First humanoids on earth

We are not the first great apes on this earth, and certainly not the longest-lived great apes of our prehistory. All these humanoids have been given outlandishly fancy names by scientists of the modern world. If you manage to pronounce them all in perfect succession, you may send me a recording of it for 15% discount on your next booking.

The oldest ape-man we know of was Sahelanthropus tchadensis (or, “monkey from the Sahel of Chad”). These humanoids lived possibly one million years before eventually disappearing.

Then came, “in order of appearence”: Australopithecus Afarensis (4 million BC), Homo Habilis (2 million BC), Homo Rudolfensis (2 million BC) and Homo Erectus (1.5 million BC).

One thing you must understand, these humanoids were not separate species that existed apart from eachother. These were fluid species that you and I would not be able to tell apart. It is our scholars that have divided them into binary groups.

The controlled use of fire

Many humanoids were already familiar with the use of fire. For example, in the Wonderwerk cave in South Africa, there are already traces of controlled fire to possibly 1,000,000 years old! But between about 400,000 years before our era and 350,000, use of fire was spread like wildfire all over the world by human species.

The oldest Homo Sapiens known

'I think, therefore I come into existance!'.

This is how old the oldest evidence for the existence and emergence of our species is, among all sorts of other species of “ape-man”. These species lived side by side, and with each other. And as you have already read, we are far from being the record holder as the “oldest ape” on earth!

Scramble out of Africa

All our ancestors were fortune seekers who migrated from Africa to, among other places, Europe in a structural migration flow. We today owe our existence and civilisation to this stream of people who set out to see what the world had to offer.

Fortunately, our ancestors were not afraid of change and embracing unfamiliar people and cultures!

The oldest known art

The oldest cave drawings that have survived to the present day. The oldest drawn hands and dots have been found in present-day Indonesia. In France and Spain, we see examples from a few thousand years later.

The question is what you consider art. Inscribed stones with symbols about 75,000 years old have been found in South Africa. We just don't know exactly what these were for.

... I already know what the archaeologists from the next block would say about that ...

Earliest found spirituality

It is during this period that the first spirituality seems to really take shape. Or in other words, the first period of which Archaeologists find things they really have no idea what it is, or how it was used.

'This object was probably used for ceremonies and religion' is archaeologist-speak for “I don't know what this is”.

Man (almost) goes extinct

At some point around 200.000 years ago our species, Homo Sapiens, seems to have been the only humanoid species left on Earth. In the last century, scientists thought that all other species died out in some kind of race for survival (because that sounds so cool! And also because scholars liked to think of everything before modern times as extremely backward and savage). But now we know it was probably more gradual and loving; the groups merged into each other. As stated before you and I most likely would not be able to tell humanoids from 200.000, 300.000 and 400.000 years ago apart.

Think of it as a non-binary spectrum of human species interacting with each other. ... it almost sounds exactly like our society today.

The Neolithic Revolution

The Neolithic means “The New Stone Age”.

The period when the Homo Sapiens of the “Old” Stone Age started saying things like “The young don't know what proper work is, with all these new tools”. Or 'That lazy new generation only thinks about farming and leisure, they don't even know what hunting & gathering is!'.

Change is the most constant thing in our past. We just need to learn to see that and learn how to use change and lead it, instead of resisting it. In the end that is what every management book you've ever read tried to teach you.

Agricultural Revolution

In China and Meso-America (i.e. present-day North and South America), agriculture became the main source of food. In China they discovered rice as a delicacy, and in Meso-America they loved Maize.

This change used to be hailed as a great step towards civilisation. Now we know that the move towards agriculture came with all sorts of disadvantages. People had to work harder to put food on the table, more monotonous food made room for new diseases. Probably the “working day” for humans suddenly became twice as long and life expectancy went down. But with about two human generations of agriculture, the old knowledge of hunting & gathering was gone forever.

But most importantly, during this period “property” took on a different meaning. If my land yields more crop I have more than you. If we no longer share that together, power suddenly arises that probably wasn't there before.

Emergence of large-scale civilisations

From the Indus River in present-day Pakistan and India, in present-day China, from the Mayans in present-day Mexico, from the Summerians in present-day Iran and present-day Greece, all kinds of wisdom and civilisation sprang almost simultaneously!

The oldest calendars, laws and religions known to us have their origins here.

Large emerging cities outside of Eurasia

Large cities are emerging around the world, for example in modern day Peru and Pakistan, as a result of agriculture. As more food is harvested, more is stored and tribes and peoples can grow to much larger numbers.

'Eur' in Eurasia refers to Europe. 'But I thought there were no great civilistaions in Europe at that time!', the informed reader might say. And the reader would be right. We added “Eur” because insecure scientists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries feared that their history did not matter. And the latter was exactly the case.

So please read 'Asia' in particular, because Europe did not contribute to that title at all.

Building of the pyramids of Gizeh

Built as massive graves for three Pharaoh's, these might be the best known man made structures in the history of humankind. They stood proud during the entire Egyptian history and were never locally 'forgotten'. Although they were sometimes used as a quarry for building near Caïro they were also always respected. Many scholars for many centuries visited the pyramids and wondered what they could have been. 

From Napoleon's conquest of Egypt around 1800 they were 'rediscovered' by European scholars. Originally it whas thought they were built by slavelabour, which tells us more about the morals and perspective of the scholars studying the Egyptian past than about the actual Egyptians. To these 18th, 19th and 20th century Western scholars slave labour was an acceptible solution, but now it is no longer believed to be built this way.

And that is an important lesson to keep in mind: The period in which history is studied always leaves a heavy mark on the way we understand history. That is why it is always important to look carefully at the context in which “discoveries” and theories arise.

The worldwide celebration of “year 1” of our era.

Just kidding.

The Christian era and calendar was not introduced until the sixth century. So, unfortunately, there was no big celebration for the very first year of the era. Some 550 years later, humans, creative creatures that we are, placed the entire era in a context of a moment in time they had come to consider important at that time.

Wonderful creatures we are.

Incidentally, of course, that era calendar is only one of many. Most ancient cultures knew a form of time calculation and era. This one just happened to stick.

Europe still unimportant

See also “3,000 BCE”, Europe still doesn't matter.

'But what about the time of knights and castles?', you may ask. Of course people lived in Europe and also experienced all sorts of things. Only, Europe's role and importance in world history has always been grossly overestimated. Think of it this way, “the time of knights and castles” was a period of about 1,000 years in, say, 500,000 years of human history, on about 10% of the world's inhabited surface.

So to compensate, I'll just leave it out here.

Golden age of Great Civilisations

The coming of age of grand “multinational” empires. One of the largest of these empires was, of course, the widely known Aksum, in East Africa. One of the richest kingdoms in human history. Much less known, but still important, were the Roman empire, the Persian empire, and the Greek civilisation.

... no wait, it was the other way around. No European knows Aksum, but we just can't forget those Romans. So you notice again “History is Written by the Victor”. And that Victor in Europe found Romans more interesting than the much richer Aksum.

'But the Romans had sewers and [...]'. Nope. About the richest 1% of Roman civilisation had that kind of luxury. Everyone else had no access to these, and many probably did not even have knowledge of them.

By the way, the Mayans in Central America also had a peak of civilisation!

A flourishing of science

In the Arab world there is free sharing of knowledge that makes science flourish. Great names like Ibn Sina and Al-Khwarizmi make sure that sciences like chemistry, mathematics, geometry, cartography and medicine make huge leaps. And they translated many ancient Greek texts into Arabic, where a lot of knowledge is preserved.

This is why, for example, the words Alchemy and Al-gebra came over directly from Arabic into European languages.

The numbers we use are still Arabic. Our numbers are formed after the first letter for the Arabic word for that number. And I forgive you if you had to read that sentence more than once to understand it.

Pinnacle of development in China

In the Chinese Song Dynasty, innovation is order of the day. Inventions such as paper money (a piece of paper that guarantees a certain value in gold) and gunpowder originated here.

Genghis Kahn conquers the world

Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and founded the largest contiguous world empire ever. We can learn a lot from his strategy. He perfectly assessed what he was good at and where he needed help. He did not overestimate himself, and knew the limits of what he could do.

Do you know when to (1) give in, (2) teach yourself new skills to win, or (3) hire outside help to get the job done? Genghis Khan knew this better than anyone else. Studying his decisions can teach us a lot about entering new markets.

Rise of the Mali Empire

The empire of Mali was one of the most powerful empires you may never have heard of. Its most famous ruler, Mansa Musa, was one of the richest people who ever lived.

The empire covered much of West Africa and influenced the entire region, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and the Arab world. Everything written about the Mali empire is written is superlatives because of it's grandeur and accomplishments. 

The founding of Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan became the “capital” of the Aztec empire. Until the 16th century, it was probably the largest city on earth, with more than 200,000 inhabitants.

The Spanish invasion under Hernan Cortez almost completely destroyed the city around 1522 after the Aztec population was decimated by smallpox inadvertently brought from Spain by the Spanish. Today's Mexico City stands on the site where Tenochtitlan stood.

Flourishing of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire (roughly in present-day Turkey, the Balkans and the Middle East) enjoyed enormous prosperity during this period. Under Suileman the Great, with absolutely amazing headgear, the region was brought under one ruler and there was relative peace. During that peace, much scope for science and culture emerged.

Scientific 'Revolution'

The period that has been termed the “scientific revolution” by later scholars. This period sees the start of a “paradigm shift”. Great minds such as Copernicus, Da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, Newton, Vesalius and Galileo (all worth looking up for a moment!) contribute their bricks to show the world in a totally different light. These scientists drew heavily on the scientific progress of the Islamic world mentioned before. Their translations of Greek and Latin texts from centuries before were the sole reason that knowledge was accessible to them. 

The earth turned out to be just one of the many floating stones in the universe, and humans start shifting from their selfmade pedestal to their rightful place in the context of nature and the other species. The latter is not complete until Darwin's publications on the theory of evolution around 1859.

European interference in trade networks in Southeast Asia

Major trade networks emerged between India, Indonesia, China and the Middle East.

This is where Europe began to play a role on the “world stage”. Through colonisation and appropriation of territories in Southeast Asia, countries like England, the Netherlands and Portugal play into the spice trade. These trade networks already existed, only were contained by Europeans.

The wealth derived from the spice trade, enforced through colonisation, forced labour and violent domination from the 16th to the end of the 17th century, bought what came to be called “The Golden Age” in Europe.

Second Defenestration of Prague

Totally irrelevant to world history, this event is one of my favourite ever. In Prague, the nobles disagreed with the Catholic clergy. So much so that they decided to “defenestrate” the entire group of clerics present from Prague Castle, which is a wonderfull Latin term for “throwing them out of the window”. By the way, the defenestrated gentlemen landed in a large dung heap and all survived.

Should you ever find yourself in Castle Prague, watch out for the sign describing the defenestration, as it is next to the window where this event took place. And you read correctly, this was not the first time. A fantastic Prague tradition!

Transatlantic Slavetrade

A pitch-black chapter in world history. Never was such cruel, prolonged and structured suffering caused by human beings as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These crimes cannot be compared to anything, and cannot be seen in any other light than large-scale and institutionalised criminality.

During this period of nearly 350 years, it is estimated that more than 12,000,000 people were stolen, transported and sold as commodities in “The New World”. The shockwave of this event is so great that very many countries are still today recovering culturally and financially from it.

'The Enlightenment'

A period in time when ideas of equality and freedom found ground in Europe. In the 16th century, a number of religious wars raged across Europe, which had previously led to new forms of freedom in some countries, for example in the Dutch republic.

'But wait,' the observant reader may now say. 'This period falls within the period of Transatlantic Slave Trade, is that right?' And the answer, dear reader, is “yes, that is correct”. Indeed, the celebrated freedom and equality of this period needed at least another two centuries to become applicable outside Europe.

'Also for a country like the Netherlands?', you may ask. Yes, also for a country like the Netherlands. In 1948, the Netherlands sent another invasion force to the colony of Indonesia to recapture its possessions.

Haiti became first independent colonial republic

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the French colony of Saint Dominque declared independence, under Toussaint Louverture. After they defeated an army sent by Napoleon, Haiti was allowed to become independent.

Since the slaves were officially ‘property’ of the French state, the French government thought it appropriate that Haiti should pay for the lost property (read, human lives). The last payment of the nearly 100 million Francs that Haiti had to pay was in 1947. Indeed, you read that correctly. After World War II. Haiti has always remained considerably poorer than the neighbouring Dominican Republic because of the enormous economic pressure of this debt payment to France.

Formal abolition of slavery

After the abolition of slavery in Haiti, slavery was officially abolished worldwide in the period from 1810 to about 1865. The long period of recovery could begin.

The creation of Germany and Italy

The shape and division of Europe seems self-evident now, but it was instable for a long time. In 1870/71 many principalities and smaller kingdoms were forged into one German empire, and Italië was conquered over the course of a decade by the leaders that would eventually call it a nation. 

Especially now we should remember that the way the world has been for the last 50 years is in no way self-evident. We should realize that the peaceful modern division is something we need to value and cultivate, lest we underestimate the threats and chances presented to us.

Invention of the Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The first idea came from a coincidental discovery while working on a telegraph that could send multiple messages at once. Bell and his colleague, Thomas Watson, discovered that sound could be sent through a plucked reed.

People back then are said to have feared that the telephone would erode traditional socializing, that it would be a intrusian in the home environment and that others might be able to listen in on private conversations. From a modern perspective we can conclude that some fears might actually be well funded. We just need to examine whether the potential threat is worth the potential worth!

Industrial Development

Often called the “Industrial Revolution”, but I get a bit tired of that kind of constant jubilation. So I just call it development. Slavery had been exchanged for wage labour in wretched conditions. Machines could make that much cheaper for the big shareholders and big landowners ... Or I mean, “the industrial revolution gave us all a lot in terms of mass production and cheap products”.

Fine, you can make the value judgment yourself. Anyway, this is a period of development of the steam engine as motive power, electricity as a general source of energy and, for example, the internal combustion engine.

First Powered Flight

The Wright Brothers made themselves famous by building the first powered flying machine. Hot air balloons had been in use sinds roughly 1780, and 113 years later the first actual flight (by modern definitions) was made!

This was an incredible feat of science that defied intuïtion and prior beliefs about what was possible. 

The Great Depression

Nothing teaches us the unpredictability of people like economics. ... well, maybe history. But anyway, people are irrational, unpredictable and it is almost impossible to predict what they will do. Especially in large groups.

The great depression was caused by the optimism after the 'roaring twenties' and investments in new concepts, like the stock market. After the Wall Street stock market crash a downturn was taken. Between 1929 and 1939 the global GDP was down 15%, unemployment was up 30% and international trade fell by 50%. 

Unfortunately this was the fundament for what happens in the following events on this timeline.

'World Wars'

I have conveniently assumed that certain things about the period of world wars are already known. But I will give the shortest ever summary of the entire period. I don't know if there is a Guiness Book of World Records category for very brief history but I'll take a stab at it anyway.

Europe was in suspense and all countries had agreements to help each other. Austria was angry with Serbia and was looking for an excuse for war. Russia had agreed to help Serbia, France had agreed to help Russia and Britain had agreed to help France. Germany agreed to help Austria and the disaster was complete.

After the war, people felt Germany was guilty, so they were made to pay. Angry people allowed themselves to be incited towards a non-existent enemy coupled aam a tangible economic problem. Europe underestimated Nazi Germany's expansionism and a new World War began. The short lesson; be careful of unfocused anger that you link to a foreordained non-existent enemy.

By the way, don't take “World” too literally. Just a random example of a country that was not hit: Chile. The “world” aspect is in that almost the entire world was hit in one way or another, and many colonies were forced to supply people for the front or other related acts.

First man on the moon

On this day Neil Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin walked on the moon, while Michael Collins stayed in the shuttle. 

Here we can learn from fantasizing about the future. The story is that John F. Kennedy did not have the faintest idea whether landing on the moon would be possible when he announced the plans to send men to the moon in 1961. But sometimes creating the idea is enough to make it real. That is the reason we sometimes speak of a 'moonshot'. 

So what is your 'moonshot'? What is that ridiculously ambitious idea that you dream of? Can you manifest like Kennedy did, and take the first steps toward the greater goal? 

When do we end?

'When' do I end this timeline? Well, since it is a completely arbitrarily created timeline that is not meant to teach you everything about everything, but just the things that I find interesting enough to mention I will just end it here. 

I suppose this timeline is never really done and will be updated by me from time to time. So check back in every once in a while. Who knows what you might pick up!

And if you miss anything, have suggestions or want to discuss with me: please feel free to contact me!