Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Potted History: the BC Years

  • Dinosaurs bite dust 10m BC
  • Lucy 2m BC
  • Cave paintings 50,000 BC
  • Pyramids
  • Confucius
  • Mesopotemians
  • 1500 BC Early Greek civilization
  • Babylonians & Egyptians
  • 1000BC Ionians develop basic geometry, mathematics & astronomy.
  • Euclid
  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Etruscans
  • 753 (21.4) Romulus & Remus found Rome.
  • 550 (approx) Buddhism originated in India by Gautama.
  • 479BC Confucius died
  • 323 Death of Alexander the Great, aged 32, after conquoring most of the East.'Living God'. Major influence on Eastern & Western religions.
  • c300 Roman republic
  • 221BC First united Chinese Empire under Qin Shi Huangdi.
  • Cleopatra
  • 49 Roman republic becomes Empire under Julius Ceasar
  • 44 Julius Caesar killed by Brutus
  • 44-31 Triumpherate, Mark Antony. Octavius. Carassis rule empire.
  • 43 BC Cicero, orator, writer + Statesman dies.
  • 31 Gaius Octavius (Caesar Augustus - J.C. nephew) becomes Roman Emperor after defeating Mark Antony at Actium.

Potted History: 1900 to 2000ad

  • 1900 (30.11) Oscar Wilde dies in Paris
  • 1901 (1.1) Australia becomes a Federation. Before each state was seperate colony.
  • 1901 Marconi sends S from Newfoundland to Cornwal.
  • 1901 (21.1) Death of Queen Victoria-accession of Edward vii
  • 1901 Picasso's 1st exhibition in Paris.
  • 1902 (July) 1st Tour de France
  • 1903 Wright brothers fly
  • 1904 Puccini's opera Madam Butterfly premieres in Milan.
  • 1905 Einstein theory of relativity.
  • 1911 End of Chinese Empire.
  • 1910 Chanel opens salon in Rue Cambon.
  • 1912 Titanic sinks.
  • 1913 Apolphe Pegond jumps from aircraft at 200m & becomes 1st to successfully use parachute.
  • 1914 WW1
  • Klimt
  • 1916 1st battle of Somme. Lasted 5mths, 1million dead. Gained allies just 325 sq km.
  • 1917 (oct) Tzar Nicholas of Russia executed.
  • 1925 A.A. Milne writes Winnie-the-Pooh.
  • 1928 Mickey Mouse debuts in Steamboat Willie.
  • 1928 Philo Farnsworth invents electronic TV
  • 1929 Stock market crash.
  • End of Raj in India?
  • 1929 Arthur Ransome writes Swallows and Amazons
  • 1930? George Orwell writes 1984.
  • 1939-45 WW2
  • 1941 Orson Welles directs Citizen Kane.
  • 1941 (7.12) Pearl Harbor
  • 1941 (11.12) Hitler declares war on USA.
  • 1944 Allied forces liberate Paris after 4yrs of Nazi occupation.
  • 1945 (7.8) U.S. drops atom bombs on Hiroshima - 117 000 casualties.
  • 1945 (30.4) Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
  • 1947 Christian Dior introduces the New Look.
  • 1950s Eniac 1st computer.
  • 1951 Catholic church permits discussion of evolutionalist principles.
  • 1952 Coronation of Elizabeth 2nd
  • 1952 Edmond Hilary climbs Everest.
  • 1953 (25.12) Tangiwai disaster kills 151.
  • 1954 Roger Bannister 1st under 4min mile.
  • 1957 USSR launches Sputnic satellite.
  • 1959? Louis de Bernieres born.
  • 1961 Oral contraceptive becomes available in UK on national health.
  • 1961 (12.4) Uri Gagarin in space.
  • 1961 (13.8) Berlin Wall erected.
  • 1963 (28.8) Martin Luther King gives 'I have a dream' speach.
  • 1963 (23.11)JFK shot in Dallas.
  • 1965 First large unit of U.S. troops arrive in Vietnam.
  • 1967 Dr Christiaan Barnhard preforms first heart transplant.
  • 1968 Apollo 8 is launched on its way to man's 1st orbit of the moon.
  • 1969 Neil Armstrong on moon.
  • 1971 Coco Chanel died (b19.10.1883 Saumur, France)
  • 1972? Stanley Kubrick makes 2001
  • 1973 (8.4) Picasso dies age 92.
  • 1974 Nixon resigns after Watergate.
  • 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes 1st female P.M. of Britian
  • Berlin wall falls.
  • 1980 John Lennon murdered in New York.
  • 1984 Labour Government under David Lange defeated Muldoon's National government.
  • 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombed in Auckland harbour.
  • 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
  • 1993 U.S.A. enters war in the Middle East.
  • 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union - 11 of 12 former Republics proclaim birth of Commonwealth of Indep. States
  • 1997 Britain hands over Hong Kong to the Chinese.
  • 1999 (1.6) Estimated world popn. 6 billion.

Potted History: 1800 to 1900ad

  • 1800 Population of the world estimated at 1 billion.
  • 1814 Napoleon exiled to Elba - Burboun reign restored.
  • 1815 Napoleon defeated by British & Prussian forces at battle of Waterloo.
  • 1818 (to 1848) Emily Bronte.
  • 1819 Factory act passed in Britain - no children under 9, under 16 less than 12hrs per day in textile mills.
  • 1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile in St Helena.
  • Napolean III crowned.
  • 1831 (27.12) Darwin sets sail on Beagle for 5years.
  • 1837 Queen Victoria take throne. (1819-1901)
  • 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi signed.
  • 1840 Potato famine in Ireland begins (lasts through to 1851)
  • 1840 Deportation of convicts to Australia officially ends. ?
  • 1843 Hong Kong proclaimed a British crown colony.
  • 1844 Samuel Morse sends message from Washington to Baltimore.
  • 1846 Anesthetic 1st used in a Massachusetts Hospital.
  • 1851 (12.8) Isaac Singer granted patent on his Sewing Machine.
  • 1859 Darwin publishes 'Origins of the species'.
  • 1860 Paris commune.
  • 1861 - 1865 American civil war.
  • End of slavery in the USA.
  • 1864 Waikato Wars
  • 1865(26.5) end of U.S. Civil War.
  • 1867 Alfred Nobel demonstrates dynamite in England
  • Louis Pastor.
  • 1874 (b.30.11) - 1965 Winston Churchill
  • 1877 Edison records + plays back sound.
  • 1879 (1.1) Edison demonstrates light bulb.
  • 1880 Ned Kelly is wounded & captured.
  • 1881 (25.10) Pablo Picasso born in Malaga, Spain.
  • 1887 (12.8) Edison makes 1st sound recording of 'Mary had a little lamb'.
  • William Morris
  • Liberty opens in London.
  • Bell conducts 1st successful telephone experiments.
  • Charles Worth goes to Paris.
  • 1889 Eiffel Tower opened in Paris.
  • 1893-7 Penny Farthing the rage.
  • 1896 Marconi makes prototype radio

Potted History: 1000 to 1800ad

  • Richard Lion Heart comes to Rule Britain (French)
  • 1066 Battle of Hastings
  • 1066-87 Rule of William the Conqueror
  • 1076 Irnerius rediscovers the Roman Digest of Law in Bologne.
  • 1086 Doomsday book compiled for William the Conqueror.
  • 1098 after 5mth siege Antioch falls to Crusaders.
  • Ghengis Khan sweeps across Poland,Hungry defeating Europe's best.
  • 1215 King John signs Magna Carta granting more liberty to his barons.
  • 1314 Robert the Bruce crushes the English under Edward 11 at Battle of Bannockburn.
  • 1347 The Black Death hits Europe. In less than 20 years 1/2 popn. of Europe dead.
  • 1397 Medici start lending money internationally. Begins Italian Renaissance.
  • 1429 English are defeated by French forces lead by Joan of Arc at seige of Orleans.
  • 1450s Guttenburg develops 1st printing press.
  • ? First books printed in English by Caxton.
  • 1490s? Leonardo di Vinci
  • Templars stamped out by the French
  • 1492 Columbus discovers the Americas
  • 1509 Henry 8th ascends the throne.
  • Catherine of Aragon(d1536) - Mary1
  • Anne Bolyne(ex1536) -Elizabeth1
  • Jane Seymour(d1537) - Edward.vi
  • Anne of Cleves (d1557)
  • Catherine Howard (ex1542)
  • Catherine Parr (d 1548)
  • 1514 Copernia proposes that the earth rotates around the sun.
  • 1515? Luther nails list on church door
  • 1527? Death of Machiavelli.
  • 1531 Henry 8th breaks from Rome to form Church of England.
  • 1533 Atahualpa, king of the Inca, executed by Pizarro, after paying ransom of 1 room gold + 2 of silver
  • 1547 Death of Henry 8th (b1509)
  • 1547 Edward vi takes throne (1537-53)
  • 1553 Rule of 'Bloody' Queen Mary i. (1516-58)
  • 1558 Elizabeth i. reign. (1533-1603)
  • 1564 (21.4) Shakespeare born
  • 1566 French astrologer, physician & prophet Nostradamus dies.
  • 1587 Mary Queen of Scots beheaded
  • 1558 (23.7) British forces assemble to combat the Spanish Armarda.
  • 1591 Galileo takes up of Prof. of Mathematics of Padua.
  • 1603 James i (vi Scotland) takes crown. (1566-1625)
  • 1611 Henry Hudson, famous for trying to find Asian route via Arctic, set adrift in Hudson bay by mutineers.
  • 1613 The Globe Theatre burns down.
  • 1616 (18.4) Death of Shakespeare (51yrs)
  • 1619 First Africans brought to America by Dutch, the beginning of slavery.
  • 1620 (21.12) Pilgrims go ashore from the Mayflgwer at Plymouth.
  • 1625 Charles i. to throne. (1600-beheaded 1649)
  • 1644 Cromwell's forces defeat British royalists..
  • 1649 Charles ii.-restored 1660. (1630- 85)
  • 1653 (16.12) Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England Scotland + Ireland.
  • ?Reformation in England.
  • 1666 Fire of London.
  • 1688 William + Mary offered joint monarchy over England + Holland.
  • 1687 Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica, 20 years after apple.
  • The Mayflower
  • 1720s onward - good weather in Eng. for 30yrs.=popn. increase + slave trade money +.technology = industrial revolution.
  • 1753 Benjamin Franklin flew kite to prove lightning was electricity.
  • 1759 m2 chronometer perfected
  • 1765 Watt patents steam engine
  • 1767 James Hargreaves invents spinning jenny.
  • 1769 Cook 'discovers' New Zealand
  • American Declaration of Independence.
  • 1769? Napolean Bonaparte born in Corsica.
  • 1773 (16.12) American colonists stage Boston Tea Party.
  • 1775-1817 Jane Austen.
  • 1780s? Alessandro Volta produces 1st battery in Italy.
  • 1789 (14.7)The storming of the Bastille marks the start of the French revolution.
  • 1789 George Washington inaugurated,
  • 1792 (30.11) British & Americans sign peace articles in Paris ending American Revolution.
  • 1799? Napoleonic era
  • Victory in northern Italy , Austria
  • Victory (?) in Egypt.
  • French lose almost entire navy to English near Alexandria.
  • Napoleon named 1st consul
  • Crowned as Emperor.

Potted History: 0 to 1000ad

  • 14 Augustus dies aged 75 years.
  • 14 Tiberius becomes Roman Emperor. Died 16.3.37 aged 78, loathed by his people.
  • 33ish Ben Hur
  • 37 Gaius (Caligula) Roman Ruler aged 24 - assassinated 24.1.41
  • 37 Paul converted from persecutor of Christians to Missinary on the road to Damascus.&
  • 41 Claudius (b1.10.10bc)
  • 54 Death of Claudius - succession of his stepson Nero.
  • 60 Uprising against Romans in Britian lead by Boudicca.
  • 68 (8.6) end of Julio-Claudian line when Nero kills himself. Galba becomes Princeps.
  • 68-69 The year of 4 Caesars. Nero, Galba, Otho, then Vespasian.
  • 70 The great Temple in Jerusalem sacked by Roman troops, lead by Titus (son of Emporor Vespasian.)
  • 79 Vespasian dies & is succeeded by son Titus. (First time 'natural' succession)
  • 79 (24.8) Mt Vesuvius erupts.
  • 138 Hadrian dies.
  • 158 Taupo erupts
  • 408 Roman legions withdraw from Britannia.
  • 410 Collapse of Roman Empire with the sacking of Carthage.
  • 500 King Arthur (regional leader) resists invaders at battle of Mt Badgn (Dorset).
  • 622 Mohammed begins his flight from Mecca to Medina.
  • 700ish? founding of Islam
  • 711 Moors invade Spain.
  • 750 Charlemagne ressurects standards of learning through monasteries with 7 principles of learning
  • 860s onward. Beginning of the Viking invasion of England - which lead toward unification of kingdoms in resistance.
  • 900(approx) Invention of the plough.
  • 973 Edgar claims crown of England, Scotland & Isles. First United Kingdom.