Timeline of Great Thinkers, Events, and Inventions

compiled by Stephen Hird

Compact List Without Images and Descriptions

Pre-3000 BCE - 900 BCE

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Quick Jump to Sections || Pre-3000 BCE - 900 BCE || 899 BCE - 1 BCE || 0 AD - 1450 AD || 1451 AD - 1700 AD || 1701 AD - 1850 AD || 1851 AD - 1950 AD || 1951 AD - 2008 AD ||

pre 3000 BCE: Adam and Eve

According to the Bible, God on the sixth day of Creation created all the living creatures and, "in his own image," man both "male and female." God then blessed the couple, told them to be "fruitful and multiply," and gave them dominion over all other living things. He also gave them a second, conflicting commandment, to not eat of the tree of life. However, Adam and Eve were in innocence and did not "know" each other, (as it is revealed later, they did not even know they were naked). The only way to obey God's commandment to multiply, was to break his other commandment and eat of the fruit. Eve first, then Adam, both realized that in order to multiply they would need to make a decision, either remain in child like inocence, or eat the fruit and be able to have knowledge to multiply and replenish the earth.
Adam and Eve. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9003647

c. 3800 BCE: Invention of the Wheel

The Wheel, a Sumerian (Erech) pictograph, dated about 3500 BC, shows a sledge equipped with wheels. The idea of wheeled transportation may have come from the use of logs for rollers, but the oldest known wheels were wooden disks consisting of three carved planks clamped together by transverse struts. Although they did not develop the wheel proper, the Olmec and certain other western hemisphere cultures seem to have approached it, as wheel-like worked stones have been found on objects identified as children’s toys dating to about 1500 BC. The invention of the wheel thus falls in the late Neolithic and may be seen in conjunction with the other technological advances that gave rise to the early Bronze Age. Note that this implies the passage of several wheel-less millennia even after the invention of agriculture. The three power sources used in the Middle Ages—animal, water, and wind—were all exploited by means of wheels.
wheel. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9076749

c. 3500 BCE: Discovery of Iron Processing

Production seems to have started in the copper-producing regions of Anatolia and Persia, where the use of iron compounds as fluxes to assist in melting may have accidentally caused metallic iron to accumulate on the bottoms of copper smelting furnaces. When iron making was properly established, two types of furnace came into use. Bowl furnaces were constructed by digging a small hole in the ground and arranging for air from a bellows to be introduced through a pipe or tuyere. The applications of this cast iron were limited because of its brittleness, and in the early Iron Age only the Chinese seem to have exploited it. Elsewhere, wrought iron was the preferred material.
iron processing. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9110659

c. 3500 BCE: Invention of Writing

The outline of the development of the Sumerian writing system has been worked out by paleographers. It has long been known that the earliest writing system in the world was Sumerian script, which in its later stages was known as cuneiform. The earliest stages of development are still a matter of much speculation based on fragmentary evidence. The historical record is much more explicit after 3200 BC and reveals clearly the stages involved in the evolution from a limited system of notation suitable for recording particular events into a full general-purpose orthography. Archaic Sumerian used mostly graphs representing numerals, names for objects, and names of persons. The invention of the alphabet is a major achievement of Western culture. It is also unique; the alphabet was invented only once, though it has been borrowed by many cultures.
writing. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-53659

c. 3050 BCE: Menes

Also known as Aha and Scorpion, Menes was the first pharaoh of the 1st Dynasty in Egypt. He ruled some time between 3100-2850 B.C during the Protodynastic era of Egypt's history. This time period was characterized by "firm political structure of the land which was unified by the pharaoh" (Ancient Egypt-Narmers Palette). Menes was credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt into a single kingdom. He may have accomplished this with military force and/or by peaceful means such as marriages or administrative measures. Besides unifying Egypt, Menes also founded the city of Crocodopolis where he built the first temple to Ptah (Menes), and also the city of Memphis, which he made his capitol. The city of Memphis was situated 28 km south of modern day Cairo on an island on the Nile River.
Menes. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9052008

c. 1810 BCE: Hammurabi

Hammurabi was the sixth and best-known ruler of the 1st (Amorite) dynasty of Babylon (reigning c. 1792–50 BC), noted for his set of laws, considered one of the oldest enacted laws in human history. He was engaged in the traditional activities of an ancient Mesopotamian king: building and restoring temples, city walls, and public buildings, digging canals, dedicating religious objects to deities, and fighting wars. Changes were aimed at the consolidation of conditions resulting from the transformation of a small city-state into a large territorial state. His laws include economic provisions (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce), family law (marriage and divorce), as well as criminal law (assault, theft) and civil law (slavery, debt). Penalties varied according to the status of the offenders and the circumstances of the offenses.
Hammurabi. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9039075

c. 1600 BCE: Invention of Paper

The papyrus plant was long-cultivated in the Nile delta region in Egypt and was collected for its stalk or stem, whose central pith was cut into thin strips, pressed together, and dried to form a smooth, thin writing surface. The ancient Egyptians used the stem of the papyrus plant to make sails, cloth, mats, cords, and, above all, paper. Paper made from papyrus was the chief writing material in ancient Egypt, was adopted by the Greeks, and was used extensively in the Roman Empire. Paper has been traced to China in about AD 105. It reached Central Asia by 751 and Baghdad by 793, and by the 14th century there were paper mills in several parts of Europe. It was used not only for the production of books (in roll or scroll form) but also for correspondence and legal documents.
papyrus. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058355

c. 1500 BCE: Discovery of Organized Religion

Hinduism is generally considered to be the oldest religion still being practiced today. This ancient religion was born when the Aryan peoples migrated to Northern India and first put their religious tradition into writing. The texts they created are the Vedas, Judaism traces its roots back to the patriarch Abraham, but Moses organized the people,(1400 BCE). Several other religions are almost as old as Hinduism. Judaism traces its roots back to the patriarch Abraham, who lived around 1800 BCE. Zoroastrianism is sometimes called the world's oldest prophetic religion. It's certainly one of the earliest religions founded by one person. Oddly enough, the two religions that dominate the world today are relative newcomers to the spiritual scene. Christianity began with the teachings of Jesus Christ (30 AD), Islam started with the prophet Muhammad ’s revelation (610 AD).
Organized Religion. (2001). In Ask Yahoo Online. http://ask.yahoo.com/20011106.html

c. 1300 BCE: Moses

As the interpreter of these Commandments, he was the organizer of the community's religious and civil traditions. In the Judaic tradition, he is revered as the greatest prophet and teacher. His influence continues to be felt in the religious life, moral concerns, and social ethics of Western civilization, and therein lies his undying significance. When he was first called, begged for a release, but given his brother to speak for him. While leading Isreal in the desert, he was the judge of all the people, and overwhelmed by this task, sought help from his father-in-law who advised him to set up 'districts' with local judges to help the people, which is still followed in many Christian churches and Jewish synagouges today. Moses was one of the greatest of the prophets, and few of mankind's great personalities outrank him in influence.
Moses. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108742

c. 1000 BCE: Zoroaster

A major personality in the history of the religions of the world, Zoroaster has been the object of much attention for two reasons. On the one hand, he became a legendary figure believed to be connected with occult knowledge and magical practices in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean world in the Hellenistic Age. His monotheistic concept of God has attracted the attention of modern historians of religion, who have speculated on the connections between his teaching and Judaism and Christianity. His teachings on the Wise Lord had ethical dualism when the topic of Ahriman, or the embodiment of evil who is the opponent of the Wise Lord. The Greeks regarded him as a philosopher, mathematician, astrologer, or magician. Jews and Christians regarded him as an astrologer, magician, prophet, or arch heretic.
Zoroaster. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9078456

962 BCE: Solomon

Solomon was a vigorous administrator, and he realized that the old division of the nation into 12 tribes posed a threat to the unity of the realm because the tribal feeling that was retained was not for the good of the state. Each district had its royally appointed governor, and a chief ruled over the 12 governors. Another important but unpopular appointee of the king was the chief of taxation; taxes were exacted most commonly in the form of forced labour and in kind. Solomon also became famous as a sage. When two harlots each claimed to be the mother of the same baby, he determined the real mother by observing each woman's reaction to the prospect of dividing the child into two halves. Solomon also had created great wealth in the kingdom, and some schoalrs claim that favoritism contributed to the downfall of the kingdom.
Solomon. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068613

899 BCE - 1 BCE

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c. 638 - 558 BCE: Solon

Solon was of noble descent but moderate means. As the tradition states and his travels and economic measures suggest, he may have been a merchant. He first became prominent about 600 BC at the time of the war of Salamis. The social, economic, and political evils of the Athenian society might well have culminated in a revolution and subsequent tyranny (dictatorship), as they had in other Greek states, had it not been for Solon, to whom Athenians of all classes turned in the hope of a generally satisfactory solution of their problems. Poverty, though not eliminated, was never again in Attica the crying evil that it had been before Solon's reforms to increase general prosperity, and provide alternate occupations. He instituted a census of annual income, reckoned primarily in measures of grain, oil, and wine, the principal products of the soil, and divided the citizens into four income groups, accordingly. Political privilege was allotted on the basis of these divisions, without regard to birth. Solon revised every statute except that on homicide and made Athenian law altogether more humane.
Solon. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068622

c. 560 BCE: Discovery of the Atom

The idea that the matter consists of minimum units (atoms) was proposed by ancient Greek philosopher Democritus (Ancient Greece, ~ B.C. 500). "Atom" means "unable to be divided". Democritus thought that this world is made of the atoms which are moving in the "empty" which spread infinitely. Democritus reasoned these atoms are eternal and invisible; absolutely small, so small that their size cannot be diminished (hence the name atomon, or "indivisible"); absolutely full and incompressible, as they are without pores and entirely fill the space they occupy; and homogeneous, differing only in shape, arrangement, position, and magnitude. But, while atoms thus differ in quantity, differences of quality are only apparent, owing to the impressions caused on our senses by different configurations and combinations of atoms. On the other hand, Aristotle thought that the world is filled with continuous substances. The view of the Aristotles style was dominant in a period from the ancient to the medieval times.
Democritus. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029904

c. 580 - 490 BCE: Pythagoras of Samos

It is difficult to distinguish Pythagoras's teachings from those of his disciples. None of his writings have survived, and Pythagoreans invariably supported their doctrines by indiscriminately citing their master's authority. Pythagoras, however, is generally credited with the theory of the functional significance of numbers in the objective world and in music. His followers are credited with the development of the Pythagorean theorem in geometry and the application of number relationships to music theory, acoustics, and astronomy. Pythagoras migrated to southern Italy about 532 BC, apparently to escape Samos's tyrannical rule, and established his ethico-political academy at Croton.
Pythagoras. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9062073

c. 551 - 479 BCE: Confucius

Confucius's life, in contrast to his tremendous importance, seems starkly undramatic, or, as a Chinese expression has it, it seems "plain and real". Confucius. (2008). For Confucius the primary function of education was to provide the proper way of training noblemen, a process that involved constant self-improvement and continuous social interaction. In his late 40s and early 50s Confucius served first as a magistrate, then as an assistant minister of public works, and eventually as minister of justice in the state of Lu. Confucius was perceived as the heroic conscience who knew realistically that he might not succeed but, fired by a righteous passion, continuously did the best he could. His reputation as a man of vision and mission spread. The faith in the possibility of ordinary human beings to become awe-inspiring sages and worthies is deeply rooted in the Confucian heritage, and the insistence that human beings are teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour is typically Confucian.
In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109630

c. 544 - 496 BCE: Sun Tzu (Master Sun)

The author of The Art of War, likely to have been written early in the Warring States period (475–221 BC), at a time when China was divided into six or seven states that often resorted to war with each other in their struggles for supremacy. The Art of War is a systematic guide to strategy and tactics for rulers and commanders. The book discusses various maneuvers and the effect of terrain on the outcome of battles. It stresses the importance of accurate information about the enemy's forces, dispositions and deployments, and movements. This is summarized in the axiom "Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat." It also emphasizes the unpredictability of battle and the use of flexible strategies and tactics. The book's insistence on the close relationship between political considerations and military policy greatly influenced some modern strategists. The Art of War has been one of the most popular combat collections in history. Ancient Chinese long viewed this book as one of the entrance test materials, and it is one of the most important collections of books in the Chinese literature. It is said that Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin both read this book while in war.
Sunzi. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9070336

c. 427 - 347 BCE: Plato

Plato developed a profound and wide-ranging system of philosophy. His thought has logical, epistemological, and metaphysical aspects; but its underlying motivation is ethical. It sometimes relies upon conjectures and myth, and it is occasionally mystical in tone; but fundamentally Plato is a rationalist, devoted to the proposition that reason must be followed wherever it leads. Thus the core of Plato's philosophy is a rationalistic ethics. About 387 Plato founded the Academy as an institute for the systematic pursuit of philosophical and scientific teaching and research. Some scholars have suggested that Plato allowed himself to develop freely in a dialogue any view that interested him for the moment without pledging himself to its truth. Thus it has often been held that the theory of Forms, or Ideas, the doctrine of recollection, and the notion of the tripartite soul were originated by Plato after the death of Socrates and consciously fathered on the older philosopher. The ideas of the early period may have been inspired by Socrates, but they were Plato's own — for example, the theory of Forms could not have arisen with Socrates. Plato nevertheless attributed it to him because he saw it as the theoretical basis of what Socrates did teach.
Plato. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108556 (24 pages)

c. 420 BCE: Invention of Democracy

Democracy iterally, rule by the people. The term is derived from the Greek demokratia, which was coined from demos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”) in the middle of the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens. It is plausible to assume that democracy in one form or another arises naturally in any well-bounded group, such as a tribe, if the group is sufficiently independent of control by outsiders to permit members to run their own affairs and if a substantial number of members, such as tribal elders, consider themselves about equally qualified to participate in decisions about matters of concern to the group as a whole. Athenian democracy foreshadowed some later democratic practices, even among peoples who knew little or nothing of the Athenian system. The Athenian answer to question — Who should constitute the demos? — was similar to the answer developed in many newly democratic countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Is democracy really superior to any other form of government? Democracy uniquely possesses a number of features that most people, whatever their basic political beliefs, would consider desirable: (1) prevents rule by cruel and vicious autocrats; (2) prevents wars with one another; (3) tend to be more prosperous; and (4) democracy tends to foster human development, as measured by health, education, personal income, and other indicators, more fully than other forms of government do.
democracy. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029895

384 - 322 BCE: Aristotle

Greek Aristoteles ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking. He was the founder of formal logic, devising for it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as the sum of the discipline; and he pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. Aristotle was summoned by Philip II to the Macedonian capital at Pella to act as tutor to Philip's 13-year-old son, the future Alexander the Great.
Aristotle. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108312 (45 total pages)

c. 287 - 212 BCE: Archimedes of Syracuse

Archimedes the most famous mathematician and inventor of ancient Greece. Archimedes is especially important for his discovery of the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cyclinder. He is known for his formulation of a hydrostatic principle (known as Archimedes' principle) and a device for raising water, still used in developing countries, known as the Archimedes screw. There are nine extant treatises by Archimedes in Greek, On the Sphere and Cylinder (in two books), Measurement of the Circle, On Conoids and Spheroids, On the Equilibrium of Planes (or Centres of Gravity of Planes; in two books), Quadrature of the Parabola, The Sand-Reckoner, Method Concerning Mechanical Theorems, On Floating Bodies (in two books survives only partly in Greek), Archimedes is known to have written a number of other works that have not survived.
Archimedes. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109383

0 AD - 1450 AD

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0 AD: Jesus Christ

Luke states that as a child Jesus was precociously learned, but there is no other evidence of his childhood or early life. The only substantial sources for the life and message of Jesus are the Gospels of the New Testament, the earliest of which was Mark (written AD 60–80), followed by Matthew, Luke, and John (AD 75–90).There are a few references to Jesus in 1st-century Roman and Jewish sources. Documents indicate that within a few years of Jesus' death, Romans were aware that someone named Chrestus (a slight misspelling of Christus) had been responsible for disturbances in the Jewish community in Rome. Along with his teachings on the kingdom and the law, Jesus advocated ethical purity. He demanded complete devotion to God, putting it ahead of devotion to self and even to family , and taught that people should give up everything in order to obtain what was most precious. Jesus also held that observance of the law should be not only external but internal: hatred and lust, as well as murder and adultery, are wrong. One of the main themes across all gospels is to be perfect in all things. The impossibility of being perfect during a full lifetime leads some modern interpreters to propose that Jesus intended these admonitions to be only an ideal, not a requirement.
Jesus Christ. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106456 (47 pages)

c. 61/63 - 113: Gaius or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

Born into a wealthy family and adopted by his uncle, Pliny the Elder, Pliny began to practice law at 18. His reputation in the civil-law courts placed him in demand in the political court that tried provincial officials for extortion. The private letters are carefully written, occasional letters on diverse topics. Each holds an item of recent social, literary, political, or domestic news, or sometimes an account of an earlier but contemporary historical event, or else initiates moral discussion of a problem. Pliny's letters introduce many of the leading figures of Roman society in the 12 years after the death of Domitian—men of letters, politicians, administrators, generals, and rising young men of rank. They make possible the social reconstruction of an age for which there is otherwise no serious historical record. He was adept at brief character sketches, his works being less satirical, more kindly, and possibly more complete than those of Tacitus. He was also a devotee of literature.
Pliny the Younger. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9060424

c. 272 - 337: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (Contstantine I)

He not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture that prepared the way for the growth of Byzantine and Western medieval culture. During the great persecution of the Christians that began at the court of Diocletian at Nicomedia and was enforced with particular intensity in the eastern parts of the empire, Christianity was a major issue of public policy. Shortly after the defeat of Maxentius, Constantine met Licinius at Mediolanum (modern Milan) to confirm a number of political and dynastic arrangements. A product of this meeting has become known as the Edict of Milan, which extended toleration to the Christians and restored any personal and corporate property that had been confiscated during the persecution. Due to debates and internal disputes, Constantine organized the Council of Nicaea, in which Constantine urged acceptance of its conclusions, was adequate to solve a dispute in which the participants were as intransigent as the theological issues were subtle. The emperor was an earnest student of his religion. In later years he commissioned new copies of the Bible for the growing congregations at Constantinople. He composed a special prayer for his troops and went on campaigns with a mobile chapel in a tent. He issued numerous laws relating to Christian practice and susceptibilities.
Constantine I. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109633

February 313: Event - Edict of Milan

A proclamation that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the Roman Empire. It was the outcome of a political agreement concluded in Milan between the Roman emperors Constantine I and Licinius in February 313. The proclamation, made for the East by Licinius in June 313, granted all persons freedom to worship whatever deity they pleased, assured Christians of legal rights (including the right to organize churches), and directed the prompt return to Christians of confiscated property. Previous edicts of toleration had been as short-lived as the regimes that sanctioned them, but this time the edict effectively established religious toleration.
Milan, Edict of. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9052646

September 476: Event - Fall of the Roman Empire

The Decline of the Roman Empire, also called the Fall of the Roman Empire, or the Fall of Rome, is a historical term of periodization for the end of the Western Roman Empire. "From the eighteenth century onward," Glen W. Bowersock has remarked,"we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." It remains one of the greatest historical questions, and has a tradition rich in scholarly interest. After the empire fell, the Eastern Empire continued, but the western areas now started to form into tribes. The Holy Roman empire appeared, as did the Germanic tribes, the British countries and other European civilizations that soon started the next step of human evolution.
Decline of the Roman empire. (2008). In Wikipedia Online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_rome

c. 570 - 632: Abu al-Qasim Muhammad

Although his name is now invoked in reverence several billion times every day, Muhammad was the most reviled figure in the history of the West from the 7th century until quite recent times. He is the only founder of a major world religion who lived in the full light of history and about whom there are numerous records in historical texts, although like other premodern historical figures not every detail of his life is known. Muhammad's mother died when he was six years old. Now completely orphaned, he was brought up by his grandfather 'Abd al-Muttalib, who also died two years later. He was then placed in the care of Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and the father of 'Ali, Muhammad's cousin. It is believed that Muhammad grew into a young man of unusual physical beauty as well as generosity of character. His sense of fairness and justice were so revered that the people of Mecca often went to him for arbitration and knew him as al-Amin, "the Trusted One." When he was 25 years old, Muhammad received a marriage proposal from a wealthy Meccan woman, Khadijah bint al-Khuwaylid, whose affairs he was conducting. Despite the fact that she was 15 years older than he, Muhammad accepted the proposal, and he did not take another wife until after her death. By age 35, Muhammad had become a very respected figure in Mecca and had taken 'Ali into his household. When he was asked, according to Islamic tradition, to arbitrate a dispute concerning which tribe should place the holy black stone in the corner of the newly built Ka'bah, Muhammad resolved the conflict by putting his cloak on the ground with the stone in the middle and having a representative of each tribe lift a corner of it until the stone reached the appropriate height to be set in the wall.
Muhammad. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9105853

603 - 683: Pacal the Great

Pacal II, also known as Pacal the Great (26 March 603 - 31 August 683), was ruler of the Maya polity of Palenque. Pacal saw expansion of the empire and initiated a building program at his capital that produced some of Maya civilization's finest art and architecture. What makes Pacal a great thinker, is less about his life stories, but what happened after his death. After his death, Pacal the Great was worshiped as a god, and said to communicate with his descendants. Pacal the Great was buried within the Temple of Inscriptions. Though Palenque had been examined by archaeologists before, the secret to opening his tomb—closed off by a stone slab with stone plugs in the holes, which had until then escaped the attention of archaeologists—was discovered by Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier in 1948. The large carved stone slab over the tomb in the Temple of Inscriptions is a famous piece of Classic Maya art. The widely accepted interpretation of the sarcophagus lid is that Pacal is descending into Xibalba, the Maya underworld. Pacal the Great’s tomb has been the focus of attention by some fringe cult archaeologists since its appearance in Erich von Däniken's 1968 best seller, Chariots of the Gods?. Von Däniken reproduced a drawing of the sarcophagus lid and comparing Pacal's pose to that of 1960s Project Mercury astronauts, interpreting drawings underneath him as rockets, and touting it as supposed evidence of Extra-terrestrial influence on the ancient Maya.
Pacal the Great (2008) In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacal_the_Great

c. 1215: Event - The Signing of the Magna Carta

Magna Carta, the charter of English liberties granted by King John in 1215 under threat of civil war and reissued with alterations in 1216, 1217, and 1225. The charter meant less to contemporaries than it has to subsequent generations. The solemn circumstances of its first granting have given to Magna Carta of 1215 a unique place in popular imagination; quite early in its history it became a symbol and a battle cry against oppression, each successive generation reading into it a protection of its own threatened liberties. Earlier kings of England—Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II—had issued charters, making promises or concessions to their barons. But these were granted by, not exacted from, the king and were very generally phrased. Moreover, the steady growth of the administration during the 12th century weakened the barons' position vis-à-vis the crown. Although written in stages, the charter has been traditionally discussed as consisting of a preamble and 63 clauses. A particularly large group was concerned with the reform of the law and of justice, and another with control of the behaviour of royal officials.
Magna Carta. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9050003

c. 1343 - 1400: Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the management of public affairs as courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. In that career he was trusted and aided by three successive kings—Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. But it is his avocation—the writing of poetry—for which he is remembered. In 1367 Chaucer received an annuity for life as yeoman of the king, and in the next year he was listed among the king's esquires. Such officers lived at court and performed staff duties of considerable importance. Chaucer's great literary accomplishment of the 1390s was The Canterbury Tales. In it a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, and agree to engage in a storytelling contest. He was praised by contemporaries for his artistry, was imitated in a school dedicated to his works, and The Cantebury Tales have been translated into modern english, and more scholars conitnue to study and teach his life and works.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-10421

1451 AD - 1700 AD

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1452 - 1519: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Leonardo grew up on his father's family's estate, where he was treated as a "legitimate" son and received the usual elementary education of that day: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Leonardo did not seriously study Latin, the key language of traditional learning, until much later, when he acquired a working knowledge of it on his own. He also did not apply himself to higher mathematics—advanced geometry and arithmetic—until he was 30 years old, when he began to study it with diligent tenacity. In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the city's duke—a surprising step when one realizes that the 30-year-old artist had just received his first substantial commissions from his native city of Florence. Leonardo spent 17 years in Milan, until Ludovico's fall from power in 1499. In the spring of 1503 Leonardo returned to Florence to make an expert survey of a project that attempted to divert the Arno River behind Pisa, so that the city, then under siege by the Florentines, would be deprived of access to the sea. The second Florentine period was also a time of intensive scientific study. Leonardo did dissections in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and broadened his anatomical work into a comprehensive study of the structure and function of the human organism. In May 1506, Leonardo returned to Milan. Leonardo's scientific activity flourished during this period. His studies in anatomy achieved a new dimension in his collaboration with Marcantonio della Torre, a famous anatomist from Pavia. Leonardo outlined a plan for an overall work that would include not only exact, detailed reproductions of the human body and its organs but would also include comparative anatomy and the whole field of physiology. In 1513 political events—the temporary expulsion of the French from Milan—caused the now 60-year-old Leonardo to move again. Leonardo died at Cloux and was buried in the palace church of Saint-Florentin. The church was devastated during the French Revolution and completely torn down at the beginning of the 19th century; his grave can no longer be located.
Leonardo da Vinci. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108470

c. 1450: Invention of the Typesetter/Printing Press

Although movable type, as well as paper, first appeared in China, it was in Europe that printing first became mechanized. The earliest mention of a printing press is in a lawsuit in Strasbourg in 1439 revealing construction of a press for Johannes Gutenberg and his associates. The invention of the printing press itself obviously owed much to the medieval paper press, in turn modeled after the ancient wine-and-olive press of the Mediterranean area. A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting downward pressure against the paper, which was laid over the type mounted on a wooden platen. The invention of the printing press allowed for more access to information.
printing press. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9102489

1473 - 1543: Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, in Torun, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River south of the major Baltic seaport of Gdansk. His father, Nicolaus, was a well-to-do merchant, and his mother, Barbara Watzenrode, also came from a leading merchant family. Between 1491 and about 1494 Copernicus studied liberal arts—including astronomy and astrology—at the University of Cracow. Only 27 recorded observations are known for Copernicus's entire life (he undoubtedly made more than that), most of them concerning eclipses, alignments, and conjunctions of planets and stars. In 1500 Copernicus spoke before an interested audience in Rome on mathematical subjects, but the exact content of his lectures is unknown. In 1501 he stayed briefly in Frauenburg but soon returned to Italy to continue his studies, this time at the University of Padua, where he pursued medical studies between 1501 and 1503. At this time medicine was closely allied with astrology, as the stars were thought to influence the body's dispositions. Thus, Copernicus's astrological experience at Bologna was better training for medicine than one might imagine today. Copernicus's reputation outside local Polish circles as an astronomer of considerable ability is evident from the fact that in 1514 he was invited to offer his opinion at the church's Fifth Lateran Council on the critical problem of the reform of the calendar. Later, when a description of the main elements of the heliocentric hypothesis was first published, it was not under Copernicus's own name but under that of the 25-year-old Georg Rheticus. The Narratio prima was, in effect, a joint production of Copernicus and Rheticus, something of a "trial balloon" for the main work. The presentation of Copernicus's theory in its final form, De revolutionibus, was placed in Copernicus's hands a few days after he lost consciousness from a stroke. He awoke long enough to realize that he was holding his great book and then expired, publishing as he perished.
Copernicus, Nicolaus. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9105759

c. 1543: Discovery of Heliocentricism

Heliocentricism, a cosmological model in which the Sun is assumed to lie at or near a central point (e.g., of the solar system or of the universe) while the Earth and other bodies revolve around it. The heliocentric, or Sun-centred, model of the solar system never gained wide support because its proponents could not explain why the relative positions of the stars seemed to remain the same despite the Earth's changing viewpoints as it moved around the Sun. In 1444 Nicholas of Cusa again argued for the rotation of the Earth and of other heavenly bodies, but it was not until the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI ("Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs"") in 1543 that the heliocentric system began to be reestablished. Galileo Galilei's support of this model resulted in his famous trial before the Inquisition in 1633.
heliocentric system. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9039885

1509 - 1564: John Calvin

Calvin was of middle-class parents. His father, a lay administrator in the service of the local bishop, sent him to the University of Paris in 1523 to be educated for the priesthood but later decided that he should be a lawyer; from 1528 to 1531, therefore, Calvin studied in the law schools of Orléans and Bourges. He was the leading French Protestant Reformer and the most important figure in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. His interpretation of Christianity, advanced above all in his Institutio Christianae religionis (1536 but elaborated in later editions; Institutes of the Christian Religion), and the institutional and social patterns he worked out for Geneva deeply influenced Protestantism elsewhere in Europe and in North America. The Calvinist form of Protestantism is widely thought to have had a major impact on the formation of the modern world.
Calvin, John. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106115

1564 - 1616: William Shakespeare

It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus Shakespeare's merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England. The memory of Shakespeare survived long in theatrical circles, for his plays remained a major part of the repertory of the King's Men until the closing of the theatres in 1642.
Shakespeare, William. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109536 (60 pages)

1564 - 1642: Galileo Galilei

Galileo was born in Pisa, Tuscany, on February 15, 1564, the oldest son of Vincenzo Galilei, a musician who made important contributions to the theory and practice of music. Galileo attended the monastery school at Vallombrosa, near Florence, and then in 1581 matriculated at the University of Pisa, where he was to study medicine. However, he became enamoured with mathematics and decided to make the mathematical subjects and philosophy his profession, against the protests of his father. Galileo then began to prepare himself to teach Aristotelian philosophy and mathematics. In 1585 Galileo left the university without having obtained a degree, and for several years he gave private lessons in the mathematical subjects in Florence and Siena. In the spring of 1609 he heard that in the Netherlands an instrument had been invented that showed distant things as though they were nearby. By trial and error, he quickly figured out the secret of the invention and made his own three-powered spyglass from lenses for sale in spectacle makers' shops. Others had done the same; what set Galileo apart was that he quickly figured out how to improve the instrument, taught himself the art of lens grinding, and produced increasingly powerful telescopes. His formulation of (circular) inertia, the law of falling bodies, and parabolic trajectories marked the beginning of a fundamental change in the study of motion. His insistence that the book of nature was written in the language of mathematics changed natural philosophy from a verbal, qualitative account to a mathematical one in which experimentation became a recognized method for discovering the facts of nature. Finally, his discoveries with the telescope revolutionized astronomy and paved the way for the acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric system, but his advocacy of that system eventually resulted in an Inquisition process against him.
Galileo. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9105766

1596 - 1650: René Descartes

Descartes learned that the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) had been condemned in Rome for publishing the view that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Because this Copernican position is central to his cosmology and physics, Descartes suppressed The World, hoping that eventually the church would retract its condemnation. Although Descartes feared the church, he also hoped that his physics would one day replace that of Aristotle in church doctrine and be taught in Catholic schools. Descartes's Discourse on Method (1637) is one of the first important modern philosophical works not written in Latin. Descartes said that he wrote in French so that all who had good sense, including women, could read his work and learn to think for themselves. In three essays accompanying the Discourse, he illustrated his method for utilizing reason in the search for truth in the sciences: in Dioptrics he derived the law of refraction, in Meteorology he explained the rainbow, and in Geometry he gave an exposition of his analytic geometry. In the Discourse he also provided a provisional moral code (later presented as final) for use while seeking truth: (1) obey local customs and laws, (2) make decisions on the best evidence and then stick to them firmly as though they were certain, (3) change desires rather than the world, and (4) always seek truth. Descartes's morality is anti-Jansenist and anti-Calvinist in that he maintains that the grace that is necessary for salvation can be earned and that human beings are virtuous and able to achieve salvation when they do their best to find and act upon the truth.
Descartes, René. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108563

1632 - 1704: John Locke

Locke was thoroughly suspicious of the view that a thinker could work out by reason alone the truth about the universe. Much as he admired Descartes, he feared this speculative spirit in him, and he despised it in the Scholastic philosophers. In this sense he rejected metaphysics. Knowledge of the world could only be gained by experience and reflection on experience, and this knowledge was being gained by Boyle, Sydenham, Christiaan Huygens, and Newton. They were the true philosophers who were advancing knowledge. Locke set himself the humbler task, as he conceived it, of understanding how this knowledge was gained. Locke holds that man has an intuitive knowledge of his own existence and supposes that man exists as material and immaterial substance, but he is none too clear about this and at one point plays with the idea that man is simply material substance to which God has "superadded" a power of thinking. Locke's most valuable contribution, however, is his account of personal identity. Having distinguished between different types of identity, he argues that personal identity depends on self-consciousness (that is, I am the person who did so-and-so 20 years ago because I can remember myself doing it).
Locke, John. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108465

c. 1676: Discovery of Bacteria

Bacteria were first observed by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676, using a single-lens microscope of his own design.Louis Pasteur demonstrated in 1859 that the fermentation process is caused by the growth of microorganisms, and that this growth is not due to spontaneous generation. In 1910, Paul Ehrlich developed the first antibiotic, by changing dyes that selectively stained Treponema pallidum—the spirochaete that causes syphilis—into compounds that selectively killed the pathogen. A major step forward in the study of bacteria was the recognition in 1977 by Carl Woese that archaea have a separate line of evolutionary descent from bacteria. This new phylogenetic taxonomy was based on the sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA, and divided prokaryotes into two evolutionary domains, as part of the three-domain system. The field of bacteriology (later a subdiscipline of microbiology) is generally considered to have been founded by Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898), a botanist whose studies on algae and photosynthetic bacteria led him to describe several bacteria including Bacillus and Beggiatoa. Ferdinand Cohn was also the first to formulate a scheme for the taxonomic classification of bacteria.
Bacteria. (2007) In Citizendium. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Microbiology

1646 - 1716: Gottfried Leibniz

As a child, he was educated in the Nicolai School but was largely self-taught in the library of his father, who had died in 1652. At Easter time in 1661, he entered the University of Leipzig as a law student; there he came into contact with the thought of men who had revolutionized science and philosophy—men such as Galileo, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and René Descartes. Late in 1675 Leibniz laid the foundations of both integral and differential calculus. With this discovery, he ceased to consider time and space as substances—another step closer to monadology. He began to develop the notion that the concepts of extension and motion contained an element of the imaginary, so that the basic laws of motion could not be discovered merely from a study of their nature.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9047669

c. 17th Century: Event - Development of Modern Calculus

The roots of calculus lie in some of the oldest geometry problems on record. By 1635, the Italian mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri had supplemented the rigorous tools of Greek geometry with heuristic methods that used the idea of infinitely small segments of lines, areas, and volumes. Two mathematicians, Isaac Newton of England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz of Germany, share credit for having independently developed the calculus in the 17th century. Calculus makes it possible to solve problems as diverse as tracking the position of a space shuttle or predicting the pressure building up behind a dam as the water rises. Computers have become a valuable tool for solving calculus problems that were once considered impossibly difficult.
calculus. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9018631

1642 - 1727: Isaac Newton

During the plague years Newton laid the foundations of the calculus and extended an earlier insight into an essay, "Of Colours," which contains most of the ideas elaborated in his Opticks. It was during this time that he examined the elements of circular motion and, applying his analysis to the Moon and the planets, derived the inverse square relation that the radially directed force acting on a planet decreases with the square of its distance from the Sun—which was later crucial to the law of universal gravitation. The world heard nothing of these discoveries. in August 1684, Newton was visited by the British astronomer Edmond Halley, who was also troubled by the problem of orbital dynamics. Upon learning that Newton had solved the problem, he extracted Newton's promise to send the demonstration. Three months later he received a short tract entitled De Motu ("On Motion"). Already Newton was at work improving and expanding it. In two and a half years, the tract De Motu grew into Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which is not only Newton's masterpiece but also the fundamental work for the whole of modern science.
Newton, Sir Isaac. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108764 (15 pages)

c. 1687: Discovery of Gravity

The works of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein dominate the development of gravitational theory. Newton's classical theory of gravitational force held sway from his Principia, published in 1687, until Einstein's work in the early 20th century. Newton's theory is sufficient even today for all but the most precise applications. Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts only minute quantitative differences from the Newtonian theory except in a few special cases. The major significance of Einstein's theory is its radical conceptual departure from classical theory and its implications for further growth in physical thought. Newton argued that the movements of celestial bodies and the free fall of objects on Earth are determined by the same force. The classical Greek philosophers, on the other hand, did not consider the celestial bodies to be affected by gravity, because the bodies were observed to follow perpetually repeating nondescending trajectories in the sky.
gravitation. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106265

c. 1646: Discovery of Electricity and Magnetism

English physician William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. Distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber, he coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646. Through such people as Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Ernst Werner von Siemens, Alexander Graham Bell and Lord Kelvin, electricity was turned from a scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life.
Electricity. (2008). In Wikipedia Online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity

c. 17th Century: Event - Settlement of the New World

Settlement of the New World, or the American continent went through many phases. With the Norse explorer Leif Eriksson founding the Canadian Northeast, to Columbus stumbling upon the Caribbean area the migration started. Some because of the new riches it possesed, others for a new path to the Indies. Soon, religious freedom spurred mass migration with the Puritans and other oppressed people looking for a new change. This brought about a new era of thinking and exploration. The mass settlement becins with Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620, in what would become the United States. Spanish settled the south and went into the southern continent. Portugal went into the Amazon jungles and settled that area. Much of what was settled became the breeding ground for many great thinkers.
History of the Americas. (2008). In Wikipedia Online. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Americas

1701 AD - 1850 AD

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1694 - 1746: Francis Hutcheson

Hutcheson was licensed as a preacher in 1719 by Irish Presbyterians in Ulster, but in 1738 the Glasgow presbytery challenged his belief that people can have a knowledge of good and evil without, and prior to, a knowledge of God. His standing as a popular preacher was undiminished, however, and the celebrated Scottish philosopher David Hume sought his opinion of the rough draft of the section "Of Human Morals" in Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. In his view, besides his five external senses, man has a variety of internal senses, including a sense of beauty, of morality, of honour, and of the ridiculous. Of these, Hutcheson considered the moral sense to be the most important. He believed that it is implanted in man and pronounces instinctively and immediately on the character of actions and affections, approving those that are virtuous and disapproving those that are vicious.
Hutcheson, Francis. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041637

1694 - 1778: François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Voltaire is a pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet one of the greatest of all French writers. Although only a few of his works are still read, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. He attended the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he learned to love literature, the theatre, and social life. While he appreciated the classical taste the college instilled in him, the religious instruction of the fathers served only to arouse his skepticism and mockery. His intellectual development was furthered by an accident: as the result of a quarrel with a member of one of the leading French families, the Chevalier de Rohan, who had made fun of his adopted name, he was beaten up, taken to the Bastille, and then conducted to Calais on May 5, 1726, from where he set out for London. His destiny was now exile and opposition. He concluded that even in literature France had something to learn from England; his experience of Shakespearean theatre was overwhelming, and, however much he was shocked by the barbarism of the productions, he was struck by the energy of the characters and the dramatic force of the plots.
Voltaire. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106001

1706 - 1790: Benjamin Franklin

Franklin was born the 10th son of the 17 children of a man who made soap and candles, one of the lowliest of the artisan crafts. His first enthusiasm was for poetry, but, discouraged with the quality of his own, he gave it up. Franklin realized, as all the Founders did, that writing competently was such a rare talent in the 18th century that anyone who could do it well immediately attracted attention. Despite some failures, Franklin prospered. Indeed, he made enough to lend money with interest and to invest in rental properties in Philadelphia and many coastal towns. In the winter of 1746–47, Franklin and three of his friends began to investigate electrical phenomena. Franklin sought to bridge the growing gulf between the colonies and the British government. Between 1765 and 1775 he wrote 126 newspaper pieces, most of which tried to explain each side to the other. Franklin was not only the most famous American in the 18th century but also one of the most famous figures in the Western world of the 18th century; indeed, he is one of the most celebrated and influential Americans who has ever lived.
Franklin, Benjamin. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109416

c. 1712: Invention of the Piston and Cylinder Engine

Invention of piston and cylinder engine 1712 Thomas Newcomen invented the first practical piston and cylinder engine. He put the engine to work pumping water from a flooded mine in Staffordshire. By 1755 about one hundred Newcomen engines were being used in the coal mines along the Tyne alone, and a futher sixty were being used in the Cornish metal mines. This alone may have been a small jump start because it meant that more coal could be produced, which eventually provided the main source of energy for the Industrial Revolution. The Newcomen machine was improved by James Watt in 1775 who attached a condenser and a steam jacket. The greater energy which these additions made possible impressed the manufacturer Mathew Boulton who made James Watt his work partner. They made a number of pumping machines for breweries and mines but they both knew that the real money was in the forthcoming textile factories which were run by animal or water power at that time. It was a demand which many other enginners were aware of but again Watt led the way with his rotative engine- a engine that could turn wheels.
The start of the revolution: Harnessing of energy. (n.d.) In Oakham School History Online. http://history.oakham.rutland.sch.uk/pupils/ir_furness/Energy.htm

1724 - 1804: Immanuel Kant

Kant lived in the remote province where he was born for his entire life. His father, a saddler, was, according to Kant, a descendant of a Scottish immigrant, although scholars have found no basis for this claim; his mother, an uneducated German woman, was remarkable for her character and natural intelligence. The Critique of Pure Reason was the result of some 10 years of thinking and meditation. Yet, even so, Kant published the first edition only reluctantly after many postponements; for although convinced of the truth of its doctrine, he was uncertain and doubtful about its exposition. The Critique of Practical Reason is the standard source book for his ethical doctrines. His first formulation of the categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Lacking any insight into the moral realm, men can only ask themselves whether what they are proposing to do has the formal character of law—the character, namely, of being the same for all persons similarly circumstanced.
Kant, Immanuel. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108443

1737 - 1809: Thomas Paine

Paine was born of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. His formal education was meagre, just enough to enable him to master reading, writing, and arithmetic. Paine's life in England was marked by repeated failures. Just when his situation appeared hopeless, he met Benjamin Franklin in London, who advised him to seek his fortune in America and gave him letters of introduction. Paine arrived in Philadelphia on Nov. 30, 1774. Paine argued that the cause of America should not be just a revolt against taxation but a demand for independence. He put this idea into "Common Sense", which came off the press on Jan. 10, 1776. More than any other single publication, "Common Sense" paved the way for the Declaration of Independence. In "Public Good" (1780) he included a call for a national convention to remedy the ineffectual Articles of Confederation and establish a strong central government under "a continental constitution." In France Paine hailed the abolition of the monarchy but deplored the terror against the royalists and fought unsuccessfully to save the life of King Louis XVI, favouring banishment rather than execution. At Paine's death most U.S. newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the New York Citizen, which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm." On Jan. 30, 1937, The Times of London referred to him as "the English Voltaire".
Paine, Thomas. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058012

1743 - 1826: Thomas Jefferson

Long regarded as America's most distinguished "apostle of liberty", both in the United States and abroad, he remains an incandescent icon, an inspirational symbol for both major U.S. political parties, as well as for dissenters in communist China, liberal reformers in central and eastern Europe, and aspiring democrats in Africa and Latin America. In 1774 he wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was quickly published, though without his permission, and catapulted him into visibility beyond Virginia as an early advocate of American independence from Parliament's authority. John Adams asked him to prepare the first draft, which he did within a few days. He later claimed that he was not striving for "originality of principle or sentiment", only seeking to provide "an expression of the American mind"; that is, putting into words those ideas already accepted by a majority of Americans.
Jefferson, Thomas. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106454

c. 1745: Invention of the Capacitor/resistor

Discovered accidentally and investigated by the Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek of the University of Leiden in 1746, and independently by the German inventor Ewald Georg von Kleist in 1745. The Capicitor, in its earliest form it was a glass vial, (The Leyden Jar) partly filled with water, the orifice of which was closed by a cork pierced with a wire or nail that dipped into the water. To charge the jar, the exposed end of the wire was brought into contact with a friction device that produced static electricity. When the contact was broken, a charge could be demonstrated by touching the wire with the hand and receiving a shock. In addition to its use for classroom demonstrations, the Leyden jar is of importance as a prototype of capacitors, which are widely used in radios, television sets, and other electrical and electronic equipment. The simplest direct-current (DC) circuit consists of a resistor connected across a source of electromotive force. During the 1960s and '70s, transistors were incorporated into integrated circuits, in which a multitude of components (e.g., diodes, resistors, and capacitors) are formed on a single "chip" of semiconductor material.
Leyden jar. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9048045

1751 - 1836: James Madison, Jr

Madison took day-by-day notes of debates at the Constitutional Convention, which furnish the only comprehensive history of the proceedings. To promote ratification he collaborated with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in newspaper publication of the Federalist papers (Madison wrote 29 out of 85), which became the standard commentary on the Constitution. His influence produced ratification by Virginia and led John Marshall to say that, if eloquence included "persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard". Elected to the new House of Representatives, Madison sponsored the first 10 amendments to the Constitution—the Bill of Rights—placing emphasis in debate on freedom of religion, speech, and press. Madison participated in Jefferson's creation of the University of Virginia (1819) and later served as its rector.
Madison, James. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9049905

July 4, 1776: Event - American Revolution

American Revolution, insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain´s North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and a large and influential segment of its North American colonies that was caused by British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs. The American Revolution was a unique and radical event that produced deep changes and had a profound impact on world affairs, based on an increasing belief in the principles of republicanism, such as peoples' natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people. It was this establishment that allowed for a greater range of thinking and allowed the scientific boom to happen.
American Revolution. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9074344

1777 - 1855: Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss

Gauss was the only child of poor parents. He was rare among mathematicians in that he was a calculating prodigy, and he retained the ability to do elaborate calculations in his head most of his life. Gauss's first significant discovery, in 1792, was that a regular polygon of 17 sides can be constructed by ruler and compass alone. His doctoral thesis of 1797 gave a proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra: every polynomial equation with real or complex coefficients has as many roots (solutions) as its degree (the highest power of the variable). Gauss published works on number theory, the mathematical theory of map construction, and many other subjects. In the 1830s he became interested in terrestrial magnetism and participated in the first worldwide survey of the Earth's magnetic field (to measure it, he invented the magnetometer).
Gauss, Carl Friedrich. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109423

1785 – 1863: The Brothers Grimm

After attending the high school in Kassel, the brothers followed their father's footsteps and studied law at the University of Marburg (1802–06) with the intention of entering civil service. At Marburg they came under the influence of Clemens Brentano, who awakened in both a love of folk poetry. By 1816, the brothers had definitely given up thoughts of a legal career in favour of purely literary research. In the years to follow they lived frugally and worked steadily, laying the foundations for their lifelong interests. In 1840 they accepted an invitation from the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to go to Berlin, where as members of the Royal Academy of Sciences they lectured at the university. For some 20 years they worked in Prussia's capital, respected and free from financial worries. Nearly all academies in Europe were proud to count Jacob and Wilhelm among their members. The more robust Jacob undertook many journeys for scientific investigations, visiting France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.
Grimm, Brothers. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9038131

c. 1807, 1848: Event - The Industrial Revolution

The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following: (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and (6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods.
Industrial Revolution. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9042370

1851 AD - 1950 AD

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1809 - 1865: Abraham Lincoln

Among American heroes, Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands. This charm derives from his remarkable life story—the rise from humble origins, the dramatic death—and from his distinctively human and humane personality as well as from his historical role as saviour of the Union and emancipator of the slaves. His relevance endures and grows especially because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy. In his view, the Union was worth saving not only for its own sake but because it embodied an ideal, the ideal of self-government. By the time he began to be prominent in national politics, about 20 years after launching his legal career, Lincoln had made himself one of the most distinguished and successful lawyers in Illinois. He was noted not only for his shrewdness and practical common sense, which enabled him always to see to the heart of any legal case, but also for his invariable fairness and utter honesty.
Lincoln, Abraham. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108307 (13 pages)

1818 - 1883: Karl Heinrich Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was the oldest surviving boy of nine children. His father, Heinrich, a successful lawyer, was a man of the Enlightenment, devoted to Kant and Voltaire, who took part in agitations for a constitution in Prussia. Marx's crucial experience at Berlin was his introduction to Hegel's philosophy, regnant there, and his adherence to the Young Hegelians. As the revolution gained in Austria and Germany, Marx returned to the Rhineland. In Cologne he advocated a policy of coalition between the working class and the democratic bourgeoisie, opposing for this reason the nomination of independent workers' candidates for the Frankfurt Assembly and arguing strenuously against the program for proletarian revolution advocated by the leaders of the Workers' Union. The influence of Marx's ideas has been enormous including Das Kapital, the "Bible of the working class". Although Marx stressed economic issues in his writings, his major impact has been in the fields of sociology and history. Marx's most important contribution to sociological theory was his general mode of analysis, the "dialectical" model, which regards every social system as having within it immanent forces that give rise to "contradictions" (disequilibria) that can be resolved only by a new social system.
Marx, Karl. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108466

c. 1859: Discovery of Natural Selection

In natural selection, those variations in the genotype that increase an organism's chances of survival and procreation are preserved and multiplied from generation to generation at the expense of less advantageous ones. Evolution often occurs as a consequence of this process. Natural selection may arise from differences in survival, in fertility, in rate of development, in mating success, or in any other aspect of the life cycle. All such differences result in natural selection to the extent that they affect the number of progeny an organism leaves. Natural selection enhances the preservation of a group of organisms that are best adjusted to the physical and biological conditions of their environment and may also result in their improvement in some cases.
natural selection. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055046

1828 - 1906: Henrik Johan Ibsen

At the age of only 23 he got himself appointed director and playwright to a new theatre at Bergen. Ibsen wrote plays about mostly prosaic and commonplace persons; but from them he elicited insights of devastating directness, great subtlety, and occasional flashes of rare beauty. His plots are not cleverly contrived games but deliberate acts of cognition, in which persons are stripped of their accumulated disguises and forced to acknowledge their true selves, for better or worse. Thus, he made his audiences reexamine with painful earnestness the moral foundation of their being. During the last half of the 19th century he turned the European stage back from what it had become—a plaything and a distraction for the bored—to make it what it had been long ago among the ancient Greeks, an instrument for passing doom-judgment on the soul.
Ibsen, Henrik. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041947

1834 - 1907: Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

Since Mendeleyev is best known today as the discoverer of the periodic law, his chemical career is often viewed as a long process of maturation of his main discovery. A second major feature of Mendeleyev's scientific work is his theoretical inclinations. From the beginning of his career, he continually sought to shape a broad theoretical scheme in the tradition of natural philosophy. Mendeleyev carried on many other activities outside academic research and teaching. He was one of the founders of the Russian Chemical Society (now the Mendeleyev Russian Chemical Society) in 1868 and published most of his later papers in its journal. He acted as a government consultant until he was appointed director of the Central Bureau of Weights and Measures, created in 1893. After a few years he published an independent journal of metrology. Thus, Mendeleyev was able to combine his lifetime interests in science and industry and to achieve one of his main goals: integrating Russia into the Western world.
Mendeleyev, Dmitry Ivanovich. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051977

c. 1868: Discovery of the Atomic Elements / Periodic Table of Elements

When Mendeleyev was writing Osnovy Khimii (1868–71; The Principles of Chemistry), which became a classic, and began to compose the chapter on the halogen elements (chlorine and its analogs) at the end of the first volume, he compared the properties of this group of elements to those of the group of alkali metals such as sodium. Within these two groups of dissimilar elements, he discovered similarities in the progression of atomic weights, and he wondered if other groups of elements exhibited similar properties. After studying the alkaline earths, Mendeleyev established that the order of atomic weights could be used not only to arrange the elements within each group but also to arrange the groups themselves. Thus, in his effort to make sense of the extensive knowledge that already existed of the chemical and physical properties of the chemical elements and their compounds, Mendeleyev discovered the periodic law.
Mendeleyev, Dmitry Ivanovich. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-250030

1847 - 1922: Alexander Graham Bell

For two generations his family had been recognized as leading authorities in elocution and speech correction, with Alexander Melville Bell's Standard Elocutionist passing through nearly 200 editions in English. Young A. Graham Bell, as he now preferred to be known, showed, using his father's system, that speech could be taught to the deaf. His astounding results soon led to further invitations to lecture. On April 6, 1875, he was granted the patent for his multiple telegraph, On March 7, 1876, the United States Patent Office granted to Bell Patent Number 174,465 covering "The method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically . . . by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds." The telephone—until then all too often regarded as a joke and its creator-prophet as, at best, an eccentric—was the subject of the most involved patent litigation in history.
Bell, Alexander Graham. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9015220

c. 1871: Invention of the Telephone

Credit for inventing the electric telephone remains in dispute. There were several inventors who did pioneer experimental work on voice transmission over a wire and improved on each other's ideas. Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison, among others, have all been credited with pioneer work on the telephone. 28 December 1871—Antonio Meucci files a patent caveat (n.3335) in the U.S. Patent Office titled "Sound Telegraph", describing communication of voice between two people by wire. 6 April 1875—Bell's U.S. Patent 161,739 "Transmitters and Receivers for Electric Telegraphs" is granted. This uses multiple vibrating steel reeds in make-break circuits. 10 March 1876—The first successful telephone transmission of clear speech using a liquid transmitter when Bell spoke into his device, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." and Watson heard each word distinctly.27 April 1877—Edison files for a patent on a carbon (graphite) transmitter. The patent 474,230 was granted 3 May 1892, after a 15 year delay because of litigation. Edison was granted patent 222,390 for a carbon granules transmitter in 1879.
telephone. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9071592

1847 - 1931: Thomas Alva Edison

Edison experienced his finest hours at Menlo Park. While experimenting on an underwater cable for the automatic telegraph, he found that the electrical resistance and conductivity of carbon (then called plumbago) varied according to the pressure it was under. This was a major theoretical discovery, which enabled Edison to devise a "pressure relay" using carbon rather than the usual magnets to vary and balance electric currents. Edison unveiled the tinfoil phonograph, which replaced the strip of paper with a cylinder wrapped in tinfoil, in December 1877. It was greeted with incredulity. The incandescent electric light had been the despair of inventors for 50 years, but Edison's past achievements commanded respect for his boastful prophecy. Thus, a syndicate of leading financiers, including J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, established the Edison Electric Light Company and advanced him $30,000 for research and development. The thrust of Edison's work may be seen in the clustering of his patents: 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, 150 for the telegraph, 141 for storage batteries, and 34 for the telephone. His life and achievements epitomize the ideal of applied research.
Edison, Thomas Alva. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106218

c. 1877: Invention of Medicine - Antibiotics/Immunization

One of the first and still one of the most widely used antibiotic agents, derived from the Penicillium mold. In 1928 Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming first observed that colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus failed to grow in those areas of a culture that had been accidentally contaminated by the green mold Penicillium notatum. He isolated the mold, grew it in a fluid medium, and found that it produced a substance capable of killing many of the common bacteria that infect humans. Australian pathologist Howard Florey and British biochemist Ernst Boris Chain isolated and purified penicillin in the late 1930s, and by 1941 an injectable form of the drug was available for therapeutic use.
penicillin. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059068

c. 1880: Invention of Television

Television came along, beginning with an accidental discovery. In 1872, while investigating materials for use in the transatlantic cable, English telegraph worker Joseph May realized that a selenium wire was varying in its electrical conductivity. Further investigation showed that the change occurred when a beam of sunlight fell on the wire, which by chance had been placed on a table near the window. In 1880 a French engineer, Maurice LeBlanc, published an article in the journal La Lumière électrique that formed the basis of all subsequent television. He envisaged a photoelectric cell that would look upon only one portion at a time of the picture to be transmitted. Starting at the upper left corner of the picture, the cell would proceed to the right-hand side and then jump back to the left-hand side, only one line lower. The concept of scanning, which established the possibility of using only a single wire or channel for transmission of an entire image, became and remains to this day the basis of all television. This concept was eventually used by John Logie Baird in Britain and Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States to build the world's first successful televisions. In 1922 Jenkins sent a still picture by radio waves, but the first true television success, the transmission of a live human face, was achieved by Baird in 1925.
television. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106102

Oct 29, 1929: Event - Black Friday, The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world, sparking fundamental changes in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory. Although it originated in the United States, the Great Depression caused drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country of the world. Its social and cultural effects were no less staggering, especially in the United States, where the Great Depression represented the harshest adversity faced by Americans since the Civil War. The Depression was particularly long and severe in the United States and Europe; it was milder in Japan and much of Latin America. The recovery from the Great Depression was spurred largely by the abandonment of the gold standard and the ensuing monetary expansion. The economic impact of the Great Depression was enormous, including both extreme human suffering and profound changes in economic policy.
Great Depression. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037849

1870 - 1924: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

If the Bolshevik Revolution is—as some people have called it—the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be regarded as the century's most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as both the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx. Lenin electrified his own comrades, most of whom accepted the authority of the Provisional Government. The last year of Lenin's political life, when he fought to eradicate abuses of his Socialist ideals and the corruption of power, may well have been his greatest.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108666

1874 - 1965: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I, Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was a lonely figure until his response to Adolf Hitler's challenge brought him to leadership of a national coalition in 1940. Before a supine government and a doubting opposition, Churchill persistently argued the case for taking the German threat seriously and for the need to prevent the Luftwaffe from securing parity with the Royal Air Force. Repeatedly the accuracy of Churchill's information on Germany's aggressive plans and progress was confirmed by events; repeatedly his warnings were ignored. In any age and time a man of Churchill's force and talents would have left his mark on events and society. A gifted journalist, a biographer and historian of classic proportions, an amateur painter of talent, an orator of rare power, a soldier of courage and distinction. Even in the transition from war to peace, a phase in which other leaders have often stumbled, he revealed, at an advanced age, a capacity to learn and to adjust that was in many respects superior to that of his younger colleagues.
Churchill, Sir Winston. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108565

1879 - 1955: Albert Einstein

In some sense, Einstein, instead of being a relic, may have been too far ahead of his time. The strong force, a major piece of any unified field theory, was still a total mystery in Einstein's lifetime. Only in the 1970s and '80s did physicists begin to unravel the secret of the strong force with the quark model. Nevertheless, Einstein's work continues to win Nobel Prizes for succeeding physicists. In 1993 a Noble Prize was awarded to the discoverers of gravitation waves, predicted by Einstein. In 1995 a Nobel Prize was awarded to the discoverers of Bose-Einstein condensates (a new form of matter that can occur at extremely low temperatures). Known black holes now number in the thousands. New generations of space satellites have continued to verify the cosmology of Einstein. And many leading physicists are trying to finish Einstein's ultimate dream of a "theory of everything."
Einstein, Albert. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106018

c. 1915: Discovery of General Relativity

One of the deep thoughts that consumed Einstein from 1905 to 1915 was a crucial flaw in his own theory: it made no mention of gravitation or acceleration. If a disk is spinning, its rim travels faster than its centre, and hence (by special relativity) metre sticks placed on its circumference should shrink. This meant that Euclidean plane geometry must fail for the disk. For the next 10 years, Einstein would be absorbed with formulating a theory of gravity in terms of the curvature of space-time. In November 1915 Einstein finally completed the general theory of relativity, which he considered to be his masterpiece. In the summer of 1915, Einstein had given six two-hour lectures at the University of Göttingen that thoroughly explained general relativity, albeit with a few unfinished mathematical details. Einstein was convinced that general relativity was correct because of its mathematical beauty and because it accurately predicted the perihelion of Mercury's orbit around the Sun. His theory also predicted a measurable deflection of light around the Sun.
Einstein, Albert. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-256584

1881 - 1973: Pablo Ruiz Picasso

Because Picasso's art from the time of the Demoiselles was radical in nature, virtually no 20th-century artist could escape his influence. Moreover, while other masters such as Matisse or Braque tended to stay within the bounds of a style they had developed in their youth, Picasso continued to be an innovator into the last decade of his life. This led to misunderstanding and criticism both in his lifetime and since, and it was only in the 1980s that his last paintings began to be appreciated both in themselves and for their profound influence on the rising generation of young painters. Since Picasso was able from the 1920s to sell works at very high prices, he could keep most of his oeuvre in his own collection. At the time of his death he owned some 50,000 works in various media from every period of his career, which passed into possession of the French state and his heirs. Their exhibition and publication has served to reinforce the highest estimates of Picasso's astonishing powers of invention and execution over a span of more than 80 years.
Picasso, Pablo. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9108524 (19 pages)

1951 AD - 2008 AD

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1911 - 2004: Ronald Wilson Reagan

Reagan was a powerful speaker and a great leader. He appealled to the mass public, and even as a Democrat, he stayed true to his views, and often campaigned for candidates that held the same views as himself. Reagan did not let political party names favor his support, he supported Republican presidential candidates even when he was a Democrat. His time in the presidential office led to dramatic economical turnaround, and is credited with ending the Cold War with Soviet Russia. In August 1981, 13,000 members of the national union of air traffic controllers, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)—one of the few unions to endorse Reagan in the 1980 election—walked off their jobs, demanding higher pay and better working conditions. As federal employees, the PATCO members were forbidden by law to strike, and Reagan, on the advice of Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis, refused to negotiate and gave them 48 hours to return to work. Most of the striking controllers ignored the ultimatum and were promptly fired. Although the firings caused delays and reductions in air traffic until replacements were hired and trained, the public generally reacted positively to Reagan's action, seeing it as a sign of decisiveness and conviction. As he later wrote, it "convinced people who might have thought otherwise that I meant what I said."
Reagan, Ronald W. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9062864

1931 - 2003: Neil Postman

Postman wrote 18 books and more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Time Magazine, The Saturday Review, The Harvard Education Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Stern, and Le Monde. He was the editor of the quarterly journal ETC.; A review of General Semantics (founded by S.I. Hayakawa in 1943) from 1976 to 1986. Postman's best known book is Amusing Ourselves to Death, (1985), a historical narrative which deplores the decline of the communication medium as television images have replaced the written word. Neil Postman nect work Technopoly, a society that believes that "the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment ... and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts." Postman delivered a speech at the National Convention for the Teachers of English in 1969 titled "Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection". In it Postman encouraged teachers to help their students "distinguish useful talk from bullshit". He argued that it was the most important skill students could learn, and that teaching it would help students understand their own values and beliefs.
Postman, Neil. (2008). In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman

b. 1937: Tom Osborne

Born and raised in Hastings, Osborne graduated from Hastings High School in 1955 and stayed in town to attend Hastings College. He earned his M.A. in educational psychology from Nebraska in 1963 and a doctorate in educational psychology there in 1965. He also served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1960-66. Osborne took an unpaid assistant job with the University of Nebraska in 1964. Later named as the Offensive Coordinator in 1969. He revamped the offense and helped secure titles. After being named the Head Coach, he promptly started to change the environment. He believed in education and building students up to be scholars first and athletes second. He listened to suggestions, and formed a senior led Unity Council to combat off the field problems with some members of the team. Osborne believed in fairness and honor, and exemplified those attributes in coaching and personal life. When he retired from coaching (and winning 3 National Championships in 4 years) he turned his sights on politics. After two terms in the House of Representatives, he made an unsuccessful attempt at the Governor's seat. Osborne is widely regarded as an innovator on the football field, in the University (where he now is the Athletic Director), and many athletes, and students, atribute their success to Osborne's influence on them. His books, More Than Winning and Faith in the Game are used not only for athletic purposes, but also used in management and executive training.
Osborne, Tom. (2007) In Huskers Online. http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=919755

b. 1942: Stephen William Hawking

Hawking worked primarily in the field of general relativity and particularly on the physics of black holes. In 1971 he suggested the formation, following the big bang, of numerous objects containing as much as 1,000,000,000 tons of mass but occupying only the space of a proton. These objects, called mini black holes, are unique in that their immense mass and gravity require that they be ruled by the laws of relativity, while their minute size requires that the laws of quantum mechanics apply to them also. Hawking's work greatly spurred efforts to theoretically delineate the properties of black holes, objects about which it was previously thought that nothing could be known. His work was also important because it showed these properties' relationship to the laws of classical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. Hawking's contributions to physics earned him many exceptional honours. In 1974 the Royal Society elected him one of its youngest fellows. He became professor of gravitational physics at Cambridge in 1977, and in 1979 he was appointed to Cambridge's Lucasian professorship of mathematics, a post once held by Isaac Newton.
Hawking, Stephen W.. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9039612

Aug 6,9, 1945: Event - Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to great rejoicing in the Allied countries. The hostility of the American public toward Japan was even more intense and demanded an unambiguous total victory in the Pacific. On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb carried from Tinian Island in the Marianas in a specially equipped B-29 was dropped on Hiroshima, the combined heat and blast pulverized everything in the explosion's immediate vicinity, generated spontaneous fires that burned almost 4.4 square miles completely out, and killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people, besides injuring more than 70,000 others. A second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, killed between 35,000 and 40,000 people, injured a like number, and devastated 1.8 square miles. This event marked a new time in warfare, weapons could now destroy entire cities, devastate ecosystems, and usher in a new era of worries. It also confirmed human ability to harnass the power of the atom.
The decision to use the atomic bomb. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9344715

b. 1947: Michio Kaku

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory. He received a B.S. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics class. He went on to the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972. In 1973, he held a lectureship at Princeton University. He is the author of several scholarly, Ph.D. level textbooks and has had more than 70 articles published in physics journals, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics. Michio continues Einstein's search for a "Theory of Everything," seeking to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe—the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism. He holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York, where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).
Kaku, Michio. (2008). In Dr M ichio Kaku Online. http://www.mkaku.org/about/

Oct 4, 1957: Event - Launch of Sputrnik

Sputnik, any of a series of artificial Earth satellites whose launching by the Soviet Union beginning on October 4, 1957, inaugurated the space age. Sputnik 1, the first satellite launched by man, was a 184-pound (83.6-kg) capsule. It achieved an Earth orbit with an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles (940 km) and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles (230 km), ircling the Earth every 96 minutes and remaining in orbit until early 1958 when it fell back and burned in the Earth's atmosphere. Launched on November 3, 1957, Sputnik 2 carried the dog Laika, the first living creature to be shot into space and orbit the Earth. Between the United States and the Soviet Union, a new space race begun for technological superiority. A side effect of this was advanced exploration of space and a realization of man\s emminent travels to space.
Sputnik. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9069273

c. 1950-1960: Invention of the Internet

The first computer networks were dedicated special-purpose systems such as SABRE (an airline reservation system) and AUTODIN I (a defense command-and-control system), both designed and implemented in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the early 1960s computer manufacturers had begun to use semiconductor technology in commercial products, and both conventional batch-processing and time-sharing systems were in place in many large, technologically advanced companies. This led to the notion of sharing computer resources (called host computers or simply hosts) over an entire network. Host-to-host interactions were envisioned, along with access to specialized resources (such as supercomputers and mass storage systems) and interactive access by remote users to the computational powers of time-sharing systems located elsewhere. These ideas were first realized in ARPANET, established in 1969 by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. It connected time-sharing computers at government-supported research sites, principally universities in the United States, and it soon became a critical piece of infrastructure for the computer science research community in the United States. The Internet resulted from the effort to connect various research networks in the United States and Europe.
Internet. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9001458

b. 1953: Richard Matthew Stallman

The shift from informal sharing of code to explicit open-source practice actually began with Richard M. Stallman. Stallman, a charismatic programmer who had thrived in the computer science environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), collided with the increasing commercialization of software in the early 1980s. With more companies blocking access to their source codes, Stallman felt frustrated in his efforts to fix and improve these codes, so he decided that proprietary software must be publicly opposed. In 1984 he resigned from MIT to found the GNU Project, with the goal of developing a completely free UNIX-like operating system. In 1985 he delivered the GNU Manifesto outlining his program of free software development, formed the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and launched what he called the free software movement. In pursuit of his ends, Stallman wrote the General Public License (GPL), a document attached to computer code that would legally require anyone distributing that code to make available any of their modifications and distributed works (a property Stallman called “copyleft”). In effect, he sought to codify the hacker ethos. By the end of the century, the GPL was the license of choice for approximately half of all open-source projects.
open source. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9389944

b. 1955: Steven Paul Jobs

Jobs was one of the first entrepreneurs to understand that the personal computer would appeal to a broad audience, at least if it did not appear to belong in a junior high school science fair. In 1979 he led a small group of Apple engineers to a technology demonstration at the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to see how the graphical user interface could make computers easier to use and more efficient. After experiencing setbacks (being ousted at Apple, and then NeXT), Jobs bought Pixar from George Luca, and turned it into a major animation company. In 1997, through a merger with NeXT and Apple, Jobs was brought back to lead Apple. In 1998, Jobs introduced the iMac, an egg-shaped, one-piece computer that offered high-speed processing at a relatively modest price and initiated a trend of high-fashion computers. By the end of the year, the iMac was the nation's highest-selling personal computer, and Jobs was able to announce consistent profits for the once-moribund company.
Jobs, Steven P.. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9126251

b. 1955: William Henry Gates III

Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school's payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data, a company that sold traffic-counting systems to local governments. Gates's sway over the infant microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to International Business Machines Corporation—then the world's biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter—for use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC (personal computer). Beginning in 1995 and 1996, Gates feverishly refocused Microsoft on the development of consumer and enterprise software solutions for the Internet. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Gates was also known for his charitable work. With his wife, Melinda, he launched the William H. Gates Foundation (renamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999) in 1994 to fund global health programs as well as projects in the Pacific Northwest.
Gates, Bill. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9036187

c. 1963: Invention of the pointing device (mouse)

In 1963 Engelbart was given funding by SRI to start his own research laboratory, the Augmentation Research Center, where he worked on inventing and perfecting various devices—such as the computer mouse. Together with a colleague at SRI, William English, he eventually perfected a variety of input devices—including joysticks, light pens, and track balls—that are now common. Prior to Engelbart's inventions, laborious and error-prone keypunch cards or manually set electronic switches were necessary to control computers, and data had to be printed before it could be viewed. His work made it possible for ordinary people to use computers.
Engelbart, Douglas. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9126075

Sep 11, 2001: Event - World Trade Center Collapses

A series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets in the United States. The attacks caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous U.S. effort to combat terrorism. World markets were badly shaken; the towers were at the heart of New York´s financial district, and damage to Lower Manhattan´s infrastructure, combined with fears of stock market panic, kept New York markets closed for four trading days. This in turn restricted many freedoms inside the United States, and created a political upheaval within the government on appropriate action.
September 11 attacks. (2008). In Encyclopćdia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9394915

Timeline of Great Thinkers, Events, and Inventions

compiled by Stephen Hird

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Adam and Eve

Invention of the Wheel

Discovery of Iron Processing

Invention of Writing

Menes

Hammurabi

Invention of Paper

Discovery of Organized Religion

Moses

Zoroaster

Solomon

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Solon

Discovery of the Atom

Pythagoras of Samos

Confucius

Sun Tzu (Master Sun)

Plato

Invention of Democracy

Aristotle

Archimedes of Syracuse

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Jesus Christ

Gaius or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus

Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (Contstantine I)

Event - Edict of Milan

Event - Fall of the Roman Empire

Abu al-Qasim Muhammad

Pacal the Great

Event - The Signing of the Magna Carta

Geoffrey Chaucer

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Invention of the Typesetter/Printing Press

Nicolaus Copernicus

Discovery of Heliocentricism

John Calvin

William Shakespeare

Galileo Galilei

René Descartes

John Locke

Discovery of Bacteria

Gottfried Leibniz

Event - Development of Modern Calculus

Isaac Newton

Discovery of Gravity

Discovery of Electricity and Magnetism

Event - Settlement of the New World

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Francis Hutcheson

François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

Benjamin Franklin

Invention of the Piston and Cylinder Engine

Immanuel Kant

Thomas Paine

Thomas Jefferson

Invention of the Capacitor/resistor

James Madison, Jr

Event - American Revolution

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss

The Brothers Grimm

Event - The Industrial Revolution

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Abraham Lincoln

Karl Heinrich Marx

Discovery of Natural Selection

Henrik Johan Ibsen

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

Discovery of the Atomic Elements / Periodic Table of Elements

Alexander Graham Bell

Invention of the Telephone

Thomas Alva Edison

Invention of Medicine - Antibiotics/Immunization

Invention of Television

Event - Black Friday, The Great Depression

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill