Eras

c. 3200–2000 BCE

Early Bronze Age

Writing appears in Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3200 BCE, and the written record begins. The first cities, kings and states grow up along the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile and the Indus.

c. 2000–1200 BCE

Middle and Late Bronze Age

Kingdoms in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Aegean trade, make treaties and fight across the eastern Mediterranean, and late in the period Shang China leaves the earliest known Chinese writing. The era ends with the collapse of several of these states around 1200 BCE.

c. 1200–500 BCE

Iron Age

Iron tools and weapons spread, and new powers rise, among them Assyria, Babylon, the Zhou dynasty in China and the Greek city-states. Alphabets and coined money spread, and the Persian Empire is founded in the sixth century BCE.

c. 500 BCE–500 CE

Classical antiquity

Large empires rule much of Eurasia, among them Persia, the Maurya and Gupta states of India, Han China and Rome. Classical Greece, the spread of Buddhism and the rise of Christianity belong to this era, which ends as the western Roman Empire falls in the fifth century CE.

Inside this era: Classical Greece

c. 500–1000 CE

Early Middle Ages

In western Europe new kingdoms replace the western Roman Empire, while the Byzantine Empire continues in the east. Islam begins in Arabia in the seventh century and its caliphates soon reach from Spain to Central Asia, and China is reunited under the Sui and Tang dynasties.

c. 1000–1500 CE

High and Late Middle Ages

Trade grows across Eurasia, and in the thirteenth century the Mongols build the largest connected land empire in history. The Black Death kills a large share of the people of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from the 1340s, and the era closes with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the first European voyages to the Americas.

c. 1500–1800

Early modern period

European ships link the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia into one trading world, and the conquest of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade follow. Large land empires, among them the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal and Qing, rule much of Asia, while printing and the Scientific Revolution change how knowledge spreads in Europe.

1789–1914

Age of revolutions and empire

Revolutions in France, Haiti and Latin America overturn old regimes, and industry, beginning in Britain, changes work, cities and war. European powers and the United States expand their reach, and by 1914 much of Africa and Asia is under colonial rule.

1901–2000

Twentieth century

Two world wars, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, the Cold War and the end of most colonial empires fall in this century. It also brings mass air travel, nuclear weapons, antibiotics and computers.

2001–present

Twenty-first century

The internet and smartphones spread worldwide, and the attacks of 11 September 2001 are followed by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A global financial crisis in 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 are among the events of its first decades.