KINGDOMS
Civilization
Timelines

History is the record of what has transpired and the implications of that point-in-time on following events. Time may mark the point-in-time chronological measure but events are how we most often remember time. The most memorable events give us “krisis” ¹ rather than “kronos” ² time. We remember the events that are most important to our perspective even though they may not be the most strategic to the continuance of civilizations.

Pre-history is that which has left evidence but was not directly recorded by those either experiencing or with direct knowledge of the event. Examples would be footprints or fire rings or evidence of dwellings.

History is subject to the interpretation of the views of the society recording the events, i.e., the American Colonial Revolutionary War was seen as the War of Rebellion in the English fatherland.

Key or Prime Events are what are most memorable because they have meaning we perceive as important to us. An infant is most aware of feeding time, the event, and not the passing of hours and days let alone anything beyond their proximity. Likewise, Americans tend to overlook the events historically relevant to the development of civilization in the Far East unless they face a direct impact related to Asia. Importance is often measured by perception — seeing a direct correlation impacting our situation.

Ancient History is categorized as that time from the earliest “written” records by mankind down to the first writings of Classical culture, roughly 3300 BC to 800 BC. Records during this period were made by the beginnings of representative language with characters representing thoughts or content. But while recording may have begun early in western Asia and northern Africa, other significant developments are evident on each inhabited continent.

We give a limited synopsis of Krisis Times but also provide the following links to Wikipedia for a series of articles on Timelines of Civilizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelines_of_world_history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_post-classical_history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timelines_of_modern_history#Early_modern_period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_17th_century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_18th_century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_19th_century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_20th_century

We have chosen not to include timelines of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries simply because anyone living in the current age should already be literate with the modern age. Maybe later.

In the following non-inclusive vignettes, we touch on the early civilizations in each of the inhabited regions; this is not to diminish the contributions or the importance of groups lesser recognized like the Viking or Danes who will be mentioned.

One note on the dating of history by the Western Calendar: Six BC is the earliest theorized date of Jesus of Nazareth with 4 BC being more widely accepted. The western calendar is predicated upon Jesus’s birth. Typically in ancient times, chronology was measured by rulers or empires but that ends in 1582 with the Gregorian calendar replacing the Julian calendar and which “corrected” more accurately the length of the year to match the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. The Gregorian took into account “leap” years and centuries to offset the fractions of years in calculation. When dating was calculated back before 1582, there were problems in solar year corrections and practical considerations such as what the year before 1 AD would be. Is the year before 1 AD Year 0 or is it 1 BC? The setting of the turn from BC to AD was first delineated by Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth century monk who designated AD, Anno Domini, as the basis of the Easter calendar table for what would be both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. His translations of earlier texts lead him to number his present year as 525 years after the birth of Jesus and was to replace the Diocletian calendar then in use for earlier dates. A later influence upon the 4 BC birth date for Jesus was the timeline set by Archbishop James Ussher of Ireland circa 1650 which dated the creation of the world and all subsequent Biblical events from that date.

In this consideration, civilization regions have been arbitrarily divided along the following lines:

MESOPOTAMIA is the westernmost part of Asia comprised of the region east of the Bosphorus Strait and south of the Black Sea (Turkey), south to the Red Sea, the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula all of the modern states of Iraq and Iran.

AFRICA is the entire continent south of the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.

ASIA is all of the nation of Russia, Mongolia and the western -‘stans excluding Pakistan.

ORIENT is the India subcontinent including Pakistan, China, southeast Asia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Koreas and all the independent island nations northwest of Australia.

EUROPE will be arbitrarily considered everything west of Russia and the west coast of the Sea of Azov. For historical reference, the territory west of the Kerch Strait (connecting Sea of Azov and the Black Sea) will be treated as historically Europe; this is the Crimean Peninsula which even today is a disputed region.

SOUTH AMERICA is the continent south of the nation of Panama.

NORTH AMERICA is the continent of everything north of the nation of Columbia.

AUSTRALIA is the Australian continent and New Zealand.

While Greenland and Antarctica are continent-sized, the lack of large populations or inhabited, independent history will allow them to be silent.

FOOTNOTES:

¹ Greek for that which separates, changes, a turning point

² Greek for a point in time in sequence to former and latter time