Timelines

The past 14 billion years

• Big Bang: 13.8 billion years ago
• Formation of Milky Way Galaxy: 13.6 billion years ago
• Formation of Solar System: 4.6 billion years ago
• Formation of Earth: 4.5 billion years ago -> If the Earth is 45 years old
• First Single-Celled Life: 3.5 billion years ago

The last billion years

• First Multicellular Life: 600 million years ago (mya)
• Cambrian Explosion: 540 mya
• First Land Plants: 470 mya
• First Trees: 370 mya
• First Dinosaurs: 230 mya
• First Mammals: 200 mya
• End of Dinosaurs: 66 mya

The last 10 million years

• Last Common Ancestor of Humans and Chimps: 6 mya
• First Humans: 2.8 mya
• First Stone Tools: 2.6 mya
• Controlled Use of Fire: 1 mya
• Homo Sapiens: 300,000 years ago

The last 12 000 years

• End of the Last Ice Age, Agriculture: c. 10,000 BC
• First Cities: c. 7000 BC
• Copper Age, Wheel: c. 5000 BC
• Bronze Age, Pyramids, Sumerians, Writing: c. 3000 BC

• Iron Age, Trojan War: c. 1200 BC
• Greek Dark Ages, Collapse of Mediterranean Civilizations: c. 1200 BC to 800 BC

• Classical Age, Ancient Greece, Rome c. 800 BC to 476

• Middle Ages: c. 476 - 1400
• Renaissance: c. 1400 to 1700
• Industrial Revolution: c. 1700 to 1914

• World War I: 1914 - 1918
• World War II: 1939 - 1945