Timeline of environmental history

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This timeline lists events in the external environment that have influenced events in human history. This timeline is for use with the article on environmental determinism. For the history of humanity's influence on the environment, and humanity's perspective on this influence, see timeline of history of environmentalism. See List of periods and events in climate history for a timeline list focused on climate.

Pre-Holocene (1.5 Ma)

The time from roughly 15,000 to 5,000

Quaternary extinction event, which was continued into the modern era by humans. The time around 11,700 years ago (9,700 BC) is widely considered to be the end of the old age (Pleistocene, Paleolithic, Stone Age, Wisconsin Ice Age
), and the beginning of the modern world as we know it.

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 2,588,000 BC c. 12,000 BC Pleistocene era
c. 21,000 BC Recent evidence indicates that humans processed (gathered) and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago.[1]
c. 20,000 BC Antarctica sees a very rapid and abrupt 6 °C increase in temperatures[2]
c. 19,000 BC Last Glacial Maximum/sea-level minimum
c. 20,000 BC c. 12,150 BC Mesolithic 1 period
c. 17,000 BC c. 13,000 BC
glaciation in Europe
.
c. 13,000 BC Beginning of the
warfare
.

Meltwater pulse 1A raises sea level 20 meters. Missoula floods occur.

c. 12,670 BC c. 12,000 BC
Last glacial period. In places where the Older Dryas was not seen, it is known as the Bølling–Allerød warming
.
c.12,340 BC c.11,140 BC
Cemetery 117
: site of the world's first known battle/war.
c.12,500 BC c.10,800 BC Natufian culture begins minor agriculture
c. 12,150 BC c. 11,140 BC Mesolithic 2 (Natufian culture), some sources have Mesolithic 2 ending at 9500 BC
c. 12,000 BC c. 11,700 BC Older Dryas stadial (cool period)
c. 11,700 BC c. 10,800 BC Allerød oscillation
c.13,000 BC c.11,000 BC Lake Agassiz forms from glacial meltwater. It bursts and floods out through the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean at 11,000 BC, possibly causing the Younger Dryas cold period.
c. 12,000 BC c. 8,000 BC Göbekli Tepe, world's earliest known temple-like structure, is created.
c. 10,800 BC
Younger Dryas impact event
is proposed to have occurred, causing the onset of the Younger Dryas.
c. 10,800 BC Younger Dryas cold period begins.
c. 10,000 BC
  • Preboreal period begins.
  • World: Sea levels rise abruptly and massive inland flooding occurs due to glacier melt.
  • most recent glaciation
    .
  • First cave drawings of the Mesolithic period are made, with
    story telling, and metamorphosed into acting
    .

10th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 9700 BC
c. 9660 to c. 9600 BC
Jet Stream
), due to flooding from Lake Agassiz as it reformed.
c. 9500 BC
c. 9270 BC Greenland sees an abrupt and rapid 4 °C rise in temperatures[5]
c. 9000 BC First stone structures at Jericho built.

9th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 8500 BC to 7370 Jericho is established as one of the oldest cities in the world sometime between 8500 BC and 7370 BC
c. 8000 BC

8th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 7900 BC c. 7700 BC Lake Agassiz refills from glacial melt-water around 7900 BC as Glaciers retreat north
c. 7640 BC Date theorized for impact of Tollmann's hypothetical bolide with Earth and associated global cataclysm.
c. 7500 BC
7500–7000 BC 3500–3000 BC
savannah as part of the African humid period
.

7th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 6600 BC Jiahu symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, Northern China
c. 6500 BC
c.6440±25 BC
VEI 7 eruption. It is one of the largest of the Holocene
epoch
c. 6400 BC Lake Agassiz drains into oceans for the final time, leaving Lakes Manitoba, Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Lake of the Woods, among others in the region, as its remnants. The draining may have caused the 8.2 kiloyear event, 200 years later
c. 6200 BC 8.2-kiloyear event, a sudden significant cooling episode
c. 6100 BC The Storegga Slide, causing a megatsunami in the Norwegian Sea
c. 6000 BC
  • Climatic or Thermal Maximum, the warmest period in the past 125,000 years, with minimal glaciation and highest sea levels. (McEvedy)
  • Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separate Australia from New Guinea.
  • Increasing desiccation of the Sahara. End of the Saharan
    Pluvial
    period.
  • Associated with Pollen Zone VI Atlantic, oak-elm woodlands, warmer and maritime climate. Modern wild fauna plus, increasingly, human introductions, associated with the spread of the Neolithic farming technologies.
  • Rising sea levels from glacial retreat flood what will become the Irish Sea, separating the island of Ireland from the British Isles and Continental Europe.

6th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 5600 BC According to the
Black Sea deluge theory, the Black Sea
floods with salt water. Some 3000 cubic miles (12,500 km3) of salt water is added, significantly expanding it and transforming it from a fresh-water landlocked lake into a salt water sea.
c. 5500 BC Beginning of the
savannah, though it remains wetter than today. It's possible this process pushed people in the area into migrating to the region of the Nile in the east, thereby laying the groundwork for the rise of Egyptian civilization
.
c. 5300 BC
c. 5000 BC
5000 BC 700 BC Megalithic Temples of Malta were created

5th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 4570 BC c. 4250 BC
Nile River
4400 BC 3500 BC
Predynastic Egypt
4000 BC 3100 BC Uruk period begins in Mesopotamia

4th millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
3900 BC
3600 BC 2800 BC
  • Climatic deterioration in Western Europe and the Sahara as the African humid period ends.
  • In Europe Pollen zone VII Sub Boreal, oak and beech.
  • Glacial advances of the Piora Oscillation, with lower economic prosperity in areas not able to irrigate in the Middle East.
3500 BC to 3000 BC The end of the
5.9 kiloyear event and the Piora Oscillation
.
3500 BC 3200 BC Gerzeh/Naqada II culture in Egypt
3200 BC 3000 BC
Protodynastic Period of Egypt
3100 BC 2686 BC Early Dynastic Period of Egypt. The hallmarks of Ancient Egypt (art, architecture, religion) all formed during this period. This is widely assumed to be the time and place of the first writing system, the Egyptian hieroglyphs (date is disputed, some claim they were used as far back as 3200 BC, while others believe they weren't invented until the 28th century BC).
between 3000 BC and 2800 BC 30 km/19 mi-wide Burckle Crater is formed in Indian Ocean from a possible meteor or comet impact.

3rd millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 30th century BC
  • c. 3000 BC: Stonehenge begins to be built. In its first version, it consists of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts. (National Geographic, June 2008).
  • Sumerian
    Cuneiform script
    , considered among the oldest writing systems, is created.
c. 2880 BC Germination of Prometheus (a bristlecone pine of the species Pinus longaeva), formerly the world's oldest known non-clonal organism.
c. 2832 BC Germination of Methuselah (a bristlecone pine of the species Pinus longaeva), currently the world's oldest known non-clonal organism.
2807 BC Suggested date for an asteroid or comet impact occurring between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse on May 10, based on an analysis of flood stories. Possibly causing the
Burckle crater and Fenambosy Chevron.[7][8]
2650 BC
  • Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh describes vast tracts of cedar forests in what is now southern Iraq. Gilgamesh defies the gods and cuts down the forest, and in return the gods say they will curse Sumer with fire (or possibly drought). By 2100 BC, soil erosion and salt buildup have devastated agriculture. One Sumerian wrote that the "earth turned white." Civilization moved north to Babylonia and Assyria. Again, deforestation becomes a factor in the rise and subsequent fall of these civilizations.[citation needed]
  • Some of the first laws protecting the remaining forests decreed in Ur.[citation needed]
c. 2630 BC 1815 BC Construction of the Egyptian pyramids.
2500 BC Sahara becomes fully desiccated, and conditions become largely identical to those of today.
Tehenu of the Sahara attempt to enter into Egypt, and there is evidence of a Nile drought in the pyramid of Unas
.
2300 BC Neolithic period ends in China.
2200 BC Beginning of
subatlantic period
.

2nd millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 2000 BC c. 1000 BC Continued mountain formation in the Himalayas contributes to the drying up of the
Harappan civilization
.
1900 BC The
consequences of human overpopulation
.
Around 1600 BC Minoan eruption destroys much of Santorini island, but does not destroy (contrary to what was previously believed) the Minoan civilization on Crete.[9] This may have inspired the legend of Atlantis.
1450 BC
volcanic eruption was the source of the catastrophe (see Minoan eruption). On the other hand, gradual deforestation may have led to materials shortages in manufacturing and shipping. Loss of timber and subsequent deterioration of its land was probably a factor in the decline of Minoan power in the late Bronze Age
, according to John Perlin in A Forest Journey.
1206 BC 1187 BC Evidence of major droughts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Hittite and Ugarit records show requests for grain were sent to Egypt, probably during the reign of Pharaoh
Bronze Age collapse
. The cause may have been a temporary diversion of winter storms north of the Pyrenees and Alps. Central Europe experienced generally wetter conditions, while those in the Eastern Mediterranean were substantially drier. There seems to have been a general abandonment of peasant subsistence agriculture in favour of nomadic pastoralism in Central Anatolia, Syria and northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, the Sinai and NW Arabia.

1st millennium BC

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
800 BC 500 BC
  • Sub-Atlantic
    period in Western Europe.
  • Pollen Zone VIII, sub-Atlantic. End of last Sea Level rise.
  • Spread of "Celtic fields", Iron Age A, and Haalstadt Celts.
  • Increased prosperity in Europe and the Middle East.
200 BC Axial Age, a revolution in thinking that we know as Philosophy, begins in China, India, and Europe, with people such as Socrates, Plato, Homer, Laozi, Confucius, among others, alive at this time.
753 BC Ancient Rome begins, with the founding of Rome. This marks the beginning of Classical antiquity.
771-221 BC The Eastern Zhou period of China is characterized by the formation of larger and more powerful political systems, whose ability to transform their environment is much greater than earlier states. They establish parks to protect wildlife for hunting purposes. [10]
508 BC Democracy created in Athens, Ancient Greece
356 BC 323 BC Alexander the Great
269 BC 232 BC Reign of
Ashoka the Great, and the beginning of propagation of Buddhism
221 BC The Qin dynasty founds China's first empire period of China, conquers large areas of the East Asian mainland, and soon collapses, but is soon rebuilt by the Han dynasty, whose population and environmental impact is similar to that of the Roman Empire. Qin established some of the world's first environmental protection laws. [11]
c. 225 BC The Sub-Atlantic period began about 225 BC (estimated on the basis of radiocarbon dating) and has been characterized by increased rainfall, cooler and more humid climates, and the dominance of beech forests. The fauna of the Sub-Atlantic is essentially modern although severely depleted by human activities. The Sub-Atlantic is correlated with pollen zone IX; sea levels have been generally regressive during this time interval, though North America is an exception.
c. 200 BC Sri Lanka becomes the first country in the world to have a nature reserve when King Devanampiya Tissa of Anuradhapura established a wildlife sanctuary.

1st millennium AD

1st century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
79 AD Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum

2nd century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
114 117
Danube River and Black Sea to Mesopotamia and modern-day Kuwait
.
186 Hatepe eruption in New Zealand turns the skies red over Rome and China.[12]

3rd century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
235 284 Crisis of the Third Century affects Ancient Rome

4th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 300
fall of Rome
.
301 San Marino founded, claims to be the world's oldest republic

5th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 400 c. 800 Migration Period
c. 450 Malaria epidemic in Italy.[13]
476
Fall of Rome
, end of the Western Roman Empire

6th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
535 536 535–536: global climate abnormalities affecting several civilizations.

7th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
650 Muslim conquests of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe
600 Mount Edziza volcanic complex in British Columbia, Canada erupts

8th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
Dates unknown Classical Maya civilization begins to decline; Beowulf saga is probably written in Europe sometime in this century
750 Muslim Caliphate is moved to Baghdad, ushering in its golden age as a cultural crossroads
774 775 Unusually-high levels of
cosmic rays or abnormally strong solar flares
772 804
rebellion, incorporating Old Saxony into Francia
and the Christian world.

9th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 850 Severe drought exacerbated by soil
collapse of Central American city states and the end of the Classic Maya civilization
.
874 According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland begins.

10th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
930 Althing, oldest parliamentary institution in the world that is still in existence, is founded
980s
Viking colonists from Iceland

2nd millennium

11th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
985 1080 Norse Colony at L'Anse aux Meadows
1006
visual magnitude
)
1054 SN 1054 supernova, created the Crab Nebula
1099 The
Hodh El Gharbi Regions of southern Mauritania become desert.[15]

12th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1104
assembly lines, hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution
1150 Renaissance of the 12th century in Europe, blast furnace for the smelting of cast iron is imported from China
1185 First record of windmills in Europe
Dates unknown Nan Madol is constructed on Pohnpei in Micronesia

13th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 1250 c. 1850 Start of the Little Ice Age, a stadial period within our interglacial warm period
1257 Catastrophic eruption of Samalas in Indonesia, with climate effects comparable to that of the 1815 Tambora eruption. This contributed to the cooling seen in the Little Ice Age.
end of the 13th century beginning of the Renaissance era in Italy, gradually spreads throughout Europe.

14th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1315 1317 Great Famine of 1315–1317 (Europe)
1347 1350s Bubonic plague decimates Europe, creating the first attempts to enforce public health and quarantine laws.
1350
Greenland
abandoned, possibly due to the deteriorating climate caused by the onset of the Little Ice Age

15th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1408 Last known recording (a wedding) of Norse settlers in Greenland
1453 1452/1453 mystery eruption contributes to fall of Constantinople.
1492 Christopher Columbus lands in Caribbean islands, starting the Columbian exchange, causing the Aztec Empire and Inca Empire to fall to the Spanish in the next century, as well as bringing various species of animals and plants across the Atlantic Ocean.

16th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1585 1587 Roanoke Colony, now in North Carolina
End of the 16th century End of the Renaissance era, gradual transition towards the
Modern
eras.

17th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1600 Huaynaputina erupts in South America. The explosion had effects on climate around the Northern Hemisphere (Southern hemispheric records are less complete), where 1601 was the coldest year in six centuries, leading to a famine in Russia; see Russian famine of 1601–1603.[16]
1610 It has been posited that 1610 marks the beginning of the Anthropocene, or the 'Age of Man', marking a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the Earth system.[17][18]

18th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
c. 1750 Beginning of Industrial Revolution, which eventually turns to use of coal and other fossil fuels to drive steam engines and other devices. Anthropogenic carbon pollution presumably increases.
1755 Great Lisbon earthquake occurred in the Kingdom of Portugal on Saturday, 1 November, the holiday of All Saints' Day, at around 09:40 local time; subsequent fires and a tsunami almost totally destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas, accentuating political tensions in the kingdom and profoundly disrupting Portugal's colonial ambitions.
1770 Failure of the monsoons in the late 1760s contribute to the
American War of Independence
.
1783 The volcano Laki erupts, emitting sufficient sulfur dioxide gas and sulphate particles to kill a majority of Iceland's livestock and cause an unusually cold winter in Europe and Western Asia.
1789 1793 A recent study of
El Niño patterns suggests that the French Revolution was caused in part by the poor crop yields of 1788–89 in Europe, resulting from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789 and 1793.[19]
1798 Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, thus beginning Malthusian economics.

19th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1804 World population reaches 1 billion.
1815

Eruption of Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia, largest in the 2nd millennium AD. Leads to the...

1816
1845 1857 Unusually wet weather in Northern Europe causes
potato on which both Ireland (the Great Famine) and Scotland (the Highland Potato Famine) were heavily dependent. Elsewhere in Europe, the food shortages lead to civil unrest and the revolutions of 1848. Counting the Irish diaspora and the forty-eighters
, millions of Europeans emigrate to North America, South America, and Australia.
1859
infrared radiation. He suggests that changes in the concentration of these gases could bring climate change.[20]
1883 Eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia. The sound of the explosion is heard as far as Australia and China, the altered air waves causes strange colours on the sky and the volcanic gases reduce global temperatures during the following years. A disputed but vivid sunset was captured in Edvard Munch's The Scream.
1896
fossil fuels
.

20th century

Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
1900 The 1900 Galveston hurricane hits Galveston, Texas and reverses the city's previously rapid growth.
1906 San Francisco earthquake causes collapse of insurance markets and the Panic of 1907.[21]
1908 Tunguska event decimates a remote part of Siberia.
1914 1918 World War I, which involves heavy bombardment, explosions, and poison gas warfare.
1918 Spanish flu kills between 20 and 50 million people worldwide shortly after World War I.
1927 World population reached 2 billion.
1932 1937 Exceptional precipitation absence in northern hemisphere exacerbated by human activities [
Soviet famine of 1932–1933
(harsh economic damage in US and widespread death in USSR).
1939 1945
explosions. Towards the end of the war, nuclear warfare occurs for the first and only time when Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed
.
post-1945
fallout
and spreading radiation around the explosion sites.
1955 Gilbert Plass submits his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change".[22]
1957
Sputnik is launched, becomes first man-made object to orbit the Earth, and begins the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, culminating with the first man in space in 1961, and the Moon landing
, humanity's first ventures to the Moon in 1969.
1960 World population reached 3 billion.[23]
1963 The Clean Air Act is passed in the United States, with subsequent amendments in 1970, 1977 and 1990.
1974 World population reached 4 billion.[23]
1970s 2010s Deindustrialization occurs in the Midwest and then much of the United States, as manufacturing industries (and their pollution) move to China and other Asian countries.
1980 Mount St. Helens erupts explosively in Washington state.
1984 Bhopal disaster.
1986 Chernobyl meltdown and explosion, contaminating surrounding area, including Pripyat.
1987 World population reached 5 billion.[23]
1989 The Montreal Protocol comes into effect, phasing out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other substances responsible for ozone depletion.
1992 The Earth Summit is held in Rio, attended by 192 nations.
1997 The Kyoto Protocol is signed, committing nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
1999 World population reached 6 billion.

3rd millennium

21st century

See also: List of years in the environment
Year(s) Event(s)
Start End
2004
  • The Boxing Day Earthquake causes large tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.
2005
  • Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to coastal communities in the US Gulf Coast region, especially the New Orleans area.
2008
  • Cyclone Nargis makes landfall over Myanmar, causing widespread destruction and killing over 130,000 people.
2010
2011
2012
  • Atlantic basin hurricane
    in history.
2013
2015
  • A global
    carbon emissions for the first time.[24]
2016
  • 150 nations meeting at the
    UNEP summit in Rwanda agree to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), as an extension to the Montreal Protocol.[25]
Further information: 2024 in the environment

See also

References

  1. PMID 15295598. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on May 4, 2011.
  2. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2003.09.004
    .
  3. ^ Creosote Bush: Long-Lived Clones in the Mojave Desert, Frank C. Vasek, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Feb, 1980), pp. 246–255
  4. ^ a b http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=11165 Larrea tridentata – King Clone
  5. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.01.032
    .
  6. ^ Science Daily: World's Oldest Living clonal tree, 9550 years old, Discovered In Sweden
  7. ^ Cambridge Conference Correspondence
  8. ^ Blakeslee, Sandra (November 14, 2006). "Ancient Crash, Epic Wave". The New York Times.
  9. ^ Jeremy B. Rutter, JoAnn Gonzalez-Major. "Akrotiri on Thera, the Santorini Volcano and the Middle and Late Cycladic Periods in the Central Aegean Islands". Dartmouth College. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  10. ^ Lander, Brian (2021). The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  11. ^ Lander, Brian (2021). The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  12. doi:10.1038/288252a0
    .
  13. ^ "BBC – History – Ancient History in depth: Malaria and the Fall of Rome".
  14. ^ "Space Explosion to Blame for Tree Ring Mystery, Astronomers Say".
  15. ^ "Mauritania".
  16. ^ "The volcano that changed the world". Nature. 11 April 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  17. ^ "Anthropocene: New dates proposed for the 'Age of Man'". BBC. 11 March 2015. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
  18. doi:10.1038/nature14258
    .
  19. ^ Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño,” Nature393 (1998), 318–319.
  20. ^ "The Discovery of Global Warming". American Institute of Physics. February 2013. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  21. ^ Kerry A. Odell and Marc D. Weidenmier, Real Shock, Monetary Aftershock: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the Panic of 1907, The Journal of Economic History, 2005, vol. 64, issue 04, p. 1002-1027.
  22. doi:10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956.tb01206.x
    .
  23. ^ a b c "United Nations Population Fund moves Day of 6 Billion based on new population estimates". Population Connection. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2006-03-11.
  24. ^ "COP21 climate change summit reaches deal in Paris". BBC. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  25. ^ "Climate change: 'Monumental' deal to cut HFCs, fastest growing greenhouse gases". BBC News. 15 October 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2016.

External links

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