 632) and transcribing of his revelations in the Qur'an → rise of Islam, with prayer guiding righteous deeds and paradise as reward; hell for disbelievers
700		over 700 European cities exceed 1,000 inhabitants in CE 700, of which only Constantinople exceeds 100,000 → 22 such cities by 1800, thereafter rising exponentially to 665 by 2000
754		establishment of the Papal States (Pope Stephen II, central Italy, 754) → global reach of the Catholic Church headed by a pope; 900 years of European art and architecture subjugated to Christianity
790		Islamic Golden Age, from late-8ᵗʰ to mid-13ᵗʰ centuries: flourishing art, design, architecture, and scientific innovation
841		earliest use of statistical inference (Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, Iraq, Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu'amma 841), for cryptography → analysis of distributed variables
874		Norse colonisation of Iceland , 874, from Norway in the Viking Age; deforestation and sheep grazing erode soils, driving down the island’s vegetation irretrievably to a half, and forests to 4%, of original extent
900		earliest windmills (Khorasan, Iran-Afghanistan, c. 900, recorded by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad Iṣṭakhrī) → nanoscale windmills by 2008
900		earliest record of polyphonic notation (Germany, c. 900) → foundation of European musical culture for 1,000 years; long-preceded by polyphonic oral traditions in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania
985		Norse colonisation of Greenland by Viking Erik Thorvaldsson, 985; Newfoundland by his son Leif, at least by 1021: human migrations henceforth encircling the globe → a century of harvesting North American stockfish and eiderdown
1000		sexagesimal subdivision of the hour into 60 minutes, and the minute into 60 seconds (Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Iran, c. 1000)
1021		invention of the camera obscura (Ibn al-Haytham, Iraq, Book of Optics 1011-1021), projecting images through a pinhole to prove the independence of light from vision: birth of evidence-based science
1044		formula for gunpowder, used for fire arrows, incendiary projectiles, smoke bombs (Northern Song dynasty, China, Wujing Zongyao 1044) → cannons by 1128, guns by c. 1270, rockets by 1272
1055		first hospice (Jerusalem, c. 1055) → professional palliative care for the dying
1060		beginning of 300 years of warring Crusades in the name of the Latin Church, against Islamic rule in the biblical Land of Israel and Palestine
1120		first government-issued paper money (Song dynasty, China) → a trusted IOU combining Aristotle’s four functions of money, as medium of exchange, mode of payment, unit of account, store of value
1150		eastward migrating Asian Polynesians meet westward migrating South Americans (southern Pacific Marquesas Islands , c. 1150) → admixture on Easter Island by 13 80, construction of monumental stone statues
1206		rise of the Mongol Empire connecting the Pacific to the Mediterranean, founded by Genghis Khan; recounted by Marco Polo c. 1300 → 16 million male-line descendants of Genghis Khan across modern Asia
1215		first declaration of human rights: Magna Carta (King John of England, 15/6/1215 ) → the first and now oldest national constitution; Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
1283		first mechanical clock with an escapement mechanism (Dunstable Priory, Britain , 12 83), regulating clock speed
1286		discovery of the art of making eyeglasses (anon., Italy, 1286), “one of the best and most necessary arts that the world has” – Friar Giordano da Rivalto, 23/2/1305 → 2.5 billion people needing yet not having glasses in 2016
1300		start of the northern hemisphere Little Ice Age (1300-1850) → crop failures, social upheaval; perhaps curbed and curtailed by greenhouse-gas emissions during 8,000 years of forest clearance for agriculture
1337		accretion of personal wealth from gold by Mansa Musa I (c. 1280-1337 ), Emperor of Mali and richest person in history: peak of inequality amongst individuals → gold still a safe haven in money markets
1346		bubonic plague caused by the Black Death bacillus Yersinia pestis kills a third of all humans across much of Europe, 1346-53; originating in Kyrgyzstan or the Himalayas, transmitted by rats and their fleas, and human body lice
1350		earliest cultivation of Coffea arabica for coffee (Yemen, using Ethiopian seeds, 14ᵗʰ century) → 100 million coffee farmers supplying 2 billion cups per day; extinction threats to most wild coffee species
1350		birth of the European Renaissance (Italy, spreading throughout Europe c. 1350-1600): rise of individuality, learning, reason and doubt, imagination and innovation, humanism and capitalism
1397		earliest banking (Medici Bank, Italy , 1397) → modern function as intermediary between savers and borrowers; inherent vulnerability to liquidity shocks, with bank runs driving economic downturns
1418		accurate geometrical perspective in painting (Filippo Brunelleschi, Italy, c. 1418; codified by Leon Battista Alberti, Italy, De Pictura 14 36)
1438		Inca expansion, becoming the world’s largest empire by 1500, ruling 12 million people over 5,000 km of Andes ; altiplano labour economy powered by llamas for transport
1440		first mechanical printing press with movable type (Johannes Gutenberg, Germany, 1440) → mass production, dissemination and survival of journals, pamphlets and books, of theology, governance, history, criticism, science, fiction, forbidden texts
1492		European mariners reach the Americas (Christopher Columbus from Spain , 14 92) → colonial settlements; 16ᵗʰ century Columbian Exchange of cultural infrastructure between New and Old Worlds, and Great Dying of 56 million indigenous peoples of the Americas
1498		European mariners reach India (Vasco da Gama from Portugal , 1498), connecting the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean → colonial empires in Africa and Asia; Indian Ocean trade; global multiculturalism
1500		celebration of the unity of spiritual and bodily life: divine madman Drukpa Kunley (Tibet and Bhutan, c. 1500), reviling celibacy and superstition, his flaming thunderbolt phallus symbolising discomfort at the truth
1500		foundations of Western art laid by Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519) and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Italy, 1475-1564), in humanist sculpture, drawing, portraiture and frescos
1510		technical drawing of anatomical features, mechanisms and engineering designs (Leonardo da Vinci, Italy, c. 15 10)
1516		concept of utopia, imagined as an island society in the New World that implausibly meets all human desires (Thomas More, Britain, Utopia 1516) → political ideal theory
1517		Reformation, splitting the universal Christian world into sects (Martin Luther, Germany, 1517)
1522		first circumnavigation of the globe (Ferdinand Magellan westward from Spain to Philippines , Juan Sebastián Elcano westward return to Spain, 1519-22, 60,500 km) → globalisation of sea trade
1526		beginning of the Atlantic slave trade by Europeans (1526) → 12 million slaves exported from Africa to the Americas up to 1900, for labour on plantations
1542		*global population of humans passes 500 million*; annual energy use per person averages 9,800 kWh, 14× the resting metabolism

6. Scientific Revolution
CE 1543		theory of Earth and the planets revolving around the Sun (Nicolaus Copernicus, Poland, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium 1543) → pursuit of supporting evidence and consequences
1580		Iberian Union with much of central Europe (Habsburg dynasty , 1580-1640) → first worldwide power, controlling colonies in the Americas, Africa, Asia: the sun always shone on some portion of the House of Habsburg
1582		introduction of the Gregorian calendar (Pope Gregory XIII, Italy, 1582) → de facto international standard for civil calendars
1582		first entrepreneurial newspaper publishers (Ming Dynasty Beijing, China, 1582) → independent reporting that witnesses torment, investigates oppression, safeguards freedom of expression
1605		first modern novel (Miguel de Cervantes, Spain, Don Quixote 16 05 and 1615): an unreliable narrator describes the mercifully funny consequences of free will colliding with fate
1608		invention of the refracting telescope (Hans Lipperhey, Netherlands, 1608), enhancing the reach of visual perception by 3×
1609		inversion of the refracting telescope to create a compound microscope (Galileo Galilei, Italy, described in Il Saggiatore 1623) → cryo-electron microscopy imaging atoms in molecules by 2020
1610		observations of the orbits of Jupiter’s moons (Galileo Galilei, Italy, Sidereus Nuncius 1610), falsifying church doctrine of Earth as the only centre of movement in the Universe → authority of evidence-based science
1612		concept of a universal clock, calibrated on orbital periods of Jupiter’s moons (Galileo Galilei, Italy, 1612) → accurate estimation of longitude for navigation, given a stable observation platform
1619		distances of planets from the Sun measured relative to Earth’s distance of 1 astronomical unit (Johannes Kepler, Germany, Harmonices Mundi 1619)
1621		first medical treatise on mental welfare (Robert Burton, Britain, The Anatomy of Melancholy 1621), the author confiding in his reader → association with nature and arts engagement, physical health and exercise, social stability and inclusion
1628		first graph of distributed observations (Michael Florent van Langren, Netherlands, 1628); line graphs and bar charts by 1786 → data visualisation that saves lives
1632		basic principle of relativity: the laws of nature apply equally to any frame of reference in constant linear motion, regardless of its speed (Galileo Galilei, Italy, Dialogo 1632)
1637		idea that truth is the product of autonomous reason (René Descartes, France, Discours de la Méthode 1637; Méditations 1641) → emancipation from revelational truth and religious doctrine; distinction of mind from matter
1642		earliest functioning mechanical calculator, for addition and subtraction: the Pascaline (Blaise Pascal, France, 1642)
1648		completion of the Taj Mahal, the grandest homage ever made by a man to a women: Islamic Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of Queen Mumtaz Mahal (Agra, India , 1631-1648); built by 20,000 artisans
1650		relatedness of married couples averages about fourth cousin in 1650 for Europe and North America → decreasing only from 1870 onwards with cousin marriage prohibitions
1656		first pendulum clock (Christiaan Huygens, Netherlands, 25/12/1656), developing on ideas by Galileo Galilei → unsurpassed accuracy on land for 275 years
1661		first experiments with desalination by freezing (Thomas Bartholin, Denmark, 1661) → potential for passive freezing of seawater to provide 21ˢᵗ century water security
1665		identification of organismal cells (Robert Hooke, Britain, Micrographia 1665): the smallest unit of structure and function for all life forms, the vehicle for all hereditary information defining each species
1665		notion of gravitation as a universal force, occasioned to Isaac Newton by the fall of an apple (Britain , as recounted to William Stukeley in 1726) → four fundamental interactions: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces
1665		concept and measure of Gross Domestic Product: GDP (William Petty, Britain, 1665) → a globally favoured index of national prosperity from 19 53, conflating growth in productivity with drawdown of capital; sustainability benefits of degrowth
1669		artistic rendering of unconditional forgiveness, in Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son (Netherlands, 1669): limits to the conditionality of transactions
1676		first determination of the speed of light (Ole Rømer, Denmark, 1676): 299,792 km per second in a vacuum; 9.46 trillion km per year → light-year measure of distance
1676		discovery of single-celled organisms (Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Netherlands, 1676) → science of microbiology
1687		formulation of laws of motion and universal gravitation, applicable to all the phenomena of the cosmos (Isaac Newton, Britain, Principia 1687): foundation of classical mechanics → European Age of Enlightenment
1690		extinction of the dodo (Mauritius , c. 1690) → symbol of stupidity: the pigeon that couldn’t fly; later symbolic of human wreckage across three-quarters of Earth’s land and two-thirds of oceans
1700		rapid colonisation of Americas, India and Australia by Europeans from the early 1700s → dominion of India by the British East India Company from 1760s; British rule 1858-1947
1700		modest improvements in global GDP per capita since CE 1 henceforth begin accelerating in western Europe and North America → acceleration in Latin America and Asia from 1950, Africa from 2000
1735		cataloguing of organisms by genera and species (Carl Linnaeus, Sweden, Systema Naturae 1735-1768) → modern classification of 2 million from an estimated 8 million eukaryote species, possibly 1 trillion microbes, most living within other species
1759		first accurate sea clock: H 4 (John Harrison, Britain, 1759), a pocket watch with high-frequency balance wheel, solving the problem of longitude for marine navigation
1761		first observed transit of Venus across the Sun (6/6/1761) → 1 astronomical unit of distance from Earth to Sun equal to 149,597,871 km
1769		invention of the first cost-effective steam engine (James Watt, Britain, 1769) → powered machinery, Industrial Revolution
1770		invention of the spinning jenny (James Hargreaves, Britain, 1770), mechanising the spinning of cotton → cloth weaving factories by 1771
1773		establishment of the law of conservation of mass (Antoine Lavoisier, France, 1773): the amount of matter cannot change
1774		vaccination with an attenuated pathogen: cowpox to treat smallpox (Benjamin Jesty, Britain, 1774; Edward Jenner, Britain, 1798) → artificial attenuation by 1881; vaccination programmes save more lives than any other medical intervention in history
1776		declaration of independence of the United States of America from colonial rule, and of the unalienable rights of all humanity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (4/7/1776) → economic superstate of the USA
1776		idea that pursuit of self-interest leads to the common good (Adam Smith, Britain, The Wealth of Nations 1776) → free markets, producing unequal opportunity unless government regulates trade
1778		first national nature reserve (Bogd Khan Uul, Mongolia , 1778) → global protected areas cover 15% of land and 11% of ocean by 2018

7. Industrial Revolution
CE 1780		mass production of spun textiles, mechanised by water power; coal-fired and steam-powered production of iron and steel (beginning Britain, c. 1780) → economies of scale, rising polarisation of rich and poor nations, dominance of fossil fuels
1780		mass production of wrought iron from scrap iron (76 Black metallurgists, Reeder’s Pen foundry, Jamaica , 1780); patented by Henry Cort 1783-4 → British command of the global iron trade
1781		inherent limits to the powers of reason (Immanuel Kant, Germany, Critique of Pure Reason 1781): knowledge springs from understanding the objects of experience; pure reason is properly directed only to moral imperatives
1783		invention of aviation: first piloted free flight by humans, in a hot-air balloon constructed by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (France, 21/11/1783)
1784		first postulation of black holes (John Michell, Britain, 1784), later predicted by general relativity as singularities in spacetime, their gravitational fields pulling in all matter, and all electromagnetic radiation including light
1789		spread of Republicanism (French Revolution, 1789-1799) → radical socio-political transformation in western Europe; building of nation states; metric system of weights and measures by 1792
1790		idea of beauty as universal and subjective (Immanuel Kant, Germany, Critique of Judgement 1790), neither merely agreeable to personal taste nor ruled good or perfect by any concept
1792		indictment of double standards in the treatment of women by men (Mary Wollstonecraft, Britain, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792) → slow progress towards gender equality
1798		calculation of Earth’s density, using a torsion balance (Henry Cavendish, Britain, 1798) → Newton’s gravitational constant G determining the gravitational force between two masses
1798		observation that population growth capacity always outpaces improvements in resources (Thomas Malthus, Britain, 1798) → the struggle for existence facing all organisms; the challenge to human wellbeing, until the advent of oil-based economies
1799		first electrochemical battery (Alessandro Volta, Italy, 1799), sandwiching electrolyte-soaked pasteboard between two dissimilar metals to create a steady voltage → mobile energy storage
1804		proof that light behaves as a wave (Thomas Young, UK, 1804) → wave-particle duality of photons and other quantum phenomena
1805		concept of the mutual dependence of physical, climatological and organic phenomena (Alexander von Humboldt, Prussia, 18 05) → science of biogeography
1808		discovery of atoms, uniquely defining each chemical element of ordinary matter (John Dalton, UK, 1808) → atomic masses of the 94 natural elements; hydrogen accounting for nine tenths of all atoms in the Universe
1817		invention of the bicycle (Karl von Drais, Germany, 1817); pedals by 1853, chain by 1886, derailleur by 1895 → the most efficient human-powered land vehicle
1821		first demonstration of an electromagnetic rotary device (Michael Faraday, UK, 1821) → dynamos to generate electricity; electric motors to convert electricity into mechanical energy
1822		first prediction of Earth’s greenhouse effect (Joseph Fourier, France, 1822; tested empirically by Eunice Foote, USA, 18 56, John Tyndall, Ireland, 1859) → CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels cause global climate warming
1825		first public railway for steam locomotives (George Stephenson, UK, 1825), outpacing carriage horses, previously the fastest land transport during 5,300 years of human history
1826		publication of String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor Op. 131 by Ludwig van Beethoven (Germany, 1826): “hear only the direct revelation from another world” – Richard Wagner, 18 70
1827		first permanent photograph taken by a camera (Nicéphore Niépce, France, 1827) → first image of a person, 1838: Louis Daguerre seizing the light, arresting its flight on silvered plate, preserving a moment in history
1834		invention of the Analytical Engine (Charles Babbage, UK, 1834), an unbuilt functional computer → first computer program by Ada Lovelace, 1843, in collaboration with Babbage; programmable computers by 1940s
1838		first scheduled trans-Atlantic steamer: coal-fired Great Western (Isambard Kingdom Brunel, UK, 1838) → globalisation of economies
1846		first use of quinine, from Andean cinchona trees, as a malaria prophylaxis (Thomas Thomson, UK, 1846), enabling European colonisation of tropical Africa and Asia → malaria vaccine by 2021 boosting childhood survival
1848		scale of absolute temperature (Lord Kelvin, UK, 1848) → fundamental limit to degree of coldness at 0 Kelvin, −273.15°C; quantum gases forced lower get hotter
1850		principles of conservation of energy and gain of entropy (Rudolf Clausius, Germany, and Lord Kelvin, UK, 18 50) → laws of thermodynamics: heat flows from a warmer to a colder body – unless reversed by inertia
1850		industrial processing of flour and sugar; fattening of cattle in feedlots (Europe and USA, beginning c. 1850) → biggest dietary shift since the beginning of agriculture
1856		first practical compression refrigerator (James Harrison, Australia, 1856), for storing perishable foods → globalisation of trade in fresh and frozen meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables
1859		invention of the lead-acid cell (Gaston Planté, France, 1859), the first rechargeable battery → practical electric vehicles by the 1880s
1859		theory of evolution by natural selection (Charles Darwin, UK, On the Origin of Species 1859), a law unique to biological systems → heritable adaptations of individuals to their environment, speciation of populations through time, the diversity of life
1859		first training manual for care of the sick regardless of their means (Florence Nightingale, UK, Notes on Nursing 1859) → professional nursing, health benefits of fresh air and personal cleanliness
1860		factory production of internal-combustion engines (Jean Lenoir, Belgium, 1860; user manual 1864) → electricity generators, motorised transport
1860		development of Western modern art c. 1860-1960, depicting impressions of light and movement, expressive colours and harmonies, primitive forms and rhythms, solitary and collective struggles, decisive moments, formative experience
1865		theory that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of electromagnetic radiation (James Maxwell, UK, 1865) → foundations of quantum physics
1866		discovery of the unitary character of heritable traits, and the independent assortment of their alternative forms (Gregor Mendel, Austria, 18 66) → the gene as unit of heredity, contained in chromosomes – but not for Borgs
1867		theory that capitalism exploits labour, with the objectionable consequence of empowering the rich by disadvantaging the poor (Carl Marx, Germany, Das Kapital 1867, 1885, 1894) → Marxism, socialism, Stalinism
1874		discovery of unequal infinities: the infinite continuum of all real numbers exceeds in size any infinite set of natural numbers (Georg Cantor, Germany, 1874) → three sizes of infinity?
1876		invention of the telephone (Alexander Bell, USA, 1876), enabling conversation between distant voices → telecommunications
1877		invention of the phonograph (Thomas Edison, USA, 1877): first practical sound recording → gramophone and mass produced records by 1890s, popularising individual artists
1879		invention of the first cheap and safe electric light bulb (Thomas Edison, USA, 1879), extending the working day → organic light-emitting diodes by the 21ˢᵗ century
1880		invention of the photophone (Alexander Bell and Sumner Tainter, USA, 1880), transmitting sound on a beam of light → fibre-optic data transmission by 1966
1880		adult literacy reaches 20% of the global population by 1880 → 85% by 2010
1880		share of the world population living as international immigrants remains at a constant 3% over the next 140 years
1882		first commercially viable power stations, coal-fired (London and New York, 1882) → electrical grid; fossil fuels generate 61% of global electricity by 2023; UK ends coal use by 2024
1882		first hydroelectric power station (Jacob Schoellkopf, USA , 1882) → megadams replumbing the world’s major rivers from the 1950s; 16% of global (and 98% of Norway’s) electricity generation by 2019
1884		first rooftop photovoltaic solar array (Charles Fritts, USA, 1884) → solar technology rising to 5% of global electricity generation by 2023
1884		beginning of the Scramble for Africa by European powers (1884), occupying nine tenths by 1914 → ethnic partitioning through official colonial rule through to c. 1960
1886		first car with gasoline-powered internal combustion engine (Karl Benz, Germany, 1886) → 97 million motor vehicles produced globally per year by 2017: peak production?
1887		speed of light is invariant to source and observer motion (Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, USA, 1887) → upper limit to speed of matter and information, except for celestial objects separated by expanding space
1887		first wind-powered turbine for production of electricity (James Blyth, UK, 1887) → rising to 5% of global electricity generation by 2019
1890		centralised sewerage treatment plants (UK, USA, Australia, 1890s), preventing spread of diseases → urine diversion and recycling as fertiliser by 2022
1893		first self-governing democracy to grant women the vote (New Zealand, 1893) → rising women’s employment, diminishing yet ever-present gender inequality and bias
1895		first wireless transmission of telegraph signals by radio waves (Guglielmo Marconi, Italy, 1895), global radio communication by 1901 → radio broadcasts by 1920s; radar by 1930s
1895		first commercial screening of motion-picture films (Auguste and Louis Lumière, France, 1895) → birth of cinema, entrancing audiences with captured events and experience
1895		discovery of X-rays and creation of X-ray images (Wilhelm Röntgen, Germany, 1895) → radiography; X-ray astronomy; synchrotron and X-ray laser for probing atomic-scale structures
1896		discovery of natural radioactivity (Henri Becquerel, France, 1896) → radioisotopic labelling and dating, medical treatment of tumours
1897		first detection of a fundamental, subatomic and indivisible particle: the electron (Joseph Thomson, UK, 1897) → one of 17 kinds of elementary particle constituting matter and radiation
1899		Planck units: natural units for length, time, mass and temperature (Max Planck, Germany, 1899) → fundamental limit to the degree of heat = 1.42 × 10³² K
1900		theory of the unconscious mind and emotions motivating and guiding human behaviour (Sigmund Freud, Austria, The Interpretation of Dreams 1900) → limits to the rationality of behaviour; foundation of psychoanalysis
1900		Planck’s law: every physical body emits electromagnetic radiation (Max Planck, Germany, 1900) → quantum mechanics by mid-1920s, explaining the subatomic dynamics of the Universe
1900		theory of energy quanta (Max Planck, Germany, 1900, Albert Einstein, Switzerland, 1905), including the photon, a massless elementary particle and quantum of electromagnetic radiation
1900		two-thirds of the global population living in extreme poverty by 1900, declining amid rising geopolitical inequality until 1950 → one-third by 1995, down to one-tenth by 2017
1900		global average life expectancy equals 32 years by 1900 → doubling over the next 75 years, exposing diseases of ageing
1903		first powered, controlled flight by a heavier-than-air aircraft (Orville and Wilbur Wright, USA, 17/12/1903) → 4.6 billion airline passengers per year by 2019: peak volume?
1904		first quantification of dark matter (Lord Kelvin, UK, 1904), with gravitational influence yet no electromagnetic or strong interactions: 85% of matter in the Universe, concentrated amongst clustered galaxies
1905		theory of special relativity (Albert Einstein, Switzerland, 1905): length-contraction of moving objects and time-dilation of moving clocks relative to an observer; universal speed of light; energy-mass equivalence → nuclear physics
1905		earliest chainsaw for cutting wood (Samuel Bens, USA, 1905), portable by 1918 → 2 billion m³ of wood processed globally by 2018, for construction, packaging, paper, pulp, fuel
1907		earliest organoids (Henry Wilson, USA, 1907): in vitro organ-like structures → human brain organoids integrated into mouse brains by 2018; human neurons master Pong by 2022, AI speech recognition by 2023
1907		first organic polymer made from synthetic components: Bakelite plastic (Leo Baekeland, USA, 1907) → large-scale production of plastics from 1950, dominated by polythene
1908		industrial-scale synthesis of ammonia from ambient nitrogen (BASF, Germany, 1908) using the Haber-Bosch process → chemical fertilisers release crops from nitrogen limitation, fuelling the human population explosion
1908		unification of 3D space and 1D unidirectional time into absolute spacetime (Hermann Minkowski, Germany, 1908): deceleration through time accompanies acceleration through space, and vice versa
1909		first people to set foot on Earth’s poles (North Pole : Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, USA, 1909; South Pole : Roald Amundsen, Norway, 1911)
1911		discovery of the nuclear centre of atoms (Ernest Rutherford, UK, 1911); fission of the nitrogen nucleus to isolate subatomic protons by 1919
1912		idea of inwardness of feeling, in other ages directed at divinities, belonging to suffering, pain, love, joy (Rainer Maria Rilke, Germany, Duino Elegies 1912): inner commitment as life’s purpose
1913		introduction of factory assembly lines for mass production of cars (Ford Model T, USA, 1913), dedicating one worker to each step → dehumanising labour; affordable cars for labourers
1914		World War I (1914-18): 32 nations participate in “the war to end war”, killing 20 million; advent of mechanised warfare
1914		opening of the Panama Canal (15/8/1914), shortening the route for shipping cargo between Atlantic and Pacific oceans
1915		mass deployment of X-ray units (Marie Curie, France, 1915) for treatment of over 1 million wounded soldiers
1915		theory of general relativity (Albert Einstein, Germany, 1915): equivalent effects of gravity and acceleration; gravity as a distortion of spacetime by massive objects → unresolved incompatibility with quantum mechanics
1917		Russian Revolution (Russia, 1917) → first communist state: USSR, 1922-1991
1917		a urinal made by a plumber becomes a sculpture made by the force of an imagination (Marcel Duchamp, France, Fountain 19 17): reorientation of art away from craft, onto interpretation
1918		Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20): H1N1 influenza virus infects a third of the global population and kills 50-100 million, mostly in the 2ⁿᵈ wave; early interventions reduce mortality; long-range effects for survivors
1918		first modern refugee crisis (1918-1922): collapsing Russian and Ottoman Empires displacing 1-2 million Russians and hundreds of thousands of Armenians → Nansen Passports for stateless citizens
1919		demonstration of nervous mechanisms in plants (Jagadish Chandra Bose, Bengal, 1919): plants feel, hear, smell, taste, learn and remember, recognise and care for kin, and swap information and resources
1919		observations of starlight deflection during a Solar eclipse, confirming the gravitational lensing prediction of general relativity (Arthur Eddington, UK, 1919)
1919		first commercial radio broadcasts (PCGG, Netherlands, 1919); global uptake during 1920s → dissemination of time signals, news, propaganda, education, entertainment; storytelling for the complicit listener
1921		discovery of insulin (Frederick Banting and Charles Best, Canada, 1921) → treatment of diabetes, now afflicting 1 in 10 of the global population, particularly in high-income and urban areas
1922		invention of leaded petrol (Thomas Midgley Jr., USA, 1922), improving engine performance, causing epidemics of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and developmental delays in children → global elimination by 2021
1922		prediction of an expanding Universe (Alexander Friedmann, Russia, 1922) → dark energy accelerating the expansion of a flat or possibly closed, cyclic or hologram Universe, perhaps one in a multiverse
1923		concept of every quantum entity having dual nature, as both wave and particle (Louis de Broglie, France, 1923, Niels Bohr, Denmark, 1928) → no independent physical reality of atomic phenomena
1924		first aerial circumnavigation of the world (US Army Air Service, 1924) → globalisation of human mobility
1925		principle that electrons occupy undeterminable energy states, transitioning between them with predictable probabilities (Werner Heisenberg, Germany, 1925, Erwin Schrödinger, Austria, 1926): birth of quantum mechanics
1926		first working television system (John Logie Baird, UK, 1926) → nationwide television broadcasting by 1929, bringing rulers to their subjects, entertainers to viewers, inspiring awe
1926		Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (League of Nations, 1926) → commitment by 99 of 195 countries since 2008; still 168 million child labourers and 21 million forced labourers
1927		a car outpaces a racehorse (La Chapelle, France, 1927) → dominion of the automobile for land transport and haulage
1927		uncertainty principle: every particle has a constant product of its variances in position and momentum (Werner Heisenberg, Germany, 1927) → no precisely determinable Universe; reality as interaction not state
1928		prediction of positron particles, the antimatter counterpart of electrons (Paul Dirac, UK, 1928) → discovery by 1932 in tracks of cosmic rays, the first evidence of antimatter
1928		first description of ionised matter as plasma, the fourth fundamental state of matter after solids, liquids and gases (Irving Langmuir, USA, 1928), predicted by Michael Faraday 1816, generated by William Crookes 1879
1928		first experimental isolation of an antibiotic: penicillin (Alexander Fleming, UK, 1928) → healthcare revolution; overuse of antibiotics driving resistance in bacteria, causing 1.2 million deaths in 2019
1929		Great Depression, symbolised by the Wall Street Crash of 29/10/1929 and the North American Dust Bowl of the 1930s → 22% drop in worldwide GDP
1930		first synthesis of ‘Freon’ (Thomas Midgley Jr., USA, 1930) as a refrigerant → rapid adoption worldwide; such chlorofluorocarbons predicted to threaten Earth’s ozone layer by the 1970s
1930		postulation of neutrinos (Wolfgang Pauli, Austria, 1930), the smallest, most abundant and pervasive elementary particle in the Universe, rarely interacting with other matter
1930		idea that all channels to the mind start from the soul, yet none leads back again (Robert Musil, Austria, The Man Without Qualities 1930): the human soul as mediator of experience, spirit firing the imagination
1931		proof that no set of consistent axioms can suffice to derive all mathematical truths, to leave none undecidable (Kurt Gödel, Germany, 1931) → incomplete reality
1932		discovery of neutrons (James Chadwick, UK, 1932), with protons constituting the nuclei of atoms → nuclear fission of uranium by 1939; nuclear chain reactions; atomic bombs and nuclear energy
1933		theory that government spending can stabilise the market economy (John Maynard Keynes, UK, 1933, 1936) → borrowing to boost consumption, at the expense of investment to sustain and enhance capital assets
1934		first radio detection and ranging: radar (Navel Research Laboratory, USA, 1934), concurrently developed in UK, Germany and other countries, targeting aircraft, ships, submarines and weather
1935		concept of the ecosystem (Arthur Tansley, UK, 1935), a complex association of organisms with their environment → value of nature to humans from provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services
1938		invention of nylon (Wallace Carothers, DuPont, USA, 1938), the first synthetic textile fibre → filaments, films, bristles, cords, washers, sacking, fishing nets and longlines, fabrics, parachutes, spacesuits, hosiery and clothing; fast fashion
1939		first turbojet powered aircraft (Heinkel He 178, Germany, 1939) → rapid development of jet planes after World War II
1939		World War II (1939-45): 184 nations participate in cataclysmic events killing 60 million, including genocide of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust 1941-45 – the greatest crime of the 20ᵗʰ century
1941		development of frequency-hopping radio communication (Hedy Markey [Hedy Lamarr] and George Antheil, USA, 1941) → Bluetooth and Wi-Fi by 1990s
1941		first binary-logic digital programmable computer: Z3 (Konrad Zuse, Germany, 1941)
1942		discovery of insecticidal action of DDT (Paul Müller, Switzerland, 1942), the most successful chemical ever synthesised to control malaria → toxicity in food chains exposed in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 1962; worldwide ban 2004
1944		first electronic digital programmable computer: Colossus (Tommy Flowers, UK, 1944) → code-breaking that hastened the end of World War II
1944		internationalisation of financial order (Bretton Woods Conference, USA, 1944): International Monetary Fund, stabilising national economies in crisis, and World Bank, providing loans to developing nations
1945		atomic bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan, 6, 9/8/1945), the blasts and subsequent cancers killing over 250,000 people, mostly civilians; to date the only nuclear weapons used in combat
1945		establishment of the United Nations (UN, 1945), with a mission to maintain international peace, security and cooperation, amongst societies with customs and tolerances adapted to distal ecological and historical contexts

8. Technological Revolution
CE 1945		first proposed electronic calculator (Alan Turing, UK, 1945) → modern stored-program computers
1947		first supersonic flight, in a rocket-powered aircraft (Chuck Yeager in Bell X-1, USA, 14/10/1947) → space exploration
1948		invention of the transistor (Bell Labs, USA, 1948) → transistor radios by 1950s; integrated circuits by 1959; microprocessors by 1970; consumer electronics
1948		Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 10/12/1948): all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person
1949		invention of the barcode (Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, USA, 1949) → automation of product tracking
1950		global average child mortality exceeds 20% in 1950 → less than 4% by 2024 with advances in vaccines, education and public health; life expectancy in rich countries set by aging
1950		proof that smoking causes lung cancer (Richard Doll and A. Bradford Hill, UK, 1950): tipping point to ultimate elimination of smoking sometime over 70 years later, delayed by lobbying
1950		start of the Anthropocene Epoch, humans using 22×10²¹ joules of energy over the next 70 years, 1.5× more than all energy use during the previous 11,700 years: accelerating combustion of fossil fuels, their greenhouse gases trapping a further 10× more solar energy in the oceans
1950		global GDP per capita having tripled over 130 years to 1950, tripling again over the next 50 years; North Americans and western Europeans earning over 3× the global average wage: the Great Acceleration in technology, interdependence, and dominance over planetary cycles
1950		beginning of a rapid acceleration in global crop yields through innovations in seed varieties, agrochemicals, irrigation, mechanisation → Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, global cereal yield tripling over 60 years from 1960, provisioning feedlots of up to 100,000 cattle
1951		genocide becomes a crime under international law (UN, 1951); genocide events over the next 50 years kill more than 12 million civilians; language of hate rooted in the elevation of feelings to moral values
1951		over 500 above-ground tests of nuclear weapons through to 1980 release 6 tonnes of plutonium and other radionuclides, detectable globally in sediments, soils and organismal tissues for 100,000 years into the future → nuclear deterrence by mutual assured destruction
1952		half the world adult population has at least basic education by 1952 → three-quarters by 1990, enhanced particularly for schoolgirls by access to bicycles
1953		discovery of the molecular structure of DNA (Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick, UK, 1953) → access to the genetic code of relatedness, form and function for all living organisms, in the environment and back through 2 million years
1953		ascent to the highest point on Earth: Mount Everest at 8,848 m (Tenzing Norgay, Nepal, and Edmund Hillary, New Zealand, 29/5/1953)
1954		first nuclear power plant (Obninsk, USSR, 1954) → advent of clean energy: 10% of global electricity generation in 2019, rising; radioactive waste; nuclear catastrophes, including Chernobyl 26/4/1986
1955		first accurate atomic clock (Louis Essen and Jack Parry, UK, 1955), the first quantum technology: time as atomic oscillations → atomic standard of time interval; Coordinated Universal Time: UTC, starting 1/1/1960
1956		first shipment of freight in standardised intermodal containers (Malcom McLean, USA, 1956) → globalisation of commerce
1956		emergence of pop art (Richard Hamilton, UK, 19 56; Andy Warhol, USA, 1962), its impersonal style anticipating a commodified and media-saturated world of illusory promise, desire and consumerism
1957		first orbiting space satellite (Sputnik 1, USSR, 4/10/1957) → intelligence gathering by 1960; Global Positioning System: GPS, and Earth observation, by 1973; global telecommunications and infrastructure interdependency
1957		first living being to depart Earth for outer space: stray mongrel dog Laika in Sputnik II (USSR, 3/11/1957), deceased in passage
1959		the Great Chinese Famine 1959-1961, the worst famine in history: Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ policy colliding with drought to cause 15-45 million deaths
1959		Antarctic Treaty (1/12/1959), designating use of the continent of Antarctica solely for peaceful purposes and scientific investigation, and prohibiting nuclear activity → need for Māori insight
1960		descent to the deepest point in the oceans: Mariana Trench at 10,911 m (Jacques Piccard, Switzerland, and Don Walsh, USA, in the bathyscaphe Trieste, 23/1/1960), the last frontier of Earth exploration
1960		first female head of a democratic government: Sirimavo Bandaranaike, serving three terms as prime minister of Ceylon then Sri Lanka between 1960 and 2000
1960		first laser beam (Theodore Maiman, USA, 1960) → LiDAR mapping; cutting, welding, printing, precision surgery; reading/writing and transmitting data; trapping atoms; 21ˢᵗ century interferometry
1960		first government-approval of oral contraceptives for use by the public (US FDA, 1960) → women taking control over their fertility, liberating them to develop professional careers
1960		formation of The Beatles rock band (UK, 1960) → globalisation of musical influence in the 1960s
1961		first astronaut in outer space (Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1, USSR, 12/4/1961), completing one Earth orbit during a 108-minute flight → the Space Age
1961		framework for the conduct of diplomatic relations (UN Vienna Convention, 1961) → ratified by 193 nations, safeguarding the instrumental role of diplomacy in converting confrontations to consensus
1961		earliest industrial use of a flexibly programmable robot (‘Unimate’, George Devol, USA, 1961) → automation substituting for labour on codifiable tasks, complementing problem-solving skills; microbots by 2024
1964		origin of mass explained by interactions with Higgs quantum field (Peter Higgs, UK, and others, 1964) → Standard Model of particle physics
1965		cosmic microwave evidence of the birth of the Universe in a spacetime singularity (Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, USA, 1965)
1965		International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UN, 1965) → commitments from 182 countries since 2019; race still defining exposure to violence
1967		postulation of imperfect symmetry between matter and antimatter (Andrei Sakharov, USSR, 1967) → surplus of matter over antimatter since the early Universe
1967		Outer Space Treaty (UN, 1967), the basis of international space law → freedom for all to explore space, and prohibition of weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit
1968		peak growth rate of 2.07% in the world human population (1968), averaging 3.7 offspring per female → fertility below replacement expected by 2030, as populations age globally and crash in the richest countries
1968		concept of the tragedy of the commons (Garrett Hardin, USA, 1968): free-for-all exploitation of shared resources brings ruin to all; collective land rights facilitate cooperative behaviour
1969		first astronaut on the Moon (Neil Armstrong, USA, 20/7/1969 ), delivered by a 160-million horsepower Saturn V rocket; the Apollo 11 Command Module returning to Earth 4 days later
1969		first host-to-host computer connection (ARPANET, USA, 29/10/1969): “lo” sent across 500 km → flourishing Internet by the 1980s; first quantum network by 2017
1970		first optical disc encoding binary data (James Russell, USA, 1970) → digitisation of data storage, sound recording and playback
1970		Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (UN, 1970) → commitment by 191 states, not the nuclear states of India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea; a nuclear detonation affects everyone
1970		first probe to land on another planet and transmit data: surface temperature of Venus (Venera 7, USSR, 15/12/1970); images by 1975 → images from the surface of Mars by 1976
1972		recognition by governments worldwide that fossil-fuel combustion threatens Earth’s atmosphere (UN Conference on the Human Environment 1972), understood by the growing environmental movement as a crisis rooted in Western worldviews of nature as commodity
1972		atomic clocks flown east around the world lose time to clocks flown west, confirming the time-dilation predicted by special relativity (Joseph Hafele and Richard Keating, USA, 1972)
1972		creation of first recombinant DNA, from a polyomavirus and a bacteriophage (Paul Berg, USA, 1972) → first transgenic mammal by 1974: a mouse; cloned synthetic genes for human insulin by 1979
1973		concept of natural capital: the stock of natural resources (Ernst Schumacher, UK, Small is Beautiful 1973) → an asset that underpins human, social, manufactured and financial capitals, its qualities of mobility, silence and invisibility defying economic measurement, exposing it to unregulated human activities
1973		global average life expectancy exceeds 60 years by 1973 → 70 years by 2008 and rising for all countries; strengthening link to affluence, which drives down natural capital
1975		fraction of world adult population overweight or obese (BMI > 25 kg/m²) rises above 20% by 1975 → 39% by 2016; 1 billion obese by 2022, rising fastest in the young
1975		first personal computer: Altair 8800 (John Blankenbaker, USA, 1975), word processing software by 1976, spreadsheets by 1979 → digital media beginning to replace paper and celluloid by the end of the 20ᵗʰ century
1975		first global commitment to cross-border environmental protection: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES, 1975) → illegal trade still threatening wildlife and human health
1977		indigenous Green Belt Movement (Wangari Maathai, Kenya, 1977), combatting poverty with environmental conservation → Great Green Wall movement by 2007; set to become the largest living structure on the planet?
1978		first human born on the Antarctic mainland (Esperanza Base, Argentina , 7/1/1978) → continuous human settlement of every continent on Earth
1978		first human born from in vitro fertilisation (IVF, UK, 1978) → ethical issues of selecting amongst genome-sequenced embryos
1979		completion of the Standard Model (1979), combining quantum mechanics with special relativity to explain how elementary particles determine the composition of all perceived matter and all its governing forces except gravitation
1980		global eradication of smallpox (WHO, 1980), after it kills 300 million people and one-third of those infected during the 20ᵗʰ century, the only infectious disease of humans to be eradicated by vaccination; ongoing return risk
1981		first diagnosis of AIDS (USA, 1981) → identification of causal HIV by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, France, 1983; global epidemic killing 36 million by 2021; scaleable options for prevention by 2024
1982		international moratorium on commercial whaling (IWC, agreed 1982, enforced 1986): power of people, unified by non-governmental organisations, to drive worldwide change
1982		adoption of the World Charter for Nature (UN, 1982, only USA voting against) recognising nature’s intrinsic value, establishing the imperative of keeping human activities within Earth’s limits
1983		activation of standardised Internet Protocol (USA, 1983) → transformative change in communication, with proliferation of email, file transfer, Internet forums, information sharing
1983		genetic engineering enters mainstream agriculture, then medicine, with patents for genetically modified crop plants (International Plant Research Institute, 1983), and transgenic animals (Harvard College, USA, OncoMouse 1988)
1984		first untethered spacewalk (Bruce McCandless, Challenger Space Shuttle 41-B, USA, 7/2/1984)
1985		discovery of a human-induced hole in the stratospheric ozone layer (1985) → increase in UV-B radiation at Earth’s surface, changing climate, causing DNA damage to phytoplankton and plants; potential forest sterility and skin cancers
1985		first aircraft to fly on another planet: VeGa balloons in the cloud system of Venus (USSR + 8 European countries, 1985) → Earth’s evil twin, yet potential for life in the clouds?
1985		discovery of the enzyme telomerase controlling cellular ageing (Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, USA, 1985) → eternal lifespan of cancer cells
1986		beginnings of continuous colonisation of space, in low Earth orbit (Mir Space Station, USSR, 20/2/1986) → International Space Station from 2/11/2000
1986		first useful algorithm for deep learning, in which many copies of the same model of the world all learn separately and share instantly (David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton, Ronald Williams USA, 1986) → birth of artificial intelligence: AI
1986		*global population of humans passes 5 billion*; annual energy use per person averages 18,300 kWh, 26× the resting metabolism
1987		global agreement to ban hydrochlorofluorocarbons and other ozone depleting substances (Montreal Protocol, 1987), the only UN protocol to be ratified by every country on Earth → punctuated recovery of stratospheric ozone, slowing Earth’s warming
1987		sustainable development enters economics, as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Report 1987) → ecosystems as capital assets, economies as systems embedded within nature
1988		first assessment that global climate warming has begun (James Hansen, Senate testimony to US Congress, 23/6/1988) → creation of the IPCC; by 1995, “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”
1989		invention of the World Wide Web information system (Tim Berners-Lee, UK, 1989) → birth of the Information Age
1990		spacecraft Voyager 1 photographs the sunlit Earth from a distance of 6 billion km (NASA, 14/2/1990): this Pale Blue Dot, our place in the cosmos
1990		launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA with ESA, 1990) → observing the birth of stars, growth of galaxies, prevalence of black holes, atmospheres of exoplanets
1992		first detection of exoplanets, orbiting a neutron star 2,300 light-years from Earth (Arecibo Observatory and NRAO, USA, 1992) → possibility of extra-terrestrial life on temperate and moist planets, perhaps feeding off radiolytic H₂; beings for whom we are aliens
1992		the Rio Earth Summit, Brazil, hosts the largest gathering of world leaders as of 1992, for intergovernmental collaboration on the environment, climate change, desertification
1992		global commitment by nation states to conservation of biodiversity, and sustainable use and equitable sharing of its benefits (UN Convention on Biological Diversity: CBD, 1992) → ratified by every country except the USA
1992		first Internet server for streaming media (StarWorks, 1992) → rise of live and on-demand video and audio streaming during the 2000s; personalisation of entertainment and nostalgia
1993		tuning of enzyme functions by directed evolution (Frances Arnold, USA, 1993) → accelerated evolution; environmentally friendly production of pharmaceuticals and renewable fuels
1994		launch of online marketplace Amazon.com (Jeff Bezos, USA, 1994) → world’s largest cloud-computing platform
1995		observation of Bose-Einstein condensate (NIST, USA, 1995), a quantum state of lowest-energy particles at near-zero K, and fifth fundamental state of matter → quantum mechanical description of gravity?
1995		first successful corporate litigation on climate change (Pakistan, 1995) → first climate ruling from an international court of human rights by 2024; potential to affect climate governance
1995		peak of global marine fishery catch, at 130 million tonnes during 1995 → thereafter diminishing returns for a still expanding global fishery; need for an equitable ocean commons
1995		collapse of Indian vulture populations, mid-1990s, poisoned by diclofenac painkiller in livestock carcasses → carrion left uncleaned by vultures, causing 500,000 human deaths from 2000-2005
1996		first cloned mammal (Dolly the sheep, Roslin Institute, UK, 1996) → cloning of human stem cells from embryos by 2013 in pursuit of novel therapies; moral, ethical, and social dilemmas
1996		first practical solar-powered aircraft (Icaré 2, Germany, 1996) → race for clean-energy applications; gradually emerging political vision for weaning off fossil fuels
1997		first robotic rover lands on Mars and measures surface composition (NASA’s Sojourner, 4/7/1997) → Mars Express spacecraft finds liquid water in 2018, conducive to life and to human colonisation
1997		first experimental demonstration of quantum teleportation (Institut für Experimentalphysik, Austria, 1997), over any distance → holographic wormhole by 2022
1997		adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by 192 countries (UNFCCC, 1997), binding 37 industrialised and industrialising countries plus the EU to targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions → still rising by 2021
1998		creation of Google search technology, as a student project (Larry Page and Sergey Brin, USA, 1998) → free to use, efficient knowledge-search engine; profit from mining personal data; pay-per-click business model
2000		ongoing and accelerating rise in global mean sea level exceeds 3 mm/year by 2000, regulated by thermal expansion, ice-mass loss and large-scale dams → no scenario that stops sea-level rise this century
2000		first legal recognition of same-sex marriage (The Netherlands, 2000) → legal in 32 countries by 2022
2001		launch of Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, USA, 15/1/2001), collating knowledge as a common good → world’s largest work of general reference, open to editing by registered users
2001		first draft sequence of the human genome: c. 25,000 genes in 3 billion base pairs (Whitehead Institute, USA, + 23 institutes, 2001), completed 2003; 500,000 human genomes by 2023 → Human Cell Atlas; gene therapy
2001		first space tourist (Dennis Tito, USA, with the Russian space programme to the International Space Station, 2001) → race to commercialise space travel by 2021
2001		terrorist attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon (USA, 11/9/2001) → accelerating globalisation of jihadi networks instigated in the 1980s, and counter-terrorism strategies
2002		calory deficit afflicts 13% of the global population in the year 2002 → 7.5% by 2017, subsequently rising; climate change exacerbating undernourishment and obesity
2003		a heatwave across Europe causes 70,000 additional deaths in summer 2003, then with a return time of thousands of years → 100 years by 2015; rising frequency of record-shattering climate extremes, including marine heatwaves
2003		globally agreed enforcement of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CBD, 2003), governing translocation of living genetically modified organisms that threaten biodiversity
2004		launch of online social networking service Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg, USA, 2004) → 2 billion users by 2017; rise in conspiracy theories with reorientation of online exchanges from information to values
2005		global adoption of the principle that nation states have responsibility to protect their citizens from mass atrocities, and that failure to do so must trigger collective international action (R2P, UN World Summit, 2005)
2006		launch of microblogging service Twitter (Jack Dorsey, USA, 2006) → 500 million tweets per day by 2013; one-to-many echo chambers; rise of free-to-use platforms monetising personal data through advertising
2007		human urban population exceeds half the global population for the first time in history → urban wealth sustained by international trade that drives rural impoverishment; strengthening relation of fertility to poverty
2007		worldwide adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN, 2007) to be free and equal to all other peoples, supported by 182 nation states
2007		Great Recession (2007-9), free-fall of developed economies synchronised by global integration of markets; need for regulatory oversight
2008		first smartphone apps (iPhone App Store, 2008) → smartphones achieve global ubiquity faster than any other medium of communication in human history; social media and fandom, with no stewardship of global collective behaviour
2008		first national constitution to recognise rights of nature (Ecuador, 2008); first statutory law granting rights to nature, Bolivia 2010 → departure from nature as property
2008		first country to legislate for a circular economy (China, 2008): reduce, reuse, recycle → national roadmaps by 2016; need for global initiatives
2009		launch of first cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer medium of exchange by blockchain (Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009), neither requiring government support nor rule of law → vast carbon footprint from mining digital coins
2009		growth of the middle-class: by 2009 more than half the world’s population has at least a third of their income available for discretionary spending after food and shelter
2009		humanity is overstepping three planetary boundaries to a safe operating space: climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen cycle → risk of abrupt ecological disruption and hothouse Earth; need for planetary stewardship
2009		nations that grew rich on fossil fuels commit climate finance to poorer nations (UNFCCC, 2009), worth one-tenth of annual oil and gas industry royalties by 2020 → inadequate and unmet; repurposed for loss and damage in 2022, tripled in 2024
2009		resolution by 192 countries that humanity can and should live in harmony with nature (UN, 2009) → UN visions for sustainable development (2015) and biodiversity (2022), with harmony as dynamic attribute not ideal state
2010		creation of first self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell (J. Craig Venter Institute, USA, 2010): dawn of gene synthesis → xenobots for intravenous drug delivery by 2020, self-replicating by 2021
2010		global agreement to implement 20 biodiversity targets by 2020 (CBD, 2010), to address causes of biodiversity loss, reduce pressures on biodiversity, safeguard ecosystems and their services → failure completely on 14, partially on 6
2011		international resolution against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (UN, 2011) → homosexuality legal in 133 of 195 countries by 2019, rising trend; recognition of a sex spectrum
2011		number of liberal and elected democracies in the world peaks at 101 in 2011, encompassing 55% of the global population
2011		two-thirds of the global population in 2011 have access to safe drinking water, a necessary condition for wellbeing → three-quarters by 2020, possibly much less; imperilled by pollution, safeguarded by community-technology partnerships
2012		observation of Higgs boson: a fundamental force-carrier particle (CERN Large Hadron Collider, 4/7/2012) → validation of the Standard Model of particle physics
2012		more than half the world’s population tunes in to television coverage of the London Summer Olympics (2012)
2012		invention of CRISPR-Cas9 technology (Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, USA, 2012) → accurate, fast and cheap editing of genes and gene mutations in any organism, including – unethically – viable human embryos
2012		first human-made object escapes our Solar System and enters interstellar space, 18 billion km from the Sun (Voyager 1, 25/8/2012)
2013		atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ exceed 400 ppm for the first time in at least 3 million years (NOAA, Hawaii, 5/2013), an accelerating rise dominated by fossil-fuel emissions → race for technologies to capture and use CO₂ and to bury biomass
2014		globally agreed enforcement of the Nagoya Protocol, on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilisation (CBD, 2014), a legal framework for informed consent and benefit-sharing
2015		invention of the optical lattice clock (Hidetoshi Katori, Japan, 2015) → accuracy of 1 second in 15 billion years; ticking detectably faster with each centimetre of altitude, as predicted by general relativity
2015		a fishing boat sinks off the Mediterranean coast of Libya with the loss of 1,050 lives (18/4/2015), amongst 65 million people forcibly displaced worldwide in 2015
2015		tipping point in industry-wide momentum towards electric vehicles during mid-2010s, when still comprising 2% of market share, spread by investor confidence under strengthening regulation of fossil fuels
2015		three trillion trees on Earth (2015, cf. 6.6 trillion at the start of human civilisation), 15 billion culled annually → forest covering a quarter of global land area, declining in extent and diversity, driven down by commodity production, wildfires, urbanisation
2015		detection of gravitational waves (LIGO and Virgo interferometers, 2015): ripples in spacetime generated by merging black holes, predicted by the theory of general relativity

IV. PLANETARY STEWARDSHIP 9. Sustainability Revolution
CE 2015		UN General Assembly of 194 countries adopts 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, to end poverty and other deprivations by improving health and education, reducing inequalities, addressing climate change and halting biodiversity loss (25/9/2015) → none on track by 2023
2015		UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change resolves to keep global average temperature to well below 2°C in excess of pre-industrial levels, and strives to limit the increase to 1.5°C (12/12/2015) → benefits outweigh costs; by 2022, no credible pathway to 1.5°C, risking climate tipping points; 2023 global stocktake calls for radical decarbonisation
2015		human land use, rising exponentially up to 1960, still rising in 2015 for livestock grazing (27% of global land area), crops (7%), buildings, towns and cities (1%); industrial fishing in 55% of ocean area by 2015
2016		coldest ground surface temperature on Earth: −110.9°C (central-eastern Antarctica , 2016); once temperate rainforests , now dry and salty antarctic soils uninhabitable even to microbes
2016		destruction of more than 6 million ha (60,000 km²) of tropical primary forest during 2016, an unprecedented peak in a rising trend → private profits from drawing down natural capital, a down payment on future economic ruin for all
2016		global land and ocean surface temperature reaches 0.99°C above the 1951-1980 mean, Earth’s warmest year on record as of 2016 → roadmap for decarbonisation, implicating lifestyle choices
2017		first national legislation for a mid-century target of net-zero emissions (Sweden, 2017) → net-zero pledges by governments and companies cover 90% of the global economy by 2021, with big emitters yet to peak; Bhutan and Suriname CO₂-negative since before 2015
2017		accumulation since 1957 of 23,000 space objects bigger than an apple, travelling at up to 28,000 km/hr in Earth orbit → 100,000 by 2034; debris risk to satellites and space stations, a problem for government space agencies of their own making
2017		accumulation of plastic waste since 1950 exceeds 5 billion tonnes in landfills and the natural environment by 2017, more than 12× global human biomass → pervasive microplastics across the globe; paucity of options for mitigating harm
2018		sixfold increase in annual ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland over 25 years to 2018 → sea levels to rise 40-80 cm by 2100 under scenarios of low-high greenhouse-gas emissions, displacing 190-630 million people, possibly many times more
2018		slowing Atlantic circulation over the last 60 years, consistent with rising CO₂, enhancing global surface warming
2018		hottest ground surface temperature on Earth: 80.8°C (Lut Desert, Iran , 2018; Sonoran Desert, Mexico , 2019), too hostile for plant life
2018		human activities have modified three-quarters of ice-free land and almost nine-tenths of the ocean by 2018; Earth’s remaining wildernesses become increasingly vital buffers against climate change
2018		first commercial taxi service of fully self-driving cars (Google-Waymo, USA, 2018) → reducing traffic accidents, raising social dilemmas
2018		half the global population using the Internet by 2018 → escape from state-controlled media; access to denial, fake news, deepfakes, falsehoods, lies and misinformed narratives, for fringe groups seeking inflammatory content
2019		first image of a black hole (Event Horizon Telescope, 10/4/2019), 55 million light-years from Earth, 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun, with spiralling magnetic fields, expelling jets of matter
2019		first global assessment of biodiversity finds 1 million of Earth’s 8 million species threatened by accelerating extinction rates (IPBES, 2019): Earth’s sixth mass extinction imperils humanity’s life support systems, calling for transformative change in human activities
2019		Britain generates more electricity from zero-carbon sources than from fossil fuels for the first time since the Industrial Revolution (UK National Grid, 6/2019); fossil fuels still provide 84% of global primary energy
2019		energy use per person during 2019 exceeds the resting metabolism by 30× globally, and by 114× for citizens of the USA (cf. 15× for an elite athlete running a marathon)
2019		acidification of almost all open-ocean surface by absorption of anthropogenic CO₂, losing 0.02 pH units per decade since 1990, harming shell-forming species; ocean liming a potential geoengineering solution
2019		first synthetic human embryos (University of Michigan, USA, 2019): models of earliest-stage embryos each created from a stem cell, growing to develop a body axis → need for ethical and legal boundaries
2019		first global climate strike (20/9/2019), led by school children and joined by millions of people with justified concerns → world scientists warn of a climate emergency; growing eco-anxiety
2019		first demonstration of quantum supremacy over conventional computers (Google AI Quantum, USA, 2019) → double-exponential growth in computing power; quantum internet
2019		first case of COVID-19 (Wuhan wildlife market, China , 1/12/2019), caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 → pandemic triggering unprecedented lockdown of nations and societies worldwide, shrinking the global economy, deepening inequalities; largest vaccination programme in history begins 8/12/2020 after 5.7 million excess deaths
2019		inauguration of US Space Force (20/12/2019), formalising competition for military dominance in space; UK follows in 2021 → surveillance extending to stewardship and warfare capabilities
2019		rising frequency of weather-related disasters multiplies global economic losses 7.8× from the 1970s to the 2010s, disproportionately impoverishing the poor; early-warning systems reduce deaths by two-thirds
2020		One Trillion Trees Initiative (World Economic Forum, 2020), planting trees in support of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2020-2030 → nature-based climate solutions
2020		first combat deployment of lethal drones with fully autonomous decision-making (Libyan Government, 2020) → need for a ban on all slaughterbots: robots that select and kill without human supervision
2020		launch of first commercial space taxi (SpaceX, 30/5/2020), taking NASA astronauts to the International Space Station
2020		highest recorded air temperature on Earth: 54.4°C in Death Valley (California, USA , 16/8/2020); emergence of intolerable heat, particularly for urban populations, exacerbated by air conditioning, mitigated by greenery
2020		leaders of 96 countries and the EU pledge to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 (Leaders Pledge for Nature, 2020): commitment to nature positive government, business and civil society
2020		protein structures accurately predicted by an artificial intelligence network: AlphaFold (DeepMind, USA, 2020) → accelerated understanding of protein functions; rapid advances in drug design
2020		first commercial sales of cultivated meat (Singapore, 2020) → potential to keep food systems within planetary limits by slashing emissions of methane and demand for land and water
2020		human-made materials surpass Earth’s total living biomass by 2020, predominantly as concrete infrastructure, doubling in mass every 20 years since 1900 → our material contribution to the Anthropocene Epoch
2020		global land and ocean surface temperature for 2020 exceeds 1°C above the 1951-1980 mean for the first time, 1.2°C above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline, with 2011-2020 the 4ᵗʰ decade in succession to claim warmest average temperature
2020		ambient temperature in the Arctic exceeds the 1981-2010 average by 2.1°C in 2020, warming 4× faster than the rest of the world; permafrost thawing self-amplifies to the point of no return; Arctic zombie wildfires release 4× the CO₂ emissions of global volcanic activity
2020		melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets drives one-quarter of all sea-level rise by 2020, up from one-twentieth in 1990 → record low southern hemisphere sea ice extent in February 2023
2020		accelerating Earth energy imbalance doubles the heat in the climate system from 2005 to 2020, nine-tenths stored in the ocean → global sea surface in April 2023 the hottest in 100,000 years, air in July 2023 the hottest in the northern hemisphere for 2,000 years
2021		first powered, controlled flight on another planet: Ingenuity Helicopter drone on Mars (NASA’s Perseverance rover , 19/4/2021), hovering 3 m above the Jezero Crater
2021		spacecraft Parker Solar Probe touches the Sun’s corona (NASA, 28/4/2021): sampling its outer atmosphere
2021		worldwide acceleration of glacier melt, now at twice the speed of 20 years ago → explaining one-fifth of the rate and acceleration in sea-level rise during the 21ˢᵗ century
2021		tropical forests in south-eastern Amazonia switch from CO₂ sink to source by 2021, linked to intensifying dry seasons, deforestation and rising frequency of fires
2021		Earth’s hottest month on record (NOAA, July 2021), until June-July 2023: rising frequency of climate anomalies → need for actions to trigger positive tipping towards global sustainability through self-reinforcing shifts in behaviour
2021		human activities have unequivocally warmed atmosphere, ocean and land, intensifying heatwaves, droughts and floods; global warming will exceed 2°C without immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions (IPCC, 2021): a reality check for policy makers
2021		pledge to end deforestation by 2030, signed by 141 countries, covering 90% of Earth’s forests (UN COP 26 Climate Conference, 2/11/2021) → uneven progress; need for enforcement mechanisms
2021		commitment by 103 countries to curb emissions of methane (Global Methane Pledge, 2/11/2021): a potent greenhouse gas approaching triple preindustrial levels; emissions catalysed by global warming?
2021		global agreement to nearly halve CO₂ emissions by 2030 relative to 2010, and to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century (UN COP 26 Glasgow Climate Pact, 13/11/2021) → need for policies to match the science
2021		the world ocean reaches its hottest ever recorded as of 2021, for the third year and seventh decade in a row, contributing to coral bleaching and sea-level rise; fuelling marine heatwaves, cyclones and hurricanes
2021		clean power accounts for more than one-third of global electricity supply in 2021, with wind and solar sources alone contributing one-tenth
2021		launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (NASA, ESA, CSA, 2021) → exploring the early Universe, star births and deaths and galactic evolution, analysing exoplanet atmospheres for signs of life
2022		global cost-of-living crisis initiated by demand for resources exceeding supply, intensified by Russia invading Ukraine (24/2/2022), threatening worldwide food and energy security
2022		human and natural populations are reaching limits to climate adaptation, from poles to equator , mountains to sea (IPCC, 2022): diminishing opportunities to secure a liveable future for all by strengthening nature
2022		time has almost run out for averting global climate catastrophe (IPCC, 2022): mitigation still cheaper than adaptation, by switching immediately and comprehensively to carbon-free energy and carbon capture from air and ocean
2022		the number of people forcibly displaced reaches 100 million worldwide (UNHCR, 2022), of which c. 40 million refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons are displaced by conflict and violence; weather disasters in SE Asia 2010-2021 displace 58 million
2022		one-fifth of the global population depends directly on one or more of fifty thousand wild species for food or livelihood (IPBES, 2022): sustainable use must confront the globally accelerating loss of biodiversity
2022		fifty ways to value nature, in diverse opportunities for living from, with, in, and as nature (IPBES, 2022); a narrow focus of policy-makers on value to economic growth drives down biodiversity
2022		unprecedented successive years with declining global value of Human Development Index (UN-DP, 2022): climate change and Covid-19 impacting education, income, life expectancy
2022		record-breaking heatwaves, heralding extreme droughts in China and western Europe, and flooding in Pakistan that displaces 33 million people
2022		tumbling costs of green energy reach parity with fossil fuels by 2022 → economic motivation for shifting faster to renewable energy, with net-zero CO₂ emissions feasible in principle within 10-20 years
2022		a spacecraft alters the course of an asteroid (NASA, 2022), demonstrating potential to save Earth from an asteroid hit
2022		first publicly accessible dialogue bot: ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2022): an AI language model, not an oracle; problem of distinguishing its disembodied articulation of trawled content from reasoned argument, with implications for scholarship and creativity
2022		achievement of nuclear-fusion ignition (National Ignition Facility, USA, 2022): proof of concept for limitless fusion energy
2022		global agreement to protect biodiversity for 30% of Earth’s land and sea by 2030, and to reduce extinction rate and risk tenfold for all species by 2050 (CBD, 2022) → need for adequate funding and climate action
2023		humans and our livestock achieve respectively 20× and 30× the biomass of all terrestrial wild mammals by 2023 → imperative of shifting towards plant-based diets, co-benefitting forests, climate change and health
2023		global agreement on the High Seas Treaty (UN, 2023), enforcing protection of 30% of the world’s seas by 2030 with restrictions on fishing, deep-sea mining and shipping lanes
2023		publication of a survival guide for climate-resilient development (IPCC, 2023) in the face of temperature and flood extremes, jeopardising biodiversity and food-, water- and energy-security
2023		safe and just Earth system boundaries now surpassed for climate, freshwater, biosphere functioning, natural-ecosystem extent, phosphorous and nitrogen cycles (Earth Commission, 2023) → global tipping point threats and opportunities; need for intergenerational and interspecies justice
2023		call by 198 countries for a global transition away from fossil fuels for energy, and tripling of renewable-energy capacity by 2030 (UN UAE Consensus, 2023) → need for mechanisms to finance the transitions
2023		warmest year on record for global surface sea and air temperatures (2023), 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels, amid still-rising greenhouse gases and start of El Niño: heatwaves and wildfires; record shrinkage of Antarctic sea-ice following extraordinary absorbtion of heat by the world’s oceans
2023		frequency of extreme wildfires more than doubles globally from 2003 to 2023
2024		planet-wide mass bleaching of corals, after global average sea-surface temperatures break records every day for over a year (2/2023-4/2024)
2024		over one-quarter of the world population is food insecure (FAO, 2024), while one-third of global food production is lost or wasted: subsidies reward inefficiency, markets profit from waste
2024		global sea-level rise unprecedented in 3,000 years and accelerating (UN, 2024), currently impacting coastal communities and low-lying island nations → threats to major coastal cities
2024		still globally rising fossil fuel emissions and rates of deforestation trigger amplifying feedback loops that denude nature and imperil the fabric of life; reliance on CO₂ removal courts disaster
2024		nations that grew rich on fossil fuels commit increased finance to poorer nations by 2035 (UN, 2024), for climate mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage: cash spent now saves far more in later costs for rich nations

I. COSMOLOGICAL ANTECEDENTS
13,800,000,000	Big Bang singularity: cosmic inflation, creation of all particles of matter and counterpart antimatter, and the laws of physics governing their interactions; expansion and cooling of space, emergence of the first elements → formation of the observable Universe, its galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, moons, asteroids and comets
13,550,000,000	ignition of hydrogen stars, bathing the Universe in first light of cosmic dawn → helium in stars fusing into carbon, leading to stellar nucleosynthesis of all elements; earliest galaxies and black holes forming 290 million and 400 million years after the Big Bang
13,000,000,000	aggregation of stars into the Milky Way galaxy: now a warped spiral disc of 100 billion stars, one of 200 billion galaxies in the observable Universe
12,200,000,000	earliest water: an interstellar vapour, and repository for oxygen
4,570,000,000	formation of the Sun and Solar System within the Milky Way, orbiting a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, at its Galactic Centre every 220 million years
4,510,000,000	formation of the Moon from a massive impact of protoplanet Theia with proto-Earth, during chaotic instability of the giant planets
4,500,000,000	formation of planet Earth with 510 million km² of surface area, orbiting the Sun on a yearly cycle, rotating eastward on a day-night cycle around a tilted axis that perpetuates opposing polar seasons
4,400,000,000	formation of Earth’s oceans and moist atmosphere, protected from solar wind and cosmic rays by Earth’s magnetosphere generated by its iron core
4,400,000,000	earliest subduction of Earth’s crust → continental plate tectonics by at least 3.5 billion years ago, unique to Earth in the Solar System; continuously shifting plate boundaries
4,300,000,000	basaltic rock glass catalyses formation of RNA (Hadean Eon): long-strand molecules carrying information across self-replicating generations and synthesising peptides → pre-biotic RNA world ?