Human history and Related Topics

Statue representing Europa at Palazzo Ferreria, in Valletta, Malta

Europe

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Landmass, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.

First map of the world according to Anaximander (6th century BC)

A medieval T and O map printed by Günther Zainer in 1472, showing the three continents as domains of the sons of Noah — Asia to Sem (Shem), Europe to Iafeth (Japheth) and Africa to Cham (Ham)

A New Map of Europe According to the Newest Observations (1721) by Hermann Moll draws the eastern boundary of Europe along the Don River flowing south-west and the Tobol, Irtysh and Ob rivers flowing north

1916 political map of Europe showing most of Moll's waterways replaced by von Strahlenberg's Ural Mountains and Freshfield's Caucasus Crest, land features of a type that normally defines a subcontinent

Paleolithic cave paintings from Lascaux in France ( 15,000 BCE)

Stonehenge in the United Kingdom (Late Neolithic from 3000 to 2000 BCE).

Animation showing the growth and division of the Roman Empire (years CE)

Viking raids and division of the Frankish Empire at the Treaty of Verdun in 843

The maritime republics of medieval Italy reestablished contacts between Europe, Asia and Africa with extensive trade networks and colonies across the Mediterranean, and had an essential role in the Crusades.

Tancred of Sicily and Philip II of France, during the Third Crusade (1189–1192)

The sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238, during the Mongol invasion of Europe.

The School of Athens by Raphael (1511): Contemporaries, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre), are portrayed as classical scholars of the Renaissance.

Habsburg dominions in the centuries following their partition by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The principal military base of Philip II in Europe was the Spanish road stretching from the Netherlands to the Duchy of Milan.

The national boundaries within Europe set by the Congress of Vienna

Marshall's Temple Works (1840), the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain

Map of European colonial empires throughout the world in 1914.

Map depicting the military alliances of World War I in 1914–1918

Serbian war efforts (1914–1918) cost the country one quarter of its population.

Nazi Germany began a devastating World War II in Europe by its leader, Adolf Hitler. Here Hitler, on the right, with his closest ally, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, in 1940

Bombed and burned-out buildings in Hamburg, 1944/45

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin

The Schuman Declaration led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. It began the integration process of the European Union (9 May 1950, at the French Foreign Ministry).

Flag of Europe, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955 as the flag for the whole of Europe

Map of populous Europe and surrounding regions showing physical, political and population characteristics, as per 2018

Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for Europe.

The Volga, as seen in Yaroslavl. It flows from Central Russia and into the Caspian Sea and is the longest river in Europe.

Mount Elbrus in Southern Russia, is the highest mountain in Europe.

Europa Point as seen from the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates the continents of Europe and Africa, also being between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Danube, as seen in Đerdap National Park. It flows from the Black Forest and into the Black Sea and is the second-longest river in Europe, which also passes through the largest number of countries in the world at 10.

Sutjeska National Park contains Perućica, which is one of the last remaining primeval forests in Europe.

Land use map of Europe with arable farmland (yellow), forest (dark green), pasture (light green) and tundra, or bogs, in the north (dark yellow)

Floristic regions of Europe and neighbouring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch

Biogeographic regions of Europe and bordering regions

A brown bear near the Russian border in the forests of Kainuu, Finland

Once roaming the great temperate forests of Eurasia, European bison now live in nature preserves in Białowieża Forest, on the border between Poland and Belarus.

One of Kosovo's main economical sources is mining, because it has large reserves of lead, zinc, silver, nickel, cobalt, copper, iron and bauxite. Miners at the Trepča Mines in Mitrovica, Kosovo in 2011.

Population growth in and around Europe in 2021

Map purportedly displaying the European continent split along cultural and state borders as proposed by the German organization Ständiger Ausschuss für geographische Namen (StAGN).

Tallinn, the medieval capital of Estonia in the Baltic States, is a mixture of Western and Eastern architectural cultures.

Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era.

Map of the world by Paolo Patrini during the turn of the 18th century

Early modern period

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A Japanese depiction of a Portuguese trading carrack. Advances in shipbuilding technology during the Late Middle Ages would pave the way for the global European presence characteristic of the early modern period.

Cishou Temple Pagoda, built in 1576: the Chinese believed that building pagodas on certain sites according to geomantic principles brought about auspicious events; merchant-funding for such projects was needed by the late Ming period.

A painting depecting the Qing Chinese celebrating a victory over the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan. This work was a collaboration between Chinese and European painters.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, c. 1830 by Hokusai, an example of art flourishing in the Edo Period

Map of the Gunpowder Empires, the Mughal Empire being the orange one.

The Mughal ambassador Khan'Alam in 1618 negotiating with Shah Abbas the Great of Iran.

Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, 1757 by Francis Hayman

Ferdinand Pauwels – Martin Luther hammers his 95 theses to the door

Gutenberg reviewing a press proof (a colored engraving created probably in the 19th century)

15th century Hanging Houses in Cuenca, Spain from the Early Renaissance, and the Early modern period.

Bourgeoisie takes more and more importance throughout the modern era.

Cossacks became the backbone of the early Russian Army.

The Cantino planisphere (1502), the oldest surviving Portuguese nautical chart showing the results of the explorations of Vasco da Gama to India, Columbus to Central America, Gaspar Corte-Real to Newfoundland and Pedro Álvares Cabral to Brazil. The meridian of Tordesillas, separating the Portuguese and Spanish halves of the world is also depicted

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the Committee of Five in charge of drafting the Declaration in 1776 as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia

World Colonization of 1492 (Early Modern World), 1550, 1660, 1754 (Age of Enlightenment), 1822 (Industrial revolution), 1885 (European Hegemony), 1914 (World War I era), 1938 (World War II era), 1959 (Cold War era) and 1974, 2008 (Recent history).

Waldseemüller map with joint sheets, 1507

Model for the Three Superior Planets and Venus from Georg von Peuerbach, Theoricae novae planetarum.

"If there is something you know, communicate it. If there is something you don't know, search for it." An engraving from the 1772 edition of the Encyclopédie; Truth (center) is surrounded by light and unveiled by the figures to the right, Philosophy and Reason

Engraved world map (including magnetic declination lines) by Leonhard Euler from his school atlas "Geographischer Atlas bestehend in 44 Land-Charten" first published 1753 in Berlin

Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830). The French Revolution inspired a wave of revolutions across Europe. Liberalism and Nationalism were popular ideas that challenged Absolute Monarchies in the 19th century.

Gold fueled European exploration of the Americas. Explorers reported Native Americans in Central America, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia were to have had large amounts.

Silver, valued as a precious metal, has been used to make expensive ornaments, fine jewelry, high-value tableware and utensils (silverware), and currency coins.

Spices were among the most luxurious products, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon (and the cheaper alternative cassia), cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.

The early modern period of modern history spans the period after the Late Middle Ages of the post-classical era (c.

The Cross of Mathilde, a crux gemmata made for Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the enamel plaque. The figure of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in Cologne or Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques: cast figurative sculpture, filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical cameos and engraved gems.

Middle Ages

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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history.

A late Roman sculpture depicting the Tetrarchs, now in Venice, Italy

Barbarian kingdoms and tribes after the end of the Western Roman Empire

A coin of the Ostrogothic leader Theoderic the Great, struck in Milan, Italy, c. AD 491–501

A mosaic showing Justinian with the bishop of Ravenna (Italy), bodyguards, and courtiers.

Reconstruction of an early medieval peasant village in Bavaria

An 11th-century illustration of Gregory the Great dictating to a secretary

Map showing growth of Frankish power from 481 to 814

Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen, completed in 805

10th-century Ottonian ivory plaque depicting Christ receiving a church from Otto I

A page from the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created in the British Isles in the late 8th or early 9th century

Medieval French manuscript illustration of the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy) those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry). The relationship between these classes was governed by feudalism and manorialism. (Li Livres dou Sante, 13th century)

13th-century illustration of a Jew (in pointed Jewish hat) and the Christian Petrus Alphonsi debating

Europe and the Mediterranean Sea in 1190

The Bayeux Tapestry (detail) showing William the Conqueror (centre), his half-brothers Robert, Count of Mortain (right) and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux in the Duchy of Normandy (left)

Krak des Chevaliers was built during the Crusades for the Knights Hospitallers.

A medieval scholar making precise measurements in a 14th-century manuscript illustration

Portrait of Cardinal Hugh of Saint-Cher by Tommaso da Modena, 1352, the first known depiction of spectacles

The Romanesque Church of Maria Laach, Germany

The Gothic interior of Laon Cathedral, France

Francis of Assisi, depicted by Bonaventura Berlinghieri in 1235, founded the Franciscan Order.

Execution of some of the ringleaders of the jacquerie, from a 14th-century manuscript of the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis

Guy of Boulogne crowning Pope Gregory XI in a 15th-century miniature from Froissart's Chroniques

Clerics studying astronomy and geometry, French, early 15th century

Agricultural calendar, c. 1470, from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi

February scene from the 15th-century illuminated manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Medieval illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th-century copy of L'Image du monde

The early Muslim conquests
Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632
Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661
Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750

The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period.

A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835.

Industrial Revolution

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The transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.

Handloom weaving in 1747, from William Hogarth's Industry and Idleness

European colonial empires at the start of the Industrial Revolution, superimposed upon modern political boundaries.

A model of the spinning jenny in a museum in Wuppertal. Invented by James Hargreaves in 1764, the spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the revolution.

The only surviving example of a spinning mule built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. The mule produced high-quality thread with minimal labour. Bolton Museum, Greater Manchester

The interior of Marshall's Temple Works in Leeds, West Yorkshire

Lombe's Mill site today, rebuilt as Derby Silk Mill

The reverberatory furnace could produce cast iron using mined coal. The burning coal remained separate from the iron and so did not contaminate the iron with impurities like sulfur and silica. This opened the way to increased iron production.

The Iron Bridge, Shropshire, England, the world's first bridge constructed of iron opened in 1781.

Horizontal (lower) and vertical (upper) cross-sections of a single puddling furnace. A. Fireplace grate; B. Firebricks; C. Cross binders; D. Fireplace; E. Work door; F. Hearth; G. Cast iron retaining plates; H. Bridge wall

A Watt steam engine. James Watt transformed the steam engine from a reciprocating motion that was used for pumping to a rotating motion suited to industrial applications. Watt and others significantly improved the efficiency of the steam engine.

Newcomen's steam-powered atmospheric engine was the first practical piston steam engine. Subsequent steam engines were to power the Industrial Revolution.

Maudslay's famous early screw-cutting lathes of circa 1797 and 1800

The Middletown milling machine of c. 1818, associated with Robert Johnson and Simeon North

The Thames Tunnel (opened 1843).
Cement was used in the world's first underwater tunnel.

The Crystal Palace housed the Great Exhibition of 1851

The Bridgewater Canal, famous because of its commercial success, crossing the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the last canals to be built.

Construction of the first macadam road in the United States (1823). In the foreground, workers are breaking stones "so as not to exceed 6 ounces in weight or to pass a two-inch ring".

Painting depicting the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, the first inter-city railway in the world and which spawned Railway Mania due to its success.

Winchester High Street, 1853. The number of High Streets (the primary street for retail in Britain) in towns and cities rapidly grew in the 18th century.

The Black Country in England, west of Birmingham

Manchester, England ("Cottonopolis"), pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys

A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery. In Britain, laws passed in 1842 and 1844 improved mine working conditions.

Levels of air pollution rose during the Industrial Revolution, sparking the first modern environmental laws to be passed in the mid-19th century.

Slater's Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz, Germany, 1868

Sir Henry Bessemer's Bessemer converter, the most important technique for making steel from the 1850s to the 1950s. Located in Sheffield (Steel City)

Regional GDP per capita changed very little for most of human history before the Industrial Revolution.

Interior of the London Coal Exchange, c. 1808.
European 17th-century colonial expansion, international trade, and creation of financial markets produced a new legal and financial environment, one which supported and enabled 18th-century industrial growth.

As the Industrial Revolution developed British manufactured output surged ahead of other economies.

William Bell Scott Iron and Coal, 1855–60

William and Mary Presenting the Cap of Liberty to Europe, 1716, Sir James Thornhill. Enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them are the royals William III and Mary II who had taken the throne after the Glorious Revolution and signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. William tramples on arbitrary power and hands the red cap of liberty to Europe where, unlike Britain, absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution. Below William is the French king Louis XIV.

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery by Joseph Wright of Derby (c. 1766). Informal philosophical societies spread scientific advances

A primitive lifestyle living outside the Industrial Revolution

A dog forced to eat trash due to pollution, the Industrial Revolution has forced animals into harsh environments most are unable to survive in, leading to starvation and eventual extinction

Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants.

From the Apocalypse in a Biblia Pauperum illuminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a lion whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth.

Late Middle Ages

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The period of European history lasting from AD 1250 to 1500.

France in the late 15th century: a mosaic of feudal territories

Silver mining and processing in Kutná Hora, Bohemia, 15th century

Ottoman miniature of the siege of Belgrade in 1456

Battle of Aljubarrota between Portugal and Castile, 1385

Peasants preparing the fields for the winter with a harrow and sowing for the winter grain. The background shows the Louvre castle in Paris, c. 1410; October as depicted in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

European output of manuscripts 500–1500. The rising trend in medieval book production saw its continuation in the period.

Urban dwelling house, late 15th century, Halberstadt, Germany.

Dante by Domenico di Michelino, from a fresco painted in 1465

A musician plays the vielle in a fourteenth-century Medieval manuscript.

The changes brought about by these developments have led many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern history and of early modern Europe.

Hunter-gatherer

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Human living a lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging and hunting (pursuing and killing of wild animals, including catching fish), in the same way that most natural omnivores do.

Hunter-gatherers (yellow) 4,000 years ago.

A global map illustrating the decline of foraging/fishing/hunting/gathering around the world.

A San man from Namibia. Many San still live as hunter-gatherers.

A 19th century engraving of an Indigenous Australian encampment.

Savanna Pumé couple on a hunting and gathering trip in the llanos of Venezuela. The man carries a bow, three steel-tipped arrows, and a hat that resembles the head of a jabiru stork as camouflage to approach near enough to deer for a shot. The woman carries a steel-tipped digging stick and a carrying basket for collecting wild tubers.

A Shoshone encampment in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, photographed by Percy Jackson, 1870

Three Aboriginal Australians on Bathurst Island in 1939. According to Peterson (1998), the island population was isolated for 6,000 years until the 18th century. In 1929, three-quarters of the population supported themselves on bush tucker.

Negritos (Negrillos) in the Philippines, 1595.

Hunting and gathering was humanity's original and most enduring successful competitive adaptation in the natural world, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.

Florence, the birthplace of the European Renaissance. The architectural perspective, and modern systems and fields of banking and accounting were introduced during the Renaissance.

Period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity.

Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1480–85) (Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

View of Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance

A political map of the Italian Peninsula circa 1494

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) reflects the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague that devastated medieval Europe.

Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts (Portrait by Vasari)

Pico della Mirandola, writer of the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance".

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) demonstrates the effect writers of Antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in Vitruvius' De architectura (1st century BC), Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly proportioned man. (Museum Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice)

Anonymous portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus (c. 1580)

Portrait of Luca Pacioli, father of accounting, painted by Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di Capodimonte).

The world map by Pietro Coppo, Venice, 1520

Alexander VI, a Borgia Pope infamous for his corruption

Adoration of the Magi and Solomon adored by the Queen of Sheba from the Farnese Hours (1546) by Giulio Clovio marks the end of the Italian Renaissance of illuminated manuscript together with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" – from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Château de Chambord (1519–1547), one of the most famous examples of Renaissance architecture

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, by Albrecht Dürer, 1519

Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1523, as depicted by Hans Holbein the Younger

São Pedro Papa, 1530–1535, by Grão Vasco Fernandes. A pinnacle piece from when the Portuguese Renaissance had considerable external influence.

The Palace of Facets on the Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin

Theotokos and The Child, the late-17th-century Russian icon by Karp Zolotaryov, with notably realistic depiction of faces and clothing.

The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, by Juan de Herrera and Juan Bautista de Toledo

A cover of the Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari

Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, an event in the French Wars of Religion, by François Dubois

Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance towards the modern age.

Prehistory

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Massive stone pillars at Göbekli Tepe, in southeast Turkey, erected for ritual use by early Neolithic people 11,000 years ago

An early sketch imagining an adult and a juvenile from prehistoric times making a stone tool

A nineteenth century concept of early humans in a wilderness

Proposed map of early human migrations, according to mitochondrial population genetics with numbers that are millennia before the present (its accuracy is disputed)

Entrance to the Ġgantija phase temple complex of Ħaġar Qim, Malta, 3900 BCE

An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools - Neolithic stone artifacts are by definition polished and, except for specialty items, not chipped

The monumental building at Luni sul Mignone in Blera, Italy, 3500 BCE

Artist's impression of a Copper Age walled city, Los Millares, Iberia

Chalcolithic copper mine in Timna Valley, Negev Desert, Israel

An image of an ox-drawn plow is accompanied by script, Egypt, c. 1200 BCE

Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins c. undefined 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems.

Human

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Humans (Homo sapiens) are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and large, complex brains.

Reconstruction of Lucy, the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found

Overview map of the peopling of the world by early human migration during the Upper Paleolithic, following to the Southern Dispersal paradigm.

Routes taken by barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire during the Migration Period

Humans and their domesticated animals represent 96% of all mammalian biomass on earth, whereas all wild mammals represent only 4%.

Basic anatomical features of female and male humans. These models have had body hair and male facial hair removed and head hair trimmed. The female model is wearing red nail polish on her toenails and a ring.

A graphical representation of the standard human karyotype, including both the male (XY) and female (XX) sex chromosomes.

Humans living in Bali, Indonesia, preparing a meal.

Changes in the number and order of genes (A-D) create genetic diversity within and between population

A Libyan, a Nubian, a Syrian, and an Egyptian, drawing by an unknown artist after a mural of the tomb of Seti I.

Drawing of the human brain, showing several important structures

Illustration of grief from Charles Darwin's 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Parents can display familial love for their children

The Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian

The SCMaglev, the fastest train in the world clocking in at 375 mph as of 2015

Shango, the Orisha of fire, lightning, and thunder, in the Yoruba religion, depicted on horseback

The Dunhuang map, a star map showing the North Polar region. China circa 700.

Humans often live in family-based social structures.

The United Nations Headquarters in New York City, which houses one of the world's largest political organizations

The Silk Road (red) and spice trade routes (blue)

It took over two million years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion.