The total number of electrons in 3ʳᵈ orbit is

discs fill with colour as time passes towards the present (further explanation below ⇓); timeline summary ⇒; synopsis ⇒| I. COSMOLOGICAL ANTECEDENTS ⇓ ⇒

13,800,000,000 Big Bang singularity, creation of all particles of matter and counterpart antimatter, and the laws of physics governing their interactions; expansion and cooling of space → formation of the observable Universe, its galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, moons, asteroids and comets

13,550,000,000 ignition of hydrogen stars, bathing the Universe in first light of cosmic dawn → earliest galaxies of stars forming 400 million years after the Big Bang; helium in stars fusing into carbon, leading to stellar nucleosynthesis of all elements

13,000,000,000 aggregation of stars into the Milky Way galaxy: now a warped disc of 100 billion stars, one of 2 trillion galaxies in the observable Universe

12,200,000,000 earliest water: an interstellar vapour, and repository for oxygen

4,570,000,000 formation of the Sun and Solar System within the Milky Way, orbiting a supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, at its Galactic Centre every 220 million years

4,510,000,000 formation of the Moon from a giant impact with proto-Earth

4,500,000,000 formation of planet Earth with 510 million km² of surface area, orbiting the Sun on a yearly cycle, rotating eastward on a daily cycle around a tilted axis that perpetuates opposing polar seasons

4,400,000,000 formation of Earth’s oceans and moist atmosphere, protected from solar wind and cosmic rays by Earth’s magnetosphere generated by its iron core

4,400,000,000 earliest subduction of Earth’s crust → continental plate tectonics by 3 billion years ago, unique to Earth in the Solar System

4,300,000,000 basaltic rock glass catalyses formation of RNA (Hadean Eon): long-strand molecules carrying information across self-replicating generations and synthesising peptides → pre-biotic RNA world II. HUMAN ANCESTRY AND EVOLUTION

1. Evolution of life on Earth ⇑ ⇓ ⇒

Índice Show

How many electrons are in the 3rd orbit?
How many electrons are in the 4th Shell?
What is the number of electrons in an orbit?
How many electrons are in the 5th Shell?

4,000,000,000 earliest life on Earth: single-celled prokaryotic Archaea (Hadean Eon, 3.7-4.2 billion years ago), with inherited genes composed of stable DNA instructing the translation of RNA in ribosomes into proteins that perform cell functions → planet Earth harbouring the only life in the Universe?

3,500,000,000 photosynthesising bacteria amongst the Archaea (Archean Eon), converting sunlight into chemical energy to fuel cellular activity

3,400,000,000 earliest atmospheric oxygen, present at low levels (Archean Eon)

3,200,000,000 emergence of Earth’s first continents from the ocean (Archean Eon, 3.2 to 3.3 billion years ago), supporting microbial mats in Earth’s first land ecosystem

2,330,000,000 the Great Oxygenation Event: 1-10 million years of rapidly accumulating atmospheric oxygen (Proterozoic Eon), a product of photosynthesis and energy source for complex life

2,100,000,000 early multicellular life, with cell-to-cell signalling and coordinated responses (Proterozoic Eon) → 37 trillion mutually-dependent cells in an adult human body

1,700,000,000 earliest Eukaryotes amongst the Prokaryotes, arising from the merger of an archaeon with a bacterium: sexual reproduction with meiosis and recombination of genetic material from two parents (Proterozoic Eon)

890,000,000 earliest Metazoa – animals – amongst the Eukaryotes: sponges (Proterozoic Eon), prior to Snowball Earth episodes of worldwide glaciation

700,000,000 Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event: 100 million years of rising photosynthesis with lengthening days as Earth’s rotational speed slows, improving conditions for complex life

635,000,000 earliest stem Cnidaria amongst the animals (early Ediacaran Period), ancestor of jellyfish and hydra: nervous system and sleep/wake cycle → without sleep we die

550,000,000 earliest bilaterian animals, with left-right symmetry (Ediacaran Period): burrowing Ikaria with mouth and gut for scavenging, segmented Yilingia with paired legs and musculature for roaming

540,000,000 explosion in animal diversification over 20 million years (earliest Cambrian Period); emergence of modern body plans, resolving to phyla over 40 million years

535,000,000 earliest chordates amongst the bilaterians (Early Cambrian Period): notochord and pharyngeal gill slits

520,000,000 earliest acute visual perception: compound and stalked eyes of stem arthropods (Cambrian Period) → vision catalysing animal diversification

500,000,000 first colonisation of land by plants: algae of the Middle Cambrian Period, probably facilitated by fungi → continental greening that creates soils and meanders rivers

480,000,000 radiation of vertebrates amongst the chordates (Ordovician Period): aquatic with a mineralised skeleton, armour and scales

445,000,000 mass extinction in two pulses across 1 million years, eliminating more than three-quarters of all species (Late Ordovician Period), linked to volcanic activity

420,000,000 earliest jawed vertebrates amongst the fishes (Late Silurian Period) → diversification of feeding niches; capacity for yawning, omnipresent across disparate modern lineages

407,000,000 earliest acoustic communication, by aquatic vertebrates (Early Devonian Period): sound production and hearing for signalling, displaying and surveillance

407,000,000 earliest woody stems of vascular plants (Early Devonian Period) → evolution driven by hydraulic constraints, pre-adapting plants for taller morphologies

394,000,000 earliest tetrapods amongst the vertebrates (Devonian Period): limbs replacing paired fins; still fully aquatic

385,000,000 earliest forests (Devonian Period, New York State, North America) → three-dimensional terrestrial habitat; rising atmospheric O₂ and diminishing CO₂

375,000,000 mass extinction in a series of pulses across 20 million years, eliminating more than two-thirds of all species (Late Devonian Period), linked to climatic cooling

350,000,000 earliest land vertebrates (Early Carboniferous Period): semi-aquatic amphibian tetrapods

340,000,000 earliest fully terrestrial tetrapod vertebrates, laying amniote eggs (Carboniferous Period)

251,900,000 Earth’s largest mass extinction, eliminating nine tenths of all species during 61 thousand years (Permian-Triassic transition), caused by hot and acidifying volcanic CO₂ emissions from the Siberian Traps

233,000,000 dawn of the modern world: major biological turnover linked to volcanism (Late Triassic Period) → rapid diversifications and originations of conifers, insects, dinosaurs, reptiles and stem mammals

201,300,000 mass extinction event, eliminating more than two-thirds of all species (Triassic-Jurassic transition), linked with volcanic CO₂ equivalent to projections for CE 21ˢᵗ century anthropogenic emissions

200,000,000 earliest warm-blooded stem mammals (Late Triassic): faster metabolism sustaining endothermy in a cooler climate

178,000,000 earliest true mammals amongst the terrestrial vertebrates (Jurassic Period): fur and endothermy; natural lifespan of 3,200 somatic mutations → humans averaging 47 annually

135,000,000 major radiations of flowering plants and their insect pollinators in the Early Cretaceous Period: an “abominable mystery” (Charles Darwin, 1879)

101,500,000 aerobic bacteria embed into oxic sediment of the South Pacific Gyre, reviving after 101.5 million years to grow into microbial communities

90,000,000 earliest mammal louse (Cretaceous Period) → body-, pubic- and head-lice, bedbugs, screwworms and botflies, fleas, ticks, scabies and chiggers amongst the ectoparasites of modern humans, with 300 worm and 70 protozoan endoparasites

66,000,000 abrupt mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, with three-quarters of all species, following the springtime impact of a 9-km wide asteroid at Chicxulub, Mexico (Cretaceous-Paleogene transition) → rapid diversification of flowering plants and mammals

55,000,000 earliest primates amongst the mammals (Eocene Epoch): brachiation

44,000,000 divergence of Old World from New World primates (Eocene Epoch): colour vision, opposable thumbs, sociality; capacity to grieve, as in other mammals, and to recognise deceptions; extended sexuality → extreme in humans

25,200,000 earliest hominoids (apes) amongst the Old World primates (Tanzania, Oligocene Epoch): tailless, enlarged brain; dawn of speech in contrasting vowel sounds – no language without vowels

16,800,000 earliest hominids (great apes) amongst the hominoid gibbons in Asia: larger body size and sexual dimorphism; nest-making, play, empathy, long-distance communication by drumming; capacity for self-medication, as in other animals

13,000,000 hominids Pierolapithecus catalaunicus in Spain, and Nyanzapithecus alesi in Kenya, possible ancestors of hominins and modern apes respectively, the former with upright posture

7,000,000 earliest hominins Sahelanthropus, then Orrorin and Ardipithecus, amongst the hominids in Africa: reduced canines, arboreal habit, bipedal capability

4,200,000 replacement of the earliest hominins by Australopithecus spp. in Africa: fully upright, bipedal and free-striding gait

3,300,000 earliest knapped stone artefacts (Kenya): Lomekwian tools → hominin technological behaviour 2. Human evolution ⇑ ⇓ ⇒

2,800,000 earliest human, Homo sp., amongst the hominins (Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia): rounded chin as Australopithecus afarensis, but smaller and slimmer molars as the later Homo habilis

2,700,000 rise of co-existing hominin genus Paranthropus (East Africa)

2,600,000 incorporation of meat and marrow into generalist diets of hominins (Africa)

2,600,000 earliest stone tools produced by humans (Gona, Ethiopia): Oldowan tools, chopping through flesh, bone, bark

2,588,000 start of the current geological period of Quaternary glaciation, possibly initiated by a supernova blast 150-300 light-years away, luminous as the full Moon

2,400,000 Homo habilis in Africa, using stone tools for cleaving meat from bone

2,120,000 earliest evidence of human ancestors outside of Africa: tool-using hominins in Shangchen, southern China

2,000,000 early Homo erectus, direct ancestor of modern humans, coexisting with Australopithecus – soon extinct, and Paranthropus (South Africa): delayed maturity, enlarged brain and smaller teeth

1,800,000 migrations of Homo erectus from Africa to Eurasia (Georgia; to Lantian in northern China by 1.63 million years ago; to Java by 1.5 million years ago); ecological success underwritten by postmenopausal care of young?

1,700,000 earliest stone hand axes (Tanzania): Acheulean tools, standardised for butchering, cutting, stripping, hammering, drilling → population mobility

1,500,000 earliest control of fire, by Homo erectus (Koobi Fora, Kenya) → uniquely human capability widespread by 400,000 years ago, extending the day by firelight, improving nutritive intake with cooked food

1,500,000 male-male alliances in Homo erectus social groups (Ileret, Kenya): cooperative networks, perhaps including unrelated individuals

1,400,000 earliest organic tools: a hand axe made from hippopotamus bone (Ethiopia) → conscious symbolism?

1,400,000 replacement of Homo habilis by Homo erectus in Africa

1,000,000 extinction of Paranthropus (South Africa), our last remaining sibling genus

900,000 Homo antecessor in western Europe (Atapuerca, Spain), closely related to the last common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans

900,000 flint scrapers associated with Homo antecessor (Atapuerca, Spain), suitable for preparing animal hides → clothing?

800,000 earliest cannibalism, in Homo antecessor (Gran Dolina, Spain), practised throughout human history; social motivation?

700,000 diminutive Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores, probable descendent of Homo erectus

700,000 rise of Homo heidelbergensis in Africa and Europe, possible ancestor of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis; cooking meat and starchy plants

500,000 earliest abstract markings: a zigzag engraving on shell by Homo erectus (Indonesia) → uniquely human capacity for abstraction

500,000 earliest use of stone-tipped spears, by Homo heidelbergensis (South Africa) for hunting large game

450,000 rise of Neanderthals Homo neanderthalensis across Europe: similar brain size but fewer neurones compared to modern humans

430,000 Denisovans diverge from Neanderthals (southern Siberia) → Tibetan Plateau and Laos by 160,000 years ago; subsequent interbreeding, possibly also with Homo erectus

400,000 multiple hominin dispersals across Arabia (Nefud Desert), during windows of desert greening at four-, three-, two- and one-hundred thousand years ago

400,000 earliest evidence of food storage for later consumption: bone marrow (Qesem Cave, Israel) → food economy, incentivised by anticipation of future need

320,000 long-distance transport of obsidian for fine blades and points, and ochre for pigments (Kenya) → technological transition to Middle Stone Age during intensifying climate swings

315,000 earliest representatives of our species, Homo sapiens (Jebel Irhoud, Morocco): facial and dental structure similar to modern humans, yet still archaic elongation of the braincase

300,000 wooden spears and lances used by Homo heidelbergensis for hunting large herbivores (Schöningen, Germany)

250,000 replacement of Homo heidelbergensis by Homo neanderthalensis in Europe, and by Homo sapiens in Africa over the subsequent 100,000 years

210,000 Homo sapiens enter Eurasia (Greece): first of multiple dispersals out of Africa by humans with early modern traits, including globular braincase and descended larynx facilitating spoken language

200,000 earliest adhesive: birch tar used by Neanderthals for hafting stone tools (Campitello, Italy) → pyrotechnology III. CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

3. Hunter-gatherer nomads ⇑ ⇓ ⇒

176,000 earliest built constructions: underground edifices made from broken stalagmites by Neanderthals (Bruniquel Cave, France) → material culture

171,000 earliest record of fire technology, by Neanderthals: boxwood digging sticks with shafts worked smooth by controlled burning (Poggetti Vecchi, Italy)

170,000 widespread use of clothing, setting humans apart from all other animals, evidenced in the divergence of clothing lice from head lice (Africa)

160,000 coastal shellfish harvested by Homo sapiens in southern Africa, and by Neanderthals in the Mediterranean → fatty acids boosting cognitive development

142,000 earliest symbolic ornaments: marine-shell beads made by humans in Morocco, spreading to the Levant; painted beads by Neanderthals in Spain by 115,000 years ago

126,000 Homo with mix of archaic-human and Neanderthal traits (Nesher Ramla, Israel): stone-tool industry, cooking meat; cultural exchange with humans?

125,000 prelude to Earth’s Last Glacial Period: global average temperatures never again as high until CE 2021, during intensifying anthropogenic warming

120,000 burial of dead, by anatomically modern humans in Qafzeh Cave, Israel, and by Neanderthals in Tabun Cave, Israel: mortuary rituals, mourning the dead

110,000 last appearance of Homo erectus (Ngandong, Java), 1.89 million years after its first appearance → the longest enduring species of human

105,000 hording of non-utilitarian objects by Homo sapiens: crystals and ostrich eggshell fragments (Kalahari, southern Africa)

100,000 interbreeding of Homo sapiens with Homo neanderthalensis (Siberia) → accumulation of modern traits through gene flow

100,000 toolkit for mixing and storing pigments: ochre, charcoal, bone, hammerstones, grindstones and abalone-shell containers (Blombos Cave, South Africa) → complex human cognition

100,000 earliest human etchings on rock: cross-hash decorations or symbols (Blombos Cave, South Africa) → conceptual imagination

90,000 manufacture of bone harpoons, for hunting catfish (Semliki river, DR Congo)

90,000 fisher-hunter-gatherer Neanderthals eating mussels, crab, eels, sea bream and shark, dolphins and seals, hoofed game and waterfowl; pine-nut economy (Figueira Brava, Portugal)

78,000 earliest symbolic human burial, a 3-year old Homo sapiens (Panga ya Saidi Cave, Kenya): funerary practices by our ancestors

77,000 construction of bedding from sedges, topped with aromatic leaves containing insecticidal and larvicidal chemicals (Sibudu rock shelter, South Africa)

75,000 earliest jewellery fashions: shifts in styles of threaded shell beads (Blombos Cave, South Africa)

73,000 earliest drawing by humans: criss-crossed lines on a grindstone drawn with red-ochre crayon (Blombos Cave, South Africa)

71,000 earliest heat-treatment of bladelets, for atlatl darts or arrows (South Africa): communication of complex technology → emergence of the modern mind

65,000 rapid colonisation of Australia by humans during 5,000 years (ancient Sahul): maritime exploration; transecting the continent along superhighways

64,800 earliest symbolic cave paintings by Neanderthals (La Pasiega Cave, Spain)?

60,000 earliest notation, with notched-bone tally marks by Neanderthals (Les Pradelles, France) → uniquely human number culture and record keeping

60,000 symbolic burial of dead by Neanderthals (La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France): funerary practices

60,000 range expansion of modern humans out of Africa into Eurasia, beginning 60,000 years ago and enduring 10,000 years

54,000 modern humans, Homo sapiens, settling briefly in western Europe (Grotte Mandrin, France)? – preceded by and preceding Neanderthal settlements

51,000 a giant deer’s phalanx bone becomes a Neanderthal artist’s canvas, prepared by scraping and boiling before etching (Harz Mountains, Germany)

50,000 earliest use of cord: three-plied bark fibres (Abri du Maras, France) → clothing, mats, baskets, nets, rope, snares, fishing lines, watercraft

50,000 earliest eyed needle, made from bone by Denisovans (Denisova Cave, Siberia), suitable for tailoring garments

50,000 Neanderthal fire-lighting technology (France): striking flint axes with mineral pyrite → wood the predominant fuel for cooking and heating until the CE 19ᵗʰ century

50,000 Eurasian Homo sapiens co-existing with Homo floresiensis (soon extinct) and Homo luzonensis, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans

48,000 self-medication by Neanderthals, with pain-killing salicylic acid in poplar leaves, and antibiotic-producing Penicillium mould (El Sidrón, Spain)

46,000 anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, established in Europe (Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria), mating with Neanderthals, spreading eastwards.

45,500 earliest representational art, a red-ochre composition of Sulawesi warty pigs (Leang Tedongnge, Sulawesi): narrative stories

45,000 extinction of giant flightless mihirung thunder birds, hastened by human exploitation of their eggs (Australia)

44,000 earliest figurative painting (Sulawesi Island, Indonesia), of therianthropes hunting anoa and pigs: mythological stories

42,000 earliest musical instruments: bone and ivory flutes (Swabian Jura, Germany) → stirring the emotions with harmony, melody, rhythm, timbre; no human society without music

42,000 earliest record of fish-hooks, manufactured from broken shell (East Timor): deep-sea fishing for pelagic tuna and parrotfish, sharks and marine turtles

41,500 most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, lasting 500 years, decreasing stratospheric ozone, driving global climate shifts and extinction events

40,000 anatomically modern humans replace Neanderthals, our last remaining sibling species

40,000 earliest habitual use of solid footwear (Sunghir, Russia), opening permafrost regions to occupancy → hay socks by 5,000 years ago

40,000 full development of language, facilitating efficient social bonding through gossip → now over 7,000 living languages, over 2,000 vanishing

40,000 earliest figurative sculpture: an ivory figurine of a therianthrope with lion’s head and human torso (Hohlenstein, Germany)

40,000 earliest image of human form: a hand stencil (Maros karsts, Sulawesi)

37,000 earliest artistic representation of human form: engravings of vulvas (Abri Castanet, France): fertility symbol?

35,000 earliest animation in cave art (Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, France): breaking down animal movement, prefiguring cinema

35,000 earliest fully human sculpture and female imagery: a mammoth-ivory ‘Venus’ figurine (Hohle Fels, Germany): fertility totem?

35,000 a giant virus freezes into Siberian permafrost, melting back to virulent activity 35,000 years later

32,600 food-plant processing, of dried wild oats with grindstones (Grotta Paglicci, Italy; soon appearing across Europe, Australia) → flour for storage and cooking

32,000 fruits of the campion Silene stenophylla freeze in Siberian tundra, regenerating from cryobiosis 32,000 years later into fertile plants

32,000 possible first human incursions into the Americas (Mexico), certainly within the next 11,000 years (New Mexico), migrating along the coast from Siberia?

31,000 earliest surgical amputation, of a child’s lower leg (Borneo); subsequent survival for 6 to 9 years, then burial

30,000 earliest woven fabrics, made from dyed fibres of wild flax (Georgia) → baskets, textile clothing

29,500 earliest stone statuette: ochre-tinted oolitic limestone Venus of Willendorf (Austria)

29,000 earliest fishing-net sinkers (South Korea) → modern industrial fishing currently in 55% of ocean area, covering 4× agricultural area

25,000 a coronavirus epidemic sweeps through East Asia, driving genetic adaptations still present in modern humans

24,000 use of poison arrows, with wooden ricin applicator (Lebombo mountains, South Africa)

24,000 a bdelloid rotifer freezes into ice in the Alayeza river (Russian Arctic), reviving 24,000 years later to full vigour

23,000 fisher-hunter-gatherer brush huts (Sea of Galilee, Israel): sealed floor, hearth, berry and seed stockpiles, grindstones, sleeping area with grass bedding

23,000 first domestication: dogs from grey wolves Canis lupus (Siberia or Japan), for companionship, hunting technology, and pulling sledges → 700 million dogs by CE 21ˢᵗ century

20,000 earliest pottery vessels (Xianrendong Cave, China): cooking food in pots during the Last Glacial Maximum

20,000 beginning of sea-level rise from deglaciation in a warming global climate; stabilising at today’s 120-m higher levels by c. 10,000 years ago

19,000 replacement of early modern humans across Eurasia by the ancestors of today’s populations

15,000 introgression of last remaining Denisovans into the modern human genome? Anatomically modern humans henceforth the only hominin

15,000 colonisation and occupation of North America by humans, from northeastern Siberia over the Bering land bridge, bringing their dogs

15,000 colonisation of South America (Huaca Prieta, Coastal Peru); humans henceforth occupying every continental landmass on Earth, except Antarctica

15,000 semi-permanent forager settlements of Natufians (Levant), evidenced by presence of house mice

15,000 earliest record of a string instrument: the musical bow (cave painting at Trois Frères, France) → music initiated outside the body

15,000 earliest thaumatrope (Laugerie-Basse, France): an optical toy, creating movement by juxtaposition of images

14,400 evidence of baking bread: unleavened flatbread from wild einkorn and club-rush tubers (Shubayqa, Jordan); caries from consumption of starchy foods

14,000 earliest lime plaster, used as an adhesive for hafting (Kebaran, Levant) → mortar by 3,000 years ago

13,400 earliest evidence of inter-communal violence on a large scale, with projectile impacts and blunt-force trauma (Jebel Sahaba, northern Sudan): warfare and conflict driving human misery

12,800 climate shift contributing to megafaunal extinctions and human cultural changes (Younger Dryas): triggered by a comet airburst over North America and Europe?

12,300 earliest evidence of humans using tobacco (West Desert, North America)

12,000 extinction of megafauna including woolly mammoths from continental Eurasia and North America, caused by human hunting and climate change

11,700 start of the Holocene Epoch within the Quaternary Period, characterised by warm and stable climate until the late CE 20ᵗʰ century

11,700 in the Mojave desert a seed germinates and grows into a deadly creosote bush, which segments to sprout new stems, sprouting and segmenting for 11,700 years

11,600 earliest monumental ritual art (Shigir, Siberia): 5-m tall larchwood plank carved with human forms and signs → complex ideas expressed by hunter-gatherers 4. Agricultural farming and settlements ⇑ ⇓ ⇒ BCE 9500 cultivation of wild barley and oats around village settlements (Fertile Crescent) → dawn of farming on the Anatolian peninsula; storable grains sustaining population growth 9500 earliest monumental temple (Göbekli Tepe, Anatolia): carved stone stelae up to 4-m tall serving ritualistic purposes; associated skull cult; ceremonial porridge and beer 9500 earliest use of brick architecture: sun-dried mudbricks (Anatolia and the Levant, spreading to Mesopotamia) → fired bricks by 3000 BCE (China) 9000 earliest continuous settlements (southern Levant), including Jericho: stone and mudbrick architecture developing into a walled city of up to 3,000 people → modern cities of 30 million people 9000 earliest artistic representation of human sexual intercourse: 10-cm phallic sculpture of sensual and tender intimacy (Ain Sakhri, Levant) 8400 domestication of goats and sheep (Fertile Crescent and Turkey) → milk, meat, wool, hide and capital from 1.2 billion sheep and 1.1 billion goats by CE 2019, rising trend 8100 global population of humans passes 5 million; annual energy use per person averages 1,700 kWh, 2.4× the resting metabolism 8000 continental ice-sheets withdraw from Europe and North America 8000 domestication of cattle, from aurochs (Near East and Indus Valley) → haulage, milk, meat, hide and capital from 1.5 billion head of cattle by CE 2019, rising trend 8000 domestication of cats, from Near Eastern wildcats Felis silvestris lybica (Middle East) → 400 million domestic cats by CE 20ᵗʰ century, a substantial threat to wildlife 8000 domestication of wheat (Mesopotamia): hybrid vigour efficiently converting solar energy into food energy → 772 million tonnes per year by CE 2017, using 218 million ha of land: peak production? 8000 domestication of the bottle gourd Lagenaria siceraria, indigenous to Africa, in the Americas from Asian stock: global diffusion for containers, musical instruments, fishing floats 8000 earliest record of artistic expression through dance, as rite of passage (engravings in Addaura II Cave, Sicily): rhythms that elevate the spirit → collective desire for cosmic order 7500 domestication of chickens from red junglefowl (Southeast Asia) → meat and eggs from 25.9 billion chickens by CE 2019 and rising, 5× the biomass of all wild birds 7200 earliest large-scale representations of complete human forms: lime plaster statues 1-m tall (Ain Ghazal, Jordan) 7000 big-game hunting practised by females and males (Wilamaya Patjxa, Andean highlands) → strong male bias across recent hunter-gatherer societies 7000 domestication of the potato (Andes, southern Peru) → 370 million tonnes per year by CE 2019, using 17 million ha of land; a food-security crop worldwide, not a globally traded commodity 7000 domestication of pigs (Anatolia and China) → meat, hide, bristles, medical research and capital from 1.0 billion pigs by CE 2015: peak production? 7000 rise of Transeurasian languages, with the spread of millet farming from the Liao River Valley (north-eastern China) → 80 languages now spoken from Istanbul to Tokyo 6500 earliest mining of metal: heating, hammering and grinding copper into projectile points (Great Lakes, North America) 6500 earliest cattle dairying (north-western Anatolia), for milk and its products of cheese and ghee: protein and fat obtained without killing the capital asset 6500 beginning of a wave of migrations from the Middle East northwest through Anatolia, spreading farming practices into Europe 6000 domestication of rice (Asia) → 763 million tonnes per year by CE 2018, using 166 million ha of land, with potential to boost yield by more than a third through genetic modification 6000 foraging for honey (Mesolithic painting in the Araña Caves, Spain) → 90 million beehives by CE 2019 5900 earliest grape wine and viniculture (South Caucasus) → wine as a social lubricant, medicine and commodity throughout western civilisation 5900 start of the Copper Age (Fertile Crescent), spread of copper smelting for weapons and tools 5800 cultivation of cotton Gossypium barbadense (north Peru); G. arboreum cultivated in Pakistan by 5500 BCE → clothing, fishing nets, sheets, towels, rugs, wadding 5600 cultivation of poppies for opium (western Mediterranean), widespread by 4500 BCE, domestication by 3100 BCE → psychoactive, medicinal and alimentary uses 5500 flooding of the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea: perhaps the great flood of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the biblical flood of Noah’s Ark 5500 earliest salt production, by evaporation of brine (Provadia-Solnitsata, Bulgaria): preserving food, enhancing flavour → high consumption in Western diet, with no evolutionary precedent 5480 extraordinarily large influx of cosmic rays from an abnormal Sun, possibly caused by solar proton events → potential for DNA damage on a global scale 5200 earliest use of bitumen, for waterproofing reed-bundle boats (As-Sabiyah, Kuwait) → 65 billion tons of asphalt in roads and pavements by CE 2020 5200 earliest seaborne trading networks (Aegean for obsidian, Persian Gulf for Ubaid pottery), with mast and sail technology: the earliest harnessing of natural forces to replace human labour 5100 ritual landscape of large-scale mustatil monuments (northern Saudi Arabia): entranceways to courtyards, chambers, orthostats; associated cattle cult 5050 earliest burials by ritualistic mummification (Chinchorro, Atacama), some involving disassembly of the body 5000 rise of languages with subject-verb-object syntax – as in English – from the root syntax of subject-object-verb (proto-Indo-European), and expansion westward; other combinations arise later 5000 cultivation of sugarcane (Indo-China); spreading to Africa and the Americas, slave labour providing sugar to Europe and North America from the CE 16ᵗʰ century → most productive biofuel 5000 domestication of bananas from Musa acuminata and subsequent hybridisations (Papua New Guinea) → 1 trillion bananas produced annually by 2020; rising trend, subject to disease risks 5000 domestication of tobacco (Andean Highlands, South America), spreading to North America by 1520 BCE → smoking kills 100 million people worldwide in CE 20ᵗʰ century, the worst preventable killer 5000 domestication of donkeys (East Africa), spreading rapidly throughout Eurasia → first land-based transport: pack animals for transporting materials and water, transforming society 4800 earliest artistic representation of introspection: Thinker and Sitting Woman figurines (Hamangia culture, Cernavodă, Romania) → capacity for soul-searching and contemplation 4200 domestication of maize (Mexico) → 1.15 billion tonnes per year by CE 2019 using 197 million ha; with wheat and rice accounting for 43% of all human calorie supply, using 4% of global land area 4000 domestication of chili pepper Capsicum (Tehuacán Valley, Mexico), spreading rapidly into South America; brought to Europe by Columbus CE 1492 → now used daily by a quarter of the global population 4000 earliest use of indigo blue, from Indigofera species, for dyeing cotton fabric (Huaca Prieta, Peru); use in Egypt by 2400 BCE, China by 1000 BCE 4000 earliest board games (Egypt), moving pieces on a track according to outcomes determined by a throw stick → computers outperform humans in all board games by CE 2016 3600 earliest engineering of water delivery and storage, for people, animals and irrigation (Jawa, Jordan) → landscape engineering of dams, levees, ditches in China by 3100 BCE 3500 earliest ploughs for tilling soil (Italy): harnessing domestic animals for work; landscape engineering for crops 3500 rising human fertility, enabled by earlier weaning of babies fed with milk of domestic ruminants (southern Britain) 3500 domestication of horses (Central Asian steppes), revolutionising mobility, economy, warfare → transport, haulage, cavalry, meat and capital; 59 million horses by CE 2019 3400 earliest wheeled wagons (Germany, Slovenia, Near East) → breakthrough in haulage and locomotion: mechanical advantage equalling ratio of wheel to axle radii, moderated by friction; nanoscale wheel and axle by CE 2007 3300 start of the Bronze Age (Near East), bronze replacing copper for weapons, tools, nails, utensils; mixing of Eurasian peoples → rapid westward spread of farming, conversion of forest to dairy pasture 3300 cultivation of cocoa trees for chocolate (upper Amazon) → domestication in Mesoamerica by 1600 BCE, sacrificing productivity for stimulant and disease-resistance genes 3300 earliest numeral systems: pictograms of economic units (Uruk, Mesopotamia) → cuneiform sexagesimals in Mesopotamia by c. 3200 BCE, and hieroglyph decimals in Egypt by 3100 BCE 3200 full writing (cuneiform in Mesopotamia, hieroglyphics in Egypt) using the rebus principle → bookkeeping, instruction, commemoration, scripture, prayer, historical records 3150 organic medicinal remedies from herbal wines (Egypt) 3100 earliest evidence of the plague (Latvia), possibly driving 3ʳᵈ millenium BCE migrations across Europe and Asia; infectious diseases dominate Holocene causes of death, shaping the course of history 3100 association of love-making with war-mongering (Inanna, Sumerian goddess of love and war, Uruk): human capacity to unite passion with lust, loyalty with brutality, conquests with casualties 3100 development of governance systems with the rise of Uruk, city of 30,000 residents (Sumer civilisation, Mesopotamia), and cities of the Indus Valley → class divisions; living off the labour of others 3050 earliest standard weights for balance scales, and cubit length (Mesopotamia and Egypt): objective frames of reference for valuing commodities → integration of markets across Western Eurasia within 2 millennia 3000 emergence of herpes HSV-1 virus causing cold sores (Europe), passed from parent to child; later spread more rapidly by romantic kissing, originating on the Indian subcontinent c. 1500 BCE 3000 cultivation of oil palm (west and central Africa) → 411 million tonnes of oil-palm fruit per year by CE 2019 using 28 million ha, largely converted tropical forest 3000 global agricultural land use per person peaks at 2.72 ha → 0.66 ha by CE 2016 with improvements in yield 3000 synthesis of glass (Phoenicia) for beads → ingots, vessels by 1500 BCE; CE 1ˢᵗ century mirrors and window glass; 7ᵗʰ century stained-glass windows; 13ᵗʰ century eyeglasses; late-20ᵗʰ century float-glass skyscrapers 3000 earliest metal swords, for combat and prestige (Arslantepe, Turkey) → essential battle weapons through nearly 5 millennia to CE 1918 and the end of World War I 3000 earliest use of a Solar calendar year of 365 days, anchored by spring and autumn equinoxes (Egypt and old Sumer) 2800 global population of humans passes 50 million; annual energy use per person averages 2,100 kWh, 3× the resting metabolism 2720 in the North American White Mountains a seedling grows into a bristlecone pine tree, which sustains production of viable seeds over a lifespan extending beyond 4,700 years 2650 earliest use of a lunar calendar year of 12 months, and each hour as one-twelfth part of the day or night (Shulgi, King of Ur, Mesopotamia) 2650 magnetic compass, used to orient chariots (Emperor Hoang-Ti, China, recorded in the Zizhi Tongjian CE 1084, Thoung Kian Kang Mou edition) → navigation at sea by CE 300, Tsin dynasty, China 2650 earliest regulation of wildlife exploitation: every fisher and hunter taxed one-tenth of their take (pharaoh Djoser, Egypt, recorded in the Famine Stela) 2650 earliest massive stone monuments: step pyramid tomb of pharaoh Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt; contemporaneous pyramidal architecture in Caral-Supe, Peru; megalith at Stonehenge, Britain 2550 earliest dictionary: cuneiform tablets translating between Sumerian and Eblaic (Ebla, Syria) 2550 earliest writing on papyrus: Diary of Merer, documenting construction of the Great Pyramid (Wadi al-Jarf, Egypt) → parchment by 200 BCE, Greece; paper from pulp by 100 BCE, China 2550 architectural precision: the Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt), taller than any other building in the world for 3,800 years 2500 earliest locks (Egypt): door bolts → emergence of private ownership and privacy; lock and key by 1500 BCE for unguarded secrecy 2500 earliest animal husbandry to produce a hybrid: the kunga, foal of a female domestic donkey and male wild ass (Umm el-Marra, Syria), used for diplomacy, ceremony, warfare 2350 earliest government reforms, addressing taxes and corruption (Uru-KA-gina, King of Lagash and Girsu, Mesopotamia) → modern corruption suppressed by long exposure to democracy 2340 first emperor of a state: Sargon the Great, Akkadian Empire (expanding across Mesopotamia, Levant, Anatolia) → beginnings of artistic emphasis on the person of the ruler as an individual 2300 earliest records of marriage (late 3ʳᵈ millennium BCE, Akkadian clay tablets): an economic arrangement for child rearing → a loving relationship particularly in Western nations; now declining globally 2200 decline of Bronze-Age civilisations in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia, and terminal decline of Indus Valley civilisation, caused by centuries of drought beginning c. 2200 BCE 2100 earliest code of law, applying general principles to particular cases (Code of Ur-Nammu, Sumerian King of Ur, Mesopotamia) 2030 earliest recorded poetry (Nippur, Iraq): a Sumerian love poem of passionate ardour, expressing an emotional truth about the human spirit 2000 extinction of last remnant population of woolly mammoths, on Wrangle Island, Arctic Sea 2000 earliest use of coal as fuel (Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, China), for smelting copper, cooking, heating → peak global coal production of 8.2 billion tonnes/year in CE 2013? 2000 earliest abacus, replacing tables of multiplication, reciprocals, powers (Old Babylonians, Mesopotamia c. 2000-1600 BCE) → nanoscale abacus storing numerical information in individual molecules by CE 1996 1900 earliest map of a territory: 3-dimensional topography covering 30 km of the Odet river valley, sculpted to scale on a schist rock slab (Saint-Bélec, France) 1900 establishment of a 7-day week (Assyria and Babylonia) 1850 earliest alphabetic script (Proto-Sinaitic, Sinai and Egypt) → economy of signs 1850 earliest architectural arch, a Canaanite gate (Ashkelon, Israel) → breakthrough in construction of gateways, vaults, doors, windows, bridges: converting tensile stress into compressive stress 1825 earliest record of contraception: Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (Lehun, Egypt) → distinction of sexual intercourse from reproduction 5. Empires and conquests ⇑ ⇓ ⇒ BCE 1800 beginnings of complex societies: Babylonian civilisation in Mesopotamia, 1800 BCE; Olmec civilisation in Mesoamerica, 1800 BCE; Shang dynasty in China, 1600 BCE; New Kingdom in Egypt, 1600 BCE 1800 earliest extraction and working of iron (Anatolia) → alloying with carbon to make steel in Cyprus by 1100 BCE 1800 earliest prose fiction: Epic of Gilgamesh (in cuneiform on clay tablets, Ur, Mesopotamia), a heroic story of the tragicomedy of life, love won and lost, and inevitable death 1750 earliest principles of property insurance, against faulty construction that results in loss or damage (Code of Hammurabi, Babylon): proportionate compensation 1750 earliest cultivation of the tea plant Camellia sinensis (China, early 2ⁿᵈ millennium BCE) → now the most frequently consumed beverage worldwide, with many health benefits 1650 harvesting of latex from the Castilla elastica tree to make rubber for balls and figurines (Mexico): the first plastic polymer → unsurpassed sliding friction and durable elasticity 1650 earliest team sport: rubber-ball game played in an architectural ballcourt (Paso de la Amada, Mexico) → social compacts; decapitation rituals by CE 500 1650 earliest porcelaneous high-fired ceramics (Piaoshan kiln, China): fragile when whole, indestructible as broken shards → true porcelain by early CE, China 1650 earliest stencils of archetypes, for hyperbolae, ellipses and spirals, used in the Gathering of Crocus wall painting (Thera, Aegean Sea): knowledge of the foundations of geometry 1630 earliest planetary observations, of the motions of Venus (reign of Ammisaduqa, king of Babylon) 1550 reckoning with fractions and geometry (Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Egypt) 1520 first accurate timepiece: an outflow water-clock (Amenemhet, court of Amenhotep I, Egypt) measuring night-time; shadow clocks and sundials regulating daytime worker shifts 1500 earliest depiction of joyful and uninhibited celebration by ordinary people (Minoan Harvester Vase, Agia Triada, Crete); happiness sought and found in meeting a need 1400 earliest colonisation of Remote Oceania (Mariana archipelago) → migrations to all Pacific archipelagos over the next 3 millennia; women settling, men dispersing 1330 early depictions of mutual affection: Nefertiti holding the hand of her husband pharaoh Akhenaten, and gentleness: Ankhesenamun anointing her husband pharaoh Tutankhamun (Egypt); meaning in life found in engagement with others 1300 earliest notated music: Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (in cuneiform, Ugarit, Syria); the singing voice carrying further than the spoken voice, conveying feeling 1200 sea-going trade in silver and dyes by Phoenicians, connecting the Levant with western Europe across the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean 1050 start of the Iron Age (Aegean; Britain by 800 BCE), iron replacing bronze for tools and weapons 1000 use of hydraulic plaster, mixing lime with silicates (Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel) → concrete in Ancient Rome by CE 70, the dominant building material of modern times 1000 earliest depiction of the cosmos: a bronze disc inlaid with gold symbols of the Sun, Moon, and stars including the Pleiades cluster (Nebra, Germany) 950 first Jewish temple (King Solomon, Jerusalem) → rise of Judaism for a chosen people 900 earliest centre of higher learning (Taxila University, India) → Plato’s Academy in Greece by 387 BCE; Taixue University in China by CE 3; Al-Karaouine University in Morocco by CE 859; European medieval universities 900 accurate prediction of lunar eclipses (Berlin Gold Hat, Germany) 900 standardization of value: adoption of cowrie shells as money (Middle Western Zhou period, China) → cowrie monetary systems in Asia and West Africa during 3 millennia 820 earliest professional army (Lacedaemonians of Sparta, Greece, described by Xenophon, 388 BCE), sustained by a social contract: duties rewarded with citizenship 776 first Olympic games (Olympia, Peloponnesus, 776 BCE): a 4-yearly truce bringing together athletes to compete for the symbolic reward of an olive wreath → revival in 1896 700 first book of European literature: The Iliad (Homer, Greece), an epic poem on the pathos of loss and suffering caused by war 700 Archimedes’ Screw, used to irrigate Sennacherib’s elevated garden (river Tigris, Mesopotamia), described by Archimedes 4 centuries later 650 earliest collection of scholarly texts, on 32,000 cuneiform tablets: the Library of Ashurbanipal (Nineveh, Iraq) 630 earliest use of coinage (Ionia or Lydia, Anatolia): many denominations of stamped electrum, a gold-silver alloy → government-controlled economy of transaction costs 600 first circumnavigation of the African continent (Phoenicians from Arwād, reported by Herodotus in The Histories 430 BCE) 550 earliest cartography: a map of the known world, by Anaximander (Greece, c. 550 BCE, reported in Strabo’s Geographica 7 BCE) 550 first Persian Empire (Cyrus the Great, Persia), connecting the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley → code of just rule that respects others’ faiths 550 training in surgery and anatomy, described in the Susruta Samhita (northern India, 6ᵗʰ century BCE) 550 professional policing, investigating criminal cases, addressing injustices (the paqūdu of Babylonia c. 550 BCE) 500 height of Greek civilisation (Greece, 6ᵗʰ to 4ᵗʰ centuries BCE) → foundations of Western philosophy, ethics, poetry, drama; first democracy 508 BCE 500 construction of a navigable canal from the Nile to the Red Sea (Darius I of Persia) → Suez Canal by 1869, the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia 500 earliest use of cannabis as a psychoactive substance (Jirzankal Cemetery, China) → modern narco-trafficking spread by counter-drug interdiction 450 earliest cast iron artefacts (Jiangsu, China) → common era uses in manufacture of utensils, pipes, wheels, axle bearings, crankshafts, casings and liners, cannons, bridges, buildings 450 invention of a 360° zodiac (Babylonia) → longitudes of planets 450 collection of the sayings of Confucius (551-479 BCE, China) into the Analects, founding Confucianism, with a role for every person in society, and universal education 450 collection of the Torah and other scriptures into the Hebrew Bible → Christian Old Testament 500 years later, including the divine authority of the Ten Commandments 400 Siddhārtha Gautama (Buddha, c. 480-400 BCE, Ancient India) lays the foundations of Buddhism, with joy as a calling towards the path of nirvana; rebirth in hell for misconduct 400 earliest in-patient hospitals (King Paṇḍukābhaya, Sri Lanka) → professional care for the sick 400 Hippocratic Oath (ascribed to Hippocrates, c. 400 BCE), swearing to uphold medical standards → modern versions still a rite of passage and moral compass for clinicians 375 idea that justice and virtue are inherent qualities of inner harmony (Plato’s Republic, Greece): limits to the liability of external forces for conduct → moral conscience of Christianity 364 first sighting of another moon: Jupiter’s Ganymede, discovered with the naked eye (Gan De, China) → rediscovery by Galileo Galilei in CE 1610, using a 20× telescope 350 concept of time-velocity space (Babylonia): displacement of Jupiter calculated as the area under a graph of its velocity over time, foreshadowing integral calculus 350 development of formal systems of reasoning, by logical deduction from axioms and postulates (Aristotle, Greece) → scientific disciplines 350 understanding of the emotions as dimensions of feeling that affect judgement (Aristotle, Greece): anger, love, fear, shame, kindness, pity, envy, emulation 350 political theory of social welfare (Aristotle, Greece): a state tax on assets of affluent citizens for distribution amongst the poor 320 compilation of the Tao Te Ching (China) on peace and war, founding Taoism in ritual cultivation of life’s inherent natural and spiritual forces, benefitting all 300 mass persuasion, using silver coins stamped with the head of previous legendary ruler Alexander the Great (Lampsacus, Turkey): appropriating history to glorify the present 300 earliest economic exploitation of chicken outside East Asia (Southern Levant); now the world’s most ubiquitous species of livestock, a principle source of protein 300 postulation of Euclidean geometry of flat surfaces (Euclid of Alexandria, Greece) → first printed edition of Euclid’s Elements, CE 1482 280 first hypothesis that Earth revolves around the Sun (Aristarchus of Samos, Greece, reported in Archimedes’ The Sand Reckoner, c. 260 BCE) 250 first estimation of π within known limits (Archimedes, Greece), describing circles, discs, spheres, cones, orbits, loops, spirals, waves, using methods that anticipate CE 17ᵗʰ century calculus 250 earliest accurate estimates of the circumference, diameter and tilt of a spherical Earth (Eratosthenes, Greece, c. 250 BCE, reported by Pliny CE 77) 250 earliest watermills (Egypt; Anatolia by 50 BCE, reported in Strabo’s Geographica 7 BCE), milling grain, processing ore; the first machines to harness a natural force for mechanical work 250 construction of the Great Wall, stretching 1,900 km (Emperor Qin Shi Huang, China) → 21,196 km by the Ming dynasty to CE 1644 200 fusion of Indian cultures and traditions into Hinduism, with worship posthumously rewarded by favourable rebirth; torment in hell for sinners → currently the third most populous religion, after Christianity and Islam 200 widespread adoption of seed drills (Han dynasty, northern China); reinvention by Jethro Tull in CE 1701, Britain → production efficiency heralding the dawn of modern agriculture 130 earliest attempt to map the night sky (Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue c. 130 BCE, Rhodes), accurate to within 1° → astronomy as predictive science 100 first analogue computer: Antikythera Mechanism of bronze gears, mechanising solar and lunar epicycles and eclipses, and motions of the planets in the known cosmos (Antikythera, Greece); unsurpassed for 1,400 years 100 earliest positional system of decimal fractions, for algorithmic calculations with positive and negative numbers using counting rods (China) 100 establishment of the Silk Roads, for overland trade between East Asia and southern Europe → China’s CE 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, opening routes to trade and investment in 70 economies BCE 50 rise of the Roman Empire (Europe), enduring c. 600 years → infrastructure of roads, using designs that still prevail, and aqueducts; self-strengthening concrete, lead-pipe plumbing and sanitation; leap years CE 50 death of Jesus of Nazareth and transcribing of his life in the New Testament → rise of Christianity, with salvation for the righteous and heaven as reward; sinners fear hell 77 earliest encyclopaedia (Pliny the Elder, Italy, Naturalis Historia books 1-5, 6-10, 11-17, 18-23, 24-31, 32-37 CE 77) 100 maritime trade routes between Africa, India, China, for spices, medicines, fabrics; connecting to Ancient Rome through Alexandria 100 use of paper for writing and painting begins to supplant bamboo and silk in China (Emperor He, Eastern Han dynasty, c. 100) 132 invention of the seismoscope (Zhang Heng, China, 132), detecting earthquakes 600 km away; the first device to enhance the reach of sensory perception since the orb-weaving spider first outsourced hearing to its web 150 development of the astrolabe from celestial globes, locating Sun and stars in relation to the equator (Ptolemy, Alexandria, c. 150) → determination of latitude 150 earliest industrial complex: watermills of Barbegal (France, 2ⁿᵈ century), producing 25 tons/day of hardtack for local harbours 290 firing of natural gas in southwest China, to boil brine for salt (Bowu zhi c. 290), and to pipe into homes for lighting (Huayang Guo Zhi c. 340) → 3.9 trillion m³/year of global gas extraction by 2018 and rising 290 use of mineral oil in central China, to lubricate axles and to seal water tanks (Bowu zhi c. 290, reported in Shui Jing Zhu c. 500) → 5.0 billion tonnes/year of global oil extraction by 2018: peak production? 300 beginning of central Europe’s 300-year Migration Period: cultural and socioeconomic turmoil coinciding with climatic variability; Mongolian Avar warriors overwhelming the eastern Roman Empire 357 earliest explicit use of zero, in the Maya Classic Period (Uaxactun, Guatemala, 357) 400 spread of urbanisation, with cities of over 100,000 people in Roman, Chinese and Mesoamerican empires (Teotihuacan, Mexico, covering 18 km² c. 400) → specialisation of trades and occupations 430 human desire for personal relations with god, communicated to the masses as a king’s privilege (India): Hindu ruler Kumaragupta I depicted on coins feeding a sacred peacock 517 observation that free-falling bodies accelerate independently of their weights (John Philoponus, Alexandria, On Aristotle’s Physics 517) → proved in 1687 for gravitational pull on bodies in a void; confirmed in space by 2022 532 invention of anno Domini, or AD (Dionysius Exiguus, Romania, 532); called anno aerae nostrae vulgaris by Johannes Kepler in 1615, now Common Era, or CE → no calendar year zero 536 crop failures across the northern hemisphere caused by volcanic eruptions in Iceland; then bubonic plague (536-547) → century of economic stagnation 550 earliest block printing on paper (China, c. 550) → widespread use of printed books in 11ᵗʰ century Song dynasty China 620 discovery of Antarctica by Polynesian Māoris (Hui Te Rangiora on the vessel Te Ivi o Atea, from New Zealand, early 7ᵗʰ century) → numerous visits over subsequent centuries 628 introduction of rules governing the use of zero in number systems (Brahmagupta, India, Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta 628) 650 death of the prophet Muhammad (Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 632) and transcribing of his revelations in the Qur'an → rise of Islam, with prayer guiding righteous deeds and paradise as reward; hell for disbelievers 700 Islamic Golden Age, from 8ᵗʰ to 14ᵗʰ centuries: flourishing art, design, architecture, and scientific innovation 700 over 700 European cities exceed 1,000 inhabitants in CE 700, of which only Constantinople exceeds 100,000 → 22 such cities by 1800, thereafter rising exponentially to 665 by 2000 754 establishment of the Papal States (Pope Stephen II, central Italy, 754) → global reach of the Catholic Church headed by a pope; 900 years of European art and architecture subjugated to Christianity 841 earliest use of statistical inference (Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, Iraq, Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu'amma 841), for cryptography → analysis of distributed variables 874 Norse colonisation of Iceland, 874, from Norway in the Viking Age; deforestation and sheep grazing erode soils, driving down the island’s vegetation irretrievably to a half, and forests to 4%, of original extent 900 earliest windmills (Khorasan, Iran-Afghanistan, c. 900, recorded by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad Iṣṭakhrī) 985 Norse colonisation of Greenland by Viking Erik Thorvaldsson, 985; Newfoundland by his son Leif, at least by 1021: human migrations henceforth encircling the globe → a century of harvesting North American stockfish and eiderdown 1000 sexagesimal subdivision of the hour into 60 minutes, and the minute into 60 seconds (Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni, Iran, c. 1000) 1021 invention of the camera obscura (Ibn al-Haytham, Iraq, Kitab al-Manazir [Book of Optics] 1011-1021), projecting images through a pinhole: birth of evidence-based science, in experimental studies of light and vision 1044 formula for gunpowder, used for fire arrows, incendiary projectiles, smoke bombs (Northern Song dynasty, China, Wujing Zongyao 1044) → cannons by 1128, guns by c. 1270, rockets by 1272 1055 first hospice (Jerusalem, c. 1055) → professional palliative care for the dying 1060 beginning of 300 years of warring Crusades in the name of the Latin Church, against Islamic rule in the biblical Land of Israel and Palestine 1120 first government-issued paper money (Song dynasty, China) → a trusted IOU bundling Aristotle’s functions of money, as medium of exchange, mode of payment, unit of account, store of value 1150 eastward migrating Asian Polynesians meet westward migrating South Americans (southern Pacific Marquesas Islands, c. 1150) → admixture on Easter Island by 1380, construction of monumental stone statues 1206 rise of the Mongol Empire connecting the Pacific to the Mediterranean, founded by Genghis Khan; recounted by Marco Polo c. 1300 → 35 million male-line descendants of Genghis Khan across modern Asia 1215 first declaration of human rights: Magna Carta (King John of England, 15/6/1215) → the first and now oldest national constitution; Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 1283 first mechanical clock with an escapement mechanism (Dunstable Priory, Britain, 1283), regulating clock speed 1286 discovery of the art of making eyeglasses (anon., Italy, 1286), “one of the best and most necessary arts that the world has” – Friar Giordano da Rivalto, 23/2/1305 → 2.5 billion people needing yet not having glasses in 2016 1337 accretion of personal wealth from gold by Mansa Musa I (c. 1280-1337), Emperor of Mali and richest person in history: peak of inequality amongst individuals → gold still a safe haven in money markets 1346 bubonic plague caused by the Black Death bacillus Yersinia pestis kills a third of the human population across much of Europe, 1346-53; originating in Kyrgyzstan or the Himalayas, transmitted by rats and their fleas 1350 earliest cultivation of Coffea arabica for coffee (Yemen, using Ethiopian seeds, 14ᵗʰ century) → 100 million coffee farmers supplying 2 billion cups per day; extinction threats to most wild coffee species 1397 earliest banking (Medici Bank, Italy, 1397) → modern function as intermediary between savers and borrowers; inherent vulnerable to liquidity shocks, with bank runs driving economic downturns 1400 birth of the European Renaissance (Italy), rise of individuality, imagination, innovation, capitalism 1418 accurate geometrical perspective in painting (Filippo Brunelleschi, Italy, c. 1418; codified by Leon Battista Alberti, Italy, De Pictura 1436) 1438 Inca expansion, becoming the world’s largest empire by 1500, ruling 12 million people over 5,000 km of Andes; altiplano labour economy powered by llamas for transport 1440 first mechanical printing press with movable type (Johannes Gutenberg, Germany, 1440) → mass production, dissemination and survival of journals, pamphlets and books, of theology, criticism, history, science, narrative fiction 1492 European mariners reach the Americas (Christopher Columbus from Spain, 1492) → colonial settlements; 16ᵗʰ century Columbian Exchange of cultural infrastructure between New and Old Worlds, and Great Dying of 56 million indigenous peoples of the Americas 1498 European mariners reach India (Vasco da Gama from Portugal, 1498), connecting the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean → colonial empires in Africa and Asia; Indian Ocean trade; global multiculturalism 1500 foundations of Western art laid by Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519) and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Italy, 1475-1564), in humanist sculpture, drawing, portraiture and frescos 1510 technical drawing of anatomical features, mechanisms and engineering designs (Leonardo da Vinci, Italy, c. 1510) 1516 concept of utopia, imagined as an island society in the New World that implausibly meets all human desires (Thomas More, Britain, Utopia 1516) → political ideal theory 1517 Reformation, splitting the universal Christian world into sects (Martin Luther, Germany, 1517) 1522 first circumnavigation of the globe (Ferdinand Magellan from Spain to Philippines, Juan Sebastián Elcano return to Spain, 1519-22) → globalisation of sea trade 1526 beginning of the Atlantic slave trade by Europeans (1526) → 12 million slaves exported from Africa to the Americas up to 1900 1542 global population of humans passes 500 million; annual energy use per person averages 9,800 kWh, 14× the resting metabolism 6. Scientific Revolution ⇑ ⇓ ⇒ CE 1543 theory of Earth and the planets revolving around the Sun (Nicolaus Copernicus, Poland, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium 1543) → pursuit of supporting evidence 1582 introduction of the Gregorian calendar (Pope Gregory XIII, Italy, 1582) → de facto international standard for civil calendars 1582 first entrepreneurial newspaper publishers (Ming Dynasty Beijing, China, 1582) → independent reporting that witnesses torment, investigates oppression, safeguards freedom of expression 1605 first modern novel (Miguel de Cervantes, Spain, Don Quixote 1605 and 1615): an unreliable narrator describes the mercifully funny consequences of free will colliding with fate 1608 invention of the refracting telescope (Hans Lipperhey, Netherlands, 1608), enhancing the reach of visual perception by 3× 1609 inversion of the refracting telescope to create a compound microscope (Galileo Galilei, Italy, described in Il Saggiatore 1623) → cryo-electron microscopy imaging atoms in molecules by 2020 1610 observations of the orbits of Jupiter’s moons (Galileo Galilei, Italy, Sidereus Nuncius 1610), falsifying church doctrine of Earth as the only centre of movement in the Universe → authority of evidence-based science 1612 concept of a universal clock, calibrated on orbital periods of Jupiter’s moons (Galileo Galilei, Italy, 1612) → accurate estimation of longitude for navigation, given a stable observation platform 1619 distances of planets from the Sun measured relative to Earth’s distance of 1 astronomical unit (Johannes Kepler, Germany, Harmonices Mundi 1619) 1621 first medical treatise on mental welfare (Robert Burton, Britain, The Anatomy of Melancholy 1621), the author confiding in his reader → association with nature, physical health and exercise, social stability and inclusion 1628 first graph of distributed observations (Michael Florent van Langren, Netherlands, 1628); line graphs and bar charts by 1786 → data visualisation that saves lives 1632 basic principle of relativity: the laws of nature apply equally to any frame of reference in constant linear motion, regardless of its speed (Galileo Galilei, Italy, Dialogo 1632) 1637 idea that truth is the product of autonomous reason (René Descartes, France, Discours de la Méthode 1637; Méditations 1641) → emancipation from revelational truth and religious doctrine; distinction of mind from matter 1642 earliest functioning mechanical calculator, for addition and subtraction: the Pascaline (Blaise Pascal, France, 1642) 1650 relatedness of married couples averages about fourth cousin in 1650 for Europe and North America → decreasing only from 1870 onwards with cousin marriage prohibitions 1656 first pendulum clock (Christiaan Huygens, Netherlands, 25/12/1656), developing on ideas by Galileo Galilei → unsurpassed accuracy on land for 275 years 1665 identification of organismal cells (Robert Hooke, Britain, Micrographia 1665), the smallest unit of structure and function for all life forms 1665 notion of gravitation as a universal force, occasioned to Isaac Newton by the fall of an apple (Britain, as recounted to William Stukeley in 1726) → four fundamental interactions: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces 1665 concept and measure of Gross Domestic Product: GDP, the annual value of a country’s output (William Petty, Britain, 1665) → a globally favoured index of prosperity from 1953, conflating growth in productivity with drawdown of capital 1669 artistic rendering of unconditional forgiveness, in Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son (Netherlands, 1669) → limits to the conditionality of transactions 1676 discovery of single-celled organisms (Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Netherlands, 1676) → science of microbiology 1676 first determination of the speed of light (Ole Rømer, Denmark, 1676): 299,792 km per second; 9.46 trillion km per year → light-year measure of distance 1687 formulation of laws of motion and universal gravitation, applicable to all the phenomena of the cosmos (Isaac Newton, Britain, Principia 1687): foundation of classical mechanics → European Age of Enlightenment 1690 extinction of the dodo (Mauritius, c. 1690) → symbol of stupidity: the pigeon that couldn’t fly; later symbolic of human wreckage across three-quarters of Earth’s land and two-thirds of oceans 1700 rapid colonisation of Americas, India and Australia by Europeans from the early 1700s → dominion of India by the British East India Company from 1760s; British rule 1858-1947 1700 modest improvements in global GDP per capita since CE 1 henceforth begin accelerating in western Europe and North America → acceleration in Latin America and Asia from 1950, Africa from 2000 1735 cataloguing of organisms by genera and species (Carl Linnaeus, Sweden, Systema Naturae 1735-1768) → modern classification of 2 million from an estimated 8 million eukaryote species, possibly 1 trillion microbes 1759 first accurate sea clock: H4 (John Harrison, Britain, 1759), a pocket watch with high-frequency balance wheel, solving the problem of longitude for marine navigation 1761 first observed transit of Venus across the Sun (6/6/1761) → 1 astronomical unit of distance from Earth to Sun equal to 149,597,870.691 km 1769 invention of the first cost-effective steam engine (James Watt, Britain, 1769) → powered machinery, Industrial Revolution 1770 invention of the spinning jenny (James Hargreaves, Britain, 1770), mechanising the spinning of cotton → cloth weaving factories by 1771 1773 establishment of the law of conservation of mass (Antoine Lavoisier, France, 1773): the amount of matter cannot change 1774 vaccination with an attenuated pathogen: cowpox to treat smallpox (Benjamin Jesty, Britain, 1774; Edward Jenner, Britain, 1798) → artificial attenuation by 1881; vaccination programmes save more lives than any other medical intervention in history 1776 declaration of independence of the United States of America from colonial rule, and of the unalienable rights of all humanity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (4/7/1776) → economic superstate of the USA 1776 idea that pursuit of self-interest leads to the common good (Adam Smith, Britain, The Wealth of Nations 1776) → free markets, producing unequal opportunity unless government regulates trade 1778 first national nature reserve (Bogd Khan Uul, Mongolia, 1778) → global protected areas cover 15% of land and 11% of ocean by 2018 7. Industrial Revolution ⇑ ⇓ ⇒ CE 1780 mass production of spun textiles, mechanised by water power; coal-fired and steam-powered production of iron and steel (beginning Britain, c. 1780) → economies of scale, rising polarisation of rich and poor nations, dominance of fossil fuels 1781 inherent limits to the powers of reason (Immanuel Kant, Germany, Critique of Pure Reason 1781): knowledge springs from understanding the objects of experience; pure reason is properly directed only to moral imperatives 1783 invention of aviation: first piloted free flight by humans, in a hot-air balloon constructed by Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (France, 21/11/1783) 1784 first postulation of black holes (John Michell, Britain, 1784), later predicted by general relativity as singularities in spacetime, their gravitational fields pulling in all matter, and all electromagnetic radiation including light 1789 spread of Republicanism (French Revolution, 1789-1799) → radical socio-political transformation in western Europe; building of nation states; metric system of weights and measures by 1792 1792 indictment of double standards in the treatment of women by men (Mary Wollstonecraft, Britain, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792) → slow progress towards gender equality 1798 calculation of Earth’s density, using a torsion balance (Henry Cavendish, Britain, 1798) → Newton’s gravitational constant G determining the gravitational force between two masses 1798 observation that population growth capacity always outpaces improvements in resources (Thomas Malthus, Britain, 1798) → the struggle for existence facing all organisms; the challenge to human wellbeing, until the advent of oil-based economies 1799 first electrochemical battery (Alessandro Volta, Italy, 1799), sandwiching electrolyte-soaked pasteboard between two dissimilar metals to create a steady voltage → mobile energy storage 1807 concept of the mutual dependence of physical, climatological and organic phenomena (Alexander von Humboldt, Prussia, 1807) → science of biogeography 1808 discovery of atoms, uniquely defining each chemical element of ordinary matter (John Dalton, UK, 1808) → atomic masses of Earth’s 94 elements; hydrogen accounting for nine tenths of all atoms in the Universe 1817 invention of the bicycle (Karl von Drais, Germany, 1817); pedals by 1853, chain by 1886, derailleur by 1895 → the most efficient human-powered land vehicle 1821 first demonstration of an electromagnetic rotary device (Michael Faraday, UK, 1821) → dynamos to generate electricity; electric motors to convert electricity into mechanical energy 1822 first prediction of Earth’s greenhouse effect (Joseph Fourier, France, 1822; tested empirically by Eunice Foote, USA, 1856, John Tyndall, Ireland, 1859) → CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels cause global climate warming 1825 first public railway for steam locomotives (George Stephenson, UK, 1825), outpacing carriage horses, previously the fastest land transport during 5,300 years of human history 1826 publication of String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor Op. 131 by Ludwig van Beethoven (Germany, 1826): “hear only the direct revelation from another world” – Richard Wagner, 1870 1827 first permanent photograph taken by a camera (Nicéphore Niépce, France, 1827) → first image of a person, 1838: Louis Daguerre seizing the light, arresting its flight on silvered plate, preserving a moment in history 1834 invention of the Analytical Engine (Charles Babbage, UK, 1834), an unbuilt functional computer → first computer programs by Babbage and Ada Lovelace; programmable computers by 1940s 1838 first scheduled trans-Atlantic steamer: coal-fired Great Western (Isambard Kingdom Brunel, UK, 1838) → globalisation of economies 1848 scale of absolute temperature (Lord Kelvin, UK, 1848) → fundamental limit to degree of coldness at 0 Kelvin = − 273.15°C; quantum gases forced lower get hotter 1850 principles of conservation of energy and gain of entropy (Rudolf Clausius, Germany, and Lord Kelvin, UK, 1850) → laws of thermodynamics: heat flows from a warmer to a colder body – unless reversed by inertia 1850 industrial processing of flour and sugar; fattening of cattle in feedlots (Europe and USA, beginning c. 1850) → biggest dietary shift since the beginning of agriculture 1856 first practical compression refrigerator (James Harrison, Australia, 1856), for storing perishable foods → globalisation of trade in fresh and frozen meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables 1859 invention of the lead-acid cell (Gaston Planté, France, 1859), the first rechargeable battery → practical electric vehicles by the 1880s 1859 theory of evolution by natural selection (Charles Darwin, UK, On the Origin of Species 1859), a law unique to biological systems → heritable adaptations of individuals to their environment, speciation of populations through time, the diversity of life 1859 first training manual for care of the sick regardless of their means (Florence Nightingale, UK, Notes on Nursing 1859) → professional nursing, health benefits of fresh air and personal cleanliness 1860 factory production of internal-combustion engines (Jean Lenoir, Belgium, 1860; user manual 1864) → electricity generators, vehicular transport 1860 development of Western modern art, during 100 years from c. 1860, depicting impressions of light and movement, expressive colours and forms, solitary and collective struggles, decisive moments and formative experience 1865 theory that electricity, magnetism and light are all manifestations of electromagnetic radiation (James Maxwell, UK, 1865) → foundations of quantum physics 1866 discovery of the unitary character of heritable traits, and the independent assortment of their alternative forms (Gregor Mendel, Austria, 1866) → the gene as unit of heredity, contained in chromosomes – but not for Borgs 1867 theory that capitalism exploits labour, with the objectionable consequence of empowering the rich by disadvantaging the poor (Carl Marx, Germany, Das Kapital 1867, 1885, 1894) → Marxism, socialism, Stalinism 1874 discovery of unequal infinities: the infinite continuum of all real numbers exceeds in size any infinite set of natural numbers (Georg Cantor, Germany, 1874) → three sizes of infinity? 1876 invention of the telephone (Alexander Bell, USA, 1876), permitting conversation between distant voices → telecommunications 1877 invention of the phonograph (Thomas Edison, USA, 1877): first practical sound recording → gramophone, mass production of records (1890s), popularisation of individual artists 1879 invention of the electric light bulb (Thomas Edison, USA, 1879), providing cheap and safe illumination → organic light-emitting diodes by the 21ˢᵗ century 1880 invention of the photophone (Alexander Bell and Sumner Tainter, USA, 1880), transmitting sound on a beam of light → fibre-optic data transmission by 1966 1880 adult literacy reaches 20% of the global population by 1880 → 85% by 2010 1882 first commercially viable power stations, coal-fired (London and New York, 1882) → electrical grid; fossil fuels providing 63% of global electricity generation by 2019 1882 first hydroelectric power station (Jacob Schoellkopf, USA, 1882) → megadams replumbing the world’s major rivers from the 1950s; 16% of global (and 98% of Norway’s) electricity generation by 2019 1884 first rooftop photovoltaic solar array (Charles Fritts, USA, 1884) → rising to 3% of global electricity generation by 2019 1884 beginning of the Scramble for Africa by European powers (1884), occupying nine tenths by 1914 → ethnic partitioning through official colonial rule through to c. 1960 1886 first car with gasoline-powered internal combustion engine (Karl Benz, Germany, 1886) → 97 million motor vehicles produced globally per year by 2017: peak production? 1887 speed of light is invariant to source and observer motion (Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, USA, 1887) → upper limit to speed of matter and information, except for celestial objects separated by expanding space 1887 first wind-powered turbine for production of electricity (James Blyth, UK, 1887) → rising to 5% of global electricity generation by 2019 1890 centralised sewerage treatment plants (UK, USA, Australia, 1890s), preventing spread of diseases → urine diversion and recycling as fertiliser by 2022 1893 first self-governing democracy to grant women the vote (New Zealand, 1893) → rising women’s employment, diminishing yet ever-present gender inequality and bias 1895 first wireless transmission of telegraph signals by radio waves (Guglielmo Marconi, Italy, 1895), global radio communication by 1901 → radio broadcasts by 1920s; radar by 1930s 1895 first commercial screening of motion-picture films (Auguste and Louis Lumière, France, 1895) → birth of cinema, entrancing audiences with captured events and experience 1895 discovery of X-rays and production of X-ray images (Wilhelm Röntgen, Germany, 1895) → radiography 1896 discovery of natural radioactivity (Henri Becquerel, France, 1896) → radioisotopic labelling and dating, medical treatment of tumours 1897 first detection of an elementary – fundamental, subatomic and indivisible – particle: the electron (Joseph Thomson, UK, 1897) 1899 Planck units: natural units for length, time, mass and temperature (Max Planck, Germany, 1899) → fundamental limit to the degree of heat = 1.42 × 10³² K 1900 theory of the unconscious mind and emotions motivating and guiding human behaviour (Sigmund Freud, Austria, The Interpretation of Dreams 1900) → limits to the rationality of behaviour; foundation of psychoanalysis 1900 Planck’s law: every physical body emits electromagnetic radiation (Max Planck, Germany, 1900) → quantum mechanics, explaining the subatomic workings of the Universe 1900 theory of energy quanta (Max Planck, Germany, 1900, Albert Einstein, Switzerland, 1905), including the photon, a massless elementary particle and quantum of electromagnetic radiation 1900 two-thirds of the global population living in extreme poverty by 1900, declining amid rising geopolitical inequality until 1950 → one-third by 1995, down to one-tenth by 2017 1900 global average life expectancy equals 32 years by 1900 → doubling over the next 75 years, exposing diseases of ageing 1903 first powered, controlled flight by a heavier-than-air aircraft (Orville and Wilbur Wright, USA, 17/12/1903) → 4.4 billion airline passengers per year by 2019: peak volume? 1904 first quantification of dark matter (Lord Kelvin, UK, 1904), with gravitational influence yet no electromagnetic or strong interactions: 85% of matter in the Universe, concentrated amongst clustered galaxies 1905 theory of special relativity (Albert Einstein, Switzerland, 1905): energy-mass equivalence; length-contraction of moving objects and time-dilation of moving clocks relative to an observer → nuclear physics 1905 earliest chainsaw for cutting wood (Samuel Bens, USA, 1905), portable by 1918 → 2 billion m³ of wood processed globally by 2018, for construction, packaging, paper, pulp, fuel 1907 earliest organoids (Henry Wilson, USA, 1907): organ-like structures growing in a Petri dish → integration of human brain organoids with mouse brains by 2018; in vitro human neurons master Pong by 2022 1907 first organic polymer made from synthetic components: Bakelite plastic (Leo Baekeland, USA, 1907) → large-scale production of plastics from 1950, dominated by polythene 1908 industrial-scale synthesis of ammonia from ambient nitrogen (BASF, Germany, 1908) using the Haber-Bosch process → chemical fertilisers release crops from nitrogen limitation, fuelling the human population explosion 1908 unification of 3D space and 1D unidirectional time into absolute spacetime (Hermann Minkowski, Germany, 1908): deceleration through time accompanies acceleration through space, and vice versa 1909 first people to set foot on Earth’s poles (North Pole: Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, USA, 1909; South Pole: Roald Amundsen, Norway, 1911) 1911 discovery of the nuclear centre of atoms (Ernest Rutherford, UK, 1911); fission of the nitrogen nucleus to isolate subatomic protons by 1919 1912 idea of inwardness of feeling, in other ages directed at divinities, belonging to suffering, pain, love, joy (Rainer Maria Rilke, Germany, Duino Elegies 1912): inner commitment as life’s purpose 1913 introduction of factory assembly lines for mass production of cars (Ford Model T, USA, 1913), dedicating one worker to each step → dehumanising labour; affordable cars for labourers 1914 World War I (1914-18): 32 nations participate, 20 million killed; declared “the war to end war” 1914 opening of the Panama Canal (15/8/1914), shortening the route for shipping cargo between Atlantic and Pacific oceans 1915 mass deployment of X-ray units (Marie Curie, France, 1915) for treatment of over 1 million wounded soldiers 1915 theory of general relativity (Albert Einstein, Germany, 1915): equivalent effects of gravity and acceleration; gravity as a distortion of spacetime by massive objects → unresolved incompatibility with quantum mechanics 1917 Russian Revolution (Russia, 1917) → first communist state: USSR, 1922-1991 1917 a urinal made by a plumber becomes a sculpture made by the force of an imagination (Marcel Duchamp, France, Fountain 1917): reorientation of art away from craft, onto interpretation 1918 Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20): H1N1 influenza virus infects a third of the global population and kills 50-100 million, mostly in the 2ⁿᵈ wave; early interventions reduce mortality; long-range effects for survivors 1918 first modern refugee crisis (1918-1922): collapsing Russian and Ottoman Empires displacing 1-2 million Russians and hundreds of thousands of Armenians → Nansen Passports for stateless citizens 1919 demonstration of nervous mechanisms in plants, paralleling those in animals (Jagadish Chandra Bose, Bengal, 1919) 1919 observations of starlight deflection during a Solar eclipse, confirming the gravitational lensing prediction of general relativity (Arthur Eddington, UK, 1919) 1919 first commercial radio broadcasts (PCGG, Netherlands, 1919); global uptake during 1920s → dissemination of time signals, news, propaganda, education, entertainment; storytelling for the complicit listener 1921 discovery of insulin (Frederick Banting and Charles Best, Canada, 1921) → treatment of diabetes, now afflicting 1 in 10 of the global population, particularly in high-income and urban areas 1922 invention of leaded petrol (General Motors, USA, 1922), improving engine performance, causing epidemics of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and developmental delays in children → global elimination by 2021 1922 prediction of an expanding Universe (Alexander Friedmann, Russia, 1922) → dark energy accelerating the expansion of a flat or possibly closed, cyclic or hologram Universe, perhaps one in a multiverse 1923 concept of every quantum entity having dual nature, as both wave and particle (Louis de Broglie, France, 1923, Niels Bohr, Denmark, 1928) → no independent physical reality of atomic phenomena 1924 first aerial circumnavigation of the world (US Army Air Service, 1924) → globalisation of human mobility 1926 first working television system (John Logie Baird, UK, 1926) → nationwide television broadcasting by 1929, bringing rulers to their subjects, entertainers to viewers, inspiring awe 1926 Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (League of Nations, 1926) → commitment by 99 of 195 countries since 2008; still 168 million child labourers and 21 million forced labourers 1927 a car outpaces a racehorse (La Chapelle, France, 1927) → dominion of the automobile for land transport and haulage 1927 principle that every particle has a constant product of its variances in position and momentum (Werner Heisenberg, Germany, 1927) → no precisely determinable Universe 1928 prediction of positron particles, the antimatter counterpart of electrons (Paul Dirac, UK, 1928) → abundant antimatter at the birth of the Universe; cosmic rays, positron emission tomography 1928 identification of plasma, the fourth fundamental state of matter after solids, liquids and gases (Irving Langmuir, USA, 1928) 1928 first experimental isolation of an antibiotic: penicillin (Alexander Fleming, UK, 1928) → healthcare revolution; overuse of antibiotics driving resistance in bacteria, causing 1.2 million deaths in 2019 1929 Great Depression, symbolised by the Wall Street Crash of 29/10/1929 and the North American Dust Bowl of the 1930s → 22% drop in worldwide GDP 1930 postulation of neutrinos (Wolfgang Pauli, Austria, 1930), the smallest elementary particle and one of the most abundant in the Universe, rarely interacting with other matter 1930 idea that all roads to the mind start from the soul, and none leads back again (The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil, Austria, 1930): the human soul as mediator of experience, spirit firing the imagination 1931 proof that no set of consistent axioms can suffice to derive all mathematical truths, to leave none undecidable (Kurt Gödel, Germany, 1931) → incomplete reality 1932 discovery of neutrons (James Chadwick, UK, 1932), with protons constituting the nuclei of atoms → nuclear fission of uranium by 1938; nuclear chain reactions; atomic bombs and nuclear energy 1933 theory that government spending can stabilise the market economy (John Maynard Keynes, UK, 1933, 1936) → borrowing to boost consumption, at the expense of investment to sustain capital assets 1934 first radio detection and ranging: radar (Navel Research Laboratory, USA, 1934), concurrently developed in UK, Germany and other countries, targeting aircraft, ships, submarines and weather 1935 concept of the ecosystem (Arthur Tansley, UK, 1935), a complex association of organisms with their environment → value of nature to humans from provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services 1938 invention of nylon (Wallace Carothers, DuPont, USA, 1938), the first synthetic textile fibre → filaments, films, bristles, cords, washers, sacking, fabrics, hosiery and clothing, spacesuits, parachutes, fishing nets and longlines 1939 first turbojet powered aircraft (Heinkel He 178, Germany, 1939) → jet planes 1939 World War II (1939-45): 184 nations participate, 60 million killed, including genocide of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust 1941-45 – the greatest crime of the 20ᵗʰ century 1941 development of frequency-hopping radio communication (Hedy Markey [Hedy Lamarr] and George Antheil, USA, 1941) → Bluetooth and Wi-Fi by 1990s 1941 first binary-logic digital programmable computer: Z3 (Konrad Zuse, Germany, 1941) 1942 discovery of insecticidal action of DDT (Paul Müller, Switzerland, 1942), the most successful chemical ever synthesised to control malaria → toxicity in food chains exposed in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 1962; worldwide ban 2004 1944 first electronic digital programmable computer: Colossus (Tommy Flowers, UK, 1944) → code-breaking that hastened the end of World War II 1945 atomic bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan, 6, 9/8/1945), the blasts and subsequent cancers killing over 250,000 people, mostly civilians; to date the only nuclear weapons used in combat 1945 establishment of the United Nations (UN, 1945), with a mission to maintain international peace, security and cooperation, amongst societies with customs and tolerances adapted to distal ecological and historical contexts 8. Technological Revolution ⇑ ⇓ ⇒ CE 1945 first proposed electronic calculator (Alan Turing, UK, 1945) → modern stored-program computers 1947 first supersonic flight, in a rocket-powered aircraft (Chuck Yeager in Bell X-1, USA, 14/10/1947) → space exploration 1948 invention of the transistor (Bell Labs, USA, 1948) → transistor radios by 1950s; integrated circuits by 1959; microprocessors by 1970; consumer electronics 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 10/12/1948): all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights 1949 invention of the barcode (Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver, USA, 1949) → automation of product tracking 1950 proof that smoking causes lung cancer (Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill, UK, 1950): tipping point to ultimate elimination of smoking sometime over 70 years later, delayed by lobbying 1950 start of the Anthropocene Epoch, humans using 22×10²¹ joules of energy over the next 70 years, 1.5× more than all energy use during the previous 11,700 years: accelerating combustion of fossil fuels, their greenhouse gases trapping a further 10× more solar energy in the oceans 1950 global GDP per capita having tripled over 130 years to 1950, tripling again over the next 50 years; North Americans and western Europeans earning over 3× the global average wage: the Great Acceleration in technology, interdependence, and dominance over planetary cycles 1950 beginning of a rapid acceleration in global crop yields through innovations in seed varieties, agrochemicals, irrigation, mechanisation → Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, global cereal yield tripling over 60 years from 1960, provisioning feedlots of up to 100,000 cattle 1951 genocide becomes a crime under international law (UN, 1951); genocide events over the next 50 years kill more than 12 million civilians 1951 over 500 above-ground tests of nuclear weapons through to 1980 release 6 tonnes of plutonium and other radionuclides, detectable globally in sediments, soils and organismal tissues for 100,000 years into the future 1952 half the world adult population has at least basic education by 1952 → three-quarters by 1990 1953 molecular structure of DNA (Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick, UK,1953) → access to the genetic code of relatedness, form and function for all living organisms, through evolutionary time as far back as 700,000 years, and in the environment 1953 ascent to the highest point on Earth: Mount Everest at 8,848 m (Tenzing Norgay, Nepal, and Edmund Hillary, New Zealand, 29/5/1953) 1954 first nuclear power plant (Obninsk, USSR, 1954) → advent of clean energy: 10% of global electricity generation in 2019; radioactive waste; nuclear catastrophes, including Chernobyl, Ukraine, 26/4/1986 1955 first accurate atomic clock (Louis Essen and Jack Parry, UK, 1955), the first quantum technology: time as atomic oscillations → atomic standard of time interval; Coordinated Universal Time: UTC, starting 1/1/1960 1956 first shipment of freight in standardized intermodal containers (Malcom McLean, USA, 1956) → globalisation of commerce 1956 emergence of pop art (Richard Hamilton, UK, 1956; Andy Warhol, USA, 1962), its impersonal style anticipating a commodified and media-saturated world of illusory promise, desire and consumerism 1957 first orbiting space satellite (Sputnik 1, USSR, 4/10/1957) → intelligence gathering by 1960; Global Positioning System: GPS, and Earth observation, by 1973; global telecommunications and infrastructure interdependency 1957 first living being to depart Earth for outer space: stray mongrel dog Laika in Sputnik II (USSR, 3/11/1957), deceased in passage 1959 the Great Chinese Famine 1959-1961, the worst famine in history: Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ policy colliding with drought to cause 15-45 million deaths 1959 Antarctic Treaty (1/12/1959), designating use of the continent of Antarctica solely for peaceful purposes and scientific investigation, and prohibiting nuclear activity → need for Māori insight 1960 descent to the deepest point in the oceans: Mariana Trench at 10,911 m (Jacques Piccard, Switzerland, and Don Walsh, USA, in the bathyscaphe Trieste, 23/1/1960), the last frontier of Earth exploration 1960 first female head of a democratic government: Sirimavo Bandaranaike, serving three terms as prime minister of Ceylon then Sri Lanka between 1960 and 2000 1960 first laser beam (Theodore Maiman, USA, 1960) → LiDAR mapping; cutting, welding, printing, precision surgery; reading/writing data; trapping atoms; 21ˢᵗ century interferometry 1960 first government-approval of oral contraceptives for use by the public (US FDA, 1960) → women taking control over their fertility, liberating them to develop professional careers 1960 formation of The Beatles rock band (UK, 1960) → globalisation of musical influence in the 1960s 1961 first astronaut in outer space (Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1, USSR, 12/4/1961), completing one Earth orbit during a 108-minute flight → the Space Age 1964 origin of mass explained by interactions with Higgs quantum field (Peter Higgs, UK, and others, 1964) → Standard Model of particle physics 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UN, 1965) → commitments from 182 countries since 2019; race still defining exposure to violence 1967 postulation of imperfect symmetry between matter and antimatter (Andrei Sakharov, USSR, 1967) → surplus of matter over antimatter since the early Universe 1967 Outer Space Treaty (UN, 1967), the basis of international space law → freedom for all to explore space, and prohibition of weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit 1968 peak growth rate of 2.07% in the world human population (1968), averaging 3.7 offspring per female → growth rate halved by 2020, with populations ageing globally and crashing in the richest countries 1969 first astronaut on the Moon (Neil Armstrong, USA, 20/7/1969), delivered by a 160-million horsepower Saturn V rocket; the Apollo 11 Command Module returning to Earth 4 days later 1969 first host-to-host computer connection (ARPANET, USA, 29/10/1969): “lo” sent across 500 km → flourishing Internet by the 1980s; first quantum network by 2017 1970 proof of the birth of the Universe in a spacetime singularity (Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, UK, 1970) 1970 first optical disc encoding binary data (James Russell, USA, 1970) → digitisation of data storage, sound recording and playback 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (UN, 1970) → commitment by 191 states, not the nuclear states of India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea; a nuclear detonation affects everyone 1970 first probe to land on another planet and transmit data: surface temperature of Venus (Venera 7, USSR, 15/12/1970); images by 1975 → images from the surface of Mars by 1976 1972 recognition by governments worldwide that fossil-fuel combustion threatens Earth’s atmosphere (UN Conference on the Human Environment 1972), understood by the growing environmental movement as a crisis rooted in Western worldviews of nature as commodity 1972 atomic clocks flown east around the world lose time to clocks flown west, confirming the time-dilation predicted by special relativity (Joseph Hafele and Richard Keating, USA, 1972) 1972 creation of first recombinant DNA, from a polyomavirus and a bacteriophage (Paul Berg, USA, 1972) → first transgenic mammal by 1974: a mouse; cloned synthetic genes for human insulin by 1979 1973 concept of natural capital: the stock of natural resources (Ernst Schumacher, UK, Small is Beautiful 1973) → an asset that underpins human, social, manufactured and financial capitals, its qualities of mobility, silence and invisibility defying economic measurement, exposing it to unregulated human activities 1973 global average life expectancy exceeds 60 years by 1973 → 70 years by 2008 and rising for all countries; strengthening link to affluence, which drives down natural capital 1975 fraction of world adult population overweight or obese (BMI > 25 kg/m²) rises above 20% by 1975 → 39% by 2016, rising fastest in the young 1975 first personal computer: Altair 8800 (John Blankenbaker, USA, 1975), word processing software by 1976, spreadsheets by 1979 → digital media beginning to replace paper and celluloid by the end of the 20ᵗʰ century 1975 first global commitment to cross-border environmental protection: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES, 1975) → illegal trade still threatening wildlife and human health 1977 indigenous Green Belt Movement (Wangari Maathai, Kenya, 1977), combatting poverty with environmental conservation → UN Billion Trees Campaign by 2006; One Trillion Trees Initiative by 2020 1978 first human born on the Antarctic mainland (Esperanza Base, Argentina, 7/1/1978) → continuous human settlement of every continent on Earth 1978 first human born from in vitro fertilisation (IVF, UK, 1978) → ethical issues of selecting amongst genome-sequenced embryos 1979 completion of the Standard Model (1979), combining quantum mechanics with special relativity to explain how elementary particles determine the composition of all matter and all its governing forces except gravitation 1980 global eradication of smallpox (WHO, 1980), after it kills 300 million people and one-third of those infected during the 20ᵗʰ century, the only infectious disease of humans to have been eradicated by vaccination 1981 first diagnosis of AIDS (USA, 1981) → identification of causal HIV by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, France, 1983; global epidemic killing 36 million by 2021; continuing health risk 1982 international moratorium on commercial whaling (IWC, agreed 1982, enforced 1986): power of people, unified by non-governmental organisations, to drive worldwide change 1982 adoption of the World Charter for Nature (UN, 1982, only USA voting against) recognising nature’s intrinsic value, establishing the imperative of keeping human activities within Earth’s limits 1983 activation of standardized Internet Protocol (USA, 1983) → proliferation of email, file transfer, Internet forums, information sharing 1983 genetic engineering enters mainstream agriculture, then medicine, with patents for genetically modified crop plants (International Plant Research Institute, 1983), and transgenic animals (Harvard College, USA, OncoMouse 1988) 1984 first untethered spacewalk (Bruce McCandless, Challenger Space Shuttle 41-B, USA, 7/2/1984) 1985 discovery of a human-induced hole in the stratospheric ozone layer (1985) → increase in UV-B radiation at Earth’s surface, changing climate, causing DNA damage to phytoplankton and plants; potential forest sterility and skin cancers 1985 first aircraft to fly on another planet: VeGa balloons in the cloud system of Venus (USSR + 8 European countries, 1985) → Earth’s evil twin, yet potential for life in the clouds? 1985 discovery of the enzyme telomerase controlling cellular ageing (Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider, USA, 1985) → eternal lifespan of cancer cells 1986 beginnings of continuous colonisation of space, in low Earth orbit (Mir Space Station, USSR, 20/2/1986) → International Space Station from 2/11/2000 1986 global population of humans passes 5 billion; annual energy use per person averages 18,300 kWh, 26× the resting metabolism 1987 global agreement to ban hydrochlorofluorocarbons and other ozone depleting substances (Montreal Protocol, 1987), the only UN protocol to be ratified by every country on Earth → punctuated recovery of stratospheric ozone, slowing Earth’s warming 1987 sustainable development enters economics, as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Report 1987) → ecosystems as capital assets, economies as systems embedded within nature 1988 first assessment that global climate warming has begun (James Hansen, Senate testimony to US Congress, 23/6/1988) → creation of the IPCC, 1988; human imperative to stabilise climate change 1989 invention of the World Wide Web information system (Tim Berners-Lee, UK, 1989) → birth of the Information Age 1990 spacecraft Voyager 1 photographs the sunlit Earth from a distance of 6 billion km (NASA, 14/2/1990): this Pale Blue Dot, our place in the cosmos 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA with ESA, 1990) → observing the birth of stars, growth of galaxies, prevalence of black holes, atmospheres of exoplanets 1992 first detection of exoplanets, orbiting a neutron star 2,300 light-years from Earth (Arecibo Observatory and NRAO, USA, 1992) → possibility of extra-terrestrial life on temperate and moist planets, perhaps feeding off radiolytic H₂; beings for whom we are aliens 1992 the Rio Earth Summit, Brazil, hosts the largest gathering of world leaders as of 1992, for intergovernmental collaboration on the environment, climate change, desertification 1992 global commitment by nation states to conservation of biodiversity, and sustainable use and equitable sharing of its benefits (UN Convention on Biological Diversity: CBD, 1992) → ratified by every country except the USA 1992 first Internet server for streaming media (StarWorks, 1992) → rise of live and on-demand video and audio streaming during the 2000s; personalisation of entertainment and nostalgia 1993 tuning of enzyme functions by directed evolution (Frances Arnold, USA, 1993) → environmentally friendly production of pharmaceuticals and renewable fuels 1994 launch of online marketplace Amazon.com (Jeff Bezos, USA, 1994) → world’s largest cloud-computing platform 1995 observation of Bose-Einstein condensate (NIST, USA, 1995), a fifth state of matter with properties unlike solids, liquids, gases, plasmas → quantum mechanical description of gravity? 1995 peak of global marine fishery catch, at 130 million tonnes during 1995 → thereafter diminishing returns for a still expanding global fishery; need for an equitable ocean commons 1996 first cloned mammal (Dolly the sheep, Roslin Institute, UK, 1996) → cloning of human stem cells from embryos by 2013 in pursuit of novel therapies; moral, ethical, and social dilemmas 1996 first practical solar-powered aircraft (Icaré 2, Germany, 1996) → race for clean-energy applications; gradually emerging political vision for weaning off fossil fuels 1997 first robotic rover lands on Mars and measures surface composition (NASA’s Sojourner, 4/7/1997) → Mars Express spacecraft finds liquid water in 2018, conducive to life and to human colonisation 1997 adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by 192 countries (UNFCC, 1997), binding 37 industrialised and industrialising countries plus the EU to targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions → still rising by 2021 1998 creation of Google search technology, as a student project (Larry Page and Sergey Brin, USA, 1998) → free to use, efficient knowledge-search engine; profit from mining personal data; pay-per-click business model 2000 ongoing and accelerating rise in global mean sea level exceeds 3 mm/year by 2000, regulated by thermal expansion, ice-mass loss and large-scale dams → no scenario that stops sea-level rise this century 2000 first legal recognition of same-sex marriage (The Netherlands, 2000) → legal in 32 countries by 2022 2001 calory deficit afflicts 13% of the global population in the year 2001 → 9% by 2019; climate change exacerbating undernourishment and obesity 2001 launch of Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, USA, 15/1/2001), collating knowledge as a common good → world’s largest work of general reference, open to editing by registered users 2001 first draft sequence of the human genome: c. 25,000 genes in 3 billion base pairs (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, USA, + 23 institutes, 2001), completed 2003 → Human Cell Atlas; gene therapy 2001 first space tourist (Dennis Tito, USA, with the Russian space programme to the International Space Station, 2001) → race to commercialise space travel by 2021 2001 terrorist attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon (USA, 11/9/2001) → accelerating globalisation of jihadi networks instigated in the 1980s, and counter-terrorism strategies 2003 a heatwave across Europe causes 70,000 additional deaths in summer 2003, then with a return time of thousands of years → 100 years by 2015; rising frequency of record-shattering climate extremes, including marine heatwaves 2003 globally agreed enforcement of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CBD, 2003), governing translocation of living genetically modified organisms that threaten biodiversity 2004 launch of online social networking service Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg, USA, 2004) → 2 billion users by 2017; rise in conspiracy theories with reorientation of online exchanges from information to values 2006 launch of microblogging service Twitter (Jack Dorsey, USA, 2006) → 500 million tweets per day by 2013; one-to-many echo chambers; rise of free-to-use platforms monetising personal data through advertising 2007 human urban population exceeds half the global population for the first time in history → urban wealth sustained by international trade that drives rural impoverishment; strengthening relation of fertility to poverty 2007 worldwide adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN, 2007) to be free and equal to all other peoples, supported by 182 nation states 2007 Great Recession (2007-9), free-fall of developed economies synchronised by global integration of markets 2008 first smartphone apps (iPhone App Store, 10/7/2008) → establishment of social media; 100 billion app downloads by 2015, 100 billion per year by 2020; no stewardship of global collective behaviour 2008 first national constitution to recognise rights of nature (Ecuador, 2008); first statutory law granting rights to nature, Bolivia 2010 → departure from nature as property 2008 first country to adopt circular-economy legislation (China, 2008): reduce, reuse, recycle → national roadmaps by 2016; need for global initiatives 2009 launch of first cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer medium of exchange by blockchain (Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009) → expanding carbon footprint from computationally intensive mining of digital coins 2009 humanity is overstepping three planetary boundaries to a safe operating space: climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen cycle → risk of abrupt ecological disruption, biosphere tipping points, and hothouse Earth; need for planetary stewardship 2009 nations that grew rich on fossil fuels commit climate finance to poorer nations (UN FCCC, 2009), worth one-tenth of annual oil and gas industry royalties by 2020 → inadequate, and still a shortfall by 2021 2010 creation of first self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell (J. Craig Venter Institute, USA, 2010) → xenobots for intravenous drug delivery by 2020, self-replicating by 2021; dangers of robots with unlimited autonomy 2010 global agreement to implement 20 biodiversity targets by 2020 (CBD, 2010), to address causes of biodiversity loss, reduce pressures on biodiversity, safeguard ecosystems and their services → failure completely on 14, partially on 6 2011 international resolution against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (UN, 2011) → homosexuality legal in 133 of 195 countries by 2019, rising trend; recognition of a sex spectrum 2011 number of liberal and elected democracies in the world peaks at 101 in 2011, encompassing 55% of the global population 2011 two-thirds of the global population in 2011 have access to safe drinking water, a necessary condition for wellbeing; rising to almost three-quarters by 2020 2012 observation of Higgs boson: a fundamental force-carrier particle (CERN Large Hadron Collider, 4/7/2012) → validation of the Standard Model of particle physics 2012 more than half the world’s population tunes in to television coverage of the London Summer Olympics (2012) 2012 invention of CRISPR-Cas9 technology (Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, USA, 2012) → accurate, fast and cheap editing of genes and gene mutations in any organism, including – unethically – viable human embryos 2012 first human-made object escapes our Solar System and enters interstellar space, 18 billion km from the Sun (Voyager 1, 25/8/2012) 2013 atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ exceed 400 ppm for the first time in at least 3 million years, an accelerating rise (NOAA, Hawaii, 5/2013) → race for technologies to capture and use CO₂ 2014 globally agreed enforcement of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (CBD, 2014), a legal framework for informed consent and benefit-sharing 2015 invention of the optical lattice clock (Hidetoshi Katori, Japan, 2015) → accuracy of 1 second in 15 billion years; ticking detectably faster with each centimetre of altitude, as predicted by general relativity 2015 a fishing boat sinks off the Mediterranean coast of Libya with the loss of 1,050 lives (18/4/2015), amongst 65 million people forcibly displaced worldwide in 2015 2015 tipping point in industry-wide momentum towards electric vehicles during mid-2010s, when still comprising 2% of market share, spread by investor confidence under strengthening regulation of fossil fuels 2015 three trillion trees on Earth (2015, cf. 6.6 trillion at the start of human civilisation), 15 billion culled annually → forest covering a quarter of global land area, declining in extent and diversity, driven down by commodity production, wildfires, urbanisation IV. PLANETARY STEWARDSHIP

9. Sustainability Revolution ⇑ ⇓ ⇒

CE 2015 UN General Assembly of 194 countries adopts 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, to end poverty and other deprivations by improving health and education, reducing inequalities, addressing climate change and halting biodiversity loss (25/9/2015) 2015 UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change adopted by 196 nation states, resolving to keep global average temperature to well below 2°C in excess of pre-industrial levels, and striving to limit the increase to 1.5°C (12/12/2015) → slower losses of sea ice, permafrost, and biodiversity; by 2022, no credible pathway to 1.5°C 2015 human land use, rising exponentially up to 1960, still rising in 2015 for livestock grazing (27% of global land area), crops (7%), buildings, towns and cities (1%); industrial fishing in 55% of ocean area by 2015 2016 detection of gravitational waves (LIGO and Virgo interferometers, 11/2/2016): ripples in spacetime generated by accelerating bodies, predicted by the theory of general relativity 2016 coldest ground surface temperature on Earth: − 110.9°C (central-eastern Antarctica, 2016); once temperate rainforests, now dry and salty antarctic soils uninhabitable even to microbes 2016 destruction of more than 6 million ha (60,000 km²) of tropical primary forest during 2016, an unprecedented peak in a rising trend → quick profit from drawing down natural capital, a down payment on future economic failure 2016 global land and ocean surface temperature for 2016 reaches 0.99°C above the 1951-1980 mean, Earth’s warmest year on record to date → roadmap for decarbonisation, implicating lifestyle choices 2017 first national legislation for a mid-century target of net-zero emissions (Sweden, 2017) → Suriname and Bhutan CO₂-negative by 2019; net-zero pledges by governments and companies cover 90% of the global economy by 2021, with big emitters yet to peak 2017 accumulation since 1957 of 23,000 space objects bigger than an apple, travelling at up to 28,000 km/hr in Earth orbit → debris risk to satellites and space stations, a problem for government space agencies of their own making 2017 accumulation of plastic waste since 1950 exceeds 5 billion tonnes in landfills and the natural environment by 2017, more than 10× global human biomass → pervasive microplastics across the globe; paucity of options for mitigating harm 2018 sixfold increase in annual ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland over 25 years to 2018 → sea-levels to rise 40-80 cm by 2100 under scenarios of low-high greenhouse gas emissions, displacing 190-630 million people 2018 slowing Atlantic circulation over the last 60 years, consistent with rising CO₂, enhancing global surface warming 2018 humans and our livestock achieve respectively 9× and 14× the biomass of all wild mammals by 2018→ imperative of shifting towards plant-based diets, co-benefitting forests, climate change and health 2018 hottest ground surface temperature on Earth: 80.8°C (Lut Desert, Iran, 2018; Sonoran Desert, Mexico, 2019), too hostile for plant life 2018 human activities have modified three-quarters of ice-free land and almost nine-tenths of the ocean by 2018; Earth’s remaining wildernesses become increasingly vital buffers against climate change 2018 first commercial taxi service of fully self-driving cars (Google-Waymo, USA, 5/12/2018) → reducing traffic accidents, raising social dilemmas 2018 half the global population using the Internet by 2018 → escape from state-controlled media; expansion of denial, fake news, falsehoods, lies and misinformation 2019 first image of a black hole (Event Horizon Telescope, 10/4/2019), 55 million light-years from Earth, 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun, with spiralling magnetic fields, expelling jets of matter 2019 first global assessment of biodiversity finds 1 million of Earth’s 8 million species threatened by accelerating extinction rates (IPBES, 2019): Earth’s sixth mass extinction imperils humanity’s life support systems, calling for transformative change in human activities 2019 Britain generates more electricity from zero-carbon sources than from fossil fuels for the first time since the Industrial Revolution (UK National Grid, 6/2019); fossil fuels still provide 84% of global primary energy 2019 energy use per person during 2019 exceeds the resting metabolism by 30× globally, and by 114× for citizens of the USA (cf. 15× for an elite athlete running a marathon) 2019 acidification of almost all open-ocean surface by absorption of anthropogenic CO₂, losing 0.02 pH units per decade since 1990, with current harm and projected threats to shell-forming species 2019 first global climate strike (20/9/2019), led by school children and joined by millions of people with justified concerns → world scientists warn of a climate emergency 2019 first demonstration of quantum supremacy over conventional computers (Google AI Quantum, USA, 2019) → double-exponential growth rate in computing power 2019 first case of COVID-19 (Wuhan wildlife market, China, 1/12/2019), caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 → pandemic triggering unprecedented lockdown of nations and societies worldwide, shrinking the global economy, deepening inequalities; largest vaccination programme in history begins 8/12/2020 after 5.7 million excess deaths 2019 inauguration of US Space Force (20/12/2019), formalising competition for military dominance in space; UK follows in 2021 → surveillance extending to stewardship and warfare capabilities 2019 rising frequency of weather-related disasters multiplies global economic losses 7.8× from the 1970s to the 2010s, disproportionately impoverishing the poor; early-warning systems reduce deaths by two-thirds 2020 One Trillion Trees Initiative (World Economic Forum, 2020), planting trees in support of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2020-2030 → nature-based climate solutions 2020 launch of first commercial space taxi (SpaceX, 30/5/2020), taking NASA astronauts to the International Space Station 2020 highest recorded air temperature on Earth: 54.4°C in Death Valley (California, USA, 16/8/2020); emergence of intolerable heat, particularly for urban populations, exacerbated by air conditioning, mitigated by greenery 2020 leaders of 93 countries and the EU pledge to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 (Leaders Pledge for Nature, 2020): commitment to nature positive government, business and civil society 2020 protein structures accurately predicted by an artificial intelligence network: AlphaFold (DeepMind, USA, 2020) → accelerated understanding of protein functions; rapid advances in drug design 2020 human-made materials surpass Earth’s total living biomass, predominantly as concrete infrastructure, doubling in mass every 20 years since 1900 → our material contribution to the Anthropocene Epoch 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature for 2020 exceeds 1°C above the 1951-1980 mean for the first time, 1.2°C above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline, with 2011-2020 the 4ᵗʰ decade in succession to claim warmest average temperature 2020 ambient temperature in the Arctic exceeds the 1981-2010 average by 2.1°C in 2020, warming 4× faster than the rest of the world; permafrost thawing self-amplifies to the point of no return; Arctic zombie fires release 4× the CO₂ emissions of global volcanic activity 2021 first powered, controlled flight on another planet: Ingenuity Helicopter drone on Mars (NASA, 19/4/2021), hovering 3 m above the Jezero Crater 2021 spacecraft Parker Solar Probe touches the Sun’s corona (NASA, 28/4/2021): sampling its outer atmosphere 2021 worldwide acceleration of glacier melt, now at twice the speed of 20 years ago → explaining one-fifth of the rate and acceleration in sea-level rise during the 21ˢᵗ century 2021 tropical forests in south-eastern Amazonia switch from CO₂ sink to source by 2021, linked to intensifying dry seasons, deforestation and rising frequency of fires 2021 Earth’s hottest month on record (NOAA, July 2021): rising frequency of climate anomalies → need for actions to trigger positive tipping towards global sustainability through self-reinforcing shifts in behaviour 2021 human activities have unequivocally warmed atmosphere, ocean and land, intensifying heatwaves, droughts and floods; global warming will exceed 2°C without immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions (IPCC, 2021): a reality check for policy makers 2021 pledge to end deforestation by 2030, signed by 141 countries, covering 90% of Earth’s forests (UN COP 26 Climate Conference, 2/11/2021) → uneven progress; need for enforcement mechanisms 2021 commitment by 103 countries to curb emissions of methane (Global Methane Pledge, 2/11/2021): a potent greenhouse gas approaching triple preindustrial levels; emissions catalysed by global warming? 2021 global agreement to nearly halve CO₂ emissions by 2030 relative to 2010, and to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century (UN COP 26 Glasgow Climate Pact, 13/11/2021) → need for policies to match the science 2021 the world ocean reaches its hottest ever recorded in 2021, for the third year and seventh decade in a row, contributing to coral bleaching and sea-level rise; fuelling marine heatwaves, cyclones and hurricanes 2021 clean power accounts for more than one-third of global electricity supply in 2021, with wind and solar sources alone contributing one-tenth 2021 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (NASA, ESA, CSA, 2021) → exploring the early Universe, star births and deaths and galactic evolution, analysing exoplanet atmospheres for signs of life 2022 global cost-of-living crisis initiated by demand exceeding supply for resources, intensified by Russia invading Ukraine (24/2/2022), threatening worldwide food and energy security 2022 human and natural populations are reaching limits to climate adaptation, from poles to equator (IPCC, 2022): diminishing opportunities to secure a liveable future for all by strengthening nature 2022 time has almost run out for averting global climate catastrophe (IPCC, 2022): mitigation still cheaper than adaptation, by switching immediately and comprehensively to carbon-free energy and extracting atmospheric carbon 2022 the number of people forcibly displaced reaches 100 million worldwide (UNHCR, 2022), of which c. 40 million refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons are displaced by conflict and violence 2022 one-fifth of the global population depends directly on one or more of fifty thousand wild species for food or livelihood (IPBES, 2022): sustainable use must confront the globally accelerating loss of biodiversity 2022 fifty ways to value nature, in diverse opportunities for living from, with, in, and as nature (IPBES, 2022); a narrow focus of policy-makers on value to economic growth drives down biodiversity 2022 unprecedented successive years with declining global value of Human Development Index (UN-DP, 2022): climate change and Covid-19 impacting education, income, life expectancy 2022 record-breaking heatwaves, heralding extreme droughts in China and western Europe, and flooding in Pakistan that displaces 33 million people 2022 tumbling costs of green energy reach parity with fossil fuels by 2022 → economic motivation for shifting faster to renewable energy, with net-zero CO₂ emissions feasible within 10-20 years 2022 a spacecraft alters the course of an asteroid (NASA, 2022), demonstrating potential to save Earth from an asteroid hit

How many electrons are in the 3rd orbit?

The third shell can hold 32 electrons. Within the shells, electrons are further grouped into subshells of four different types, identified as s, p, d, and f in order of increasing energy.

How many electrons are in the 4th Shell?

- Each energy level can accommodate only a certain number of electrons. Thus, the number of electrons in the fourth energy level is 32 electrons.

What is the number of electrons in an orbit?

The maximum number of electrons in an orbit of an atom is determined by 2n² (n = Orbit Number). According to Bohr's model of an atom, the maximum number of electrons in an orbit/shell is given by 2n². Here 'n' is orbit number/ shell number/ energy level; which is 1 for K shell, 2 for L shell and so on.