Dates in World History

The dates that anchor a mental timeline, from the first Olympics to the 2008 financial crisis.

You do not need hundreds of dates to have a sense of history, just a few dozen good anchors to hang everything else on. These are the ones that come up again and again: Hastings, Magna Carta, the fall of Constantinople, Waterloo, both world wars, the Moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Type the year; the answer adds a line of context.

All 44 cards

  1. In what year BC were the first recorded Olympic Games held?

    776(also 776 BC)

  2. In what year BC was Julius Caesar assassinated?

    44(also 44 BC)

    On the Ides of March: March 15.

  3. In what year did the Western Roman Empire fall?

    476

    When the Germanic leader Odoacer deposed the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus. The Eastern Empire lasted until 1453.

  4. In what year was the Battle of Hastings?

    1066

    William of Normandy defeated Harold II and became king of England.

  5. In what year was Magna Carta sealed?

    1215

    King John agreed to it at Runnymede: an early limit on royal power.

  6. In what year did the Black Death reach Europe?

    1347

    It killed perhaps a third to a half of Europe’s population within about five years.

  7. In what year did Constantinople fall to the Ottomans?

    1453

    The end of the Byzantine Empire. The city is now Istanbul.

  8. In what year did Columbus first reach the Americas?

    1492

  9. In what year did Martin Luther publish his 95 Theses?

    1517

    The usual starting point of the Protestant Reformation.

  10. In what year did Magellan’s expedition complete the first voyage around the world?

    1522

    Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines in 1521; Juan Sebastián Elcano led the survivors home.

  11. In what year was the Spanish Armada defeated?

    1588

  12. In what year did the Mayflower reach Plymouth?

    1620

  13. In what year did Newton publish the Principia, setting out his laws of motion and gravity?

    1687

  14. In what year was the US Declaration of Independence signed?

    1776

  15. In what year did the French Revolution begin with the storming of the Bastille?

    1789

    On July 14, now France’s national day.

  16. In what year was Napoleon defeated at Waterloo?

    1815

  17. In what year did Darwin publish On the Origin of Species?

    1859

  18. In what year did the American Civil War begin?

    1861

    It ended in 1865.

  19. In what year was Abraham Lincoln assassinated?

    1865

    Five days after the Confederacy’s main army surrendered.

  20. In what year did the Suez Canal open?

    1869

  21. In what year did the Wright brothers make the first powered airplane flight?

    1903

    At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The first flight lasted 12 seconds.

  22. In what year did the Titanic sink?

    1912

  23. In what year did World War I begin?

    1914

    Set off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

  24. In what year was the Russian Revolution?

    1917

  25. In what year did World War I end?

    1918

    The armistice took effect at 11 am on November 11.

  26. In what year did Alexander Fleming discover penicillin?

    1928

  27. In what year did the Wall Street Crash start the Great Depression?

    1929

  28. In what year did World War II begin?

    1939

    Germany invaded Poland on September 1.

  29. In what year did World War II end?

    1945

    In Europe in May, and in the Pacific in August and September, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  30. In what year was the United Nations founded?

    1945

  31. In what year did India become independent?

    1947

  32. In what year was the People’s Republic of China founded?

    1949

  33. In what year was the double-helix structure of DNA published?

    1953

    By James Watson and Francis Crick, building on X-ray images by Rosalind Franklin.

  34. In what year did Sputnik become the first artificial satellite?

    1957

  35. In what year did Yuri Gagarin become the first person in space?

    1961

  36. In what year was John F. Kennedy assassinated?

    1963

  37. In what year did people first walk on the Moon?

    1969

  38. In what year did the Berlin Wall fall?

    1989

  39. In what year did Tim Berners-Lee propose the World Wide Web?

    1989

    It went public in 1991.

  40. In what year did East and West Germany reunify?

    1990

  41. In what year did the Soviet Union break up?

    1991

  42. In what year was Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa?

    1994

    In the country’s first elections open to all races, ending apartheid.

  43. In what year were the September 11 attacks?

    2001

  44. In what year did Lehman Brothers collapse, deepening the global financial crisis?

    2008