Events in Science
& History
( BC )
About 15000-10000:
The world warms out of the latest ice Age. Cave paintings.
About 120000: Dog domesticated.
10000: World human population
3 million
About 8000: Invention of
trace tokens (early money), agraculture. Pottery.
About 6000: Development
of imgation. Weaving.
About 4500: Copper smelting.
About 3500: Invention of
writing & the wheel.
About 3000: Egyptians use
sailing ships. Bronze in widespread use. Pyramid of Giza built. Stonehenge first
stage built. Population 100 million.
-----------------------------------------
About 2500: Beaker people
spread s across Europe
About 2000: Rise of Babylon.
Stonehenge stone circles added. Spoked wheels developed in Asia Minor. Minon civilization
flowers in Crete.
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About 1800: The first alphabet.
Babylonlan use myltiplication table.
1700: Judaism founded by Abraham
About 1650: Volcanic
Island of Santorini (Thora) explodes; probable source of Atlantis legend. Bronze
ploughs in use in Vietnam.
-----------------------------------------
About 1500: Chinese writing.
About 1300: Excodus of jews
from Egypt.
About 1200: Iron working
developed. Trojan Wars.
878: Carthage founded.
About 800: Olmec pyramids
built in Mexico. Homer writes The LLiad.
776: First Olympiad.
710: Egypt conquered by
Ethiopian invaders.
About 600: Greek science
begins. Aesop writes his fables. Chinese invent funigation of houses to ddestroy
pests.
-----------------------------------------
605-562: Nebuchadnezzar
creates Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
585 BC: Thales of Miletus
correctly predicts a solar eclipse
565: Taoism founded.
538: Persians conquer Babylon.
528: Beginning of Buddhism
in India.
525: Persians conquerEgypt.
About 520 Anaximander
devises a cylindrical model of the Earth.
500: The idea that matter
is made up of fundamental, indivisible particles arises in Greek thought, giving
us the word 'atom', from the Greek atomos. Pythagorians
teach that the Earth is a sphere
-----------------------------------------
About 500: Pythagoreans
argue that the Earth is a sphere. Steel manufactured in India.
490: Greeks defeat Persians
at Marathon.
478: Athenian empire is
established.
470: Socrates born
450: Empedocles proposes
the four element idea.
430:
Plato born. Democritus of Abodera develops the idea that everything is made of
atoms.
4th Century: The chinese
philosopher Hui Shih introduces the idea of the 'small unit', the smallest possible
evtity that can exist in nature, with nothing inside itself.
-----------------------------------------
348: Plato writes The
Republic
340: Philip II of Marcedonia
rules in Greece.
336:
Alexander the Great succeeds Philip.
323: Alexander dies after
conquering most of the known world.
312: First aqueduct built
to bring water to Rome.
300: Alexandra Museum built.
Third Century: Euclid gathers
together the knowledge of the time & writes it down: this knowledge includes
the geometric ideas now known as Euclidian geometry, which formed the basis of
mathematical teaching in many places until well into teh 20th century.
-----------------------------------------
280: Colossus of Rhodes
completed.
265: Archimedes descovers
the laws of specific gravity (an object displaces its own weight when floating
in water).
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264: First Punic War (between
Rome & Carthage) begins.
About 260: Construction
of Great Wall of China begins.
250: Archimedes establishes
the basics of mechanics & hydrostatics.
240: Chinese astronomers
observe Halley's Coment - the earliest recorded visit of the coment
-----------------------------------------
About 235: Eratosthenes
correctly calculates the size of the Earth
218: Hannibal crosses the
Alps.
About 200: Growth
of the Roman Empire.
165: Chinese astronomers
record sunspots - first accurately dated observations.
146: Rome destroys Carthage
after taking over Greece.
About 140: Invention
of paper in China. Venus de milo sculpted, artist unknown.
About 100: Great
Wall of China completed. Chinese ships visit east coast of India, navigating
with the aid of the magnetic compass (lodestone).
-----------------------------------------
54: Julius Caesar invades
Britain
46: Julian Calander bought
into use in the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar. In order to bring the calendar
back in line with the seasons, the year 46BC has 445 days in it.
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44: Major eruptions of Mount
Etna. Volcanic pollution blocks sunlight & cools the Earth, causing crop failures
in China. Julius Caesar killed. Roman conquest of Britain begins.
-----------------------------------------
40: Reign of Harold the
Great.
5: Christ born. World population
250 million.
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- Compiled by D. Brewer - April 2000