"Dates of Epoch-Making Events" is an

entry Entry may refer to: *Entry, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States *Entry (cards), a term used in trick-taking card-games *Entry (economics), a term in connection with markets *Entry (film), ''Entry'' (film), a 2013 Indian ...

in ''

The Nuttall Encyclopaedia ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' for its listing of the most important turning points in history, particularly

western history The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

. The work's list illustrates

western culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

's turning points and James Wood's views from the early 20th century. The events are listed as in the original listing, with modern

footnote A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of th ...

Historical events

The events chosen, with few errors, are:

Event listing

* The Ascendency in Athens of

Pericles Pericles (; grc-gre, Περικλῆς; c. 495 – 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Pelo ...

(445 BC) * The Fall of the Persian Empire (330 BC) * The

Death of Alexander the Great The death of Alexander the Great and subsequent related events have been the subjects of debates. According to a Babylonian astronomical diaries, Babylonian astronomical diary, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon betwee ...

(323 BC) * The Reduction of Greece to a

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

, and the Ruin of Carthage (146 BC) * The

Battle of Actium The Battle of Actium was a naval battle fought between a maritime fleet of Octavian led by Marcus Agrippa and the combined fleets of both Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII Philopator. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC in the Ionian Sea, ...

(31 BC) *

Birth of Christ The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea, his mother Mary was engaged to a man n ...

, 14th year of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

* Commencement of the Middle Ages (395) * Ruin of the Roman Empire by the Barbarians (476) * Clovis, ruler of

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...

(509) * The Flight of Mahomet (622) *

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first ...

Emperor of the West The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

(800) *

Treaty of Verdun The Treaty of Verdun (), agreed in , divided the Frankish Empire into three kingdoms among the surviving sons of the emperor Louis I, the son and successor of Charlemagne. The treaty was concluded following almost three years of civil war and ...

(843) * The Crusades (1096–1291) * Employment of Cannon at Crécy (1346) * Invention of Printing (1436) * Taking of Constantinople by Mehmed II (1453) * Discovery of America by Columbus (1492) * Copernican System published (c. 1500) * Accession of Leo X as Pope (1513) *

The Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

Luther Luther may refer to: People * Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation * Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement * Luther (give ...

(1517) * Publication of

Bacon's Bacon's was a chain of department stores based in Louisville, Kentucky. History Jeremiah Bacon opened a store called Bacon's Dry Goods in 1845 on Market Street near Hancock Street. In 1876 he moved into a structure four times larger than the o ...

Novum Organon The ''Novum Organum'', fully ''Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae'' ("New organon, or true directions concerning the interpretation of nature") or ''Instaurationis Magnae, Pars II'' ("Part II of The Great Instauration ...

'' (1620) * Publication of Descartes's ''

Discourse on Method ''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical ...

'' (1637) * The Peace of Westphalia (1648) * Reign of Louis XIV at its Height, and Peace of Nimeguen (1678) * Publication of Newton's

Theory of Gravitation In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...

(1682) * Watt's Invention of the Steam-Engine (1769) * Independence of the United States (1776) * ''Coup d'état'' of 10 Brumaire (1799) * Waterloo, and

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

(1815) * Introduction of Railroads into England (1830) * First Attempt at Electric Telegraphy in France (1837)

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

independently developed an electrical telegraph in 1837. Morse's public information was responsible for demonstrations conducted in both England and France. His patent in France was applied for in 1838. See for more: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, and Edward Lind Morse
Samuel F.B. Morse: His Letters and Journals
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1914 an
Professor Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph
The American Biblical Repository, April, 1838. See also the Morse Telegraph (1837) contained in the historical collection of France Telecom, Telecommunication City in Pleumeur-Bodou, France.
Also notable, in regards to the date, was the

William Fothergill Cooke Sir William Fothergill Cooke (4 May 1806 – 25 June 1879) was an English inventor. He was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837. Together with John Ricardo he f ...

and

Charles Wheatstone Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875), was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope (a device for di ...

demonstration of 1837 in London. See

electrical telegraph Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...

for the general development of the apparatus. * Africa traversed by Livingstone (1852–1854) * Publication of Darwin's ''

Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'' (1859) * Opening of the Suez Canal (1869) * Proclamation of the German Empire (1871) *

Congress of Berlin The Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878) was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at th ...

(1878)

References

;General * * Wood, James
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia: Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge
London: F.Warne, 1920. "
Dates of Epoch-Making Events
'". ;Footnotes {{reflist Lists of events