BRIEF HISTORY
15 billion years ago BIG BANG: Birth of UNIVERSE
BB+… UNIVERSE as a blur: Planck period (Singularity to 10-43 seconds)
BB+10-34 seconds GUT (Grand Unified
Theory) Era: Matter emerged as Quarks; also anti-matter
BB+1 minute: Electrons appeared after collisions with
positrons
BB+3 minutes:
Heavy Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium etc formed
BB+1B years: Galaxies, Quasars & Stars formed
BB+3B years: Solar System formed
4.5B years ago: Molecular life on Earth begins
2.8B years ago: Nucleated cell appears
2.5B years ago: Archean eon ends; Earth’s surface in
modern pattern of plate tectonics
2.4B years ago: Oxygen forms in the atmosphere
1.5B years ago: Life supporting atmosphere formed on
Earth
1.2B years ago: Organisms developed locomotion and
Sexual reproduction
700m years ago: early
water-borne animals appeared
600 m years ago: Plants appeared
540m years ago: Cambrian explosion: evolution of
intelligence; new forms of life with hard body
400m years ago: Land based animals and plants evolved
375m years ago: Fish adapted to live on dry land a la croc
350m years ago: Carboniferous period; Reptiles
evolved
348-344m years ago: Salamander like tetrapod
–evolution of fish to first vertebrates
300m years ago: Fungus began to grow on land
245m years ago: Earth a big continent in early
Mesozoic era, one ocean: Panthalassa
200m years ago: Jurassic period: Dinosaurs and
Mammals
180m years ago: The original landmass Pangea splits
into Gondwanaland & Laurasia
140m years ago: Cretacious period; Birds started
flying
135m years ago: Greenland separates from N.America
& India moves northwards to Asia
70m years ago: Dinosaurs & many species extinct,
due to possible meteorite impact
65m years ago: Evolutionary ascent of Primates
5m years ago:
First Humanoids appeared: Bipods used tools
2-3m years
ago: Homo habilis descended from Southern Apes and evolved as Homo erectus
0.5m years ago: Homo sapiens (wise ones) developed
language
0.3m years ago: common ancestor of homo sapiens and
neanderthals said to have existed
0.25m years ago: Homo Sapiens attained refined forms
0.15m years ago: earliest human ancestor, a female
existed, and males evolved later.
0.1m years ago: Human evolution plateaus in Asia
60,000 years ago: Humanoids tamed Fire in China
40,000 years ago: Human evolution perpetuated in
Europe (Neanderthal valley)
40K years ago: Only Homo Sapiens of Humanoids
survived
10,000 BC: Vedic civilisation said to have existed
10,000y ago: Last great ice sheet melts in Europe and
North America
8000 BC: Agricultural village settlements existed in
the Middle East
7300 BC: Ramayana said to be traced to
5500 BC: Irrigation in river valleys boosted yields; agriculture
heralded dry area occupation
6000y ago: Mesopotamian civilisation
5500y ago: Written language evolved; also Wheels,
Boats, Abacus, Clock…
3550 BC: Indus
valley civilisation well developed in agriculture, trade, coinage, jewellery,
religion etc
3000 BC: Asphalt used by Sumerians to caulk boats
2350 BC: Boat building basin existed in Lothal; Trade to Mesopotamia flourished
2000 BC: Eastern mystics compiled holy
scriptures based on meditative reflections
2000 BC: Indus valley civilisation flourishing till
Indo-Aryan invasion of 1500 BC
1775 BC: Lending money at interest existed in Babylon
of Hammurabi
1758 BC: Sumerian Emperor Hammurabi codified 282 judgements: Origins of Case Law
1350 BC: Mahabaratha said to be traced to
1290 BC: Biblical parting of Red Sea for Moses &
his men to escape
1000 BC Mayan civilization prevalent in Yucatan
(Mexico) Peninsula
776 BC: The first athletic race `the foot race’ at
the sacred place of Olympia
700 BC: Sumerian Epic Gilgamesh poses first serious
challenge to laws of Gods
700 BC: World’s first university established in Takshila
599-527 BC Mahavira the 24th Thirthankara
credited for invigorating Jain philosophy
570-490BC Lao-tzu’s Taoism of philosophy &
mystical beliefs urges individuality
563-483BC: Budhism emerges challenging Hinduism’s
Gods & rituals
551-479BC: Confucius propounds ideology of society
origins of which traced to 11th century BC
539 BC Jews return to Palestine
500 BC: Vedic vision of consciousness expounded by
Ashtavakra
500 BC: Ayurvedic methods of treatment consolidated by Charaka
440BC: Democritus speculates on fundamental
indivisible particles calling them atoms
400-200 BC: Rationalists Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
philosophised/logics: leading to modern Sciences
340 BC: Geocentric universe posited by Aristotle;
Ptolemy and Church accepted same
27 BC: Dawn of Roman Empire which lasted 5 centuries
till 4762000 years ago: Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, crucified; Christianity
offshoots from Judaism
2000 years ago: Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, crucified; Christianity offshoots from Judaism
499: Aryabhatta through his treatise Aryabhattiya expounds on Mathematics & Astronomy
579:
Prophet Mohammed preaches Islam
1000: The first
modern Novel `The Tale of Genji’ was written by Murasaki Shikibu
1066: William the
Conqueror, a Norman king conquers Anglo-Saxon England
1024: China issued
the first paper money; Sweden followed suit only in 1661
1026: Somnath temple in Kathiawar plundered by Mahmud
Ghazni; Hindu rule of N. India fades by 1192
1099: Jerusalem conquered by the first Christian
Crusaders from Muslims
1180: Alexander Neckham wrote about European
Lodestone compass needle
1200: Manco Capac created Inca settlements in Cuzco
valley in Peru
1206 Mongol armies spread across central Asia, Eastern
Europe, Middle East, by 1279 to China
1215: Magna Carta; King John recognises property
rights
1249: Roger Bacon made gunpowder (from Arab
manuscript; China had fireworks in 9th century)
1250: European sailors started using Chinese invented
magnetic compass
1300: Banking system prevalent in Italy; Capitalism
taking shape elsewhere in Europe
1347-49: Black death due to plague, one in three
Europeans dead
1350: Incas built 100m span suspension bridge along
Apurimac using twined plant fibres lasting till 1890
1400: Class system
in India permeates as social strata; Class mobility wanes.
15th century: Renaissance in Europe
(Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michelangelo)
1430s: Johannes Gutenberg’s invented printing (Pi
Sheng had done so in China in 11th century)
1453: Europe’s best defended city Constantinople fell
to Ottomans’ gun powder bombardments
1457 First European book printed with movable type
1469: Afansy Nikitin a trader Tver, Russia came to
India by Sea (before VascoDaGama)
1500s: Guru Nanak (1469-1539) launches Sikhism
emphasising the oneness of humanity
500years ago: Ocean adventure era: Continents
discovered and mapped
1514: Copernicus explained heliocentric theory
-Sun as the centre of Solar system
1517: Martin Luther King launches Reformation, nailing
95 critical theses on a church door
1519: Aztec capital Mexico seized by Spanish
1522: Ferdinand Magellan's "Vittoria"
became the first ship to sail around the world
1524: Turkish invaders carved out Mughal empire in
India lasting till 1750 falling to the British
1531-1572: Inca empire conquered by the Spanish
1553: Muscovy Company of London issued the first
Equity shares
1563: Statute of Artificers in England laid out 14
hours work per day
Mid-16th centrury-1865: Slavery practised;
12m Africans shipped to America
1582: Oct 4-15 skipped to create
the new Gregorian Calendar (from Julian one)
1590:
Compound microscope developed & invented by Zacharias Janssen
1600: East India Company set up
1608: Telescope made by Hans Lipperhey (Galileo
improved it much in 1609-10)
1609: Galileo discovered satellites of Jupiter and
disproved geocentricity
1609 Johannes Kepler postulated elliptical orbits for
planets & underlined heliocentricity
1620 Pilgrim Fathers sailed from England to America
to escape religious persecution
1633: Galileo faces inquisition and forced to abjure
his Sun-centric belief
1639-1853 Japan cuts off itself from the rest of the
world.
1649: King Charles executed in England; Monarchy
loses its grip on society
1654: Existence of atmosphere hypothesised (vacuumed
hemispheres unseparated by horses in Magdenburg)
1658: First Telescopes; Pendulum clock invented by
Huygens
1666: Great London Fire
1681: Languedoc Canal linking Atlantic &
Mediterranean through South France completed
1687: Newton’s `Principia’; Gravity, Laws of Motion,
Differential Calculus
1712: Thomas Newcomen made the first Engine to use a
piston in a cylinder
1725: James Bradley measured speed of light (only 2%
error) using `stellar parallax’
principle
1749: Georges Buffon speculated Earth’s age at
12times that of Biblical derivations
1759: John Harrison made the first Marine Chronometer
1765: James Watt’s Steam Engine (Thomas Newcomen had
invented the same 50 yrs earlier)
1775: Submarine invented by David Bushnell
1780-1840 Industrial Revolution on Steam
1776 Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith published
1776: United States gains independence
1783: Joseph & Jacques Montgolfier demonstrated
that hot air balloon can lift man.
1789: Bastille uprising in France; royal regimes
deposed
1790s: Oil bucketed out of hand dug wells in Borneo
1796: Vaccination introduced by Edward Jenner
1798: Income Tax introduced in England by William
Pitt the younger
1800: Volta’s Electric Battery
1803: John Dalton introduced idea of atoms and their
weight
1804: Beethoven sets the tone for Western classical
music with his Eroica
1804: Solid Fuel Rocket invented by William Congreve
1810-25 Latin America breaks free from European
occupation; rest of the world only a century later
1811: Limited liability concept became law in N.York
–the key to Industrial capitalism!
1815: Humphry Davy made Davy’s Safety Lamp
1831: Michael Faraday demonstrated electromagnetic
induction.
1832: The Reform Act introduced `adult franchise’ in
England.
1832 Morse code (for signalling) created
1832: Charles Darwin visited Galapagos island on
`BEAGLE’ & hunched Lyell’s principles of Geology
1839: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre captured images
through direct Photography
1840-1890 Railway age
1843: Ada Byron contributed decisively to Charles
Babbage’s ideas on Analytical Engine
1848 Karl Marx’s MANIFESTO of the Communist Party
released
1850s: Electric telegraph developed
1859: Darwin (plodded by A R Wallace) expounded
survival of the fittest through `Origin of Species’
1859: First oil well drilled in America (in 1908 only
in Middle East)
1859: Louis
Pasteur discovered that bacteria causes infectious diseases.
1860: Maxwell proposed unified theory of forces linking
electricity & magnetism
1860: The Summer Palace in Beijing (Peking) looted
and burned down by Europeans
1865: Gregor Mendel discovered the basic laws of heredity
1866: Alfred Nobel concocted dynamite
1866: Benjamin Chew Tilghman made Paper from Wood
Pulp using Sulfite process
1876: Graham Bell displays Telephone which put into
service by 1990
1879: Thomas Edison’s Electric Bulb (incandescent
filament lamp) lights up
1884: Gotlieb Daimler made high-speed petrol engine
& Kar; Benz motorised tricycle
1884: Hermann Hollerith designed the first mechanical
computer (which Charles Babbage had conceived earlier)
1885: Car powered by internal combustion engine
1887: Michelson-Morle experiment demolished the
concept of ether
1887: Heinrich Hertz discovered the photoelectric
effect
1887: Air inflated tyre made by J B Dunlop
1890-1950 Electricity age
1890s: J.J. Thomson identified the first sub-atomic
particle: Electron
1892: Rudolf Diesel patented Diesel engine
1894: Engels completed Marx’s Das Kapital (3rd
Volume) (1st Vol in 1867, 4th Vol in 1910)
1895: X-Rays discovered by Wilhelm Rontegen
1896: Marconi patented `Wireless’ communication
1898: First wireless distress signal sent by East
Goodwin Lightship after collision by R F Mathews
1896: First International Olympic games conducted in
Athens.
1898: Marie Curie and Pierre Curie isolate and study
radium and polonium
1900: Max Planck
elucidates quantum hypothesis and blackbody radiation law
1901: The first radio signal sent across Atlantic
–received by Guglielmo Maarconi
1903: Wright brothers demonstrate flight with Airplane
1905: Einstein’s Theory of Relativity; explains Photo
electricity
1907: Einstein predicted that lights rays would be
bent by gravitational force.
1907: Motor operated washing machine developed (first
hand cranked ones made in 1858)
1908: Henry Ford’s Model T car launched
1908: Motion Picture Patents Company set up.
1910: Ernest Rutherford discovered nucleus, apart
from electrons
1911: Air-conditioning invented by W.H. Carrier
1911: Standard Oil broken up using the Sherman Anti
Trust Act of 1890
1911: Man reaches
the South Pole (Ronald Amundsen)
1914-1918: First World War: about 3m perished
1917: Lenin’s Marxist revolution in Russia.
1924: Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein introduce
Bose-Einstein statistics
1926: Robert Goddard invented Liquid Fuel Rocket
1928: Heisenberg on Matter
1928: Alexander Fleming observed the anti-bacterial
properties of penicillin
1929 October: Stock market Crash: Great Depression
followed
1929: Universe was considered static till Big Bang
theory through `Red shift’ gained acceptance
1926: Paul Dirac
introduces Fermi-Dirac statistics
1927: Werner Heisenberg states the quantum uncertainty principle
1928: Chandrasekhara Raman studies optical photon
scattering by electrons
1932: James Chadwick discovers the neutron and Carl
Anderson the positron
1936: General Theory of Employment, Interest and
MONEY BY John Maynard Keynes
1942: Enrico Fermi achieved the first controlled
nuclear chain reaction in Chicago
1939-1945 Second World War; ends after Nuclear
bombing in Hiroshima & Nagasaki
1946: First General purpose computer introduced
1947: First Transistor in operation
1947: George Gamow mooted the idea of Big Bang
1947: 1m killed in Indian communal violence during
independence partition
1947: Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier at 741mph
1951: Charles
Townes invented Maser which lead to Laser (1960)
1951: Grace Hopper developed concept of automatic
programming that led to COBOL
1952: Che Guevara –an Argentinean Doctor launches his
brand of Communism in S.America
1953: DNA structural features discovered by Watson
& Crick
1954: Video recording invented by an American company
Ampex (Sony ’74, JVC’76)
1955: Carbon dating process discovered by W.F. Libby
1956: First Nuclear Power Station Commissioned in
Calder Hall (electricity was a bi-product)
1956: Birth control pill was tried out by Gregory
Pincus
1956: Christopher Cockerell made Hovercraft
1956: Containerisation of cargo shipments introduced
revolutionising transportation afloat & ashore
1957: Soviet Union launched Sputnik –the first man made
satellite
1958: Jack S Kilby designed Integrated circuit, also later Calculator & Thermal printer
1961: First man to orbit the Earth in space:
cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
1965 Voting Rights Act in USA after `I have a Dream’
by R’d M.L King who was shot in 1968
1968: The first manned spacecraft leaves earth’s
orbit and flies around the moon.
1969: Man on the Moon: Neil Armstrong
1967: First heart transplant by Christian Barnard
1971: Microprocessor invented by INTEL
1971: Ray Tomlinson facilitated email addressing
using @
1973: TCP/IP devised by Robert Kahn & Vinton Cerf
1976: Personal Computer gains popularity
1979: Cosmological Inflation Model by Alan Guth
1990: World Wide Web invented
1993: Browser introduced
1997: Dolly: the first sheep cloned
1999: Global Maritime Distress Safety System
introduced; Morse code &Semaphore BiBi
2001: Human Embryo cloned
2001: Terrorism goes international threatening
Freedom, Security and Trades
2002: Unmanned spacecraft lands on Mars
2004: NASA’s X-43AScram Jet achieves Mach 7, later Mach 9.6
5 Billion years hence: Earth may
vapourise due to extreme solar heat