Events
Historical Events
Trace battles, congresses, revolutions, and other events from their background to their historical significance.
200 events
Rise of Sumerian Urban Civilization
Cities, temples, cuneiform writing, and irrigation-based institutions developed in southern Mesopotamia.
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Unification of Ancient Egypt
Around 3100 BCE, Upper and Lower Egypt were brought under a single kingship, inaugurating the Early Dynastic period and a durable political tradition in the Nile Valley.
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Expansion of the Hittite Empire
From the seventeenth through the thirteenth century BCE, the Hittite kingdom centered at Hattusa expanded from Anatolia into northern Syria.
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Battle of Kadesh
The Egyptian army of Ramesses II and the Hittite army of Muwatalli II clashed around Kadesh in Syria.
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Crisis of the Sea Peoples
Around 1200–1150 BCE, eastern Mediterranean states and communities experienced connected disruptions commonly associated with movements called the Sea Peoples.
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Phoenician Colonization
From about 1000 to 600 BCE, Phoenician cities such as Tyre and Sidon established trading posts and colonies around the Mediterranean, extending maritime networks.
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Neo-Assyrian Imperial Expansion
The Neo-Assyrian state combined military and administrative reforms with provincial rule to dominate much of the Near East.
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Development of the Phoenician Maritime Network
Phoenician city-states established ports and trading settlements across the Mediterranean, circulating timber, dyes, and crafted goods.
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Rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
From the ninth century to the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE, Assyria expanded from northern Mesopotamia into a major power across the Near East.
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Hundred Schools of Thought
A long period of intellectual activity, conventionally spanning the Eastern Zhou era through Qin unification in 221 BCE, in which thinkers across China developed competing accounts of ethics, government, language, and nature.
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Formation and Spread of Buddhism
Buddhism, formed in the fifth century BCE, spread across South Asia through monastic communities, trade routes, and royal patronage.
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Achaemenid Imperial Administration
Cyrus II, Darius I, and their successors governed a vast empire through provinces, the Royal Road, taxation, and multilingual administration.
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Rise of the Achaemenid Empire
Around 550 BCE, Cyrus II defeated the Median kingdom and established the power base from which the Achaemenid dynasty grew into a major West Asian empire.
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Foundation of the Roman Republic
After the Roman monarchy ended, a republic centered on the Senate and annually elected consuls took shape, traditionally dated from around 509 BCE.
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Foundation of the Roman Republic
Roman tradition places the end of kingship and the beginning of a republic centered on elected consuls and the Senate in this period.
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Formation of Athenian Democracy
Around 508 BCE, the reforms associated with Cleisthenes reorganized Athenian civic groups and political participation.
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Greco-Persian Wars
A series of conflicts from the Ionian Revolt in 499 BCE to about 449 BCE, in which Achaemenid Persia and Greek city-states and leagues contested the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.
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Battle of Marathon
A Greek force led by Athens defeated the Persian army of Darius I at Marathon on the eastern coast of Attica.
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Second Persian Invasion of Greece
The 480–479 BCE campaign in which forces of the Achaemenid king Xerxes I invaded mainland Greece and fought a coalition of Greek city-states.
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Creation of the Twelve Tables
Roman customary law was displayed in twelve tables, becoming a focal point in negotiations between patricians and plebeians.
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Peloponnesian War
From 431 to 404 BCE, the Athenian-led Delian League and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League fought for primacy in the Greek world.
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Alexander's Conquests
The campaign from Alexander's crossing into Asia at the Hellespont in 334 BCE through the army's return in 324 BCE, spanning Achaemenid lands, Central Asia, and the Indus region. His accession in 336 BCE and death in 323 BCE lie outside this boundary.
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Formation of the Hellenistic Successor Kingdoms
After Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, his generals divided the conquered territories and formed the kingdoms of the Hellenistic age.
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Foundation of the Maurya Empire
The political transition around 322 BCE in which Chandragupta replaced the Nanda dynasty in Magadha and founded the state that grew into South Asia's first large-scale empire.
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First Punic War
From 264 to 241 BCE, Rome and Carthage contested Sicily and control of the western Mediterranean.
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Kalinga War
Mauryan ruler Ashoka conquered Kalinga in eastern India and later recorded the human cost of the war in inscriptions.
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Qin Unification of China
In 221 BCE, King Zheng of Qin completed the conquest of the rival states, became the First Emperor, and built a centralized settlement through 210 BCE.
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Second Punic War
From 218 to 201 BCE, Rome and Carthage contested Mediterranean primacy, centered on Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.
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Foundation of the Han Dynasty
In 202 BCE, Liu Bang consolidated the foundation of the Han dynasty after the Chu–Han contention.
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Social War
From 91 to 88 BCE, Italian allies revolted for Roman citizenship, forcing a transformation of Rome’s citizenship system.
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Spartacus Revolt
From 73 to 71 BCE, a large enslaved uprising led by the gladiator Spartacus shook Italy.
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Battle of Actium
The naval battle fought off Actium on 2 September 31 BCE, where Octavian's forces defeated the fleet of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII.
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Roman Annexation of Ptolemaic Egypt
In 30 BCE, after Actium, Rome incorporated Ptolemaic Egypt as a province.
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Rise of the Kingdom of Aksum
From roughly the first through sixth centuries CE, highland Aksum linked inland farming, gold, and ivory to the Red Sea port of Adulis and became the center of a kingdom connecting Africa, southern Arabia, and the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds.
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Rise of the Moche Civilization
Moche society developed irrigation agriculture, monumental earthen architecture, and sophisticated metalwork and pottery on Peru’s arid northern coast.
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Expansion of Silk Road Exchange
Overland routes linking Han China with Central and West Asian powers carried silk, horses, metals, religions, and technologies.
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Yellow Turban Rebellion
In 184 CE, a mass uprising built on the Taiping movement's network associated with Zhang Jue broke out across the Later Han realm, with yellow headcloths serving as its identifier. Its main forces were suppressed within the year, but the mobilization strengthened regional military power and accelerated the breakdown of Han order.
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Flourishing of Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan became one of Mesoamerica’s largest cities through urban planning, monumental pyramids, and long-distance exchange.
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Rise of the Sasanian Empire
Around 224, Ardashir I defeated the Parthian royal order and founded the Sasanian dynasty.
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Edict of Milan
Constantine I and Licinius established an imperial policy of religious toleration and ordered the return of confiscated Christian property.
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Rise of the Gupta Empire
From Chandragupta I onward, the Gupta dynasty expanded across northern India and established a dynastic era and wide regional power.
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Council of Nicaea
Convened by Constantine I, the council discussed Christian doctrine and disputes among churches.
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Migration Period and the Fall of Western Rome
From about 375 to 476, Hunnic expansion, migrations and warfare, civil conflict, and weakening fiscal and political control converged as the western imperial office disappeared.
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Formation of the Early Muslim Community
The process from Muhammad's first revelations around 610 to his death in 632 through which believers centered on Mecca and Medina formed a religious, social, and political community.
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Rise of Islam
From about 610 to 632, revelations to Muhammad helped form a community in Mecca and Medina in which religious teaching and political solidarity spread across Arabia.
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Founding and Consolidation of the Tang Dynasty
The process from Li Yuan's uprising in 617 through the 618 dynastic replacement, reunification, and the end of Taizong's early consolidation in 649. It does not represent the whole Tang dynasty through 907.
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Silla Unification of Korea
In the later seventh century, Silla reorganized the political order of the Korean peninsula through alliance and conflict with Tang China.
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Islamic Conquest of Iberia
After 711, forces crossing from North Africa defeated the Visigothic kingdom and brought much of Iberia under Islamic rule.
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Byzantine Iconoclasm
From about 726 to 843, theological and political disputes over the use and veneration of sacred images unsettled Byzantine imperial policy and church life.
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Abbasid Revolution
An anti-Umayyad uprising that began in Khorasan spread into Iraq and brought the Abbasid dynasty to power in 750.
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Carolingian Renaissance
From the late eighth through the ninth century, Carolingian courts and monasteries fostered a cultural reorganization through classical learning, manuscript production, and education.
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Battle of Talas
In 751, Abbasid-aligned forces and Tang armies clashed near the Talas River, changing the balance of power in Central Asia.
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An Lushan Rebellion
A major rebellion against the Tang dynasty from 755 to 763, begun by the frontier military governor An Lushan and continued by successive leaders of the rebel Yan regime.
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Viking Expansion
From the late eighth to the eleventh century, Scandinavian raiders, merchants, and settlers extended networks across the North Atlantic, western Europe, and eastern river routes.
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Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne
In 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne, dramatizing the relationship between western kingship and the Roman Church.
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Treaty of Verdun
In 843, three Carolingian kings settled the succession struggle after Louis the Pious by dividing the Frankish Empire among their realms.
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Consolidation of the Pagan Kingdom
The Pagan kingdom combined irrigation, Theravada Buddhism, and temple building to consolidate central Myanmar along the Irrawaddy.
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Expansion of the Angkorian Empire
Khmer kings built reservoirs, canals, and temple cities while integrating a broad region around the Mekong basin.
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Foundation of the Song Dynasty
Zhao Kuangyin took power from the Later Zhou, founded the Northern Song, and began reunifying the divided Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
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Chola Maritime Expansion
The Chola rulers Rajaraja I and Rajendra I consolidated South India and launched expeditions to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
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Formation of the Swahili City-State Network
East African port cities used the Indian Ocean monsoon to connect African interiors, Arabia, and India through trade and Islamic culture.
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Rise and Consolidation of the Great Seljuk Empire
From about 1038 to the mid-twelfth century, Seljuk rulers of Oghuz origin expanded from Khurasan across Iran, Iraq, and parts of Anatolia, combining Sunni legitimacy with court administration.
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East–West Schism of 1054
Conflict between the papacy and the patriarchate of Constantinople led to mutual excommunication and deepened the division of eastern and western churches.
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Norman Conquest of England
In 1066, William, duke of Normandy, conquered England and reorganized kingship and landholding.
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Battle of Manzikert
The Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeated the army of Byzantine emperor Romanos IV and captured the emperor.
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First Crusade
From 1095 to 1099, a western European expedition traveled through Anatolia to Jerusalem after Pope Urban II’s call and a Byzantine request for military aid.
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Third Crusade
The 1189–1192 expedition in which western European rulers campaigned in the Levant after Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem.
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Formation and Early Expansion of the Mongol Empire
In 1206, Temujin was acclaimed as Chinggis Khan, and the political and military reorganization of steppe peoples became the core of an empire. Through Möngke's death in 1259, successors and princely armies extended conquest across northern China, Central and West Asia, Rus', and into central Europe.
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Foundation of the Delhi Sultanate
After Muhammad of Ghor’s death, Qutb al-Din Aibak established an independent regime in northern India and began the Mamluk dynasty.
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Foundation of the Mongol Empire
In 1206, a kurultai acclaimed Temüjin as Chinggis Khan, turning the unification of Mongol tribes into the foundation of an empire.
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Magna Carta
The charter King John accepted at Runnymede in 1215 during his conflict with the barons, later remembered for placing royal authority within law and custom.
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Foundation of the Mali Empire
In thirteenth-century West Africa, Sundiata Keita united Manding-speaking forces and built a Mali monarchy around gold, salt, and trans-Saharan exchange.
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Mongol Invasion of Europe
In the first half of the thirteenth century, Mongol armies advanced through Rus’ and eastern Europe, attacking Hungary and neighboring regions.
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Battle of Legnica
A 1241 battle in present-day southwestern Poland between a Mongol army and forces led by Duke Henry II of Silesia; it is also known as the Battle of Wahlstatt or Liegnitz.
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Foundation of the Hanseatic League
In the thirteenth century, towns and merchants around the North and Baltic Seas deepened cooperation in the trading network called the Hanseatic League.
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European Missions to the Mongols
From 1245 to 1255, the pope and the king of France sent Franciscans to the Mongol Empire to gather intelligence, pursue diplomacy, and promote Christianity.
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Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate
In 1258, Hulagu’s Mongol army captured Baghdad and ended the Abbasid caliphate’s political center there.
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Battle of Ain Jalut
Mamluk forces defeated a Mongol army at Ain Jalut in Palestine and halted its advance toward Egypt.
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Yuan Dynasty Founding and Consolidation
From 1260 to 1294, Kublai prevailed in a succession struggle, proclaimed the Yuan in 1271, defeated the Southern Song in 1279, and governed a reunified China from Dadu.
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Timbuktu as an Intellectual Center
At the Saharan trading city of Timbuktu, mosques, scholars, and manuscript markets supported the accumulation of Islamic law and learning.
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Mansa Musa’s Pilgrimage to Mecca
Mali’s ruler Mansa Musa traveled to Mecca with a large retinue, publicizing West African wealth and royal power.
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Journeys of Ibn Battuta
The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited North Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and China, leaving a record of his journeys.
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Hundred Years' War
From 1337 to 1453, English claims to the French crown and disputes over lands and homage drove a long war interrupted by truces.
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Arrival of the Black Death in Europe
Plague spread into Europe through trade routes and ports, profoundly affecting population, labor, markets, and religious life.
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Foundation of the Timurid Empire
Around 1370, Timur consolidated Central Asian powers and built an empire centered on Samarkand.
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Foundation of the Joseon Dynasty
In 1392, Yi Seong-gye founded Joseon in place of Goryeo and established a new dynastic order in East Asia.
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Age of Discovery
From the fifteenth through the seventeenth century, European maritime states extended routes across the Atlantic, around Africa, into the Indian Ocean, and to the Americas.
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Voyages of Zheng He
Zheng He’s fleets, sponsored by the Ming court, visited ports in Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, and East Africa.
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Hussite Wars
From 1419 to 1434, forces in Bohemia shaped by Jan Hus’s legacy and church reform fought imperial and papal coalitions.
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Expansion of the Aztec Empire
The alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan expanded tribute and military power across the Basin of Mexico.
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Expansion of the Inca Empire
After Pachacuti, the Inca state integrated a vast Andean region through roads, storehouses, and administrative divisions.
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Printing Press Revolution
In the mid-fifteenth century, movable metal type and press mechanics transformed the reproduction and circulation of books in Europe, expanding readership and print markets.
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Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople
The Ottoman army under Mehmed II captured the city and ended the political center of the Byzantine Empire.
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Wars of the Roses
From 1455 to 1485, competition for the English throne between the houses of Lancaster and York drew in royal, noble, urban, and regional alliances and ended in a dynastic change.
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Portuguese Opening of the Sea Route to India
The process from Bartolomeu Dias's 1488 rounding of the Cape of Good Hope through Vasco da Gama's 1497–1499 voyage to Calicut and back, demonstrating a sea route from Europe to India. Later Estado da Índia conquest is outside the boundary.
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Columbian Exchange
From 1492 into the sixteenth century, Atlantic voyages connected American, European, and African ecologies through the movement of crops, animals, people, commodities, and pathogens.
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Opening of Atlantic Routes to the Americas
From 1492 to 1502, voyages associated with Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and Cabral established repeatable crossings and geographic knowledge linking Europe with the Caribbean, North Atlantic, and South American coasts. The lands reached were already home to diverse Indigenous societies, including the Taíno.
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Treaty of Tordesillas
The 1494 diplomatic agreement by which the crowns of Castile and Portugal moved their Atlantic line of demarcation to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
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Expansion of the Atlantic Slave Trade
European colonial economies expanded the forced migration of Africans and tied it to plantation production of sugar and other commodities.
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Foundation of the Safavid Empire
In 1501, Ismail I proclaimed himself shah at Tabriz and founded the Safavid dynasty around Twelver Shiism.
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Portuguese Conquest of Malacca
Portuguese forces led by Afonso de Albuquerque captured Malacca, a strategic node in maritime trade between East and West.
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Ottoman Conquest of Egypt
The Ottoman army of Selim I defeated the Mamluk sultanate and incorporated Egypt and Syria into the empire.
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Protestant Reformation
The diverse movements of religious reform that began conventionally with Luther's 1517 challenge to indulgences and permanently divided western Christianity.
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Conquest of the Aztec Empire
From 1519 to 1521, a Spanish expedition and Indigenous allies defeated the Mexica imperial center at Tenochtitlan amid warfare, political rivalry, and epidemic disease.
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German Peasants' War
From 1524 to 1525, peasants and townspeople in German-speaking lands revolted over lordship, labor dues, and communal rights.
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Foundation of the Mughal Empire
In 1526, the Timurid ruler Babur defeated the Lodi dynasty at Panipat and began a new dynasty's rule in northern India from a base in Kabul.
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Ottoman–Habsburg War of 1526–1533
From 1526 to 1533, the Ottoman Empire, Ferdinand of Habsburg, and supporters of John Szapolyai contested the Hungarian crown and power in central Europe through war and diplomacy.
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Conquest of the Inca Empire
From Cajamarca in 1532 to the fall of Vilcabamba in 1572, the Inca Empire was conquered through succession conflict, Spanish intervention, Indigenous alliances, disease, and colonial institutions.
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English Reformation
Around the Act of Supremacy of 1534, church governance in England shifted from papal authority to the crown.
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Scientific Revolution
A retrospective label for interconnected changes in European natural knowledge, conventionally framed from Copernicus's 1543 publication to Newton's Principia in 1687.
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Council of Trent
From 1545 to 1563, the Catholic Church debated doctrine, clergy, worship, and institutional reform at the Council of Trent.
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French Wars of Religion
A sequence of civil wars from 1562 to 1598 in which Catholic–Huguenot conflict intersected with dynastic succession, noble rivalry, and foreign intervention. It was not one uninterrupted battle but repeated warfare separated by truces.
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Manila Galleon Trade
Spanish galleons linked the Philippines and Mexico, moving silver, silk, ceramics, and people across the Pacific.
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Dutch Revolt
From 1568 to 1609, armed revolt in the Netherlands became a war against Spanish Habsburg rule and, after northern cooperation, reached the Twelve Years' Truce.
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Battle of Lepanto
The major naval battle fought in the Gulf of Patras on 7 October 1571, when the Holy League defeated an Ottoman fleet and reshaped Mediterranean political memory.
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Toyotomi Unification of Japan
In 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi forced the Hojo at Odawara to surrender and completed the political unification of most of Japan.
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Foundation of the Tokugawa Shogunate
From 1603 to 1615, Tokugawa Ieyasu’s appointment as shogun, the hereditary succession of the office, and the Osaka campaigns established the military government based at Edo.
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Thirty Years' War
The 1618–1648 complex of wars centered on the Holy Roman Empire that drew in major European powers and devastated much of Central Europe.
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English Civil War
From 1642 to 1651, conflict over royal and parliamentary authority developed into the English Civil War within the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
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Qing Conquest of the Ming Realm
Manchu Qing forces entered Beijing amid Li Zicheng’s revolt and the Ming collapse, then subdued resistance and unified China.
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Peace of Westphalia
In October 1648, the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück brought the Thirty Years’ War to a negotiated close.
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Rise of the Maratha Power
Shivaji established a kingdom in western India and built military and administrative institutions that challenged Mughal power.
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Age of Enlightenment
A retrospective label for diverse seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual and social projects that emphasized inquiry, criticism, and the possible improvement of human life.
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Glorious Revolution
James II was displaced in England, and William III and Mary II took the throne with parliamentary approval.
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English Bill of Rights
Parliament adopted a declaration affirming limits on royal power, parliamentary liberties, and the right to petition.
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Rise of the Ashanti Empire
Osei Tutu and Okomfo Anokye united several groups and built the Ashanti kingdom centered on Kumasi.
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Seven Years’ War
Prussia, Austria, Britain, France, and others fought across several continents over colonies and maritime supremacy.
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Industrial Revolution
A long transformation, conventionally framed here as about 1760–1840, in which Britain became the first economy reshaped by mechanized production, fossil energy, factories, and rapidly growing industrial towns.
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American Revolutionary War
The 1775–1783 war in which thirteen British mainland colonies fought for and won independence as the United States, within a wider Atlantic conflict.
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American Declaration of Independence
Representatives of the thirteen colonies declared independence from the British Crown and presented natural rights and consent as political principles.
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French Revolution
The 1789–1799 upheaval that dismantled France's old-regime political and social order, established a republic, and ended with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup of 18 Brumaire.
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Haitian Revolution
The 1791–1804 revolution in Saint-Domingue in which enslaved people and their allies destroyed slavery, defeated attempts to restore colonial domination, and founded independent Haiti.
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Napoleonic Wars
The 1803–1815 series of wars between France under Napoleon and shifting coalitions of European powers, fought on land and sea and across imperial theaters.
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Latin American Wars of Independence
A crisis of monarchy during the Napoleonic Wars helped trigger multiple independence movements and wars in Spanish America.
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Congress of Vienna
The international congress held in Vienna in 1814–1815 to reorder Europe after the Napoleonic Wars.
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Rise of the Zulu Kingdom
Shaka expanded Zulu power in southeastern Africa through military reorganization and political consolidation.
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Greek War of Independence
From 1821 to 1829, Greek forces rebelled within the Ottoman Empire and, through civil conflict, Egyptian intervention, and great-power action, established an independent state.
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Decembrist Revolt
Some Russian officers rebelled soon after Nicholas I’s accession, demanding a constitution and reform of serfdom.
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Abolitionism in the United States
The broad antislavery movement, framed here as about 1830–1865, that organized to end slavery in the United States through Black activism, print, lectures, political action, resistance, and aid to freedom seekers.
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First Opium War
The 1839–1842 war in which Britain used naval force to compel new commercial terms after Qing officials moved against the illegal opium trade.
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Revolutions of 1848
The February Revolution in France was followed by uprisings across Europe demanding constitutions, national autonomy, and social reform.
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Unification of Germany
From 1848 to 1871, German-speaking states were consolidated into the German Empire through Prussian leadership, war, diplomacy, and parliamentary politics.
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Unification of Italy
From 1848 to 1871, wars, diplomacy, plebiscites, and parliamentary politics combined to form a united Italian state from a peninsula divided among several governments.
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Taiping Rebellion
Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Heavenly Kingdom expanded from the Jintian uprising of 1851 and made Nanjing its capital. The Qing mobilized regional armies and destroyed the rebellion's central regime with Nanjing's fall in 1864.
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Opening of the Panama Railway
A railway across the Isthmus of Panama reduced travel time for people, mail, and cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
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Indian Rebellion of 1857
A revolt of soldiers and civilians began at Meerut in 1857, spread across northern and central India, and was suppressed by British forces by 1859.
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Unification of the Romanian Principalities
Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected ruler of both principalities, advancing the political union of Moldavia and Wallachia.
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American Civil War
The 1861–1865 civil war between the United States and the seceded Confederacy, centrally caused by slavery and conflict over its territorial expansion. The boundary ends with the collapse of the principal Confederate armies.
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Emancipation of the Russian Serfs
Alexander II’s reform legally abolished serfdom and began a reorganization of rural society and land relations.
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French Intervention and Second Mexican Empire
After Mexico suspended foreign-debt payments, Britain, France, and Spain intervened. After Britain and Spain withdrew, Napoleon III's France continued the war. Maximilian's French-backed empire collapsed amid republican resistance and French withdrawal, and the republic was restored in 1867.
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Foundation of the First International
Workers’ organizations and socialists formed the International Workingmen’s Association to organize labor activism across borders.
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Meiji Restoration
The 1868 political restoration that replaced Tokugawa rule with a government acting in the emperor's name and opened a much longer transformation of the Japanese state.
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Opening of the Suez Canal
After excavation began in 1859, the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean and Red Sea in Egypt opened on 17 November 1869.
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Scramble for Africa
From the 1870s to 1914, European powers competed to divide African territories, routes, and resources while African states and communities negotiated, resisted, and adapted.
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Paris Commune
In 1871, Paris established a revolutionary municipal government after France's defeat, the siege of Paris, and conflict over the National Guard and artillery.
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Aceh War
The Netherlands sought to extend control over the Aceh sultanate, while local political and religious leaders sustained prolonged resistance.
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Mahdist War
From 1881 to 1899, Muhammad Ahmad led a Sudanese revolt framed by religious reform and resistance to taxation, and war continued through the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest.
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Berlin Conference
The November 1884–February 1885 meeting at which fourteen states negotiated rules for commerce, navigation, and future colonial claims in Africa.
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Indian Independence and Partition
From 1885 to 1947, anti-colonial politics expanded into cross-regional mass movements and party negotiations, ending British rule through the partition of India and Pakistan.
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First Sino-Japanese War
The 1894–1895 war between Qing China and Japan over intervention in Korea and the regional order, ending in Japanese victory and the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
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Boxer Rebellion
From 1899 to 1901, the Boxer anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement drew in the Qing state and military intervention by foreign powers.
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South African War
From 1899 to 1902, the British Empire fought the Transvaal and Orange Free State over power in southern Africa.
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Russo-Japanese War
From 1904 to 1905, Japan and Russia clashed over competing imperial interests in Manchuria and Korea.
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Iranian Constitutional Revolution
From 1905 to 1911, merchants, clerics, intellectuals, and townspeople demanded parliament and legal government from the Qajar state.
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Young Turk Revolution
In 1908, the Young Turk movement restored the Ottoman constitution and parliament, challenging autocratic rule.
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Mexican Revolution
A revolt against the regime of Porfirio Díaz developed into a revolution over land, labor, regional autonomy, and the reorganization of the state.
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Xinhai Revolution
The revolution from the Wuchang Uprising of October 1911 to the Qing abdication of February 1912, when provincial secession and negotiation ended the dynasty and founded the Republic of China.
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First World War
The 1914–1918 global war in which the Allied and Central Powers mobilized empires, states, and societies across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, and the Atlantic.
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Opening of the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal opened, allowing ships to move between the Atlantic and Pacific without rounding the southern tip of South America.
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Easter Rising
Irish republicans rose in Dublin and were defeated by British forces, but the event transformed public opinion about independence.
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Russian Revolution of 1917
The two revolutionary crises of 1917 that overthrew the Russian monarchy in February and brought the Bolsheviks to power in October, using the Gregorian calendar.
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Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles Settlement
The Allied conference from January 1919 to January 1920 that negotiated post-First World War treaties and an international settlement. It concerns the making of the Versailles system, not the war itself.
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Turkish War of Independence
A national movement led by Mustafa Kemal resisted occupation and treaty terms, building a new state around the Ankara government.
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Chinese Revolution (1921–1949)
An editorially defined 1921–1949 scope for the Chinese Communist movement from the founding of the Chinese Communist Party to the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on the mainland.
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Washington Naval Conference
From November 1921 to February 1922, states met in Washington to negotiate naval limitation and the postwar order in the Pacific and East Asia, producing several treaties.
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Second Italo-Ethiopian War
From 1935 to 1936, Mussolini's Italy invaded independent Ethiopia and used modern arms and chemical weapons before occupying the capital.
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Spanish Civil War
The Republican government and forces led by Franco fought amid intervention by Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union and the arrival of international volunteers.
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Second World War
The 1939–1945 global war in which the Axis powers fought the Allies across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the world's oceans, amid occupation, genocide, and mass civilian mobilization.
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Founding of the United Nations
From 1941 to 1946, wartime cooperation and great-power bargaining produced the United Nations Charter, followed by the General Assembly and Security Council beginning work.
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Indonesian National Revolution
After Japan’s surrender, Sukarno and others proclaimed independence, and the republic resisted Dutch recolonization until sovereignty was transferred.
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Southeast Asian Decolonization Wave
From 1945 to 1959, declarations, armed struggles, negotiations, and self-government initiatives spread across Southeast Asia and remade the colonial order after the Second World War.
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Anti-Apartheid Movement
The diverse South African and international struggle, framed here from the National Party's adoption of apartheid in 1948 to nonracial democratic government in 1994, against legalized white supremacy.
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Korean War
North Korea’s invasion of the South became an international war involving UN forces and Chinese volunteers, ending in an armistice that fixed the front line.
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Algerian Independence
From 1954 to 1962, the National Liberation Front fought French colonial rule and Algeria achieved independence.
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Bandung Conference
The Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, on 18–24 April 1955, where representatives of twenty-nine governments discussed decolonization, development, racial discrimination, peace, and Cold War pressures.
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United States Civil Rights Movement
From 1955 to 1965, Black citizens and allies used nonviolent direct action, litigation, and organizing to challenge segregation and voting exclusion.
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Vietnam War
Conflict between North and South Vietnam escalated into a war with major US intervention, ending with the collapse of South Vietnam’s government in 1975.
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Suez Crisis
Britain, France, and Israel intervened militarily after Nasser nationalized the canal, but withdrew under international pressure.
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Founding of the European Economic Community
In 1957, the Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community and advanced market integration and political cooperation in western Europe.
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Congo Crisis
The Congo became independent from Belgium in June 1960, but army mutiny, Belgian military intervention, the Katanga and South Kasai secessions, and division in the central government followed. A crisis involving the UN's ONUC and foreign powers reached a political endpoint with Mobutu's coup in November 1965.
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Founding of the Non-Aligned Movement
In 1961, newly independent and other states met in Belgrade for the first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
The October 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, when decisions in Havana, Moscow, and Washington brought the world close to nuclear war.
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Iran-Iraq War
From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought a prolonged war over borders, revolution, and regional power.
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Dissolution of the Soviet Union
From 1985 to 1991, perestroika and glasnost, national movements, economic crisis, and political conflict combined to dissolve the Soviet Union.
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End of Apartheid
The 1990–1994 transition in South Africa in which liberation movements were legalized, negotiations advanced, and the first nonracial election ended apartheid’s legal and political order.
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Gulf War
From Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 to the February 1991 ceasefire, United Nations resolutions and a U.S.-led coalition fought to liberate Kuwait.
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Bosnian War
From 1992 to 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina became the center of an internationalized civil war during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
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Maastricht Treaty
Signed in 1992 and effective in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty created the European Union's framework for monetary, political, foreign, and judicial cooperation.
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Rwandan Genocide
From April to July 1994, organized mass killing targeted Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda until the Rwandan Patriotic Front stopped it by taking control of the country.
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Founding of the World Trade Organization
In 1995, the World Trade Organization was established after the Uruguay Round to administer trade rules and dispute settlement.
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