Turning Points (or Paradigm Shifts)

Objectives:

  • to evaluate change and its causes and effects
  • to comprehend and compare time, change, and causality
  • to evaluate why change does not occur (stability v. change)
  • to comprehend that different things take place at different places and times across history (Contingency)

Note:

  • this page can be used alternatively with timelines, or be used to generate timelines


Major Turning Points in World History

Prehistory

Paleolithic Age

  • Early Hominids
    • fire
    • tools
  • domestication of dogs
  • Cro-Magnum man:
    • >> link to early modern humans page

[Ice Age]

  • settlement of the Americas

{End of Ice Age] (Holocene Era)

  • Natufian society
  • settlement
  • rise of the oceans


Neolithic Age

  • semi-permanent or permanent settlement
    • domestication of plants
    • domestication of herd animals

Rise of Civilization

  • metal working
    • Copper Age
    • Bronze Age
  • domestication of horses for transportation
  • domestication of camels for transportation
  • rise of cities and complex social structures


Civilization

writing

  • oral traditions made permanent with writing
  • written law (Hammuarabi's Code)

technologies

  • Iron Age
    • mass
  • astronomy & mathematics
    • navigation
    • architecture
    • warfare

empires

  • Akkadian empire (first empire)
  • Qin Dynasty
  • Persian empire
  • Roman empire


Classical period

  • Hellenistic Age
  • Athens
  • Rome

key events and years 5000 BC to 1 AD =

Bronze Age End

1177 BC

  • Bronze Age Collapse

1 AD

  • birth of Christ

key events and years 1 AD to modern period

313

  • Edict of Milan: officially tolerates Christians across Roman Empire

325 Constantine the Great unifies Roman empire


476

  • Collapse of western Roman empire

632 Mohammad dies

732

  • Battle of Tours


1206 Genghis Kahn

1215

  • Magna Carta


1453

  • Fall of Byzantium to Ottomans

1455

  • Gutenburg invents moveable type press

1488

  • Portuguese reach Indian Ocean via Africa Bartolomeu Dias

1492

  • Columbus discover of America
  • other
    • Machiaveli

1517

  • Luther's 95 Theses
  • sparks Protestant Reformation

1588 English defeat of Spanish Armada

  • rise of Britain
  • decline of Spain

1648

  • Treat of Westphaia ends 30 Years War
  • ruinous religious war ends w/ German states able to choose religion (protestant v. Catholic

1688

  • British Glorious Revolution
    • ended British divine rule and affirmed Parliament's power

1740

  • Federick the Great of Prussia
  • Catherine the Great of Russia
  • balance of power shifts away from Austria

1776

1789

  • US Constitution affirmed and election / inauguration of Washington as 1st president
  • French Revolution

1815

  • Congress of Vienna restores monarchies after fall of Napoleon

1848

  • popular & radical revolts in Europe fail


1870

  • unification of Germany

1914-18 WWI

1929

  • Stock Market crash

1939-45

  • WWII

1989

  • collapse of Soviet Union

Modern technologies

  • Franklin Stove
  • lightning rod
  • Thomas Crapper
  • electricity
  • automobile
  • medicine
  • modern Air Conditioner 1902 by Willis Carrier
  • first home air conditioner, 1914
  • installation of air conditioners in motive theaters: 1925
  • common use of air conditioners in homes: 1950s

See also

  • Ages of Man - the ancient Greek mythological stages of mankind (Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Heroic Age, Iron Age)