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Time Period Index - World History Encyclopedia. Alphabetical. Regional. Time Period. Select Time Period. Prehistoric Ancient Medieval Early Modern Modern. Support Us. Browse World History Encyclopedia by time period.
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- Contents
- The Origins of Civilization
- Early Civilizations
- Civilizations of The Classical Erai
- The Medieval Era
- American Civilizations
- The Early Modern World
- The Modern World
Up until about 12,000 years ago, all humans were hunter-gatherers: that is, they lived by hunting wild game, fishing, and gathering fruits and berries. They lived in small bands, following a mobile lifestyle as they followed animal herds and moved to where more plants could be found. They owned only what they could easily carry on their backs, whic...
The first true civilization in the Middle East emerged in Mesopotamiain the mid-fourth millennium BCE. Here, a people called the Sumerians lived in numerous small cities, the centers of the earliest true states. By the end of the fourth millennium, a second civilization had appeared in the Middle East. This was Ancient Egypt, located along the bank...
The Middle East recovers
The time of troubles ended about 900 BCE in the Middle East, and the ancient civilizations of the region were soon on the rise again. The following centuries saw the rise of the Assyrian empire. This was followed by the short-lived Babylonian empire(c. 612 to 539 BCE), and then by the Persian empire (539 to 331 BCE). These empires pioneered imperial techniques which would be followed throughout history: large armies composed of mass formations of infantry and cavalry; provincial administratio...
Greek civilization
It was not the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, however, which felt the greatest impact of the spreading use of iron in farming, industry and war, and of the new alphabetic writing. It was in regions bordering the Middle East which were revolutionized by these new developments: the Mediterranean basin and northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. Previously on the margins of the great Bronze Age world of the Middle East, these now developed brilliant civilizations of their own. In t...
Indian civilization
In the Indian subcontinent, meanwhile, cities reappeared after a thousand years’ absence. These were not now in the Indus Valley, but in the Ganges Plain to the east. This became the new heartland Indian civilization. These cities were the centers of organized states, and were tied together in a growing trade system, this one based on the river transport enabled by the Ganges and its tributaries. Most of these were kingdoms, but there were also states which were not, and modern scholars often...
The word “medieval” means “middle”, or “in-between”; and it is tempting to see the centuries between 500 CE and 1450 CE as an “in-between” time when the glories of classical civilization lay behind and the achievements of the modern world lay ahead. The more recent term “post-classical” is even more dismissive, suggesting that the histories of thes...
The civilizations which arose in the Americas followed a quite different path to those of Eurasia and Africa. They could almost have been on a different planet. The patterns identifiable in Asia and Africa – great river valleys, Bronze Age, Iron Age and so on – are absent here.
The early modern world was characterized by several key developments, all of which had their origins in the Medieval world but now began to come into their own. The first of these was the emergence of a bundle of technologies which gave Eurasian societies additional power. Gunpowder warfare, both on land and sea, was one of these. Printing was anot...
The limitations to European power noted above were swept away by the coming of the industrial revolution in Europe and its offshoots, and all that flowed from that.
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These timelines of world history detail recorded events since the creation of writing roughly 5000 years ago to the present day. For events from c. 3200 BC – c. 500 see: Timeline of ancient history. For events from c. 500 – c. 1499, see: Timeline of post-classical history. For events from c. 1500, see: Timelines of modern history.
Interactive World History Timeline and Map. 500 BCE - 500 : 0. events
