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Neolithic Period, ca 10,000 - 3000 BC

Farming, Cities and Writing

• Neolithic (Agricultural) Revolution - ca 10,000 BC
• Sumer, earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia, many independent city-states
• Uruk, emergence of urban life, ca 4000 - 3200 BC
• Cuneiform appears in Mesopotamia, ca 3500 - 3000 BC
• Hieroglyphs appear in Egypt, ca 3400 - 3200 BC
• Ziggurat of Ur - 2100 BC

Bronze Age, ca 3000 - 1000 BC

Kingdoms and Empires in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Agean

Egypt

• Old Kingdom, 2649 - 2134 BC
• Great Pyramid at Giza (Khufu, or Cheops) ca 2560 BC
• The New Kingdom, ca 1570 - 1069 BC
• Akhenaten's reign (wife Nefertiti), 1353 – 1336 BC

Mesopotamia

• Akkadian Empire, first empire, ca 2350 – 2150 BC
• Sargon, first ruler of the Akkadian Empire - ca 2300 BC
• The Third Dynasty of Ur (Summerian), ca 2112 - 2004 BC
• Babylonian Empire, ca 1900 - 1600 BC
• Code of Hammurabi, ca 1754 BC
• Hittite Empire (New Kingdom), ca 1400 - 1200 BC
• Assyrian Empire, ca 1350 - 600 BC
• Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, first systematically organized library, 668 - 631 BC
• Some of the best tablets recording The Epic of Gilgamesh were discovered in the ruins of Ashurbanipal library.

Agean

• Minoan civilization flourished, ca 2000 - 1450 BC
• Mycenaeans, 1600 - 1070 BC

Bronze Age Collapse

• Mycenaean kingdoms, Hittite Empire, New Kingdom of Egypt, ca 1200 - 1150 BC

Rise and fall of the Kingdoms of Israel, ca 1000 BC - 500

Early Biblical Events

• The Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, 1800 - 1600 BC
• Exodus, 1280 BC

The Kingdoms of Israel

• Bible composed - 1st millennium BC
• Reign of Saul, 1040 - 1000 BC
• Reign of David, 1000 - 961 BC
• Reign of Solomon, 961 - 922 BC
• Kingdom splits after Solomon - Israel (north) and Judah (south), 922 BC
• Assyria defeats Northern Kingdom, 721 BC
• Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II defeats Southern Kingdom, 586 BC
• Babylonian Captivity, ca 586 - 539 BC
• Cyrus the Great founds Persian Empire - 550 BC
• Cyrus captures Babylon and liberates the Jews - 539 BC

The Golden Age of Greece, ca 500 BC - 1

Classical Period Greece

• Persian Wars, 499 - 479 BC
• Classical Period (from the Battle of Salamis to death of Alexander), 480 - 323 BC
• Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes ca 480 - 405 BC
• Pericles leads Athens, 461 - 429 BC
• Discobolus (Discus Thrower) by Myron - ca 450 BC
• Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer) by Polykleitos - ca 440 BC
• Parthenon, 432 BC
• Peloponnesian Wars, 431 - 404 BC
• Athens surrenders - 404 BC
• Death of Socrates - 399 BC
• Plato founds Academy - 387 BC
• Aristotle founds Lyceum - 334 BC
• Reign of Alexander the Great, 336 - 323 BC
• Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxiteles - ca 330 BC

Hellenistic period (death of Alexander to Death of Cleopatra) 323 - 30 BC

• Death of Alexander the Great - 323 BC
• Laocoön and His Sons - ca 200 BC
• Winged Victory of Samothrace, ca 200-190 BC
• Venus de Milo, ca 130 - 100 BC
• Death of Cleopatra - 30 BC
• Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, the last major Hellenistic kingdom - 30 BC

The Roman Republic, ca 500 BC - 1

• Roman Republic (established after Tarquinius Superbus deposed), 509 - 27 BC
• Punic Wars, 264 - 146 BC
• Battle of Corinth marks the beginning of Rome's domination of Greece, 146 BC
• Golden Age of Roman literature (Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Ovid) 70 BC – 14 AD
• Conquest of Jerusalem by Romans under Pompey - 63 BC
• Herod the Great, 37 BC - 4 AD
• Gallic Wars, 58 - 50 BC
• Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon - 49 BC
• Civil war - Caesar vs Pompey, 49 - 45 BC
• Julius Caesar named Dictator for Life - 44 BC
• Julius Caesar assassinated by senators led by Brutus and Cassius - 44 BC
• Battle of Actium, Agrippa leads Octavian fleet against Mark Antony and Cleopatra - 31 BC
• Battle of Alexandria, deaths of Antony and Cleopatra - 30 BC

The Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity, 1 - 500

• Octavian granted title Augustus (majestic), crowned emperor - 27 BC
• Pax Romana (Accession of Augustus to death of Marcus Aurelius, last of the Five Good Emperors) 27 BC - 180
• Pont du Gard - 50
• Colosseum - 80
• Hadrian's wall - 122
• Pantheon - 125
• Constantine converts to Christianity - 312
• Constantinople founded - 330
• Hagia Sophia - 360
• Old St. Peter's Basilica - 326
• Edict of Thessalonica makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire - 380
• Romulus Augustus defeated by Odoacer - 476

Middle Ages, 500 - 1400

• Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy - 547
• Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne - 800
• Palatine (Charlemagne's) Chapel, 805
• Saint-Denis, 1144
• Sainte-Chapelle, 1248
• Chartres, 1252
• Notre-Dame, 1345
• Black Death (25 million deaths in Europe), 1346-1351

Islamic Golden Age, ca 750 - 1250

Preservation and advancement of classical knowledge

• House of Wisdom founded in Baghdad - ca 800s (Center for translation of Greek, Persian, and Indian texts into Arabic)
• Al-Khwarizmi writes on algebra and algorithms - ca 820
• Conquest of Toledo, Spain - Major translation movement from Arabic to Latin begins - 1085
• Ibn Rushd (Averroes) writes commentaries on Aristotle - 1100s (Reintroduced Aristotelian thought to Christian Europe)

Renaissance, 1400 - 1600

Humanism and advances in the visual arts

• Humanism - a revival of classical letters, individualistic and critical spirit, and emphasis on secular concerns (vs Scholasticism).
• Petrarch ("father of Humanism") discovers Cicero's letters - 1345

The Italian Renaissance - Florence, Venice, Rome

• Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral Dome, ca. 1417-1436
• Donatello, David, 1428-1432
• Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1482

The Northern Renaissance - Netherlands and Flanders, 1500 - 1600

• Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434
• Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait, 1500
• Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow, 1565

Reformation, 1517 - 1555

• Martin Luther published his 95 Theses - 1517
• The Peace of Augsburg - 1555

Counter-Reformation, 1545 - 1648

• Council of Trent - 1545
• Conclusion of Thirty Years' War - 1648

Scientific Revolution, 1543 - 1687

• On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Copernicus - 1543
• Novum Organum, Francis Bacon - 1620
• Principia, Isaac Newton - 1687

The Baroque Period, 1600 - 1750

Opera and instrumental music, harmony

• Claudio Monteverdi, 1567 – 1643, transitional figure between Renaissance and Baroque. He wrote many madrigals and developed the Italian operatic style, L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera still widely performed.
• Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750, employed many forms including concerto grosso, fugue, cantata.
• George Frideric Handel, 1685-1759, famous for operas and oratorios.

Italian (Catholic) Baroque

Dramatic, emotional, sensory—designed to inspire awe and devotion. Part of Counter-Reformation strategy to win back believers through spectacle.

• The Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio, 1599 – 1600
• The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Bernini, 1647 – 1652

Dutch (Protestant) Golden Age

More restrained, focused on domesticity and daily life. Shared techniques with Italian Baroque: dramatic lighting (chiaroscuro), naturalism, attention to material textures.

• Rembrandt van Rijn, 1606 - 1669
• Johannes Vermeer, 1632 - 1675

The Enlightenment, 1715 - 1789

• Death of Louis XIV - 1715
• Voltaire, 1694 - 1778, champion of civil liberties and critic of Church authority
• Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws - 1748 (separation of powers concept)
• Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Encyclopédie - 1751-1772
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract - 1762
• Enlightenment ideals directly influenced American and French Revolutions
• The American Revolution, 1775 - 1783
• The French Revolution, 1789 – 1799

Classical and Neo-classical, 1750 - 1800

• Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732 - 1809
  • Father of the Symphony and String Quartet
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756 - 1791
• Jacques-Louis David, (1748 - 1825).
  • The Death of Socrates
• Antonio Canova, 1757-1822
  • Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss - 1787-1793

Industrial Revolution, 1760 - 1840

• Spinning jenny invented, James Hargreaves - 1764
• Invention of the steam engine, James Watt - 1769
• Power loom invented, Edmund Cartwright - 1785

Romanticism, ca 1800 - 1850

• William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads - 1798
• Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique - 1830
• Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People - 1830

Realism, ca 1850 - 1880

Literature:

• Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary - 1856
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment - 1866

Visual Art:

• Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans - 1850
• Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners - 1857

Impressionism, ca 1870 - 1890

• Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise - 1872
• Edgar Degas, The Dance Class - 1874

Modernism, 1900 -

• First flight, Orville and Wilbur Wright - 1903
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - 1907
• Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring - 1913
• James Joyce, Ulysses - 1922

Connections and Transformations

Why the Renaissance emerged when and where it did:

The Renaissance began in Italy around 1400 due to several converging factors:

• Wealth from Mediterranean trade (especially Venice, Florence) provided patronage for artists and scholars
• Proximity to Byzantine Empire facilitated influx of Greek texts and scholars, especially after Constantinople fell in 1453
• Islamic Golden Age had preserved Greek texts that came to Italy via Spain and Sicily
• Political fragmentation of Italy created competition among city-states for cultural prestige

How the Reformation enabled the Scientific Revolution:

The Reformation (1517-1555) and Scientific Revolution (1543-1687) were deeply connected:

• Protestant emphasis on individual interpretation of scripture encouraged questioning traditional authorities (including Aristotelian science)
• Dissolution of monasteries and weakening of Church authority created space for secular inquiry
• Protestant emphasis on understanding God's creation through His works motivated empirical investigation of nature
• Northern Europe, where Protestantism was strong, became centers of scientific activity (England, the Netherlands, and German states produced disproportionate numbers of scientists, including Newton, Boyle, Huygens, and Leibniz)

Modernity

The modern era for art and architecture began in the 15th century with a shift to linear perspective, naturalism, humanism, and individual artistic identity:

• Giotto (precursor), Arena Chapel, ca. 1305
• Brunelleschi, Florence Cathedral Dome, ca. 1417 - 1436
• Donatello, David, 1428 - 1432
• Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434
• Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1478 - 1482

The modern era for literature began in the 16th and 17th century with the shift to vernacular literature, individual authorship, psychological complexity, and the emergence of the novel form:

• Petrarch (precursor), 1304 - 1374
• Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1466 - 1536
• Shakespeare's plays, 1590 - 1610
• Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605

The modern era for music began in the 17th and 18th centuries:

• Monteverdi, 1567 – 1643
• Rise of Homophony in Opera and Instrumental Music (Monteverdi)
• L'Orfeo, 1607
• Development of instrumental forms like the concerto (Corelli and Vivaldi) and sonata (Scarlatti and CPE Bach)
• Establishment of Tonal (keys) and Functional (chords) Harmony: Composers began to clearly use major and minor scales, with chords that followed predictable patterns
• Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, 1720
• Bach, Brandenburg Concertos, 1721