Regions Timeline
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East Asia
221 BCE - Qin dynasty unifies China
206 BCE- Han dynasty begins
c.100 BCE- Chinese rule Korea and Vietnam
220 CE- Han dynasty ends; Era of Division
589 CE- Sui dynasty reunifies China
618- Tang dynasty begins
960- Song dynasty begins
1185- Kamakura shogunate; Feudal Japan begins
1279- Mongol rule (Yuan dynasty) in China
1368- Ming dynasty begins
1433- End of Chinese expeditions
1600- Tokugawa shogunate established
1644- Manchurian“Qing” dynasty rules China
1839- Opium War
1868- Meiji reforms begin
1905- Russo-Japanese War ends
1911- Chinese Revolution
1931- Japan invades Manchuria
1937- Japan invades China
1949- Communist victory in China
1950- Korean War begins
1958- Great Leap Forward in China
1966- Cultural Revolution in China
1979- Deng’s reforms in China
The Middle East
8500 BCE - Development of farming in Middle East
3500 BCE - Sumerian civilization
3100 BCE - Rise of Egyptian civilization
1200 BCE - Jews settle near the Mediterranean; first monotheistic religion
550 BCE - Cyrus the Great forms Persian Empire
323 BCE - Alexander’s Hellenistic Empire
64 BCE - Rome conquers Syria & Palestine
622- Muhammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina
661- Umayyad caliphate; expansion of Islam
750- Abbasid caliphate established
945- Persian Buyids capture Baghdad; caliphs made into puppet rulers
1055- Seljuk Turks control caliphate
1096- First Christian Crusade in Palestine
1258- Fall of Baghdad to Mongols; end of Abbasid caliphate
1260- Mamluk rulers defeat Mongols at Ain Jalut
1453- Ottomans capture Constantinople, fall of Byzantine Empire
1571- Ottoman naval defeat at Lepanto; beginning of European dominance
1798- Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt; Muhammad Ali rules Egypt (1805-1849)
1839- Tanzimat reforms in the Ottomans (- 1876)
1854- Crimean War (to 1856)
1869- Opening of the Suez Canal
1882- British occupation of Egypt
1916- Arab revolts against Ottomans
1917- Balfour Declaration promises Jews a homeland in Palestine
1920- French and British mandates set up in Middle East
1923- Independence of Turkey recognized
1948- Israel established; 1st Arab-Israeli war
1967- Israel victorious in Six-Day War
1979- Iranian Revolution; spread of Islamic fundamentalism
1987- First Intifada, mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule
1990-91- Persian Gulf War
Pre-Columbus/Latin America
1200 BCE- Olmecs in Mexico; Chavín in Andean South America
622 CE- Classical Maya (to 900)
1325- Aztecs, Incas (1350) established
1492- Columbus makes landfall in the Bahamas
1519- Cortez conquers Aztecs (-1522)
1532- Pizarro conquers Incas
1542- Bartolome de las Casas pushed to reform treatment of Indians
1804- Slave revolt leads to independence in Haiti
1830s- Rise of caudillos, self-interested military dictators backed by private armies
1888- Slavery abolished in Brazil
1898- Spanish-American War; US takes control of Puerto Rico, Guam, & the Philippines
1903- Theodore Roosevelt intervenes to assist Panamanian independence from Colombia
1910- Mexican Revolution (to 1920)
1917- Mexico’s revolutionary leaders author a new constitution
1929- Ecuador becomes the first Latin American nation to grant women the right to vote
1933- FDR announces “Good Neighbor Policy” of non-intervention in Latin America
1954- The “Guatemalan Revolution” of Arévalo and Arbenz overthrown with CIA help
1965- US forces, fearing a Communist takeover, occupy Dominican Republic
1985- Civilian rule returns to Brazil (since 1964)
1994- NAFTA takes effect
Western Europe
470 BCE - Athens at its height; Pericles, Phidiasa, Sophocles, Socrates
323 BCE - Alexander’s Hellenistic Empire
27 BCE - Augustus Caesar, rise of Roman Empire
312 CE- Constantine divides administration of empire and adopts Christianity
476 CE - Fall of Rome
732- Franks defeat Muslims in France
800- Charlemagne’s empire
1066- Norman conquest of England
1096- Crusades
1100- Italian city-states emerge
1150- Gothic style spreads (-1300)
1200- Flowering of scholasticism (-1274)
1215- Magna Carta
1300- Italian & Northern Renaissance (1450-1600)
1338- Hundred Years’ War (to 1453)
1348- Black Death
1488- Portuguese round Cape of Good Hope
1492- Columbus makes landfall in the Bahamas
1498- Vasco de Gama reaches India
1517- Beginning of Protestant Reformation
1600s- Scientific Revolution (-1700s)
1648- Thirty Years’ War ends with Treaty of Westphalia
1700s- Enlightenment
1763- Seven Years’ War, British-French global warfare
1770- James Watt’s steam engine; Beginning of Industrial Revolution
1776- American Revolution
1789- French Revolution
1870- Unification of Italy
1871- Unification of Germany
1871- High point of European imperialism (-1914)
1914- Beginning of World War I
1919- Treaty of Versailles
1929- Great Depression begins
1939- WWII begins (to 1945)
1947- Marshall Plan
1949- NATO established
1957- Establishment of Common Market
1989- Berlin Wall division ends
2001- Euro currency introduced
Sub-Saharan Africa
800 BCE - Migration of Bantu-speakers throughout sub-Saharan Africa (to 1000 CE)
800 CE- Growth of the trans-Sahara trade for gold
1000- Ghana at height of its power
1100- Almoravid movement in the Sahara
1200- Rise of the empire of Mali
1324- Pilgrimage of Mansa Musa
1400- Flourishing cities of Timbuktu & Jenne; Ethiopian Christian kingdom; Swahili cities flourish on e. African coast
1441- First shipment of African slaves brought directly from Africa to Portugal
1481- Portuguese fort established at El Mina
1500- Songhay Empire flourishes
1652- Dutch establish colony at Cape of Good Hope
1700- The Asante kingdom unified
1720s- Rise of the kingdom of Dahomey
1790s- Abolitionist movement gains strength in England
1818- Shaka forges Zulu power and expansion
1834- Boers make “Great Trek” into Natal
1870s- Partition of Africa (to 1914)
1920s- Pan-African Congresses in Paris; beginnings of the negritude movement
1957- Ghana established as first independent African nation
1960- Congo granted independence from Belgian rule
1966- Biafran secessionist war in Nigeria (-1970)
1994- First democratic elections in South Africa
Eastern Europe
100 CE- Slavic migrations into Eastern Europe (to 650)
330- Constantinople made capital of Eastern Roman Empire
527- Justinian; Byzantine Empire begins
864- Beginning of missionary work of brothers Cyril and Methodius in Slavic lands
980- Vladimir I’s conversion to Christianity
1054- Schism between East/Western Christianity
1204- Fourth Crusade
1241- Capture of Russia by Mongols (Tartars)
1453- Capture of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks; end of Byzantine Empire
1480- Moscow region freed from Tartar control
1533- Ivan the Terrible, first to be called Czar; boyar power reduced; Russian expansion
1613- Romanov dynasty begins
1689- Peter the Great reigns (- 1725)
1762- Catherine the Great (-1796)
1831- Greece wins independence from Ottomans
1854- Crimean War
1861- Russian emancipation of serfs
1884- Beginnings of Russian industrialization
1905- Russo-Japanese War; peasant reforms and establishment of duma
1914- World War I
1917- Bolshevik Revolution
1928- Stalin rules; beginning of collectivization of agriculture and five-year plans
1936- Stalin’s Great Purges (-1938)
1941- German invasion of Soviet Union
1945- Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe (-1948)
1956- Hungarian revolt and its suppression
1968- Revolt in Czechoslovakia and its repression (Prague Spring)
1979- Uprisings in Poland and their suppression
1979- Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
1985- Gorbachev to power, initiates reforms; glasnost and perestroika
1989- Berlin Wall falls; end of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe
1991- End of Soviet Union
1995- Russian army attempts to suppress independence of Chechnya, a Muslim region
South Asia
2500 BCE - Emergence of Harappan (Indus) civilization
563 BCE - Life of the Buddha (-483 BCE)
327 BCE - Alexander the Great’s invasion
322 BCE - Mauryan dynasty begins (to 185 BCE)
319 CE- Gupta dynasty begins (to 535)
1206- Establishment of the Delhi sultanate
1556- Rise of the Mughal Empire; reign of Akbar
1661- British port-trading center founded at Bombay
1707- Death of Aurangzeb; beginning of imperial breakdown
1835- Decision to give support for English education in India; English adopted as the language of Indian law courts
1853- First railway line constructed in India
1857- Sepoy Mutiny
1858- British parliament assumes control over India from the East India Company
1885- Indian National Congress Party founded in India
1931- Gandhi-led Salt March revives Indian Nationalist movement
1947- India and Pakistan gain independence
1972- Bangladesh becomes an independent nation, separated from Pakistan
Southeast Asia
111 BCE - Vietnam conquered by Chinese
939 CE- Vietnam wins its independence from China
1500- Nguyen dynasty in central/south Vietnam founded
1511- Portuguese conquer Malacca on the tip of Malayan peninsula
1512- Portuguese arrive in Indonesia
1521- Spain claims Philippines
1620- Dutch East India Company established at Batavia on Java
1641- Dutch capture Malacca from Portuguese, and begin conquests on Java, in Indonesia
1757- Dutch become paramount power on Java
1883- French conquest of Vietnam completed
1902- U.S. takes over Philippines
1925- first Communist organization established in Vietnam
1942- Japanese occupation of French Indochina
1945- Ho Chi Minh proclaims the Republic of Vietnam
1946- Philippines gains independence
1954- French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; Geneva accords, French withdrawal from Vietnam
1965- Direct U.S. military intervention in Vietnam (to 1973)
1975- Communist victory in Vietnam; Khmer Rouge sets up a brutal Communist government in Cambodia
1986- Election of Corazón Aquino ends Marcos dictatorship in Philippines
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