# data[].attributes.body
~13.8 billion years ago.

The big bang is a concept that explains how the universe might have formed. The model is still theoretical but it's the most scientific way to explain the start of the universe as of now.

www.space.com

# data[].attributes.body
~5 billion years ago.

The sun, a star in the centre of our solar system, was formed. At that time, though, only dust surrounded the sun.

solarsystem.nasa.gov

# data[].attributes.body
~4.5 billion years ago.

Dust had been pulled together for millions of years due to gravity. This resulted in the formation of our planet. However, when it was formed, it was just an extremely hot ball (with a temperature of more than 2000 °F) made of CO₂, Hydrogen, and vapor.

www.livescience.com

# data[].attributes.body
~4.5 billion years ago.

While the Earth was still developing, a young planet called "Thea" advanced towards Earth and collided with it. The debri from this event led to the birth of a natural satellite circling the Earth, known as the moon.

www.nhm.ac.uk

# data[].attributes.body
~3.9 billion years ago.

A few million years after Earth formed, a bunch of meteors fell on the Earth, and they carried crystals with liquid water in them. The meteors showered Earth for over 20 million years. That resulted in pools of water to collect on Earth.

www.npr.org

# data[].attributes.body
~3.9 billion years ago.

A huge storm encapsulated Earth because the tides were uncontrollable since the moon was so much closer to Earth. Soon enough, though, the moon started moving away and the storm calmed.

# data[].attributes.body
~3.8 billion years ago.

Molten rock from the crust of the Earth started to emerge out of the water ridden planet and when it cooled down, it formed volcanic pieces of land.

# data[].attributes.body
~3.7 billion years ago.

Meteorites that fell to Earth at this point had many more amino acids and those travelled all the way to the bottom of all the water and also into cracks in the seabed.

Some of the seawater that mixed with such chemicals was spewed back into the water from underground cracks and somehow, that mixture created microscopic life underwater. These single cell bacteria were the 1st form of life on Earth.

www.britannica.com

# data[].attributes.body
~3.5 billion years ago.

Stromatolites, colonies of living bacteria, started growing underwater. They learned to use sunlight in order to turn CO₂ and H₂O into glucose. Every time this process took place, a biproduct was released in the water. This biproduct was a gas: oxygen.

The oceans slowly filled with oxygen and all this oxygen caused iron to turn to rust. This rust would fall down in the depth of the water, which created iron rich rock. We now mine this form of iron to build so many objects.

www.bushheritage.org.au

# data[].attributes.body
~1.5 billion years ago.

The crust of the Earth had started breaking into many different parts that we now call tectonic plates. These plates started to move. This is now called "continental drift" and this theory was formed by Alfred Wegener based on 4 main pieces of evidence.

At that time, several of the islands came together to form a supercontinent called Rodinia.

carnegiescience.edu

# data[].attributes.body
~650 million years ago.

Certain circumstances on Earth caused there to be loads of acid rain and as a consequence, a huge ice age eveloped the Earth. When the great ice age did uncover, albeit after about 15 million years of being there, something rather interesting was waiting to be discovered.

www.bbc.com

# data[].attributes.body
~645 million years ago.

While the ice age still exists, volcanos from the core of the Earth started coming out and pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere.

This caused the temperature to go up – in turn, melting the ice into water. Due to a large series of chemical reactions, a lot more O₂ was released into the air.

And underwater, the life that existed earlier had evolved into plants and even animals. This is often called the start of the "Cambrian Explosion" although the dates are not fully accurate.

One of the most prominent species that existed (of animals) are "Wiwaxia." There was so much more life now! This would include worms, trilobites, and even ones with spines ("Pikaia").

1. www.nationalgeographic.com

2. www.prehistoric-wildlife.com

3. www.cam.ac.uk

# data[].attributes.body
~460 million years ago.

The tectonic plates started moving again, forming two supercontinents named Gondwanaland and Laurasia. Life in the oceans thrived but very few plants were to be seen on land. It was all just algae.

It is believed this was because the sun was too powerful and the UV rays were to harmful for life to ever survive above water.

# data[].attributes.body
~375 million years ago.

Over millions of years, the sun's radiation reacted with the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. This constant reaction resulted in the creation of another type of gas, called the ozone.

The ozone started increasing, and eventually formed a layer. This layer kept getting thicker, and prevented more radiation from reaching the Earth's surface.

Since the Earth was shielded from the radiation, life gradually started to increase even on land. Mosses and ferns grew, oxygen increased, more life began. This cycle of life started. All the more, life in the oceans continued to grow and evolve.

This was also when a fish, called Tiktaalik, lived. It was one of the first four-legged land animals alive. It had special fins and other organs that allowed it to move out of water.

More creatures like this started evolving, growing bigger and stronger. Many such creatures evolved to stay on land more than they did on water, amongst the ever-growing plants and nature.

www.theguardian.com

# data[].attributes.body
~360 million years ago.

Close relatives of Tiktaaliks, named Tetrapods, started living solely on land and didn't go into water. The land was now their home.

Different types of plants continued to grow and also change. Before this period of time, plants would reproduce using spores. Now, many plants started reproducing sexually and made seeds insteads.

Animals also start laying eggs on land itself, which causes some to completely leave water behind and transfer to a life on land only.

But with life, also came death. Plants decayed and formed layers on the ground of Earth, creating coal.

earthsky.org

# data[].attributes.body
~250 million years ago.

Suddenly, the Permian extinction took place. The Earth's core pushed magma out of the core somehow, and a lot of the animals on ground died immediately. This only happened in some places on Gondwana though.

The other parts of the world only got the ash that came from these eruptions, and this caused all of the other animals to die as well. This caused acid rain, toxic air, poisonous waters.

All of this resulted in the mass extinction, leaving almost no life alive anymore. Only 5% of the life that existed right before this sudden event was left on Earth.

# data[].attributes.body
Started:
~252 million years ago

Ended:
~ 65 million years ago

The planet took its time to heal but eventually life started coming back to Earth. Dinosaurs were present during this era, and the supercontinent named Pangea also broke apart.

The Mesozoic is divided into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. At the end of the Cretaceous was when dinosaurs went extinct, likely due to an asteroid and its aftermath, and mammals took over the Earth.

# data[].attributes.body
Human lineage broke away from Chimpanzees about 7 million years ago. In total, about 20 early human species, or hominins, existed. Most of them went extinct and some evolved into Homo Sapiens i.e. the humans today. All of these species fall into three groups: Early hominins, Australopithecines, and Homo genus.

————xxx

Early Hominins
7 mya – 4.4 mya

These people were only in Africa. Since they had only just broken away from the Chimpanzee line, they had many ape-like traits.

————xxx

Australopithecines
4.4 mya – 1.4 mya

These people were also only in Africa. They showed more human-like traits compared to early hominins.

————xxx

Homo Genus
2 mya – Current

The well-known Homo genus species are the Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and Homo Neanderthalensis. These humans exhibited more 'human-like' traits such as increased cranial capacity. They developed stone tool technology, made the first artificial fires, and had multiple other advancements too. They were also the first ones to move out of Africa (about 60,000 years ago most commonly estimated) and create homes elsewhere. Homo Sapiens, us, are the only ones alive now.

www.nationalgeographic.org

# data[].attributes.body
The Stone Age is divided into three periods: Palaeolithic period (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone age), and the Neolithic Period (New Stone age).

————xxx

Palaeolithic
~2.5m – 10k ya

The people were hunter-gatherers. They hunted for their meat and gathered fruits and the such. They lived a nomadic life, where they would move from place-to-place as needed. They used stone tools.

————xxx

Mesolithic
~12k – 10k ya

This is a transition between the period before it and the one after.

————xxx

Neolithic
~10k – 5k ya

The Neolithic period was a true revolution. This was when people started agriculture. They started farming crops and domesticating animals. Since they could now stay in one place since they were managing their own food and growing it themselves, they stopped living a nomadic life. They stayed in one place, and this caused the creation of civilisations.

The populations increased, people had more time to do things other than their jobs, and people started becoming better at what they particularly did (so as to say jobs involving skill, like art, gathered more interest). Their tools became better and better, but were still made of stone, bone, or wood.

A point also to note is that the Neolithic began at very different times in different areas. It emerged first in the Fertile Crescent (Israel, Iraq area) and much much later in Africa.

# data[].attributes.body
History is when we start finding written records, prehistory is times from when we do not have any written records. A period in between these two was the Chalcolithic period (around 3500 BCE in the Fertile Crescent to 1500 BCE in Africa), a time when people found copper. People started mining copper now. They made tools from both, stone and copper.

# data[].attributes.body
~3300 BCE to 600 BCE

Now copper is mixed with another metal - TIN to produce an alloy (mix) which is bronze. Bronze is stronger. When you melt metal it can be made into any shape, so tools now drastically improve. With bronze, tools become far more efficient. Immediately, the stronger bronze ploughs make the soil more fertile and agricultural produce increases, leading to surplus (extra or more than what is immediately needed) production. Now humans need not only work to produce food for themselves. There is enough food stored for later and they can invest their time in other activities. This leads to social stratification, with people doing different kinds of jobs and some are looked at as more important than others. Kings become more powerful. Priests gain power.

Some become richer at the cost of others getting poorer. Slavery starts. And women are now relegated to a lower position and so patriarchy (power being in the hands of men) establishes itself. Land now becomes the most important resource. Ownership of land gives power. Kings owned all the land in his kingdom. And they tried to get more land by waging war on other kingdoms. In the Bronze age we find many weapons made which show how warfare increased. We know that tin was available at only a few places and so the fact that bronze was so widespread means that tin was being got from elsewhere. So long distance trade was now happening. The wheel was invented in this period. And so large civilisations developed. All the early civilisations we know of are Bronze civilisations – Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, Ancient Persia, Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley, Ancient China.

Courtesy of https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIrKI8MoQrUk7CKYr_-2-pi2OZc181Ml/view?usp=sharing.

# data[].attributes.body
~3rd century BCE – 14th century CE

The silk routes were a network of routes where trade on land throughout parts of Asia and parts of Europe took place. The silk roads led to assimilation between these different areas. Silk, that was originally only made in China, was very highly valued in Europe and exported to the European kingdoms a lot, hence the name of this period ("Silk" routes). After this, many other items also started being traded leading to the height of the Silk routes in around the 8th century CE.

~2nd century BCE – 15th century CE

The spice trade started after the silk routes, but with a similar reason and effect. The Indian subcontinent was full of spices, and still is. These spices not only were a huge part of their cuisine, but also was believed to have medical benefits and allowed the preservation of foods. This was something that Europe did not have, but due to the knowledge of spices during the silk routes, Europeans started wanting spices as well. And they wanted them a lot. And quick. So instead of taking land routes which took a long time, Europeans (especially the Portuguese) devised a plan which allowed them to travel over sea and reach the peninsula of India. They would travel South and follow the coasts of Africa till they'd reach India.

Both of these periods caused cultural diffusion. It affected the language, the traditions, the cuisine, and many other parts of the cultures of people from different parts of Eurasia.

# data[].attributes.body
Indus

Maurya

Mughal

Chola

# data[].attributes.body
~5th century CE – 15th century CE

The Middle Ages started right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and can be divided into 3 main sections: Early Middle Ages (476 - 1000), High Middle Ages (1000 - 1300), and the Late Middle Ages (1300 - 1500).

Fall Of The Western Roman Empire

Odoacer took over Rome around 476 CE

Eastern Roman Empire was still intact

Western Roman Empire was fragmented

Western Roman Empire had many Germanic kingdoms

Eastern Roman Empire took over some parts of the Italian peninsula

Early Middle Age (476 CE – 1000 CE)

Charlemagne reigned as a Holy Roman emperor (814 CE)

Charlemagne unified much of Western Europe

The idea of kings, castles & knights start about here

Many emperors crowned “Holy Roman Emperor”

Islam spread a lot outside of Arabia in the 7th & 8th centuries CE

High Middle Ages (1000 – 1300)

⅓ = Kingdom France and ⅔ = Holy Roman Empire, 1135 CE

Byzantine Empire loses territory to Seljuk Turks

In around the year 1054, the Great Schism – or East-West Schism – occurs between the Latin Church (Rome) & the Eastern Greek Church (centred at Constantinople)

The West sends crusaders to get back land from the Turks

These trips, called the Crusades, lasted from 1096 to about 1296

The lands that the crusaders took over were called crusader kingdoms

The crusade kingdoms take over Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1204

^But the Byzantine Empire was able to later take it back

Farming technology and better weather led to really good agriculture

Late Middle Ages (1300 – 1500)

Here, Europe becomes a lot like what we have today

Between 1337 and 1453, we had the Hundred Years’ War between France & England

In 1347, we had the Black Death which killed, according to some, 50 million people

^According to this estimate, it washed out almost 60% of the population in Europe

At some point in the 14th century, before the Black Death, there was a famine

In 1453, Constantinople – the capital of the Byzantine Empire – fell

After this age, we had the “Age Of Exploration” and “the Renaissance”

[Timeline taken from previous assignment.]

# data[].attributes.body
~15th & 16th Century

We usually use the term ‘Renaissance’ referring to Europe during approximately the 15th and 16th centuries. It started in Italy, and spread to other parts of Europe later. The Renaissance, compared to the Middle Ages, was a revolutionizing time in which the arts flourished and knowledge came in abundance. There was a lot of change in various fields of study.

1. Religion: Christianity was divided. The Catholic Church was corrupt and priests noticed this. One priest in particular, Martin Luther, did not like the selling of indulgences and the political influence of the Catholic Church. He wrote the "95 theses" in 1517 against the Catholic Church and this caused a great starting of the Protestant Reformation Movement.

2. Humans: People started understanding the importance and the working of the human body more during the Renaissance. First, doctors started developing more science-based medicines and practices. Second, artists like Leonardo Da Vinci started documenting and applying their understanding of the human anatomy into their art.