Colonization (red) vs. self-determination (green)

Larger-scale civilizations arise in Sumer/Babylon, China, Indus Valley, and later Mexico (Olmec)

Alexander the Great

Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, Islamic Empire, other empire consolidations

European colonization

British takeover of India (via East India Company), but US gained independence

Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, and much of the rest of Latin America become independent

Horrific atrocities happened in the Congo

Gandhi begins peaceful resistance; Ottoman Empire breaks up following WW1, Republic of Turkey est. 1923

India and Pakistan become independent; Ghana becomes first independent African nation; Israel founded

Birth of fascism (1915) with Mussolini's Fasci of Revolutionary Action. Germany forms Weimar Republic, then Nazi party comes to power, Hitler gains dictatorial control (1933). Communism establishes itself politically. Russian Revolutions, Lenin takes power, Stalin replaces him in mid-1920s. Chiang Kai-Shek gains control of most of China by 1927, opposing Communist Party of China

Cold War begins; NATO forms; USSR occupies Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (1940), Communist rule begins (shortly following WW2) in Albania, Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia; Chinese Civil War results in Mao Zedong-ruled People's Republic of China; Ho Chi Minh takes power in Vietnam; Castro takes power in Cuba; Korean War leaves S. and N. Korea separate; Vietnam War begins. Most Fascist parties collapse after 1945, but Franco remains in power in Spain

Berlin wall built (1961); Cuban missile crisis (1962); Mao's Cultural Revolution; Deng Xiaoping takes over in 1978, begins reforms

Communism collapses, end of Cold War

French Revolution, 30 Years' War

Booming UK starts "opium wars" with China, annexes Hong Kong. Napoleonic Wars, 1848 Revolutions, US Civil War (1861-1865); German unification under Bismarck (1870s)

WW1 1914-1918

WW2 1939-1945

Vietnam War ends; Nixon establishes diplomatic US-China diplomatic relations. Govt scandals: Nixon resigns in Watergate scandal; Pentagon Papers released (1971) documenting systematic misinformation by LBJ administration

Mathematics (eg matrix algebra, quadratic equations) and mathematical astronomy

Major progress on geometry/math

Algebra, science of optics (Islamic Empire, 700s-1000s) would prove useful

Scientific Revolution. Copernicus defends heliocentrism, Galileo ~invents empirical physics

Newton's Laws (1687) unify astronomy and laws of motion. Early study of electromagnetism (static shocks, Leyden jars, Ben Franklin's lightning rod) and light. Also golden age of mathematics (Euler and Gauss; calculus and number theory)

Period in which electromagnetism was basically mastered. Volta's battery, Faraday's work on lines of force, and finally Maxwell's equations.

Einstein's prime and physics revolution. Michelson-Morley experiment and Einstein's work lead to theory of relativity

General relativity, maturing of quantum mechanics, correct structure of the atom, strong & weak interaction, nuclear fission

Manhattan Project; NSF, DARPA, rise of modern academic system

This is around where I cease being able to point to many impressive- or important-seeming breakthroughs in physics and chemistry. Partly because they've gotten more esoteric, partly because I believe there really haven't been landmarks as important/clear as in the past. (Math looks about this way to me starting around 1870)

Beginning of rational chemistry

Chemistry matured heavily, including thermodynamics, Avogadro's hypothesis, periodic table, electrolysis

Haber-Bosch, Hall-Heroult processes are probably the most important chemical processes

Structure of the atom, x-ray crystallography

Woodward synthesizes cholesterol and cortisone

Of the 20 most common reactions in chemistry, only 1 is developed in this period

Landmark book on anatomy

Beginning of microscope-driven biology, discovery of cells and microorganisms

Darwin's Origin of Species (1859)

Multiple important diseases understood; Ehrlich begins more rational method of drug discovery

Role of insulin discovered, penicillin discovered but can't be scaled up yet

Watson & Crick uncover structure of DNA, genetic code

Dawn of modern molecular biology. Codons are matched to amino acids, recombinant DNA is developed, Genentech is launched; Bishop & Varmus find the first oncogene; David Baltimore finds reverse transcriptase

Biology has been mostly pursuing understanding of specific sub-disease mechanisms, though recent development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system could lead to future major breakthroughs

Turing's "On computable numbers" founds the field of computer science and establishes the idea of the universal Turing machine

Information theory, von Neumann architecture, transistor

Quicksort algorithm, formulation of NP-completeness idea, "winter" and later "renaissance" in artificial neural networks as backpropagation algorithm addresses critiques of Minsky and Papert

Big progress on machine learning, esp. after 2012 paper on use of GPUs for convolutional neural networks. Image and voice recognition improve dramatically

Bronze, iron, basic techniques like welding and soldering

Coke-based iron smelting, crucible steel made steel/iron much more attainable

Vulcanized rubber, Portland cement, Bessemer process for steel, first chemical fertilizer, reinforced concrete; celluloid (first commercial plastic, 1860s)

Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing ammonia (crucial for fertilizer); Hall-Heroult process makes aluminum affordable

Nylon, Teflon, fiberglass, aluminum foil, stainless steel

Kevlar, GORE-TEX

Lever & pulley, water mill

Steam engines

First oil drilling, transition from wood to coal

Proliferation of centralized electric power

Nuclear power reactors

Spoken language

Written communications

Improvements in clocks

Printing press. # printed books goes from ~10k to ~200k. UK literacy rate goes from ~5% to ~16%

Telegraph, first Transatlantic telegraph line. Invented but not yet widely adopted: photograph, phonograph, telephone, electric light.

First radio broadcast, first motion picture

First public radio broadcasts, first experimental television broadcasts

Growing popularity of television; invention of cable TV

Proliferation of Internet/WWW use; Google, Facebook, Amazon. Proliferation of cellphones, then iPhones

Steam locomotive, steamboat, first transcontinental railroad

Progress on automobiles leads to Model T Ford, assembly line; first airplane flight (Wright Brothers)

First transatlantic flight

Antikythera mechanism - ancient analog computer

VERY early thinking on computers (Babbage and Lovelace; nothing remotely practical yet)

Dawn of modern computing. Transistor, von Neumann architecture, UNIVAC (first mass-produced computer), FORTRAN (first high-level programming language), Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Computers mature: first microchips, BASIC and C, first word processor and spreadsheet, UNIX, first personal computer, Xerox PARC innovations (mouse, graphical user interface, Ethernet), Apple II (1977). ARPAnet (Internet precursor) debuts in 1969

Macintosh, Windows, laptop computers (1980s)

Gunpowder, paper, spectacles

Breakthroughs on textile manufacturing

Vacuum-sealed and canned food; early electric light

Eastman's home camera; washing machine; first factory air conditioner

Invention of blender, aerosol can, tampon with applicator. Commercialization of toaster, refrigerator, Aga cooker, Leica camera, fluorescent lamps, electric stove, hearing aids, frozen foods

Proliferation of dishwashers, microwave ovens. Styrofoam, contact lenses, Superglue, sofa bed, Polaroid

Laser, Computer-assisted design (CAD), weather satellites, fiber optics, LEDs, LCD displays, Food processor, Dyson vacuum cleaner, ATM (cash machine), Sony Walkman, CDs, Pong (first popular video game)

Digital cameras, camcorders

Economic growth and transformation

Growth for the richest countries

Transition from hunter-gatherers to agricultural civilization (~-10000) likely involved some decline in well-being (will argue this in future posts)

Not much, GDP per capita changes little in most areas, might've doubled in Western Europe (I don't know how much of that was this period vs. following)

Relatively little growth compared to later periods

Relatively little growth compared to later periods

UK Industrial Revolution, skyrocketing GDP per capita and booming population. This was the first period where there were really quite a few household name companies started: DuPont Chemical, Colgate, Wiley Publishing, Citigroup, Brooks Brothers, ConEd, Macy's, P&G, Pfizer, Siemens, Amex, General Mills, Heinz, Campbell Soup, Bell Telephone Company

US and Continental Europe industrialization accelerates, leading to catch-up with the UK

Great Depression begins in 1929; still, global growth over this period is huge compared to pre-1880. Scored it lower b/c it was a step backward, even though absolute growth higher than 1800-1880

Japan's lost decade (1990s); Great Recession and European debt crises (2008-2015)

Growth for the rest of the world

Argentina began a period of encouraging immigration and experiencing rapid growth

Rapid economic growth begins post-WW2 in West Germany, Japan. 1950s: Green Revolution in Mexico; Four Asian Tigers phenomenon begins (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore)

Green Revolution in India. % of people in extreme poverty falls below 50 for the first time, reaches 32% in 1980

China's economic reforms begin under Deng Xiaoping (who took power in 1978), period of exceptional growth begins. % people in "extreme poverty" falls to 16%, under new (and more expansive) definition of "extreme poverty"

International interconnectedness

Rise of large-scale civilization & trade

New trade routes

Beginning of "first wave of globalization" - European trade would go from <10% of GDP to ~33% by 1880

Global trade and migration fell dramatically during WW1, didn't recover

Start of Bretton Woods system; start of international containerization

Major growth in trade - Western Europe trade went from ~30% to 50%+ (http://ourworldindata.org/data/global-interconnections/international-trade/), hasn't gone up a ton since. Minor rebound in migration

Humanism, individualism, pro-science, Expanding Circle worldviews

Confucius advocates mass education

Scientific-ish worldview, heavier on evidence & logic, lighter on authority/religion; this was basically temporary. Porphyry advocates for animal welfare, vegetarianism

Thomas Aquinas tries to reconcile religion with science

Enlightenment (Locke, Hume, Hobbes, Bentham, Beccaria, etc.) - earliest arguments for utilitarianism, civil rights, feminism, democracy, humanism

J.S. Mill, Kierkegaard

Rise and decline of logical positivism

The Second Sex; An American Dilemma; the Kinsey Report; Philosophical Investigations

The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Silent Spring (1962), The Other America (1962), The Feminine Mystique (1963), Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), Against Our Will (1975), Animal Liberation (1975), Orientalism (1978)

End of Cold War, collapse of much Communism. Rise of Slavoj Zizek

Animism, polytheism

Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, Confucianism

Christianity, Islam

Protestant Reformation

Hegel (early 1800s); Marxism (Communist Manifesto 1848)

Communism starts to gain traction in Europe

Birth of Fascism, spread of Communism

Fascism collapses, Communism expands

Intellectual foundations of modern libertarian/conservative economics. Conservative philanthropy supports development of Heritage Foundation, law & economics movement; Milton Friedman writes Capitalism and Freedom (1962); New Classical and New Keynesian economics; efficient market hypothesis; public choice theory. Foucault's prime, postmodern critical theory

Social sciences (attempts to understand the world that don't go under natural sciences, basically)

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Herodotus

Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776), beginning of modern anti-mercantilist economics. Beginning of probabilistic and statistical analysis, including the invention of most of the charts you'd recognize (column, line, pie), the idea of probability, Bayes's theorem, and the first case-control experiment (on how to prevent scurvy).

Foundations of modern economics. Pigou, Walras, Pareto, Austrian school

Galton develops correlation, standard deviation, regression concepts; Pearson pioneers mathematical statistics including chi-squared test, p-value and more. First IQ test. Freud, beginnings of psychotherapy

Von Neumann invents game theory; Keynes releases General Theory; GDP concept introduced. Rise and fall of logical positivism, behaviorism; p-value

Hayek, Chicago School, Samuelson and Solow. Beginning of modern economics, first DSM (manual of mental disorders)

Cognitive-behavioral therapy developed

Real Business Cycle theory (1982), inception of DSGE macroeconomic models. RCT turn in development economics; JPAL established 2003

Moral progress and human/civil rights

Taboos on women hunting, restrictions on political power for women, sexual division of labor, other inequalities (future piece)

Hard to say, but would guess it was worse post-agriculture vs. pre-agriculture (future post)

Greek civilization (esp. Athens) had huge amounts of slavery and very poor treatment of women

Early feminism

Beginnings of organized feminism, the first Women's Rights convention (1848) and the first organized movement for UK women's suffrage

First countries grant women's suffrage (NZ, Australia, Finland); amendment introduced in US for the first time, though defeated

Women's suffrage in many countries including US and UK; UK's Sex Disqualification Act of 1919 opens professions

UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts "equal rights of men and women"

Friedan's The Feminine Mystique; National Organization for Women founded; female labor force participation rate rises from ~40% to ~50%

Female college enrollment rate matches (and passes) male (US); female labor force participation rate rises to ~60%

Slavery common, human sacrifice possibly common. Possible that civilization made this worse relative to the pre-civilization era.

Greek civilization (esp. Athens) had huge amounts of slavery and very poor treatment of women

Slavery common throughout the world, generally little info but probably a bad time for human rights in both West and East. Kublai Khan institutes caste system

Spain abolished slavery in ~1500s (note that colonization is covered in a separate row, above)

First apparent religious toleration decree (Edict of Nantes) and the banning of torture staring with the UK in the early 18th century and spreading throughout Europe by 1800

UK slave trade abolished (early 1800s), US abolitionism -> Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, 14th Amendment. Ottoman Empire abolishes slave trade (Tanzimat)

Korea and China abolish slavery

Montgomery bus boycott, Brown v. Board of Education, first US year with no reported lynchings. "White Australia" policy mostly dismantled. South African Apartheid begins (negative, but I coded this cell positive due to other items). Nehru administration in India (1952-1964) includes legislation against caste/discrimination

MLK's March on Washington; MLK and Malcolm X assassinated (negative)

Apartheid ends (South Africa), many other policies worldwide aimed at reducing discrimination.

Beginnings of institutionalized homophobia in the West, homosexuality declared punishable by death.

UK abolishes death penalty for homosexual relations; Ottoman Empire decriminalizes homosexuality (Tanzimat)

Partial decriminalization of homosexuality in UK, West Germany, East Germany;

Marriage equality movement, general improvement in public opinion on LGBTQ+

UK passes the first laws against bear-baiting, the Ill-Treatment of Cattle Act (later extended to bulls, bears, dogs and cats)

Beginning of true factory farming, incl. chicken battery cages; Tyson Foods founded 1935 (probably also progress on other fronts but I don't have much concrete)

Major consolidation of animal production

Massive rise in meat consumption worldwide

Growth in govt programs and nonprofits aimed at helping the worst off (incl foreign aid)

Bismarck's Germany establishes early welfare state

Roots of United Way and Catholic Charities as community organizations proliferate; Hull House, Sierra Club founded. Rockfeller starts mega-philanthropy; creates first institute for biomedical research, advocates for public secondary education in US South. UK institutes universal compulsory education; first US environmental regulations

First permanent income tax (WW1) and New Deal. First period in which many now-famous nonprofits formed: Planned Parenthood, NAACP, ACLU, Save the Children, American Heart Association, March of Dimes, American Cancer Society

Birth of modern foreign aid. Marshall Plan, creation of World Bank and IMF; UNICEF founded; many other international orgs (Oxfam, CARE, etc.) established in WW2. UK's Beveridge Report

Great Society and other programs; huge # of new departments and policies created. After this point, political changes in the US seem much less dramatic. Debut of most environmental nonprofits incl Greenpeace, NRDC, EDF

Foreign aid rises from ~$40 billion to ~$60 billion per year equiv (1980s; hasn't gone up much since). 2000s see increased interest in health aid: Gates Foundation, GAVI, GFATM, PEPFAR, PMI. % world population withi at least a basic education goes from 63% to 81.5% (32% to 65% in sub-Saharan Africa)

Overall violence reduction (day-to-day)

High violent death rates compared to today; may have worsened with transition from nomadic to sedentary societies

Decline in homicide rates around 1200-1400 in Europe

Continuing decline in homicide rates

Beginnings of the modern approach to criminal justice and punishment, particularly incarceration; homicide rates fall in US, reach very low points in Europe

Likely continuing decline in everyday violence worldwide

Likely continuing decline in everyday violence worldwide

Very high deaths from wars and atrocities

Very high deaths from wars and atrocities

Rise in US crime rates

US homicides decline to pre-1960s levels; US incarceration rate skyrockets

Slave trade, colonization

Thirty Years' War, Fall of the Ming Dynasty

Taiping Rebellion, famins in British India

WW1, Russian Civil War

Massive large-scale violence: WW2, Stalin, Mao

Mao's Cultural Revolution, but low overall death tolls for this period compared to previous

Lowest atrocity rates in known history are over this period

Usefulness of medical procedures and technologies

Medical records, smallpox inoculation, very limited use of anesthesia for surgery

First known dissection for biological purposes

Galen (~100) sets down medical "knowledge," much of which is wrong and goes unchallenged for 1000+ years

More or less the first useful medicine: nitrous oxide in early 1800s, ether and chloroform in the 1840s, Lister's sterilization approach in the 1850s. Also the first major commercial drug I'm aware of, aspirin (commercialized by Bayer in 1856).

Modern method of vaccine development starts with Pasteur's anthrax vaccine; rabies and cholera follow. Ehrlich develops idea of drugs that bind to specific targets, develops cure for syphilis

Insulin identified as key to diabetes treated, Eli Lilly starts producing it. (Can't be mass-produced until 1970s.) Discovery of penicillin (can't be mass-produced until 1940s)

Mass production of antibiotics (incl. penicillin) begins. Oral contraceptive; polio vaccine; streptomycin (antibiotic useful for TB); cardiac catheterization; dialysis machine; defibrillator; ventilator; pacemaker; metered dose inhaler

First successful heart transplant, first successful coronary bypass surgery, first hip replacement, balloon angioplasty, laser eye surgery, liposuction; CAT scan, MRI; Nixon's War on Cancer

Jarvik hearts; statins; Prozac and similar drugs; insulin mass-produced (by Genentech); targeted anti-cancer drugs like Gleevec and Herceptin

Sanitation, smoking, vaccination, other public health situations

Soap, flush toilet, sewage

Black Death (1300s)

Major progress in sanitation. Municipal water treatment (early 1800s), first sewer system plan in the US (Chicago, 1855), first use of hygiene interventions to attack a disease (John Snow, cholera, 1850s). Pasteurization, germ theory of disease (1860s).

Completion of US sewer system

Public sewer systems are largely built by this point (last US one is finished in Baltimore in 1915)

Surgeon General's report on smoking (1964); smoking wars, leading to withdrawal of tobacco advertising (1967-1971). Smallpox eradicated in 1977

Sharp rise in obesity. HIV/AIDS pandemic emerges starting in the 1980s; deaths peak in 2005. UNICEF's Child Mortality campaign, 1980-1995; likely continued improvements in sanitation, immunization coverage etc.

Overall very little effective medicine, low life expectancy

Life expectancy in the UK didn't change noticeably, though the earliest infant mortality data (Sweden's) started to show a decline starting around the 1850s.

UK life expectancy grows quickly, reaches 50; worldwide decline in maternal mortality begins

Life expectancy rose a lot in this period (e.g. European life expectancy rose from 47 to 60 between 1913-1950)

UK life expectancy reaches 70, begins to grow more slowly; world life expectancy reaches 48, up from 34 in 1910; Sweden child mortality is ~10% of what it was when decline started

World life expectancy reaches 60, African life expectancy reaches 47

African life expectancy goes from 47 to 58; world child mortality rate falls in ~half, from 110 to 52 per 1000 births per year (197 to 106 in sub-Saharan Africa)

Little is known; few milestones despite this being the longest period

Civilization began; violence declined, population grew, living standards probably fell a bit. No science to speak of, only math

Temporary culture of rationalist intellectual inquiry, didn't really lead to much

Relatively low density of important developments as far as I can tell

Beginnings of modern science

Intellectual golden age produced foundational works of science and philosophy. Tech groundwork for Industrial Revolution laid. But it was mostly intellectual, rather than material, progress.

Beginning of industrialization, mostly confined to the UK; science breakthroughs (esp. with electromagnetism) laid the groundwork for more modernization in the future; UK, US, Ottoman Empire all made noticeable progress on civil & human rights; first major progress on medicine & health

Feels like this period contained the most "building blocks of the modern world" in terms of technology. Start of the postmodern turn in art. First period of major improvements in living standards and health outside UK

WW1 leads to de-globalization (collapsing trade and migration), bigger government, and the rise of Communism, Fascism, and various "disillusioned" art. Beginning of factory farming. Big progress on women's suffrage. Commercialization of huge #'s of staple household technologies. Maturation of quantum mechanics and birth of computer science, but a fairly quiet period for basic biology.

WW2, fall of Fascism, start of Cold War and Communism's biggest abuses; growth in international coordination, trade, aid and beginning of catch-up growth from Mexico, West Germany, Japan, Asian Tigers; dawn of modern academia and modern computing; some progress on race (though also start of South African apartheid), less progress on feminism. Huge period for pharma/medicine. Pretty quiet-seeming period for art, other than dawn of rock&roll and many classic films.

Not much exciting on the basic/fundamental science/intellectual front, but massive changes in the real world. Green Revolution in India, huge growth in trade and declines in poverty. Development of modern computers and electronics. Far and away the most active period for US public policy, development of much of today's key political ideas/coalitions (progressivism, environmentalism, libertarian-conservatism). China saw the worst of Mao, but also the end of him. Big period for highbrow rock and jazz music. Seemingly very little of note for classical music, literature, and visual art.

Quiet-seeming period compared to previous. End of the Cold War, lots of peace and economic growth and improving health and policies aimed at combating discrimination. Not much in the way of technological breakthroughs other than on the computers/electronics/smartphones/Internet front. Genetics/genomics and machine learning seem like areas of fastest advance