Human consciousness takes form in modern humans. The evolution of humans. Early Homo species spread across much of the world. Development of language, sophisticated tool use and manufacture, trade, religion and ethics, art, controlled use of fire, early agriculture, and the extinction of Homo sub-species other than Homo sapien sapien.

The Upper Paleolithic (Behavioral Modernity without Settled Agriculture)
From the Paleolithic Revolution about 50,000 years ago to the start of the Holocene about 12,000 years ago

Modern humans spread around the world. Artifact diversity increases tremendously. Evidence for art and ritual become far more sophisticated.

The Neolithic, the start of the Holocene
From about 12,000 years ago (10,000 BCE) to start of history about 5,000 years ago (3000 BCE)

Humanity domesticates animals, develops large-scale agriculture, creates cities, invents private property and wealth accumulation, develops strong status hierarchies, warfare, mathematics, and early monumental structures.

The Start of History
From about 5,000 years ago (3,000 BCE) to the Dawn of the Dominant Civilizations (about 1350 BCE)

Invention of Writing. Copper Age and the early Bronze Age. Civilizations rise along the Nile, Euphrates, Yellow River, and Indus River. The culture and language of the Indo-Europeans spreads across Europe, Central Asia, and Northern India.

Dawn of our Dominant Civilizations
From about 1350 BCE to the Heroic or Axial Age starting around 612 BC)

Monotheism (Akhenaten, Moses) and roots of modern traditions (Zoroaster, Zhou Dynasty, the Vedas, the Bronze Age Collapse and the Homeric Era, the rise of the Olmec). The Iron Age begins.

The Axial or Heroic Age
From about 612 BC to the Classical Age starting (around 221 BC)

The Assyrians defeated; Waring State Period in China; Scriptures of Hinduism and Judaism are written down. Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and the person(s) known as Lao Tse promote their teachings and philosophies. Pericles and Democracy in the 5th Century BC. Cyrus the Great and the rise of the Persian Empire. The age begins with the world politically fractured, but ends with the unifications of Alexander the Great, Ashoka the Great, and the Qin Emperor.

The Classical Age
From about 221 BCE to about 280 AD

The rise and golden age of Rome in Europe, the Parthian Empire in Persia, the Aksum Empire in Ethiopia, and the Han Dynasty in China. The Maurya Empire declined in India as the Chera, Cholas, and Pandyas flourished.

The Rise of Religious Culture
Around 280 AD to 907 AD

The Age of Transition
From about 907 to 1258 AD

The age begins with the fall of the Tang Dynasty and is marked by the decline of the Mayan Empire and the fracture of the Abbasid Empire. Vikings terrorize Western Europe. But on Java, the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms thrive around Borobudur Temple and construct Prambanan Temple. This era is marked by the glory of the Caliphate of Córdoba, and the Golden Age of Islam. In Asia, the Chola Empire in India, and the Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia flourish. The Mississippian culture suddenly appears and dominates in the Mississippi River watershed while Chaco Culture thrives in the American Southwest. In China the Song Dynasty experiences a Confucian revival. English culture becomes a hybrid of Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) and Latin (Norman-French) influences, and Spanish culture forms during the Reconquista. The Crusades expose Europeans to the wider world. This era ends with the Mongol Conquest. This stage of history moves cultures and peoples from the ancient and classical patterns of life toward a setting that will allow modern thought and culture to begin.

The Middle Ages
From the Mongol Conquest in 1258 to the initiation of the Columbian Exchange in 1492

The age begins with the Mongols sacking Baghdad and establishing imperial sway over Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and China (the Yuan Dynasty). This era is marked by the rise of Imperial Mali, and the flourishing of the Ife, Benin, and Great Zimbabwe culture in Africa. The Yuan and Ming Dynasties ruled China; and in the Americas, the Aztec and Incan empires grew and consolidated power. In Italy, the Renaissance begins, while the Roman Empire in Constantinople (the Byzantine Empire) fades away. The Great Plague kills a significant portion of the world’s population in the 14th century.

There is no consensus on what “The Middle Ages” mean, and as a historical period it is usually applied to Europe from the 5th century through the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. In this website’s scheme, we try to escape the Euro-centric view, and conceive “middle ages” as a time between the establishment of the dominant civilizations with their religious world-views (in what we call “the rise of religious culture” and “the age of transition”) and the philosophical and technological changes that give rise to the scientific method and conceptions of human rights in the Enlightenment periods.

The Age of European Ascendance
From the Columbian Exchange initiated in 1492 to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648

This era includes the great plagues that wiped out perhaps 95% of the persons living in the Americas after their contact with explorers infected with contagious diseases of Europe-Asia-Africa. This period was marked by the Reformation and Late Renaissance in Europe, giving rise to humanism. The world saw the glory of the Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid Empires, the Spanish and Portuguese world empires, and the Ming Dynasty Voyages of Exploration. The Elizabethan era in England enriched literary culture, while scientists such as Johannes Kepler, Nicolaus Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Galileo Galilei established the foundations of modern science. Europe begins this era as something of a backwater, although the Renaissance had begun in the previous era, but by the end of this time period the Europeans were clearly central to world history.

The early Enlightenment
From 1648, marked by the Treaty of Westphalia and deposition of Sultan Ibrahim, to the Start of the rule of the Qianlong Emperor in 1735

In the English-speaking world, this era begins with the capture and execution (1649) of Charles I, and ends with the first trial establishing freedom of the press (Rex vs Zenger, 1735). This is an era when the Qing (Manchurians) establish their rule in China, and ideas about human freedom gain embodiment in The United Provinces of Netherlands, the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom, and the English colonies in North America. Thinkers such as Montesquieu, Milton, Newton, Spinoza, Leibniz, Le Clerc, Orobio de Castro, van Limborch, and of course Locke initiated the Enlightenment era.

The Conclusion of European War in 1648 set up a system of nation states in a balance of power that keep western Europe fairly peaceful (aside from some invasions of the Republic in the Netherlands) until the War of Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War in North America) in 1701. European colonies grow in North America. The Ottoman Empire reaches its greatest geographic spread in this era, but is clearly starting its decline (the siege of Vienna in 1688 was a reckless venture indicating the weakness of the Ottoman Empire rather than some sort of turning point, and the ignominious fall of Sultan Ibrahim is a more logical demarcation of the change-in-fortune).

The High Enlightenment
From the start of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735) and the Afsharid dynasty (1736) to American Revolution in 1776.

This brief era (about four decades) is marked in Europe by a growth in thinking about the problems with absolute monarchy and increasing interest in the concept of human rights. In Asia the last powerful emperor enjoys the height of Chinese imperial majesty before Europe finally surpasses China. The United Kingdom ascends as Spain and France decline. The Ottoman Mughal Empires experience marked decline. The Safavid Empire in Persia is replaced by the vigorous new Afsharid Dynasty.

Important thinkers who influenced the world in this time included French authors such as Voltaire and Diderot; The Swiss Iselin and Rousseau; the Scottish philosophers Hume, Hutchison, and Smith; the English figures Samuel Johnson, John Wilkes, and John Wesley; and the Germans Kant and Mendelssohn. The Danish politician Struensee and the American printer Franklin also count as significant promoters of the Enlightenment in this period. These persons prepared the way for the revolutionary transformations that came in the next era.

The Revolutionary Era
From the American Independence Declaration (1776) to Mirza Husain-Ali's departure from Baghdad (1863)

Europeans are fed up with the class structure and absolute monarchs; Revolutions follow. The American, French, and Haitian Revolutions initiate the era. This period also experiences a growth of nationalism. South Americans and Mexicans win their independence from Spain. Europeans revolt in the revolutions of 1848. Technology disrupts production with improved steam engine, food canning, steamboats, trains, the telegraph, photography, and the sewing machine. The Babi movement spreads in Iran, and is put down. Japan is opened to the world. The Crimean War and American Civil War introduces humanity to modern warfare at the end of this era.

Most modern movements for social improvement are rooted in ideas that are formulated in this era. Adam Smith publishes his work on the Wealth of Nations at the start of this era. Pestalozzi, Mann, Herbart, Fröbel, and von Humboldt founded modern education systems. Social sciences such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology take root in universities. Radical political philosophy and utopian aspirations appear. Movements for women’s rights, animal rights, social welfare systems, workers’ rights (labor unions) all grow. The abolition movement achieves successes.

The Imperialist Era and the Industrial Revolution
From 1863 (Baha'u'llah leaves Baghdad) to the start of the Balkan wars (1912)

While the industrial revolution began much earlier in the United States and the United Kingdom, it was in the last third of the 19th century that Industrialization really spread across the globe. This was also a period when Europeans carved up the world and took over Africa and parts of Asia that had not already been colonized. The era ends with the fall of the Manchurian Dynasty in China (1911) and the end of the long peace in Europe with Balkan wars that initiated conflict that would play out in two world wars in the next era.

The Age of Conflict
From 1912 end of Imperial China and start of Balkan wars to 1991, the end of the Cold War.

An era marked by the Mexican Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Great War (1914-1918), the Great Influenza Pandemic, the Warlord Era in China, The War of Japanese Imperial Conquest, the Second World War, the Maoist Revolution in China, various anti-colonial wars, the Cold War, and all this while technology leaped ahead with computer-controlled machine tools carrying automation to new levels. Rudimentary automobiles and aircraft of the previous era transformed to a point where humans went to the moon. Air conditioning and television and radio changed culture as people spent more time indoors. Urbanization transformed society as fewer people lived on farms in rural areas. Electrification and the demand for power created a surge in the construction of power plants and infrastructure to extract fossil fuels and Uranium ores from the earth.

The Information Revolution
From 1991 until now.

An era marked by the spread of telecommunications technology, especially with personal computers, the internet, the web-based economy, social media, smart phones, and greater cross-cultural mixing. Late-stage capitalism as inequalities increased. The rise of China. Death cults terrorize the world early in this era, and extremism poses a threat to global security. The threat of global conflict remains as leadership in North Korea, China, and Russia use outdated paradigms to justify policies that prepare their nations for military conflict with neighbors (Ukraine, Georgia, Taiwan). Anti-democratic nationalist tendencies manifest in the United States (Trump), Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, China, Russia, Egypt, and elsewhere. But popular people’s movements for the environment, peace, and democracy (e.g., the Arab Spring, anti-global-warming activism, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Anti-Iraq-War) also manifest, and win some victories. Anthropocene global climate catastrophe threatens humanity. Mass extinctions begin.