B

Vienna. Lieutenant General Schultz’s reinforcements arrive with seven thousand men, mostly Polish and Austrian. They arrive, fortunately, the day before the Ottomans, rather than the day after.

Roemer uses deviations from predicted times for eclipses of Jupiter’s Io to estimate the speed of light.

Cambridge. Isaac Newton becomes Lucasian Professor.

Christian Huygens recognizes Saturn’s thin ring and publishes the result in “Systema Saturnium”

Evangelista Torricelli, a student of Galileo Galilei, makes experimental observations on the existence of the vacuum, the existence of which had been denied since the time of Aristotle.

Istanbul. Sultan Murad IV outlaws the production and consumption of tobacco and coffee.

English philosopher John Locke advocates the equality of all people

Dutch conquest of northeastern Brazil.

Pope Sixtus V dies and his plan to use the Colosseum in Rome as a wool factory to employ the city’s prostitutes is not realized.

Mathias Albuquerque (Portugal) conquers Malacca and the East Indies

Florence. From 1470, but even before that date, Lorenzo the Magnificent, a member of the Medici family, was one of the most active protagonists of the magnificence of the Italian Renaissance. Men of letters and artists found in him an intelligent and receptive patron, so

The sport of golf is officially born in St. Andrews, Scotland.

The seat of the Papacy moves to Avignon.

First Venetian-Genoese War. The Venetian merchant fleet, departing for Acre, is accompanied by a powerful military escort under the command of Lorenzo Tiepolo, already renowned for the reconquest of Zara in 1243. Tiepolo breaks the chain with which the Genoese are attempting to block access

Frederick Barbarossa descended once again into Northern Italy, accompanied by a small escort, for a tour of the main cities, starting from Milan, passing through several cities in Lombardy and Emilia (including Modena), and then returning to Milan in the late spring of 1185. After

Augsburg. For the fourth time, Frederick Barbarossa gathers his troops to descend into Italy at the head of a massive army across the Brenner Pass: 4,000 soldiers plus 1,500 Brabançon mercenaries, squires, and other auxiliaries, for a total of around 10,000 fighters. The impression is

Otto of Germany is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome. With the Ottonian Privilege, the election of the Pope is subject to the Emperor’s approval.

India: First use of zero. The mathematician Mahavira defines it as the number that leaves the other number unchanged in addition, while itself remains unchanged in multiplication.

Anglo-Saxon victory over the Vikings in Wessex

Lombards and Franks govern Carpi

During the siege of Constantinople, the Byzantines made use of a new invention: Greek fire; or a liquid mixture based on pitch used in a flamethrower: it always burns, even on water.

St. Patrick, a Scottish man, was sent as a missionary to Ireland, where monks were already distilling brandy.

Alaric, commanding the Goths, attacks the defenses of Rome

Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat inside the second wall.

Modern Western culture can be thought of as a Greco-Roman-Jewish-Christian legacy developed in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Persia: King Darius dies, succeeded by his son Xerxes

China. Lu Ban invents a wooden bird, which may have been a rudimentary glider.

Division of the Jewish state into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Shang Dynasty in China: first proven use of the lunisolar calendar (12 or 13 months of 29 or 30 days); the days are independently counted sexagesimal, according to a tradition of the third millennium BC: 10 tiangan (heavenly trunks), 12 dizhi (earthly branches), 60 ganzhi

The sons of Shem (ancestor of the Jews): Elam, Ashur, Arpaczad, Lud, Aram. Aram fathered Uz, Cul, Gether, Mas. Arpaxad fathered Shelach, and Selach fathered Eber (hence “Hebrews”). Eber fathered Peleg and Joktan. Joktan became the father of Almodad, Selef, Asarmaveth, Jerah, Adoram, Uzal, Dikla,

Beginning of the Hittite civilization in Türkiye

In Australia, the Aborigines invented the boomerang, which had already been known in Europe for 10,000 years.

North America. After the North American glacier began retreating from New England, some species, such as earthworms, still took millennia to slowly repopulate the ecosystem. By the time Europeans arrived, the earthworms had not yet returned.

Homo floresiensis becomes extinct. Homo sapiens remains the only surviving human species on the planet.

With agriculture, livestock farming and fire, humanity changes gear and allows the rise of villages, surpluses, technologies, complex organizations, trade, nation-states.

Brief glacial episode known as the Younger Dryas

Neuvo Tolima cliff face, Guaviare, Colombia, South America. Someone draws hundreds of images on a gigantic, smooth rock face, including hunting scenes with Mehatherium (Giant Sloths: 4-5m tall!).

Chlquihulte Cave, Mexico. Worked stone objects were found 245 centuries later. This would significantly push back the date of the first human settlement in the Americas.

Paleolithic: Counting is done by making notches on a stick or other

Australia. The Aborigines, divided into opposing tribes, are among the most advanced societies in the world. For several thousand years, they have had vessels capable of navigating the high seas and reaching destinations beyond the horizon. They possess various types of stone tools, composite weapons

Sapiens arrive in Australia. The Australian megafauna become extinct soon after.

Something dramatic happens to the human brain: humans begin to create drawings, sculptures for artistic purposes.

million-year-old human skull found in China suggests that our species, Homo sapiens, began emerging at least half a million years earlier than previously thought, researchers argue in a study published in September 2025. It also shows that we coexisted with other sister species, including Neanderthals,

Danube Glaciation

Australopithecus Afarensis in Ethiopia and Tanzania

Panama Strait closes due to volcanic and seismic activity

Sahelanthropus Tchadensis in Chad, a monkey (or hominid?) formerly bipedal

From a single branch of development, gorillas, shimpanzees, and hominids evolved.

The Tetons mountain range was created south of Yellowstone; since then, approximately every 900 years, a gigantic earthquake has raised the range by up to 2 meters, thus bringing it (in 9 million years) to a height of 2000 meters.

Africa’s push northward pushes Morocco against Spain: the Mediterranean becomes an inland sea; at the same time, an overwhelming greenhouse effect causes it to slowly evaporate (Messinian Salinity Crisis, which culminated 6 million years ago); the high salinity of the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and

Ninety-three percent of the continent of Zealandia, east of Australia and north of Antarctica, is underwater. The remaining exposed portion is present-day New Zealand. Zealandia was once about twice the size of present-day Australia.

The first species of ants were practically identical to the current ones, other species of ants, however similar to the current ones, were already widespread 140 million years ago

One of the first hominid species, Nsungwepithecus, developed in Europe, while in Africa (Tanzania) the first hominid species (Rukwapithecus, which would give rise to orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) would develop only 5 million years later. Hominids in Africa would not compete with other apes,

First permanent ice in Antarctica

First giraffes

Roses become endemic to the Northern Hemisphere

The Indian subcontinent collides with Asia: Tibet begins to rise

After a maximum temperature, a global cooling begins which will culminate in numerous ice ages

Maximum temperature in Europe

First flying mammals (Bats – Chiroptera)

Antarctica reaches the South Pole, but will remain ice-free for another 20 million years.

Peak diversity of plants and animals, both terrestrial and marine, thanks to the conditions of relative tranquility, warm climate and therefore abundance of food

End-Paleocene extinction due to ocean acidification. Not one of the six major mass extinctions, but still a significant event.

The Eocene represents a special period in the history of carnivores, a point of equilibrium between two possibilities, one of which is realized and the other now forgotten. Mammals were not the only candidates for success: a gigantic (over two meters tall) Eocene predatory bird

The Atlantic River is formed between North America and Europe, the prerequisite for the opening of the North Atlantic.

First Primates (ancestors of monkeys and humans)

Horses evolved in North America; from there they moved several times to Eurasia and then became extinct, probably due to humans (the ancestors of the American Indians) in North America 10,000 years BC, to finally be reintroduced to North America by humans through the Spanish

Cenozoic Period (Tertiary and Quaternary eras)

The Fifth Mass Extinction, the KT Boundary, or end-Cretaceous, occurred 66 million years ago, with the extinction of 76% of species, including ammonites and non-avian dinosaurs. The Fourth Mass Extinction occurred at the end of the Triassic, 200 million years ago, with the extinction of

The consequences of the Chixulub meteorite impact in the Yucatan, beyond the immediate devastating effects of the gigantic tsunami on North America, included the dispersion of enormous quantities of sulfur-rich dust (originating from the Yucatan Peninsula). The resulting long winter decimated the world’s forests, the

KT + 6 months. Global winter.

KT + 18 hours. Fires across the globe. Soot will linger in the air for months.

KT + 40 minutes. Debris sent into orbit by the Chicxulub meteorite begins to fall back in enormous quantities, vitrifying. It is now found all over the world in the thin KT layer. A sudden temperature change of several hundred degrees is created across the

Episode KT. Extinction of dinosaurs and 85% of species following a meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Yucatan (early Cenozoic)

The land corridor connecting Europe and Africa is submerging. Animal migrations toward Europe continue from the De Geer Corridor, which connects it to North America. Various species of crocodiles and dinosaurs arrive from there, but most of them cannot acclimate to the polar conditions of

First plants of the Platanaceae family (plane trees)

Third peak of dinosaur diversification

Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the most evolved dinosaurs

Hadrosaurs and Triceratops

South America. The Cronopio dentiacutus, a type of saber-toothed squirrel, is spreading. This is the oldest evidence of mammals on the South American continent.