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Human history is the development of humankind from prehistory to the present, understood through the study of written records, archaeology, anthropology, genetics, linguistics, and other forms of evidence.

Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had populated most of the Earth by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. Soon afterward, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia brought the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from a nomadic life to a sedentary existence as farmers in permanent settlements. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing.

These developments paved the way for the emergence of early civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China, marking the beginning of the Ancient period in 3000 BCE. These civilizations supported the establishment of regional empires and acted as a fertile ground for the advent of transformative philosophical and religious ideas, initially Hinduism during the late Bronze Age, and later Buddhism, Confucianism, Greek philosophy, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism during the Axial Age. The following post-classical period, from about 500 to 1500 CE, witnessed the rise of Islam and the continued spread and consolidation of Christianity while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies increased. These developments were accompanied by the rise and decline of major empires, such as the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Caliphates, the Mongol Empire, and various Chinese dynasties. The inventions of gunpowder and the printing press in this period impacted subsequent history.

During the early modern period, spanning from 1500 to 1800 CE, European powers explored and colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw significant intellectual, cultural, and technological advancements driven by the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution and began the late modern period starting around 1800 CE. The growth in productive power further increased international trade and colonization, linking the different civilizations in the process of globalization. Despite the devastating impact of two world wars, the rates of growth in various domains have greatly accelerated over the last quarter-millennium, including human population, agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and environmental degradation.

Prehistory (c. 3.3 million years ago – 3000 BCE)

Human evolution

Humans evolved in Africa from great apes through the lineage of hominins, which arose 7–5 million years ago and includes chimpanzees and bonobos. The ability to walk on two legs emerged after the split from chimpanzees in early hominins, such as Australopithecus, as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats. Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago, marking the advent of the Paleolithic era.

The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus. The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia, and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was an increase in brain size. H. erectus evolved by 2 million years ago and was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking.

Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia, and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia. Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species. Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non-sub-Saharan African populations. Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans.

Early humans

Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from the species Homo heidelbergensis. Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were already using jewelry and ocher to adorn the body. By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projective weapons, and engaged in seafaring. One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate. Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism or shamanism. The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old. Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic.

The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago. The dominant view among scholars is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago, Europe 45,000 years ago, and the Americas 21,000 years ago. These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age, when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable. Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe. Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and the Neanderthal extinction. These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.

Rise of agriculture

Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centers of origin. Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley, sheep, and goats. The Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000 BCE; the Yellow River Valley may have cultivated millet by 7000 BCE. Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China. People in Africa's Sahara cultivated sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE, while other agricultural centers arose in the Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests. In the Indus River Valley, crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE. In the Americas, squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE. Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes of South America, where the llama was also domesticated. It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments.

Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed. Some theories identify population growth as the main factor, leading people to seek out new food sources. Others see population growth not as the cause but as the effect of the associated improvements in food supply. Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology. The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production, permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities and states.

Cities were centers of trade, manufacturing, and political power. They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding countrysides, receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return. Early proto-cities appeared at Çatalhöyük and Jericho, possibly as early as the 10th and 9th millenia BCE. Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the Eurasian Steppe or the African Sahel. Conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history. Neolithic societies usually worshiped ancestors, sacred places, or anthropomorphic deities. The vast complex of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dated 9500–8000 BCE, is an example of a Neolithic religious or civic site.

Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE. Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments. The need for metal ores stimulated trade, as many areas of early human settlement lacked the necessary ores. The first signs of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, date to around 4500 BCE, but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE.

Ancient history (c. 3000 BCE – 500 CE)

Cradles of civilization

The Bronze Age saw the development of cities and civilizations. Early civilizations arose close to rivers, first in Mesopotamia (3000 BCE) with the Tigris and Euphrates, followed by the Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3000 BCE), the Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan and northwestern India (2500 BCE), and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (2200 BCE).

These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, systems for keeping records, and distinct cultures and religions. These cultures variously invented the wheel, mathematics, bronze-working, sailing boats, the potter's wheel, woven cloth, construction of monumental buildings, and writing. Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites.

Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information. It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE), Egypt (around 3250 BCE), China (1200 BCE), and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE). The earliest system of writing was the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, which began as a system of pictographs, whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract. Other influential early writing systems include Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Indus script. In China, writing was first used during the Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE).

Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions. This era also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots, that allowed armies to move faster. Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings of archaic globalization. Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England.

The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires. Mesopotamian history was characterized by frequent wars between city-states as hegemony shifted from one city to another. In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and the Neo-Sumerians arose in this area. In Egypt, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE. Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. In Crete, the Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.

Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world. By 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop. It flourished until the Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE. In India, this era was the Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society. From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent.

Speakers of the Bantu languages began expanding across Central and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE. Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in the spread of mixed farming and ironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and produced societies such as the Nok culture in modern Nigeria by 500 BCE. The Lapita culture emerged in the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea around 1500 BCE and colonized many uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania, reaching as far as Samoa by 700 BCE.

In the Americas, the Norte Chico culture emerged in coastal Peru around 3100 BCE. The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of Caral, dated 2627–1977 BCE. The later Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first Andean state. It centered on the religious site at Chavín de Huantar, a place of pilgrimage and consumption of psychoactive substances. Other important Andean cultures include the Moche, whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the Nazca, who created animal-shaped designs in the desert called Nazca lines. The Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE and are known for the colossal stone heads that they carved from basalt. They also devised the Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the Maya and Teotihuacan. Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. They built earthworks such as Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana.

Axial Age

From 800 to 200 BCE, the Axial Age saw the emergence of transformative philosophical and religious ideas that developed in many different places mostly independently of each other. Chinese Confucianism, Indian Buddhism and Jainism, and Jewish monotheism all arose during this period. Persian Zoroastrianism began earlier, perhaps around 1000 BCE, but was institutionalized by the Achaemenid Empire during the Axial Age. New philosophies took hold in Greece during the 5th century BCE, epitomized by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. The first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE, ushering in a period known as "classical antiquity". In 508 BCE, the world's first democratic system of government was instituted in Athens.

Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along with Taoism and Legalism. The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread to Korea and Japan. Buddhism reached China during the Han dynasty and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE. Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia. The Greek philosophical tradition diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon. Both Christianity and Islam developed from the beliefs of Judaism.

Regional empires

The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw a series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects. International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road.

There were a number of regional empires during this period. The kingdom of the Medes helped to destroy the Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic Scythians and the Babylonians. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE. The Median Empire gave way to successive Iranian states, including the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE), Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE), and Sasanian Empires (224–651 CE).

Several empires began in modern-day Greece. In the late 5th century BCE, several Greek city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history. It was followed by the Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization, including the first theatrical performances. The wars led to the creation of the Delian League, founded in 477 BCE, and eventually the Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the Peloponnesian War. Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India. The empire divided into several successor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and the spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to as Hellenization. The Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to 31 BCE when Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome.

In South Asia, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under Ashoka the Great. From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's golden age. The resulting stability helped usher in a flourishing period for Hindu and Buddhist culture in the 4th and 5th centuries, as well as major advances in science and mathematics. In South India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras, Cholas, and Pandyas.

In Europe, the Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE. The Republic became an empire and by the time of Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea. The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia. The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe. Christianity was legalized by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution. It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE.

In China, Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic Warring States period by uniting all of China under the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Qin Shi Huang was an adherent of the Legalist school of thought and he displaced the hereditary aristocracy by creating an efficient system of administration staffed by officials appointed according to merit. The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall. It was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureacratic system with Confucian ideals. The Han dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road. As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia, Manchuria, Korea, and northern Vietnam. As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology. The Han invented the compass, one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China.

In Africa, the Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. It ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of Meroë until the fourth century CE. The Kingdom of Aksum, centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade. It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelae to mark its emperors' graves.

Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE. In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being the Zapotec civilization (700 BCE–1521 CE), and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE), but continued throughout the post-classic period. The great Maya city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas. The Maya developed a writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics. West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the obsidian trade. Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities.

The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy. In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and barbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution. The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century. From the Eurasian Steppe, horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent. The development of the stirrup and the use of horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations.

In the 4th century CE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE to German influence under Odoacer. The Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire, was more long-lasting and continued until its capital, Constantinople, was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

In China, dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored. After the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward. The Sui dynasty successfully reunified China in 589 and laid the foundations for a golden age under the Tang dynasty (618–907), during which political stability and economic prosperity were accompanied by literary and artistic accomplishment, like the poetry of Li Bai and Du Fu.

Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world. There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as the Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region. Greek science, technology, and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the Antikythera mechanism. There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period. Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE) and the stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE), both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal. The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing concrete, perfecting the use of arches in construction, and creating aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers.

Most ancient societies practiced slavery, which was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy. Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.

Post-classical history (c. 500 – 1500 CE)

The post-classical period, dated from 500 to 1500 CE, was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies intensified.

From the 10th to 13th centuries, the Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia. It was followed by the Little Ice Age, which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia. Two of the major inventions of the period were gunpowder and printing, which both originated in China.

The post-classical period encompasses the early Muslim conquests, the subsequent Islamic Golden Age, and the commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade, followed by the Mongol invasions and the founding of the Ottoman Empire. South Asia had a series of middle kingdoms, followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India.

In West Africa, the Mali and Songhai Empires rose. On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold, spices, and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join the Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in the Swahili culture.

China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties. Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Mississippians, Aztecs, Maya, and Inca reached their zenith.

West and Central Asia

Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) and Sasanian (Persian) Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions. This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions. The birth of Islam created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires. The new religion greatly affected the history of the Old World, especially the Middle East.

From their center in the Arabian Peninsula, Muslims began their expansion during the 7th century. By 750 CE, they came to conquer most of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe, ushering in the Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which philosophy, art, and literature flourished. The knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia were preserved in the post-classical era by Muslims, who also added new and important innovations from outside, such as the manufacture of paper from China and decimal positional numbering from India. Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy. Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

The crusading movement was a religiously motivated European effort to roll back Muslim territory and regain control of the Holy Land. It was ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Arab domination of the region ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongols, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299.

The Caucasus was fought over in a series of wars between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. However, the two opposing powers became exhausted due to continuous conflict. Hence, the Rashidun Caliphate was able to freely expand into the region during the early Muslim conquests. The Seljuk Turks later subjugated Armenia and Georgia in the 11th century. The Mongols subsequently invaded the Caucasus in the 13th century.

Central Asia faced incursions from both the Arabs and the Chinese. China expanded into Central Asia during the Sui dynasty (581–618). They were confronted by Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in Central Asia. Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the Ordos Desert. In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east. The desert nomads of Arabia could militarily match the nomads of the steppe, and the Umayyad Caliphate gained control over parts of Central Asia. The Hephthalites were the most powerful of the nomad groups in the 5th and 6th centuries, and controlled much of the region. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the region was divided among several powerful states, including the Samanid, Seljuk, and Khwarazmian Empires. In 1370, Timur, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the Timurid Empire. Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death, but his descendants retained control of a core area in Central Asia and Iran. They oversaw the Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture.

Europe

Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism. Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in late antiquity. The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions. Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe; it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the Vikings, Magyars, and Arabs. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called neume which became the basis for the modern notation system. Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.

During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. The establishment of the feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included manorialism, the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and vassalage, a political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors. Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire. In 1054, the Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe. The Crusades were a series of religious wars waged by Christians to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims and succeeded for long enough to establish some Crusader states in the Levant. Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of Gothic cathedrals and churches was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age. The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century.

The Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and conquered Kievan Rus', along with briefly invading Poland and Hungary. Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in the late 14th century formed a personal union with Poland. The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities. Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe. The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during the late 1340s, and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished.

Africa

Medieval Africa was home to many different civilizations. North Africa saw the rise of polities established by the Berbers, such as the Marinid Sultanate in Morocco, the Zayyanid Kingdom in Algeria, and the Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia. The coastal region was known to Europeans as the Barbary Coast. Pirates based in North African ports conducted operations that included capturing merchant ships and raiding coastal settlements. Thousands of European captives were sold in North African markets that were part of the Barbary slave trade.

In the Horn of Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum declined in the 7th century. The Zagwe dynasty that later emerged was famed for its rock cut architecture at Lalibela. It fell to the Solomonic dynasty who claimed descent from the Aksumite emperors and ruled the country well into the 20th century.

In the West African Sahel region, many Islamic empires rose, such as the Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and Kanem–Bornu Empires. They controlled the trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves. West Africa became the world's largest gold exporter by the 14th century.

South of the Sahel, civilizations rose in the coastal forests. These include the Yoruba city of Ifẹ, noted for its art, the Oyo Empire, the Edo Kingdom of Benin centered in Benin City, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri, which produced advanced bronze art at Igbo-Ukwu, and the Akan, who are noted for their intricate architecture.

Central Africa saw the formation of several states, including the Kingdom of Kongo. In what is now modern Southern Africa, native Africans created various kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Mutapa (Monomotapa). They flourished through trade with the Swahili on the East African coast. They built large defensive stone structures without mortar such as Great Zimbabwe, capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, and Khami, capital of the Kingdom of Butua. The Swahili inhabited the East African coast from Kenya to Mozambique and traded extensively with Arabs, who introduced them to Islam. They built many port cities such as Mombasa, Mogadishu, and Kilwa. Seafarers from Southeast Asia colonized Madagascar sometime between the 4th and 9th centuries.

South Asia

After the fall of the Gupta Empire in 550 CE, North India was divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingdoms. Early Muslim incursions began in the northwest in 711 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphate conquered much of present-day Pakistan. The Arab military advance was largely halted at that point, but Islam still spread in India, largely due to the influence of Arab merchants along the western coast. The 9th century saw the Tripartite Struggle for control of North India between the Pratihara, Pala, and Rashtrakuta Empires.

Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of the Chalukyas, Hoysalas, and Cholas. Literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished under the patronage of these kings. Some of the other important states that emerged in South India during this time included the Bahmani Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire.

Northeast Asia

After a period of relative disunity, China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589 and under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907) China entered a golden age. The Sui and Tang instituted the long-lasting imperial examination system, under which administrative positions were open only to those who passed an arduous test on Confucian thought and the Chinese classics. China competed with Tibet (618–842) for control of areas in Inner Asia. However, the Tang dynasty eventually splintered. After half a century of turmoil, the Song dynasty reunified much of China. Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent. By 1127, northern China had been lost to the Jurchens in the Jin–Song Wars, and the Mongols conquered all of China in 1279. After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368.

In Japan, the imperial lineage was established during the 3rd century CE, and a centralized state developed during the Yamato period (c. 300–710). Buddhism was introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism. The Nara period (710–794) was characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture, as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture. The Heian period (794–1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans and the samurai. It was during the Heian period that Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel. From 1185 to 1868, Japan was dominated by powerful regional lords (daimyos) and the military rule of warlords (shoguns) such as the Ashikaga and Tokugawa shogunates. The emperor remained but did not wield significant influence. Meanwhile, the power of merchants grew. An influential art style known as ukiyo-e arose during the Tokugawa years, consisting of woodblock prints which originally depicted famous courtesans.

Postclassical Korea saw the end of the Three Kingdoms era, in which the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla had competed for hegemony. This period ended when Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668, marking the beginning of the Northern and Southern States period, with Unified Silla in the south and Balhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north. In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to the Later Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936. The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by the Joseon dynasty, which ruled for approximately 500 years.

In Mongolia, Genghis Khan united the various tribes under one banner in 1206. The Mongol Empire expanded to comprise all of China and Central Asia, as well as large parts of Russia and the Middle East, to become the largest contiguous empire in history. After Möngke Khan died in 1259, the Mongol Empire was divided into four successor states.

Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asian polity of Funan, which had originated in the 2nd century CE, went into decline in the 6th century as Chinese trade routes shifted away from its ports. It was replaced by the Khmer Empire in 802 CE. The Khmers' capital city, Angkor, was the most extensive city in the world before the industrial age and contained Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. The Sukhothai (mid-13th century CE) and Ayutthaya Kingdoms (1351 CE) were major powers of the Thais, who were influenced by the Khmers.

Starting in the 9th century, the Pagan Kingdom rose to prominence in modern Myanmar. Its collapse brought about political fragmentation that ended with the rise of the Toungoo Empire in the 16th century. Other notable kingdoms of the period include Srivijaya and Lavo (both coming into prominence in the 7th century), Champa and Hariphunchai (both about 750), Đại Việt (968), Lan Na (13th century), Majapahit (1293), Lan Xang (1353), and Ava (1365). This period saw the spread of Islam to present-day Indonesia (beginning in the 13th century) and the emergence of the Malay states, including Brunei and Malacca. In the Philippines, several polities were formed such as Tondo, Cebu, and Butuan.

Oceania

The Polynesians, descendants of the Lapita peoples, colonized vast reaches of Remote Oceania beginning around 1000 CE. Their voyages resulted in the colonization of hundreds of islands including the Marquesas, Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and New Zealand.

The Tuʻi Tonga Empire was founded in the 10th century CE and expanded between 1250 and 1500. Tongan culture, language, and hegemony spread widely throughout eastern Melanesia, Micronesia, and central Polynesia during this period. They influenced east 'Uvea, Rotuma, Futuna, Samoa, and Niue, as well as specific islands and parts of Micronesia, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. In Northern Australia, there is evidence that Aboriginal Australians regularly traded with Makassan trepangers from Indonesia before the arrival of Europeans.

Americas

In North America, this period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern-day United States c. 950 CE, marked by the extensive 11th-century urban complex at Cahokia. The Ancestral Puebloans and their predecessors (9th–13th centuries) built extensive permanent settlements, including stone structures that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.

In Mesoamerica, the Teotihuacan civilization fell and the classic Maya collapse occurred. The Aztec Empire came to dominate much of Mesoamerica in the 14th and 15th centuries.

In South America, the 15th century saw the rise of the Inca. The Inca Empire, with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire Andes, making it the most extensive pre-Columbian civilization. The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and elegant stonework.

Early modern period (c. 1500 – 1800 CE)

The early modern period, spanning from 1500 to 1800, was characterized by proto-globalization and the rise of centralized bureaucratic states. European powers came to dominate much of the world by founding maritime empires: first the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, then the French, English, and Dutch Empires. Historians still debate the causes of Europe's rise, which is known as the Great Divergence.

Capitalist economies emerged, initially in the northern Italian republics and some Asian port cities. European states practiced mercantilism by implementing one-sided trade policies designed to benefit the mother country at the expense of its colonies. In much of the European sphere, serfdom declined and eventually disappeared while the power of the Catholic Church waned. Shortly before the turn of the 16th century, the Portuguese started establishing trading posts across Africa, Asia, and Brazil, for local commodities ranging from slaves to gold, spices, and sugar. In the 17th century, private chartered companies were established, such as the English East India Company in 1600 – often described as the first multinational corporation – and the Dutch East India Company in 1602.

The Age of Discovery was the first period in which Eurasia and Africa engaged in substantial cultural, material, and biological exchange with the New World. It began in the late 15th century, when Portugal and Castile sent the first exploratory voyages to the Americas, where Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492. Global integration continued as European colonization of the Americas initiated the Columbian exchange: the exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. It was one of history's most important global events, involving ecology and agriculture. New crops brought from the Americas by 16th-century European seafarers substantially contributed to world population growth.

West and Central Asia

After conquering Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire quickly came to dominate the Middle East. Persia came under the rule of the Safavids in 1501, succeeded by the Afshars in 1736, the Zands in 1751, and the Qajars in 1794. The Safavids established Shia Islam as Persia's official religion, thus giving Persia a separate identity from its Sunni neighbors. Along with the Mughals in India, the Ottomans and Safavids are known as the gunpowder empires because of their early adoption of firearms. At the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire began its conquest of the Caucasus. The Uzbeks replaced the Timurids as the preeminent power in Central Asia.

Europe

In addition to the changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans also experienced an increase in the power of the state. Absolute monarchs in France, Russia, the Habsburg lands, and Prussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king. In Russia, Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventually replacing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe. The countries of Western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advances and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war. Wars of particular note included the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars. Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul of France in 1799, concluding the French Revolution. Bonaparte's rise to power led to the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.

These political developments were accompanied by a period of intense intellectual ferment. The Renaissance – the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginning in Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th – comprised the rediscovery of the classical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe. This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments. Petrarch's poetry, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, and the paintings and sculptures of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are some of the great works of the age. After the Renaissance came the Reformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement that resulted in the creation of Protestant Christianity. The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to humanism and the Scientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment. The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as the Enlightenment, by thinkers such as John Locke and Immanuel Kant. This development was accompanied by secularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres. Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type printing in 1440 helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.

Africa

Many African civilizations declined in the early modern period while others advanced. Between 1515 and 1800, Africa lost eight million people to the Atlantic slave trade, and two million to the Arab slave trade. The Atlantic trade was the transport of enslaved Africans to the Americas, while the Arab trade consisted of the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades. The Swahili Coast was influenced by trade with the Portuguese and later the Omanis. In West Africa, the Songhai Empire fell after an invasion by the Moroccans. Bonoman gave birth to numerous Akan states such as Akwamu, Akyem, Fante, and Adansi, among others. The Kingdom of Zimbabwe gave way to smaller kingdoms such as Mutapa, Butua, and Rozvi.

In North Africa, the Berbers remained in control of independent states until the 16th century. In the Horn of Africa, the Ajuran Sultanate declined in the 18th century and was succeeded by the Geledi Sultanate. The Ethiopian Empire suffered from the 1531 invasion by the neighboring Muslim Adal Sultanate, and in 1769 entered the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) during which the Emperor became a figurehead and the country was ruled by warlords, though the royal line later recovered under Emperor Tewodros II. Other civilizations in Africa advanced during this period. The Oyo Empire experienced its golden age, as did the Kingdom of Benin. The Ashanti Empire rose to power in modern-day Ghana in the late 17th century. The Kingdom of Kongo also thrived during this period.

South Asia

In the Indian subcontinent, the Mughal Empire began under Babur in 1526 and lasted for two centuries. Starting in the northwest, the Mughal Empire came to rule the entire subcontinent by the late 17th century, except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which remained independent. Against the Muslim Mughal Empire, the Hindu Maratha Empire was founded by Shivaji on the western coast in 1674. The Marathas gradually gained territory from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the Mughal–Maratha Wars (1680–1707).

Sikhism was founded at the end of the 15th century and developed from the spiritual teachings of ten gurus. In 1799, Ranjit Singh established the Sikh Empire in the Punjab.

Northeast Asia

In 1644, the Ming were supplanted by the Qing, the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which ruled until 1912. Japan experienced its Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), followed by the Edo period (1600–1868). The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, repelling invasions from Japan and China in the 16th and 17th centuries. Expanded maritime trade with Europe significantly affected China and Japan during this period, particularly through the Portuguese in Macau and the Dutch in Nagasaki. However, China and Japan later pursued isolationist policies designed to eliminate foreign influences.

Southeast Asia

In 1511, the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and Indonesian Sumatra. The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641. The Johor Sultanate, centered on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region.

European colonization expanded with the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese in Timor, and the Spanish in the Philippines. Into the 19th century, European expansion affected the whole of Southeast Asia, with the British in Burma, Malaya, and North Borneo, and the French in Indochina. Only Thailand successfully resisted colonization.

Oceania

The Pacific Islands of Oceania were also affected by European contact, starting with the circumnavigational voyage of Ferdinand Magellan (1519–1522), who landed in the Marianas and other islands. Abel Tasman (1642–1644) sailed to present-day Australia, New Zealand, and nearby islands. James Cook (1768–1779) made the first recorded European contact with Hawaii. In 1788, Britain founded its first Australian colony.

Americas

Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca. Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%. In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples. Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves. One side-effect of the slave trade was cultural exchange through which various African traditions found their way to the Americas, including cuisine, music, and dance. Portugal claimed Brazil, while Spain seized the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America. The Spanish mined and exported prodigious amounts of gold and silver, leading to a surge in inflation known as the Price Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe.

In North America, Britain colonized the east coast while France settled the central region. Russia made incursions into the northwest coast of North America, with its first colony in present-day Alaska in 1784, and the outpost of Fort Ross in present-day California in 1812. France lost its North American territory to England and Spain after the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Britain's Thirteen Colonies declared independence as the United States in 1776, ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War. In 1791, African slaves launched a successful rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. France won back its continental claims from Spain in 1800, but sold them to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Late modern period (c. 1800 CE – present)

Long nineteenth century

The long nineteenth century started at the end of the 18th century and lasted until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It saw the global spread of the Industrial Revolution, the greatest transformation of the world economy since the Neolithic Revolution. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain around 1770 and used new modes of production—the factory, mass production, and mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster while using less labor than previously required. Industrialization raised the global standard of living but caused upheaval as factory owners and workers clashed over wages and working conditions. Along with industrialization came modern globalization, the increasing interconnection of world regions in the economic, political, and cultural spheres. Globalization began in the early 19th century and was enabled by improved transportation technologies such as railroads and steamships.

European empires lost territories in Latin America, which won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns, but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world. Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, North Borneo, Hong Kong, and Aden; the French took Indochina; and the Dutch cemented their rule over Indonesia. The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies. Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia. In the late 19th century, the European powers divided the remaining areas of Africa. Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent. Imperial rule in Africa involved many atrocities such as those in the Congo Free State and the Herero and Nama genocide.

Within Europe, economic and military challenges created a system of nation states, and ethno-cultural groupings began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for cultural and political autonomy. This nationalism became important to peoples across the world in the 20th century. The first wave of democratization took place between 1828 and 1926: Democratic institutions take root in 33 countries around the world. In a remarkable instance of moral progress, most of the world abolished slavery in the 19th century.

In response to the encroachment by European powers, several countries undertook programs of industrialization and political reform along Western lines. The Meiji Restoration in Japan was successful and led to the establishment of a colonial empire. Despite reforms, Ottoman Empire declined and saw arrival of millions of mostly-Muslim refugees fleeing Circassian genocide and other persecution. China achieved some success with its Self-Strengthening Movement, but was devastated by the Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war, which killed 20–30 million people between 1850 and 1864.

The United States developed to become the world's largest economy by the end of the century. During the Second Industrial Revolution, a new set of technological advances including electric power, the internal combustion engine, and assembly line manufacturing increased productivity once again. Technological innovations also provided new avenues for artistic expression through the media of photography, sound recording, and film. Meanwhile, industrial pollution and environmental damage accelerated drastically.

The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power. Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan. As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independent nation states.

World wars

This transformation was catalyzed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. World War I led to the collapse of four empires – the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires – and showed that industrial technology had made traditional military tactics obsolete. The Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides saw the systematic destruction, mass murder, and expulsion of those populations in the Ottoman Empire. From 1918 to 1920, the Spanish flu caused the deaths of at least 25 million people.

In the war's aftermath, powerful ideologies rose to prominence. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state, while the 1920s and 1930s saw fascist political parties gain control in Italy and Germany. The women's suffrage movement won women the right to vote in numerous countries, ranging from New Zealand in 1893 to Portugal in 1976. Women fought to expand their civil rights and began to enjoy greater access to education and the workforce.

Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II. In that war, the vast majority of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The leading Axis powers were Germany, Japan, and Italy; while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.

The militaristic governments of Germany and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course of imperialist expansionism. In the course of doing so, Germany orchestrated the genocide of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews across German-occupied Europe in the Holocaust, while Japan murdered millions of Chinese. Estimates of the war's total casualties range from 55 to 80 million. During Joseph Stalin's rule from 1924 to 1953, the Soviet Union committed countless atrocities against its own people, including mass purges, forced labor camps, and widespread famine caused by state policies.

Contemporary history

When World War II ended in 1945, the United Nations was founded in the hope of preventing future wars, as the League of Nations had been formed following World War I. The United Nations is associated with the human rights movement and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Several European countries formed the European Union, a political and economic community that eventually grew to include 27 member states. World War II opened the way for the advance of communism into Eastern and Central Europe, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba. To contain the advance, the United States established a global network of alliances. The largest of them, NATO, was established in 1949 and eventually grew to include 32 member states. In response, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 as a mutual defense treaty.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the primary global powers in the aftermath of World War II. Both nations harbored deep suspicions and fears about the global spread of the other's political-economic system — capitalism for the United States and communism for the Soviet Union. This mutual distrust sparked the Cold War, a 45-year stand-off and arms race between the two nations and their allies.

With the development of nuclear weapons during World War II and their subsequent proliferation, all of humanity was put at risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers, as demonstrated by many incidents, most prominently the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Such war being viewed as impractical, the superpowers instead waged proxy wars in non-nuclear-armed Third World countries. The Cold War ended peacefully in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed, partly due to its inability to compete economically with the United States and Western Europe.

Cold War preparations to deter or fight a third world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such as jet aircraft, rocketry, and computers. In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel; artificial satellites with innumerable applications, including GPS; and the Internet, which in the 1990s began to gain traction as a form of communication. These inventions have revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.

The second half of the 20th century also saw groundbreaking scientific and technological developments such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and DNA sequencing, the worldwide eradication of smallpox, the Green Revolution in agriculture, the discovery of plate tectonics, the moon landings, crewed and uncrewed exploration of space, solar-power and wind-power technologies, and foundational discoveries in physics phenomena ranging from the smallest entities (particle physics) to the greatest (physical cosmology).

These technical innovations had far-reaching effects. The world's population quadrupled to six billion during the 20th century, while world economic output increased by a factor of 20. In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than one dollar a day, while in 2001 only about 20% did. At the same time, economic inequality increased both within individual countries and between rich and poor countries.

In China, the Maoist government implemented industrialization and collectivization policies as part of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), leading to the starvation deaths (1959–1961) of 30–40 million people. After these policies were rescinded, China entered a period of economic liberalization and rapid growth, with the economy expanding by 6.6% per year from 1978 to 2003. In the postwar decades, the African, Asian, and Oceanian colonies of European empires won their formal independence, a process known as decolonization. Postcolonial states in Africa struggled to grow their economies, facing structural barriers such as reliance on the export of commodities rather than manufactured goods. Sub-Saharan Africa was the world region hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the late 20th century. Moreover, Africa experienced high levels of violence, exemplified by the Second Congo War (1998–2003), the deadliest conflict since World War II. Latin America also faced economic problems and an over-reliance on commodity exports. Development efforts in Latin America were hindered by political instability, some of which was caused by the United States as it repeatedly intervened in the region.

The early 21st century was marked by growing economic globalization and integration, which brought both benefits and risks to interlinked economies, as exemplified by the Great Recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Communications expanded, with smartphones and social media becoming ubiquitous worldwide by the mid-2010s. By the early 2020s, artificial intelligence systems improved to the point of outperforming humans at many circumscribed tasks. The importance of public education had already begun to increase in the 18th and 19th centuries but it was not until the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries that compulsory and free education was provided to most children worldwide. The influence of religion continued to decline in many Western countries while some parts of the Muslim world saw the rise of fundamentalist movements. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted global trading, caused recessions in the global economy, and spurred cultural paradigm shifts. In 2022, a long era of relative peace in Europe was interrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. Concerns grew as existential threats from environmental degradation and global warming became increasingly evident, while mitigation efforts, including a shift to sustainable energy, made gradual progress.

Academic research

The main field of inquiry studying human history is called world history, but the two terms are also sometimes used as synonyms. While philosophers have engaged in world history for centuries, it only became an active field of academic inquiry in the late 20th century, with most earlier research focusing on the histories of individual communities and societies after the prehistoric period. This transition to a widened perspective was accompanied by questioning the assumptions of the Western-dominated outlook frequently found in earlier scholarship to arrive at a global understanding.

Like in other historical disciplines, the methodology of analyzing textual sources to construct narratives and interpretations of past events plays a central role in world history. The scope of its topic poses the unique challenge of synthesizing a coherent and comprehensive narrative spanning different cultures, regions, and time periods while taking diverse individual perspectives into account. This is also reflected in its interdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from fields such as archaeology, geology, and anthropology, which are of particular importance to discussions of human history before the invention of writing.

To provide an accessible overview, world historians divide the field into different periods organized around key themes, events, or developments that have shaped human societies over time. The number of periods and their time frames depend on the chosen topics, and the transitions between periods are often more fluid than static periodization schemes suggest.

A traditionally influential periodization in European scholarship distinguishes between the ancient, medieval, and modern periods organized around historical events responsible for major shifts in political, economic, and cultural structures to mark the transitions between the periods: first the fall of the Western Roman Empire and later the emergence of the Renaissance. Another periodization divides human history into three periods based on the way humans engage with nature to produce goods. The first transition happened with the emergence of agriculture and husbandry to replace hunting and gathering as the main means of food production. The Industrial Revolution constitutes the second transition. A further approach uses the relations between societies to divide world history into the periods of Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE, and Western dominance afterwards. The invention of writing is often used to demark prehistory from the ancient period while another approach divides early history based on the type of tools used in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. World historians focusing on religion and culture identify the Axial Age as a key turning point that laid the spiritual and philosophical foundations of many of the world's major civilizations. Some historians draw on elements from different approaches to arrive at a more nuanced periodization.

References

Explanatory notes

1. This date comes from the 2015 discovery of stone tools at the Lomekwi site in Kenya. Some paleontologists propose an earlier date of 3.39 million years ago based on bones found with butchery marks on them in Dikika, Ethiopia, while others dispute both the Dikika and Lomekwi findings.
2. the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster
3. Or perhaps earlier; the 2018 discovery of stone tools from 2.1 million years ago in Shangchen, China predates the earliest known H. erectus fossils.
4. Some authors suggest a later date at around 200,000 years ago.
5. The term Homo rhodesiensis is also sometimes used.
6. These dates come from a 2018 study of an upper jawbone from Misliya Cave, Israel. Researchers studying a fossil skull from Apidima Cave, Greece in 2019 proposed an earlier date of 210,000 years ago. The Apidima Cave study has been challenged by other scholars.
7. This occurred during the African humid period, when the Sahara was much wetter than it is today.
8. Some sources date them at 6000 BCE.
9. This is the traditional date for the founding of the Xia dynasty and has not been confirmed by archaeology. Chinese civilization had its origins in the earlier Yangshao and Longshan cultures (4000–2000 BCE), but the Shang is the first dynasty that can be archeologically verified (1750 BCE).
10. Various froms of proto-writing existed earlier but they did not constitute fully developed writing system.
11. Cuneiform texts were written by using a blunt reed as a stylus to draw symbols upon clay tablets.
12. The Vedas contain the earliest references to India's caste system, which divided society into four hereditary classes: priests, warriors, farmers and traders, and laborers.
13. For example, the folktales One Thousand and One Nights were written in this period.
14. Goguryeo was called Taebong at that time and eventually named Goryeo.
15. They traveled the open ocean in double-hulled canoes up to 37 meters (121 ft) long, each canoe carrying as many as 50 people and their livestock.
16. Some scholars date the period later, to the 15th and 16th centuries.
17. The Chinese invented movable type centuries earlier, but it was better suited to the alphabetical writing systems of European languages.
18. They are known as haijin in China and sakoku in Japan.
19. Magellan died in 1521. The voyage was completed by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522.
20. In Brazil, this influence resulted in the development of Capoeira.
21. Traditionally, the year 1789 is used but according to some historians, it began as early as 1750 or as late as 1800.
22.   Britain   France   Spain   Portugal   Netherlands   Germany   Ottoman Empire   Belgium   Russia   Japan   Qing Empire   Austria-Hungary   Denmark   Sweden-Norway   United States   Italy   Independent states
23. Some historians also classify Francoist Spain as a fascist regime.
24. The Aztec civilization is an exception, having established compulsory formal education for children as early as the 14th century.
25. According to one estimate, about 90% of the global population aged 15–64 was uneducated in 1870. This number had dropped to 10% by 2010.

Citations

1. Jungers 1988, pp. 227–231
2. • Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 1, "Human beings evolved over several million years from primates in Africa."
   • Christian 2011, p. 150, "But it turned out that humans and chimps differed from each other only by about 10 percent as much as the differences between major groups of mammals, which suggested that they had diverged from each other approximately 5 to 7 million years ago."
   • Dunbar 2016, p. 8, "Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the LCA are referred to as hominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively."
   • Wragg-Sykes 2016, pp. 183–184
3. • Dunbar 2016, pp. 8, 10, "What has come to define our lineage – bipedalism – was adopted early on after we parted company with the chimpanzees, presumably in order to facilitate travel on the ground in more open habitats where large forest trees were less common....The australopithecines did not differ from the modern chimpanzees in terms of brain size."
   • Lewton 2017, p. 117
4. Harmand 2015, pp. 310–315
5. McPherron et al. 2010, pp. 857–860
6. Domínguez-Rodrigo & Alcalá 2016, pp. 46–53
7. • de la Torre 2019, pp. 11567–11569
   • Stutz 2018, pp. 1–9, "The Paleolithic era encompasses the bulk of the human archaeological record. Its onset is defined by the oldest known stone tools, now dated to 3.3 Ma, found at the Lomekwi site in Kenya."
8. Strait 2010, p. 341, "However, Homo is almost certainly descended from an australopith ancestor, so at least one or some australopiths belong directly to the human lineage."
9. Villmoare et al. 2015, pp. 1352–1355
10. Spoor et al. 2015, pp. 83–86, "The latter is morphologically more derived than OH 7 but 500,000 years older, suggesting that the H. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo."
11. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 5, "What most distinguished Homo habilis from the australopithecines was a brain that was nearly 50 percent larger."
12. Herries et al. 2020
13. Zhu et al. 2018, "Fourth, and most importantly, the oldest artefact age of approximately 2.12 Ma at Shangchen implies that hominins had left Africa before the date suggested by the earliest evidence from Dmanisi (about 1.85 Ma). This makes it necessary to reconsider the timing of initial dispersal of early hominins in the Old World."
14. Dunbar 2016, p. 10
15. • Gowlett 2016, p. 20150164, "We know that burning evidence occurs on numbers of archaeological sites from about 1.5 Ma onwards (there is evidence of actual hearths from around 0.7 to 0.4 Ma); that more elaborate technologies existed from around half a million years ago, and that these came to employ adhesives that require preparation by fire."
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16. • Christian 2015, p. 400n
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17. • Hammer 2013, pp. 66–71
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18. Ackermann, Mackay & Arnold 2015, pp. 1–11
19. • Reich et al. 2010, pp. 1053–1060
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20. Wragg-Sykes 2016, p. 180
21. • Hublin et al. 2017, pp. 289–292
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22. Christian 2015, p. 319
23. Christian 2015, pp. 319–320, 330, 354
24. Christian 2015, pp. 344–346
25. McNeill & McNeill 2003, pp. 17–18
26. Christian 2015, pp. 357–358, 409
27. • Morley 2013, pp. 42–43
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28. Christian 2015, p. 22, "Most Paleolithic communities lived by foraging, nomadizing over familiar territories."
29. Weber et al. 2020, pp. 29–39
30. Herschkovitz 2018, pp. 456–459
31. Harvati et al. 2019, pp. 500–504
32. Rosas & Bastir 2020, p. 102745
33. • Christian 2015, p. 283
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34. Clarkson et al. 2017, pp. 306–310
35. Christian 2015, p. 283
36. Bennett 2021, pp. 1528–1531
37. Christian 2015, p. 316, "Dispersal over an unprecedented swath of the globe...coincided with an Ice Age that...spread ice in the northern hemisphere as far south as the present lower courses of the Missouri and Ohio rivers in North America and deep into what are now the British Isles. Ice covered what is today Scandinavia. Most of the rest of what is now Europe was tundra or taiga. In central Eurasia, tundra reached almost to the present latitudes of the Black Sea. Steppe licked the shores of the Mediterranean. In the New World, tundra and taiga extended to where Virginia is today."
38. Christian 2015, p. 400, "In any case, by the end of the era of climatic fluctuation, humans occupied almost all the habitats their descendants occupy today, with the exception of relatively remote parts of the Pacific, accessible only by high-seas navigation and unsettled, as far as we know, for many millennia more."
39. Christian 2015, pp. 321, 406, 440–441
40. • Koch & Barnosky 2006, pp. 215–250
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41. Lewin 2009, p. 247
42. Stephens et al. 2019, pp. 897–902
43. Larson et al. 2014, pp. 6139–6146
44. McNeill 1999, p. 11
45. Barker & Goucher 2015, pp. 325, 336, "More recent improvements in archaeobotanical recovery have indicated that rice domestication was underway durin...the Hemudu cultural phase in the lower Yangtze valley...This points to a start of cultivation in this region of c. 10,000–9,000 years ago; in the middle Yangtze valley it could have begun someone earlier but may represent a parallel process to the lower Yangtze...it has been suggested on the basis of phytolith and starch residue evidence that broomcorn and foxtail millet were already in use in northern China prior to 7000 BCE. Nonetheless, the most abundant macrofossil evidence of broomcorn and foxtail millet is found in association with the early Neolithic sites post-7000 BCE."
46. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 323
47. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 59
48. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 21
49. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 265
50. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 518, "Arrowroot was the earliest domesticate , dating to 7800 BC at the Cueva de los Vampiros site and 5800 BCE at Aguadulce...Plant domestication began before 8500 BCE in southwest coastal Ecuador. Squash phytoliths were recovered from terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at Vegas sites. Phytoliths recovered from the earliest levels are from wild squash, with domesticated size squash phytoliths directly dated to 9840–8555 BCE."
51. • Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 85
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52. • Adovasio, Soffer & Page 2007, pp. 243, 257
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53. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 218
54. Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 95
55. Barker & Goucher 2015, pp. 216–218
56. Roberts & Westad 2013, pp. 34–35
57. Lewin 2009, p. 247, "The date of 12,000 years before present (BP) is usually given as the beginning of what has been called the Agricultural (or Neolithic) Revolution...The tremendous changes wrought during the Neolithic can be seen as a prelude to the emergence of cities and city states and, of course, to a further rise in population."
58. Yoffee 2015, pp. 313, 391
59. • Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 193
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60. • McNeill 1999, p. 13
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61. McNeill 1999, p. 13
62. Barker & Goucher 2015, pp. 161–162, 172–173
63. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 99
64. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 19
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68. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 21
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70. Radivojevic et al. 2013, pp. 1030–1045
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91. Yoffee 2015, p. 118
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105. Yoffee 2015, p. 257
106. McNeill 1999, pp. 36–37
107. Bard 2000, pp. 57–64
108. • Yoffee 2015, p. 320
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109. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 56
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114. Graeber & Wengrow 2021, p. 317
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130. Baumard, Hyafil & Boyer 2015, p. e1046657
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132. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 665
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134. Benjamin 2015, p. 304
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136. Short 1987, p. 10
137. Dunn 1994
138. Benjamin 2015, p. 9
139. Benjamin 2015, p. 439
140. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 314
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144. Stearns & Langer 2001, pp. 70–71
145. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 63
146. Burbank 2010, p. 56
147. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 229, 233
148. Benjamin 2015, pp. 238, 276–277
149. Roberts & Westad 2013, p. 110
150. Benjamin 2015, p. 279
151. • Benjamin 2015, p. 286
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153. • Strauss 2005, pp. 1–11
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154. Martin 2000, pp. 106–107
155. Benjamin 2015, p. 353
156. • Tignor et al. 2014, p. 203
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157. Benjamin 2015, pp. 283–284
158. Hemingway & Hemingway 2007
159. • Kulke & Rothermund 1990, pp. 61, 71, "At any rate Chandragupta seems to have usurped the throne of Magadha in 320 BC...the last ruler of the Maurya dynasty, Brihadratha, was assassinated by his general, Pushyamitra Shunga, during a parade of his troops in the year 185 BC."
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160. Benjamin 2015, pp. 502–505
161. Benjamin 2015, pp. 503–505
162. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 187
163. Benjamin 2015, pp. 337–338
164. Kelly 2007, pp. 4–6
165. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 149, 152–153
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171. Benjamin 2015, p. 417
172. • Benjamin 2015, p. 417
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175. • Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 165, 169
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176. • Merrill & McElhinny 1983, p. 1
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177. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 92
178. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 94–95
179. Benjamin 2015, pp. 651–652
180. Iliffe 2007, p. 41
181. Fagan 2005, pp. 390, 396
182. • Flannery & Marcus 1996, p. 146
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183. Coe 2011, p. 91
184. Benjamin 2015, p. 560
185. Benjamin 2015, pp. 557–558
186. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 208
187. Benjamin 2015, p. 555
188. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 204
189. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 170–172
190. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 170–172
191. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 158, 170
192. Benjamin 2015, p. 10
193. Benjamin 2015, pp. 248, 264
194. Benjamin 2015, p. 14
195. Benjamin 2015, p. 14
196. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 562, 583
197. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 513
198. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 165
199. Benjamin 2015, p. 426, "After China was reunified in 589 by the Sui dynasty (581–618) and suddenly became a looming regional superpower, Silla began exploring even more active ties with China."
200. • Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 298
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201. Ning 2023, pp. 203–204
202. Benjamin 2015, p. 122
203. Benjamin 2015, p. 134, "But the impression that no significant technological advances occurred in ancient civilization is misleading. In fact, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE, the Mediterranean world witnessed a series of innovations that would influence the development of civilization."
204. Kosso & Scott 2009, p. 51
205. Benjamin 2015, p. 133
206. Benjamin 2015, pp. 142–143
207. Headrick 2009, p. 59, "Toe stirrups were known in India in the second century BCE, and foot stirrups appeared in northern Afghanistan in the first century CE."
208. Benjamin 2015, p. 145
209. • Benjamin 2015, p. 136
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210. Benjamin 2015, p. 80
211. Benjamin 2015, pp. 79–80
212. Kent 2020, p. 6, "Ancient societies ruled themselves according to a system known as patriarchy, or the rule of the father, in which male heads of households and states claimed nearly absolute power over women."
213. • Christian 2008, p. 47
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214. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 334
215. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 334
216. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 317
217. Shaw 1976, p. 13
218. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 215
219. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 379, 393
220. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 393
221. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 297, 336, 339
222. Benjamin 2015, p. 122
223. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 214
224. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 395
225. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 205
226. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 397
227. Hourani 1991, pp. 5, 11, "In the early seventh century a religious movement appeared on the margins of the great empires, those of the Byzantines and Sasanians, which dominated the western half of the world....The Byzantine and Sasanian empires were engaged in long wars, which lasted with intervals from 540 to 629."
228. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 249–250
229. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 385
230. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 386
231. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 389
232. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 255
233. • Benjamin 2015, p. 295
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234. Chainey & Winsham 2021, p. 82
235. Benjamin 2015, p. 295
236. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 26
237. Benjamin 2015, p. 149
238. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 156–157, 393
239. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 393–394
240. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 292–93
241. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 162, 579
242. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 373–374
243. • Shaw 1976, p. 13
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244. Robinson 2010, p. 236
245. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 535
246. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 297–298
247. • Ebrey, Walthall & Palais 2006, p. 113
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248. Xue 1992, pp. 226–227
249. Pillalamarri 2017
250. Ebrey, Walthall & Palais 2006, p. 113
251. Benjamin 2015, p. 251
252. Tor 2009, pp. 279–299
253. Ṭabīb et al. 2001, pp. 3–4
254. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 247–248
255. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 248
256. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 354, "He maintained jurisdiction principally in Central Asia and Iran."
257. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 355, "Despite the political infighting and progressively unstable political situation, Shah Rukh in Herat and Ulugh Beg in Samarkand fostered a cultural and artistic renaissance in the Timurid domains."
258. • Hayas 1953, p. 2, "...that certain distinctive features of our Western civilization—the civilization of western Europe and of America—have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."
     • Woods & Canizares 2012, p. 1, "Western civilization owes far more to Catholic Church than most people—Catholic included—often realize. The Church in fact built Western civilization."
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259. Brown 2007, pp. 128, 136
260. Benjamin 2015, pp. 384–385
261. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 158
262. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 282, 285
263. Deanesly 2019, pp. 339–355, The Carolingian Conquests
264. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 159
265. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 205
266. • Bulliet et al. 2011, p. 250
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267. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 289
268. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 280–281
269. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 496–497
270. Bideleux & Jeffries 1998, p. 48
271. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 293
272. Phillips 2017, pp. 665–698
273. McNeill & McNeill 2003, p. 146
274. Bentley & Ziegler 2008, p. 595
275. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 324
276. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 335
277. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 246–248
278. Aberth 2001
279. • Dunham 2008
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280. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 60, "Then, in the 1340s, Mongol armies attacked the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimean region, and from that point on the infection spread into the Mediterranean, and then north into Europe, reaching Scandinavia within two years, and east and south into the Muslim societies of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa."
281. McNeill & McNeill 2003, p. 120
282. Fage & Tordoff 2002, p. 175
283. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 183, 185
284. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 183, 185
285. Benjamin 2015, p. 658
286. Uhlig et al. 2017, p. 108
287. Heldman & Haile 1987, pp. 1–11
288. Uhlig et al. 2017, p. 111
289. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 258, 379, 382, 393
290. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 586
291. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 245, "By the 14th century, and probably earlier, West Africa was producing and exporting more gold than anywhere else in the world."
292. Blier 2012, pp. 70–85
293. Fage & Tordoff 2002, p. 102
294. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 99–100
295. Brauer Museum of Art
296. TOTA
297. Iliffe 2007, p. 82
298. Fage & Tordoff 2002, p. 132
299. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 258
300. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 130–131
301. Iliffe 2007, pp. 104–105
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303. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 123–125
304. Diamond 1997, p. 50
305. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 189–90
306. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 255
307. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 393
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309. Keay 2000, pp. 168, 214–15, 251
310. Keay 2000, pp. 169, 213, 215
311. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 169
312. Benjamin 2015, p. 426, "After China was reunified in 589 by the Sui dynasty (581–618) and suddenly became a looming regional superpower, Silla began exploring even more active ties with China."
313. Lewis 2009, p. 1
314. • Benjamin 2015, p. 453
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315. Whitfield 2004, p. 193
316. Lorge 2015, pp. 4–5
317. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 532
318. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 528, 534
319. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 532
320. Henshall 1999, pp. 11–12
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322. • Totman 2002, pp. 64–79
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323. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 316–317
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326. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 720, "In Japan the emperor was revered but had no power."
327. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 222
328. Huffman 2010, p. 67
329. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 517–518
330. Ackerman et al. 2008, p. 464
331. Naver
332. The Association of Korean History Teachers 2005, p. 113
333. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 345
334. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 550
335. McNeill & McNeill 2003, p. 120
336. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 534–5
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338. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 535
339. Lieberman 2003, pp. 216–217
340. Lieberman 2003, pp. 216–17
341. • Evans et al. 2007, p. 14279, "The 'boundary' of the urban complex of Angkor, as it can be loosely defined from the infrastructural network, encloses ~900–1,000 km compared with the ~100–150 km of Tikal, the next largest preindustrial low-density city for which we have an overall survey. Mirador, a Pre-Classic Maya urban complex, and Calakmul, a Classic site near Tikal, may be more extensive, but as yet we do not have comprehensive overall surveys for these sites; it is nonetheless clear that no site in the Maya world approaches Angkor in terms of extent."
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342. Lieberman 2003, pp. 244–245
343. Lieberman 2003, p. 91
344. Lieberman 2003, pp. 149–150
345. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 240
346. Lieberman 2003, p. 350
347. Lieberman 2003, p. 235
348. Taylor 1976, p. 159, The Rise of Đại Việt and the Establishment of Thăng-long
349. Lieberman 2003, p. 243
350. Anthony 2015, p. 45
351. Coedès 1968, p. 225, "However that may be, various texts agree that the solemn coronation of Fa Ngum, which marks the founding of the kingdom of Lan Chang, took place in 1353; this date has most probably been transmitted correctly."
352. Lieberman 2003, p. 125, "In the heart of the dry zone, near the juncture of the Irrawaddy with the famed granary of Kyaukse, Ava was founded in 1365."
353. Ricklefs 2001, p. 4, "The first evidence of Indonesian Muslims concerns the northern part of Sumatra. In the graveyard of Lamreh is found the gravestone of Sultan Suleiman bin Abdullah bin al-Basir, who died in AH 608/AD 1211. This is the first evidence of the existence of an Islamic kingdom in Indonesia."
354. Andaya & Andaya 2015, pp. 100, 109
355. Abinales & Amoroso 2017, p. 36
356. • Benjamin 2015, p. 625
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357. Benjamin 2015, pp. 621–22
358. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 406–07
359. Benjamin 2015, p. 622
360. Burley 1998, pp. 368–9, 375
361. Kirch & Green 2001, p. 87
362. Geraghty 1994, pp. 236–239, Linguistic Evidence for the Tongan Empire
363. MacKnight 1986, pp. 69–75
364. Benjamin 2015, pp. 546–547
365. Yoffee 2015, p. 437
366. Fagan 2005, p. 35
367. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 205, 208
368. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 622
369. Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 397
370. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 638
371. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, pp. 644, 658
372. • de Vries 2009, pp. 710–733
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373. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 449
374. • Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 436
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     • Stearns 2010, pp. 36–38
375. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 16
376. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 192, "The Italian city-states developed business procedures that have been described as early capitalism, although this was already business as usual in Asian port-cities such as Cambay, Calicut and Zayton."
377. • Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 448, 460, 501
     • Horn 2016, pp. 68–69
378. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, pp. 276–277
379. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 194
380. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, p. 103
381. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, pp. 103, 126–127
382. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 38
383. Christian 2011, p. 383, "Because such crops flourished where more familiar staples grew less well, American crops effectively increased the area under cultivation and thereby made possible population growth in many parts of Afro-Eurasia from the 16th century onward."
384. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 417
385. Axworthy 2008, p. 121
386. Axworthy 2008, p. 171
387. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 469, "Having determined to build a distinctive Iranian, Shi'a identity for their empire, the Safavids forced the conversion of all Muslims in their territory to Shi'ism."
388. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 456, "In the Middle East, Central Asia and India, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires adopted firearms so enthusiastically that they are often referred to as 'gunpowder empires.'"
389. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 626, "In the region of the Caucasus Mountains, the third area of southward expansion, Russia first took over Christian Georgia (1786), Muslim Azerbaijan (1801), and Christian Armenia (1813) before gobbling up the many small principalities in the heart of the mountains."
390. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 358, "Political and military instability, succession disputes and conflicts with the Türkmen and Uzbeks vitiated these remarkable economic achievements, weakening the Timurids and making them vulnerable to the previously nomadic Uzbeks, who became the dominant force in Central Asia from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century."
391. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 452
392. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 455, 535, 591, 670
393. • Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 165
     • Davies 2005, pp. 313, 386
394. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 455, "As a result, the major European nations were nearly always at war somewhere."
395. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, pp. 41, 44, 47, 343
396. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 529, "The French Revolution ended in the rule of Napoleon in 1799, and his attempts to conquer Europe began in 1803."
397. Carter & Butt 2005, p. 4, "Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."
398. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 363, 368
399. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 365–8
400. Bulliet et al. 2015a, pp. 365–8
401. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, pp. 338–339, 345
402. Tignor et al. 2014, pp. 426–427
403. • Roberts & Westad 2013, pp. 683–685
     • Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 436
404. • Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 444
     • Bristow 2023, Lead Section
405. Schulman 2011, pp. 1–2
406. Headrick 2009, p. 85
407. • Headrick 2009, p. 85
     • Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 436
     • Chrisp 2016, p. 267
408. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 512
409. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 512
410. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 537
411. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 323
412. Meyerowitz 1975, pp. 87, 125–126, 137, 139
413. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 260
414. Fage & Tordoff 2002, p. 133
415. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 261
416. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 176–177
417. Njoku 2013, p. 41
418. Trimmingham 1952, pp. 87, 89–90
419. Uhlig et al. 2017, pp. 117, 121
420. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 101, 285
421. Fage & Tordoff 2002, p. 277
422. Fage & Tordoff 2002, pp. 134–135
423. Stein 2010, p. 159
424. Lal 2001
425. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 529
426. Wolpert 1997, p. 115
427. Osborne 2020, pp. 992, 1005
428. • Singh 2000, p. 17
     • Haigh 2009, p. 30
429. Keay 2000, pp. 410–11, 420, "This brought the British into potential conflict with Ranjit Singh, a young Sikh leader who had been prominent in repulsing Afghan attacks by Ahmed Shah Abdali's successors and who, since occupying Lahore in 1799, had been pursuing a policy of conquest and alliance that mirrored that of the British...over the next 30 years the Raja of Lahore, comparatively free of British interference, would blossom into the Maharaja of the Panjab, creator of the most formidable non-colonial state in India...Ranjit had by 1830 created a kingdom, nay an 'empire', rated by one visitor 'the most wonderful object in the whole world'."
430. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 116
431. McNeill & McNeill 2003, p. 247
432. Henshall 1999, pp. 41, 49, 60, 66
433. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 545–546, 550
434. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 541, 544
435. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 554–555, 704
436. Yoffee 2015, p. 74, "When the Portuguese admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque conquered the sultanate of Melaka (Malacca) on August 24, 1511, he brought under Portuguese control a Southeast Asian polity whose reach stretched across the Malay peninsula."
437. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 194
438. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, p. 257, "As of about 1500, the power in this region, and the main enemy of the Estado da Índia, was the sultanate of Johor."
439. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, pp. 200, 276, 381–382
440. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 336
441. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 336
442. Paine 2013, pp. 402–403
443. Paine 2013, pp. 402–403
444. Serle 1949
445. Siler 2012, p. xxii
446. Matsuda 2012, p. 161
447. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 212
448. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, pp. 39, 66
449. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 430, "That said, and ever since the initial Eastern seaboard settler wars against the Tsenacommacahs and Pequots in the 1620s and early 1630s, systematic genocidal massacre was a core component of native destruction throughout three centuries of largely ‘Anglo’ expansion across continental North America."
450. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 475
451. Stearns 2010, p. 137
452. Stearns 2010, p. 137
453. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 277
454. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 277
455. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, p. 227
456. Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015b, pp. 216, 229
457. Wheeler 1971, p. 441, "This view overlooks the fact that, in the forty years since Shelikhov had founded the first permanent settlement on Kodiak Island in 1784, only eight additional settlements had been established, none of which was south of 57° north latitude."
458. Black 2004, p. 181, "The winter was spent preparing timbers and preparing the site, and Settlement Ross was founded in June 1812."
459. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 482, "The peace agreement forced France to yield Canada to the English and cede Louisiana to Spain."
460. Tindall & Shi 2010, pp. 219, 254
461. Tindall & Shi 2010, p. 352
462. Stearns 2008, p. 219
463. • Morys 2020, p. vii
     • Becker & Platt 2023, pp. 1–2
464. • Haynes, Hough & Pilbeam 2023, p. 43
     • Berger 2008, p. xvii
465. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 562, "Manchester's rise as a large, industrial city was a result of what historians call the Industrial Revolution, the most profound transformation in human life since the beginnings of agriculture."
466. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 137
467. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 584–5
468. • McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 490
     • Babones 2008, p. 146, Studying Globalization: Methodological Issues
469. O'Rourke & Williamson 2002, pp. 23–50
470. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 529, 532
471. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 563, "The first countries to industrialize grew rich and powerful, facilitating a second great wave of European imperialism in the 19th century."
472. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 336
473. Bulliet et al. 2015b, pp. 532, 676–8, 692
474. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 448
475. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 562
476. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 532
477. • McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 429
     • Schoppa 2021, p. 2
478. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 306, 310–311
479. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 312
480. Huntington 1991, pp. 15–16
481. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 112
482. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 390–92
483. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 386, 388, 390–91
484. • McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 370, 430–431
     • McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 5
     • Kaser 2011, p. 336: "The emerging Christian nation states justified the prosecution of their Muslims by arguing that they were their former 'suppressors'. The historical balance: between about 1820 and 1920, millions of Muslim casualties and refugees back to the remaining Ottoman Empire had to be registered; estimations speak about 5 million casualties and the same number of displaced persons"
     • Karpat 2004, pp. 5–6: "Migration was a major force in the social and cultural reconstruction of the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century. While some seven to nine million, mostly Muslim, refugees from lost territories in the Caucasus, Crimea, Balkans and Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, during the last quarter of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries..."
485. • Meyer-Fong 2013, p. 1
     • McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 390, 623
486. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 600, 602
487. Landes 1969, p. 235
488. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 210, 249–250, 254
489. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 80
490. Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 206, "The half-century preceding the outbreak of World War I stands out as an era of European economic, political, and cultural dominance never achieved before and impossible to sustain at the end of the war."
491. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 313–314
492. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 306
493. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 308
494. Schoppa 2021, p. 25
495. • Suny 2015, pp. 245, 330
     • Bozarslan, Duclert & Kévorkian 2015, p. 187
496. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 246–247
497. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 450
498. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 452
499. Schoppa 2021, pp. 159–160n
500. Schoppa 2021, p. 35
501. Schoppa 2021, p. 95
502. Christian 2011, p. 448
503. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 301–302, 312
504. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 312
505. Sainsbury 1986, p. 14
506. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 423–424
507. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 507–508, "Indeed, Japan's China war between 1931 and 1945 exacted the heaviest toll in lives of all colonial wars – between 10 and 30 million Chinese deaths being the best estimates available in the absence of official or authoritative statistics."
508. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 319
509. Ackermann et al. 2008a, pp. xxxii, xlii, 359
510. Fasulo 2015, pp. 1–3
511. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 324
512. Simmons 2009, p. 41
513. Dinan 2004, pp. xiii, 8–9
514. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 319, 451
515. Acheson 1969
516. Kunertova 2024, p. 182
517. Ackermann et al. 2008, p. xl
518. Kennedy 1987, p. 357
519. Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 817
520. Allison 2018, p. 126
521. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 321, 330
522. • Allison 2018, pp. 127–128
     • Stevenson 2020, pp. 41–43
523. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 342
524. Christian 2011, pp. 456–457, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was, as Mikhail Gorbachev understood, a failure to compete economically and technologically."
525. Scranton 2006, p. 131
526. Wolfe 2013, p. 90
527. Naughton 2016, p. 7
528. Scranton 2006, p. 131
529. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 195
530. Easton 2013, p. 2
531. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 195
532. Naughton 2016, p. 14
533. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 195–196
534. Pääbo 2003, p. 95, The Mosaic That Is Our Genome
535. Pettersson, Lundeberg & Ahmadian 2009, pp. 105–111
536. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 258
537. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 91
538. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 200
539. Gleick 2019
540. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 198
541. Nyenah, Sterl & Thiery 2022, p. 055011
542. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, p. 200
543. Christian 2011, p. 442
544. Christian 2011, pp. 442, 446
545. Vásquez 2001
546. Christian 2011, p. 449
547. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 459–460
548. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 629
549. Abernethy 2000, p. 133
550. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 578–579
551. Schoppa 2021, p. 111
552. Schoppa 2021, pp. 140–141
553. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 550–551
554. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015b, pp. 547–550
555. Friedman 2007, pp. 137–138, passim
556. McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 609, "But the crisis beginning in 2007, with the eddying effects of the subprime lending-induced financial crash, demonstrated how vital the health of the American economy remained for global growth and stability. Events and processes outside the United States continued to affect the internal politics and economics, and vice versa. The United States and the rest of the world were interconnected, and disengagement was impossible."
557. • The Economist 2023
     • Roivainen 2023
558. • Reagan 2005, p. 108
     • Murphy 2014, p. 80
     • Kte'pi 2013, p. 63
559. • Barro & Lee 2015, pp. 13, 55–56
     • Urata, Kuroda & Tonegawa 2022, pp. 40–41
     • Shelley 2022, p. 2
     • Scott & Vare 2020, pp. 54–56
560. Barro & Lee 2015, pp. 55–56
561. • Martikainen 2017, pp. 72–73
     • Hiro 1989, § Introduction
562. • Casselman 2022
     • Howe et al. 2020
563. Halperin 2004, p. 236
564. D'Anieri 2023, p. 1
565. • Armstrong McKay et al. 2022, p. eabn7950
     • Kolbert 2023, "he world's phosphorus problem resembles its carbon-dioxide problem, its plastics problem, its groundwater-use problem, its soil-erosion problem, and its nitrogen problem. The path humanity is on may lead to ruin, but, as of yet, no one has found a workable way back."
     • Kolbert 2014, p. 267
566. • Oreskes 2022
     • The Economist 2023a
     • Ritchie 2024
567. • Christian 2015a, pp. 1–4
     • Northrup 2015, pp. 111–112
     • Cajani 2013, § Current Trends
     • Andrea & Neel 2011, pp. 1–2
568. • Christian 2015a, pp. 2–4
     • Northrup 2015, pp. 110–111
569. • Manning 2013, § Conceptualization, § Conclusion
     • Manning 2020, pp. 1–4
     • Norberg & Deutsch 2023, p. 15
     • Aldenderfer 2011, p. 1
     • Neel 2011, pp. 11–12
570. • Christian 2015a, pp. 5–6
     • Northrup 2015, p. 110
     • Lang 2015, pp. 84–85
     • Christian 2008, pp. 97–99
571. • Christian 2015a, p. 7
     • Northrup 2015, p. 110
     • Cajani 2013, § Biblical Chronology Challenged
572. • Christian 2015a, p. 7
     • Northrup 2015, p. 110
     • Gamble 1981, p. 2
573. • Cajani 2013, § Current Trends
     • Christian 2008, pp. 102–103
574. • Cajani 2013, § Current Trends
     • Denemark 2000, pp. 32–33
575. • McNeill 2017, pp. 69–70
     • Christian 2008, p. 101
576. Cajani 2013, § Current Trends

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