15th CENTURY

1453

• Constantinople fell to Ottomans

• End of Hundred Years War (Charles VII France)

1456

• First Bible printed by Gutenberg printing press

1460

• Prince Henry the Navigator (Port.) died

1469

• Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain married

1486

• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola published Oration on the Dignity of Man

1488

• Bartholomew Dias (Port.) sailed around Cape of Good Hope

1492

• Columbus to the New World

• Reconquista completed in Spain

• Spanish Inquisition

• Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent de Medici

1494

• Treaty of Tordesillas

• Vasco da Gama (Port) sailed to India

1498

• Savonarola expelled Medici from Florence

16th CENTURY

1508

• Michelangelo began painting Sistine Chapel (until 1512) under Pope Julius II

1509

• Erasmus wrote Praise of Folly (printed 1511)

• Henry VIII to power (1509-1547)

1513

• First version of Machiavelli's The Prince distributed (published 1532)

1516

• Utopia by Thomas More published in Latin (in English 1551)

• Concordat of Bologna (French rulers could appoint Fr. bishops)

1517

• Martin Luther posted 95 Theses on door of Wittenburg

1519

• Hernan Cortes (Sp.) conquered Aztecs

1520

• Suleiman the Magnificent to power (Ottoman Empire) (1520-1566)

1521

• Diet of Worms

1524

• Peasant's Revolt in Germany (1524-1525)

1525

• Thomas Munzer (Anabaptist) executed

1527

• Sacking of Rome by Charles V's soldiers

1528

• Castiglione published The Courtier

1529

• First Siege of Vienna by Ottomans

1532

• Francisco Pizarro conquered Inca in Peru

1534

• Affair of the Placards (France)

• Act of Supremacy (Br) - Henry VIII became head of Anglican Church

1536

• Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion published in Latin

1540

• Jesuits founded by Ignatius Loyola

1543

• Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies

1545

• Council of Trent (Counterreformation) (1545-1563)

1547

• John Knox brought Calvinism to Scotland

• Edward VI to power in England (1547-1553)

1553

• "Bloody" Mary to power in England (1553-1558)

1555

• Peace of Augsburg (cuius regio, eius religion)

1556

• Charles V abdicates, divides empire (Philip II, Ferdinand)

• Phillip II to power (1556-1598)

1558

• Elizebeth I to power (1558-1603)

1567

• Council of Blood/Council of Troubles, Duke of Alba in Netherlands

1571

• Battle of Lepanto (Spain and Venice defeated Turks)

1572

• St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre

1584

• Death of Ivan the Terrible (Russia) --> Time of Troubles

1588

• Spanish Armada

1589

• Henry IV to power in France ("Paris is Worth a Mass")

1598

• Edict of Nantes (Huguenots in France)

• Philip II of Spain died

17th CENTURY

1600

• British East India Company founded (Dec. 31, 1600)

1602

• Dutch East India Company founded (Mar,. 20, 1602)

1603

• Elizabeth I (Br) died, James I to power (1603-1625)

1607

• Jamestown, Virginia founded

1608

• Quebec founded by French (Jul. 3, 1608)

1609

• Dutch founded New Amsterdam (present-day New York)

1613

• Michael Romanov to power (Russia) (1613-1645)

1618

• Thirty Years War began (1618-1648)

1628

• Petition of Right signed by Charles I (Br.): Taxes need Parliament, Due Process of law

1632

• Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (trial 1633)

1640

• Long Parliament (Br.) (1640-1648)

• Frederick William, Great Elector to power (Prussia) (1640-1688)

1642

• English Civil War began (1642-1649)

1643

• Louis XIV to power (1643-1715)

1648

• End of Thirty Years War (Peace of Westphalia)

• Fronde in France (1648-1653)

1649

• Charles I (Britain) beheaded

• Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell (1649-1653)

1651

• Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan

• British pass Navigation Act (Dutch can't carry goods to England)

1653

• Cromwell became Lord Protector

1660

• Restoration of Charles II to throne of England (1660-1685)

1682

• Peter the Great to power (1682-1725)

1685

• James II to power in Br. (1685-1688)

1687

• Isaac Newton published Principia

1688

• Glorious Revolution (Br) (1688-1689) William and Mary

1689

• John Locke wrote Two Treatises on Government

• William and Mary signed English Bill of Rights (Dec. 16, 1689)

1690

• John Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

18th CENTURY

1700

• Great Northern War (Russia/Sweden) (1700-1721)

1701

• War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714)

1713

• Treaty of Utrecht (End of War of Sp, Succession) Philip V King of Spain

• Pragmatic Sanction (Charles VI Austria)

• Frederick William I to power (Prussia) (1713-1740)

1715

• Louis XV to power in France (1715-1774)

1721

• Robert Walpole became first PM of Br. (1721-1742) under George I and II

1733

• John Kay invented flying shuttle

1740

• Frederick the Great (Prussia) to power (May 1740-Aug, 1786)

• Maria Theresa (Austria) to power (Oct. 1740- Nov, 1780)

• War of Austrian Succession (Dec. 1740-1748)

1748

• Montesquieu published The Spirit of the Laws

• Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended War of Austrian Succession

1750

• Industrial Revolution

1756

• Diplomatic Revolution

• Seven Years War (1756-1763)

1758

• Voltaire published Candide

1762

• Catherine the Great (Russia) (1762-1796)

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau published Emile and The Social Contract

1763

• Treaty of Paris ended Seven Years War

1769

• Richard Arkwright invented water frame

• James Watt patented first steam engine

1772

• First Partition of Poland (2nd in 1793, 3rd in 1795)

1773

• Pugachev Rebellion (Russia) (1773-1775)

1774

• Louis XVI to power in France (1774-1792)

1776

• Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations

• Declaration of Independence signed in the United States

1779

• Samuel Crompton invented spinning mule

1780

• Joseph II to power in Austria (1780-1790)

1789

• Start of French Revolution (1789-1799) (Bastille)

1790

• Civil Constitution of the Clergy (France)

1791

• Olympe de Gouges composed Declaration of the Rights of Women

• Legislative Assembly in France

• Declaration of Pillnitzh (Aug. 1791)

1792

• Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Women

• Legislative Assembly declared war against Austria and Prussia

1793

• Louis XVI guillotined by Jacobins (Fr)

• Levee en Masse declared by Committee of Public Safety

• Eli Whitney invented cotton gin

1794

• Thermidorian Reaction

1795

• Directory established in France (1795-1799)

1796

• Edward Jenner first smallpox vaccination

1798

• Thomas Malthus published Essay on the Principle of Population

1799

• Napoleon overthrew Directory (Nov. 9, 1799)

• Combination Acts (1799 and 1800) (Br) prohibited Br. workers from organizing repealed 1824

• Robert Owen bought New Lanark mill

19th CENTURY

1801

• Concordat of 1801 (Napoleon) = French peace with Pope

• Tsar Alexander I to power in Russia (1801-1825)

• Act of Union - Ireland united with GB

1804

• Napoleon crowned Emperor (Dec. 2, 1804)

1808

• Napoleon deposed Spanish Bourbons, put Joseph in power

1814

• Napoleon abdicated, exiled to Elba (Mar. 1814)

1815

• Congress of Vienna

• Louis XVIII (Fr.) to power

• Napoleon defeated at Battle of Waterloo (Jun. 1815) exiled to St. Helena

1817

• David Ricardo wrote Iron Iron Law of Wages

1821

• Beginning of Greek revolt against Ottoman Empire

1824

• Charles X to power in France (1824-1830)

1825

• Tsar Alexander I (Russia) died

• Nicholas I to power in Russia (1825-1855)

• Decembrist Revolt (Dec. 1825)

1830

• Revolution of 1830 in France

• Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People

• Louis Philippe (July Monarch) to power (1830-1848)

• Belgium independent

1832

• Reform Bill (Br.) ended "rotten" boroughs and doubled vote (1 in 5 men)

1834

• Zollverein established

1838

• People's Charter drawn up (Br) asking for universal manhood suffrage, secret ballot etc.

1846

• Repeal of the Corn Laws

1848

• Marx and Engels published Communist Manifesto

• Revolution against Louis Philippe (February 1848) in reaction to closing banquets and Guizot

• Second Republic in France under Alphonse de Lamartine, National Workshops (Louis Blanc)

• June Days (June 1848) in reaction to closing Workshops

• Louis Napoleon elected president of France (Dec. 1848)

• 1848 Revolutions

• Seneca Falls Convention in U.S. (Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton)

1849

• Gustave Courbet painted Realism painting Burial at Ornans

1851

• Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in London

1852

• Louis Napoleon crowned Emperor Napoleon III (1852-1870)

• Piedmont-Sardinia's King Victor Emmanuel II named Camillo di Cavour his Prime Minister

1853

• Crimean War (1853-1856)

1855

• Alexander II to power in Russia (ended Crimean War) (1855-1861)

1856

• Patent for Bessemer process (steel)

1859

• Darwin published Origin of Species

1861

• Civil War in United States (1861-1865)

• Alexender II (Russia) emancipated serfs

• Victor Emanuel became first King of Italy (Mar. 1861-1878)

1862

• William I of Prussia chose Otto von Bismarck to be Prime Minister

1864

• Alexander II introduced local self-government through zemstvos

1866

• Seven Weeks' War - Bismarck defeated Austria

1867

• Austria agreed to create Dual Monarchy with Hungary

• England under Benjamin Disraeli passed Reform Bill of 1867 - suffrage to most men.

1871

• Franco-Prussian War

• German Unification (Bismarck)

1873

• Claude Monet painted Impression Sunrise (Impressionism)

1876

• Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell

1878

• Congress of Berlin

1879

• Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House

1880

• Beginning of the "Belle Epoque" (1880-1914) - "Beautiful period"

1881

• Alexander II assassinated by People's Will (anarchists)

1884

• Berlin Conference (1884-85) moderating Scramble for Africa

1888

• William I of Germany died, succeeded by William II (1888-1918)

1890

• William II forced Bismarck to resign

1894

• Nicholas II (Russia) to power (1894-1917)

• Dreyfus Affair (Fr.)

1896

• Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State

1898

• Emile Zola wrote J'Accuse (in l'Aurora newspaper)

1899

• Freud wrote The Interpretation of Dreams

20th CENTURY

1903

• Social Democrats split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks (Lenin)

1905

• Russo-Japanese War

• Revolution of 1905 Russia/"Bloody Sunday"

• Einstein's Theory of Relativity

1914

• Br. Parliament passed Irish home-rule bill (postponed because of WWI)

• Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated by Serbian Black Hand

• Beginning of WWI (1914-1918)

1917

• Tsar Nicholas II (Russia) deposed (Mar.1917)

• Russian provisional government (Alexander Kerensky)

• U.S. entered WWI (Apr. 1917)

• Russian Revolution - Lenin (Oct.Nov 1917)

1919

• Treaty of Versailles

1921

• Lenin's New Economic Policy (USSR)

1922

• Mussolini to power in Italy

1923

• Hitler Beer Hall Putsch

• German occupation of Ruhr

• Dawes Plan (US loans to Germany)

1924

• Lenin died

1925

• Locarno Pact (Fr. Ger. Eng. Italy, Belgium) - guaranteed borders between Germany and France

1928

• Kellogg-Briand Pact - promise to "renounce war as an instrument of national policy"

• Stalin launched first Five-Year Plan (USSR)

1929

• U.S. stock market crash - beginning of Great Depression

• Lateran Accord (Mussolini peace with Pope Pius XII)

1931

• Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory

1933

• Hitler to power

• Germany withdrew from League of Nations

1934

• Stalin's Great Terror (1934-1938)

1935

• Nuremberg Laws in Germany (Jews not citizens, no marriage between Jews and Germans)

• Hitler began rearming Germany

• Mussolini invaded Ethiopia

1936

• Remilitarization of the Rhineland

• Spanish Civil War (Franco's Nationalists rebelled against Italian Republic) (1936-39)

1938

• Hitler annexed Austria (Mar. 1938) Anschluss

• Munich Conference (Sep. 1938)

• Kristallnacht (Nov. 9 and 10, 1938)

1939

• Non-Aggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) Germany and USSR (Aug. 1939)

• Hitler invaded Poland (Sep. 1, 1939)--> beginning of WWII (1939-1945)

1940

• Battle of Britain (July 10-Oct. 31, 1940)

• Vichy government in France under Philippe Petain (July 1940-Sept. 1944)

1941

• Operation Barbarossa, Germany invaded USSR (Jun. 22, 1941)

• Japan took Indochina (Jul. 1941)

• Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) US entered war

1942

• Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

• Battle of Midway (Jun. 1942)

1943

• "Island Hopping" (Jun. 1943)

• Tehran Conference (Nov, 1943)

1944

• D-Day (Jun. 6, 1944) Landing in Normandy

1945

• Yalta Conference (Feb. 1945)

• US President Roosevelt died (Apr. 12, 1945)

• Mussolini executed (Apr. 28, 1945)

• Hitler suicide (Apr. 30, 1945)

• Victory over Europe (V-E) Day (May 8, 1945)

• Potsdam Conference (Jul. 17-Aug. 2, 1945)

• Atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945)

• Japan surrendered (Sept. 2, 1945)

1947

• Truman Doctrine (Mar,. 12, Truman aid to Greece and Turkey)

• Britain granted India independence (split into Pakistan and India)

1948

• Marshall Plan (Apr. 3, 1948)

• Berlin Blockade and Airlift (Jun 24, 1948-May 12, 1949)

1949

• Creation of NATO (Apr. 4, 1949)

• People's Republic of China developed with Mao Zedong (Oct. 1, 1949)

1950

• Schuman Plan (May 9, 1950) proposed European Coal and Steel Community

1951

• Treaty of Paris formally established European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

1952

• European Coal and Steel Community created (Benelux, France, Italy, West GermanY0

1953

• Stalin died, Khrushchev to power in USSR

• Battle of Dien Bien Phu - Vietnamese (Ho Chi Minh) defeated French

1956

• Khrushchev criticized Stalin (deStalinization) in speech

1957

• Hungarian Revolution

• Rome Treaty signed (Created European Economic Community - EEC)

• Sputnik (Russian satellite) launched (Oct. 4, 1957)

1958

• Fifth Republic created in France under Charles de Gaulle (1958-1969)

1961

• Berlin Wall built (Aug. 13, 1961)

1962

• Algeria became independent from France after war

1963

• Cuban Missile Crisis

1968

• Prague Spring (Czechoslovakia) (Jan. 5-Aug. 21, 1968) Dubcek

• Brezhnev Doctrine (Nov, 1968)

1975

• Helsinki Accords (Aug. 1, 1975)

1979

• Margaret Thatcher became PM (Br.) (May 1979-Nov., 1990)

• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Dec. 25, 1979-Feb, 15, 1989)

1986

• Gorbachev (USSR) to power - Glasnost and Perestroika

1989

• Gorbachev policy of demokratizatsiya

• Polish voters elected Solidarity candidates (Jun. 1989)

• Berlin Wall dismantled (Nov. 9, 1989)

• Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia (Nov 17-Dec. 29, 1989) Vaclav Havel

1991

• Failed coup in Soviet Union (Aug. 1991)

• Gorbachev resigned (Dec. 25, 1991)

• Boris Yeltsin to power as President of CIS (Commonwealth of Indep,. States)

• Shock Therapy in Soviet Union

1992

• Maastricht Treaty signed

1993

• Czech Republic and Slovakia split peacefully into two countries

1999

• Euro introduced

• Yeltsin resigned, Vladimir Putin succeeded him.

2001

• Terrorist attack on US (September 11, 2001)