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History of the world

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the history of humanity. For the entire history of Earth, see History of Earth. For a field of historical study, see World history. For other uses, see History of the world (disambiguation).
Human history
 Prehistory
Recorded history
Ancient
Postclassical
Modern
See also
 Future
The history of the world (or world history) describes the history of humanity (or human history), based on archaeology and, beginning with the invention of writing, on written and other records.
World population, 10,000 BCE – 2,000 CE (vertical population scale is logarithmic)[1]
Humanity's history was preceded by its prehistory, beginning with the Palaeolithic Era ("Early Stone Age"), followed by the Neolithic Era ("New Stone Age"). The Neolithic saw the Agricultural Revolution begin, between 8000 and 5000 BCE, in the Near East's Fertile Crescent. The Agricultural Revolution marked a fundamental change in history, with humans beginning the systematic husbandry of plants and animals.[2] As agriculture advanced, most humans transitioned from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle as farmers in permanent settlements. The relative security and increased productivity provided by farming allowed communities to expand into increasingly larger units, fostered by advances in transportation.
Whether in prehistoric or historic times, people always had to be near reliable sources of water. Cities developed on river banks as early as 3000 BCE, when some of the first well-developed settlements arose in Mesopotamia,[3] on the banks of Egypt's Nile River,[4][5] in the Indus River valley,[6] and along China's rivers.[7][8] As farming developed, grain agriculture became more sophisticated and prompted a division of labour to store food between growing seasons. Labour divisions led to the rise of a leisured upper classand the development of cities, which provided the substrate as well as the very name for civilization. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing.[9]
With civilzations flourishing, ancient history ("Antiquity") up to about 500 CE saw the rise and fall of empires. Post-classical history ("the Middle Ages", c. 500 – c. 1500 CE) witnessed the rise of Christianity, the Islamic Golden Age (c. 750 CE – c. 1258 CE), and the early Italian Renaissance(from around 1300 CE). The early modern period, from about 1500 to 1800, included the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Discovery. The mid-15th-century invention of modern printing, employing movable type,[10] revolutionized communication and facilitated ever wider dissemination of information, helping end the Middle Ages and usher in the Scientific Revolution.[11]
By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology, especially in Europe, had reached a critical mass that brought about theIndustrial Revolution.[12] Outside the Eastern Hemisphere, including ancient China and ancient India, historical timelines unfolded differently. However, by the 18th century, due to extensive world trade and colonization, the histories of most civilizations had become substantially intertwined. In the last quarter-millennium, the rates of growth of population, knowledge, technology, communications, commerce, weapons destructiveness, and environmental degradation have greatly accelerated, creating opportunities and perils that now confront the planet's human communities.[13]

Periodization[edit]

Main article: Periodization
The history of the Old World (particularly Europe and the Mediterranean) is commonly divided into ancient history (or Antiquity), up to about 500 CE.[14] The Classical Age runs from about 500 BCE to about 500 CE.[15] Post-classical history (or the Middle Ages as it is generally known in European history) is considered to run from about 500 to 1500 CE.[16] The early modern period extends from around 1500 to 1800,[17] sometimes it is referred to as the "European Age".[18] The modern period begins around 1800 and includes the current day.[19]

Prehistory[edit]

Main articles: Prehistory and Human evolution

Early humans[edit]

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 4.6 to 6.2 million years ago.[20] Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 130,000 years ago,[21] and reached behavioural modernity about 50,000 years ago.[22]
Cave painting, Lascaux, France, c. 15,000 BCE
"Venus of Willensdorf",Austria, c. 26,500 BCE
Modern humans spread rapidly from Africa into the frost-free zones of Europe andAsia around 60,000 years ago.[23] The rapid expansion of humankind to North Americaand Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent ice age, when temperate regions of today were extremely inhospitable. Yet, humans had colonized nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe by the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago.[24] Otherhominids such as Homo erectus had been using simple wood and stone tools formillennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more refined and complex. Perhaps as early as 1.8 million years ago, but certainly by 500,000 years ago, humansbegan using fire for heat and cooking.[25] They also developed language in thePaleolithic period[26] 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 andsculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, showing a spirituality generally interpreted as animism, or even shamanism.[27] During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, and were generally nomadic.[28] Archaeological and genetic data suggest that the source populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers survived in sparsely wooded areas and dispersed through areas of high primary productivity while avoiding dense forest cover.[29]

Rise of civilization[edit]

The Neolithic Revolution, beginning around 10,000 BCE, saw the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle. Farming developed around 10,000 BCE in the Middle East, around 7000 BCE in what is now China, about 6000 BCE in the Indus Valley and Europe, and about 4000 BCE in the Americas.[30] Cultivation of cereal crops and the domestication of animals occurred around 8500 BCE in the Middle East, where wheat and barley were the first crops and sheep and goats were domesticated.[31] In the Indus Valley, crops were cultivated by 6000 BCE, along with domesticated cattle. The Yellow River valley in China cultivated millet and other cereal crops by about 7000 BCE, but the Yangtze River valley domesticated rice earlier, by at least 8000 BCE. In the Americas, sunflowers were cultivated by about 4000 BCE, and cornand beans were domesticated in Central America by 3500 BCE. Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes Mountains of South America, where thellama was also domesticated.[30] Metal-working, starting with copper around 6000 BCE, was first used for tools and ornaments. Gold soon followed, with its main use being for ornaments. The need for metal ores stimulated trade, as many of the areas of early human settlement were lacking in ores. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, is first known from about 2500 BCE, but did not become widely used until much later.[32]
Though early "cities" appeared at Jericho and Catal Huyuk around 6000 BCE,[33] the first civilizations did not emerge until around 3000 BCE in Egypt[34] and Mesopotamia.[35] These cultures gave birth to the invention of the wheel,[36] mathematics,[37] bronze-working, sailing boats, the pottery wheel, woven cloth, construction of monumental buildings,[38] and writing.[39] Writing developed independently and at different times in five areas of the world:[40] Egypt (c. 3200 BCE),[41] India (c. 3200 BCE),[42] Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BCE),[43] China (c. 1600 BCE),[44] and Mesoamerica (c. 600 BCE).[41]
Farming permitted far denser populations, which in time organized into states. Agriculture also created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production.[45] The development of agriculture permitted the creation of the first cities. These were centres of trademanufacturing andpolitical power.[46] 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.[a] Early civilizations arose first in Lower Mesopotamia (3000 BCE),[48][49] followed by Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3000 BCE),[5] the Harappan civilization in the Indus River Valley (in present-day India and Pakistan; 2500 BCE),[50][51] and Chinese civilization along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers (2200 BCE).[7][8]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 facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.
As complex civilizations arose, so did complex religions, and the first of their kind apparently originated during this period.[52] Entities such as the Sun, Moon, Earth, sky, and sea were often deified.[citation needed] Shrines developed, which evolved into temple establishments, complete with a complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses and other functionaries. Typical of the Neolithic was a tendency to worship anthropomorphic deities. Among the earliest surviving written religious scriptures are the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the oldest of which date to between 2400 and 2300 BCE.

Ancient history[edit]

Main article: Ancient history
Ancient history
Preceded by Prehistory
Ancient Near East
Classical antiquity
East Asia
South Asia
Pre-Columbian Americas
See also
Followed by the Postclassical Era

Cradles of civilization[edit]

The Bronze Age is part of the three-age system (Stone Age,Bronze AgeIron Age) that for some parts of the world describes effectively the early history of civilization. During this era the most fertile areas of the world saw city-states and the first civilizationsdevelop. These were concentrated in fertile river valleys: theTigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Nile inEgypt,[citation needed] the Indus in the Indian subcontinent,[50] and the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers in China.
Sumer, located in Mesopotamia, is the first known complex civilization, developing the first city-states in the 4th millennium BCE.[49] It was in these cities that the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform script, appeared around 3000 BCE.[41][53] Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. These pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract.[53] Cuneiform texts were written on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a bluntreed used as a stylus.[41] Writing made the administration of a large state far easier.
Transport was facilitated by waterways—by rivers and seas. The Mediterranean Sea, at the juncture of three continents, fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions. This era also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots, that allowed armies to move faster.
These developments led to the rise of territorial states andempires. In Mesopotamia there prevailed a pattern of independent warring city-states and of a loose hegemony shifting from one city to another.[citation needed] In Egypt, by contrast, first there was a dual division into Upper and Lower Egypt which was shortly followed by unification of all the valley around 3100 BCE, followed by permanent pacification.[54] In Crete the Minoan civilization had entered the Bronze Age by 2700 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.[55] Over the next millennia, other river valleys would see monarchical empires rise to power.[citation needed] In the 25th – 21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and Sumer arose in Mesopotamia.[56]
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.[citation needed] By 1400 BCE, Mycenaean Greecebegan to develop.[57] 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.[58] From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadaswere established across the subcontinent.[59]
As complex civilizations arose in the Eastern Hemisphere, the indigenous societies in the Americas remained relatively simple and 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 included civilizations such as the OlmecMayaZapotecMoche, and Nazca. They developed agriculture, growing maizechili pepperscocoatomatoes, and potatoes, crops unique to the Americas, and creating distinct cultures and religions. These ancient indigenous societies would be greatly affected, for good and ill, by European contact during the early modern period.

Axial Age[edit]

Beginning in the 8th century BCE, the "Axial Age" saw the development of a set of transformative philosophical and religious ideas, mostly independently, in many different places.[citation needed] Chinese Confucianism, Indian Buddhism and Jainism, and Jewish monotheism are all claimed by some scholars to have developed in the 6th century BCE. (Karl Jaspers' Axial-Age theory also includes PersianZoroastrianism, but other scholars dispute his timeline for Zoroastrianism.) In the 5th century BCE, Socrates and Plato made substantial advances in the development of ancient Greek philosophy.
In the East, three schools of thought would dominate Chinese thinking until the modern day. These were TaoismLegalism, and Confucianism. The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly dominant, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread to the Korean Peninsula and toward Japan.
In the West, the Greek philosophical tradition, represented by SocratesPlatoAristotle, and other philosophers,[60]along with accumulated science, technology, and culture, diffused throughout Europe, Egypt, the Middle East, and Northwest India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great).[61]

Regional empires[edit]

Main articles: Civilization and Empire
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. The great empires depended on military annexation of territory and on the formation of defended settlements to become agricultural centres. The relative peace that the empires brought encouraged international trade, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean, the maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road. In southern Europe, the Greeks (and later theRomans), in an era known as "classical antiquity," established cultures whose practices, laws, and customs are considered the foundation of contemporary Western culture.
PersepolisAchaemenid Empire, 5th century BCE
Pillar erected by India's Maurya Dynasty Emperor Ashoka
Terracotta armyChina, c. 210 BCE
There were a number of regional empires during this period. The kingdom of the Medes helped to destroy the Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic Scythians and the BabyloniansNineveh, the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE.[62]The Median Empire gave way to successive Iranian empires, including the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) and theSasanian Empire (224–651 CE).
Several empires began in modern-day Greece. First was theDelian League (from 477 BCE)[63] and the succeeding Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), centred in present-day Greece. Later,Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), of Macedon, founded an empire of conquest, extending from present-day Greece to present-day India.[64][65] The empire divided shortly after his death, but the influence of his Hellenistic successors made for an extended Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BCE)[66] throughout the region.
In Asia, the Maurya Empire (322 – 185 BCE) existed in present-dayIndia;[67] in the 3rd century BCE, most of South Asia was united to the Maurya Empire by Chandragupta Maurya and flourished underAshoka the Great. From the 3rd century CE, the Gupta dynastyoversaw the period referred to as ancient India's Golden Age. From the 4th to 6th centuries, northern India was ruled by the Gupta Empire. In southern India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras,[citation needed] Cholas,[68] and Pandyas. The ensuing stability contributed to heralding in the golden age of Hindu culture in the 4th and 5th centuries.
In Europe, the Roman Empire, centred in present-day Italy, began in the 7th century BCE.[69] Beginning in the 3rd century BCE, the Roman Republic began expanding its territory through conquest and alliances.[70] By the time ofAugustus (63 BCE – 14 CE), who became the first Roman Emperor, Rome had already established dominion over most of the Mediterranean. The empire would continue to grow, controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia, reaching its greatest extent under the emperor Trajan (d. 117 CE). In the 3rd century CE, the empire would split into western and eastern regions, with (sometimes) separate emperors. The Western empire would fall, in 476 CE, to German influence under Odoacer. The eastern empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, would continue for another thousand years, until overthrown by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 CE.
In China, the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), the first imperial dynasty of China, was followed by the Han Empire (206 BCE – 220 CE). The Han Dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end 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 significantly in the areas of government, education, mathematics, astronomy, technology, and many others.[71]
In Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum, centred in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbours in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade. It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic steles such as the Obelisk of Axumto mark their emperors' graves.
Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE.[72] In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being theZapotec Empire (700 BCE – 1521 CE),[73] and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican Classic period (c. 250 – 900 CE),[74] but continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century CE. Maya civilization arose as theOlmec mother culture gradually declined. The great Mayan city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas. The later empire of the Aztecs was built on neighbouring cultures and was influenced by conquered peoples such as theToltecs.
Some areas experienced slow but steady technological advances, with important developments such as the stirrup and moldboard plough arriving every few centuries. There were, however, in some regions, periods of rapid technological progress. Most important, perhaps, was the Mediterranean area during theHellenistic period, when hundreds of technologies were invented.[75] Such periods were followed by periods of technological decay, as during the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medievalperiod.

Declines, falls and resurgence[edit]

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 centralized control and its costs. Barbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution. China's Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century. The great empires of Eurasia were all located on temperate and subtropical coastal plains. From the Central Asian steppes, horse-based nomads (mainly Mongols and 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 outward from the Middle East.[76] The Western Roman Empire fell under the domination of Germanic tribes in the 5th century,[77] and these polities gradually developed into a number of warring states, all associated in one way or another with the Catholic Church.[78] The remaining part of the Roman Empire, in the eastern Mediterranean, would henceforth be the Byzantine Empire.[79] Centuries later, a limited unity would be restored to western Europe through the establishment in 962 of a revived "Roman Empire",[80] later called the Holy Roman Empire,[81] comprising a number of states in what is now GermanyAustriaSwitzerlandCzech RepublicBelgiumItaly, and parts ofFrance.[82][83]
In China, dynasties would rise and fall, but, by sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, dynastic unity would be restored. After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty[84] 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.[citation needed] TheSui Dynasty successfully reunified the whole of China[85] in 581,[86] and laid the foundations for a Chinese golden age under the Tang dynasty(618–907).

Post-classical history[edit]

Main article: Post-classical history
The Post-classical Era, though deriving its name from the Eurocentric era of "Classical antiquity", refers to a broader geographic sweep. The era is commonly dated from the 5th-century fall of the Western Roman Empire, which fragmented into many separate kingdoms, some of which would later be confederated under the Holy Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire survived until late in the Post-classical, or Medieval, period. The Post-classical period also encompasses the Early Muslim conquests, the subsequent Islamic Golden Age, and the commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade, followed by the Mongol invasions in the Middle East and Central Asia,[citation needed] and the founding around 1280 of the Ottoman Empire.[87] South Asia saw a series of middle kingdoms of India, followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India.
In western Africa, the Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire developed. On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where goldspices, and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join the Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this, along with Muslim culture, resulted in the Swahili culture. The Chinese Empire experienced the successive SuiTangSongYuan, early 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. During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the IncaMaya, and Aztec, reached their height; all would be seriously compromised by contact with European colonists at the beginning of the Modern period.

Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa[edit]

Prior to the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sasanian Empire, which constantly fought each other for control of disputed regions such as Armenia. This was also a cultural battle, with the Byzantine Hellenistic and Christian culture competing against the Persian Iranian traditions and Zoroastrian religion. The formation of the Islamic religion created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires. Islam greatly affected the politicaleconomic, and military history of the Old World, especially the Middle East.
Great Mosque of KairouanTunisia, founded 670 CE
From their centre on the Arabian Peninsula, Muslims began their expansion during the early Postclassical Era. By 750 CE, they came to conquer most of the Near East, North Africa, and parts of Europe, ushering in an era of learning, science, and invention known as the Islamic Golden Age. The knowledge and skills of the ancient Near East, Greece, and Persia were preserved in the Postclassical Era by Muslims, who also 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 centre of trade in Arabia, and the Islamic prophet Muhammad himself was a merchant. With the new Islamic tradition of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the city became even more a centre 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 Europeans, Indians, and Chinese, who based their societies on an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to ChinaIndiasoutheast Asia, and the kingdoms of western Africa, and returned with new discoveries and inventions.
Motivated by religion and dreams of conquest, European kings launched a number of Crusades to try to roll back Muslim power and retake the Holy Land. The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire especially with the 1204 sack of Constantinople, which began to lose increasing amounts of territory to the Ottoman Turks. Arab domination of the region ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuq Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongol Empire's armies, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks[citation needed] and the founding of the Ottoman Empire around 1280.[87]
Starting with the Sui Dynasty (581–618), the Chinese began expanding into eastern Central Asia, and had to deal with Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in Central Asia.[88][89] Originally the relationship was largely cooperative, but in 630 the Tang dynastybegan an offensive against the Turks,[90] capturing areas of the Mongolian Ordos Desert. The Tang Empire competed with the Tibetan Empire for control of areas in Inner and Central Asia.[91] In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east.[citation needed] The desert nomads of Arabia could militarily match the nomads of the steppe, and the early Arab Empire gained control over parts of Central Asia.
The Hephthalites were the most powerful of the nomad groups in the 6th and 7th centuries, and controlled much of the region. In the 9th through 13th centuries the region was divided between several powerful states including the Samanid dynasty,[citation needed] the Seljuq dynasty,[92] and theKhwarezmid Empire. The most spectacular power to rise out of Central Asia developed when Genghis Khan united the tribes of Mongolia. TheMongol Empire spread to comprise all of Central Asia and China as well as large parts of Russia, and the Middle East.[citation needed] After Genghis Khan died in 1227,[93] most of Central Asia continued to be dominated by the successor Chagatai Khanate. In 1369, Timur, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region. Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death, however. The region then became divided among a series of smaller Khanates, including the Khanate of Khiva, the Khanate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Kokand, and the Khanate of Kashgar.

Europe[edit]

Main articles: History of Europe and Middle Ages
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 Africaand the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, became part of the Caliphate 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 the Carolingian dynasty, established an empire covering much of western Europe;[citation needed] it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders – the Vikings,[94] Magyars, and Saracens.
During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. Manorialism – the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labour 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 the Carolingian Empire. The Crusades, 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 of Gothic cathedrals was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age.
The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities. Famine, plague and war devastated the population of western Europe.[citation needed] The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350.[95][96] It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting inAsia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe during the late 1340s,[97] and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a third and a half of the population perished.
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 military and dynastic events during this tumultuous period.[citation needed] The Middle Ages lasted until the beginning of the Early modern period in the 16th century,[17] marked by the rise of nation states,[98] the division of Western Christianity in the Reformation,[99] the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance,[100] and the beginnings of European overseas expansion which allowed for the Columbian Exchange.

Sub-Saharan Africa[edit]

Main article: History of Africa
Medieval Sub-Saharan Africa was home to many different civilizations. The Kingdom of Aksum 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 eventually gave way to the Zagwe dynasty who are famed for their rock cut architecture at Lalibela. The Zagwe would then fall to theSolomonic dynasty who claimed descent from the Aksumite emperors[citation needed] and would rule the country well into the 20th century. In the West African Sahel region, many Islamic empires rose, such as the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, theSonghai Empire, and the Kanem Empire. They controlled the trans-Saharan trade in gold, ivory, salt and slaves.
South of the Sahel civilizations rose in the coastal forests where horses and camels could not survive.[citation needed] These include the Yoruba city of Ife, noted for its art,[101] and the Oyo Empire, the Benin Empire of the Edo people centred in Benin City, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri which produced advanced bronze art at Igbo-Ukwu, and the Akan who are noted for their intricate architecture.[citation needed]
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 ZimbabweKhami, capital of Kingdom of Butua, and Danangombe (Dhlo-Dhlo), capital of the Rozwi Empire. The Swahili peoplethemselves were the inhabitants 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 MombasaZanzibar and Kilwa, which were known to Chinese sailors under Zheng Heand Islamic geographers.

South Asia[edit]

Main article: History of India
In northern India, after the fall (550 CE) of the Gupta Empire, the region divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingly states.[citation needed] Early Muslim incursions began in the west in 712 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphate annexed much of present-dayPakistan. Arab military advance was largely halted at that point, but Islam still spread in India, largely due to the influence of Arab merchants along the western coast. Some of the important states that emerged in India at this time included the Bahmani Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire. Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of the Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas, the Hoysalas, the Cholas, the Islamic Mughals, the Marathas and the MysoresScienceengineeringartliteratureastronomy, and philosophy flourished under the patronage of these kings.[citation needed]

East Asia[edit]

Main article: History of East Asia
After a period of relative disunity, the Sui dynasty reunified China in 581,[citation needed] and under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907) China entered a Golden Age.[102] The Tang dynasty eventually splintered, however, and after half a century of turmoil the Song Dynasty reunified China,[citation needed] when it was, according to William McNeill, the "richest, most skilled, and most populous country on earth".[103] Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent. By 1142, North China had been lost to the Jurchens in the Jin–Song Wars, and theMongol Empire[104] conquered all of China in 1279, along with almost half of Eurasia's landmass. After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynastyrule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty (1368).
In Japan, the imperial lineage had been established by this time, and during the Asuka period(538 to 710) the Yamato Province developed into a clearly centralized state.[105] Buddhismwas introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism. The Nara period of the 8th century[106] marked the emergence of a strong Japanese state and is often portrayed as a golden age.[citation needed] During this period, the imperial government undertook great public works, including government offices, temples, roads, and irrigation systems.[citation needed] The Heian period (794 to 1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans, and the beginning of Japanese feudalism. The feudal period of Japanese history, dominated by powerful regional families (daimyō) and the military rule of warlords (shogun), stretched from 1185 to 1868. The emperor remained, but mostly as a figurehead, and the power of merchants was weak.
Postclassical Korea saw the end of the Three Kingdoms era, the three kingdoms being GoguryeoBaekje and Silla. Silla conquered Baekje in 660, and Goguryeo in 668,[107] marking the beginning of the North–South States Period (남북국시대), with Unified Silla in the south and Balhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north.[108] In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to the Later Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo (then calledTaebong and eventually named Goryeo) emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936.[109] The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by the Joseon Dynasty, which ruled for approximately 500 years.

Southeast Asia[edit]

Angkor Wat templeCambodia, early 12th century
The beginning of the Middle Ages in Southeast Asia saw the fall (550 CE) of the Kingdom of Funan to theChenla Empire, which was then replaced by the Khmer Empire (802 CE). The Khmer's capital city Angkorwas the largest city in the world prior to the industrial age and contained over a thousand temples, the most famous being Angkor Wat. The Sukhothai (1238 CE) and Ayutthaya (1351 CE) kingdoms were major powers of the Thai people, who were influenced by the Khmer. Starting in the 9th century, the Pagan Kingdom rose to prominence in modern Myanmar. Other notable kingdoms of the period include theSrivijayan Empire and the Lavo Kingdom (both coming into prominence in the 7th century), the Champaand the Hariphunchai (both about 750), the Dai Viet (968), Lan Na (13th century), Majapahit (1293), Lan Xang (1354), and the Kingdom of Ava (1364). It was also during this period that Islam spread to present-day Indonesia (beginning in the 13th century), and the Malay states began to emerge.

Oceania[edit]

MoaiRapa Nui (Easter Island)
Main article: History of Oceania
The Tuʻi Tonga Empire was founded in the 10th century CE and expanded between 1200 and 1500. Tongan culture, language, and hegemony spread widely throughout Eastern Melanesia, Micronesia and Central Polynesia during this period,[110] influencing East 'Uvea, Rotuma, Futuna, Samoa and Niue, as well as specific islands / parts of Micronesia (Kiribati, Pohnpei, miscellaneous outliers), Vanuatu, and New Caledonia (specifically, the Loyalty Islands, with the main island being predominantly populated by the Melanesian Kanak people and their cultures).[111] At around the same time, a powerful thalassocracyappeared in Eastern Polynesia centred around the Society Islands, specifically on the sacredTaputapuatea marae, which drew in Eastern Polynesian colonists from places as far away as Hawai'i, New Zealand (Aotearoa), and the Tuamotu Islands for political, spiritual and economic reasons, until the unexplained collapse of regular long-distance voyaging in the Eastern Pacific a few centuries before Europeans began exploring the area. Indigenous written records from this period are virtually non-existent, as it seems that all Pacific Islanders, with the possible exception of the enigmatic Rapa Nui and their currently undecipherable Rongorongo script, had no writing systems of any kind until after their introduction by European colonists; however, some indigenous prehistories can be estimated and academically reconstructed through careful, judicious analysis of native oral traditions, colonial ethnography, archaeology, physical anthropology and linguistics research.

The Americas[edit]

In North America, this period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern United States c. 800 CE, marked by the extensive 12th-century urban complex at Cahokia. The Ancestral Puebloans and their predecessors (9th – 13th centuries) built extensive permanent settlements, including stone structures that would remain the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.[112] In Mesoamerica, theTeotihuacan civilization fell and the Classic Maya collapse occurred. The Aztec came to dominate much ofMesoamerica in the 14th and 15th centuries. In South America, the 14th and 15th centuries saw the rise of the Inca. The Inca Empire of Tawantinsuyu, with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire Andes Mountain Range, making it the most extensive Pre-Columbian civilization. The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and unrivaled masonry.

Modern history[edit]

Main article: Modern history
Modern history (the "modern period," the "modern era," "modern times") is history of the period following the Middle Ages. "Contemporary history" is history that only covers events from around 1900 to the present day.

Early modern period[edit]

Main article: Early modern period
"Early modern period"[b] is a term used by historians to refer to the period between the Middle Ages (Post-classical history) and the Industrial Revolution – roughly 1500 to 1800.[17] The Early Modern period is characterized by the rise of science, and by increasingly rapid technological progresssecularized civic politics, and the nation stateCapitalist economies began their rise, initially in northern Italian republics 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 Protestant Reformation, the disastrous Thirty Years' War, the Age of Discovery, European colonial expansion, the peak of Europeanwitch-hunting, the Scientific revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment.[c]

Renaissance[edit]

Main article: Renaissance
Europe's Renaissance, beginning in the 14th century and extending into the 16th, consisted of the rediscovery of the classical world's scientific contributions, and of the economic and social rise of Europe. The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to Humanism[113] and the Scientific Revolution.[114] Although it saw social and political upheaval and revolutions in manyintellectual pursuits, the Renaissance is perhaps known best for its artistic developments[citation needed] and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man."

European expansion[edit]

1570 world map, with Europeans' discoveries
During this period, European powers came to dominate most of the world. Although the most developed regions of European classical civilization were more urbanized than any other region of the world, European civilization had undergone a lengthy period of gradual decline and collapse. During the Early Modern Period, Europe was able to regain its dominance; historians still debate the causes.
Europe's success in this period stands in contrast to other regions. For example, one of the most advanced civilizations of the Middle Ages was China. It had developed an advanced monetary economy by 1,000 CE. China had a free peasantry who were no longer subsistence farmers, and could sell their produce and actively participate in the market. According to Adam Smith, writing in the 18th century, China had long been one of the richest, most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, most urbanized, and most prosperous countries in the world. It enjoyed a technological advantage and had a monopoly in cast iron production, piston bellows, suspension bridge construction, printing, and thecompass. However, it seemed to have long since stopped progressing. Marco Polo, who visited China in the 13th century, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness almost in the same terms as travelers would in the 18th century.
Gutenberg Bible, produced usingmovable type c. 1450
One theory of Europe's rise holds that Europe's geography played an important role in its success. TheMiddle EastIndia and China are all ringed by mountains and oceans but, once past these outer barriers, are nearly flat. By contrast, the PyreneesAlpsApenninesCarpathians 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, as 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 Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. India and China were subject to periodic invasions, and Russia spent a couple of centuries under the Mongol-Tatar yoke.Central and 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.[citation needed] In 1600 the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the Middle East,[115] the Ming dynasty ruled China,[116][117] 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 their environments. Productivity remained low, and climatic changes easily instigated boom-and-bust cycles that brought about civilizations' rise and fall. By about 1500, however, there was a qualitative change in world history. Technological advance and the wealth generated by trade gradually brought about a widening of possibilities.[118]
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. Europe's maritime expansion unsurprisingly — given the continent's geography — was largely the work of its Atlantic states: PortugalSpain,EnglandFrance, and the Netherlands. Initially the Portuguese and Spanish Empires were the predominant conquerors and sources of influence, and their union resulted in the Iberian Union, the first global empire on which the "sun never set". Soon the more northern EnglishFrench andDutch 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.

Regional developments[edit]

Persia came under the rule of the Safavid Empire in 1501, succeeded by the Afsharid Empire in 1736, and the Qajar Empire in 1796. Areas to the north and east were held by Uzbeks and Pashtuns. The Ottoman Empire, after taking Constantinople in 1453, quickly gained control of the Middle East, the Balkans, and most of North Africa.
In Africa, this period saw a decline in many civilizations and an advancement in others. The Swahili Coastdeclined after coming under Portuguese (and later Omani) control. In west Africa, the Songhai Empire fell to the Moroccans in 1591 when they invaded with guns. The South African Kingdom of Zimbabwe gave way to smaller kingdoms such as MutapaButua, and RozwiEthiopia suffered from the 1531 invasion from neighbouring Muslim Adal Sultanate, and in 1769 entered the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) during which the Emperor became a figurehead and the country was ruled by warlords, though the royal line later would recover under Emperor Tewodros II. The Ajuran Empire, in the Horn of Africa, began to decline in the 17th century, succeeded by the Geledi Sultanate. Other civilizations in Africa advanced during this period. The Oyo Empire experienced its golden age, as did the Benin Empire. TheAshanti Empire rose to power in what is modern day Ghana in 1670. The Kingdom of Kongo also thrived during this period. European exploration of Africa reached its zenith at this time.
In the Far East, the Chinese Ming Dynasty gave way (1644) to the Qing, the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which would rule until 1912. Japan experienced its Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1603), followed by theEdo period (1603–1868). The Korean Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, successfully repelling 16th- and 17th-century invasions from Japan and China. Japan and China were significantly affected during this period by expanded maritime trade with Europe, particularly the Portuguese in Japan. During the Edo period, Japan would pursue isolationist policies, to eliminate foreign influences.
On the Indian subcontinent, the Delhi Sultanate and the Deccan sultanates would give way, beginning in the 16th century, to theMughal Empire.[citation needed] Starting in the northwest, the Mughal Empire would by the late 17th century come to rule the entire subcontinent,[119] except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which would remain independent. Against the Muslim Mughal Empire, the Hindu Maratha Empire was founded on the west coast in 1674, gradually gaining territory – a majority of present-day India—from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the Mughal–Maratha Wars (1681–1701). The Maratha Empire would in 1818 fall under the control of the British East India Company, with all former Maratha and Mughal authority devolving in 1858 to the British Raj.
In 1511 the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and IndonesianSumatra. The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641. The Johor Sultanate, centred on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region. European colonization would affect the whole of Southeast Asia – the British in Myanmar and Malaysia, the French in Indochina, the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies, and the Spanish in the Philippines. Only Thailand would successfully resist colonization.
The Pacific islands of Oceania would also be affected by European contact, starting with the circumnavigational voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, who landed on the Marianas and other islands in 1521. Also notable were the voyages (1642–44) of Abel Tasman to present-day AustraliaNew Zealand and nearby islands, and the voyages (1768–1779) of Captain James Cook, who made the first recorded European contact with Hawaii. Britain would found its first colony on Australia in 1788.
In the Americas, the western European powers vigorously colonized the newly discovered continents, largely displacing the indigenous populations, and destroying the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and the Inca. Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves. Portugal claimed Brazil. Spain claimed the rest of South AmericaMesoamerica, and southern North America. Britain colonized the east coast of North America, and France colonized the central region of North America. Russia made incursions onto the northwest coast of North America, with a first colony in present-day Alaska in 1784, and the outpost of Fort Ross in present-day California in 1812.[citation needed] In 1762, in the midst of the Seven Years' War, France secretly ceded most of its North American claims to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Thirteen of the British colonies declared independence as the United States of America in 1776, ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary WarNapoleon Bonapartewon France's claims back from Spain in the Napoleonic Wars in 1800, but sold them to the United States in 1803 as the Louisiana Purchase.
In RussiaIvan the Terrible was crowned (1547) the first Tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic Khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power. The countries of western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advancement and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war. Often the wars had a religious dimension, either Catholic versus Protestant, or (primarily in eastern Europe) Christian versus Muslim. Wars of particular note include the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars. Napoleon came to power in France in 1799, an event foreshadowing the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.

Late Modern period[edit]

1750–1914[edit]

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 had little immediate effect on industrial technology; only in the second half of the 18th century did scientific advances begin to be applied substantially to practical invention. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and used new modes of production — the factorymass production, and mechanization — to manufacture a wide array of goods faster and using less labour than previously required. The Age of Enlightenment also led to the beginnings of modern democracy in the late-18th century American andFrench RevolutionsDemocracy and republicanism would grow to have a profound effect on world events and on quality of life.
Empires, 1900
After Europeans had achieved influence and control over the Americas, imperial activities turned to the lands of Asia and Oceania. In the 19th century the European states had social and technological advantage over Eastern lands.[citation needed] Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinentEgypt and the Malay Peninsula; theFrench took Indochina; while the Dutch cemented their control over the Dutch East Indies. The British also colonized AustraliaNew Zealand and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies. Russia colonized 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 Second Industrial Revolution, the world economy became reliant on coal as a fuel, as new methods of transport, such as railways andsteamships, 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,[120] and the wealth generated by theAtlantic trade (including the African slave trade). By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for the Spanish empire's wealth.[citation needed] The profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of theIndustrial Revolution.[121] 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,[122] 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.[123]

1914–1945[edit]

Main article: 20th century
Further information: Interwar periodRoaring Twenties, and Great Depression
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 andJapan. As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately seemed to yield 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. TheRussian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state, while the 1920s and 1930s saw militaristicfascist dictatorships gain control in ItalyGermanySpain and elsewhere.
Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II. The militaristic dictatorships of Europe and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course of imperialist expansionism. Their defeat opened the way for the advance of communism into Central EuropeYugoslaviaBulgaria,RomaniaAlbaniaChinaNorth Vietnam, and North Korea.

1945–2000[edit]

Main article: 20th century
Civilians (here, My LaiViet Nam, 1968) suffered greatly in 20th-century wars.
When World War II ended in 1945, the United Nations was founded in the hope of preventing future wars,[124] as the League of Nations had been formed following World War I. True to one of history's prominent patterns, the war's defeated aggressors adopted a pacific stance (though this had taken Germany two major defeats to attain), while the victors felt confirmed in the righteousness, exceptionalism, and invincibility of their respective causes.
The war had left two countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, with principal power to influence international affairs.[125] Each was suspicious of the other and feared a global spread of the other's, respectively capitalist and communist, political-economic model. This led to the Cold War, a forty-five-year stand-off and arms race between the United States and its allies, on one hand, and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other. With the development of nuclear weapons during World War II, and with their subsequent proliferation, all of humanity were put at risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers, as demonstrated by many incidents, most prominently the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Such war being viewed as impracticalproxy wars were instead waged, at the expense of non-nuclear-armed Third Worldcountries.
The Cold War ended in 1991, when the Soviet Union disintegrated, in part due to inability to compete economically with the United States and western Europe. However, the United States likewise began to show signs of slippage in her geopolitical influence;[126] even as her private sector, now less inhibited by the claims of the public sector, increasingly sought private advantage to the prejudice of the public weal.
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.[127] But the newly independent countries faced challenges in the form of neocolonialism, sociopolitical disarray, poverty, illiteracy, and endemic tropical diseases.[128]
Most Western European and Central European countries gradually formed a political and economic community, the European Union, which expanded eastward to include former Soviet-satellite countries.[129][130][131] The European Union's effectiveness was handicapped by the immaturity of its common economic and political institutions, somewhat comparable to the inadequacy of United States institutions under theArticles of Confederation prior to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution that came into force in 1789. Asian and African countries followed suit and began taking tentative steps toward forming their own respective continental associations.
Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
Cold War preparations to deter or to fight a third world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such as jet aircraftrocketry, and electronic computers. In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel, artificial satellites with innumerable applications including global positioning systems (GPS), and theinternet—inventions that have revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.
However, not all scientific and technological advances in the second half of the 20th century required an initial military impetus. That period also saw ground-breaking developments such as the discovery of the structure of DNA,[132] the consequent sequencing of the human genome, the worldwide eradication of smallpox, the discovery of plate tectonics, manned and unmanned exploration of space and of previously inaccessible parts of mankind's home planet, and foundational discoveries in physics phenomena ranging from the smallest entities (particle physics) to the greatest entity (physical cosmology).
The century saw several global threats emerge or become more serious or more widely recognized, including nuclear proliferationglobal climate change,[133][134][135] deforestationocean acidification,overpopulation, deadly epidemics of microbial diseases, near-Earth asteroids and comets,[136] supervolcano eruptions, and the dwindling of globalnatural resources (particularly fossil fuels).[137]

Contemporary history[edit]

Main article: Contemporary history

21st century[edit]

History's largest ballistic missile
Main article: 21st century
A man-made hazard to world survival that dominated concerns in the second half of the 20th century, continues into the 21st. Countries ambitious to develop and deploy nuclear weapons are discouraged from doing so by countries that already possess them. At the same time, nuclear-armed countries have shown little urgency about honoring their 20th-century pledge to eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons. Such weapons continue to be equally hazardous to their owners as to their potential targets.[138]
Partial map of Internet, 2005
The 21st century has been marked by growing economic globalization and integration, with consequent increased risk to interlinked economies; and by the expansion of communications with mobile phones and the Internet, which have caused fundamental societal changes in business, politics, and individuals' personal lives.
The early 21st century saw escalating intra- and international strife in the Near East and Afghanistan, stimulated by vast economic disparities, by dissatisfaction with governments dominated by Western interests, by inter-ethnic and inter-sectarian feuds, and by the longest war in the history of the United States, the proximate cause for which was Osama bin Laden's provocative the 2001 destruction of New York City's World Trade Center.
US military involvements in the Near East and Afghanistan drained US economic resources at a time when the US and other Western countries were experiencing mounting socioeconomic dislocations aggravated by the robotization of work and the exportation of industries to cheaper-workforce countries.
Meanwhile, ancient and populous Asian civilizations, India and especially China, have been emerging from centuries of relative scientific, technological, and economic languishment to become potential rivals for Western, chiefly European and United States, economic and political ascendance in the world.[139]
Worldwide demand and competition for resources has risen due to growing populations and industrialization, especially in India, China, and Brazil (see List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita). This increased demand is causing increased levels of environmental degradation and a fast-growing threat of disastrous global warming. That, and a need for reliable energy supplies independent of politically volatile regions, has spurred the development of alternative, renewable sources of energy(notably solar energy and wind energy), proposals for cleaner fossil-fuel technologies[140] and for expanded use of nuclear energy (somewhat dampened by nuclear-plant accidents),[141][142] and, conversely, calls to eschew the indiscriminate large-scale employment of the "fissile-fossil complex" of fissile- (nuclear) and fossil-fuel (coal, petroleum, natural-gas) energy generation.[143]
In recognition that global warming caused by growing concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases was an existential threat to everyone on Earth,[d] in December 2015 195 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement, scheduled to go into effect in 2020. Thus with the exception of two non-signatory countries (and in June 2017, after the fact, with the exception of the United States government) all the world's countries explicitly recognized that this common existential threat required a common cooperative response. The transition to environmentally sustainable energy is being aided by the growing economic competitiveness of solar and wind energy vis-à-vis the fissile-fossil complex of nuclear and fossil-fuel energy.
In the 21st century, history's spotlight has been tracing a full circle back to the Near East, with its current embroilments. About 10,000 BCE the Near East initiated the Neolithic age and Agricultural Revolution, and thus civilization and the gradual process leading to the Industrial Revolutionthat began about 1760 in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution in turn led to exponentially growing reliance on the fissile-fossil complex for requisite power, and to resultant environmental degradation that now imminently threatens human extinction.
Humans, as empirically-minded beings, tend to recognize a threat explicitly only once it has actually materialized. In World War I it was only afterfrontal attacks had met with carnage from machine guns, that alternative military tactics were devised. What distinguishes history's contemporary period is that — with the exponential growth of population, science, technology, economic activity, weapons destructiveness, and environmental degradation — global threats, military and environmental, have been getting ever more comprehensive: willy-nilly, everyone on earth is potentially affected. If solutions to existential global threats can find consensus, however, their enforcement may find precedents in verification procedures that have been used in connection with 20th- and 21st-century threatened-species-protection agreements, searches for weapons of mass destruction, and strategic-arms reductions.

See also[edit]

Human history
and prehistory
 before Homo  (Pliocene epoch)
Prehistory
(three-age system)
Stone AgeLower Paleolithic   Middle Paleolithic Early Homo sapiensUpper Paleolithic  Behavioral modernityNeolithic Cradle of civilizationBronze Age Iron AgeBronze Age collapse
Recorded history
Ancient historyEarliest recordsPost-classical historyModern history
 Future

Notes[edit]

  1. Jump up^ The very word "civilization" comes from the Latin civilis, meaning "civil," related to civis, meaning "citizen," and civitas, meaning "city" or "city-state."[47]
  2. Jump up^ "Early Modern," historically speaking, refers to Western European history from 1501 (after the widely accepted end of the Late Middle Ages; the transition period was the 15th century) to either 1750 or c. 1790–1800, by whichever epoch is favored by a school of scholars defining the period—which, in many cases ofperiodization, differs as well within a discipline such as art, philosophy or history.
  3. Jump up^ The Age of Enlightenment has also been referred to as the Age of Reason. Historians also include the late 17th century, which is typically known as the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism, as part of the Enlightenment; however, contemporary historians have considered the Age of Reason distinct to the ideas developed in the Enlightenment. The use of the term here includes both Ages under a single all-inclusive time-frame.
  4. Jump up^ The "greenhouse effect", substantially responsible for Earth's global warming, was first described in 1824 by the French mathematician Joseph Fourier. The greenhouse effect is a natural mechanism that becomes dangerous if the atmosphere's greenhouse-gas concentrations exceed environmentally safe levels, as they have gradually been doing since the start of the Industrial Revolution. As predicted, this is already increasing the frequency and severity of floods and droughts due to accelerated melting of icecapsglaciers, andsnowpacks; flooding of low-lying coastsstormsagricultural disruption and faminesecologicaldisplacements; ocean acidification with havoc to marine life; release, from thawing Arctic permafrost, ofmethane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide; and intra- and intersocietal conflicts, with increased crime and warfare. The multifarious, irreversible damage from global warming will accelerate as environmental tipping points are reached. Physicist-cosmologist Stephen Hawking on 2 July 2017, belatedly celebrating his 75th birthday, warned that planet Earth is rapidly approaching an irreversible tipping point that will leave the planet with an uninhabitable environment like that of Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees and sulfuric-acid rain.[144] The U.S. military are already forced to factor global-warming effects into their planning for military infrastructurewar, and disaster relief.

Citations[edit]

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  4. Jump up^ Baines & Malek 2000, p. 8.
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  6. Jump up^ Chakrabarti 2004, p. 11.
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  12. Jump up^ Roberts & Westad 2013, pp. 712-714.
  13. Jump up^ Baten 2016, pp. 1-13.
  14. Jump up^ Stearns & Langer 2001, p. xii.
  15. Jump up^ Roberts & Westad 2013, p. 161.
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  63. Jump up^ Martin 2000, pp. 106-107.
  64. Jump up^ Golden 2011, p. 25.
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  73. Jump up^ Zapotec civilization has its beginnings in 700 BCE: see Flannery, Kent V.; Marcus, Joyce (1996). Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. New York: Thames & Hudson. p. 146. ISBN 0-500-05078-3. Zapotec civilization ended in 1521 according to the five archaeological stages presented in Whitecotton, Joseph W. (1977). The Zapotecs: Princes, Preists, and Peasants. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 26, LI.1–3.
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  77. Jump up^ Collins 1999, pp. 80-99.
  78. Jump up^ Collins 1999, pp. 100-115.
  79. Jump up^ Stearns & Langer 2001, pp. 97, 103.
  80. Jump up^ Collins 1999, p. 404.
  81. Jump up^ Loyn 1989, pp. 122-123.
  82. Jump up^ Whaley, Joachim (2012). Germany and the Holy Roman Empire1. pp. 17–20.
  83. Jump up^ Johnson 1996, p. 23.
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  85. Jump up^ Gascoigne 2003, pp. 90-92.
  86. Jump up^ Gernet 1982, pp. 237-238.
  87. Jump up to:a b Shaw 1976, p. 13.
  88. Jump up^ Ebrey, Walthall & Palais 2006, p. 113.
  89. Jump up^ Xue 1992, pp. 149–152, 257–264.
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  93. Jump up^ Stearns & Langer 2001, p. 153.
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  96. Jump up^ "De-coding the Black Death"BBC. October 3, 2001. RetrievedNovember 24, 2016.
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  100. Jump up^ McNeill 1998, pp. 267-268.
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  103. Jump up^ McNeill 1982, p. 50.
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  108. Jump up^ "남북국시대 (North-South States Period)"Encyclopedia. Naver. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  109. Jump up^ The Association of Korean History Teachers (2005). Korea through the ages; Volume One: Ancient. Seongnam-si: The Center for Information on Korean Culture, The Academy of Korean Studies. p. 113.ISBN 978-89-7105-545-8.
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  113. Jump up^ Hart-Davis 2012, pp. 250-253.
  114. Jump up^ Roberts & Westad 2013, pp. 683-685.
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  127. Jump up^ Abernethy 2000, p. 133.
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  129. Jump up^ Dinan, Desmond (2004). Europe recast: a history of European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-98734-6.
  130. Jump up^ Peterson, John; Shackleton, Michael, eds. (2012). The institutions of the European Union (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957498-8.
  131. Jump up^ Rifkin, Jeremy (2004). The European dream: how Europe's vision of the future is quietly eclipsing the American dream. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher. ISBN 978-1-58542-345-3.
  132. Jump up^ Clayton, Julie; Dennis, Carina, eds. (2003). 50 years of DNA. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-1479-8.
  133. Jump up^ Mun, Yuri. "Earth Radiation Budget"marine.rutgers.edu.
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  135. Jump up^ Fong, Joss; Caswell, Estelle (April 22, 2016). "Why climate change is so important, in one chart". Vox.com. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
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  137. Jump up^ Edwards, Andres R. (2005). The sustainability revolution: portrait of a paradigm shift. Gabriola, B.C.: New Society Publishers. p. 52. ISBN 1-55092-325-0.
  138. Jump up^ Eric SchlosserCommand and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of SafetyPenguin Press, 2013,ISBN 1-59420-227-3. The book became the basis for a 2-hour 2017PBS American Experience episode, likewise titled "Command and Control".
  139. Jump up^ Paul KennedyThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York, Random House, 1987, ISBN 0-394-54674-1, pp. 242-45, 432, 514–19, 526–29, 533–35, and passim.
  140. Jump up^ Critiqued in Biello, David (January 2016). "The Carbon Capture Fallacy". Scientific American314 (1): 58–65. PMID 26887197.doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0116-58..
  141. Jump up^ "Global Trends In Sustainable Energy Investment 2008".Sustainable Energy Finance InitiativeUNEP. Archived from the original on 21 December 2008.
  142. Jump up^ "Home Page"National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
  143. Jump up^ Kasparek, Christopher (2003). "A Futurological Note: Prus on H. G. Wells and the Year 2000". The Polish Review. XLVIII (1): 98–99.JSTOR 25779372.
  144. Jump up^ Stephen HawkingBBC World Service, 2 July 2017.

References[edit]

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