50 key dates of the world
A collection of historians have come up with the 50 most important dates in the history of the world:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2687623.ece
There are only two I'd replace: I'd remove 1)the Battle of Marathon and 2)Rome defeats Hannibal and replace them with 1) 1000 AD China invents gunpowder (major implications down the road) and 2) 1347 AD The Bubonic Plague spreads from China to Europe (the first cross-continent pandemic);
and only one minor quibble: to my knowledge, Cortes never even went to South America. He was key in the downfall of the mighty Aztec Empire, the largest and most powerful in North America.
There are three other dates which I feel should be on the last, but I'm not sure what I'd remove:
1) 63 AD The Jewish Diaspora (which led to the formation of Judaism as a modern religion)
2) 711 AD The Moorish conquest of Spain (which led to the preservation of ancient Greek writings and gave Early Modern Spain its concept of Conquer and Convert)
3) 1948 AD The passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which among other things banned legal slavery world-wide (while slavery does still exist, there is no country in the world which has laws permitting it)
Feel free to chime in with what you'd add or subtract.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2687623.ece
There are only two I'd replace: I'd remove 1)the Battle of Marathon and 2)Rome defeats Hannibal and replace them with 1) 1000 AD China invents gunpowder (major implications down the road) and 2) 1347 AD The Bubonic Plague spreads from China to Europe (the first cross-continent pandemic);
and only one minor quibble: to my knowledge, Cortes never even went to South America. He was key in the downfall of the mighty Aztec Empire, the largest and most powerful in North America.
There are three other dates which I feel should be on the last, but I'm not sure what I'd remove:
1) 63 AD The Jewish Diaspora (which led to the formation of Judaism as a modern religion)
2) 711 AD The Moorish conquest of Spain (which led to the preservation of ancient Greek writings and gave Early Modern Spain its concept of Conquer and Convert)
3) 1948 AD The passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which among other things banned legal slavery world-wide (while slavery does still exist, there is no country in the world which has laws permitting it)
Feel free to chime in with what you'd add or subtract.