Mencius, Man's Nature Is Good • Hsun Tzu, Man's Nature Is Evil
Hsun Tzu, Encouraging Learning
Qin Dynasty established in China. Rule guided primarily by Legalist philosophy
Han Dynasty founded. Rule guided by a mixture of Legalist and Confucian philosophies 2nd-1st centuries bce Buddhism spreads to China
49 bce Beginning of civil war that ends the Roman Republic and leads
to the Roman Empire
30 bce Rome conquers Egypt
ca. 6 Birth of Jesus
90 New Testament
ca. 100 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura • Epictetus, To Those Who
Fear Want
131-134 Jewish revolt against Roman rule; Jews expelled from Palestine
200-350 Introduction and spread of Christianity in North Africa
4th-6th centuries Clans ally to form Yamato, precursor of Japanese state 330 Constantine moves capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium
and renames it Constantinople 367 Final canon of the New Testament of the Bible established
395 Roman Empire divided into the Eastern and Western Empires
426 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine
476 Last emperor of the Western Empire deposed
ca. 500 Boethius, Of Music
500-1495 Rise of the West African savanna empires
550-700 Asuka period in Japan develops around the rule of the Yamato clan.
Buddhism introduced to the Japanese archipelago by way of Korea 570 ce Birth of Mohammed
610-1000 Introduction and spread of Islam in East and West Africa
610-632 Period of Mohammed's prophesy, the growth of his following,
350 bce 331-330 bce 330-323 bce
300 bce
250 bce 221-207 bce
206 bce-220 ce
his flight to Medina, and his return to Mecca 800 Po-Chu-I, The Flower Market
The Samanids, the first Persian Muslim dynasty, become hereditary governors of eastern Iran and central Asia Lady Murasaki Shikibu, On the Art of the Novel
European Crusades to regain Christian control of the Holy Lands
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Ottoman rulers gradually establish the last great Islamic dynasty to rule in the Middle East. They dominate the region until World War II
Rise of the Kongo kingdom on the lower Zaire
Hundred Years' War between France and England
Laurentius de Voltolina, Liber Ethicorum des Henricus de Alemania
Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies
Constantinople falls to the Turks, increasing dissemination of Greek culture in western Europe
Columbus lands in America
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Erasmus, Against War
Luther's Ninety-five Theses denounce abuses of the Roman Church
Henry VIII breaks with Rome and becomes head of the Church of England
Atlantic slave trade
Colony founded by Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan • Abraham Bosse, Frontispiece of
Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan
Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman
Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to the Interior
John Locke, Of Ideas
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, La Respuesta
William Hogarth, Gin Lane
Seven Years' War, involving nine European powers
Edmund Burke, The Sublime and Beautiful
Joseph Wright of Derby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
819-1005 1000
1096-1290
1265-1274 1281-1924
1300-1500 1338-1453 1350
1405 1453
1492 1513 1515 1517
1534
late 16th-mid 19th centuries 1620 1651
ca. 1666
1690
1751
1756-1763
1757
1768
1775-1783 1785
American War of Independence; Declaration of Independence James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
French Revolution begins. French National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man
William Blake, The Tyger
Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
William Paley, Natural Theology
Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read
John Henry Newman, Knowledge Its Own End
Charles Darwin, Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest
American Civil War. Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the Confederate States of America
Meiji restoration in Japan overthrows the Tokugawa Shogunate and results in rapid modernization
Phrenology Chart
Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?
Boxer Rebellion in China in response to the European presence. The combined response of the European powers and Japan is something of the world's first international peacekeeping mission
Japan becomes the first Asian power to defeat a Western nation, when it wins the Russo-Japanese War
China is thrown into decades of chaos when the Qing Dynasty is overthrown and the last emperor is deposed
World War I in Europe and the colonies. The United States enters in 1917
Mohandas Gandhi, Economics and Moral Progress
Russian Revolution overthrows the Romanov Dynasty Rabindranath Tagore, To Teachers
American stock market crash heralds beginning of world economic crisis; Great Depression lasts until 1939 • Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare's Sister
Carl Jung, The Red Book
Adolf Hitler given dictatorial powers in Germany
Ruth Benedict, The Individual and the Pattern of Culture
1789
1794 1798 1802 1830 1845 1852 1859
1861-1865 1868
1891
1896
1899-1902
1904-1905 1911
1914-1918
1917 1923 1929
ca. 1930
1934
1936-1938
1937 1939 ca. 1940
xxiv
Timeline 1789 TO ca. 1940
Spanish Civil War. After the Nationalist side prevails against the Republican side, Francisco Franco is installed as dictator Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother Pablo Picasso, Guernica • Japan invades China Germany invades Poland, pulling all of Europe into war Simone Weil, Equality