Russian wildfires

Pakistan floods

the Gaza flotilla raid occurred in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, when Israeli naval forces seized a flotilla of six ships carrying international activists, known as the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla". The activists were planning to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian supplies. According to Israeli sources, their forces boarded the flotilla after it had refused to change its course to the port of Ashdod, where the Israeli government had said it would inspect the aid and deliver non-banned items to Gaza

because of the Greek Bond Crisis, the Greek government requested that the EU/IMF bailout package (made of relatively high-interest loans) be activated

a suspicious explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, operating in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, resulted in a fire that sank the rig and caused a massive-scale oil spill. The spill covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2) according to estimates reported on May 3, 2010 by CNBC. The oil spill, originating from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level, is currently discharging an estimated 5–25 thousand barrels (210,000–1,100,000 US gallons; 790,000–4,000,000 litres) of crude oil daily

the 2010 Eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull started with thousands of small earthquakes (mostly of magnitude 1–2 Mw), 7 to 10 kilometres (4.3 to 6.2 mi) beneath the volcano at the end of December 2009. This led to a volcanic eruption of Volcanic Explosivity Index 1 on 20 March 2010. The plume of ash from a later eruption beginning on 14 April 2010 led to widespread disruption of air travel from 15 April, with much of the airspace in Europe closed until 20 April, causing cancellation of most flights within, to, and from Europe

the 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 km west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Government reported that an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. They also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged

at the G-20 Pittsburgh summit world leaders announce that the G-20 will assume greater leverage over the world economy, replacing the role of the G-8, in an effort to prevent another financial crisis like that in 2008

the Icelandic financial crisis protests

the Gaza War was a three-week military conflict that took place in the Gaza Strip during the winter of 2008–2009. It was dubbed Operation Cast Lead by the Israeli government. The conflict has been called the Gaza massacre in the Arab world. A six-month Israel-Hamas temporary truce was set to expire on December 19. On November 4, Israel sent special forces supported by tanks and bulldozers into Gaza, which triggered sporadic violent clashes along the Gaza-Israeli border over the following six weeks. Israel stepped up the blockade of Gaza, and Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns resumed. On 27 December Israel began a wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of stopping the rocket attacks from and arms smuggling into the territory, damaging or destroying tens of thousands of homes, leaving 50,000 homeless, 400,000-500,000 without running water, one million without electricity, and resulting in acute food shortages

the 2008 Greek riots started on 6 December 2008, when Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old student, was fatally shot by Epaminondas Korkoneas, a police officer. Korkoneas, accompanied by another police officer on a patrol, shot Alexandros who was out to celebrate a friend's name day in Exarcheia district of central Athens. The death of Grigoropoulos resulted in large protests and demonstrations, which escalated to widespread rioting, with hundreds of rioters damaging property and engaging riot police with Molotov cocktails, stones and other objects. Demonstrations and rioting soon spread to several other cities, including Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city. Outside Greece, solidarity demonstrations, riots and, in some cases, clashes with local police also took place in a number of European cities including Istanbul, London, Paris, Brussels, Rome, Dublin, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, The Hague, Copenhagen, Bordeaux, Seville as well as Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, and the western Cypriot city of Paphos

December 2008

the 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city, by Muslim terrorists from Pakistan. The attacks, which drew widespread condemnation across the world, began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308

when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection the Global financial crisis was fomented

Piracy off the Somali coast

South Ossetia war

2008 Tibetan unrest

2008–2010 Thai political crisis is a continuation of the 2005–2006 political crisis. The PAD's followers usually dress in yellow, called 'the yellow shirts', the royal color of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The UDD's followers dress in red, widely called 'the red shirts', known as the supporters of the deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra

Arktika 2007 was an expedition in which Russia performed the first ever crewed descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, as part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial claim, one of many territorial claims in the Arctic

2007 Greek forest fires

the Gaza Strip has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since June 2007, when, after their 2006 victory in the Palestinian legislative election, Hamas took control of the Palestinian territory in the course of the Battle of Gaza (2007) from the Palestinian government of March 2007

the war in Somalia

North Korea tested "Hwadae-ri"

the Thailand coup d'état

protests in Hungary

the transatlantic aircraft plot

the Dahab bombings

Operation Just Reward

French urban violence

the Kashmir earthquake

the 2005 Bali bombings

Mass bordercrossing from Morocco to Ceuta and Melilla, Spain

the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Hunger crisises continue to affect most developing countries

three bombs on the London Underground exploded within fifty seconds of each other

SPP

Rafik Hariri was assasinated

the global spread of H5N1

the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas

the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake

Bhutan became the first country to ban tobacco sale completely

the Orange revolution

the Madrid train bombings

Haiti rebellion

the Human Genome Project announced having completed its task

the second oil-richest country on earth was invaded and occupied by the "coalition of the willing", officially, in order to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction

the Darfur conflict is an ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, mainly between the Janjaweed, a government-supported militia recruited from local Arab tribes, and the non-Arab peoples of the region

the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline

Israel started building the Apartheid wall

the United States Department of Homeland Security was established by the Homeland Security Act and officially began operation on January 24, 2003

Sars

the Bali Bombing occurred in the town of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali

the International Criminal Court was established as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, as defined by several international agreements, most prominently the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

East Timor

the Venezuelan coup d'état

Guantanamo Bay

the Euro was introduced as the new 'single currency' of the European Monetary Union

the United States invaded Afghanistan as part of their "War on Terrorism" campaign

Carlo Giuliani was killed on July 20, 2001 during the demonstrations against the Group of Eight summit that was held in Genoa, Italy

the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an intergovernmental organization which was founded by leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

the Summit of the Americas held in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, was a round of negotiations regarding a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas

the Buddhas of Bamiyan

the World Social Forum

Plan Puebla Panama is a mega project which seeks to open up the southern half of Mexico and Central America to private foreign investment and establishing the foundation for the Free Trade Area of the Americas

the international space station represents a merger of previously planned independent space stations, especially Russia's Mir 2, United States' Space Station Freedom and the planned European Columbus, representing a permanent human presence in space: it has been manned with a crew of at least two since November 2, 2000. The Russian space station Mir was launched on February 19, 1986 and de-orbited on March 23, 2001

the second Palestinian Intifada began just after the second Camp David Summit, when Ariel Sharon and an entourage of 1,000 armed men entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound

the Millennium Development Goals

Germany determined to stop producing energy in nuclear power plants by the year 2020, in favour of developing renewable energy sources

humanoid robots are becoming.increasingly advanced

Plan Columbia is an ambitious and controversial initiative aimed at resolving the ongoing, forty-year civil war in Colombia. The plan was conceived by the administration of President Andrés Pastrana Arango with the goals of social and economic revitalization, ending the armed conflict and creating an anti-narcotic strategy. The most controversial element of the anti-narcotic strategy is aerial fumigation to eradicate coca

the Kargil conflict

Operation Desert Fox was the military codename for a major three-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets by the United States and United Kingdom

the U.S. military launched cruise missile attacks against alleged Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum is destroyed in the attack

U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya

Pakistan tested "Chagai-I"

with the Good Friday Agreement following a Provisional IRA cease-fire, attempts began to be made to restore self-government to Northern Ireland

the Second Congo war officially ended in 2002. However, a true peace has been elusive and there are continuing concerns that the conflict will flare again. The widest interstate war in modern African history, it directly involved nine African nations, as well as about twenty armed groups, and earned the epithet of "African World War"

the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. It was opened for signature on March 16, 1998. The agreement came into force on February 16, 2005 following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004. Countries which ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. A total of 141 countries have ratified the agreement. Notable exceptions include the United States and Australia

the Luxor Massacre

the Asian financial crisis

Hong Kong was a British crown colony until it was returned to Chinese rule

riots broke out in Albania after an ostensible investment program that had attracted virtually every citizen with any money to spare was exposed as a pyramid scheme swindle

the Imia-Kardak crisis

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated

Windows 95 was released to the public

the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

the Cenepa war between Peru and Ecuador

the WTO was created to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a series of post-war trade treaties intended to facilitate free trade

the Chechen Wars occurred when Russian forces attempted to recapture the breakaway southern republic of Chechnya

the Zapatista rebellion started on January 2, 1994 in response to the North American Free Trade Agreement becoming operational

Yemen Civil war

the Oslo Accords granted the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as the Palestinian right to self-government within those areas through the creation of the Palestinian Authority, in exchange for a commitment on the part of the Palestinians to curb the violence of suicide bombings of the Intifada

the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program is a US Air Force, Navy and University of Alaska funded investigation to "understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems" started in 1993 for a proposed twenty year series of experiments. It is similar to numerous existing ionospheric heaters around the world, and has a large suite of diagnostic instruments that facilitate its use to increase scientific understanding of ionospheric dynamics

Operation Provide Relief was a United Nations sponsored effort to provide humanitarian relief for the people of Somalia who were facing a severe famine, initiated and exacerbated by the ongoing Somali civil war

the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

after the Collapse of the Soviet Union the three republics that founded the USSR in 1922, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, formed  the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Soviet parliament passed its final resolution, acknowledging the dissolution of the USSR, on December 26

the Yugoslavian wars were characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts between the people of the former   Yugoslavia, though the underlying cause of the conflict was political rather than ethnic - a clash over the governance  of the Yugoslavian republics after the country began to fall apart following Slovenia's and Croatia's declarations of independence on June 25, 1991. On November 21, 1995, in Dayton, Ohio, presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman), and Serbia (Slobodan Milošević) signed a peace agreement that    brought a halt to the three years of war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless the war flared up again in the southern Serbian province Kosovo in 1996. This conflict ended on June 10, 1999 after an intervention by NATO forces. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia  is a body of the United Nations established to prosecute war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The tribunal functions as an ad-hoc independent court and is located in The Hague

the Channel tunnel

Operation Gladio

the Rwanda Civil war began when the Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front invaded Rwanda from their base in neighboring Uganda. After the war had already officially ended with the signing of the Arusha accords, violence between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi rebels escalated into a genocide against  theTutsi. In 1993 the rivalries between Hutu and Tutsi tribal factions led to the Burundi Civil war

during the Persian Gulf war George Bush declared the "New World Order" on September 11, 1991

the Hubble Space Telescope was put in space by pace NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery

the Soviets rejected the Lithuanian claim of independence start an economic blockade, and seize strategic buildings as part of a military and political crackdown

the scientific consensus on global warming is that the Earth is warming, and that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are making a significant contribution

Apartheid in South Africa was gradually removed starting with the release of Nelson Mandela from 27 years of imprisonment

the Romanian Revolution was a series of riots and protests that overthrew the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu. The increasingly violent riots culminated in a cursory trial and the execution of Ceauşescu and his wife Elena. While the Romanian Revolution was unfolding, other Eastern European nations were peacefully  transitioning to democracy; Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country to violently overthrow its Communist regime

Operation Just Cause  was the invasion of Panama by the United States that deposed general, dictator and de facto Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega

the Berlin Wall fell after mass demonstrations against the government in East Germany began in the fall of 1989

Hungary removed its border restrictions with Austria, so that in September of that year more than 13,000 East Germans were able to escape the totalitarian system of East Germany through this country

the third Tiananmen Square Protests were a series of student-led, pro-democracy, pro-socialism demonstrations, which were violently confronted by the Chinese People's Liberation Army

in the Exxon Valdez oil spill between 11 million and 35 million U.S. gallons of crude oil spilled form the tanker hit Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef

Itaipu Dam

the first of 24 satellites that form the current GPS constellation (Block II) was placed into orbit. The 52nd GPS satellite since the beginning in 1978 was launched November 6, 2004 aboard a Delta II rocket

the Lockerbie disaster

the Georgian civil war

the first Intifada

the al-Anfal Campaign

the British BSE epidemic in cattle

the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded releasing clouds of radioactive particles, and the severely damaged containment vessel started leaking radioactive matter

the Challenger exploded shortly after take off

Nevado del Ruiz erupted

the Live Aid rock music concert was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in order to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia

the Schengen treaty is an agreement to end border checkpoints and controls within the Schengen area. It was signed initially only by Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands

Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU and leader of the Soviet Union. He  tried to reform the stagnating state economy by introducing the concepts of glasnost ("openness"), perestroika  ("restructuring"), and uskorenie ("acceleration"). But most importantly he abandoned the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet  Union’s policy of  intervening with military force, if necessary, to preserve Communist rule in the Eastern bloc nations

the Bhopal gas leak

Black July is the commonly used name of the pogroms starting in Sri Lanka on between 1,000 - 3,000 tamils were killed, tens of thousand houses were destroyed and a wave of tamils sought refugee in other countries. "Black July" is generally seen as the start of full-scale armed struggle between the tamil minority and the sinhalese majority

the core networking protocol of ARPANET was changed from NCP to TCP/IP, marking the start of the Internet as we know it today

the Falklands war was an armed conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands

the PC

both Pope John Paul II and President Reagan were wounded in assassination attempts

Sweden determined to stop producing energy in nuclear power plants in favour of using wind energy

the origins of the Iran-Iraq war go back to the question of sovereignty over the resource-rich province of Khuzestan

Boat people

the Ixtoc oil-well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico

with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the Great "Game" between the British and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia was continued, after the first and second Anglo Afghan wars (1839-1842 and 1878-1879), now with involvement form the United States who supported Mujahideen forces like the Taliban to create an anti-Soviet resistance

the Spanish state devolved into autonomous communities of which the Spanish Basque Country became the Basque Country

the approval of the Spanish Constitution was the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy. Upon the death of the dictator General Franco in November 1975, his personally-designated heir Prince Juan Carlos had assumed the position of king and head of state

the Camp David Accrods were concluded six months later with the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty

the Iranian Revolution transformed Iran from an autocratic pro-west monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to an Islamic, theocratic democracy under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini

the Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. It is an unmanned probe of the outer solar system and beyond. It contains a message from mankind engraved on the golden record

the Dirty War

the Ebola virus

the Grameen Bank

Viking 1 ( was the first spacecraft that returned color pictures of Mars to Earth. The first successful landing on the planet was directed by the Russian space program and their probe Mars 3 in 1971. Other successful Mars exploration spacecraft launches include NASA's Mars Global Surveyor which entered orbit on September 12, 1997. The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft also landed in 1997 and carried a tiny remote-controlled rover called Sojourner, which traveled a few meters around the landing site, exploring the conditions and sampling rocks around it. In 2001 Mars Odyssey used spectrometers and imagers to hunt for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity, and later actually confirmed the finding of large amounts of hydrogen. The European Space Agency's probe Mars Express and its lander Beagle 2 entered Mars orbit on December 25, 2003. Shortly after the launch of Mars Express, NASA sent a pair of twin rovers toward the planet as part of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission which landed in July 2004

the so-called Green March into Western Sahara began when 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converged on the southern city of Tarfaya and waited for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara. As  a result, Spain abandoned Western Sahara on November 14, 1975, repatriating even the Spanish corpses from its cemeteries. Morocco later virtually annexed the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara) in 1976, and the rest of the territory in 1979, following Mauritania's withdrawal. On February 27, 1976, the Polisario Front formally proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), and set up a government in exile. A guerrilla war between the Polisario and Morocco ended in a 1991 cease-fire

the Lebanese Civil war was fought between Lebanese Maronite Christians, led by the Phalangist party and militia, and allied initially with Syria then with Israel, which provided them with arms and training to fight against the Palestine Liberation Organization

the Group of Six originally consisted of France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Only a year later Canada joined as the seventh member, Russia joined in 1998. Today the G8+5 includes China, Mexico, India, Brazil and South Africa

the Helsinki Accords

Restoration of democracy in Greece

Ozone depletion refers to the phenomenon of reductions in the amount of ozone in the stratosphere. Since the ozone layer prevents most harmful wavelengths of ultraviolet light from passing through the Earth's atmosphere, observed and projected decreases in ozone have generated worldwideconcern and led to adoption of the Montreal Protocol banning the use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds, as well as other ozone depleting chemicals such as carbon tetrachloride, trichloroethane  and bromine compounds known as halons

the Nuclear Suppliers Group

India tested "Smiling Buddha"

the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

the world oil shock began when Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), in the midst of the Yom Kippur War, announced that they would no longer ship petroleum to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Egypt - that is, to the United States and its allies in Western Europe

the Yom Kippur war was fought  between Israel and a coalition of Egypt and Syria

a military coup in Chile backed by the CIA overthrew Allende's "Popular Unity" Socialist coalition. A military government, led by General Pinochet, took over control of the country

modern mobile telephony is considered to have started when Motorola employee Martin Cooper placed a call to rival AT&T's Bell Labs while walking the streets of New York City talking on Motorola DynaTAC

the international World Heritage Programme

the Munich massacre occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany

the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was a treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons. On May 26, 1972, the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty was in force for thirty years, from 1972 until 2002. On June 13, 2002, six months after giving the required notice of intent, the US withdrew from the treaty

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, and was the first spacecraft to make direct observations of Jupiter. Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus

the World Economic Forum

the Bangladesh liberation war

Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organisation which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions for a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace's goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity

the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs entered into force on August 16, 1976. Today, 175 nations are Parties to the treaty. Provisions to prevent the international trafficking of drugs covered by this Convention are contained in the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The "war on drugs" was instituted by Nixon in 1972

the Woodstock Music and Art Festival represented the culmination of the counterculture of the 1960s and the high point of the "hippie era"

the U.S. Apollo program sent twelve men to land on the Moon, the first of whom were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11. The first men sent to the Moon were Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, in Apollo 8. Before and since that time, the Moon has been the target of numerous landing and orbiting space probes, starting with the Soviet Luna 1 in 1959

the Football war was fought between El Salvador and Honduras

the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

student protests in France led De Gaulle to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new  parliamentary elections. In Germany the student Benno Ohnsorg was shot on June 2, 1967 during a demonstration against Shah Pahlewi

Civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee

the Prague Spring

the Six-Day war was fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. By the end of the war, Israel controlled the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights

the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China was a struggle for power within the Communist Party of China that manifested into wide-scale social, political, and economic chaos, which grew to include large sections of Chinese society and eventually brought the entire country to the brink of civil war. It was launched by the Communist Party of China's Chairman, Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally

the first documented case of HIV in Europe dates to 1966 when a 20-year-old Norwegian sailor, who had traveled to Africa, checked himself into a hospital. The official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic is marked as June 5, 1981

the digital revolution

the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

the Gulf of Tonkin Incident

the People's Republic of China tested "596"

John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald according to the conclusions of two government investigations into the assassination. He was replaced in office by vp Johnson

march on Washington

the Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibits atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons

the so-called "red telephone" that linked the White House with the Kremlin was established

Norman Borlaug launched the "Green Revolution" by breeding a strain of wheat that yields three to five times than ordinary wheat. He saved millions of lives in India, which after much bureaucratic red tape, finally allowed the grain to be imported

World Food Programme

OPEC

Tsar Bomba

several African states gained sovereignty

France tested "Gerboise Bleue"

the loss of tropical rain forest continues to progress

the Antarctic Treaty assuring that scientific discovery will be the only human activity in the region, was signed by the 12 countries active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58

Fidel Castro's communist 'July 26 Movement' toppled the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Soon after in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 the United States attempted but failed to overthrow the new Cuban government in turn

the French Fifth Republic

the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It is one of the many firsts accomplished by the Russian Space program besides Luna 1 (January 2, 1959) the first craft to orbit the Sun, Luna 2 (September 12, 1959)  the first craft to land on the Moon, Luna 3 (October 4, 1959) the first craft to orbit the Moon, Yuri Gagarin (April 12, 1961)  the first human to travel into space, Valentina Tereshkova (1963) the first woman to fly into space, or Aleksei Leonov (March 18, 1965) the first man to perform a spacewalk

the International Atomic Energy Agency

the Vietnam war was fought to decide whether Vietnam would be united under a Communist government, or would remain indefinitely partitioned into the separate countries of North and South Vietnam. The war ended in 1975 with a Communist victory and the unification of the country under a government controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and removed Pol Pot from power and into hiding, thereby decisively stabilizing Cambodia. Only one month later, however, partially in retaliation, China launched a failed invasion of Vietnam: the Sino-Vietnamese War

the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

the Suez Crisis pitted Egypt against an alliance between France, the United Kingdom and Israel. When the Soviet Union threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, the United States feared a larger war, and forced the British and French to withdraw. The Crisis marked the completion of the shift in the global balance of power from European powers to the US and Russia

Morocco recovered its political independence from France

Global dimming

the Central Treaty Organization was adopted by Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran, as well as the United Kingdom

the Bandung Conference was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, ultimately it led to the establishment of the Nonaligned Movement in 1961

the Warsaw Pact was a military alliance of the Eastern European Eastern Bloc countries, who intended to organize against the perceived threat from the NATO alliance

Guinness Book of World Records

SEATO

the Algerian war of Independence was a period of guerrilla strikes, mainly led by the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale against the occupation of their country by the French

the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated the overthrow of the democratic Guatemalan government, known as Operation pbsuccess, triggering a civil war that would continue for more than 35 years

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest

the helical structure of the DNA molecule was discovered by James D. Watson and Francis Crick together with Rosalind Franklin

Iran's prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq was removed from power in a complex plot orchestrated by British and US intelligence agencies ("Operation Ajax")

the United Kingdom tested "Hurricane"

the first passenger flight on a jet airliner was from London Heathrow Airport to Johannesburg

the ANZUS Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area

the European Coal and Steel Community was established with the Treaty of Paris, it was the earliest forerunner of the European Union and consisted of only six members: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg (the Benelux countries), (West) Germany, France and Italy

the PRC incorporated Tibet

Pop culture

the Korean war was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. It was also a Cold war proxy war between the United States and its United Nations allies and the Communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The war ended in a stalemate and left the peninsula permanently divided with a garrisoned pro-Soviet, Communist party led state in North Korea and a pro-American capitalist one in the South

the Soviet Union tested "RDS-1"

the People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong

Comecon

Nato

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

during the Arab-Israeli war David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. The 1949 Armistice Agreements, a set of treaties signed between Israel and its neighbors Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria ended the war. They established the armistice lines between Israel and the West Bank, also known as the Green Line, until the 1967 Six-Day war

India and Pakistan gained independence from British rule. The Indian independence movement began with the Rebellion of 1857 but it was especially during the 1920s with the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi that the cause attracted world attention

the Cold war was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after world war II between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. A major feature of the Cold war was the arms race between the Soviet Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which was established in 1949

the French Indochina war

the British mandate over Transjordan ended and the country became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan

the Republic of Mahabad

the United Nations came into existence after the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent  members of the Security Council - the Republic of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The institution is the more modern version of the League of Nations which was established after the first world war. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though not yet legally binding, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 as a common standard of achievement for all member countries

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, were destroyed by atomic bombs dropped by the United States military on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively, killing at least 100,000 civilians outright and many more  over time. The bombs, secretly developed by the United States (with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada) under the codename Manhattan Project, were the second and third atomic devices to be detonated, and are the only ones ever used as weapons, rather than for testing purposes. The first nuclear test explosion, designated "Trinity" (and nicknamed "The Gadget" in part since it was not a deliverable weapon) was conducted in a desert in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The decision to drop the bombs was made by "Tru"man

first televisions reached consumers

IATA was formed just after World War II in April 1945, in Havana, Cuba. It is the successor to the International Air Traffic Association founded in The Hague in 1919, the year of the world's first international scheduled services

the Arab League was founded by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen

Greek Civil war

the Bretton Woods system of international economic management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states. The meeting of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in the New Hampshire resort town of Bretton Woods established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later divided into the World Bank and Bank for International Settlements) and the International Monetary Fund

D-Day

the Harvard Mark I was the first fully automatic computer to be completed. It is considered to be "the beginning of the era of the modern computer

Military coup in Argentina

the world's first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction took place in the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile Number One

the mass production of antibiotics began with streptomycin and penicillin, following discoveries by Fleming, Chain, Heatley and others

the Ecuadorian-Peruvian war

Baghdad Railway

with the second world war the modern era, and the belief in technical achievement came to an end

the Sino-Japanese war began with the Japanese invasion of China on July 7, 1937

the crash of the LZ129 Hindenburg at Lakehurst temporarily closed the chapter of these enormous rigid airships

the Spanish Civil war was a conflict in which incumbent Spanish Republicans and left-wing groups fought against a nationalist rebellion led by General Francisco Franco, who succeeded in overthrowing the Republican government and establishing a dictatorship which lasted until his death in 1975

the Great Purge

the Palais des Nations was built as the headquarters of the League of Nations

the Second Italo-Abyssinian war

the Holocaust

having conquered most of the Arabian Peninsula during the early 20th century Abdul Aziz ibn Saud names the territory under his control Saudi Arabia

Desertification is an ongoing process in the Great Plains of the United States, in many areas of China, northern Africa and central New Mexico

first World Cup in Uruguay

the Salt March to Dandi was an act of non-violent protest against the British salt tax in colonial India

the Great Depression was a massive global economic recession. It started on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929 the day when the New York Stock Exchange crashed

the Chinese Civil war was a civil war in China between the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It began in 1927, after the Northern Expedition, when the right-wing faction of the KMT, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, purged the Communists and KMT leftists from a KMT-CCP alliance. It went on intermittently until the looming Second Sino-Japanese War interrupted it. Full scale war resumed in 1946 and ended in 1950 with an unofficial cessation of major hostilities, with the Communists controlling mainland China (including Hainan Island) and the Nationalists restricted to their remaining territories of Taiwan, Pescadores, and the several outlying Fujianese islands

Totalitarianism

the Great Kanto Earthquake

Interpol

the Ruhr Crisis occurred in 1923 when Germany stopped making their reparation payments required by the Treaty of Versailles. In response, France, under Poincaré, occupied the Ruhr Area

the southern and western twenty-six counties of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom and became the state known today as the 'Republic of Ireland' after a war of Independence. Until the fifteenth century Ireland was a patch-work of competing kingdoms and over-kingdoms. English involvement in Ireland began with the arrival of the Normans in the twelfth century, but England did not have full control before the whole island had been conquered in 1653. Until 1801 Ireland enjoyed a self-governing status under the Parliament of Ireland, but was ruled by its Anglo-Irish, Anglican minority. In 1801 this parliament was abolished and Ireland became an integral part of a new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Union

the Turkish war of Independence

the International Labour Organization

the Polish-Soviet war

the Paris Peace Conference was dominated by the 'Big Three': David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France and Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America. They prepared treaties regarding Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Palestine and the Ottoman Empire. Among these the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919) put an official end to World War I between the Allies and Central Powers. Also the decision to create the League of Nations and the approval of its Charter both took place during the conference. The creation of the League was a centrepiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace

the Spanish Flu Pandemic killed between 25 to 50 million people worldwide

Czechoslovakia declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. After the second world war the republic became part of the Soviet Union. The two independent states of Slovakia and the Czech Republic exist since 1993

Finland declared its independence form Russia

the Balfour Declaration was an official letter from the British Foreign Office headed by Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, granting the establishment of a Jewish national home in the British Mandate of Palestine formerly controlled by the Ottomans

the Russian Civil war was fought between Bolshevik forces, known as the Red Army, and loosely-allied anti-Bolshevik forces, known as the White Army

in the Russian Revolution Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party overthrew the Provisional Government that had replaced the Russian Tsar system, and established the Soviet Union, which lasted until its collapse in 1991

Trans-Siberian Railway

Daylight saving time

the Panama Canal is 82 kilometres long

the first world war put an end to four European dynasties: the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, the Ottomans and the Hohenzollerns

Henry Ford installed the World's first moving assembly line

in the Balkan wars the Balkan League (Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria) conquered Ottoman-held Macedonia and Thrace (southern Bulgaria, north-eastern Greece, and European Turkey)

Titanic

the Republic of China developed out of the Wuchang Uprising which started the Xinhai Revolution that triggered the collapse of the Qing Dynasty

the Mexican Revolution

Korea was annexed by Japan

Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Oatah, Egingwah, Seegloo, and Ookeah reached the geographic North Pole. In 1911 Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole

the Tunguska event

the Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg is the event that sparked the Russian Revolution of 1905

the Russo-Japanese war

the Wright brothers flew their glider with a 12-horsepower engine for 59 seconds, in what the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale today recognizes as being the first controlled, powered, sustained flight involving a heavier-than-air vehicle, using mechanically unassisted takeoff

Mount Pelée erupted

the Nobel Prizes were first awarded

New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Eastern Australia was claimed by the British in 1770, and officially settled as a British colony on January 26, 1788

the Spanish-American war resulted in the United States gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific

the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece

the crude gas-fueled car was patented by Karl Benz

the first Sino-Japanese war was fought for control of Korea. The Japanese emerged victorious and the defeated Qing dynasty signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April, 1895, agreeing to stay out of Korea and cedeing a large portion of eastern Manchuria

the first unrestricted Women's suffrage in terms of voting rights in a self-governing, still-extant country was granted in New Zealand

Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication

the Dreyfus affair

the International Peace Bureau was founded as a result of the third Universal Peace Congress in Rome

in the war of Currents Edison's low-voltage distribution system using DC ultimately lost to AC devices proposed by Nikola Tesla

la Belle Époque

the Prime Meridian passes through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England

the Franco-Chinese war was fought before France could form the colony of French Indochina in October 1887 from Annam, Tonkin, Cochin China and the Kingdom of Cambodia

the Socialist International

the Orient Express

Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany introduced one of the first welfare systems for the working classes

the Boer wars were fought between the British and the settlers of Dutch origin in South Africa that put an end to the two independent republics that they had founded

the Scramble for Africa also known as the Race for Africa, was the proliferation of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period

the first public demonstration of the incandescent light bulb was given by Thomas Edison in Menlo Park On January 27, 1880, he filed a patent in the United States for the electric incandescent lamp

the war of the Pacific was fought by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru for control over the Atacama Desert. The desert contained nitrate deposits from accumulated bird droppings, newly valued as a potent fertilizer for agriculture. Chile won the war and developed the nitrate export industry

an autonomous Bulgarian principality comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia was established following the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78. After uniting with Eastern Rumelia in 1885, the principality was proclaimed a fully independent kingdom in 1908

the Telephone was patented by Alexander Graham Bell

the Second Industrial Revolution was about the development of heavy industries such as steel, chemicals, and petroleum. Its power sources were electricity, the internal combustion engine, and the gas turbine

the Paris Commune

the Franco-Prussian war led to the unification of Germany under chancellor Otto von Bismarck and emperor Wilhelm I. The war started with the Ems Dispatch

John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations

the Suez canal links the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea

Austria-Hungary

the British North America Act passed by the British Parliament is the law that created the Canadian Confederation

the Austro-Prussian war

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at the end of the American civil war

the war of the Triple Alliance also known as the Paraguayan war was the bloodiest conflict in Latin American history, fought between Paraguay and the allied countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay

the adoption of the First Geneva Convention followed the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863

Louis Pasteur suggested that germs cause disease and helped develop pasteurization, inoculations and antiseptics to improve health for millions

the American Civil war was fought between the United States, which were the 23 northern states of the Union and the newly-formed Confederate States of America, which consisted of 11 southern states that had declared their secession. The southern states wanted to become independent after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, because they feared he would seek the abolition of slavery

modern Italy became a nation-state when most of the states of the peninsula were united under king Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, which ruled over Piedmont. Rome itself remained for a decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only on September 20, 1870, the final date of Italian unification

the Austro-Sardinian war

the first transatlantic telegraph cable between North America and Europe worked for only one month. It had been laid been laid by Cyrus Field who laid a new, more durable cable in 1866. The first direct transatlantic telephone cable was laid by Werner von Siemens in 1875

William Walker a private adventurer, invaded Nicaragua and conquered the country

the Crimean war was fought between Russia and an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, and the Ottoman Empire

Crystal Palace was a Victorian iron and glass building, originally in Hyde Park, London for the Great Exhibition, and subsequently rebuilt in south London

the Taiping Rebellion was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, a clash between the forces of Imperial China and those inspired by a Hakka self-proclaimed mystic named Hong Xiuquan, who was also a Christian convert. Most accurate sources put the total deaths at about 20 million civilians and army personnel, although some claim the death toll was much higher

the Communist Manifesto was first published on

in the Year of Revolution several European countries were shaken by revolutionary uprisings

the Mexican-American war

the Great Irish Famine

Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph to US Congress transmitting the message "What hath God wrought" from the Supreme Court room in Washington, D.C. to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland

the Anglo Afghan wars

the Opium wars were conflicts between Britain and its East India company fighting to gain easier access to ports in China for trading Opium

Agence Havas was founded as the first news agency in the world. Today it is known as Agence Française de Presse. AP was founded in 1848

the Carlist wars comprised the dynastic struggle in Spain between Isabelline liberalism and the reactionary rural traditionalism represented by Don Carlos. With the death of Ferdinand on September 29, 1833, and the proclamation of his daughter Isabella as queen  - excluding Ferdinand’s brother Don Carlos from the succession - the First Carlist War was ignited

on the Second voyage of HMS Beagle Charles Darwin made his reputation as a geologist and collector of fossils, and his detailed observations of plants and animals provided the basis for ideas which he later developed into his theory of evolution by natural selection

the French Revolution of 1830 saw the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascension of his cousin Louis-Philippe, the Duc d'Orléans, who himself, after eighteen precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown

World's first photograph

the Russo-Persian war

the United Provinces of Central America which included Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica declared their inependence subsequent to the ousting of Agustín de Iturbide and the fall of the Mexican Empire

Brazil declared its independence of Portugal

the first electric motor was built by Michael Faraday

the Greek war of Independence was fought from the Greeks' declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire on March 25 1821 until the modern state of Greece was granted independence by the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen discovered the Antarctic mainland

Pax Britannica refers to a period of British imperialism

Waterloo

Mount Tambora erupted and created global climate anomalies; 1816 became known as the Year Without a Summer because of the effect on North American and European weather

the Congress of Vienna was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. Its purpose was to redraw the continent's political map after the defeat of Napoleonic France the previous spring. The Congress's Final Act was signed nine days before Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo. Among its main outcomes were the consolidation of Germany from the nearly 300 states of the Holy Roman Empire into thirty-nine states, the enlargement of Russia (which gained most of the Duchy of Warsaw) and Prussia, which acquired Westphalia and the northern Rhineland. Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden

the Battle of the Nations

the first commerically successful steam locomotive was built by John Blenkinsop, owner of the Middleton Colliery, who teamed up with Matthew Murray to build a steam-operated railway to transport coal about 3 miles to Leeds. It could haul as many as 30 loaded coal cars at a speed of 3 mph

the French invasion of Russia

the British-American war was caused mostly due to the interference of the Royal Navy in American shipping. More than half of the British forces were made up of Canadian militia, because Britain was at the same time engaged in Europe with the Napoleonic wars. This war in North America ended in a stalemate

the Mexican war of Independence was Mexico's struggle for independence against Spanish colonial rule

Gas obtained from carbonized coal, known as town gas became the primary fuel for illuminating streets and houses throughout much of Europe

modern Police forces were established in Great Britain and elsewhere after the model of the police of the city of Paris founded by Louis XIV in 1667

the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific northwest was intended to study the Indian tribes, botany, geology, Western terrain and wildlife in the region

Territory under U.S. control nearly doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase

Romanticism in its artistic, political, philosophical and social aspects was in part  inspired by the revolts against aristocratic social and political norms of the late 18th century, which found their romantic reenactment for example in the French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution. It was a revolt by the middle class against Bourbon King Charles X which forced  him out of office and replaced him with the Orleanist King Louis-Philippe. Romanticism as an artistic discipline was eventually replaced by naturalism and social realism towards the end of the 19th century

the Tripolitan war also known as the Barbary Coast war was one of two wars fought between the United States of America and the semiautonomous North African city-states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, known collectively as the Barbary States

the Napoleonic wars were fought between France and different coalitions of European nations. They ended  in the final battle at Waterloo which Napoleon lost along with all the territory he had conquered before. Other famous battles include the battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805 the most significant naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars and the pivotal naval battle of the 19th century. A Royal Navy fleet of 27 ships of the line under  the command of Admiral Lord Nelson destroyed a combined French and Spanish fleet consisting of 33 ships of the line west of Cape Trafalgar in southwest Spain. In the battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805 Napoleon defeated a joint Russo-Austrian army

the French Revolutionary wars

the Haitian Revolution

the Sejm of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania voted for the May Constitution of Poland, the first written constitution of Europe, and the second in the world after the Constitution of the United States. The country ceased to exist soon afterwards for 123 years, after partitions by its neighbours Russia, Austria and Prussia. It regained independence in 1918 in the aftermath of the First World War as the Second Polish Republic

the French Revolution was the overthrow of absolute monarchy in France as established by the Ancien Régime

Australia's Botany Bay became an English penal colony

Industrial Revolution

the Cape Frontier wars were nine different wars between the Cape colonists and the Xhosa agricultural and pastoral peoples of the Eastern Cape, in South Africa. It ended in the annexation of Xhosa territories by the Cape Colony and the incorporation of its peoples

the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Continental Congress

the American war of Independence was a war fought primarily between Great Britain and revolutionaries within the thirteen North American colonies. The war, which eventually widened far beyond British North America, resulted in the overthrow of British rule in the thirteen colonies and the establishment of the United States of America on July 4, 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. The Battle of Yorktown (1781) was a victory by a combined American and French force led by General George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau over a British army commanded by General Lord Charles Cornwallis. The surrender of Cornwallis' army caused the British government to negotiate an end to the war

Capitalism

Neoclassicism

by the Treaty of Paris which ended the French and Indian-/ Seven Years' war, France ceded most of its possessions in North America and India to Britain

the Lisbon earthquake was one of the most destructive and deadly earthquakes in history

le Grand Dérangement was when some 6,000-7,000 Acadians were expelled from Nova Scotia

to France or the American colonies by the British government, after the Acadians refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown at the outbreak of the French and Indian war. Earlier the Acadians became British subjects when France ceded Acadia by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and Acadia became known as Nova Scotia

the Seven Years' war pitted Great Britain, Prussia and Hanover against France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony. Spain and Portugal were later drawn into the conflict, while a force from the neutral Netherlands was attacked in India. The North American phase of this conflict is known in the United States of America as the French and Indian War. Many of the Indians (Native Americans/First Nations) sided with France although some did fight alongside the British. The name "Seven Years' War" is used in the United States to refer only to the European portions of the conflict (1756–1763), not the nine-year North American conflict or the Indian campaigns which lasted 15 years (including Pontiac's Rebellion) The battle of the Plains of Abraham, fought September 13, 1759, was a decisive battle of the North American theatre of the Seven Years' war

the Age of Enlightenment as an intellectual movement advocated rationality as a means to establish an authoritative system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. It can be said to have begun as early as Hobbes having published his book "the Leviathan" (1651), but it certainly peaked with the French and American revolutions. In 1791 the French defined one meter to be equal to 1/10 000 000th of the distance from the pole to the equator along the meridian through Paris. The era preceding the  age of Enlightenment was Absolutism, and the era succeeding it was Romanticism

the Anglo-French war in India were battles fought by the British East India Company against the French Compagnie des Indes Orientales and Indian forces in order to establish the supremacy of Britain over Bengal and India. The East India Company was founded in 1600 and abolished in 1858 with the India act, when its powers were transferred to the Crown, represented by the Viceroy

the Durrani Empire or what is known today as Afghanistan was founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani

in the war of the Austrian Succession hostilities began with the invasion of Silesia by King  Frederick II of Prussia in 1740, they only ended with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.  King George's war is the name given to the military operations in North America that formed part of the 1740-1748 war of the Austrian Succession. It was one of the French and Indian Wars. In the course of the war British colonial forces captured the French stronghold of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, but this gain was returned to France under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. King George's War did nothing to stop the showdown between Britain and France. Austria shifted its allegiance from Britain to France, as Britain became allies with Prussia and the conflict continued. This would lead to the Seven Years War, and the French and Indian War in North America

the war of the Polish Succession

Russo-Persian wars

the war of the Quadruple Alliance was a minor European war fought mostly in Italy, between Spain on the one side, and the Quadruple Alliance of Austria, France, Great Britain, and the United Provinces

the Treaty of Utrecht that established the Peace of Utrecht (A) concluded the war of the Spanish Succession. By the treaties' provisions, Louis XIV's grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou was finally recognised as King of Spain. France ceded most of its provinces in North America to Britain

the steam engine was reinvented by Thomas Newcomen

the Acts of Union became law uniting the Parliaments of the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Parliament of a united Kingdom of Great Britain

Gibraltar was occupied by British and allied forces in and annexed to the British crown in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht

Queen Anne's War, as it was known in the English colonies, was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought between France and England in North America for control of the continent. The conflict was part of the War of the Spanish Succession, which was primarily fought in Europe. In addition to the two main combatants, the war also involved numerous American Indian tribes allied with each nation, and Spain, which was allied with France. The war was fought on three fronts. The English colonies of New England fought with French and Indian forces based in Acadia and Canada, whose capital, Quebec, was repeatedly targeted (without ever being successfully reached) by British expeditions. On Newfoundland, the English colonial presence at St. John's disputed control of the island with the French based at Plaisance. Spanish Florida and the English Province of Carolina were also each subjected to repeated attacks from the other, and Carolinians also tried to dispute the French presence at Mobile

the war of the Spanish Succession was a major European armed conflict that arose in 1701 after the death of the last Spanish Habsburg king, Charles II. Charles had bequeathed all of his possessions to Philip, duc d'Anjou, a grandson of the French King Louis XIV. The war began slowly, as the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I fought to protect his own dynasty's claim to the Spanish inheritance. As Louis XIV began to expand his territories more aggressively, however, other European nations (chiefly England and the United Provinces) entered on the Holy Roman Empire's side to check French expansion. The war was fought not only in Europe, but also in North America, where the conflict became known to the English colonists as Queen Anne's war. As a result, Philip V remained King of Spain but was removed from the French line of succession, thereby averting a union of France and Spain. The Austrians gained most of the Spanish territories in Italy and the Netherlands, but most importantly, France's hegemony over continental Europe was ended, and the idea of a balance of power became a part of the international order due to its mention in the Treaty of Utrecht

the great Northern war was the war fought between a coalition of Russia, Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland (from 1715 also Prussia and Hanover) on one side and Sweden on the other side

Rococo

the Williamite War in Ireland was the conflict following the deposition of King James II in 1688 when he attempted to regain the throne of his Three Kingdoms from his daughter Mary II who replaced him jointly with her husband William of Orange

the war of the Grand Alliance was a major war fought in Europe and America, between France and the League of Augsburg (which, by 1689, was known as the "Grand Alliance"). The war was fought to resist French expansionism along the Rhine, as well as (on the part of England) to safeguard the results of the Glorious Revolution from a possible French-backed restoration of James II. The North American theatre of the war, fought between English and French colonists, was known in the English colonies as King William's war, the first of the French and Indian wars. The war saw attacks by France and its Indian allies on British frontier settlements. The British failed to seize Quebec City, Quebec, and the French commander there attacked the British-held coast. The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 was supposed to end the war, but peace did not last long, and shortly the colonies were embroiled in the next of the French and Indian Wars, Queen Anne's War

the Glorious Revolution was the overthrow of James II of England by a union of Parliamentarians and the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau who had to sign the Bill of Rights before he and his wife Mary were crowned as joint monarchs in April 1689

Louis XIV renounced the Edict of Nantes and declared Protestantism illegal with the Edict of Fontainebleau

the war of the Holy League

Pennsylvania Colony was granted to William Penn in 1681 by King Charles II of England

Russo-Turkish wars

King Philip's War was an armed conflict between Indian inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Indian allies

the Franco-Dutch war was a war fought between France and a quadruple alliance consisting of Brandenburg, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the United Provinces. The war ended with the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678); this granted France control of the Franche-Comté (from Spain)

Britain took formal control of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands after the treaty of Madrid was signed

the great Turkish war

the war of Devolution was a war between Louis XIV's France and Habsburg Spain fought in the Spanish Netherlands. It was resolved in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

Newspapers

the Northern wars were a series of conflicts between Sweden and its adversaries Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (The Deluge, 1655-1660), Russia (1656-1661), Brandenburg-Prussia (1657-1660), the Holy Roman Empire (1657-60) and Denmark (1657-1658, 1658-1660)

Anglo-Dutch wars

World population began to increase at a significantly greater rate, through today

Buccaneers were pirates who attacked French and Spanish shipping

the Peace of Westphalia  ended both the Thirty Years' war and the Eighty Years' war

la Fronde was a civil war in France, followed by the Franco-Spanish war with Spain (1653-1659)

Louis XIV began his reign of seventy-two years. He worked successfully to create a centralized state governed from the capital in order to sweep away the fragmented feudalism which had hitherto persisted in France, thus giving rise to the modern state. As a result of his efforts, which seemed absolutist, Louis XIV became the archetype of such a monarch

the English civil war was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists (supporters of kings Charles I and II). They ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651

the accession of John IV to the throne of Portugal led to the Portuguese Restoration war with Spain, which only ended with the recognition of Portuguese independence in a subsequent reign

the Japanese isolated themselves from rest of world the only European influence permitted was the Dutch factory (trading post) at Dejima in Nagasaki

Galileo was tried and ordered to spend the rest of his life under house arrest for his support of Copernican astronomy

the name "New England" was officially sanctioned on November 3, 1620, when the charter of the Virginia Company of Plymouth was replaced by a royal charter for the Plymouth Council for New England, a joint stock company established colonize and govern the region. Shortly afterwards, in December 1620, a permanent settlement was established at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts by the Pilgrims, English religious separatists arriving via Holland. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would come to dominate the area, was established  in 1628 with its major city of Boston established in 1630

in the Thirty years war between Protestant and Catholic provinces within the Holy Roman empire, Catholic France under the de facto rule of Cardinal Richelieu supported the Protestant side in order to weaken the Habsburgs, thereby furthering France's position as the pre-eminient continental power

New Netherland was the territory on the eastern coast of North America in the 17th century which stretched from latitude 38 to 45 degrees North as originally discovered by the Dutch East India Company with the yacht Half Moon under the command of Henry Hudson in 1609 and explored by Adriaen Block and Hendrick Christiaensz from 1611 through 1614. In November 1674, the Treaty of Westminster concluded the Third Anglo-Dutch War and ceded New Netherland definitively to the English. The province of New Netherland and the city of New Orange were renamed New York

during the Age of Reason philosophers such as Francis Bacon and René Descartes shaped what came to be known as the scientific method

Captain John Smith established the first permanent English settlement in North America: the Virginia Colony at Jamestown

Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent after being sent from Bantam in the Dutch East Indies to search for New Guinea. He made a landfall at the western shore of Cape York in Queensland in 1606, believing it still to be a part of New Guinea

the Acadians were farmers of western France who started to settle in what today is Nova Soctia

the British East India Company

Baroque

the microscope was invented by Hans Janssen. In 1608 the telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey. Galileo Galilei made his own in 1609 and was the first to use it for astronomical purposes

Toyotomi Hideyoshi led the newly unified Japan into the invasions of Korea with the professed goal of conquering Ming Dynasty China, but was defeated in naval battles by Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin

the Long war was fought between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire and ended with the Treaty of Zsitva-Torok. In 1599 the romanian ruler Michael the Brave united Transylvania, Moldavia and Romania, after becoming Voivod of Wallachia in 1593. But with the help of the Austrian general Giorgio Basta the Hungarian nobility defeated Michael in the Battle of Miraslau in 1600

during the Anglo-Spanish war the Spanish Armada received its most decisive defeat in 1588

the naval battle of Lepanto took place at the northern edge of the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth(then the Gulf of Lepanto), off western Greece. A galley fleet of the Holy League, a sometimes-flimsy coalition of Pope Pius V, Spain, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, Naples, the Knights of Malta and others, defeated a force of Ottoman galleys

the Mercator projection

the Eighty Years' war or Dutch Revolt, was the war of secession between the Netherlands and the Spanish king. The war resulted in the Seven United Provinces being recognized as an independent state. The region now known as Belgium and Luxembourg also became established as the Southern Netherlands, part of the Seventeen Provinces that remained under royal Habsburg rule

the battle of Talikota ended the last great Hindu kingdom in South India

the Northern Seven Years' war was the war between Sweden and a coalition of Denmark-Norway, Lubeck and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

the French wars of Religion were a series of conflicts fought between Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants). They can be said to have started with the reign of Catherine de Medici, and to have ended with the issuing of the Edict of Nantes by Henry IV. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was one of the events in which the violence escalated the most

the Livonian War of succession

the Scientific revolution

the Council of Trent as a response to the theological and ecclesiological challenges of the Protestant Reformation. It is considered one of the most important councils in the history of the Catholic Church, clearly specifying Catholic doctrines on salvation, the sacraments, and the Biblical canon. The council standardized the Mass throughout the church, largely by abolishing local variations

the Viceroyalty of Peru was created by Spain. It consisted of most of Spanish-ruled South America until the creation of the separate viceroyalties of New Granada (now Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá and Venezuela)  in 1717 and Río de la Plata (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay) in 1776. The Viceroyalty ended with the proclamation of the republics of Paraguay (1811) and Argentinia (1816). Other south American Nations gaining independence were Chile (1818), Colombia (1819), Peru (1821), Venezuela (1821), Brazil (1822), Bolivia (1825), Uruguay (1828) and Ecuador (1830)

New Spain was the name of the viceroy-ruled territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia, North America, South America, and its peripheries

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period extending from the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River, by Jacques Cartier in 1534, to the cession of New France to Spain and to the Kingdom of Great Britain under the Treaty of Paris ending the French and Indian war/ Seven Years' war

the forces of Francisco Pizarro captured Cuzco and completed the Spanish conquest of Peru. Pizarro ordered the imprisonment and murder of Atahualpa, the last ruler of the Inca Empire. Atahualpa was executed by orders of Francisco Pizarro, although the chief had already paid his ransom. Ruminahui (Rumanahui), a general of Atahualpa, led 15,000 soldiers into the mountains north of Quito, after Pizarro killed the Inca emperor Atahualpa. His forces carried an estimated 70,000 man-loads of gold

the Schmalkaldic League also known as the Protestant Confederation of Germany, was a defensive alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire during the mid-16th century. Although originally started for religious motives soon after the start of the Protestant Reformation, its members eventually intended for the League to replace the Holy Roman Empire as their source of political allegiance

the Knights Hospitaller were given the Isle of Malta

the Ottoman-Habsburg war

the Mughal Empire

Venice adopted the Gregorian calendar. Other countries following suit were: Germany (1544) Spain, Portugal, Netherlands (1556), Prussia Denmark, Sweden (1559), France (1564), Scotland (1600), Russia (1721) and England (1752). The calendar was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, for whom it was named, on February 24, 1582

the Spanish conquest of Yucatán brought Mexcio, that is the former Aztec empire, under Spanish rule in 1521. The territory of the Mayas in the south was conquered up until 1697

le Camp du Drap d'Or

Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation by posting his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The Protestant Reformation was a movement which emerged in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. The humanist revival of the Renaissance in the 15th century in Italy, early 16th century in Northern Europe as well as the Protestant Reformation mark the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern period

Habsburg Spain controlled territory ranging from Argentina to the Netherlands at the height of its power. The empire was founded by Emperor Charles V, and came to an end with the death of Charles II in 1700 which resulted in the war of the Spanish Succession

Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the summit of the mountain range along the Chucunaque River on the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific

the Swabian war was the last major armed conflict between the Old Swiss Confederacy and the House of Habsburg

Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut on the first direct trip from Europe to India by ship. In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias had turned the Cape of Good Hope but didn't continue much further than that

the Italian wars were a series of wars involving all the major states of western Europe: France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, Scotland, the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, and most of the city-states of Italy. Originally arising from a dynastic dispute over Naples, the wars rapidly became a general struggle for power and territory  among their various participants. By the end of the wars in 1559, Habsburg Spain had been established as the premier power of Europe, to the detriment of France. The states of Italy, which had wielded power disproportionate to their size during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, were reduced to second-rate powers or destroyed entirely

the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Spanish and the Portuguese along a north-south meridian 370 leagues (1770 km; 1100 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands

Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean and believed he had reached East Asia. Soon after Portuguese, Dutch and British merchants started the slave trade to the New World which was part of the triangular Atlantic trade, probably the most important and profitable trading route  in the world. Ships from Europe would carry a cargo of manufactured trade goods to Africa. They would exchange the trade goods for slaves which they would transport to the Americas. In the Americas, they would sell the slaves and pick up a cargo of agricultural products, often produced with slave labor, for Europe

the Burgundian wars

the wars of the Roses

the Thirteen Years' war started as an uprising by Prussian cities and the local nobility with the goal of gaining independence from the Teutonic Knights

the Hundred Years' war came to a close with the French recapture of Bordeaux leaving the English retaining only Calais on French soil

the Renaissance can be said to have peaked with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Also, in 1455 Johann Gutenberg had (re)invented the printing press

the French started to get an upper hand in the Hundred Years' war after Joan of Arc won the Battle of Orléans. A year later she was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English that put her on trail for heresy

the Portuguese Empire began when the Portuguese Armada along with King John I and his sons Prince Duarte, Prince Pedro, Prince Henry the Navigator, Prince Afonso, and the mythical Portuguese hero Nuno Alvares Pereira departed to Ceuta in North Africa, an Islamic trade centre which they managed to conquer on August 21

the Hohenzollerns were raised to the rank of Elector for the Holy Roman Empire, upon the acquisition of Brandenburg by Friedrich I. They ruled the Duchy of Prussia from 1525-1701 and the Kingdom of Prussia from 1701-1918

the Age of Discovery

the Kalmar Union united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch. Finland has been associated with the Kingdom of Sweden since the year 1154 and the introduction of Christianity by Sweden's King Erik

the Battle of Kosovo Polje was fought between the coalition of Serb lords and the Ottoman Empire. Although the battle was a decisive victory for the Ottomans, it could be considered as drawn or undecided. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The delay on behalf of the Turks to entirely subjugate Kosovo was due to the death of Sultan Murad; the new sultan Bayezid had to go to the capital to be crowned

the Timurid empire was founded by Timur, who conquered much of central and southwest Asia, and it was built up by his descendents. It stretched from Georgia to India at the time of Timur's death in 1405

Grote Mandrenke

the French Peasants Revolt occured when French king John II was held for ransom in England, providing an opportunity for the oppressed French peasants to attack their feudal lords. The nobles responded with marked brutality, killing as many as 20,000 peasants in two weeks

accused of being a cause of the plague, the Jews in France were dragged from their houses and burned. Pogroms occurred throughout Europe. When the plague subsided, few Jews were left in Germany or the Low Countries

the Black Plague was a devastating pandemic that is estimated to have killed about a third of Europe's population

the Mongols laid siege to the port of Kaffa on the Crimean peninsula and catapulted plague corpses into the beseiged city

the Hundred Years war started when King Philip VI of France attempted to confiscate  the English territories in the duchy of Aquitaine (located in Southwestern France). After almost a century of fighting the French started to get an upper hand in the war after Joan of Arc won the Battle of Orléans in 1429. It ended when the French finally expelled the English from the continent, except for Calais

the Vijayanagara empire

the Pharos of Alexandria Lighthouse one of the Seven Wonders of the world, was destroyed by a series of earthquakes

the Ottoman empire was founded by Osman I. When sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the state grew into a mighty empire which reached its apex under Suleiman the Magnificent  in the16th century when it stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to Hungary in the northwest; and from Egypt in the south to the Caucasus in the north. After its defeat at the Battle of Vienna in 1683 against the Austrians and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, the empire began a slow decline, culminating in the demolition of the empire by the Allies in World war I

Francois Grimaldi of Genoa captured the Rock of Monaco disguised as a monk

the Solomonic dynasty

the Mongol Invasions

Portugal was recognized by the Kingdom of Leon as an independent kingdom (Treaty of Zamora)

Universities began to  be established in Western Europe

Crusades were Roman Catholic endeavors to re-capture the Holy Land from the Muslims

Rome was sacked by the Normans of Robert Guiscard

High Middle Ages

the Roma people left India

the House of Capet succeeded the Carolingian dynasty as rulers of France

the Ashkenazic Jewish tradition emerged in Germany and spread to eastern Europe

the Magyars destroyed Great Moravia

under the Peace of Wedmore eastern England fell under Danish rule (Danelaw), while the English ruled in the east and south

the Kingdom of Scotland was united by King Cináed I

the Māori

the Most Serene Republic of Venice

the Khmer empire

in the Battle of Tours Frankish leader Charles Martel defeated an Islamic army led by Emir Abd er Rahman

the kingdom of Champa controlled what is now south and central Vietnam

Justinian's Plague killed 40% of Constantinople by 544 and 25% of Europe south of the Alps

the Thule are the ancestors of the modern Canadian Inuits

the Dark Age

the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain

the Visigothic Kingdom

Migration Period

the Shinto shrine in Ise, Japan, was built it is the main shrine of the Japanese royal family

the Gupta Empire

Sassanid dynasty was the name of the second Persian Empire

the Three Kingdoms War

the Chola empire was a Tamil dynasty that ruled primarily in southern India

the Kingdom of Aksum became the country of Ethiopia

Persecution of the Early Church

the Great Fire of Rome

the Crucifiction

the Limes Germanicus

Julius Caesar was assassinated

the Gallic Wars

the Hasmonean Kingdom

the Rhodos earthquake destroyed the Colossus of Rhodos

King Pyrrhus of Epirus won a battle against the Romans but his casualties were very high

the Nazca culture

the Mauryan Empire was India's first great unified empire

the Diadochi wars followed Alexander's death

Logic was developed and defined by Aristotle

Philip of Macedonia conquered Greece in the battle of Chaeronea

the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

the Gallic Senones tribesmen sacked Rome and occupied it for seven months

Rome defeated the Etruscan city of Veii after 80 years of war

the Nabataeans

the magnificent temple of Zeus was designed by the architect Libon

Cleisthenes started what will become democracy in Athens

China started building walls around its territory