Iliad and Odyssey composed (c. 900—801 BCE)

Oldest Chinese poems in "Book of Songs" (c. 800—701 BCE)

Aesop (c. 620—560 BCE):Fables

Many of Old Testament books written down in Hebrew (600—501 BCE )

First recorded Olympic games (776 BCE)

Traditional date for founding of Rome (753 BCE)

Mayan civilization in Mexico (from c. 600—501 BCE)

Birth of Buddha (c. 563 BCE)

Birth of Confucius (c. 550 BCE)

Pindar begins writing odes (c. 500 BCE)

Aeschylus, The Oresteia (458 BCE)

Sophocles (496—406 BCE): Antigone (c. 442—41 BCE); Oedipus the King (c. 429 BCE)

Euripides, Medea (431 BCE)

Aristophanes, Lysistrata (411 BCE)

Plato (428—348 BCE):Republic (ca. 406 BCE)

Aristotle (384—22 BCE):Poetics (ca. 350 BCE)

Mahabharata (Indian heroic epic) (ca. 350 B.C.—350 CE)

Euclid, Elements (first work of geometry) (323 BCE)

Ramayana (Indian heroic epic, in Sanskrit) (c. 300 BCE)

Catullus (84-54 BCE)

Horace (65—8 BCE):Art of Poetry (24 BCE)

Virgil,Aeneid(27—19 BCE)

Athens becomes the world’s first democracy (508 BCE).

Greece turns back a massive Persian invasion (480—479 BCE)

Reign of Pericles (461—429 BCE): flowering of Greek culture

Work begins on Acropolis (447 BCE)

Peloponnesian Wars with Sparta (431—404 BCE)

Fall of Athens to Sparta (404 BCE)

Trial and execution of Socrates for corruption of youth (399 BCE)

Plato founds the Academy (387 BCE)

Theatre at Epidauros built (c. 338 BCE)

Aristotle founds Lyceum, Peripatetic school of philosophy; Alexander the Great occupies Greece (335 BCE)

Punic Wars (Rome v. Carthage) (264—201 BCE)

Hannibal invades Italy (218 BCE)

Great Wall of China built (215 BCE)

Venus de Milo(140 BCE)

Julius Caesar conquers Gaul (55 BCE)

Caesar murdered by Brutus, Cassius, and other conspirators (44 BCE)

Rome ceases to be a republic; Octavian (Augustus) assumes monarchical power (30 BCE)

Ovid, Metamorphoses (5 CE)

Petronius (c. 27—66 CE): Satyricon (c. 61 CE)

New Testament Gospels (composed c. 65—85 CE)

Kalidasa, Sakuntala (Sanskrit drama: 220 CE)

Crucifixion of Jesus (30 CE)

London founded (43 CE)

Rule of Marcus Aurelius (161—80 CE)

Rule of Constantine (324—37 CE)

Sack of Rome by Visigoths (410 CE); fall of Western Roman Empire (476)

Bana, Kadambari (Indian romantic novel: 650)

Kojiki (first history of Japan)(compiled 712)

Manyoshu (Japanese anthology of c. 4500 short poems); The Book of Kells (Latin gospels written in Irish) (ca. 800)

Abu Tammâm, Hamâsa (collection of Arabian legends, proverbs, and heroic stories) (845)

Life of Mohammed, founder of Islam (570—632)

First recorded use of decimal and zeroes, in India; Book printing in China (ca. 600)

Birth of Caedmon, earliest English Christian poet (671)

Reign of Charlemagne (768—814)

Song Dynasty in China: flowering of arts and scholarship (960—1279)

Beowulf (recorded c. 1000)

Sei Shonagan, Makurano Soshi (Pillow Book: diary of woman writer’s life in Japanese Court) (1000—15)

Song of Roland (recorded c. 1100)

Tristan et Iseult (recorded c. 1160)

Ring of the Nibelung (recorded c. 1200)

Dante, Divina Commedia (composed c. 1307—21)

Petrarch: sonnets (composed 1327—74)

Boccaccio, Decameron (1348—53)

Li Hsing Tao, The Chalk Circle (1350)

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (1387—1400)

Christine de Pisan, Letter to the God of Love (1399)

Diego de San Pedro, Prison of Love (one of first Spanish Novels of courtly love) (1492)

Brant, Ship of Fools (1494)

Norman conquest (1066)

Period of Crusades (1096—1291)

Notre Dame built (1163—1250)

Magna Carta (1215)

Hundred Years’ War ( England v. France (1337—1453)

Black Death in Europe (1347—49)

Development of Noh drama in Japan (c. 1350—1450)

Gutenberg invents movable type (c. 1450)

Constantinople falls to Ottoman Turks: end of Eastern Roman Empire (1453)

War of Roses (1455—85)

Inquisition established in Spain (1481)

Botticelli, Birth of Venus (1484)

Columbus lands in N. America; Jews expelled from Spain; Leonardo da Vinci draws a "flying machine" (1492)

Everyman (English Morality play) (1510)

Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)

Trissino, Sophonisba (first play in blank verse) (1515)

Ariosto, Orlando Furioso; More, Utopia (1516)

Rabelais, Pantagruel(1532) and Gargantua(1534)

Sackville and Norton, Gorboduc (first English tragedy, 1561)

Montaigne, Essays (1580; 1584; 1588)

Marlowe, Dr. Faustus (1588)

Sidney (1551—86): Arcadia (1590);An Apology for Poetry(1595, post.)

Da Vinci, Mona Lisa (1503)

Michelangelo (1475—1564): David (c. 1504); Sistine Chapel (1508—12)

Luther’s 95 Theses introduce Reformation in Europe (1517)

Cortez conquers Aztecs (1519)

Breughel (c. 1525—69): Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1558)

Elizabeth I reigns in England (1558—1603)

Raleigh’s expedition to Virginia (1584)

Defeat of Spanish Armada by England (1588)

Shakespeare (1564—1616): Sonnets (1593—99); Hamlet (1600—01); Othello (1604)

Donne (1572—1631): Songs and Sonnets (1601)

Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I (1605)

Jonson (1573—1637): Volpone (1606)

Kepler, On the Motion of Mars (1609)

King James Bible (1611)

Webster, Duchess of Malfi (1613)

Lope de Vega, The Sheep Well (1614)

Herbert (1593—1633): The Temple (1633)

Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (c. 1633)

Calderón, Life is a Dream (c. 1636)

Corneille, Le Cid (1636)

Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637)

Herrick (1591—1674): Hesperides (1648)

Globe Theatre built in London (1599)

Bodleian Library, Oxford University, opens (1602)

James I succeeds Elizabeth; first Kabuki performance in Japan (1603)

Galileo constructs astronomical telescope (1608)

Thirty Years’ War (1618—1648)

Pilgrims sail for America (1620)

Parliament closes British theaters; start of English Civil War (1642— ), which ends with execution of Charles I (1649)

Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

Milton (1608—74): Paradise Lost (1667)

Moliére, The Miser (1668)

Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675)

Dryden, All For Love; Racine, Phaedra (1677)

Matsuo Basho (1644—94) writes first haiku verse in characteristic style (1679);The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694)

Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Cromwell’s Protectorate (1653—58)

Restoration of Charles II (1660)

Reign of Louis XIV, the "Sun King" (1661—1715)

Vermeer (1632–1675): Woman with Water Jug (1664–65)

Rembrandt (1606—69): Return of the Prodigal Son (1668—69)

Murillo, Immaculate Conception (1678)

Newton’s laws of gravity (1687)

William and Mary succeed James II (Glorious Revolution: 1688)

Congreve, The Way of the World (1700)

Pope (1688—1744):An Essay on Criticism (1711); The Dunciad (1742)

Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Gay, Beggar’s Opera (1728)

Lillo, London Merchant (first English "bourgeois" tragedy: 1731)

Development of Kabuki theater in Japan (c. 1700)

Peter the Great begins Westernization of Russia (c. 1701)

Baroque music flourishes (Bach and Handel, c. 1724)

Voltaire, Candide (1759)

Rousseau, Social Contract (1762)

Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773)

Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)

Sheridan, School for Scandal (1777)

Johnson (1709—84): Lives of the English Poets (1779)

Blake (1757—1827):Songs of Innocence (1789); Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790); Songs of Experience (1794)

Catherine the Great of Russia begins reign (1762)

Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") movement in Germany (1767—87)

James Watt patents a steam engine (1769)

American Revolution (1775—1781); Declaration of Independence (1776)

Goya, Don Manuel de Zuniga (1784)

Mozart, Don Giovanni (1787)

French Revolution begins (1789)

David, Murder of Marat (1793)

Wordsworth (1770—1850):Lyrical Ballads (1798)

Goethe, Faust, Part I; Kleist, The Prince of Homburg (1810)

Byron (1788—1824): Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812—18)

John Keats (1795—1821): Poems by John Keats (1817)

Shelley (1792—1822): Prometheus Unbound (1820)

Hawthorne (1804—64): "Young Goodman Brown" (1835); The Scarlet Letter (1850)

Emerson, Nature; Gogol, Inspector General; Büchner, Woyzeck (1836)

Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838)

Poe (1809—49): "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1840); "The Black Cat," "The Purloined Letter," The Raven and Other Poems (1845); "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846)

Frederick Douglass, Narrative (1845)

Brontë, Jane Eyre (1846)

Beginnings of English Romanticism (c. 1800)

Napoleon becomes Emperor of France (1804)

Beethoven, Fifth Symphony (1808)

Goya (1746—1828): The Third of May, 1808 (1814)

Napoleon defeated at Waterloo (1815)

Gericault, Raft of the Medusa (1819)

Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique (1830)

American Transcendentalists meet in Boston and Concord (1836)

Queen Victoria accedes to throne (1837)

Upsurge of Romantic movement in France, Germany, and Italy (1844—45)

Samuel Morse invents the telegraph (1844)

U.S. annexes Texas (1845)

Seneca Falls Convention for Women’s Rights (1848)

Tennyson (1809—92):In Memoriam(1850)

Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Whitman (1819—92): Leaves of Grass (1^st ed., 1855)

Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil; Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1857)

Darwin, Origin of the Species (1859)

Dickinson (1830—86): much of poetry written (1860—56)

Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave-Girl (1861)

Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (1864)

Marx, Capital (1867)

R. Browning (1812—89): The Ring and the Book (1868—69)

Tolstoy, War and Peace (c. 1869)

Zola, Thérèse Raquin (introduces naturalism, 1873)

Hopkins (1844—89):The Wreck of the Deutschland(c. 1875)

Ibsen (1828—1906): A Doll’s House (1879); Hedda Gabler(1890)

Chekhov (1860—1904): "The Lady with the Pet Dog" (1887); A Marriage Proposal (1888—89); The Sea Gull(1896); The Cherry Orchard(1904)

Strindberg, Miss Julie (1888)

Gilman (1860—1935): "The Yellow Wallpaper"; Whitman, Leaves of Grass (9^th and final ed.) (1892)

Chopin (1851—1904),"The Story of an Hour" (1894)

Thomas Hardy (1840—1928): Jude the Obscure (1895); Wessex Poems (1898)

Housman (1859—1936):A Shropshire Lad; Jarry, Ubu Roi (1896)

Shaw (1856—1950):Arms and the Man(1898)

Dredd Scott Supreme Court decision denies citizenship to African Americans (1857)

Transatlantic cable allows communication across the ocean (1858)

U.S. Civil War (1861—65)

Emancipation Proclamation (Jan. 1, 1863)

Lincoln assassinated (1865)

Telephone patented; Wagner’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus opened(1876)

Edison invents phonograph (1877) and light bulb (1879)

Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 Paris World’s Fair (1887)

Van Gogh (1853—90): Starry Night (1889)

X-rays discovered; establishment of Fabian Society, socialist group that included G. B. Shaw (1893)

Radium discovered (1898)

Freud, Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

Gregory (1852—1932), Rising of the Moon (1907)

Pound (1885—1972): Personae (1909)

Frost (1874—1963): A Boy’s Will(1914); New Hampshire (1923)

Joyce (1884—1941),"Araby," "The Boarding-House," "The Dead" (1914);Ulysses(1922)

Kafka (1883—1924): The Metamorphosis (1915);The Trial (1924)

Glaspell (1882—1948): Trifles (1917)

Eliot (1888—1965): Prufrock and Other Observations (1917); The Wasteland (1922)

Yeats (1865—1939): The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Mansfield (1888—1923): "Bliss" (1920)

E. E. Cummings (1894—1962): The Enormous Room (1922); Tulips and Chimneys (1923)

Robinson (1869—1935): Collected Poems; O’Neill, The Hairy Ape; McKay, Harlem Shadows (1922)

W. C. Williams (1883—1963): Spring and All;W. Stevens (1879—1955): Harmonium; Toomer (1894—1967): Cane (1923)

Millay (1892–1950): "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed" (1923)

Mann, Magic Mountain(1924)

Marconi’s first transatlantic radiotelegraph message (1901)

Wright brothers make successful airplane flight (1903)

Einstein’s theory of relativity (1905)

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)

Klimt (1862—1918): The Kiss (1907—08)

Matisse (1869—1954): The Dance; NAACP founded in New York (1909)

W.C. Handy publishes "Memphis Blues" to great acclaim; Republic of China replaces Manchu dynasty (1912)

Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring (1913)

World War I (1914—8)

Easter Rebellion in Ireland (1916)

Russian Revolution; U.S. enters World War I (1917)

End of WW I ushers in worldwide influenza epidemic, which kills 22 million; major race riots in U.S. (1918)

18th Amendment ratified: Prohibition (1919)

19th Amendment ratified: women’s suffrage in U.S. (1920)

Sissle and Blake, Shuffle Along (1921)

Harlem Renaissance flourishes (1920s)

Cullen, Color; Alain Locke, The New Negro (1925)

Hemingway (1899—1961): Sun Also Rises (1926); "Hills Like White Elephants" (1938); For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Lawrence (1885—1930), "The Rocking-Horse Winner" (1926)

Hurston (1903—60): "Spunk" (1927)

Hughes, The Weary Blues(1926); Mule-Bone (w. Hurston, 1931—32); Ways of White Folks (1934); Mulatto (1935); The Big Sea (1940)

Brecht, Threepenny Opera (1928)

Frost, West-Running Brook (1928); A Further Range (1936); A Witness Tree (1942)

Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (1929)

Faulkner (1897—1962): The Sound and the Fury (1929);As I Lay Dying (1930); "A Rose for Emily" (1930)

Porter (1890—1960): "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"; "Magic" (1930)

Fitzgerald (1896—1940): The Great Gatsby (1925); "Babylon Revisited" (1931)

Frank O’Connor (1903—66): "Guests of the Nation" (1931)

MacLeish (1892—1982): Conquistador (1932)

West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

D. Thomas (1914—53): Eighteen Poems (1934)

K. Boyle (1902—92): "Astronomer's Wife" (1936)

Pirandello (1867—1936): "War" (1939)

Wright, Native Son (1940)

Welty (1909—2001): "A Worn Path," "Why I Live at the P.O."; Borges (1899—1986): "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941)

Wilder, Skin of Our Teeth (1942)

Camus, Myth of Sisyphus (1943)

Sartre, No Exit (1944)

Brooks (1917—2000): A Street in Bronzeville (1945)

Williams (1914—83): The Glass Menagerie (1945); A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

Bishop (1911—1979): North and South (1946)

Genet, The Maids (1947)

Roethke (1908—63): The Lost Son; Orwell, 1984; Pound, The Cantos (1948)

Miller (1915— ): Death of a Salesman (1949)

Schoenberg’s twelve-tone music (1926)

The Jazz Singer (1927), first sound film

Lindbergh crosses Atlantic (1927)

Stock market crash (1929) ushers in Great Depression in the U.S. and the world

FDR’s "New Deal" introduces social security, welfare, and unemployment insurance (1932)

Nazis gain control of Germany (1933)

Jesse Owens wins 4 gold medals in track at the Olympics in Berlin (1935)

First television broadcast (1936)

Spanish Civil War (1936—39)

Joe Lewis becomes heavyweight champion of the world (1937)

World War II (1939—45)

Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and U.S. enters war (1941)

U.S. drops atomic bomb on Japan; United Nations formed (1945)

Romare Bearden (1912—1988): At Five in the Afternoon; Nuremberg trials (1946)

India achieves independence (1947)

Germany divided; Chinese Communist Party establishes People’s Repulic (1949)

Flannery O’Connor (1925—64): "Everything that Rises Must Converge" (1950); "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" (1955)

Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred(1951);I Wonder as I Wander (1956)

Rich (1929— ): A Change of World (1951)

Ellison (1914—94):"Battle Royal"(from The Invisible Man)(1952)

I.B. Singer (1904—1991): "Gimpel the Fool"; Milosz (1911— ): The Captive Mind; Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1953)

Garcia Marquez (1928— ): "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" (1955); 100 Years of Solitude(1967)

Ginsberg, Howl; Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1956)

Baldwin (1924—87): "Sonny’s Blues"; J. Wright (1927—80): A Green Wall (1957)

Ferlinghetti (1919— ): A Coney Island of the Mind; Swenson (1919—89): A Cage of Spines; Pinter, Birthday Party (1958)

Hansberry (1930—65), Raisin in the Sun (1959)

Updike (1932— ): "A&P"; Olsen (1913— ): "I Stand Here Ironing" (1961)

Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962)

King, "I Have a Dream" (1963)

Plath (1932—1963): Ariel (1965)

Sexton (1928—74): Live or Die; Heaney (1939— ): Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Munro (1931— ): "Friend of My Youth"; Giovanni (1943— ): Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968)

Ionesco (1912—94): The Bald Soprano (1949); The Gap (1964)

Achebe (1930— ): "Marriage is a Private Affair"; Bambara (1939—1995): "The Lesson" (1972)

Silko (1948— ): "Yellow Woman"; Walker (1944— ): "Everyday Use" (1973)

Korean War (1950—53)

DNA discovered (1953), launching modern study of genetics

Brown v. Board of Education: Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional; Hernandez v. TX: Hispanics recognized as separate class suffering discrimination;McCarthy-Army hearings (1954)

Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give her seat to a white man on a bus; ignites Civil Rights Movement (1955)

Russia crushes revolt in Hungary (1956)

Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro overthrows Batista (1959)

Wave of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, NC (1960)

Berlin Wall erected; "Bay of Pigs" invasion (1961)

Cuban Missile crisis; Cesar Chavez organizes the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) (1962)

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" to crowd of 250,000 at the Lincoln Memorial; Kennedy assassinated in Dallas (1963)

King awarded Nobel Peace Prize; Civil Rights Act adopted; Muhammed Ali wins world heavyweight title (1964)

U.S. enters Vietnam War; Malcolm X assassinated; Watts riots (Los Angeles) (1965)

Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution begins; Black Panther Party founded in Oakland, CA (1966)

Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated (1968)

American astronauts land on the moon (1969)

Watergate burglary (1972)

Congress passes the Equal Educational Opportunity Act: allows for establishment of bilingual education programs (1974)

Shepard, Buried Child (1979)

Mason (1940— ): "Shiloh";

Atwood (1939— ): "Happy Endings"; Carver (1939—88): "Cathedral"; Wasserstein (1950—2006): Tender Offer ; Moore (1957– ): Self Help (1983)

Kincaid (1949— ): "Girl"; Sanchez-Scott (1953— ): The Cuban Swimmer (1984)

Wilson (1945—2005): Fences (1985)

T. O’Brien (1946— ): "The Things They Carried"; Dove (1952— ): Thomas and Beulah (1986)

Hegi (1946— ): "To the Gate"; Morrison, Beloved (1987)

Hwang (1957— ): M. Butterfly; Ives (1950– ): Sure Thing (1988)

Tan (1952— ), "Rules of the Game" (1989)

Hall (1928— ): Poems Old and New (1990)

Dubus (1936-1999): "The Killers"

Cisneros (1954— ): "Eleven," "Barbie-Q," "There Was a Man, There Was a Woman," "Woman Hollering Creek" (1991)

Muldoon (1951– )

Alexie (1966— ): "Indian Education"; Kushner, Angels in America(1993)

Song (1955— ): School Figures (1994)

Sanchez (1935— ): Does your house have lions?; Collins (1941—): The Art of Drowning (1995)

Alvarez (1950— ): "The Kiss"

Jin (1956— ): "Taking a Husband"; Hirshfield (1953— ): Lives of the Heart (1997)

Jen (1956— ): "Who’s Irish?"; Pastan (1932—): Carnival Evening

Lahiri (1967– ): Interpreter of Maladies (1999)

Garrison (1965– ): A Working Girl Can't Win(2000)

Young (1971 –): M. Meloy (1973– ): Z. Smith (1975– )

T.C. Boyle (1948– ): After the Plague

Camp David accord reached between Israel and Egypt (1977)

Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua; Islamic revolution in Iran (1979)

Ronald Reagan elected president (1980)

Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster (1986)

Protests in Tiananmen Square, China; Berlin Wall is demolished; Eastern Europe democratized (1989)

Soviet Union dissolves (1991)

Bill Clinton elected president (1992; re-elected in 1996)

NAFTA takes effect (1994)

Clinton brokers international loan to bolster the failing Mexican economy (1995)

Californians pass Prop. 227: bans bilingual classrooms and ESL programs, replacing them with a one-year intensive English immersion program (1998)

George W. Bush elected president (2000)

Terrorists hijack planes and crash them into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania (2001)

United States invades Iraq (2003)