Historical Periods

Every era of human history, with timelines, key events, major ideas and inventions, and the people who shaped them. Click a period to explore its figures and civilizations.

Ancient Mesopotamia

c. 3500–539 BC

Ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, was the cradle of civilization — birthplace of cities, writing, law codes and the first great empires.

Ancient Egypt was one of the world's earliest and most enduring civilizations, famed for its pharaohs, pyramids, hieroglyphic writing and a culture that flourished along the Nile for three thousand years.

Ancient China

c. 1600 BC – 220 AD

Ancient China was one of the world's earliest and most enduring civilizations, the cradle of Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism and of innovations from writing and bronze-casting to the unified empire.

Ancient India

c. 1500 BC – 550 AD

Ancient India was a civilization of extraordinary religious and intellectual depth, the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and home to the vast Maurya Empire.

Achaemenid Persia

550–330 BC

The Achaemenid period was the era of the first Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, which became the largest empire the ancient world had yet seen.

Classical Greece

c. 510–323 BC

Classical Greece (5th–4th centuries BC) was a period of extraordinary cultural and intellectual achievement that laid the foundations of Western philosophy, democracy, drama and science.

Roman Republic

509–27 BC

The Roman Republic (509–27 BC) was the era of ancient Rome governed by elected magistrates and the Senate, during which Rome expanded from a city-state into the dominant power of the Mediterranean.

Roman Empire

27 BC – 476 AD (West)

The Roman Empire was the imperial phase of ancient Rome, beginning with Augustus, during which Rome ruled the Mediterranean world and much of Europe and the Near East for centuries.

Late Antiquity

c. 200–700 AD

Late Antiquity was the transitional era between the classical world and the Middle Ages, marked by the decline of Rome, the rise of Christianity, and the twilight of ancient learning.

Middle Ages

c. 500–1500 AD

The Middle Ages were the long era of European history between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, shaped by feudalism, the Christian Church, knights, cathedrals and the Crusades.

Islamic Golden Age

c. 750–1400 AD

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of extraordinary scientific, philosophical and cultural flourishing across the Muslim world, when scholars preserved and advanced ancient knowledge and pioneered new fields.

Renaissance

c. 1300–1600

The Renaissance (14th–17th centuries) was a period of cultural rebirth in Europe that revived classical learning and produced extraordinary achievements in art, science and humanism.

Age of Exploration

c. 1418–1650

The Age of Exploration was the era when European powers undertook global sea voyages, discovering ocean routes, encountering new lands, and reshaping the world through trade, conquest and colonization.

Scientific Revolution

c. 1543–1727

The Scientific Revolution (16th–18th centuries) was the period in which modern science emerged, as figures like Newton replaced ancient authority with observation, experiment and mathematics.

Baroque Era

c. 1600–1750

The Baroque Era was a period of dramatic art, music and architecture spanning roughly the 17th and early 18th centuries, marked by grandeur, emotional intensity and the flourishing of science alongside absolute monarchy.

Age of Enlightenment

c. 1685–1815

The Age of Enlightenment was an 18th-century intellectual movement that championed reason, science, liberty and progress, reshaping philosophy, politics and society and inspiring the American and French Revolutions.

Industrial Revolution

c. 1760–1900

The Industrial Revolution was the transformation from agrarian, handcraft economies to industry and machine manufacturing that began in 18th-century Britain and reshaped the modern world.

Modern Era

c. 1789–present

The Modern Era spans the period from the late 18th century to the present, defined by revolutions, industrialization, scientific transformation and the rise of the contemporary world.