Timelines
Explore interactive timelines by era. Click a period to jump.
Ancient
- c. 3100 BCE: Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt (Narmer)
- c. 776 BCE: First Olympic Games in Greece
- 509 BCE: Roman Republic established
- 221 BCE: Qin unifies China; Great Wall begins
Classical
- 508 BCE: Cleisthenes reforms Athens into a democracy
- 332 BCE: Alexander the Great conquers Egypt
- 44 BCE: Julius Caesar assassinated
- 30 BCE: Roman Empire begins under Augustus
Medieval
- 476 CE: Fall of the Western Roman Empire
- 1066: Norman conquest of England
- 1096: First Crusade begins
- 1215: Magna Carta sealed
Renaissance
- 1450: Gutenberg invents the movable-type printing press
- 1492: Columbus arrives in the Americas
- 1517: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses spark Reformation
- 1564: Birth of Galileo Galilei
Early Modern
- 1607: Jamestown founded in Virginia
- 1776: Declaration of Independence in America
- 1789: French Revolution begins
- 1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor
19th Century
- 1820: Missouri Compromise in U.S.
- 1861: American Civil War begins
- 1869: Completion of Transcontinental Railroad
- 1896: First modern Olympic Games in Athens
20th Century
- 1914: World War I begins
- 1945: United Nations founded
- 1969: Apollo 11 Moon landing
- 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall
21st Century
- 2001: Wikipedia launched
- 2008: Beijing hosts the Olympics
- 2020: COVID-19 pandemic declared by WHO
- 2021: James Webb Space Telescope launched