Chronological Index
Events and Periods (BC)
People (BC)
Ancient river cultures: Euphrates, Indus, Nile
c. 629–588
Jeremiah
c. 580–495
Pythagoras
509–264
Early Roman Republic
480–350
Golden Age of Greece
c. 469–399
Socrates
c. 427–347
Plato
384–322
Aristotle
c. 300
Euclid (in prime)
c. 287–212
Archimedes
c. 198–117
Polybius
146
Greece falls to Rome
130–60
Growing disorder in Rome; resort to dictators
106–43
Cicero
100–44
Julius Caesar
70–AD 10
Rabbi Hillel
67
Cult of Mithras at Rome
63–AD 14
Augustus Caesar
44
Caesar assassinated
31
Augustus’s victory at Actium; start of Roman Empire
29–19
Virgil: Aeneid
12
Augustus as Pontifex Maximus
c. 6
Jesus Christ born
c. 6–AD 27
life of Christ
Events and Periods (AD)
People (AD)
27–64
Early Christian expansion
50–120
Plutarch
60s
Serious persecution of Christians under Nero
69
Avenches a Roman colony
79
Volcano destroys Pompeii
120
Hadrian’s Wall
127–151
Ptolemy’s prime
161–180
Marcus Aurelius
160–240
Tertullian
258
Cyprian martyred
c. 286
Maurice martyred
290–300
Diocletian’s reforms
303–313
Diocletian persecutes Christians
313
Toleration of Christians
315
Arch of Constantine
339–397
Ambrose of Milan
347–419
Jerome
354–430
Augustine
381
Christianity as state religion of Roman Empire
395
Roman Empire split into east and west
410, 455
Rome sacked by barbarians
476
End of Roman Empire in west
c. 480–547
Benedict and monastic order
527–565
Justinian, emperor
537
Justinian builds Hagia Sophia
590–604
Gregory I, pope
c. 600
Gregorian chant
735–804
Alcuin of York
751–768
Pippin of Franks
768–814
Charlemagne, king of Franks, emperor
800
Pope crowns Charlemagne emperor in Rome
805
Palatine Chapel, Aachen
800–1000
Byzantine art climax
1000s
Truce of God movements
1048–1122
Omar Khayyam
1066
Norman conquest of England
1000s–1100s
Economic advance
Romanesque architecture
1095–1204
Epoch of major Crusades
1115
Death of Ivo of Chartres
c. 1115–1180
John of Salisbury
c. 1119–1170
Thomas à Becket
1100–1300
Troubadours and ars antiqua
Height of papal power
Growth of Mariology
Attacks on papal excesses: Gospel of Mark of Silver (12th century)
1140–1250
Gothic architecture: Abbot Suger and St. Denis (1140) and Chartres (1194)
c. 1175–1253
Robert Grosseteste
c. 1181–1226
Francis of Assisi
1214–1294
Roger Bacon
1225–1274
Thomas Aquinas
1200s
Universities develop
1240–1302
Cimabue, Giotto’s teacher
1263
Pope Urban IV forbids teaching of Aristotle in universities
1250–1450
Representative assemblies
Late Gothic and Florentine Gothic ars nova in France and Italy
1265–1321
Dante
c.1267–1337
Giotto
1300–1321
Dante: Divine Comedy
1304
Giotto: Last Judgment
1304–1374
Petrarch
c. 1300–1377
Guillaume de Machaut
1313–1375
Boccaccio
c. 1320–1384
John Wycliffe
1325–1397
Francesco Landini
1338–1339
Lorenzetti: Allegory of Good and Bad Government
c. 1340
Petrarch climbs Mont Ventoux
c. 1350
Boccaccio: Decameron
1369–1415
John Huss
1377–1446
Brunelleschi
1378–1417
Great Schism: rival popes and Conciliar Movement
1378–1455
Lorenzo Ghiberti
1380
Wycliffe’s English New Testament
1415
Huss betrayed and burned
1389–1469
Cosimo de' Medici
1375–1406
1406–1444
Salutati and Bruni as successive Chancellors of Florence
c. 1400–1474
Guillaume Dufay
1401–1428
Masaccio
1404–1472
Alberti and perspective
1409–1457
Valla and philology
1424–1425
Masaccio: Adam and Eve in Carmine chapel
1425–1452
Ghiberti: east door of Florence Baptistry
1432
Van Eyck: Adoration of the Lamb
1434
Brunelleschi’s cathedral dome consecrated
c. 1436
Van Eyck: Rolin Madonna
1439
Council of Florence
1444–1510
Botticelli
c. 1450
Fouquet: The Red Virgin
1450–1521
Josquin des Prez
1452–1519
Leonardo da Vinci
1453
Fall of Constantinople to Turks
c. 1466–1536
Erasmus
1469–1492
reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent
Neo-Platonism of Ficino
1469–1527
Niccolò Machiavelli
1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer
1473–1543
Copernicus
1475–1564
Michelangelo
1483–1520
Raphael
1483–1546
Martin Luther
1489–1565
Guillaume Farel
1494–1498
Savonarola’s ascendancy
1494–1547
Francis I
1500–1571
Cellini
1501
Petrucci and music printing at Venice
1504
Michelangelo: David
1509–1564
John Calvin
1510
Raphael: School of Athens
1511–1574
Giorgio Vasari
1514–1564
Andreas Vesalius
1516
Erasmus’s Greek New Testament
1517
Luther’s 95 Theses
1519–1536
Michelangelo: Prisoners
1519–1605
Theodore Beza
1523
Zwingli’s Zürich reform
1532
Machiavelli: The Prince
1534
Henry VIII; English Reformation
1536
Calvin: Institutes
1543
Copernicus: De Revolutionibus; Vesalius: De Fabrica
1550
Vasari: The Lives of the Painters
1546–1601
Tycho Brahe
1561–1626
Francis Bacon
1564–1642
Galileo
1564
Calvin dies
Michelangelo dies
Galileo born
Beza succeeds Calvin
1571–1630
Johannes Kepler
1583–1625
Orlando Gibbons
1585–1672
Heinrich Schütz
1596–1650
René Descartes
1600–1661
Samuel Rutherford
1606–1669
Rembrandt
1620
Bacon: Novum Organum
1623–1662
Blaise Pascal
1627–1691
Robert Boyle
1632–1704
John Locke
1632
Galileo condemned by Inquisition
1633
Rembrandt: Raising of the Cross
1637
Descartes: Discourse on Method
1637–1707
Dietrich Buxtehude
1642–1727
Isaac Newton
1644
Rutherford: Lex Rex
1643–1647
Westminster Confession of Faith
1648
Pascal and barometer
1651
Hobbes: Leviathan
1660
London Royal Society
1685–1750
J. S. Bach
1685–1759
G. F. Handel
1687
Newton: Principia
1688
England’s Bloodless Revolution
1689–1702
reign of William III, King of England
1690
Locke: Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1694–1778
Voltaire
1703–1791
John Wesley
1711–1776
David Hume
1712–1778
Jean-Jaques Rousseau
1714–1770
George Whitefield
1723–1794
John Witherspoon
1724–1804
Immanuel Kant
1729–1781
Gotthold Lessing
1733–1734
Voltaire: Letters Concerning the English Nation
1740–1814
Marquis de Sade
1741
Handel: Messiah
1730s–1770s
Religious awakening in Great Britain and America
The Enlightenment
1743–1826
Thomas Jefferson
Utilitarianism
1748–1832
Jeremy Bentham
1749–1832
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1755
Lisbon earthquake and Voltaire’s poem
1758–1794
Maximilien Robespierre
1759–1833
William Wilberforce
1762
Rousseau: Social Contract
1769–1821
Napoleon Bonaparte
1770–1827
Ludwig van Beethoven
1770–1831
George W. F. Hegel
1770–1850
William Wordsworth
1776
Declaration of Independence; Gibbon: Decline and Fall of Roman Empire
1750–1850
Classic phase of England’s Industrial Revolution
1780–1845
Elizabeth Fry
1781
Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
1787
U.S. Constitution
1789–1792
French Revolution
1789
Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen
1793–1867
Michael Faraday
1792
“Second” French Revolution/Revolutionary calendar
1793–1794
The Reign of Terror
1794
Condorcet: Sketch . . . Human Mind
1798
Malthus: Essay on . . . Population
1798–1857
Auguste Comte
1799–1815
Napoleon as consul, emperor, dictator
1800
US Reformed Presbyterian Church excludes slave holders
1801–1858
Lord Shaftesbury
1804–1872
Ludwig Feuerbach
1807
Slave trade abolished in Great Britain
1807–1882
Giuseppe Garibaldi
1809–1882
Charles Darwin
1813–1855
Søren Kierkegaard
1813–1883
Richard Wagner
1817
Ricardo: Political Economy
1818–1883
Karl Marx
1820–1903
Herbert Spencer
1822–1895
Louis Pasteur
1825–1895
Thomas Huxley
1830–1833
Lyell: Principles of Geology
1831–1879
J. C. Maxwell
1833–1834
Slavery abolished in British Empire
1839–1906
Paul Cézanne
1840s
Irish potato famine; Trevelyan’s policy
1840–1926
Claude Monet
1841–1935
Oliver Wendell Holmes
1844–1900
Friedrich Nietzsche
1848
Marx and Engels: Communist Party Manifesto
1848–1903
Paul Gauguin
1855
Büchner: Force and Matter
1856–1939
Sigmund Freud
1859
Darwin: Origin of Species
Dickens: Tale of Two Cities
1860
Burckhardt: Civilization of Renaissance in Italy
1862–1918
Claude Debussy
1866–1944
W. Kandinsky
1870–1924
V. I. Lenin
1872
Bagehot: Physics and Politics
1872–1970
Bertrand Russell
1874–1951
A. Schoenberg
1874–1965
Winston Churchill
1879–1953
Joseph Stalin
1879–1955
Albert Einstein
1881
Holmes: Common Law
1881–1973
Pablo Picasso
1882–1971
Igor Stravinsky
1883–1945
Anton Webern
1883–1969
Karl Jaspers
1886–1965
Paul Tillich
1886–1968
Karl Barth
1888–1965
T. S. Eliot
1889–1945
Adolf Hitler
1889–1976
Martin Heidegger
1891–1953
Sergei Prokofiev
1893–1976
Mao Zedong
1894–1963
Aldous Huxley
1898–1979
Herbert Marcuse
1899
Haeckel: Riddle of the Universe . . .
1898–1963
C. S. Lewis
1901–1976
André Malraux
1904–1989
Salvador Dalí
1904–1990
B. F. Skinner
1905–1980
Jean-Paul Sartre
1905
Einstein: relativity
1905
Robert: Justice Lifts the Nations
1906
Schweitzer: Quest of the Historical Jesus
1907
Picasso: Demoiselles d’Avignon
1912
Duchamp: Nude Descending a Staircase
1912–1992
John Cage
1913–1960
Albert Camus
1914–1918
World War I
1915–1973
Alan Watts
1916–2004
Francis Crick
1917
February and October Revolution in Russia
1917–2008
A. Solzhenitsyn
1919
Barth: Romans commentary
1922
Eliot: Waste Land
1926
Whitehead: Science and Modern World
1926–1997
Allen Ginsberg
1922–1943
Mussolini and Fascism in Italy
1927
Heisenberg: principle of indeterminacy
1928–2007
K. Stockhausen
1932
Huxley: Brave New World
1933
Hitler and Nazis come to power in Germany
1934
Barth: Barman Declaration
1938
Chamberlain: Munich Pact and “peace in our time”
1938
Sartre: Nausea
1942
Camus: The Stranger
1945
C. S. Lewis: That Hideous Strength
1945–1946
Nuremberg Trials
1947
Camus: The Plague
1948
Kinsey: Sexual Behavior in Human Male
1953
Russia intervenes in East Germany
1958
Polanyi: Personal Knowledge
1961
The Humanist Frame, edited by J. Huxley
1964
Berkeley Free Speech Movement
1965
Tarsis: Ward 7
1967
Beatles: Sgt. Pepper album
1968
Russia intervenes in Czechoslovakia
1969
Woodstock and Altamont rock festivals
1970
Jimi Hendrix dies
1971
Skinner: Beyond Freedom and Dignity
1971
Monod: Chance and Necessity
1973
Supreme Court and abortion
Solzhenitsyn: Gulag Archipelago
Bell: Coming of Post-Industrial Society
Bronowski: Ascent of Man
1974
Our Future Inheritance: Choice or Chance?