I decided conclusively on five of the ten most important dates in recorded history- and then chose two more later. The second set of dates has been included on October 24 after careful research. Dates added to the second set are marked as such. There are three more dates to be added.
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September 2, 31 B.C. Conclusion of the Battle of Actium which eventually led to the founding of the Roman Empire, which laid the foundation of the modern world.
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October 10, 732. Battle of Tours, the most decisive battle between Islam and Christianity, where the latter won. If the battle had been lost, Islam would certainly be the dominant religion today with only the survival of Hinduism, Buddhism, and various Eastern religions.
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July 15, 1215. Magna Carta recorded, the foundation for Western law.
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May 29, 1453. Fall of Constantinople. If the Muslims had not defeated the Byzantine Empire, Islam would very likely remain a relatively minor regional religion similar to Shinto or Taoism.
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July 14, 1789. Storming and fall of Bastille. Before this event, the power of the King remained absolute. This event greatly enboldened the revolutionaries and led the king to back down and eventually abdicate. Also led to the rise of Napoleon. (date added Oct 24 by author)
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August 3, 1798. Battle of the Nile. This less famous of Admiral Nelson's battle had a larger effect than Trafalgar. Napoleon was close to conquering the Middle East and North Africa which would mean an almost certain victory over all of Europe. However, this defeat directly caused his land armies to lose the important Siege of Acre, causing him to withdraw. (date added Oct 24)
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November 9, 1923. Beer Hall Putsch. Later solidified Hitler's rise to power.

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Other dates considered but not chosen, usually because the event itself was the final culmination of a greater trend with many causes. While the outcome of the events above clearly had a major impact overall, the below triggered events which seemed to be inevitable anyways.

-Battle of Trafalgar. While very important, Napoleon had clearly decided not to invade England before the battle. This is the event that I had to consider closest, since it did arguable create the disastrous continental blockade which hurt the economy of France. But, such a system would likely have been created no matter what happened.
-Invention of the cotton gin, industrial revolution. No single event caused the industrial revolution, and the causes are debated to this day. The innovations of this period were symptom rather than causes of the industrial revolution.
-Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which set off World War I. The system of alliances was leading to war, which was inevitable.
-September 11th attacks. Another event that had to be considered closely, but saying this attack being the top 10 events would be giving undue weight to recent events. Also, the true effects of September 11 on world history are still unclear.

the roman empire may of been great and set many precedences for modern society, but it completely and fully disbanded and fell to an unrecognizable state before the "modern world" was around.

would kinda be like thanking the myans for modern day Mexico, they were there and great in their society, but they were gone for quite some time before modern times, and some pretty damn dark times were in between.

It's hard to put dates on important events in some cases. The industrial revolution was definitely important, but I'm not sure Eli Whitney's cotton gin patent date is noteworthy. Same goes for the production of the first model T.

One should also not limit the list to Western Civilization. The East is definitely important.

I would agree - I think the events themselves are much more important than the dates they happened on.

Some important ones that I can think of just off the top of my head


- Recent History -
Jonas Salk's invention of the Polio vaccine.

Lister's invention of antiseptics

Black Hand assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand

Brown's invention of the internal combustion engine

- Semi-Recent History -
Guttenberg, printing press, etc

Edict of Milan



- Ancient History -
Pax Romana (clear example of why dates are not adequate to express importance)

Egyptian Legal Codes

Mesopotamian invention of writing

Mesopotamian invention of base 60

March 9th, 1999 - Al Gore invents internet

history is all well and good, but i'm interested more in modern times. is 9/11 the defining moment of our/my life? outside of world war three, the fall of america (which i see as the same, assuming we lose wwiii), and the returning of jesus.. i don't see anything topping that?

now: is guttenberg not who created the printing press, or am i reading too far into the comma seperating the person from the event? :P

and i don't wish to argue, i am asking, but i thought the actual asians had writing before the messopatomats? i just chalked it up to them and their up to down or their right to left?

You got the date wrong on that. Al Gore engineered the linkage between US military forces in Vietnam and the Pentagon. Sure it was very crude compared to the internet we enjoy today, but it enabled LBJ to personally influence tactical warfare--a first for a President half a world away, and it happened way back in 1968.

Al Gore is the man.

ITS HALF MAN HALF BEAR HALF PIG!

IM SUPER CEREAL!

I thought DARPA was to credit for this??

(i ask, not say!)

(to terror, not ford. to ford: i'm wearing a blazer. get over it, its happening.)

the pseudo Asians did indeed write earlier than the Mesopotamians, but the actual Asians didn't.

I'm sorry I missed the return of Jesus. I'm so out of the loop sometimes.

re: Al Gore/Internet

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

In short, yes DARPA is completely responsible for the technological advancements in computer to computer communication via signal relay, Al Gore was on the Congressional committee that approved the funding and made the legislation that made it possible. He never did actually claim to invent the internet - this was taken out of context from a somewhat self-serving (and then misinterpreted) statement on the topic made by a vice presidential candidate, as referenced in the article.

braden - yes. Sorry, I wrote that in a big hurry on the way out the door to a late meeting and didn't re-read what I wrote. I meant Guttenberg's invention of the type set printing press, and several type set standards/methods.

Asia did have writing before Mesopotamia, but as I understand it (and please note this is ONLY as I understand it - there is no research done here, just some memory of ancient history in college) it was very loosely defined and not at all standardized on any more than a tribal level. They get credit for initially referring a specific character to a specific idea/thought/thing, but I think Mesopotamia gets credit for making it an actual cultural tool.

you didn't exactly quote so anything i read into this is YOUR fault not mine, as it's my fault when people do it to me.. ?

"I'm sorry I missed the return of Jesus. I'm so out of the loop sometimes."

you can call dangling participle all you want, you either know
what i meant or don't know how to speak english. you can decide? Unless I myself am missing something? if so, pray tell.

"Al Gore was on the Congressional committee that approved the funding"

then the people who voted al gore into congress to put him on the congressional committee that approved the funding created the internet. welcome to democracy?

Now: who gets credit for prose and verse?

i suppose that question is open to anybody, as is the apology for three posts in a row.. i blame the wine, you can call me an idiot all you want, i really don't mind.

My beer>your wine. My last several posts were total crap meant for my own amusement. If you didn't catch that right away, I am happy, but you may now disregard them.

Hell, if you want to go with the degrees of separation argument, my grandparents gave birth to the folks who voted him into Congress which put him on the Congressional committee that approved the funding to create the internet, so THEY get credit too.

In the same vein, my parents bought an Apple IIe 25 years ago, so they are directly responsible for computers being in nearly every home in America today.

Also, a butterfly farted in the Amazon 3 days ago, and the resulting string of events caused me to have 17 beers this evening, so I blame the butterfly for getting me drunk.

If a butterfly fart moved at the maximum speed of a cold front which is around 30 miles per hour, it would only move 720 miles in one day. In three days, that doesn't actually go very far from South America. If indeed you live in North America which I suspect you do, you can not blame the butterfly no matter how flatulent it is. You are responsible for yourself.

you clearly dont understand the phrase "resulting string of events"

Ok....it was more like 3 1/2 days :-P

Islamic scientist made the first scientific methods

i find that hard to believe since Islam as a religion didn't exactly exist until ~610 C.E. that would be roughly 1400 years ago. It can be argued that the accepted and "official" modern scientific method was spurred along by the belief and teachings of Ibn al-Haytham, but to nail that on him and his followers is a little naive. You really want to sit there and say that the roman empire didn't use a means of "the scientific method" to understand the world around them? Or even the Greeks before them? Come on...that's a little silly.

The idea of testing a hypothesis is pretty basic and probably existed before language. In fact, it can be observed in animal behavior. As far as making it into the fairly standard procedure it is today, I imagine it has been refined by a number of sources over the ages.

now: your grandparents are american ingenuity at it's finest. you should be proud, you come from good stock.

as for the appleiie, i wasn't alive to buy 8tracks, right, so i was directly involved in the decline of 8 track and the birth of cassettes, right? :P

The 1967 Six-Day War

Yes braden. I also hold you personally responsible for the death of the 429 and 454 V8.

My grandparents really were awesome. Only 1 left, but they were Americana when that was still a good thing.

If you review history carefully, you'll notice that almost every advancement in human thinking, technology, culture, etc. all revolve around "WAR". If anything drives the human condition, it is war.

So, I would say the dates for the beginning and ending of wars of conquest, revenge etc. are the most important dates in history.

DARPANET was the precursor to the Internet as we know it.

DARPANET was originally designed to allow various universities to exchange information and documents easily to enable research of military value to proceed more quickly.

After a while, the ability to share documents easily became secondary to being able to view documents on demand via hyperlinks embedded into a page.

The internet just grew exponentially after tha.

sometimes i do manage to be right, it's few and far between but it is known to happen.

when was al gore in darpa or darpanet? (again, asking, not telling..)

now, i also wasnt being facetious at all; they are the greatest generation and i'm sad to hear only one is left. me as well, for both parents. my grandmother with emphysema.

and i was also actually asking, who do we give credit to for verse and prose?

Al Gore was on the congressional committee that gave DARPA the direction and funding to create DARPAnet...

but was he on this committee after darpanet had been funded.. i thought this happened in the fifties, when gore would have been, eleven years old?

no, i'm actually completely serious, wikipedia seems to not be loading for me from al gore to canada to maria theresa for crying out loud. its like i'm lost in a forest with no bars on my cell phone :(

total lame sauce.

DARPA net was previously ARPANET, which originated as RAND net in 1958 under a contract with the US Air Force in an effort to investigate maintaining their command and control structure after nuclear attack. It did not become DARPA net (the structure we know know today as the internet, including TCP/IP protocol) until the early to mid 70's (1972-1976, Depending on whose version you believe, I tend to go with when the money began to flow directly from congress instead of just the DoD, which was 1972) when it was renamed DARPA net.

ARPANET was the extension of the research project that was initialized in the 1950's as a packet switching communication tool research project, but this project never really achieved any sort of sustainable/extensible results, and thus isn't really given credit with the "invention" of the internet...although they certainly did pave the way. It could send 8 bit information from terminal to terminal via NCP protocol over short distances only, and was not reliable enough to be a communications tool at the time. Although this is, in the absolute strictest sense, the first internet communication, it did not get taken to the next level for computer to computer communication until the early 70's when DARPA took it over and began applying it to broader military applications in the mid-70's....which was directed and funded by a congressional sub-committee (House Intelligence Committee) which Al Gore was a member of from 1976 to 1980. He was sitting on the committee in 1978 when DARPA was directed to research the implementation of TCP/IP protocols for government and business use, and received the funding from the committee to make it happen.

The infamous quote "I invented the internet" was a falsification by a tabloid based on a comment made in a television interview during the presidential elections in which he was asked what some of his most significant achievements were while sitting in Congress - the original quote was along the lines that he sat on the committee that made the decision to make the internet a much more powerful tool than simply an internet communication device, and spread it beyond the realm of the DoD.

THANK you! :)

so though the idea may have been figured in the late fifties, it wasn't until the (early?) seventies the technology/process caught up.

still, unless he was the head of the committee or a strong proponent of this against those who weren't, you can't really at all give him credit, and as far as him taking the credit your explanation makes great sense, with the while in congress what were you involved in.. so yes, informative with little bias, you gotta love it buddy :)

Yes and no on the technology. All they really got right was the concept of machines communicating with machines over distance. The initial technology was too small in scope, lacked understanding of technology, and didn't have enough of a scientific knowledge of the dynamics of signal transfer to ever have worked out.

So far as the HIC committee, understand that that committee was probably 6-8 people, and was really a think tank environment for proposing conceptual ideas (which was something Gore chased fervently in his early Congressional years). It was really an innovative idea, although I doubt there will ever be any way of knowing how related to it he was. I honestly don't think he ever tried to take credit for the advancement - it was his service on that committee he was proud of, not the results of it.

Yes or no: Without Gore does it happen anyways?

Without Jobs does it happen anyways?

not to take anything away from them, but getting there first is impressive but perhaps not planet altering, bettering everything for everybody :(

(and again thank you for entertaining my ridiculous questions :P)

In all fairness, if any politician can take credit for inventing the internet, Al Gore would be a front runner even if his only contribution was to promote a good idea that was being developed by scientists.

HALF MAN HALF BEAR HALF PIG

SUPER CEREAL!!!!!!!!!!!!

guy i'm being like totally serial right now

If you renamed this thread "Most important dates in European history", this thread may have some merit. But World history? Hardly.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Gore - impossible to say. Probably. But automobiles would have (and did) happened without Henry Ford - doesn't make his contribution to them any less important or course altering. Again, he never took responsibility for its existence - only for sitting on the committee that made an incredibly important decision regarding its use.

Jobs - absolutely not....or at least not for another decade. His thinking and understanding of technology was years ahead of it's time. He was a true innovator, and moved the world of technology a great distance in a short time. I would put him (rather high, although not at the top) on the list of 10 most important individuals in regards to impacting technology in the last 50 years.

Geez, and the crap keeps flowing. Holey Moley, this is all just Deja-MOO!

Al Gore inventing the internet and claiming he did just because he was a member of the committee that funded the original project is ludicrous. We may as well credit Thomas Jefferson for his help in producing the internet, after all, he wrote the declaration of independence, which directly led to the creation of the government upon who's committee Al Gore was sitting.


Extensability should have some kind of limitation, no?

If the required infrastructure had existed, Thomas Jefferson would have invented the internet. He was definitely one of the smartest if not the smartest of all the presidents and he had a decent mind for technical things. I'm fine with him laying the framework making the internet possible.

we can thank england for persecuting and oppressing the people who left for the new world, which directly led to jefferson having somewhere to write it for. at that we can thank the indigenous folk for not putting up a better fight defending their home. too bad i missed this for thanksgiving :(

i like this way of thinking a lot :P

That hits me close to home since I live at the cental location of the Lumbee Tribe--the largest tribe of Native Ameicans east of the Mississippi and most certainly (even if not historically recorded) the refuge of the loast Roanoake Colony. With Surnams Like Hunt, Lowery, and Locklear and a fair portion of their population having blonde hair and blue eyes, it isn't too surprising they are a people of mixed herritage even if began 400 years ago.

But even though their children are filling my classroom, I shall not thank them for inventing the internet--not until all my calculus students can competently subtract 1/2 from 2.

Jesus invented the Internet and he hates Evolution.

Evolution is a lie!

you live near lumberton NC? them lumbee indians are MEAN.

IMO the Magna Carta was of small consequence.

The French Revolution, however, was monumental to democracy, and set the tone for the 19th and 20th century.

jesus doesn't hate evolution at all.

imo: Much bigger impacts on human history:

1) Alexander of Macedonea and the subsequent reprocussions of his conquests (I am too lazy to look up dates). Essentially connected and established east-west trade routes. Ensured the dominance of greek culture/influence in parts of the middle east/egypt and ultimately the roman empire. Without the fall of the persian empire, the west would be very culturally different today.

2) The Roman Empire as already mentioned although I would add their Chinese and Indian counterparts which rose around the same time. The impacts of these are still prevalent today includent the pravence of certain philosophies and religions. Without the roman empire Christianity probably would not have succeeded the way that it did imo.

3) Rise of Muhammed 570. I mean essentially inflenced the culture of significant parts of asia/africa/middle east.

4)An Lushan Rebellion December 16, 755. Prior to that China was one of the most advanced (and progressive in a way) civilizations in the world. That along with the Mongol invasion of china somewhat slowed their progress.

5) 1203. Roughly the beginning of the mongol empire. Destroyed multiple civilizations/powers througout asia, the middle eastn and easter europe. I've seen it argued that the Mongolian invasion of russia/poland set back the renaissance in europe by 300 years. Hard to say for sure. Many civilizations never recovered fully from this and others took hundreds of years to get back to where they were.

6) 1492 Columbus' voyage to north America. Arguably this is *the* single event that marked the ending of the middle ages in Europe and dramatically changed most of the world in terms of trade.

7) French revolution. Without it's relative success and lasting impacts we would probably still be dealing with monarchies of some form today. Although strictly speaking the British had more democracy through the parliamentary system prior to this (sort of)

8) WW1/WW2 In terms of global impact tremendous, not just in terms of size and scope of the wars but also that it marked the beginning of the end of European colonialism, marked the rise of Communism as a credible force in the world and effectively changed the global balance of power. Also lead to advances in medicine, mathematics, physics, engineering that might have taken much longer to discover otherwise.

9) Fall of the berlin wall. (Fall of communism). Ultimately changed the way the world worked in a significant way. The way the US interacts with China would not even have been conceived in the 1950s.

10) ...

when we climbed down the trees and walked out of the forest?

(communism and credible, martian, really? :P)