Imagine the Past
- 3300000 BCE: Stone Age (hunting)
- 1000000 BCE: Cooking
- 400000 BCE: Woodwork
- 400000 BCE: Bone flutes
- 200000 BCE: Mesolithic (settling)
- 200000 BCE: Fishing
- 70000 BCE: Bone tools
- 64000 BCE: Spearheads
- 20000 BCE: Pottery
- 15000 BCE: Lascaux Cave Paintings
- 13000 BCE: Beer
- 11700 BCE: Neolithic (farming)
- 11700 BCE: End of Last Ice Age
- 10000 BCE: Cudgels
- 6000 BCE: Wine
- 5000 BCE: Copper Age
- 5000 BCE: Drums
- 5000 BCE: Wheels
- 5000 BCE: Levers
- 4200 BCE: Potter’s Wheels
- 3500 BCE: Writing in Sumer
- 3300 BCE: Writing in Egypt
- 3300 BCE: Bronze Age
- 3000 BCE: Ramps
- 2000 BCE: Pulleys
- 2600 BCE: Writing in Indus Valley
- 2200 BCE: Spoked Wheels
- 2200 BCE: Chariots
- 2000 BCE: Xylophones
- 1500 BCE: Canaanite Consonants
- 1400 BCE: Hurrian Hymn
- 1300 BCE: Psalms
- 1200 BCE: Bronze Age Collapse
- 1200 BCE: Iron Age
- 1200 BCE: Writing in China
- 1200 BCE: Hebrew Consonants
- 1200 BCE: Aramaic Consonants
- 1200 BCE: Distillation
- 1100 BCE: Greek Consonants
- 1100 BCE: Chinese Folk Songs
- 1000 BCE: King David: Psalms
- 900 BCE: Mesha Stele / Moabite Stone
- 900 BCE: Writing in Mexico
- 750 BCE: Greek Alphabet
- 750 BCE: Homer: Iliad, Odyssey
- 600 BCE: Confucius: Songs
- 600 BCE: Sappho
- 598 BCE: Babylonian Captivity
- 530 BCE: Pythagoras
- 500 BCE: Aeschylus
- 400 BCE: Aristophanes
- 400 BCE: Plato
- 330 BCE: Alexander the Great
- 114 BCE: Silk Road
- 100 BCE: Paper in China
- 100 BCE: Julius Caesar
- 43: Roman Britain
- 70: Romans Destroy Second Temple
- 375: Migration Period
- 410: Romans Withdraw from Britain
- 536: Late Antique Little Ice Age (Volcanic Winter)
- 612: St. Gall Hermitage
- 719: St. Gall Monastery
- 751: Paper in Samarkand
- 793: Vikings
- 1000s: Paper in Spain
- 1000: Solfege
- 1054: Great Schism
- 1066: Norman Conquest of England
- 1169: Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland
- 1100s: Classics rediscovered
- 1200s: Classics assimilated
- 1200s: Paper in Europe
- 1200s: Brandy
- 1265-: Dante
- 1267-: Giotto
- 1300-: Little Ice Age
- 1315-: Great Famine
- 1347-: Black Plague
- 1300s: Hundred Years War
- 1400-: Italian Renaissance
- 1400s: Whisky
- 1450: Gutenberg Press
- 1500-: English Renaissance
- 1526-: Slave Trade
- 1600s: Calypso
- 1778: Captain Cook in Hawaii
- 1795: King Kamehameha
- 1801: Shape Notes
- 1843: Paper using wood pulp
- 1876: Bell Telephone
- 1877: Edison Phonograph
- 1877: Edison Carbon Microphone
- 1885: Tin Pan Alley
- 1888: American Folklore Society
- 1890-: Ragtime
- 1895: Marconi Wireless Telegraph
- 1898: U.S. Annexes Hawaii
- 1899: Sound Film Idea
- 1912: First Calypso Recording
- 1914-18: World War I
- 1915: Mainland Ukulele and Steel Guitar
- 1917-: Dixieland
- 1919: Optical Sound on Film
- 1920: First Commercial Radio: KDKA Pittsburgh
- 1920-: Big Band Music
- 1923: Talkies (Short Films with Sound)
- 1925: National Barn Dance: WLS Chicago
- 1925: Grand Ole Opry: WSM Nashville
- 1927: Carter Family / Jimmie Rodgers Recording
- 1927: The Jazz Singer (Movie with Sound)
- 1928: Steamboat Willie (Mickie Mouse)
- 1930s: Great Depression
- 1930-: Swing Music
- 1939-45: World War II
- 1940s: Jazz Vocalists
- 1950s: Calypso Popular, Rock & Roll
- 1950: Goodnight, Irene
One of my students objected that I had not provided a citation for this timeline. I told her that I assembled it from various encyclopedias when I was trying to place one thing or another in time. I replied mostly on Encyclopedia Britannica, The Catholic Encyclopedia, and Wikipedia. She found this answer unsatisfactory. — Kevin Cawley