Timeline of human history - Time in space

Timeline of human history
version 2

by Finn Sivert Nielsen

This timeline was compiled as a quick guide to "history" in the broadest sense of the term: from the Big Bang to yesterday. It also has the purpose of reminding the reader of the smallness of all human concerns.

Version 1 has been around for some 15-20 years, and is still available (click here!): it is rather simply designed, the data it includes are rudimentary, its sources sometimes way out of date, but some may like it better precisely because it is briefer. Version 2 sets out to correct all (or most) of these problems, in addition making the timeline itself more interesting to contemplate in purely visual terms. Enjoy!

To learn about this timeline and how to use it, click here.

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Contents

13,800,000,000 BP...	Timeline 1	Origin of the Universe. Origin of the Sun, the Earth, the Moon. Origin of Life.
5,000,000,000 BP...	Timeline 2	History of Earth. History of Life. Photosynthesis. Snow-ball Earth.
2,000,000,000 BP...	Timeline 3	Life since the Huronian Glaciation. Sexual reproduction, predators & prey. Animals diverge from plants.
600,000,000 BP...	Timeline 4	Pangea and the History of Complex Life. From trilobites to dinosaurs to primates. The great extinctions.
260,000,000 BP...	Timeline 5	Life since the Permian Extinction. Break-up of Pangea. Warm, wet climates. Dinosaurs, birds, flowering plants.
80,000,000 BP...	Timeline 6	Life since the 'K-T Boundary'. The many roots of global cooling. Giant mammals. The first apes. The origin of grass.
25,000,000 BP...	Timeline 7	Apes in Africa and Europe. Build-up to the Quaternary Ice Age. From Afropithecus to Australopithecus.
5,500,000 BP...	Timeline 8	Since the Hominins split with the Chimps. Diversification of Australopithecus and Homo.
1,750,000 BP...	Timeline 9	The Age of Homo Erectus. Evolution of the Human. Fire, language, social life, complex tools.
500,000 BP...	Timeline 10	The origins of Hunter-Gatherer Society. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens.
200,000 BP...	Timeline 11	Evolution and spread of Homo Sapiens Sapiens during the Last Glacial Period. Human culture "comes together." The Toba supereruption.
50,000 BP...	Timeline 12	Human Culture during the Last Glacial Maximum. Upper Paleolithic cave art. Extinctions of megafauna.
12,000 BP...	Timeline 13	The Holocene Interglacial. Agriculture and states. Domesticated animals. Cities. Writing.
6,000 BP...	Timeline 14	A Short History of Civilization. Bronze Age Collapse. Alexandrian, Roman, Islamic, and other empires.
1,800 BP...	Timeline 15	Europe and the World since the Roman Empire. Christian and Islamic empires. The Mongols and the Black Death.
700 BP...	Timeline 16	War and Rebellion in Europe since the Black Death. From local to global war.
200 BP...	Timeline 17	Technology, artistry, migration and the birth and death of empires.