The human history is the history of humanity from the earliest times to the present, in all places on Earth, beginning with the Paleolithic Era. Posted by engineer Hồ Đình Hải
The history of the world or human history is the history of humanity from the earliest times to the present, in all places on Earth, beginning with the Paleolithic Era. World history encompasses the study of written records, from ancient times forward, plus additional knowledge gained from other sources, such as archaeology. Ancient recorded history begins with the invention of writing. However, the roots of civilization reach back to the period before writing-humanity's prehistory in the Paleolithic Era, or "Early Stone Age". Later, during the Neolithic Era, or New Stone Age, came the Agricultural Revolution (between 8000 and 5000 BCE) in the Fertile Crescent, where humans first began the systematic husbandry of plants and animals. Agriculture spread until most humans lived as farmers in permanent settlements. The relative security and increased productivity provided by farming allowed these communities to expand into increasingly larger units in parallel with the evolution of ever more efficient means of transport. Grain agriculture, with its need to store food between growing seasons, enabled the division of labor, the rise of a leisured upper class, and the development of cities and with them civilization. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting, which led to writing. Civilizations developed on the banks of lakes and rivers. By 3000 BCE, they had arisen in the Middle East's Mesopotamia, on the banks of Egypt's River Nile, and in the Indus River valley. Similar civilizations probably developed along major rivers in China, but the archaeological evidence for extensive urban construction is less conclusive. The history of the Old World (Europe in particular, but also the Near East and North Africa) is commonly divided into Antiquity, up to 476 CE; the Middle Ages, from the 5th through the 15th centuries, including the Islamic Golden Age (c.750 CE – c.1258 CE) and the early European Renaissance; the Early Modern period, from the 15th century to the late 18th, including the Age of Enlightenment; and the Late Modern period, from the Industrial Revolution to the present, including Contemporary History. In Western histories, the postulated "Fall of Rome" in 476 CE is commonly taken as signaling the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In contrast, in Eastern Europe, there was a gradual transition from the Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, which didn't decline until much later. Around the year 1300 the European Renaissance emerged. In the mid-15th century, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of modern printing, employing movable type, revolutionized communication, helping to end the Middle Ages and to usher in the Scientific Revolution. By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge andtechnology, especially in Europe, had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution. Elsewhere in the world, such as the ancient Near East, ancient China, and ancient India, historical timelines unfolded differently. Notable examples are China's Four Great Inventions, the Islamic Golden Age, and Indian mathematics. By the 18th century, however, due to extensive world trade and colonization, the histories of most world civilizations became tightly intertwined. In the last quarter-millennium, the growth of knowledge, technology, commerce, and of the potential destructiveness of war has accelerated, creating the opportunities and perils that currently confront the human communities that inhabit the planet.
1- Prehistory
1-1-Definition Prehistory is a term often used to describe the period before written history. The early human migration patterns in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia. The controlled use of fire occurred about 800 thousand years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. Near 250 thousand years ago, Homo sapiensevolves in Africa. Around 70-60 thousand years ago, modern humans migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia. About 50 thousand years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East. Europe was first reached by modern humans about 40,000 years ago. Finally, about 15 thousand years ago in the Upper Paleolithic, the migration to the Americas occurred. Because, by definition, there are no written records from human prehistory, dating of prehistoric materials is particularly crucial to the enterprise. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century. The primary researchers into human prehistory are prehistoric archaeologists and physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys, and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret the nature and behavior of pre-literate and non-literate peoples. Human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Cultural anthropologists help provide context for marriage and trade, by which objects of human origin pass among people, allowing an analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. Therefore, data about prehistory is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences, such as paleontology, biology, archaeology, palynology, geology,archaeoastronomy, comparative linguistics, anthropology, molecular genetics and many others. Prehistory is an important part of evolutionary psychology since it is argued that many human characteristics are adaptations to the prehistoric environment and in particular the environment during the long paleolithic period. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals. Restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that prehistorians use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. The date marking the end of prehistory in a particular culture or region, that is the date when relevant written historical records become a useful academic resource, varies enormously from region to region. For example, in Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, at around 1900AD. In Europe the relatively well-documented classical cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had neighbouring cultures, including the Celts and to a lesser extent the Etruscans, with little or no writing, and historians must decide how much weight to give to the often highly prejudiced accounts of the "prehistoric" cultures in Greek and Roman literature. 1-2-Early humans Genetic measurements indicate that the ape lineage which would lead to Homo sapiens diverged from the lineage that would lead to chimpanzees (the closest living relative of modern humans) around five million years ago. It is thought that the Australopithecine genus, which were likely the first apes to walk upright, eventually gave rise to genus Homo. Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago, and reached behavioral modernity about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread rapidly from Africa into the frost-free zones of Europe and Asia around 60,000 years ago . The rapid expansion of humankind to North America and Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent Ice Age, when temperate regions of today were extremely inhospitable. Yet, humans had colonised nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe by the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago. Other hominids such as Homo erectus had been using simple wood and stone tools for millennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more refined and complex. At some point, humans began using fire for heat and cooking. They also developed language in the Palaeolithic period and a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead and adornment of the living. Early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from wood and bone. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, and were generally nomadic; this means they hunted and foraged for food, and moved constantly from place to place. 1-3-Rise of civilization The Neolithic Revolution, beginning about 8,000 BCE, saw the development of agriculture, which drastically changed the human lifestyle. Farming permitted far denser populations, which in time organised into states. Agriculture also created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production. The development of agriculture permitted the creation of the first cities. These were centres of trade,manufacturing and political power with nearly no agricultural production of their own. Cities established a symbiosis with their surrounding countrysides, absorbing agricultural products and providing, in return, manufactured goods and varying degrees of military control and protection. The development of cities was synonymous with the rise of civilization. Early civilizations arose first in lower Mesopotamia (3500 BCE), followed by Egyptian civilization along the Nile (3300 BCE) and Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley(3300 BCE). These societies developed a number of unifying characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, sophisticated language and writing systems, and distinct cultures and religions. Writing was another pivotal development in human history, as it made the administration of cities and expression of ideas far easier. As complex civilizations arose, so did complex religions, and the first of their kind apparently originated during this period. Inanimate entities such as the Sun, Moon, Earth, sky, and sea were often deified. Shrines developed, which evolved into templeestablishments, complete with a complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses and other functionaries. Typical of the Neolithic was a tendency to worship anthropomorphicdeities. Some of the earliest surviving written religious scriptures are the Pyramid Texts, produced by the Egyptians, the oldest of which date to between 2400 and 2300 BCE. Some archaeologists suggest, based on ongoing excavations of a temple complex at Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") in southern Turkey, dating from c. 11,500 years ago, that religion predated the Agricultural Revolution rather than following in its wake, as had generally been assumed. 2-Antiquity 2-1-Timeline and Stone Age All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genetics, geology, or linguistics. They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations. BP stands for "Before Present (1950)." 2-1-1-Paleolithic "Paleolithic" means "Old Stone Age," and begins with the first use of stone tools. The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Paleolithic is called the Lower Paleolithic, which predates Homo sapiens, beginning with Homo habilis (and related species) and with the earliest stone tools, dated to around 2.5 million years ago. Early homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Paleolithic. Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during the Middle Paleolithic.The systematic burial of the dead, the music, early art, and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the Middle Paleolithic. Throughout the Paleolithic, humans generally lived as nomadichunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherer societies tended to be very small and egalitarian, though hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques sometimes developed sedentary lifestyles with complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification. Long-distance contacts may have been established, as in the case of Indigenous Australian "highways." All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genetics, geology, or linguistics. They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations. BP stands for "Before Present(1950)." +Lower Paleolithic
c. 32,000 BP - Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
c. 30,000 BP / 28,000 BC - A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is todayFrance.
c. 28,500 BC - New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.
c. 28,000 BP - 20,000 BP - Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented.
c. 26,000 BP / c. 24,000 BC - Women around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets.
c. 25,000 BP / 23,000 BC - A hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been found by archaeologists.
c. 20,000 BP or 18,000 BC - Chatelperronian culture in France.
c. 16,000 BP / 14,000 BC - Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.
c. 14,800 BP / 12,800 BC - The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.
2-1-2-Mesolithic The "Mesolithic" or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek "mesos," "middle," and "lithos," "stone") was the period in the development of humantechnology between the Paleolithic and Neolithicperiods of the Stone Age. The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended withthe introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic" is sometimes preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian andAzilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BC(6,000 BP) in northern Europe. Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture. The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools — microliths and microburins. Fishing tackle, stoneadzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of Northern Africa and theKebaran culture of the Levant. Independent discovery is not always ruled out. 2-1-3-Neolithic Neolithicmeans "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological andsocial development, toward the end of the "Stone Age". The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages, agriculture, animaldomestication, tools and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare. The Neolithic term is commonly used in the Old World, as its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania that did not fully develop metal-working technology raises problems.
c. 8000 BC / 7000 BC - In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread. In early agriculture at this time, the Planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive Plow in subsequent centuries. Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in Jericho.
History of agriculture Forest gardening, originating in prehistory, is thought to be the world's oldest known form of agriculture.[12]Vere Gordon Childe then describes an "Agricultural Revolution" occurring about the 10th millennium BC with the adoption of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals. The Sumeriansfirst began farming c. 9500 BC. By 7000 BC, agriculture had been developed in India and Peru separately; by 6000 BC, to Egypt; by 5000 BC, to China. About 2700 BC, agriculture had come to Mesoamerica. Although attention has tended to concentrate on the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia andSoutheast Asia indicates that agricultural systems, using different crops and animals, may in some cases have developed there nearly as early. The development of organised irrigation, and the use of a specialised workforce, by the Sumerians, began about 5500 BC. Stone was supplanted by bronze and iron in implements of agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until then been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and bronze tools, decorations and weapons began to be commonplace about 3000 BC. After bronze, the Eastern Mediterranean region, Middle East and China saw the introduction of irontools and weapons. The technological and social state of the world, circa 1000 BC. -hunter-gatherers -nomadicpastoralists -simple farming societies -complex farming societies/chiefdoms -state societies -uninhabited The Americas may not have had metal tools until the Chavín horizon (900 BC). The Moche did have metal armor, knives and tableware. Even the metal-poor Inca had metal-tipped plows, at least after the conquest ofChimor. However, little archaeological research has so far been done inPeru, and nearly all the khipus (recording devices, in the form of knots, used by the Incas) were burned in the Spanish conquest of Peru. As late as 2004, entire cities were still being unearthed. The cradles of early civilizations were rivervalleys, such as the Euphratesand Tigris valleys in Mesopotamia, the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus valley in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys inChina. Some nomadic peoples, such as the Indigenous Australians and the Bushmen of southern Africa, did not practice agriculture until relatively recent times. Agriculture made possible complex societies — civilizations. States and markets emerged. Technologies enhanced people's ability to harnessnature and to develop transport and communication."The city represented a new degree of human concentration, a new magnitude in settlement".Cities relied on agricultural surplus."since the inhabitants of a city do not produce their own food...cities cannot support themselves...thus exist only where agriculture is successful enough to produce agricultural surplus." Chalcolithic In Old World archaeology, the "Chalcolithic", "Eneolithic" or "Copper Age" refers to a transitional period where early coppermetallurgy appeared alongside the widespread use of stone tools.
c. 3700 BC - Cuneiform writing appears in Sumer, and records begin to be kept. According to the majority of specialists, the first Mesopotamian writing was a tool that had little connection to the spoken language.
c. 3000 BC - Stonehenge construction begins. In its first version, it consisted of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.
Bronze Age The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smeltingcopper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ores, and then combining them to cast bronze. These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before 3000 BC. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. The Bronze Age is the earliest period for which we have direct written accounts, since the invention of writing coincides with its early beginnings. The 10th millennium BC is the earliest given date for the invention of agriculture and the beginning of the ancient era. Göbekli Tepe was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (c. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Together with Nevalı Çori, it has revolutionized understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic. In the 7th millennium BC, Jiahu culture began in China. By the 5th millennium BC, the late Neolithic civilizations saw the invention of the wheel and the spread of proto-writing. In the 4th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine-Moldova-Romania region develops. By 3400 BC, "proto-literate"cuneiform is spread in the Middle East.[36] The 30th century BC, referred to as the Early Bronze Age II, saw the beginning of the literate period in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Around 27th century BC, the Old Kingdom of Egypt and the First Dynasty ofUruk are founded, according to the earliest reliable regnal eras. Middle to Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system. In this system, it follows theNeolithic Age in some areas of the world. In the 24th century BC, the Akkadian Empire[37][38] was founded. The First Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 22nd century BC) was followed by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt between the 21st to 17th centuries BC. The Sumerian Renaissance also developed c. 21st century BC. Around the 18th century BC, the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt began. By 1600 BC, Mycenaean Greece developed, the beginning of the Shang Dynasty in China emerged and there was evidence of a fully developed Chinese writing system. Also around 1600 BC, the beginning of Hittite dominance of the EasternMediterranean region is seen. The time between the 16th to 11th centuries around the Nile is called the New Kingdom of Egypt. Between 1550 BC and 1292 BC, theAmarna Period developed. Iron Age In archaeology, the Iron Age refers to the advent of ferrous metallurgy. The adoption of iron coincided with other changes in some past cultures, often including more sophisticated agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, which makes the archaeological Iron Age coincide with the "Axial Age" in the history of philosophy. Early Iron Age The Iron Age is the last principal period in the three-age system, preceded by the Bronze Age. Its date and context vary depending on the country or geographical region. During the 13th to 12th centuries BC, the Ramesside Period occurred in Egypt. Around c. 1200 BC, the Trojan War was thought to have taken place. By c. 1180 BC, the disintegration of the Hittite Empire was underway. In 1046 BC, the Zhou force, led by King Wu of Zhou, overthrows the last king of the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty is established in China shortly thereafter. In 1000 BC, the Mannaeans Kingdom begins in Western Asia. Around the 10th to 7th centuries BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire forms in Mesopotamia. In 800 BC, the rise of Greek city-states begins. In 776 BC, the first recorded Olympic Games are held. Classical antiquity Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered around the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recordedGreek poetry of Homer (9th century BC), and continues through the rise ofChristianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD), ending in the dissolution of classical culture with the close of Late Antiquity. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" typically refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome!" In the 18th and 19th centuries AD reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Western Europe and the United States than it is today. Respect for the ancients of Greece and Rome affected politics, philosophy, sculpture, literature, theatre,education, and even architecture and sexuality. In politics, the presence of a Roman Emperor was felt to be desirable long after the empire fell. This tendency reached its peak when Charlemagne was crowned "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a mere king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state whose jurisdiction extended to the entire civilized world. Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into the 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the endless use of characters and themes fromGreek mythology left a deep mark on Western literature. In architecture, there have been several Greek Revivals, (though while apparently more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek). Still, one needs only to look at Washington, DC to see a city filled with large marble buildings with façades made out to look like Roman temples, with columns constructed in the classical orders of architecture. In philosophy, the efforts of St Thomas Aquinas were derived largely from the thought of Aristotle, despite the intervening change inreligion from paganism to Christianity. Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the foundation of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theatre, tragedians such as Molière andRacine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to the strict rules of the classical unitiesderived from Aristotle's Poetics. The desire to dance like a latter-day vision of how the ancient Greeks did it moved Isadora Duncanto create her brand of ballet. The Renaissance was partly caused by the rediscovery of classic antiquity.
Mesolithic Dugout canoe The "Mesolithic," or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek "mesos," "middle," and "lithos," "stone") was the period in the development of humantechnology between the Paleolithic and Neolithicperiods of the Stone Age. The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended withthe introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic" is sometimes preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian andAzilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BC(6,000 BP) in northern Europe. Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture. The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools — microliths and microburins. Fishing tackle, stoneadzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of Northern Africa and theKebaran culture of the Levant. Independent discovery is not always ruled out. Neolithic Entrance to the Ġgantija phase temple complex of Hagar Qim, Malta. "Neolithic" means "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological andsocial development, toward the end of the "Stone Age". The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages, agriculture, animaldomestication, tools and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare.The Neolithic term is commonly used in theOld World, as its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania that did not fully develop metal-working technology raises problems. History of agriculture Forest gardening, originating in prehistory, is thought to be the world's oldest known form of agriculture. Vere Gordon Childe then describes an "Agricultural Revolution" occurring about the 10th millennium BC with the adoption of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals. The Sumeriansfirst began farming c. 9500 BC. By 7000 BC, agriculture had been developed in India and Peru separately; by 6000 BC, to Egypt; by 5000 BC, to China. About 2700 BC, agriculture had come to Mesoamerica. Although attention has tended to concentrate on the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia andSoutheast Asia indicates that agricultural systems, using different crops and animals, may in some cases have developed there nearly as early. The development of organised irrigation, and the use of a specialised workforce, by the Sumerians, began about 5500 BC. Stone was supplanted by bronze and iron in implements of agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until then been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and bronze tools, decorations and weapons began to be commonplace about 3000 BC. After bronze, the Eastern Mediterranean region, Middle East and China saw the introduction of irontools and weapons. The technological and social state of the world, circa 1000 BC. -hunter-gatherers -nomadicpastoralists -simple farming societies -complex farming societies/chiefdoms -state societies -uninhabited The Americas may not have had metal tools until the Chavín horizon (900 BC). The Moche did have metal armor, knives and tableware. Even the metal-poor Inca had metal-tipped plows, at least after the conquest ofChimor. However, little archaeological research has so far been done inPeru, and nearly all the khipus (recording devices, in the form of knots, used by the Incas) were burned in the Spanish conquest of Peru. As late as 2004, entire cities were still being unearthed. The cradles of early civilizations were rivervalleys, such as the Euphratesand Tigris valleys in Mesopotamia, the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus valley in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys inChina. Some nomadic peoples, such as the Indigenous Australians and the Bushmen of southern Africa, did not practice agriculture until relatively recent times. Agriculture made possible complex societies — civilizations. States and markets emerged. Technologies enhanced people's ability to harnessnature and to develop transport and communication."The city represented a new degree of human concentration, a new magnitude in settlement".Cities relied on agricultural surplus."since the inhabitants of a city do not produce their own food...cities cannot support themselves...thus exist only where agriculture is successful enough to produce agricultural surplus." These developments led to the rise of empires. Such extensive civilizations brought peace and stability over wider areas. The first empire, controlling a large territory and many cities, developed in Egypt with the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt c. 3100 BCE. Over the next millennia, other river valleys would see monarchical empires rise to power. In the 24th century BCE, the Akkadian Empire arose in Mesopotamia;[47] and c. 2200 BCE the Xia Dynasty arose in China. Over the following millennia, civilizations would develop across the world. Trade would increasingly become a source of power as states with access to important resources or controlling important trade routes would rise to dominance. In c. 2500 BCE the Kingdom of Kerma developed in Sudan, south of Egypt. In modern Turkey the Hittites controlled a large empire and by 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop.[48][49] In India this era was the Vedic period, which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society, and ended in the 6th century BCE. From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the country. As complex civilizations arose in the Eastern Hemisphere, most indigenous societies inthe Americas remained relatively simple for some time, fragmented into diverse regional cultures. During the Formative stage in Mesoamerica, (about 1500 BCE to 500 CE), more complex and centralized civilizations began to develop, mostly in what is now Mexico, Central America, and Peru. They include civilizations such as the Maya, Zapotec, Moche, and Nazca. They developed agriculture as well, growing maize and other crops unique to the Americas, and creating a distinct culture and religion. These ancient indigenous societies would be greatly affected by European contact during the early modern period. Axial Age Beginning in the 7th century BCE, the so-called "Axial Age" saw a set of transformative religious and philosophical ideas develop, mostly independently, in many different locations. During the 6th century BCE, Chinese Confucianism, Indian Buddhismand Jainism, PersianZoroastrianism, and JewishMonotheism all developed. In the 5th century BCE Socrates and Plato would lay the foundations of Ancient Greek philosophy. In the east, three schools of thought were to dominate Chinese thinking until the modern day. These were Taoism, Legalism and Confucianism.The Confucian tradition, which would attain dominance, looked for politicalmorality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread into the Korean peninsula and toward Japan. In the west, the Greek philosophical tradition, represented by Socrates,Plato, and Aristotle, was diffused throughout Europe and the Middle East in the 4th century BCE by the conquests of Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great. Regional empires The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw a series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains, whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects. Some areas experienced slow but steady technological advancements, with important developments such as the stirrup and moldboard plow arriving every few centuries. There were, however, in some regions, periods of rapid technological progress. Most important, perhaps, was the Mediterranean area during the Hellenistic period, when hundreds of technologies were invented.[62][63][64] Such periods were followed by periods of technological decay, as during the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuingearly medieval period. The great empires depended on militaryannexation of territory and on the formation of defended settlements to become agricultural centres.[65] The relative peace that the empires brought encouraged international trade, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean that had been developed by the time of the Hellenistic Age, and the Silk Road. The empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy. These costs fell most heavily on the peasantry, while land-owning magnates increasingly evaded centralised control and its costs. Barbarianpressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution. China's Han Empire fell into civil war in 220 CE, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time. In the west, the Greeks (and later the Romans) established their own cultures; whose practices, laws, and customs are considered the foundation of contemporary western civilization. Beginning in the 3rd century BCE, the Romans began expanding their territory through conquest and colonization. By the reign of Emperor Augustus (late 1st century BCE), Rome controlled all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean. By the reign of Emperor Trajan (early 2nd century CE), Rome controlled much of the land from England to Mesopotamia. In the 3rd century BCE, most of South Asia was united into the Maurya Empire by Chandragupta Maurya and flourished underAshoka the Great. From the 3rd century CE, the Gupta dynasty oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's Golden Age. Empires in Southern India included those of the Chalukyas,the Rashtrakutas, the Hoysalas, the Cholas and the Vijayanagara Empire. Science, engineering, art, literature, astronomy, and philosophy flourished under the patronage of these kings. Meanwhile, East Asia saw the rise of the Han Dynasty, which was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lied on the other side of the Silk Road. While the Romans constructed a vast military of unprecedented power, Han China was developing advanced cartography, shipbuilding, and navigation. The East invented blast furnaces and were capable of creating finely tuned copper instruments. As with other empires during the Classical Period, Han China advanced in strides in areas of government, education, mathematics, astronomy, and technology, among others. By the 1st century CE the EthiopianAksumite Empire had established itself as a major trading Empire, dominating its neighbours in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade. They minted their own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelea such as the Obelisk of Axum to mark their Emperors graves. From the fourth to sixth centuries CE, northern India was ruled by the Guptas. In southern India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: Cheras, Cholas andPandyas. The ensuing stability contributed to heralding in the golden age of Hinduculture in the 4th and 5th centuries. Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas starting from around 2000 BCE. In Mesoamerica,vast pre-Columbian societies were being built, the most notable being the Maya and Aztecs. As the mother culture of the Olmecs gradually declined, the great Mayan city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout Yucatán and surrounding areas. The later empire of theAztecs was built on neighboring cultures and was influenced by conquered peoples such as the Toltecs. In South America, the 14th and 15th centuries saw the rise of the Inca. The Inca Empireof Tawantinsuyu, with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire AndesMountain Range, making it the most extensive Pre-Columbian civilization.The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and unrivaled masonry. Declines and falls The great empires of Eurasia were all located on temperate coastal plains. From the Central Asian steppes, horse-based nomads (Mongols, Turks) dominated a large part of the continent. The development of the stirrup, and the breeding of horses strong enough to carry a fully armed archer, made the nomads a constant threat to the more settled civilizations. The gradual break-up of the Roman Empire, spanning several centuries after the 2nd century CE, coincided with the spread of Christianity westward from the Middle East. The Western Roman Empire fell under the domination of Germanic tribes in the 5th century, and these polities gradually developed into a number of warring states, all associated in one way or another with theRoman Catholic Church. The remaining part of the Roman Empire, in the eastern Mediterranean, would henceforth be the Byzantine Empire. Centuries later, a limited unity would be restored to western Europe through the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire in 962, comprising a number of states in what is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, and parts of France. In China, dynasties would similarly rise and fall. After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade in the 4th century, eventually conquering areas of Northern China and setting up many small kingdoms. The Sui Dynasty reunified China in 581, and under the succeeding Tang Dynasty (618–907) China entered a second golden age. The Tang Dynasty also splintered, however, and after half a century of turmoil the Northern Song Dynasty reunified China in 982. Yet pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent. North China was lost to the Jurchens in 1141, and the Mongol Empire conquered all of China in 1279, as well as almost all of Eurasia's landmass, missing only central and western Europe, and most of Southeast Asia and Japan. The Middle Ages The Middle Ages center on the Eurasian world and are commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. While the Western Roman Empire fragmented into numerous separate kingdoms, the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire survived until late in the Middle Ages. The period also corresponds to the Islamic conquests, subsequent Islamic golden age, and commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade, followed by the Mongol invasions in the Middle East and Central Asia. South Asia saw a series of middle kingdoms of India, followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India. TheChinese Empire experienced the successive Sui, Tang, Liao, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. While the Middle Ages held sway in Europe, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Inca, Maya, andAztec, continued to flourish, then ended at different times. Islamic growth Muslims began their expansion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. They came to conquer most of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe (here, they were halted by Christians). The knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle East, of Greece and of Persia were learned by Muslims in the Middle Ages. Muslims added new and important innovations from outside, such as the manufacture of paper from China and decimal positional numbering from India. Much of this learning and development can be linked to geography. Even prior to Islam's presence the city of Mecca had served as a center of trade in Arabia, and Muhammad was a merchant. With the new tradition of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the city became even more a center for exchanging goods and ideas. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous. As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to the Christians, Indians and Chinese who based their societies on an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their faith to China (resulting in a present-day population of some 37 million Chinese Muslims, mainly ethnic TurkicUyghurs, whose territory was annexed to China), India, southeast Asia, and the kingdoms of western Africa and returned with new discoveries and inventions. Medieval Europe Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization, and barbarian invasion, all of which had begun in Late Antiquity. The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the eastern empire, became Islamic after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break was not as extreme as once put forth by historians, with most of the new kingdoms incorporating as many of the existing Roman institutions as they could. Christianity expanded in western Europe and monasteries were founded. In the 7th and 8th centuries the Franks, under theCarolingian dynasty, established an empire covering much of western Europe; it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders – the Vikings, Magyars, and Saracens. During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as new technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. Manorialism – the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles – and feudalism – a political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors – were two of the ways of organizing medieval society that developed during the High Middle Ages. Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of theCarolingian Empire. The Crusades, which were first preached in 1095, were an attempt by western Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from the Muslims, and succeeded long enough to establish some Christian states in the Near East. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building ofGothic cathedrals was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age. The Late Middle Ages were marked by a number of difficulties and calamities. Famine, plague and war decimated the population of western Europe. The Black Death alone killed approximately a third of the population between 1347 and 1350. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe during the late 1340s, and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a third and a half of the population. The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of northern and western Europe. Many modern European states owe their origins to events unfolding in the Middle Ages; present European political boundaries are, in many regards, the result of the military and dynastic achievements during this tumultuous period. The Middle Ages lasted until the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the rise of nation-states, the division of Western Christianity in theReformation, the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance, and the beginnings of European overseas expansion which allowed for the Columbian Exchange. Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa was home to many different civilizations. The Aksumite Empire declined in the 7th century as Islam cut it off from its Christian allies and its people moved further into the Ethiopian highlands for protection. They eventualy gave way to the Zagwe Dynasty who are famed for their rock cut architecture at Lalibela. The Zagwe would then fall to the Solomonic Dynasty who claimed descent from the Aksumite emperors and would rule the country well into the 1900s. In the West AfricanSahel region many Islamic empires rose, such as the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, and the Kanem Empire. They controlled the trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory, salt and slaves. South of the Sahel civilisations rose in the coastal forests where horses and camels could not survive. These include the Yoruba city of Ife (noted for its naturalistic art) and the Oyo Empire, the Benin Empire of the Edo people centered in Benin city, the IgboKingdom of Nri which produced advanced bronze art at Igbo Ukwu, and the Akan who are noted for their intricate architecture. In what is now modern Zimbabwe various kingdoms evolved from the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in modern South Africa. They flourished through trade with the Swahili people on the East African coast. They built large defensive stone structures without mortar such as Great Zimbabwe, capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Khami, capital ofKingdom of Butua and Danamombe (Dhlo-Dhlo), capital of the Rozwi Empire. TheSwahili people themselves were the inhabitents of the East African coast from Kenya to Mozambique who traded extensively with Asians and Arabs, who introduced them to Islam. They built many port cities such as Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa, which were known to Chinese sailors under Zheng Heand Islamic geographers. The Americas This period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern United States circa 800 CE. The Aztec came to dominate much of Mesoamerica in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the Inca came to dominate the Andes in the 15th century. In Mesoamerica theTeotihuacan civilization fell and the Classic Maya collapse occured. Southeast Asia The beginning of the Middle Ages in Southeast Asia saw the fall of the Kingdom of Funan to the Chenla Kingdom, which was then replaced by the Khmer Empire. The Khmer's capital city Angkor was the largest city in the world prior to the industial age and contained over a thousand temples, the most famous being Angkor Wat. The Sukhothai and Ayutthaya kingdoms were major powers of the Thai people who were influenced by the Khmer. The Pagan Kingdom also rose to prominence in modern Burma. It was during this period that Islam spread to Indonesia. Modern history Modern history (the "modern period," the "modern era," "modern times") is history of the period following the Middle Ages. "Contemporary history" encompasses historic events that are immediately relevant to the present (such as World War I and World War II). It covers human history from c. 1900 up to the present. Early modern period "Early modern period" is a term used by historians to refer to the period in Western Europe and its first colonies that spans the centuries between the Middle Ages and theIndustrial Revolution – roughly 1500 to 1800. The early modern period is characterized by the rise to importance of science and by increasingly rapid technological progress,secularized civic politics, and the nation-state. Capitalist economies began their rise, initially in northern Italianrepublics such as Genoa. The early modern period also saw the rise and dominance of the mercantilist economic theory. As such, the early modern period represents the decline and eventual disappearance, in much of the European sphere, of feudalism, serfdom and the power of the Catholic Church. The period includes the late decades of the Protestant Reformation, the disastrous Thirty Years' War, theAge of Discovery, the European colonization of the Americas, and the peak of Europeanwitch-hunting. This period saw a decline in many African civilizations and an advancement in others. Ethiopia entered the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) in 1769 when the Emperor became a figurehead and the country was ruled by warlords, though it later recovered under Emperor Tewodros II. The Swahili Coast declined after coming under Portuguese and Omani contol. The Songhai Empire fell to the Moroccans in 1591 when they invaded with guns. The kingdom of Zimbabwe gave way to smaller kingdoms such as Mutapa and Butua. Other civilizations in Africa advanced during this period; the Oyo Empire went through its golden age, as did the Benin Empire. The Ashanti Empire rose to power in what is modern day Ghana in 1670. TheKingdom of Kongo also thrived during this period. European exploration of Africa reached its zenith at this time. Renaissance Europe's Renaissance, beginning in the 14th century, consisted of the rediscovery of the classical world's scientific contributions, and in the economic and social rise of Europe. But the Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitivenesswhich ultimately led to Humanism and the Scientific Revolution. Although it saw social and political upheaval and revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, the Renaissance is perhaps known best for its artistic developments and the contributions of suchpolymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man". History of Europe During this period, European powers came to dominate most of the world. One theory of why that happened holds that Europe's geography played an important role in its success. The Middle East, India and China are all ringed by mountains and oceans but, once past these outer barriers, are nearly flat. By contrast, the Pyrenees, Alps,Apennines, Carpathians and other mountain ranges run through Europe, and the continent is also divided by several seas. This gave Europe some degree of protection from the peril of Central Asian invaders. Before the era of firearms, these nomads were militarily superior to the agricultural states on the periphery of the Eurasian continent and, if they broke out into the plains of northern India or the valleys of China, were all but unstoppable. These invasions were often devastating. The Golden Age of Islam was ended by the Mongolsack of Baghdad in 1258. India and China were subject to periodicinvasions, and Russia spent a couple of centuries under the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Centraland western Europe, logistically more distant from the Central Asian heartland, proved less vulnerable to these threats. Geography contributed to important geopolitical differences. For most of their histories, China, India and the Middle East were each unified under a single dominant power that expanded until it reached the surrounding mountains and deserts. In 1600 the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the Middle East, the Ming Dynasty ruled China, and the Mughal Empire held sway over India. By contrast, Europe was almost always divided into a number of warring states. Pan-European empires, with the notable exception of the Roman Empire, tended to collapse soon after they arose. Another doubtless important geographic factor in the rise of Europe was the Mediterranean Sea, which, for millennia, had functioned as a maritime superhighway fostering the exchange of goods, people, ideas and inventions. Nearly all the agricultural civilizations have been heavily constrained by theirenvironments. Productivity remained low, and climatic changes easily instigated boom-and-bustcycles that brought about civilizations' rise and fall. By about 1500, however, there was a qualitative change in world history. Technological advance and the wealthgenerated by trade gradually brought about a widening of possibilities. Many have also argued that Europe's institutions allowed it to expand, that property rights and free-market economics were stronger than elsewhere due to an ideal of freedom peculiar to Europe. In recent years, however, scholars such as Kenneth Pomeranz have challenged this view, although the revisionist approach to world history has been met with criticism for systematically "downplaying" European achievements. Europe's maritime expansion unsurprisingly - given the continent's geography - was largely the work of its Atlantic states:Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands. Initially the Portuguese and Spanish Empires were the predominant conquerors and source of influence, and their union resulted in the Iberian Union, the first global empire, on which the "sun never set". Soon the more northern English, French and Dutch began to dominate the Atlantic. In a series of wars fought in the 17th and 18th centuries, culminating with the Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the new world power. This era in European culture saw the Age of Enlightenmentwhich led to the Scientific Revolution. Modern history The Scientific Revolution changed humanity's understanding of the world and led to the Industrial Revolution, a major transformation of the world's economies.The Scientific Revolution in the 17th century had made little immediate impact on industrialtechnology; only in the second half of the 18th century did scientific advances begin to be applied significantly to practical invention. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and used new modes of production — the factory, mass production, andmechanisation — to manufacture a wide array of goods faster and using less labour than previously. The Age of Enlightenment also led to the beginnings of modern democracy in the late-18th century American and French Revolutions. Democracy andrepublicanism would grow to have a profound effect on world events and on quality of life. After Europeans had achieved influence and control over the Americas, the imperial activities of the West turned to the lands of the East and Asia. In the 19th century the European states had social and technological advantage over Eastern lands. Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Egypt and the Malay Peninsula; the French took Indochina; while the Dutch cemented their control over the Dutch East Indies. The British also colonized Australia, New Zealand and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies. Russia colonised large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia. In the late 19th century, the European powers divided the remaining areas of Africa. Within Europe, economic and military challenges created a system of nation states, and ethno-linguistic groupings began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for cultural and political autonomy. This nationalism would become important to peoples across the world in the 20th century. During the Industrial Revolution, the world economy became reliant on coal as a fuel, as new methods of transport, such as railways and steamships, effectively shrank the world. Meanwhile, industrial pollution and environmental damage, present since the discovery of fire and the beginning of civilization, accelerated drastically. The advantages that Europe had developed by the mid-18th century were two: an entrepreneurial culture, and the wealth generated by the Atlantic trade (including the African slave trade). By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for the Spanish empire's wealth. The profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution. While some historians conclude that, in 1750, labour productivity in the most developed regions of China was still on a par with that of Europe's Atlantic economy (see the NBER Publications by Carol H. Shiue and Wolfgang Keller), other historians like Angus Maddison hold that the per-capita productivity of western Europe had by the late Middle Ages surpassed that of all other regions. 20th century The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power, and with much of the world under its direct colonial control or its indirect domination. Much of the rest of the world was influenced by heavily Europeanized nations: the United States and Japan.As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independent nations organized on Western models. This transformation was catalysed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. World War I destroyed many of Europe's empires and monarchies, and weakened Britain and France. In its aftermath, powerful ideologies arose. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state, while the 1920s and 1930s saw militaristicfascist dictatorships gain control in Italy, Germany, Spain and elsewhere. Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II.The militaristicdictatorships of Europe and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course of imperialistexpansionism. Their defeat opened the way for the advance of communism into Central Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, China, North Vietnamand North Korea. 1945-2000 After World War II ended in 1945, the United Nations was founded in the hope of allaying conflicts among nations and preventing future wars. The war had, however, left two nations, the United States and the Soviet Union, with principal power to guide international affairs. Each was suspicious of the other and feared a global spread of the other's political-economic model. This led to the Cold War, a forty-year stand-off between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies. With the development of nuclear weapons and the subsequent arms race, all of humanity were put at risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers. Such war being viewed as impractical, proxy wars were instead waged, at the expense of non-nuclear-armedThird World countries. The Cold War lasted to the 1990s, when the Soviet Union's communist system began to collapse, unable to compete economically with the United States and western Europe; the Soviets' Central European "satellites" reasserted their national sovereignty, and in 1991 the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. The United States for the time being was left as the "sole remaining superpower". In the early postwar decades, the African and Asian colonies of the Belgian, British, Dutch, French and other west European empires won their formal independence. These nations faced challenges in the form of neocolonialism, poverty, illiteracy and endemictropical diseases. Many Western and Central European nations gradually formed a political and economic community, the European Union, which expanded eastward to include former Soviet satellites. The 20th century saw exponential progress in science and technology, and increased life expectancy and standard of living for much of humanity. As the developed world shifted from a coal-based to a petroleum-based economy, new transport technologies, along with the dawn of the Information Age, led to increased globalization.Space exploration reached throughout the solar system. The structure of DNA, the template of life, was discovered, and the human genome was sequenced, a major milestone in the understanding of human biology and the treatment ofdisease. Global literacy rates continued to rise, and the percentage of the world's labor pool needed to produce humankind's food supply continued to drop. The technologies of sound recordings, motion pictures, and radio and television broadcasting produced a focus on popular culture and entertainment. Television spots sold both commercial products and political candidates. Then, in the last decade of this century, a rapid increase took place in the use of personal computers. A global communication network emerged in the Internet. One-way mass media gave way to individual communication in what has been called a shift from the fourth to a fifth civilization. The century saw the development of man-made global threats, including nuclear proliferation, global climate change, massive deforestation, overpopulation, and the dwindling of global resources (particularly fossil fuels). 21st century The 21st century has been marked by economic globalization, with consequent risk to interlinked economies, and by the expansion of communications with mobile phones and the Internet. Worldwide demand and competition for resources has risen due to growing populations and industrialization, mainly in India, China and Brazil. This demand is causing increased levels of environmental degradation and a growing threat of global warming. That in turn has spurred the development of alternate or renewable sources of energy (notably solar energy and wind energy), proposals for cleaner fossil fueltechnologies, and consideration of expanded use of nuclear energy (somewhat dampened by nuclear plant accidents). See also for more information Human history and prehistory before Homo (Pliocene) Three-age systemprehistory Stone Age Lower Paleolithic Homo, Homo erectus Middle Paleolithic early Homo sapiens Upper Paleolithic behavioral modernity Neolithic civilization Bronze Age Near East·India·Europe·China·Korea Iron Age Bronze Age collapse·Ancient Near East·India·Europe·China·Japan·Korea·Nigeria Recorded History Ancient history Earliest records Middle Ages Early·High·Late Modern history Early·Late·Contemporary Modernity and Futurology History topics Economic history of the world Civilization Historical powers Medieval demography History of science History of technology Technological singularity Historiography Development criticism Deluge (mythology) History by period List of archaeological periods List of time periods History by region History of Africa History of Asia History of Central Asia History of East Asia History of South Asia History of Southeast Asia History of Europe History of the Middle East History of Oceania History of Australia History of New Zealand History of the Pacific Islands History of the Americas History of Central America History of South America History of North America History of the Caribbean History of Antarctica References 1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world