Time Line PHiLES Culture  

-20 000

 Lots of species extinct as a result of humans using spearheads.

-18 000

 Ice age low sea level lures homo sapiens East China Bering Strait Alaska

-13 000

 Start of crossing of the Bering strait by humans

-12 000

 First domesticated animals (dogs)

-10 000

 end of ice age

-10 000

 advanced human hunting techniques make disappear elephants giant sloths lions camels and horses in the Americas

-9000

 domestication of sheep

-9000

 first pots

-9000

 start of sowing domestication of plants

-9000

 use of cow milk

-8000

 start of agricultural revolution

-6500

 irrigation

-5900

 first beer

-5000

 first agricultural revolution finalised

-5000

 start of mining melting and metallurgy (copper)

-4500

 first weaving loons

-4000

 first wine

-4000

 first domesticated horses (not yet mounted)

-4000

 plough with oxen in Europe

-3500

 wheel (Sumeria)

-3200

 Start of Use of Semitic language in Mesopotamia

-3110

 Menes unites Egypt

-3100

 Stone Henge

-3000

 Large floods in Mesopotamia (Noah?)

-3000

 harp

-3000

 clay tablet rooms in temples

-2990

 first domesticated rice (India)

-2980

 first ensurance (bottomry)

-2925

 start of hieroglyphs

-2900

 Egyptians sail out of the Red Sea

-2737

 tea (China)

-2600

 dough (bread) Egypt

-2600

 education: lists of words and text tablets (Ur Mesopotamia)

-2500

 domesticated potato in Peru

-2000

 Crete: start of Knossos period

-2000

 Trumpets (Egypt)

-2000

 Abraham leaves Ur: the easy life in Ur (South Mesopotamia) is over for Semites: influence of Hammurabi of Babylon. First ever written legislation with severe punishment (mutilation impaling burning drowning). Echo of the expulsion from paradise.

-2000

 Islamic claim: Abraham builds the original Ka'bah in Mecca and brings in the "black stone" given by God in the act of the expulsion from paradise to absorb man's sins. Hence it -such is claimed by Muslims- turned black through the ages.

-2000

 Full European Bronze Age

-2000

 two men on skis Norway)

-1850

 First Suez canal (until AD 775)

-1800

 Gilgamesh Epos

-1750

 Trade between Mesopotamia and China

-1500

 Start of Mass influx of Semite peoples in Palestine Bible claim: Jews sent off from Egyptian exile Moses.

-1500

 Water clocks in Egypt (clepsidras)

-1472

 Start of intensive trade between Egypt and East Africa (Hatshepsut)

-1200

 metalled roads in the Middle East

-1200

 Dorians conquer Peloponnesos with iron weapons

-1200

 Start of use or iron

-1013

 Kingdom of Jerusalem (David)

-957

 Salomon Temple (Kingdom of Jerusalem)

-900

 Homeros poet.

-800

 Full Iron Age in Europe

-800

 Earth thought of as spherical surface (Eratosthenes)

-721

 Assyrians conquer Samaria

-700

 Hesiodos poet Boeotia Greece

-586

 Jews conquered by Assyrians (Nebukadnessar II) sent -for 48 years- in exile in Babylon (still a paradise yes but not for the Jews)

-586

 Babylonians abduct Jews (Babylon exile)

-540

 Herakleitos philosopher Ephese Anatolia

-539

 Persians (Cyrus) defeat Assyrians conquer both Babylon and Palestine. Jews sent back to Palestine. Expansion of Persia to an unprecedented empire

-532

 Pythagoras Samos moved in his 48th year to Croton (Southern Italy)

-500

 Leukippus philosopher Miletus (now Turkey)

-500

 Anaxagoras philosopher Clazomenae (now Turkey)

-490

 Empedokles philosopher Sicily-Greece

-490

 Parmenides philosopher Elea South Italy

-470

 Socrates

-460

 Demokritos philosopher

-428

 Plato philosopher Athens

-367

 Aristoteles philosopher Stagira Chalcidice

-341

 Epicurus philosopher Samos

-336

 Alexander the Great Semites part of Greek (Hellenistic) administrations

-300

 Euclides mathematician Alexandria

-284

 Livius historian Rome (died -204)

-200

 First books with sowed back (made from sheepskin as a result of an Egyptian ban of export of papyrus rolls the original form of what was called a book). Invention in Pergamum hence "parchment". The Egyptian ban is thought to have been the result of a lobby by the library of Alexandria aspiring to keep her monopoly in scholarship.

-106

 Cicero Latium

-100

 Expansion of Roman empire. Mediterranean Semites under Roman influence

-65

 Horatius Rome

-63

 Roman emperor Augustus (Died -14)

-42

 Roman emperor Tiberius (died -37)

56

 Roman historian Tacitus (died 120)

300

 First use of the mathematical number 0 (zero) by Maya's

354

 Augustinus Algeria

391

 Semites (Christians) destroy the until then surviving daughter-library of Alexandria (main destruction 48BC by perpetrators not unambiguously identified when Caesar and Cleopatra took power)

470

 Boethius Rome

570

 Mohammed born in Mecca. Start of two centuries of Arab conquests ending East to Pakistan West to Portugal and Spain..

600

 First use of the mathematical number 0 (zero) in India

640

 Semites (Muslims this time) set fire on the last remains of the library of Alexandria

672

 Molotov cocktail: invented by Callicus a Syrian. The Arabs attacking Byzantium were not interested the emperor of van Byzantium was. His boats featured flame-throwers (put on pressure by a two person hand pump) on the front deck. Hence "Greek fire".

800

 Arabs establish themselves everywhere as local elites united in a pan-Arab trade federation. Security of trade by using the sakk (check) for payment and Koran ruling trade affairs: no interest on loans. An extremely wealthy technologically unprecedented zero interest rate commercial society.

1200

 Serfdom starts to replace slavery in medieval Germany.

1225

 Thomas Aquinas Paris

1299

 Marco Polo travels to China. "One should know that from the times of the creation of Adam until today no man heathen Saracen Christian or whatever from whatever birth or generation has ever seen so many of the greatest things and investigated them as Marco Polo" (Preface of "Il Millione" by Rusticello of Pisa).

1300

 paper money issued in China

1490

 Rabelais b.

1500

 Throughout most of Europe household slavery persisted well into the late Middle Ages and even later and only gradually died out.

1637

 Pope of Rome Sublimus Dei: Non-whites are rational beings and potential Christians

1807

 England prohibits Slave Trade

1830

 The catholic church admits practically the lawfulness of interest on loans even for ecclesiastical property though it has been thought too tough to promulgate a doctrinal decree on the subject. See the replies of the Vatican dated 18 August 1830 31 August 1831 17 January 1838 26 March 1840 and 28 February 1871; and that of the catholic "Sacred Penitentiary" of 11 February 1832 ("Collectio Lacensis" (Acta et decreta s. conciliorum recentiorum) VI col. 677 Appendix to the Council of Pondicherry; and in the "Enchiridion" of Bucceroni.

1833

 England forbids slavery (slave trade 1987)

1863

 USA forbids slavery

1873

 Barbed wire (inventor: Glidden Joseph F.)

1919

 League of Nations founded. Some parts of Africa and much of the Islamic world retained slavery at the end of World War I. For this reason the League of Nations and later the United Nations took the final extinction of slavery to be one of their obligations. During the interwar period the league had considerable success in Africa with the assistance of the colonial powers.

1930

 Slavery abolished in Liberia and Ethiopia.

1962

 Slavery made illegal in the Arabian Peninsula