WORLD-HISTORY-TIMELINE

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• PICTURES IN TIME (PHOTOGRAPHY HISTORY)

Timeline

The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian dates from January 1, 1401 (MCDI) to December 31, 1500 (MD).

In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, and the early modern period. Many technological, social and cultural developments of the 15th century can in retrospect be seen as heralding the “European miracle” of the following centuries. The architectural perspective, and the modern fields which are known today as banking and accounting were founded in Italy.

Constantinople, known as the Capital of the World and the Capital of the Byzantine Empire (today’s Turkey), fell to the emerging Muslim Ottoman Turks, marking the end of the tremendously influential Byzantine Empire and, for some historians, the end of the Middle Ages.^[1] This led to the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy, while Johannes Gutenberg‘s invention of the mechanical movable type began the printing press. These two events played key roles in the development of the Renaissance.^[2][3] The Roman Papacy was split in two parts in Europe for decades (the so-called Western Schism), until the Council of Constance. The division of the Catholic Church and the unrest associated with the Hussite movement would become factors in the rise of the Protestant Reformation in the following century. Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) became dissolved through the Christian Reconquista, followed by the forced conversions and the Muslim rebellion,^[4] ending over seven centuries of Islamic rule and returning Spain, Portugal and Southern France to Christian rulers.

The search for the wealth and prosperity of India’s Bengal Sultanate^[5] led to the colonization of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the Portuguese voyages by Vasco da Gama, which linked Europe with the Indian subcontinent, ushering the period of Iberian empires.

The Hundred Years’ War ended with a decisive French victory over the English in the Battle of Castillon. Financial troubles in England following the conflict resulted in the Wars of the Roses, a series of dynastic wars for the throne of England. The conflicts ended with the defeat of Richard III by Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth Field, establishing the Tudor dynasty in the later part of the century.

In Asia, the Timurid Empire collapsed, and the Afghan Pashtun Lodi dynasty was founded under the Delhi Sultanate. Under the rule of the Yongle Emperor, who built the Forbidden City and commanded Zheng He to explore the world overseas, the Ming Dynasty‘s territory reached its pinnacle.

In Africa, the spread of Islam lead to the destruction of the Christian kingdoms of Nubia, by the end of the century, leaving only Alodia (which was to collapse in 1504). The formerly vast Mali Empire teetered on the brink of collapse, under pressure from the rising Songhai Empire.

In the Americas, both the Inca Empire and the Aztec Empire reached the peak of their influence, but the European colonization of the Americas changed the course of modern history.

1401-1409

• 1401: Dilawar Khan establishes the Malwa Sultanate in present-day central India.
• 1402: Ottoman and Timurid Empires fight at the Battle of Ankara resulting in the capture of Bayezid I by Timur.
• 1402: Sultanate of Malacca founded by Parameswara.^[6]
• 1402: The settlement of the Canary Islands signals the beginning of the Spanish Empire.
• 1403–1413: Ottoman Interregnum, a civil war between the four sons of Bayezid I.
• 1403: The Yongle Emperor moves the capital of China from Nanjing to Beijing.^[7]
• 1404–1406: Regreg War, Majapahit civil war of secession between Wikramawardhana against Wirabhumi.
• 1405: The Sultanate of Sulu is established by Sharif ul-Hāshim.
• 1405–1433: During the Ming treasure voyages, Admiral Zheng He of China sails through the Indian Ocean to Malacca, India, Ceylon, Persia, Arabia, and East Africa to spread China’s influence and sovereignty.
• 1405–1407: The first voyage of Zheng He, a massive Ming dynasty naval expedition visited Java, Palembang, Malacca, Aru, Samudera and Lambri.^[8] (to 1433)
• 1408: The last recorded event to occur in the Norse settlements of Greenland was a wedding in Hvalsey in the Eastern Settlement in 1408.

1410s

• 1410: The Battle of Grunwald is the decisive battle of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War leading to the downfall of the Teutonic Knights.
• 1410–1413: Foundation of St Andrews University in Scotland.
• 1410–1415: The last Welsh war of independence, led by Owain Glyndŵr.
• 1414: Khizr Khan, deputised by Timur to be the governor of Multan, takes over Delhi founding the Sayyid dynasty.
• 1415: Henry the Navigator leads the conquest of Ceuta from the Moors marking the beginning of the Portuguese Empire.
• 1415: Battle of Agincourt fought between the Kingdom of England and France.
• 1415: Jan Hus is burned at the stake as a heretic at the Council of Constance.
• 1417: A large goodwill mission led by three kings of Sulu, the Eastern King Paduka Pahala, the Western king Maharaja Kolamating and Cave king Paduka Prabhu as well as 340 members of their delegation, in what is now the southern Philippines, ploughed through the Pacific Ocean to China to pay tribute to the Yongle emperor of the Ming Dynasty.^[9]
• 1417: The East king of Sulu, Paduka Pahala, on their way home, suddenly died in Dezhou, a city in east China’s Shandong province. The Yongle Emperor Zhu Di commissioned artisans to build a tomb for the king.^[10]
• 1419–1433: The Hussite Wars in Bohemia.

1420s

• 1420: Construction of the Chinese Forbidden City is completed in Beijing.

• 1424: James I returns to Scotland after being held hostage under three Kings of England since 1406.
• 1424: Deva Raya II succeeds his father Veera Vijaya Bukka Raya as monarch of the Vijayanagara Empire.
• 1425: Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) founded by Pope Martin V.
• 1429: Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans and turns the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
• 1429: Queen Suhita succeeds her father Wikramawardhana as ruler of Majapahit.^[11]

1430s

• 1430: Rajah Lontok and Dayang Kalangitan become co-regent rulers of the ancient kingdom of Tondo.
• 1431
  • January 9 – Pretrial investigations for Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France under English occupation.
  • March 3 – Pope Eugene IV succeeds Pope Martin V, to become the 207th pope.
  • March 26 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins.
  • May 30 – Nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake.
  • June 16 – the Teutonic Knights and Švitrigaila sign the Treaty of Christmemel, creating anti-Polish alliance
  • September – Battle of Inverlochy: Donald Balloch defeats the Royalists.
  • October 30 – Treaty of Medina del Campo, consolidating peace between Portugal and Castille.
  • December 16 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France.
• 1438: Pachacuti founds the Inca Empire.

1440s

• 1440: Eton College founded by Henry VI.
• 1440s: The Golden Horde breaks up into the Siberia Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, and the Great Horde.
• 1440–1469: Under Moctezuma I, the Aztecs become the dominant power in Mesoamerica.
• 1440: Oba Ewuare comes to power in the West African city of Benin, and turns it into an empire.
• 1441: Jan van Eyck, Flemish painter, dies.
• 1441: Portuguese navigators cruise West Africa and reestablish the European slave trade with a shipment of African slaves sent directly from Africa to Portugal.
• 1441: A civil war between the Tutul Xiues and Cocom breaks out in the League of Mayapan. As a consequence, the league begins to disintegrate.
• 1442: Leonardo Bruni defines Middle Ages and Modern times.
• 1443: Abdur Razzaq visits India.
• 1443: King Sejong the Great publishes the hangul, the native phonetic alphabet system for the Korean language.
• 1444: The Albanian league is established in Lezha, Skanderbeg is elected leader. A war begins against the Ottoman Empire. An Albanian state is set up and lasts until 1479.
• 1444: Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II defeats the Polish and Hungarian armies under Władysław III of Poland and János Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna.
• 1445: The Kazan Khanate defeats the Grand Duchy of Moscow at the Battle of Suzdal.
• 1446: Mallikarjuna Raya succeeds his father Deva Raya II as monarch of the Vijayanagara Empire.
• 1447: Wijaya Parakrama Wardhana, succeeds Suhita as ruler of Majapahit.^[11]
• 1449: Saint Srimanta Sankardeva was born.
• 1449: Esen Tayisi leads an Oirat Mongol invasion of China which culminate in the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor at Battle of Tumu Fortress.

1450s

• 1450s: Machu Picchu constructed.
• 1450: Dayang Kalangitan became the Queen regnant of the ancient kingdom of Tondo that started Tondo’s political dominance over Luzon.
• 1451: Bahlul Khan Lodhi ascends the throne of the Delhi sultanate starting the Lodhi dynasty
• 1451: Rajasawardhana, born Bhre Pamotan, styled Brawijaya II succeeds Wijayaparakramawardhana as ruler of Majapahit.^[11]
• 1453: The Fall of Constantinople marks the end of the Byzantine Empire and the death of the last Roman Emperor Constantine XI and the beginning of the Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1453: The Battle of Castillon is the last engagement of the Hundred Years’ War and the first battle in European history where cannons were a major factor in deciding the battle.
• 1453: Reign of Rajasawardhana ends.^[11]
• 1454–1466: After defeating the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years’ War, Poland annexes Royal Prussia.
• 1455–1485: Wars of the Roses – English civil war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster.
• 1456: Joan of Arc is posthumously acquitted of heresy by the Catholic Church, redeeming her status as the heroine of France.

• 1456: The Siege of Belgrade halts the Ottomans’ advance into Europe.
• 1456: Girishawardhana, styled Brawijaya III, becomes ruler of Majapahit.^[11]
• 1457: Construction of Edo Castle begins.

1460s

• 1461: The League of Mayapan disintegrates. The league is replaced by seventeen Kuchkabal.
• 1461: The city of Sarajevo is founded by the Ottomans.

• 1461
  • February 2 – Battle of Mortimer’s Cross: Yorkist troops led by Edward, Duke of York defeat Lancastrians under Owen Tudor and his son Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke in Wales.
  • February 17 – Second Battle of St Albans, England: The Earl of Warwick‘s army is defeated by a Lancastrian force under Queen Margaret, who recovers control of her husband.
  • March 4 – The Duke of York seizes London and proclaims himself King Edward IV of England.
  • March 5 – Henry VI of England is deposed by the Duke of York during war of the Roses.
  • March 29 – Battle of Towton: Edward IV defeats Queen Margaret to make good his claim to the English throne (thought to be the bloodiest battle ever fought in England).
  • June 28 – Edward, Richard of York’s son, is crowned as Edward IV, King of England (reigns until 1483).
  • July – Byzantine general Graitzas Palaiologos honourably surrenders Salmeniko Castle, last garrison of the Despotate of the Morea, to invading forces of the Ottoman Empire after a year-long siege.
  • July 22 – Louis XI of France succeeds Charles VII of France as king (reigns until 1483).
• 1462: Sonni Ali Ber, the ruler of the Songhai (or Songhay) Empire, along the Niger River, conquers Mali in the central Sudan by defeating the Tuareg contingent at Tombouctou (or Timbuktu) and capturing the city. He develops both his own capital, Gao, and the main centres of Mali, Timbuktu and Djenné, into major cities. Ali Ber controls trade along the Niger River with a navy of war vessels.
• 1462: Mehmed the Conqueror is driven back by Wallachian prince Vlad III Dracula at The Night Attack.
• 1464: Edward IV of England secretly marries Elizabeth Woodville.
• 1465: The 1465 Moroccan revolt ends in the murder of the last Marinid Sultan of Morocco Abd al-Haqq II.
• 1466: Singhawikramawardhana, succeeds Girishawardhana as ruler of Majapahit.^[11]
• 1467: Uzun Hasan defeats the Black Sheep Turkoman leader Jahān Shāh.
• 1467–1615: The Sengoku period is one of civil war in Japan.

• 1469: The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile leads to the unification of Spain.
• 1469: Matthias Corvinus of Hungary conquers some parts of Bohemia.
• 1469: Birth of Guru Nanak Dev. Beside followers of Sikhism, Guru Nanak is revered by Hindus and Muslim Sufis across the Indian subcontinent.

1470s

• 1470: The Moldavian forces under Stephen the Great defeat the Tatars of the Golden Horde at the Battle of Lipnic.
• 1471: The kingdom of Champa suffers a massive defeat by the Vietnamese king Lê Thánh Tông.
• 1472: Abu Abd Allah al-Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yahya becomes the first Wattasid Sultan of Morocco.
• 1474–1477: Burgundy Wars of France, Switzerland, Lorraine and Sigismund II of Habsburg against the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.

• 1478: Muscovy conquers Novgorod.
• 1478: Reign of Singhawikramawardhana ends.^[11]
• 1478: The Great Mosque of Demak is the oldest mosque in Java, built by the Wali Songo during the reign of Sultan Raden Patah.
• 1479: Battle of Breadfield, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary defeated the Turks.

1480s

• 1480: After the Great standing on the Ugra river, Muscovy gained independence from the Great Horde.
• 1481: Spanish Inquisition begins in practice with the first auto-da-fé.
• 1485: Matthias Corvinus of Hungary captured Vienna, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor ran away.
• 1485: Henry VII defeats Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth and becomes King of England.
• 1485: Ivan III of Russia conquered Tver.
• 1485: Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya drives out Praudha Raya ending the Sangama Dynasty.
• 1486: Sher Shah Suri, is born in Sasaram, Bihar.
• 1488: Portuguese Navigator Bartolomeu Dias sails around the Cape of Good Hope.

1490-1500

• 1492: The death of Sunni Ali Ber left a leadership void in the Songhai Empire, and his son was soon dethroned by Mamadou Toure who ascended the throne in 1493 under the name Askia (meaning “general”) Muhammad. Askia Muhammad made Songhai the largest empire in the history of West Africa. The empire went into decline, however, after 1528, when the now-blind Askia Muhammad was dethroned by his son, Askia Musa.
• 1492: Boabdil‘s surrender of Granada marks the end of the Spanish Reconquista and Al-Andalus.
• 1492: Ferdinand and Isabella sign the Alhambra Decree, expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Catholicism; 40,000–200,000 leave.
• 1492: Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas from Spain.
• 1494: Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas and agree to divide the World outside of Europe between themselves.
• 1494–1559: The Italian Wars lead to the downfall of the Italian city-states.
• 1497–1499: Vasco da Gama‘s first voyage from Europe to India and back.
• 1499: Ottoman fleet defeats Venetians at the Battle of Zonchio.
• 1499: University “Alcalá de Henares” in Madrid, Spain is built.
• 1499: Michelangelo‘s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica is made in Rome
• 1500: Islam becomes the dominant religion across the Indonesian archipelago.^[12]
• 1500: Around late 15th century Bujangga Manik manuscript was composed, tell the story of Jaya Pakuan Bujangga Manik, a Sundanese Hindu hermit journeys throughout Java and Bali.^[13]
• 1500: Charles of Ghent (future Lord of the Netherlands, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, and Holy Roman Emperor) was born.
• 1500: Guru Nanak begins the spreading of Sikhism, the fifth-largest religion in the world.
• 1500: Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón encounters Brazil but is prevented from claiming it by the Treaty of Tordesillas.
• 1500: Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claims Brazil for Portugal.
• 1500: The Ottoman fleet of Kemal Reis defeats the Venetians at the Second Battle of Lepanto.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

List of 15th century inventions

• Renaissance affects philosophy, science and art.
• Rise of Modern English language from Middle English.
• Introduction of the noon bell in the Catholic world.
• Public banks.
• Yongle Encyclopedia—over 22,000 volumes.
• Hangul alphabet in Korea.
• Scotch whisky.
• Psychiatric hospitals^{[clarification needed]}.
• Development of the woodcut for printing between 1400–1450.
• Movable type first used by King Taejong of Joseon—1403. (Movable type, which allowed individual characters to be arranged to form words, was invented in China by Bi Sheng between 1041 and 1048.)
• Although pioneered earlier in Korea and by the Chinese official Wang Zhen (with tin), bronze metal movable type printing is created in China by Hua Sui in 1490.
• Johannes Gutenberg advances the printing press in Europe (c. 1455)
• Linear perspective drawing perfected by Filippo Brunelleschi 1410–1415
• Invention of the harpsichord c. 1450
• Arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492.

• • Polybius’ “The Histories” translated into Italian, English, German and French.
  • Mississippian culture disappears.
  • Medallion rug, variant Star Ushak style, Anatolia (modern Turkey), is made. It is now kept at The Saint Louis Art Museum.

  1501-1509

  Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, Galileo Galilei, father of modern science, and the Pope
  Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak presenting Akbarnama to Mughal Azam Akbar, Mughal miniature

  Dr Alberico Gentili, the Father of international law

  Battle of Cerignola: El Gran Capitan finds the corpse of Louis d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours

  Afonso de Albuquerque

  Vasily III, Grand Duke of Moscow by André Thévet

  Spanish conquistadors with their Tlaxcallan allies fighting against the Otomies of Metztitlan in present-day Mexico, a 16th-century codex

  • 1501: Michelangelo returns to his native Florence to begin work on the statue David.
  • 1501: Safavid dynasty reunifies Iran and rules over it until 1736. Safavids adopt a Shia branch of Islam.^[5]
  • 1501: First Battle of Cannanore between the Third Portuguese Armada and Kingdom of Cochin under João da Nova and Zamorin of Kozhikode‘s navy marks the beginning of Portuguese conflicts in the Indian Ocean.
  • 1502: First reported African slaves in the New World
  • 1502: The Crimean Khanate sacks Sarai in the Golden Horde, ending its existence.
  • 1503: Spain defeats France at the Battle of Cerignola. Considered to be the first battle in history won by gunpowder small arms.
  • 1503: Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa and completes it three years later.
  • 1503: Nostradamus is born on either December 14 or December 21.
  • 1504: A period of drought, with famine in all of Spain.
  • 1504: Death of Isabella I of Castile; Joanna of Castile becomes the Queen.
  • 1504: Foundation of the Sultanate of Sennar by Amara Dunqas, in what is modern Sudan
  • 1505: Zhengde Emperor ascends the throne of Ming Dynasty.
  • 1505: Martin Luther enters St. Augustine’s Monastery at Erfurt, Germany, on 17 July and begins his journey to instigating the Reformation.
  • 1505: Sultan Trenggono builds the first Muslim kingdom in Java, called Demak, in Indonesia. Many other small kingdoms were established in other islands to fight against Portuguese. Each kingdom introduced local language as a way of communication and unity.
  • 1506: Leonardo da Vinci completes the Mona Lisa.
  • 1506: King Afonso I of Kongo wins the battle of Mbanza Kongo, resulting in Catholicism becoming Kongo’s state religion.
  • 1506: At least two thousand converted Jews are massacred in a Lisbon riot, Portugal.
  • 1506: Christopher Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain.
  • 1506: Poland is invaded by Tatars from the Crimean Khanate.
  • 1507: The first recorded epidemic of smallpox in the New World on the island of Hispaniola. It devastates the native Taíno population.^[6]
  • 1507: Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Hormuz and Muscat, among other bases in the Persian Gulf, taking control of the region at the entrance of the Gulf.
  • 1508: The Christian-Islamic power struggle in Europe and West Asia spills over into the Indian Ocean as Battle of Chaul during the Portuguese-Mamluk War
  • 1508–1512: Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
  • 1509: The defeat of joint fleet of the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, and the Zamorin of Calicut with support of the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire in Battle of Diu marks the beginning of Portuguese dominance of the Spice trade and the Indian Ocean.
  • 1509: The Portuguese king sends Diogo Lopes de Sequeira to find Malacca, the eastern terminus of Asian trade. After initially receiving Sequeira, Sultan Mahmud Shah captures and/or kills several of his men and attempts an assault on the four Portuguese ships, which escape.^[7] The Javanese fleet is also destroyed in Malacca.
  • 1509: Krishnadevaraya ascends the throne of Vijayanagara Empire.

  1510s

  Martin Luther initiated the Reformation with his Ninety-five Theses in 1517.

  Ferdinand Magellan led the first expedition that circumnavigated the globe in 1519–1522.

  • 1509–10: The ‘great plague‘ in various parts of Tudor England.^[8]
  • 1510: Afonso de Albuquerque of Portugal conquers Goa in India.
  • 1511: Afonso de Albuquerque of Portugal conquers Malacca, the capital of the Sultanate of Malacca in present-day Malaysia.
  • 1512: Copernicus writes Commentariolus, and proclaims the sun the center of the solar system.
  • 1512: The southern part (historical core) of the Kingdom of Navarre is invaded by Castile and Aragon.
  • 1526: Qutb Shahi dynasty, founded by Quli Qutb Mulk, rules Golconda Sultanate until 1687.
  • 1512: The first Portuguese exploratory expedition was sent eastward from Malacca (in present-day Malaysia) to search for the ‘Spice Islands‘ (Maluku) led by Francisco Serrão. Serrão is shipwrecked but struggles on to Hitu (northern Ambon) and wins the favour of the local rulers.^[9]
  • 1513: Machiavelli writes The Prince, a treatise about political philosophy
  • 1513: The Portuguese mariner Jorge Álvares lands at Macau, China, during the Ming Dynasty.
  • 1513: Henry VIII defeats the French at the Battle of the Spurs.
  • 1513: The Battle of Flodden Field in which invading Scots are defeated by Henry VIII‘s forces.
  • 1513: Sultan Selim I (“The Grim”) orders the massacre of Shia Muslims in Anatolia (present-day Turkey).
  • 1513: Vasco Núñez de Balboa, in service of Spain arrives at the Pacific Ocean (which he called Mar del Sur) across the Isthmus of Panama. He was the first European to do so.
  • 1514: The Battle of Orsha halts Muscovy‘s expansion into Eastern Europe.
  • 1514: Dózsa rebellion (peasant revolt) in Hungary.
  • 1514: The Battle of Chaldiran, the Ottoman Empire gains decisive victory against Safavid dynasty.
  • 1515: The Ottoman Empire wrests Eastern Anatolia from the Safavids after the Battle of Chaldiran.
  • 1515: The Ottomans conquers the last beyliks of Anatolia, the Dulkadirs and the Ramadanids.
  • 1516–1517: The Ottomans defeat the Mamluks and gain control of Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant.
  • 1517: The Sweating sickness epidemic in Tudor England.^[10]
  • 1517: The Reformation begins when Martin Luther posts his Ninety-five Theses in Saxony.
  • 1518: Mir Chakar Khan Rind leaves Baluchistan and settles in Punjab.
  • 1518: Leo Africanus, also known as al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi, an Andalusian Berber diplomat who is best known for his book Descrittione dell’Africa (Description of Africa), is captured by Spanish pirates; he is taken to Rome and presented to Pope Leo X.
  • 1518: The dancing plague of 1518 begins in Strasbourg, lasting for about one month.
  • 1519: Leonardo da Vinci dies of natural causes on May 2.
  • 1519: Wang Yangming, the Chinese philosopher and governor of Jiangxi province, describes his intent to use the firepower of the fo-lang-ji, a breech-loading Portuguese culverin, in order to suppress the rebellion of Prince Zhu Chenhao.
  • 1519: Barbary pirates led by Hayreddin Barbarossa, a Turk appointed to ruling position in Algiers by the Ottoman Empire, raid Provence and Toulon in southern France.
  • 1519: Charles I of Austria, Spain, and the Low Countries becomes Emperor of Holy Roman Empire as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (ruled until 1556).
  • 1519–1522: Spanish expedition commanded by Magellan and Elcano are the first to Circumnavigate the Earth.
  • 1519–1521: Hernán Cortés leads the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

  Hernán Cortés

  1520s

   

  Gun-wielding Ottoman Janissaries and defending Knights of Saint John at the siege of Rhodes in 1522, from an Ottoman manuscript

  Francis I of France

  Sack of Rome by Charles V forces

  • 1520–1566: The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent marks the zenith of the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1520: The first European diplomatic mission to Ethiopia, sent by the Portuguese, arrives at Massawa 9 April, and reaches the imperial encampment of Emperor Dawit II in Shewa 9 October.
  • 1520: Vijayanagara Empire forces under Krishnadevaraya defeat the Adil Shahi under at the Battle of Raichur
  • 1520: Sultan Ali Mughayat Shah of Aceh begins an expansionist campaign capturing Daya on the west Sumatran coast (in present-day Indonesia), and the pepper and gold producing lands on the east coast.
  • 1520: The Portuguese established a trading post in the village of Lamakera on the eastern side of Solor (in present-day Indonesia) as a transit harbour between Maluku and Malacca.
  • 1521: Belgrade (in present-day Serbia) is captured by the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1521: After building fortifications at Tuen Mun, the Portuguese attempt to invade Ming Dynasty China, but are expelled by Chinese naval forces.
  • 1521: Philippines encountered by Ferdinand Magellan. He was later killed in the Battle of Mactan in central Philippines in the same year.
  • 1521: Jiajing Emperor ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty, China.
  • 1521: November, Ferdinand Magellan‘s expedition reaches Maluku (in present-day Indonesia) and after trade with Ternate returns to Europe with a load of cloves.
  • 1521: Pati Unus leads the invasion of Malacca (in present-day Malaysia) against the Portuguese occupation. Pati Unus was killed in this battle, and was succeeded by his brother, sultan Trenggana.
  • 1522: Rhodes falls to the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent.^[11]
  • 1522: The Portuguese ally themselves with the rulers of Ternate (in present-day Indonesia) and begin construction of a fort.^[9]
  • 1522: August, Luso-Sundanese Treaty signed between Portugal and Sunda Kingdom granted Portuguese permit to build fortress in Sunda Kelapa.
  • 1523: Sweden gains independence from the Kalmar Union.
  • 1523: The Cacao bean is introduced to Spain by Hernán Cortés
  • 1524–1525: German Peasants’ War in the Holy Roman Empire.
  • 1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano is the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between South Carolina and Newfoundland.
  • 1524 – Ismail I, the founder of Safavid dynasty, dies and Tahmasp I becomes king.
  • 1525: Timurid Empire forces under Babur defeat the Lodi dynasty at the First Battle of Panipat, end of the Delhi Sultanate.
  • 1525: German and Spanish forces defeat France at the Battle of Pavia, Francis I of France is captured.
  • 1526: The Ottomans defeat the Kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács.
  • 1526: Mughal Empire, founded by Babur, dominates India until 1857.
  • 1527: Sack of Rome with Pope Clement VII escaping and the Swiss Guards defending the Vatican being killed. The sack of the city of Rome considered the end of the Italian Renaissance.
  • 1527: Protestant Reformation begins in Sweden.
  • 1527: The last ruler of Majapahit falls from power. This state (located in present-day Indonesia) was finally extinguished at the hands of the Demak. A large number of courtiers, artisans, priests, and members of the royalty moved east to the island of Bali; however, the power and the seat of government transferred to Demak under the leadership of Pangeran, later Sultan Fatah.
  • 1527: June 22, The Javanese Prince Fatahillah of the Cirebon Sultanate successfully defeated the Portuguese armed forces at the site of the Sunda Kelapa Harbor. The city was then renamed Jayakarta, meaning “a glorious victory.” This eventful day came to be acknowledged as Jakarta’s Founding Anniversary.
  • 1527: Mughal Empire forces defeat the Rajput led by Rana Sanga of Mewar at the Battle of Khanwa
  • 1529: The Austrians defeat the Ottoman Empire at the siege of Vienna.
  • 1529: Treaty of Zaragoza defined the antimeridian of Tordesillas attributing the Moluccas to Portugal and Philippines to Spain.
  • 1529: Imam Ahmad Gragn defeats the Ethiopian Emperor Dawit II in the Battle of Shimbra Kure, the opening clash of the Ethiopian–Adal War.

  1530s[edit]

  

  Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1536 – 1537, Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland.

  

  Portrait of Ivan the Terrible

  • 1531–32: The Church of England breaks away from the Catholic Church and recognizes King Henry VIII as the head of the Church.
  • 1531: The Inca Civil War is fought between the two brothers, Atahualpa and Huáscar.
  • 1532: Francisco Pizarro leads the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
  • 1532: Foundation of São Vicente, the first permanent Portuguese settlement in the Americas.
  • 1533: Anne Boleyn becomes Queen of England.
  • 1533: Elizabeth Tudor is born.
  • 1534: Jacques Cartier claims Canada for France.
  • 1534: The Ottomans capture Baghdad from the Safavids.
  • 1534: Affair of the Placards – Francis becomes more active in repression of French Protestants.
  • 1535: The Münster Rebellion, an attempt of radical, millennialist, Anabaptists to establish a theocracy, ends in bloodshed.
  • 1535: The Portuguese in Ternate depose Sultan Tabariji (or Tabarija) and send him to Portuguese Goa where he converts to Christianity and bequeaths his Portuguese godfather Jordao de Freitas the island of Ambon.^[12] Hairun becomes the next sultan.
  • 1536: Katherine of Aragon dies in Kimbolton Castle, in England.
  • 1536: In England, Anne Boleyn is beheaded for adultery and treason.
  • 1536: Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal.
  • 1536: Foundation of Buenos Aires (in present-day Argentina) by Pedro de Mendoza.
  • 1537: The Portuguese establish Recife in Pernambuco, north-east of Brazil.
  • 1537: William Tyndale‘s partial translation of the Bible into English is published, which would eventually be incorporated into the King James Bible.
  • 1538: Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founds Bogotá.
  • 1538: Spanish–Venetian fleet is defeated by the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Preveza.
  • 1539: Hernando de Soto explores inland North America.

  1540s

  

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Scenes of everyday life in Ming China, by Qiu Ying

  • 1540: The Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, is founded by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions with the approval of Pope Paul III.
  • 1540: Sher Shah Suri founds the Suri dynasty in South Asia, an ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) of the house of Sur, who supplanted the Mughal dynasty as rulers of North India during the reign of the relatively ineffectual second Mughal emperor Humayun. Sher Shah Suri decisively defeats Humayun in the Battle of Bilgram (May 17, 1540).
  • 1541: Pedro de Valdivia founds Santiago de Chile.
  • 1541: An Algerian military campaign by Charles V of Spain (Habsburg) is unsuccessful.
  • 1541: Amazon River is encountered and explored by Francisco de Orellana.
  • 1541: Capture of Buda and the absorption of the major part of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1541: Sahib I Giray of Crimea invades Russia.
  • 1542: War resumes between Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V. This time Henry VIII is allied with the Emperor, while James V of Scotland and Sultan Suleiman I are allied with the French.
  • 1542: Akbar The Great is born in the Rajput Umarkot Fort
  • 1542: Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the island of Samar and Leyte Las Islas Filipinas honoring Philip II of Spain and became the official name of the archipelago.
  • 1543: Ethiopian/Portuguese troops decisively defeat the Adal-Ottoman Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad Gragn at the Battle of Wayna Daga; Imam Ahmad Gragn is killed at this battle.
  • 1543: Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun
  • 1543: The Nanban trade period begins after Portuguese traders make contact with Japan.
  • 1544: The French defeat an Imperial–Spanish army at the Battle of Ceresole.
  • 1544: Battle of the Shirts in Scotland. The Frasers and Macdonalds of Clan Ranald fight over a disputed chiefship; reportedly, 5 Frasers and 8 Macdonalds survive.
  • 1545: Songhai forces sack the Malian capital of Niani
  • 1545: The Council of Trent meets for the first time in Trent (in northern Italy).
  • 1546: Michelangelo Buonarroti is made chief architect of St. Peter’s Basilica.
  • 1546: Francis Xavier works among the peoples of Ambon, Ternate and Morotai (Moro) laying the foundations for a permanent mission. (to 1547)
  • 1547: Henry VIII dies in the Palace of Whitehall on 28 January at the age of 55.
  • 1547: Francis I dies in the Château de Rambouillet on 31 March at the age of 52.
  • 1547: Edward VI becomes King of England and Ireland on 28 January and is crowned on 20 February at the age of 9.
  • 1547: Emperor Charles V decisively dismantles the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg.
  • 1547: Grand Prince Ivan the Terrible is crowned tsar of (All) Russia, thenceforth becoming the first Russian tsar.
  • 1548: Battle of Uedahara: Firearms are used for the first time on the battlefield in Japan, and Takeda Shingen is defeated by Murakami Yoshikiyo.
  • 1548: Askia Daoud, who reigned from 1548 to 1583, establishes public libraries in Timbuktu (in present-day Mali).
  • 1548: The Ming Dynasty government of China issues a decree banning all foreign trade and closes down all seaports along the coast; these Hai jin laws came during the Wokou wars with Japanese pirates.
  • 1549: Tomé de Sousa establishes Salvador in Bahia, north-east of Brazil.
  • 1549: Arya Penangsang with the support of his teacher, Sunan Kudus, avenges the death of Raden Kikin by sending an envoy named Rangkud to kill Sunan Prawoto by Keris Kyai Satan Kober (in present-day Indonesia).

  1550s

  Akbar the Great

  Philip II of Spain

  • 1550: The architect Mimar Sinan builds the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.
  • 1550: Mongols led by Altan Khan invade China and besiege Beijing.
  • 1550–1551: Valladolid debate concerning the human rights of the Indigenous people of the Americas.
  • 1551: Fifth outbreak of sweating sickness in England. John Caius of Shrewsbury writes the first full contemporary account of the symptoms of the disease.
  • 1551: North African pirates enslave the entire population of the Maltese island Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to Libya.
  • 1552: Russia conquers the Khanate of Kazan in central Asia.
  • 1552: Jesuit China Mission, Francis Xavier dies.
  • 1553: Mary Tudor becomes the first queen regnant of England and restores the Church of England under Papal authority.
  • 1553: The Portuguese found a settlement at Macau.
  • 1554: Missionaries José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega establishes São Paulo, southeast Brazil.
  • 1554: Princess Elizabeth is imprisoned in the Tower of London upon the orders of Mary I for suspicion of being involved in the Wyatt rebellion.
  • 1555: The Muscovy Company is the first major English joint stock trading company.
  • 1556: Publication in Venice of Delle Navigiationi et Viaggi (terzo volume) by Giovanni Battista Ramusio, secretary of Council of Ten, with plan La Terra de Hochelaga, an illustration of the Hochelaga.^[13]
  • 1556: The Shaanxi earthquake in China is history’s deadliest known earthquake during the Ming dynasty.
  • 1556: Georgius Agricola, the “Father of Mineralogy“, publishes his De re metallica.
  • 1556: Akbar defeats Hemu at the Second battle of Panipat.
  • 1556: Russia conquers the Astrakhan Khanate.
  • 1556–1605: During his reign, Akbar expands the Mughal Empire in a series of conquests (in the Indian subcontinent).
  • 1556: Mir Chakar Khan Rind captures Delhi with Humayun.
  • 1556: Pomponio Algerio, radical theologian, is executed by boiling in oil as part of the Roman inquisition.
  • 1557: Habsburg Spain declares bankruptcy. Philip II of Spain had to declare four state bankruptcies in 1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596.
  • 1557: The Portuguese settle in Macau (on the western side of the Pearl River Delta across from present-day Hong Kong).
  • 1557: The Ottomans capture Massawa, all but isolating Ethiopia from the rest of the world.
  • 1558: Elizabeth Tudor becomes Queen Elizabeth I at age 25.
  • 1558–1603: The Elizabethan era is considered the height of the English Renaissance.
  • 1558–1583: Livonian War between Poland, Grand Principality of Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.
  • 1558: After 200 years, the Kingdom of England loses Calais to France.
  • 1559: With the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis, the Italian Wars conclude.
  • 1559: Sultan Hairun of Ternate (in present-day Indonesia) protests the Portuguese’s Christianisation activities in his lands. Hostilities between Ternate and the Portuguese.

  1560s[edit]

   

  Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo

   

  The Mughal Emperor Akbar shoots the Rajput warrior Jaimal during the Siege of Chittorgarh in 1567

  Siege of Valenciennes during the Dutch War of Independence in 1567

  St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants

  • 1560: Ottoman navy defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Djerba.
  • 1560: Elizabeth Bathory is born in Nyirbator, Hungary.
  • 1560: By winning the Battle of Okehazama, Oda Nobunaga becomes one of the pre-eminent warlords of Japan.
  • 1560: Jeanne d’Albret declares Calvinism the official religion of Navarre.
  • 1560: Lazarus Church, Macau
  • 1561: Sir Francis Bacon is born in London.
  • 1561: The fourth battle of Kawanakajima between the Uesugi and Takeda at Hachimanbara takes place.
  • 1561: Guido de Bres draws up the Belgic Confession of Protestant faith.
  • 1562: Mughal emperor Akbar reconciles the Muslim and Hindu factions by marrying into the powerful Rajput Hindu caste.
  • 1562–98: French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots.
  • 1562: Massacre of Wassy and Battle of Dreux in the French Wars of Religion.
  • 1562: Portuguese Dominican priests build a palm-trunk fortress which Javanese Muslims burned down the following year. The fort was rebuilt from more durable materials and the Dominicans commenced the Christianisation of the local population.^[12]
  • 1563: Plague outbreak claimed 80,000 people in Elizabethan England. In London alone, over 20,000 people died of the disease.
  • 1564: Galileo Galilei born on February 15
  • 1564: William Shakespeare baptized 26 April
  • 1565: Deccan sultanates defeat the Vijayanagara Empireat the Battle of Talikota.
  • 1565: Mir Chakar Khan Rind dies at aged 97.
  • 1565: Estácio de Sá establishes Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
  • 1565: The Hospitallers, a Crusading Order, defeat the Ottoman Empire at the siege of Malta (1565).
  • 1565: Miguel López de Legazpi establishes in Cebu the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines starting a period of Spanish colonization that would last over three hundred years.
  • 1565: Spanish navigator Andres de Urdaneta discovers the maritime route from Asia to the Americas across the Pacific Ocean, also known as the tornaviaje.
  • 1565: Royal Exchange is founded by Thomas Gresham.
  • 1566: Suleiman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire, dies on September 7, during the battle of Szigetvar.
  • 1566–1648: Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Netherlands.
  • 1566: Da le Balle Contrade d’Oriente, composed by Cipriano de Rore.
  • 1567: After 45 years’ reign, Jiajing Emperor died in the Forbidden City, Longqing Emperor ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty.
  • 1567: Mary, Queen of Scots, is imprisoned by Elizabeth I.
  • 1568: The Transylvanian Diet, under the patronage of the prince John Sigismund Zápolya, the former king of Hungary, inspired by the teachings of Ferenc Dávid, the founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, promulgates the Edict of Torda, the first law of freedom of religion and of conscience in the World.
  • 1568–1571: Morisco Revolt in Spain.
  • 1568–1600: The Azuchi-Momoyama period in Japan.
  • 1568: Hadiwijaya sent his adopted son and son in-law Sutawijaya, who would later become the first ruler of the Mataram dynasty of Indonesia, to kill Arya Penangsang.
  • 1569: Rising of the North in England.
  • 1569: Mercator 1569 world map published by Gerardus Mercator.
  • 1569: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is created with the Union of Lublin which lasts until 1795.
  • 1569: Peace treaty signed by Sultan Hairun of Ternate and Governor Lopez De Mesquita of Portugal.

  1570s

  Oda Nobunaga

  The Battle of Lepanto

  Sir Francis Drake

  • 1570: Ivan the Terrible, tsar of Russia, orders the massacre of inhabitants of Novgorod.
  • 1570: Pope Pius V issues Regnans in Excelsis, a papal bull excommunicating all who obeyed Elizabeth I and calling on all Catholics to rebel against her.
  • 1570: Sultan Hairun of Ternate (in present-day Indonesia) is killed by the Portuguese.^[12] Babullah becomes the next Sultan.
  • 1571: Pope Pius V completes the Holy League as a united front against the Ottoman Turks.
  • 1571: The Spanish-led Holy League navy destroys the Ottoman Empire navy at the Battle of Lepanto.
  • 1571: Crimean Tatars attack and sack Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin.
  • 1571: American Indians kill Spanish missionaries in what would later be Jamestown, Virginia.
  • 1571: Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi establishes Manila, Philippines as the capital of the Spanish East Indies.
  • 1572: Brielle is taken from Habsburg Spain by Protestant Watergeuzen in the Capture of Brielle, in the Eighty Years’ War.
  • 1572: Spanish conquistadores apprehend the last Inca leader Tupak Amaru at Vilcabamba, Peru, and execute him in Cuzco.
  • 1572: Jeanne d’Albret dies aged 43 and is succeeded by Henry of Navarre.
  • 1572: Catherine de’ Medici instigates the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre which takes the lives of Protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny and thousands of Huguenots. The violence spreads from Paris to other cities and the countryside.
  • 1572: First edition of the epic The Lusiads of Luís Vaz de Camões, three years after the author returned from the East.^[14]
  • 1572: The 9 years old Taizi, Zhu Yijun ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty, known as Wanli Emperor.
  • 1573: After heavy losses on both sides the siege of Haarlem ends in a Spanish victory.
  • 1574: in the Eighty Years’ War the capital of Zeeland, Middelburg declares for the Protestants.
  • 1574: After a siege of 4 months the siege of Leiden ends in a comprehensive Dutch rebel victory.
  • 1575: Oda Nobunaga finally captures Nagashima fortress.
  • 1575: Following a five-year war, the Ternateans under Sultan Babullah defeated the Portuguese.
  • 1576: Tahmasp I, Safavid shah, dies.
  • 1576: The Battle of Haldighati is fought between the ruler of Mewar, Maharana Pratap and the Mughal Empire‘s forces under Emperor Akbar led by Raja Man Singh.
  • 1576: Sack of Antwerp by badly paid Spanish soldiers.
  • 1577–80: Francis Drake circles the world.
  • 1577: Ki Ageng Pemanahan built his palace in Pasargede or Kotagede.
  • 1578: King Sebastian of Portugal is killed at the Battle of Alcazarquivir.
  • 1578: The Portuguese establish a fort on Tidore but the main centre for Portuguese activities in Maluku becomes Ambon.^[12]
  • 1578: Sonam Gyatso is conferred the title of Dalai Lama by Tumed Mongol ruler, Altan Khan. Recognised as the reincarnation of two previous Lamas, Sonam Gyatso becomes the third Dalai Lama in the lineage.^[15]
  • 1579: The Union of Utrecht unifies the northern Netherlands, a foundation for the later Dutch Republic.
  • 1579: The Union of Arras unifies the southern Netherlands, a foundation for the later states of the Spanish Netherlands, the Austrian Netherlands and Belgium.
  • 1579: The British navigator Sir Francis Drake passes through Maluku and transit in Ternate on his circumnavigation of the world. The Portuguese establish a fort on Tidore but the main centre for Portuguese activities in Maluku becomes Ambon.

  1580s

  The Irish Gaelic chieftain’s feast, from The Image of Ireland
  The fall of Spanish Armada
  Portuguese fusta in India from a book by Jan Huygen van Linschoten

  • 1580: Drake‘s royal reception after his attacks on Spanish possessions influences Philip II of Spain to build up the Spanish Armada. English ships in Spanish harbours are impounded.
  • 1580: Spain unifies with Portugal under Philip II. The struggle for the throne of Portugal ends the Portuguese Empire. The Spanish and Portuguese crowns are united for 60 years, i.e. until 1640.
  • 1580–1587: Nagasaki comes under control of the Jesuits.
  • 1581: Dutch Act of Abjuration, declaring abjuring allegiance to Philip II of Spain.
  • 1581: Bayinnaung dies at the age of 65.
  • 1582: Oda Nobunaga commits seppuku during the Honnō-ji Incident coup by his general, Akechi Mitsuhide.
  • 1582: Pope Gregory XIII issues the Gregorian calendar. The last day of the Julian calendar was Thursday, 4 October 1582 and this was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582
  • 1582: Yermak Timofeyevich conquers the Siberia Khanate on behalf of the Stroganovs.
  • 1583: Denmark builds the world’s first theme park, Bakken.
  • 1583: Death of Sultan Babullah of Ternate.
  • 1584–1585: After the siege of Antwerp, many of its merchants flee to Amsterdam. According to Luc-Normand Tellier, “At its peak, between 1510 and 1557, Antwerp concentrated about 40% of the world trade…It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the Americas.”^[17]
  • 1584: Ki Ageng Pemanahan died. Sultan Pajang raised Sutawijaya, son of Ki Ageng Pemanahan as the new ruler in Mataram, titled “Loring Ngabehi Market” (because of his home in the north of the market).
  • 1585: Akbar annexes Kashmir and adds it to the Kabul Subah
  • 1585: Colony at Roanoke founded in North America.
  • 1585–1604: The Anglo-Spanish War is fought on both sides of the Atlantic.
  • 1587: Mary, Queen of Scots is executed by Elizabeth I.
  • 1587: The reign of Abbas I marks the zenith of the Safavid dynasty.
  • 1587: Troops that would invade Pajang Mataram Sultanate storm ravaged the eruption of Mount Merapi. Sutawijaya and his men survived.
  • 1588: Mataram into the kingdom with Sutawijaya as Sultan, titled “Senapati Ingalaga Sayidin Panatagama” means the warlord and cleric Manager Religious Life.
  • 1588: England repulses the Spanish Armada.
  • 1589: Spain repulses the English Armada.
  • 1589: Catherine de’ Medici dies at aged 69.

  1590-1600

  Edo period screen depicting the Battle of Sekigahara
  Siege of Fiľakovo castle during the Long Turkish War
  • 1590: Siege of Odawara: the Go-Hojo clan surrender to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Japan is unified.
  • 1591: Gazi Giray leads a huge Tatar expedition against Moscow.
  • 1591: In Mali, Moroccan forces of the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur led by Judar Pasha defeat the Songhai Empire at the Battle of Tondibi.
  • 1592–1593: John Stow reports 10,675 plague deaths in London, a city of approximately 200,000 people.
  • 1592–1598: Korea, with the help of Ming Dynasty China, repels two Japanese invasions.
  • 1593–1606: The Long War between the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Turks.
  • 1594: St. Paul’s College, Macau, founded by Alessandro Valignano.
  • 1595: First Dutch expedition to Indonesia sets sail for the East Indies with two hundred and forty-nine men and sixty-four cannons led by Cornelis de Houtman.^[18]
  • 1596: Birth of René Descartes.
  • 1596: June, de Houtman’s expedition reaches Banten the main pepper port of West Java where they clash with both the Portuguese and Indonesians. It then sails east along the north coast of Java losing twelve crew to a Javanese attack at Sidayu and killing a local ruler in Madura.^[18]
  • 1597: Romeo and Juliet is published.
  • 1597: Cornelis de Houtman’s expedition returns to the Netherlands with enough spices to make a considerable profit.^[18]
  • 1598: The Edict of Nantes ends the French Wars of Religion.
  • 1598: Abbas I moves Safavids capital from Qazvin to Isfahan in 1598.
  • 1598–1613: Russia descends into anarchy during the Time of Troubles.
  • 1598: The Portuguese require an armada of 90 ships to put down a Solorese uprising.^[12] (to 1599)
  • 1598: More Dutch fleets leave for Indonesia and most are profitable.^[18]
  • 1598: The province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México is established in Northern New Spain. The region would later become a territory of Mexico, the New Mexico Territory in the United States, and the US State of New Mexico.
  • 1598: Death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, known as the unifier of Japan.
  • 1599: The Mali Empire is defeated at the Battle of Jenné.
  • 1599: The van Neck expedition returns to Europe. The expedition makes a 400 per cent profit.^[18] (to 1600)
  • 1599: March, Leaving Europe the previous year, a fleet of eight ships under Jacob van Neck was the first Dutch fleet to reach the ‘Spice Islands’ of Maluku.^[18]
  • 1600: Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake for heresy in Rome.
  • 1600: Battle of Sekigahara in Japan. End of the Warring States period and beginning of the Edo period.
  • 1600: The Portuguese win a major naval battle in the bay of Ambon.^[19] Later in the year, the Dutch join forces with the local Hituese in an anti-Portuguese alliance, in return for which the Dutch would have the sole right to purchase spices from Hitu.
  • 1600: Elizabeth I grants a charter to the British East India Company beginning the English advance in Asia.
  • 1600: Michael the Brave unifies the three Romanian principalities: Wallachia, Moldavia and Translyvania after the Battle of Șelimbăr from 1599.

  Inventions, discoveries, introductions

  Related article: List of 16th century inventions.

  • The Columbian Exchange introduces many plants, animals and diseases to the Old and New Worlds.
  • Introduction of the spinning wheel revolutionizes textile production in Europe.
  • The letter J is introduced into the English alphabet.
  • 1500: First portable watch is created by Peter Henlein of Germany.
  • 1513: Juan Ponce de León sights Florida and Vasco Núñez de Balboa sights the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean.
  • 1519–22: Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano lead the first circumnavigation of the World.
  • 1519–1540: In America, Hernando de Soto expeditions map the Gulf of Mexico coastline and bays.
  • 1525: Modern square root symbol (√)
  • 1540: Francisco Vásquez de Coronado sights the Grand Canyon.
  • 1541–42: Francisco de Orellana sails the length of the Amazon River.
  • 1542–43: Firearms are introduced into Japan by the Portuguese.
  • 1543: Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun
  • 1545: Theory of complex numbers is first developed by Gerolamo Cardano of Italy.
  • 1558: Camera obscura is first used in Europe by Giambattista della Porta of Italy.
  • 1559–1562: Spanish settlements in Alabama/Florida and Georgia confirm dangers of hurricanes and local native warring tribes.
  • 1565: Spanish settlers outside New Spain (Mexico) colonize Florida‘s coastline at St. Augustine.
  • 1565: Invention of the graphite pencil (in a wooden holder) by Conrad Gesner. Modernized in 1812.
  • 1568: Gerardus Mercator creates the first Mercator projection map.
  • 1572: Supernova SN 1572 is observed by Tycho Brahe in the Milky Way.
  • 1582: Gregorian calendar is introduced in Europe by Pope Gregory XIII and adopted by Catholic countries.
  • c. 1583: Galileo Galilei of Pisa, Italy identifies the constant swing of a pendulum, leading to development of reliable timekeepers.
  • 1585: earliest known reference to the ‘sailing carriage‘ in China.
  • 1589: William Lee invents the stocking frame.
  • 1591: First flush toilet is introduced by Sir John Harrington of England, the design published under the title ‘The Metamorphosis of Ajax’.
  • 1593: Galileo Galilei invents a thermometer.
  • 1596: William Barents discovers Spitsbergen.
  • 1597: Opera in Florence by Jacopo Peri.

1601–1650

• 1601: In the Battle of Kinsale, England defeats Irish and Spanish forces at the town of Kinsale, driving the Gaelic aristocracy out of Ireland and destroying the Gaelic clan system.
• 1601–1603: The Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills perhaps one-third of Russia.
• 1602: Matteo Ricci produces the Map of the Myriad Countries of the World (坤輿萬國全圖, Kūnyú Wànguó Quántú), a world map that will be used throughout East Asia for centuries.
• 1602: The Dutch East India Company (VOC) is established by merging competing Dutch trading companies.^[5] Its success contributes to the Dutch Golden Age.
• 1603: Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
• 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu takes the title of shōgun, establishing the Tokugawa shogunate. This begins the Edo period, which will last until 1868.
• 1603: In Nagasaki, the Portuguese Jesuit missionary João Rodrigues publishes Nippo Jisho, the first dictionary of Japanese to a European language (Portuguese)
• 1605: The King of Gowa, a Makassarese kingdom in South Sulawesi, converts to Islam.
• 1605–1627: The reign of Mughal emperor Jahangir after the death of emperor Akbar.
• 1606: The Long War between the Ottoman Empire and Austria is ended with the Peace of Zsitvatorok—Austria abandons Transylvania.
• 1606: Treaty of Vienna ends anti-Habsburg uprising in Royal Hungary.
• 1607: Flight of the Earls (the fleeing of most of the native Gaelic aristocracy) occurs from County Donegal in the west of Ulster in Ireland.
• 1607: Iskandar Muda becomes the Sultan of Aceh (r. 1607–1637). He will launch a series of naval conquests that will transform Aceh into a great power in the western Malay Archipelago.
• 1610: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth army defeats combined Russian–Swedish forces at the Battle of Klushino and conquers Moscow.
• 1610: King Henry IV of France is assassinated by François Ravaillac.
• 1611: The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, the oldest existing university in Asia, established by the Dominican Order in Manila^[6]
• 1611: The first publication of the King James Bible.
• 1612: Cotswold Olympic Games, Robert Dover
• 1613: The Time of Troubles in Russia ends with the establishment of the House of Romanov, which rules until 1917.
• 1613–1617: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is invaded by the Tatars dozens of times.^[7]
• 1613: The Dutch East India Company is forced to evacuate Gresik because of the Mataram siege of neighboring Surabaya. The VOC enters into negotiations with Mataram and is allowed to set up a trading post in Jepara.
• 1614–1615: The Siege of Osaka (last major threat to Tokugawa shogunate) ends.
• 1616: The last remaining Moriscos (Moors who had nominally converted to Christianity) in Spain are expelled.
• 1616: English poet and playwright William Shakespeare dies.
• 1618: The Defenestration of Prague.
• 1618: The Bohemian Revolt precipitates the Thirty Years’ War, which devastates Europe in the years 1618–48.
• 1618: The Manchus start invading China. Their conquest eventually topples the Ming dynasty.
• 1619: Dutch East India Company, English East India Company, and Sultanate of Banten all fighting over port city of Jayakarta. VOC forces storm the city and withstand a months-long siege by the combined English, Bantenese, and Jayakartan forces. They are relieved by Jan Pieterszoon Coen and a fleet of nineteen ships out of Ambon. Coen had burned Jepara and its EIC post along the way. The VOC levels the old city of Jayakarta and builds its new headquarters, Batavia, on top of it.

• 1620–1621: Polish-Ottoman War over Moldavia.
• 1620: Bethlen Gabor allies with the Ottomans and an invasion of Moldavia takes place. The Polish suffer a disaster at Cecora on the River Prut.
• 1620: The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, England to what became Plymouth Colony in the New England region of North America.
• 1621: The Battle of Chocim: Poles and Cossacks under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz defeat the Ottomans.
• 1622: Jamestown massacre: Algonquian natives kill 347 English settlers outside Jamestown, Virginia (one-third of the colony’s population) and burn the Henricus settlement.
• 1624–1642: As chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu centralises power in France.
• 1626: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican completed.
• 1627: Aurochs go extinct.
• 1628—1629: Sultan Agung of Mataram launches a failed campaign to conquer Dutch Batavia.
• 1629: Abbas I, the Safavids king, died.
• 1629: Cardinal Richelieu allies with Swedish Protestant forces in the Thirty Years’ War to counter Ferdinand II’s expansion.
• 1630 : Birth of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Shivneri fort
• 1631: Mount Vesuvius erupts.
• 1632: Battle of Lützen, death of king of Sweden Gustav II Adolf.
• 1632: Taj Mahal building work started in Agra, India.
• 1633: Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
• 1633–1639: Japan transforms into “locked country”.
• 1634: Battle of Nördlingen results in Catholic victory.
• 1636: Harvard University is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1637: Shimabara Rebellion of Japanese Christians, rōnin and peasants against Edo.
• 1637: The first opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opens in Venice.
• 1637: Qing dynasty attacked Joseon dynasty.
• 1639: Naval Battle of the Downs – Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters.
• 1639: Disagreements between the Farnese and Barberini Pope Urban VIII escalate into the Wars of Castro and last until 1649.
• 1639–1651: Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England.
• 1640–1668: The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union.
• 1641: The Irish Rebellion.
• 1641: René Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia Meditations on First Philosophy.
• 1642: Beginning of English Civil War, conflict will end in 1649 with the execution of King Charles I, abolishment of the monarchy and the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament over the king.
• 1643: L’incoronazione di Poppea, Monterverdi
• 1644: The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming dynasty. The subsequent Qing dynasty rules until 1912.
• 1644–1674: The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War.
• 1645–1669: Ottoman war with Venice. The Ottomans invade Crete and capture Canea.
• 1647–1652: The Great Plague of Seville.
• 1648: The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers.
• 1648–1653: Fronde civil war in France.
• 1648–1657: The Khmelnytsky Uprising – a Cossack rebellion in Ukraine which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland.
• 1648–1667: The Deluge wars leave Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.
• 1648–1669: The Ottomans capture Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia.
• 1649: King Charles I is executed for High treason, the first and only English king to be subjected to legal proceedings in a High Court of Justice and put to death.
• 1649–1653: The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

1651–1700

• 1651: English Civil War ends with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester.
• 1656–1661: Mehmed Köprülü is Grand Vizier.
• 1655–1661: The Northern Wars cement Sweden’s rise as a Great Power.
• 1658: After his father Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire.
• 1660: The Commonwealth of England ends and the monarchy is brought back during the English Restoration.
• 1660: The Royal Society is founded
• 1661: The reign of the Kangxi Emperor of China begins.
• 1663: Ottoman war against Habsburg Hungary.
• 1664: The Battle of St. Gotthard: count Raimondo Montecuccoli defeats the Ottomans. The Peace of Vasvar – intended to keep the peace for 20 years.
• 1665: Robert Hooke discovers cells using a microscope.
• 1665: Portugal defeats the Kongo Empire at the Battle of Mbwila.
• 1665–1667: The Second Anglo-Dutch War fought between England and the United Provinces.
• 1666: The Great Fire of London.
• 1667: The Raid on the Medway during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• 1667–1668: The War of Devolution; France invades the Netherlands. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) brings this to a halt.
• 1667–1699: The Great Turkish War halts the Ottoman Empire‘s expansion into Europe.
• 1672–1673: Ottoman campaign to help the Ukrainian Cossacks. John Sobieski defeats the Ottomans at the second battle of Khotyn (1673).
• 1672–1674: The Third Anglo-Dutch War fought between England and the United Provinces
• 1672–1676: Polish–Ottoman War.
• 1672–1678: Franco-Dutch War.
• 1674: Shivaji forms the Maratha Empire, which lasts until 1818.
• 1676–1681: Russia and the Ottoman Empire commence the Russo-Turkish Wars.
• 1678: The Treaty of Nijmegen ends various interconnected wars among France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire.

• 1680: The Pueblo Revolt drives the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692.
• 1682: Chateau de Versailles, Saint-Gobain
• 1682 – In North America, the French explorer Robert La Salle claims all the land east of the Mississippi River.
• 1683: China conquers the Kingdom of Tungning and annexes Taiwan.
• 1683: The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the second Siege of Vienna.
• 1683–1699: The Great Turkish War leads to the conquest of most of Ottoman Hungary by the Habsburgs.
• 1687: Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
• 1688: The Siege of Derry.
• 1688: Siamese revolution of 1688 ousted French influence and virtually severed all ties with the West until the 19th century.
• 1688–1689: The Glorious Revolution starts with the Dutch Republic invading England, England becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1688–1691: The War of the Two Kings in Ireland.
• 1688–1697: The Grand Alliance sought to stop French expansion during the Nine Years’ War.
• 1689: The Battle of Killiecrankie is fought between Jacobite and Williamite forces in Highland Perthshire.
• 1689: The Karposh rebellion is crushed in present-day North Macedonia, Skopje is retaken by the Ottoman Turks. Karposh is killed, and the rebels are defeated.
• 1689: Bill of Rights
• 1690: The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland.
• 1692: Port Royal in Jamaica is struck by an earthquake and a tsunami. Approximately 2,000 people die and 2,300 are injured.
• 1692–1694: Famine in France kills two million.^[8]
• 1693: The College of William and Mary is founded in Williamsburg, Virginia, by a royal charter.
• 1694: The Bank of England is established.
• 1695: The Mughal Empire nearly bans the East India Company in response to pirate Henry Every‘s capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai.
• 1696–1697: Famine in Finland wipes out almost one-third of the population.^[9]
• 1697–1699: Grand Embassy of Peter the Great
• 1699: Thomas Savery demonstrates his first steam engine to the Royal Society.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Major changes in philosophy and science take place, often characterized as the Scientific revolution.

• Banknotes reintroduced in Europe.
• Ice cream.
• Tea and coffee become popular in Europe.
• Central Banking in France and modern Finance by Scottish economist John Law.
• Minarets, Jamé Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan, Persia (Iran), are built.
• 1604: Supernova SN 1604 is observed in the Milky Way.
• 1605: Johannes Kepler starts investigating elliptical orbits of planets.
• 1605: Johann Carolus of Germany publishes the ‘Relation’, the first newspaper.
• 1608: Refracting telescopes first appear. Dutch spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey tries to obtain a patent on one, spreading word of the invention.
• 1610: The Orion Nebula is identified by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc of France.
• 1610: Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius observe Jupiter‘s Galilean moons.
• 1611: King James Bible or ‘Authorized Version’ first published.
• 1612: The first flintlock musket likely created for Louis XIII of France by gunsmith Marin Bourgeois.
• 1614: John Napier introduces the logarithm to simplify calculations.
• 1616: Niccolò Zucchi describes experiments with a bronze parabolic mirror trying to make a reflecting telescope.
• 1620: Cornelis Drebbel, funded by James I of England, builds the first ‘submarine‘ made of wood and greased leather.
• 1623: The first English dictionary, ‘English Dictionarie’ is published by Henry Cockeram, listing difficult words with definitions.
• 1628: William Harvey publishes and elucidates his earlier discovery of the circulatory system.
• 1637: Dutch Bible published.
• 1637: Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera house, opened in Venice.
• 1637: Pierre de Fermat formulates his so-called Last Theorem, unsolved until 1995.
• 1637: Although Chinese naval mines were earlier described in the 14th century Huolongjing, the Tian Gong Kai Wu book of Ming dynasty scholar Song Yingxing describes naval mines wrapped in a lacquer bag and ignited by an ambusher pulling a rip cord on the nearby shore that triggers a steel-wheel flint mechanism.
• 1642: Blaise Pascal invents the mechanical calculator called Pascal’s calculator.
• 1642: Mezzotint engraving introduces grey tones to printed images.
• 1643: Evangelista Torricelli of Italy invents the mercury barometer.
• 1645: Giacomo Torelli of Venice, Italy invents the first rotating stage.
• 1651: Giovanni Riccioli renames the lunar maria.
• 1656: Christiaan Huygens describes the true shape of the rings of Saturn.
• 1657: Christiaan Huygens develops the first functional pendulum clock based on the learnings of Galileo Galilei.
• 1659: Christiaan Huygens first to observe surface details of Mars.
• 1662: Christopher Merret presents first paper on the production of sparkling wine.
• 1663: James Gregory publishes designs for a reflecting telescope.
• 1669: The first known operational reflecting telescope is built by Isaac Newton.
• 1676: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers Bacteria.
• 1676: First measurement of the speed of light.
• 1679: Binary system developed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
• 1684: Calculus independently developed by both Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Sir Isaac Newton and used to formulate classical mechanics.

1701–1750

• 1700–1721: Great Northern War between the Russian and Swedish Empires.
• 1701: Kingdom of Prussia declared under King Frederick I.
• 1701–1714: The War of the Spanish Succession is fought, involving most of continental Europe.^[10]
• 1702–1715: Camisard Rebellion in France.
• 1703: Saint Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great; it is the Russian capital until 1918.
• 1703–1711: The Rákóczi Uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy.
• 1704: End of Japan’s Genroku period.
• 1704: First Javanese War of Succession.^[11]
• 1706–1713: The War of the Spanish Succession: French troops defeated at the battles of Ramillies and Turin.
• 1707: The Act of Union is passed, merging the Scottish and English Parliaments, thus establishing the Kingdom of Great Britain.^[12]
• 1708: The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies and English Company Trading to the East Indies merge to form the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.
• 1708–1709: Famine kills one-third of East Prussia‘s population.
• 1709: The Great Frost of 1709 marks the coldest winter in 500 years.
• 1710: The world’s first copyright legislation, Britain‘s Statute of Anne, takes effect.
• 1710–1711: Ottoman Empire fights Russia in the Russo-Turkish War.
• 1711–1715: Tuscarora War between British, Dutch, and German settlers and the Tuscarora people of North Carolina.
• 1714: In Amsterdam, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury-in-glass thermometer, which remains the most reliable and accurate thermometer until the electronic era.
• 1715: The first Jacobite rising breaks out; the British halt the Jacobite advance at the Battle of Sheriffmuir; Battle of Preston.
• 1716: Establishment of the Sikh Confederacy along the present-day India-Pakistan border.
• 1718: The city of New Orleans is founded by the French in North America.
• 1718–1730: Tulip period of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1719: Second Javanese War of Succession.^[13]
• 1720: The South Sea Bubble.
• 1720–1721: The Great Plague of Marseille.
• 1721: The Treaty of Nystad is signed, ending the Great Northern War.
• 1721: Sack of Shamakhi, massacre of its Shia population by Sunni Lezgins.
• 1722–1723: Russo-Persian War.
• 1722–1725: Controversy over William Wood‘s halfpence leads to the Drapier’s Letters and begins the Irish economic independence from England movement.
• 1723: Slavery is abolished in Russia; Peter the Great converts household slaves into house serfs.^[14]
• 1723–1730: The “Great Disaster”, an invasion of Kazakh territories by the Dzungars.
• 1724: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit proposes the Fahrenheit temperature scale.
• 1727–1729: Anglo-Spanish War.

• 1730: Mahmud I takes over Ottoman Empire after the Patrona Halil revolt, ending the Tulip period.
• 1730–1760: The First Great Awakening takes place in Great Britain and North America.
• 1732–1734: Crimean Tatar raids into Russia.^[15]
• 1733–1738: War of the Polish Succession.
• 1735–1739: Russo-Turkish War.
• 1735–1799: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversees a huge expansion in territory.
• 1738–1756: Famine across the Sahel; half the population of Timbuktu dies.^[16]
• 1739: Great Britain and Spain fight the War of Jenkins’ Ear in the Caribbean.

• 1740: Great Awakening, George Whitefield
• 1740–1741: Famine in Ireland kills 20 percent of the population.
• 1740–1748: War of the Austrian Succession.
• 1742:
  • Marvel’s Mill, the first water-powered cotton mill, begins operation in England.^[18]
  • Anders Celsius proposes an inverted form of the Centigrade temperature, which is later renamed Celsius in his honor.
• 1742: Premiere of Handel‘s Messiah
• 1744: The First Saudi State is founded by Mohammed Ibn Saud.^[19]
• 1744–1748: The First Carnatic War is fought between the British, the French, the Marathas, and Mysore in India.
• 1745: Second Jacobite rising is begun by Charles Edward Stuart in Scotland.
• 1748: The Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle ends the War of the Austrian Succession and First Carnatic War.
• 1748–1754: The Second Carnatic War is fought between the British, the French, the Marathas, and Mysore in India.
• 1750: Peak of the Little Ice Age.

1751–1800

• 1754: The Treaty of Pondicherry ends the Second Carnatic War and recognizes Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah as Nawab of the Carnatic.
• 1754: King’s College is founded by a royal charter of George II of Great Britain.^[20]
• 1754–1763: The French and Indian War, the North American chapter of the Seven Years’ War, is fought in colonial North America, mostly by the French and their allies against the English and their allies.
• 1755: The great Lisbon earthquake destroys most of Portugal‘s capital and kills up to 100,000.
• 1755–1763: The Great Upheaval forces transfer of the French Acadian population from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
• 1756–1763: The Seven Years’ War is fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
• 1756–1763: The Third Carnatic War is fought between the British, the French, the Marathas, and Mysore in India

• 1760: George III becomes King of Britain.
• 1761: Maratha Empire defeated at Battle of Panipat.
• 1762–1796: Reign of Catherine the Great of Russia.
• 1763: The Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years’ War and Third Carnatic War.
• 1765: The Stamp Act is introduced into the American colonies by the British Parliament.
• 1766: Christian VII becomes king of Denmark. He was king of Denmark to 1808.
• 1766–1799: Anglo-Mysore Wars.
• 1768–1772: War of the Bar Confederation.
• 1768–1774: Russo-Turkish War.
• 1769: Spanish missionaries establish the first of 21 missions in California.
• 1769–1770: James Cook explores and maps New Zealand and Australia.
• 1769–1773: The Bengal famine of 1770 kills one-third of the Bengal population.
• 1769: French expeditions capture clove plants in Ambon, ending the VOC monopoly of the plant.^[21] (to 1772)

• 1770–1771: Famine in Czech lands kills hundreds of thousands.
• 1771: The Plague Riot in Moscow.
• 1772: Gustav III of Sweden stages a coup d’état, becoming almost an absolute monarch.
• 1772–1779: Maratha Empire fights Britain and Raghunathrao‘s forces during the First Anglo-Maratha War.
• 1772–1795: The Partitions of Poland end the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and erase Poland from the map for 123 years.
• 1773–1775: Pugachev’s Rebellion, the largest peasant revolt in Russian history.
• 1773: East India Company starts operations in Bengal to smuggle opium into China.
• 1775–1782: First Anglo-Maratha War.
• 1775–1783: American Revolutionary War.
• 1776: Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt.
• 1776: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
• 1776: Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations.
• 1778: James Cook becomes the first European to land on the Hawaiian Islands.
• 1779–1879: Xhosa Wars between British and Boer settlers and the Xhosas in the South African Republic.

• 1780: Outbreak of the indigenous rebellion against Spanish colonization led by Túpac Amaru II in Peru.
• 1781: The city of Los Angeles is founded by Spanish settlers.
• 1781–1785: Serfdom is abolished in the Austrian monarchy (first step; second step in 1848).
• 1783: The Treaty of Paris formally ends the American Revolutionary War.
• 1785–1791: Imam Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen warrior and Muslim mystic, leads a coalition of Muslim Caucasian tribes from throughout the Caucasus in a holy war against Russian settlers and military bases in the Caucasus, as well as against local traditionalists, who followed the traditional customs and common law (Adat) rather than the theocratic Sharia.^[22]
• 1785–1795: The Northwest Indian War is fought between the United States and Native Americans.
• 1786–1787: Mozart premieres The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni
• 1787–1792: Russo-Turkish War.
• 1788: First Fleet arrives in Australia
• 1788–1790: Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790).
• 1789: George Washington is elected the first President of the United States; he serves until 1797.
• 1789–1799: French Revolution.

• 1789: The Liège Revolution.
• 1789: The Brabant Revolution.
• 1789: The Inconfidência Mineira, an unsuccessful separatist movement in central Brazil led by Tiradentes
• 1791: Suppression of the Liège Revolution by Austrian forces and re-establishment of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
• 1791–1795: George Vancouver explores the world during the Vancouver Expedition.
• 1791–1804: The Haitian Revolution.
• 1791 Mozart premieres The Magic Flute
• 1792–1802: The French Revolutionary Wars lead into the Napoleonic Wars, which last from 1803–1815.
• 1792: The New York Stock & Exchange Board is founded.
• 1792: Polish–Russian War of 1792.
• 1793: Upper Canada bans slavery.
• 1793: The largest yellow fever epidemic in American history kills as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia, roughly 10% of the population.^[23]
• 1793–1796: Revolt in the Vendée against the French Republic at the time of the Revolution.
• 1794–1816: The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, which were a series of incidents between settlers and New South Wales Corps and the Aboriginal Australian clans of the Hawkesbury river in Sydney, Australia.
• 1795: The Marseillaise is officially adopted as the French national anthem.
• 1795: The Battle of Nuʻuanu in the final days of King Kamehameha I’s wars to unify the Hawaiian Islands.
• 1796: Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination; smallpox killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century, including five reigning monarchs.^[24]
• 1796: War of the First Coalition: The Battle of Montenotte marks Napoleon Bonaparte‘s first victory as an army commander.
• 1796: The British eject the Dutch from Ceylon.
• 1796–1804: The White Lotus Rebellion against the Manchu dynasty in China.
• 1798: The Irish Rebellion fails to overthrow British rule in Ireland.
• 1798–1800: The Quasi-War is fought between the United States and France.
• 1799: Dutch East India Company is dissolved.
• 1799: Coup of 18 Brumaire – Napoleon’s coup d’etat brings the end of the French Revolution
• 1800: 1 January, The bankrupt Dutch East India Company (VOC) is formally dissolved and the nationalised Dutch East Indies are established.^[25]

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

• 1709: The first piano was built by Bartolomeo Cristofori
• 1711: Tuning fork was invented by John Shore
• 1712: Steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen
• 1714: Mercury thermometer by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
• 1717: Diving bell was successfully tested by Edmond Halley, sustainable to a depth of 55 ft
• c. 1730: Octant navigational tool was developed by John Hadley in England, and Thomas Godfrey in America
• 1733: Flying shuttle invented by John Kay
• 1736: Europeans encountered rubber – the discovery was made by Charles Marie de La Condamine while on expedition in South America. It was named in 1770 by Joseph Priestley
• c. 1740: Modern steel was developed by Benjamin Huntsman
• 1741: Vitus Bering discovers Alaska
• 1745: Leyden jar invented by Ewald Georg von Kleist was the first electrical capacitor
• 1752: Lightning rod invented by Benjamin Franklin
• 1753: The first Clock to be built in the New World (North America) was invented by Benjamin Banneker.
• 1755: The tallest wooden Bodhisattva statue in the world is erected at Puning Temple, Chengde, China.
• 1764: Spinning jenny created by James Hargreaves brought on the Industrial Revolution
• 1765: James Watt enhances Newcomen’s steam engine, allowing new steel technologies
• 1761: The problem of longitude was finally resolved by the fourth chronometer of John Harrison
• 1763: Thomas Bayes publishes first version of Bayes’ theorem, paving the way for Bayesian probability
• 1768–1779: James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands
• 1774: Joseph Priestley discovers “dephlogisticated air”, oxygen
• 1775: Joseph Priestley first synthesis of “phlogisticated nitrous air”, nitrous oxide, “laughing gas”
• 1776: First improved steam engines installed by James Watt
• 1776: Steamboat invented by Claude de Jouffroy
• 1777: Circular saw invented by Samuel Miller
• 1779: Photosynthesis was first discovered by Jan Ingenhousz
• 1781: William Herschel announces discovery of Uranus
• 1784: Bifocals invented by Benjamin Franklin
• 1784: Argand lamp invented by Aimé Argand^[26]
• 1785: Power loom invented by Edmund Cartwright
• 1785: Automatic flour mill invented by Oliver Evans
• 1786: Threshing machine invented by Andrew Meikle
• 1787: Jacques Charles discovers Charles’s law
• 1789: Antoine Lavoisier discovers the law of conservation of mass, the basis for chemistry, and begins modern chemistry
• 1798: Edward Jenner publishes a treatise about smallpox vaccination
• 1798: The Lithographic printing process invented by Alois Senefelder^[27]
• 1799: Rosetta Stone discovered by Napoleon‘s troops

Literary and philosophical achievements

• 1703: The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu first performed
• 1704–1717: One Thousand and One Nights translated into French by Antoine Galland. The work becomes immensely popular throughout Europe.
• 1704: A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift first published
• 1712: The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (publication of first version)
• 1719: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• 1725: The New Science by Giambattista Vico
• 1726: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• 1728: The Dunciad by Alexander Pope (publication of first version)
• 1744: A Little Pretty Pocket-Book becomes one of the first books marketed for children
• 1748: Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers), popular Japanese puppet play, composed
• 1748: Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
• 1749: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
• 1751: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray published
• 1751–1785: The French Encyclopédie
• 1755: A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
• 1759: Candide by Voltaire
• 1759: The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
• 1759–1767: Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
• 1762: Emile: or, On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 1762: The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 1774: The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe first published
• 1776: Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain) by Ueda Akinari
• 1776: The Wealth of Nations, foundation of the modern theory of economy, was published by Adam Smith
• 1776–1789: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published by Edward Gibbon
• 1779: Amazing Grace published by John Newton
• 1779–1782: Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets by Samuel Johnson
• 1781: Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant (publication of first edition)
• 1781: The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller first published
• 1782: Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
• 1786: Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Robert Burns
• 1787–1788: The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
• 1788: Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant
• 1789: Songs of Innocence by William Blake
• 1789: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
• 1790: Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Alexander Radishchev
• 1790: Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
• 1791: Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
• 1792: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
• 1794: Songs of Experience by William Blake
• 1798: Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population published by Thomas Malthus
• (mid-18th century): The Dream of the Red Chamber (authorship attributed to Cao Xueqin), one of the most famous Chinese novels

Musical works

• 1711: Rinaldo, Handel‘s first opera for the London stage, premiered
• 1721: Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach
• 1723: The Four Seasons, violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, composed
• 1724: St John Passion by J.S. Bach
• 1727: St Matthew Passion composed by J.S. Bach
• 1733: Hippolyte et Aricie, first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau
• 1741: Goldberg Variations for harpsichord published by Bach
• 1742: Messiah, oratorio by Handel premiered in Dublin
• 1749: Mass in B minor by J.S. Bach assembled in current form
• 1751: The Art of Fugue by J.S. Bach
• 1762: Orfeo ed Euridice, first “reform opera” by Gluck, performed in Vienna
• 1786: The Marriage of Figaro, opera by Mozart
• 1787: Don Giovanni, opera by Mozart
• 1788: Jupiter Symphony (Symphony No.41) composed by Mozart
• 1791: The Magic Flute, opera by Mozart
• 1791–1795: London symphonies by Haydn
• 1798: The Pathétique, piano sonata by Beethoven
• 1798: The Creation, oratorio by Haydn first performed

1800s

• 1801: Giuseppe Piazzi discovers the dwarf planet Ceres. – Italy
• 1801: Thomas Jefferson elected President of the United States by the House of Representatives, following a tie in the Electoral College. – United States
• 1801: The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merge to form the United Kingdom.
• 1801: Ranjit Singh crowned as King of Punjab.
• 1801: Napoleon signs the Concordat of 1801 with the Pope.
• 1801: Cairo falls to the British.
• 1801: Assassination of Tsar Paul I of Russia.
• 1801: British defeat French at the Second Battle of Abukir.
• 1801:1815: the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa.
• 1802: Treaty of Amiens between France and the United Kingdom ends the War of the Second Coalition.
• 1802: Ludwig van Beethoven performs his Moonlight Sonata for the first time.
• 1803: William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the “first practical steamboat”.
• 1803: The United States more than doubles in size when it buys out France’s territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase. This begins the U.S.’s westward expansion to the Pacific referred to as its Manifest Destiny which involves annexing and conquering land from Mexico, Britain, and Native Americans.
• 1803: The Wahhabis of the First Saudi State capture Mecca and Medina.
• 1803: War breaks out between Britain and France; this is considered by some to be the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars.
• 1803: First phase of Padri War. (to 1825)
• 1804: Haiti gains independence from France and becomes the first black republic.
• 1804–1813: Russo-Persian War.
• 1804: Austrian Empire founded by Francis I.
• 1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French.
• 1804: World population reaches 1 billion.
• 1804: First steam locomotive begins operation.
• 1804: Morphine first isolated.
• 1804:1810: Fulani Jihad in Nigeria.
• 1804:1815: Serbian revolution erupts against the Ottoman rule. Suzerainty of Serbia recognized in 1817.
• 1805: The Battle of Trafalgar eliminates the French and Spanish naval fleets and allows for British dominance of the seas, a major factor for the success of the British Empire later in the century.
• 1805: Napoleon decisively defeats an Austrian-Russian army at the Battle of Austerlitz.
• 1805:1848: Muhammad Ali modernizes Egypt.
• 1806: Holy Roman Empire dissolved as a consequence of the Treaty of Pressburg.
• 1806: Cape Colony becomes part of the British Empire.
• 1806:1812: Russo-Turkish War, Treaty of Bucharest.
• 1807: Britain declares the Slave Trade illegal. U.S. Congress and President Jefferson declare the Slave Trade illegal, taking effect as per the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1) on 1 Jan 1808.
• 1807: Potassium and Sodium are individually isolated by Humphry Davy.
• 1808: Beethoven performs his Fifth Symphony.
• 1808:1809: Russia conquers Finland from Sweden in the Finnish War.
• 1808:1814: Spanish guerrillas fight in the Peninsular War.
• 1808: Herman Willem Daendels the Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies (1808–1811) begin the construction of Java Great Post Road.^[1]
• 1809: Napoleon strips the Teutonic Knights of their last holdings in Bad Mergentheim.

1810s

• 1810: The University of Berlin was founded. Among its students and faculty are Hegel, Marx, and Bismarck. The German university reform proves to be so successful that its model is copied around the world (see History of European research universities).
• 1810: The Grito de Dolores begins the Mexican War of Independence.
• 1810: The trumpet gets valves.
• 1810s:1820s: Most of the Latin American colonies free themselves from the Spanish and Portuguese Empires after the Latin American wars of independence.
• 1810s:1820s: Punjab War between the Sikh Empire and British Empire.
• 1812: The French invasion of Russia is a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars.
• 1812: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated.
• 1812:1815: War of 1812 between the United States and Britain; ends in a draw, except that Native Americans lose power.
• 1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
• 1813:1837: Afghan-Sikh Wars.
• 1814: Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.
• 1814: Elisha Collier invents the Flintlock Revolver.
• 1814:16: Anglo-Nepalese War between Nepal (Gurkha Empire) and British Empire.

• 1815: The Congress of Vienna redraws the European map. Reaction and conservatism dominate all of Europe.^[2] The Concert of Europe attempts to preserve this settlement, but the forces of liberalism and nationalism make for dramatic changes. It marks the beginning of a Pax Britannica which lasts until 1914.
• 1815: Napoleon escapes exile and begins the Hundred Days before finally being defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to St Helena. His defeat brings a conclusion to the Napoleonic Wars.
• 1815: April, Mount Tambora in Sumbawa island erupts, becoming the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, destroying Tambora culture, and killing at least 71,000 people, including its aftermath. The eruption created global climate anomalies known as “volcanic winter“.^[3]
• 1815: Jane Austen publishes Emma in December.
• 1816: Year Without a Summer: Unusually cold conditions wreak havoc throughout the Northern Hemisphere, likely influenced by the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora.
• 1816: Independence of Argentina.
• 1816: Dandy horse/velocipede bicycle invented.
• 1816:1828: Shaka‘s Zulu Kingdom becomes the largest in Southern Africa.
• 1817: Principality of Serbia becomes suzerain from the Ottoman Empire. Officially independent in 1867.
• 1817: First Seminole War begins in Florida.
• 1817: Russia commences its conquest of the Caucasus.
• 1817: Princess Charlotte of Wales dies following childbirth.
• 1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein.
• 1818: Independence of Chile.
• 1819: John Keats writes his odes of 1819.
• 1819: Peterloo massacre in England.
• 1819: The modern city of Singapore is established by the British East India Company.
• 1819: Théodore Géricault paints his masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa, and exhibits it in the French Salon of 1819 at the Louvre.

1820s

• 1820: Missouri Compromise.
• 1820: Regency period ends in the United Kingdom.
• 1820: Revolutions of 1820 in Southern Europe.
• 1820: Discovery of Antarctica.
• 1820: Liberia founded by the American Colonization Society for freed American slaves.
• 1820: Dissolution of the Maratha Empire.
• 1820–1835: At least 5000 Mexicans die in Apache raids, and 100 settlements are destroyed.^[4]
• 1821: Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena.
• 1821: Mexico gains independence from Spain with the Treaty of Córdoba.
• 1821: Peru declares its independence from Spain.
• 1821: Navarino Massacre.
• 1821–1830: Greece becomes the first country to break away from the Ottoman Empire after the Greek War of Independence.
• 1822–1823: First Mexican Empire, as Mexico’s first post-independent government, ruled by Emperor Agustín I of Mexico.
• 1822: Prince Pedro of Brazil proclaimed the Brazilian independence on 7 September. On 1 December, he was crowned as Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil.
• 1823–1887: The British Empire annexed Burma (now also called Myanmar) after three Anglo-Burmese Wars.
• 1823: Monroe Doctrine declared by US President James Monroe.
• 1824: Premiere of Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony.
• 1824: Cadbury is established in Birmingham.
• 1825: Erie Canal opened connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1825: First isolation of aluminum.
• 1825: Independence of Bolivia.
• 1825: The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway in the world, is opened.
• 1825: The Decembrist revolt.

• 1825–1828: The Cisplatine War results in the independence of Uruguay.
• 1825: Java War. (to 1830)
• 1826: Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine.
• 1826–1828: After the final Russo-Persian War, the Persian Empire took back territory lost to Russia from the previous war.
• 1826: Auspicious Incident; the end of Janissaries in the Ottoman Empire.
• 1827: Death of William Blake, Ludwig van Beethoven.
• 1828–1832: Black War in Tasmania leads to the near extinction of the Tasmanian aborigines.
• 1829: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust premieres.
• 1829: First electric motor built.
• 1829: Robert Peel founds the Metropolitan Police Service, the first modern police force.
• 1829: Treaty of Edirne (1829) following the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829.

1830s

• 1830: Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
• 1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is established on 6 April 1830.
• 1830: Anglo-Russian rivalry over Afghanistan, the Great Game, commences and concludes in 1895.
• 1830: July Revolution in France.
• 1830: The Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands led to the creation of Belgium.
• 1830: Greater Colombia dissolved and the nations of Colombia (including modern-day Panama), Ecuador, and Venezuela took its place.
• 1830: November Uprising in Poland against Russia.
• 1830: End of the Diponegoro war. The whole area of Yogyakarta and Surakarta Manca nagara Dutch seized. 27 September, Klaten Agreement determines a fixed boundary between Surakarta and Yogyakarta and permanently divide the kingdom of Mataram was signed by Sasradiningrat, Pepatih Dalem Surakarta, and Danurejo, Pepatih Dalem Yogyakarta. Mataram is de facto and de jure controlled by the Dutch East Indies.
• 1831: France invades and occupies Algeria.
• 1831: Ioannis Kapodistrias, the First Governor of Greece is murdered at Nauplion.
• 1831: The Belgian constitution is ratified and Leopold I is crowned as first “King of the Belgians”.
• 1831: Great Bosnian uprising against Ottoman rule occurs.
• 1831–1836: Charles Darwin‘s journey aboard HMS Beagle.

  Emigrants leaving Ireland. From 1830 to 1914, almost 5 million Irish people went to the United States alone.

• 1831: November Uprising ends with crushing defeat for Poland in the Battle of Warsaw.
• 1831–1833: Egyptian–Ottoman War.
• 1831: Second phase of Padri War. (to 1838)
• 1832: The British Parliament passes the Great Reform Act.
• 1833: Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire.
• 1833–1876: Carlist Wars in Spain.
• 1834: The German Customs Union is formed.
• 1834: Spanish Inquisition officially ends.
• 1834: Britain amends the Poor Law demanding that any paupers requesting assistance must go to a workhouse.
• 1834–1859: Imam Shamil‘s rebellion in Russian-occupied Caucasus.
• 1835–1836: The Texas Revolution in Mexico resulted in the short-lived Republic of Texas.
• 1836: Battle of the Alamo ends with defeat for Texan separatists.
• 1836: Battle of San Jacinto leads to the capture of General Santa Anna.
• 1836: Samuel Colt popularizes the revolver and sets up a firearms company to manufacture his invention of the Colt Paterson revolver a six bullets firearm shot one by one without reloading manually.
• 1836–1839: War of the Confederation begins between Chile and the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, ending with Chilean victory.
• 1837: Telegraphy patented.
• 1837: Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist.
• 1837: Death of Alexander Pushkin.
• 1837–1838: Rebellions of 1837 in Canada.
• 1837–1901: Queen Victoria‘s reign is considered the apex of the British Empire and is referred to as the Victorian era.
• 1838: By this time, 46,000 Native Americans have been forcibly relocated in the Trail of Tears.
• 1838–1840: Civil war in the Federal Republic of Central America led to the foundings of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
• 1839: Kingdom of Belgium declared.
• 1839–1851: Uruguayan Civil War.
• 1839–1860: After the First and Second Opium Wars, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia gain many trade and associated concessions from China resulting in the start of the decline of the Qing dynasty.
• 1839–1919: Anglo-Afghan Wars lead to stalemate and the establishment of the Durand line.

1840s

• 1840s: Railway Mania sweeps UK and Ireland.
• 1840: New Zealand is founded, as the Treaty of Waitangi is signed by the Māori and British.
• 1840: Upper and Lower Canada are merged into the Province of Canada.
• 1841: The word “dinosaur” is coined by Richard Owen.
• 1841: William Henry Harrison is the first US president to die in office
• 1842: Treaty of Nanking cedes Hong Kong to the British.
• 1842: Anaesthesia used for the first time.
• 1843: The first wagon train sets out from Missouri.
• 1843: Short stories A Christmas Carol and The Tell-Tale Heart published.
• 1844: Persian Prophet the Báb announces his revelation on 23 May, founding Bábísm. He announced to the world of the coming of “He whom God shall make manifest“. He is considered the forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith.
• 1844: First publicly funded telegraph line in the world—between Baltimore and Washington—sends demonstration message on 24 May, ushering in the age of the telegraph. This message read “What hath God wrought?” (Bible, Numbers 23:23)
• 1844: Millerite movement awaits the Second Advent of Jesus Christ on 22 October. Christ’s non-appearance becomes known as the Great Disappointment.
• 1844: The great auk is rendered extinct.
• 1844: Dominican War of Independence from Haiti.
• 1844: Heinrich Heine coins the term “Lisztomania” in regards to the public’s frenzied reaction to the pianist Franz Liszt.
• 1845: Unification of the Kingdom of Tonga under Tāufaʻāhau (King George Tupou I).
• 1845: Lunacy Act 1845 passes through Parliament.
• 1845–1846: First Anglo-Sikh War.
• 1845–1872: The New Zealand Wars.
• 1845–1849: The Great Famine of Ireland leads to the Irish diaspora.
• 1846–1848: The Mexican–American War leads to Mexico’s cession of much of the modern-day Southwestern United States.
• 1846–1847: Mormon migration to Utah.

  Liberal and nationalist pressure led to the European revolutions of 1848.

• 1847: The Brontë sisters publish Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.
• 1847: Ignaz Semmelweis proposes hand washing as a way to stop the spread of diseases.
• 1847–1901: The Caste War of Yucatán.
• 1848–1849: Second Anglo-Sikh War.
• 1848: The Communist Manifesto published.
• 1848: Revolutions of 1848 in Europe.
• 1848: Seneca Falls Convention is the first women’s rights convention in the United States and leads to the battle for women’s suffrage.
• 1848–1858: California Gold Rush.
• 1848: William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
• 1849: The first boatloads of gold prospectors arrive in California, giving them the nickname 49ers.
• 1849: Roman Republic‘s constitutional law becomes the first to abolish capital punishment.
• 1849: The safety pin and the gas mask are invented.
• 1849: Earliest recorded air raid, as Austria launches from land and from the ship SMS Vulcano’ some 200 incendiary balloons against Venice.

1850s

• 1850: The Little Ice Age ends around this time.
• 1850: Alfred Tennyson is appointed Poet Laureate after the death of William Wordsworth.
• 1850–1864: Taiping Rebellion is the bloodiest conflict of the century, leading to the deaths of 20 million people.
• 1851: The Great Exhibition in London was the world’s first international Expo or World Fair.
• 1851: Louis Napoleon assumes power in France in a coup.

  Dead Confederate soldiers. 30% of all Southern white males 18–40 years of age died in the American Civil War.

• 1851–1852: The Platine War ends and the Empire of Brazil has the hegemony over South America.
• 1851–1860s: Victorian gold rush in Australia.
• 1851: Herman Melville publishes Moby-Dick.
• 1852: Frederick Douglass delivers his speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” in Rochester, New York.
• 1853: William Wells Brown (1814–1884) wrote first novel published by an African American, Clotel.
• 1853: Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson.
• 1853: United States Commodore Matthew C. Perry threatens the Japanese capital Edo with gunships, demanding that they agree to open trade.
• 1853–1856: Crimean War between France, the United Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
• 1854: Battle of Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade.
• 1854: The Convention of Kanagawa formally ends Japan’s policy of isolation.
• 1854: SS Arctic disaster: The steamship SS Arctic collides with the SS Vesta and sinks off the coast of Newfoundland.
• 1854–1855: Siege of Sevastapol; city falls to French and British forces.
• 1855: Bessemer process enables steel to be mass-produced.
• 1855: Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
• 1855: Cocaine is isolated by Friedrich Gaedcke.
• 1856: Rana dynasty of Nepal established by Jung Bahadur Rana.
• 1856: World’s first oil refinery in Romania.
• 1856: Neanderthal man first identified. Age still unknown.
• 1857: Joseph Whitworth designs the first long-range sniper rifle.
• 1857–1858: Indian Rebellion of 1857. The British Empire assumes control of India from the East India Company.
• 1858–1947: British Empire in India lasts for 90 years.
• 1858: Invention of the phonautograph, the first true device for recording sound.
• 1859: Construction of Big Ben is completed.
• 1859: Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.
• 1859–1869: Suez Canal is constructed.

1860s

• 1860: Giuseppe Garibaldi launches the Expedition of the Thousand.
• 1860: The Pony Express started.
• 1861–1865: American Civil War between the Union and seceding Confederacy.
• 1861: Russia abolishes serfdom.
• 1861–1867: French intervention in Mexico and the creation of the Second Mexican Empire, ruled by Maximilian I of Mexico and his consort Carlota of Mexico.
• 1861: Death of Prince Albert.
• 1861: James Clerk Maxwell publishes On Physical Lines of Force, formulating the four Maxwell’s Equations.
• 1862: The Pony Express ended.
• 1862: Victor Hugo publishes Les Misérables.
• 1862: French gain first foothold in Southeast Asia.
• 1862–1877: Muslim Rebellion in north-west China.
• 1863: United States President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln issued a preliminary ^[7] on September 22, 1862, warning that in all states still in rebellion (Confederacy) on January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves “then, thenceforward, and forever free.”^[8] The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,^[9] ratified in 1865, officially abolished slavery in the entire country.
• 1863: Bahá’u’lláh declares his station as “He whom God shall make manifest“. This date is celebrated in the Baháʼí Faith as The Festival of Ridván.
• 1863: Formation of the International Red Cross is followed by the adoption of the First Geneva Convention in 1864.
• 1863: First section of the London Underground opens.
• 1863: France annexes Cambodia.
• 1863: Édouard Manet exhibits his painting The Luncheon on the Grass, sparking public outrage.
• 1863: Gordon (slave) Gordon, or “Whipped Peter”, was an enslaved African American who escaped from a Louisiana plantation in March 1863.
• 1863–1865: Polish uprising against the Russian Empire.
• 1864: Circassian Genocide. (21 May 1864)
• 1864–1866: The Chincha Islands War was an attempt by Spain to regain its South American colonies.
• 1864–1870: The Paraguayan War ends Paraguayan ambitions for expansion and destroys much of the Paraguayan population.
• 1864: June, The first railway track in Indonesia was laid between Semarang and Tanggung, Central Java by the Dutch colonial government.^[10]
• 1865–1877: Reconstruction in the United States; Slavery is banned in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• 1865-9 April 1865: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
• 1865-14 April 1865: United States President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by actor and Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth, while attending a performance at Ford’s Theater, Washington, D.C.. He dies approximately nine hours after being shot on 15 April 1865.
• 1865: Gregor Mendel formulates his laws of inheritance.
• 1865: Lewis Carroll publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
• 1866: Successful transatlantic telegraph cable follows an earlier attempt in 1858.
• 1866: Austro-Prussian War results in the dissolution of the German Confederation and the creation of the North German Confederation and the Austrian-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.
• 1866–1868: Famine in Finland.
• 1866–1869: After the Meiji Restoration, Japan embarks on a program of rapid modernization.
• 1867: The United States purchases Alaska from Russia.
• 1867–1869: Famine in Sweden.
• 1867: Canadian Confederation formed.
• 1867: Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
• 1867: The Principality of Serbia passes a Constitution which defines its independence from the Ottoman Empire. International recognition followed in 1878.
• 1867: The Luxembourg Crisis: diplomatic confrontation between France and Prussia on the status of Luxembourg and the towns fortifications are torn down.
• 1867: The Marquess of Queensberry Rules for boxing are published.
• 1868: Safety bicycle invented.
• 1868: The Expatriation Act of 1868 is approved by the U.S. Congress, one of the early blows which would eventually lead to the death of the common law doctrine of perpetual allegiance.
• 1868: The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is approved.
• 1868: Cro-Magnon man first identified.
• 1868: Michael Barrett is the last person to be publicly hanged in England.
• 1868–1878: Ten Years’ War between Cuba and Spain.
• 1868: The Batavian Museum (today National Museum of Indonesia) was officially opened by Dutch East Indies government.
• 1869: Leo Tolstoy publishes War and Peace.
• 1869: First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States on 10 May. – United States
• 1869: Dmitri Mendeleev created the Periodic table.
• 1869: The Suez Canal opens linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

1870s

• 1870: Rasmus Malling-Hansen‘s invention the Hansen Writing Ball becomes the first commercially sold typewriter.
• 1870–1871: The Franco-Prussian War results in the unifications of Germany and Italy, the collapse of the Second French Empire and the emergence of a New Imperialism.
• 1870: Official dismantling of the Cultivation System and beginning of a ‘Liberal Policy‘ of deregulated exploitation of the Netherlands East Indies.^[11]
• 1870–1890: Long Depression in Western Europe and North America.
• 1871–1878: In Germany, Otto von Bismarck attacks the privileges of the Catholic Church in the Kulturkampf (“Culture War”).
• 1871–1872: Famine in Persia is believed to have caused the death of 2 million.
• 1871–1914: Second Industrial Revolution.
• 1871: Royal Albert Hall opens in London.
• 1871: The Paris Commune briefly rules the French capital.
• 1871: The feudal system is dismantled in Japan.
• 1871: Henry Morton Stanley meets Dr. David Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika.
• 1872: Yellowstone National Park, the first national park, is created.
• 1872: The first recognised international soccer match, between England and Scotland, is played.
• 1873: The Panic of 1873 starts the “Long Depression“.
• 1873: Maxwell’s A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism published.
• 1873: The samurai class is abolished in Japan.
• 1873: Blue jeans and barbed wire are invented.
• 1873: The beginning of the bloody Aceh War for Dutch occupation of the province.^[11]
• 1874: The Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, and Graveurs, better known as the Impressionists, organize and present their first public group exhibition at the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar.
• 1874: The Home Rule Movement is established in Ireland.
• 1874: The British East India Company is dissolved.
• 1874–1875: First Republic in Spain.
• 1875: HMS Challenger surveys the deepest point in the Earth’s oceans, the Challenger Deep.
• 1875–1900: 26 million Indians perish in India due to famine.
• 1875: Georges Bizet‘s opera Carmen premiers in Paris.
• 1876: Bulgarians instigate the April Uprising against Ottoman rule.
• 1876: Richard Wagner‘s Ring Cycle is first performed in its entirety.
• 1876: Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India.
• 1876: Battle of the Little Bighorn leads to the death of General Custer and victory for the alliance of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho.
• 1876–1879: 13 million Chinese die of famine in northern China.
• 1876–1914: The massive expansion in population, territory, industry and wealth in the United States is referred to as the Gilded Age.
• 1877: Great Railroad Strike in the United States may have been the world’s first nationwide labour strike.
• 1877: Crazy Horse surrenders and is later killed.
• 1877: Asaph Hall discovers the moons of Mars.
• 1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.
• 1877: On August 17, Henry McCarty (who later becomes Billy the Kid) kills a blacksmith named Francis Cahill who becomes his first murder victim.
• 1877: The first test cricket match, between England and Australia, is played.
• 1877–1878: Following the Russo-Turkish War, the Treaty of Berlin recognizes formal independence of the Principality of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania. Bulgaria becomes autonomous.
• 1878: First commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut.

  A barricade in the Paris Commune, 18 March 1871. Around 30,000 Parisians were killed, and thousands more were later executed.

• 1879: Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa. – South Africa
• 1879: Thomas Edison tests his first light bulb.
• 1879–1880: Little War against Spanish rule in Cuba leads to rebel defeat.
• 1879–1883: Chile battles with Peru and Bolivia over Andean territory in the War of the Pacific.
• 1879–1884: Belgium is engulfed in a political crisis, dubbed the First School War, over the role of religion in state education.
• 1879: 21 April, Kartini was born in Jepara, today the date is commemorated as women’s emancipation day in Indonesia.

1880s

• 1880–1881: the First Boer War.
• 1881: Tsar Alexander II is assassinated.
• 1881: Wave of pogroms begins in the Russian Empire.
• 1881: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Sitting Bull surrenders.
• 1881: First electrical power plant and grid in Godalming, Britain.
• 1881: President James A. Garfield is assassinated.
• 1881–1882: The Jules Ferry laws are passed in France establishing free, secular education.
• 1881–1899: The Mahdist War in Sudan.
• 1882: The British invasion and subsequent occupation of Egypt.
• 1883: Krakatoa volcano explosion, one of the largest in modern history.

  Thomas Edison was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb.

• 1883: The quagga is rendered extinct.
• 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Treasure Island is published.
• 1884: First electric car produced by Thomas Parker in Wolverhampton.
• 1884: Siege of Khartoum.
• 1884: Germany gains control of Cameroon.
• 1884: Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• 1884: Hiram Maxim invents the first self-powered Machine gun.
• 1884–1885: The Berlin Conference signals the start of the European “scramble for Africa“. Attending nations also agree to ban trade in slaves.
• 1884–1885: The Sino-French War led to the formation of French Indochina.
• 1885: Louis Pasteur creates the first successful vaccine against rabies for a young boy who had been bitten 14 times by a rabid dog.
• 1885: Karl Benz produced first car with internal combustion engine.
• 1885: King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom.
• 1885: Britain establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland (modern Botswana).
• 1885: Singer begins production of the ‘Vibrating Shuttle‘. which would become the most popular model of sewing machine.
• 1885: Rock Springs massacre: White miners rioted, killing at least 28 Chinese immigrant miners.
• 1886: “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson is published.
• 1886: Burma is presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday gift.
• 1886: Karl Benz sells the first commercial automobile.
• 1886: Construction of the Statue of Liberty; Coca-Cola is developed.
• 1887: The British Empire takes over Balochistan.
• 1887: Arthur Conan Doyle publishes his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet.
• 1888: Year of the Three Emperors in Germany marks the beginning of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s 30 year reign.
• 1888: Louis Le Prince records the Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving film.
• 1888: Jack the Ripper murders occur in Whitechapel, London.
• 1888: Slavery banned in Brazil.
• 1888: Founding of the shipping line Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) that supported the unification and development of the colonial economy.^[11]
• 1889: The Mayerling Incident: Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Baroness Mary Vetsera die in a suicide pact.
• 1889: Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris.
• 1889: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad establishes the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a reform sect of Islam.
• 1889: End of the Brazilian Empire and the beginning of the Brazilian Republic.
• 1889: Vincent van Gogh paints The Starry Night.
• 1889: Aspirin patented.
• 1889: Moulin Rouge opens in Paris.

1890s

• 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota was the last battle in the American Indian Wars. This event represents the end of the American Old West.
• 1890: Italy annexes Eritrea.
• 1890: First use of the electric chair as a method for execution.
• 1890: Death of Vincent van Gogh.
• 1890: The cardboard box is invented.
• 1890: Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Germany’s longtime chancellor Otto von Bismarck, thereafter embarking on the foreign policy of Weltpolitik, as opposed to Bismarck’s Realpolitik.
• 1890s: Bike boom sweeps Europe and America.
• 1891: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, claims to be Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi.
• 1891: 1891 Chilean Civil War.
• 1891: Wrigley Company is founded in Illinois.
• 1891: Pope Leo XIII launches the encyclical Rerum Novarum, the first major catholic document on social justice.
• 1892: Basketball is invented.
• 1892: The World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus‘s arrival in the New World.
• 1892: Fingerprinting is officially adopted for the first time.
• 1892: Tchaikovsky‘s Nutcracker Suite premières in St Petersburg.
• 1892: John Froelich develops and constructs the first gasoline/petrol-powered tractor.
• 1893: US forces overthrow the government of Hawaii.
• 1893: The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation is formed.
• 1893: New Zealand becomes the first country to enact women’s suffrage.
• 1893: The Coremans-de Vriendt law is passed in Belgium, creating legal equality for French and Dutch languages.
• 1894: First commercial film release by Jean Aimé Le Roy.
• 1894: First gramophone record.
• 1894: Karl Elsener invents the Swiss Army knife.
• 1894: France and the Russian Empire form a military alliance.
• 1894–1895: After the First Sino-Japanese War, China cedes Taiwan to Japan and grants Japan a free hand in Korea.
• 1894–1906: Dreyfuss Affair in France.
• 1894: Lombok War^[11] The Dutch looted and destroyed the Cakranegara palace of Mataram.^[12] J. L. A. Brandes, a Dutch philologist discovered and secured Nagarakretagama manuscript in Lombok royal library.
• 1895: Taiwan is ceded to the Empire of Japan as a result of the First Sino-Japanese war.
• 1895: Volleyball is invented.
• 1895: Trial of Oscar Wilde and premiere of his play The Importance of Being Earnest.
• 1895: French troops capture Antananarivo in Madagascar.
• 1895: Wilhelm Röntgen identifies x-rays.
• 1895–1896: Abyssinia defeats Italy in the First Italo–Ethiopian War.
• 1895–1898: Cuban War for Independence results in Cuban independence from Spain.
• 1896: Olympic Games revived in Athens.
• 1896: Philippine Revolution ends declaring Philippines free from Spanish rule.
• 1896: Ethiopia defeated Italy at the Battle of Adwa.
• 1896: Klondike Gold Rush in Canada.
• 1896: Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity; J. J. Thomson identifies the electron, though not by name.
• 1897: Gojong, or Emperor Gwangmu, proclaims the short-lived Korean Empire: lasts until 1910.
• 1897: Benin Expedition of 1897 loots and burns Benin.
• 1897: Greco-Turkish War.
• 1897: Bram Stoker writes Dracula.
• 1897: First electric bicycle produced by Hosea Libbey.
• 1898: The United States gains control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish–American War.
• 1898: Empress Dowager Cixi of China engineers a coup d’état, marking the end of the Hundred Days’ Reform; the Guangxu Emperor is arrested.
• 1898: H. G. Wells publishes The War of the Worlds.
• 1898: Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by anarchist Luigi Lucheni.
• 1898–1900: The Boxer Rebellion in China is suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance.
• 1898–1902: The Thousand Days’ War in Colombia breaks out between the “Liberales” and “Conservadores“, culminating with the loss of Panama in 1903.
• 1898: General van Heutz becomes chief of staff of Aceh campaign. Wilhelmina becomes queen of the Netherlands.^[11]
• 1898: Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener defeats Mahdist Sudan in the Battle of Omdurman.
• 1898–1900: Zeppelin LZ 1 airship first produced.
• 1899–1902: Second Boer War begins.
• 1899–1913: Philippine–American War begins.
• 1899–1900: Indian famine kills over 1 million people.

1900

• Hawaii becomes an official U.S. territory.
• Galveston Hurricane in Texas kills 8000 people.
• L. Frank Baum publishes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
• King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated.
• Exposition Universelle held in Paris, prominently featuring the growing art trend Art Nouveau.
• Eight nations invaded China at the same time and ransacked Forbidden City.