Timelines illustrate the ebb and flow of cultures.
A dear, brilliant, original thinking friend sent me a ‘Histomap of World History’ with a note that he had it hanging on his wall in college and still refers to it so often that he had tracked it down and was sending copies to a few friends. With the geopolitical challenges in the world today, the perspective of 4000 years is illustrative.
In 1931, John B. Sparks and Rand McNally undertook the monumental task of putting world history into perspective. The result is a ‘histomap’ in the form of a five-foot-long, 11.5” wide poster. Beginning in 2000 BC, the ‘map’ shows the ascent, decline, and fall of historic civilizations from the Aegeans and the Egyptians to 2000. I especially appreciate the relative perspective like the rise of the Persians in the declining decades of the Roman Empire. This original ‘map’ is almost 100 years old. It has been updated, but it contains some biases and lacks some facts available to those of us in the 21st Century. Link to the Histomap image online. Histomap for sale, 16” x 72”, $58.49.
Here is the history of the changing world from 200,000 BCE – on YouTube in nine minutes.
The History of the world every year, a video on YouTube.
50 centuries of geopolitics unfolding in ten minutes. A Geopolitical History of Empires.
Are you ready for the history of the entire universe in an 18-minute TED Talk? From the big bang and young stars to humans and our ability to learn from history.
The history of our world in 18 minutes | David Christian
If you are more of a ‘chart and graph person’ here is 2,000 years of economic history with comparisons of GDPs. 2,000 Years of Economic History in One Chart from the Visual Capitalist.
If you respond to a ‘professorial voice’, check out this timeline of
world history with a narrator. Timeline of World History with Major Periods & Ages on YouTube. This has been viewed over 1.8 million times.
Timeline of World History, 24’ X 36” on card stock. $19.95
I grew up in a simple world with time defined as B.C and A.D. Now its B.C.-A.D.-CE-BCE????
A.D. stands for ‘Anno Domini’, which is Latin for ‘in the year of the Lord’. B.C. stands for ‘Before Christ’. This system of counting years from the birth of Jesus Christ was proposed by a Christian Monk in 525 A.D. It is known as the Gregorian calendar. It faces several challenges including its explicit dependence on Christianity and the assertion of some historians that Jesus was actually born two years before the chosen ‘Anno Domini’. It remains the primary historical dating system.
Over 100 years ago, some scholars seeking religious neutrality, proposed the terms CE and BCE. CE stands for ‘Common Era’ and BCE stands for ‘Before the Common Era’. These periods are similar to A.D and B.C. and have become widely used in science.
