Human history#World wars

{{Main|Prehistory|Timeline of prehistory}}

{{Further|Human evolution|Lower Paleolithic}}

Humans evolved in Africa from great apes through the lineage of hominins, which arose 7–5 million years ago.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=1|loc="Human beings evolved over several million years from primates in Africa."}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=150|loc="But it turned out that humans and chimps differed from each other only by about 10 percent as much as the differences between major groups of mammals, which suggested that they had diverged from each other approximately 5 to 7 million years ago."}}|{{harvnb|Dunbar|2016|p=8|loc="Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the [Homo-Pan] LCA are referred to as hominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively."}}|{{harvnb|Wragg-Sykes|2016|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tbbjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA183 183–184]}} }} The ability to walk on two legs emerged in early hominins after the split from chimpanzees, as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Dunbar|2016|pp=8, 10|loc="What has come to define our lineage – bipedalism – was adopted early on after we parted company with the chimpanzees, presumably in order to facilitate travel on the ground in more open habitats where large forest trees were less common....The australopithecines did not differ from the modern chimpanzees in terms of brain size."}}|{{harvnb|Lewton|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=DTwuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 117]}}}} Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools {{circa|3.3}} million years ago,{{efn|This date comes from the 2015 discovery of stone tools at the Lomekwi site in Kenya.{{harvnb|Harmand|2015|pp=[https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8697F75/download 310–315]}} Some paleontologists propose an earlier date of 3.39 million years ago based on bones found with butchery marks on them in Dikika, Ethiopia,{{harvnb|McPherron|Alemseged|Marean|Wynn|2010|pp=857–860}} while others dispute both the Dikika and Lomekwi findings.{{harvnb|Domínguez-Rodrigo|Alcalá|2016|pp=[https://paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20160046.pdf 46–53]}}}} marking the advent of the Paleolithic era.{{multiref|{{harvnb|de la Torre|2019|pp=11567–11569}}|{{harvnb|Stutz|2018|pp=[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118584538.ieba0363 1–9]|loc="The Paleolithic era encompasses the bulk of the human archaeological record. Its onset is defined by the oldest known stone tools, now dated to 3.3 Ma, found at the Lomekwi site in Kenya."}}}}

The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus.{{harvnb|Strait|2010|p=341|loc="However, Homo is almost certainly descended from an australopith ancestor, so at least one or some australopiths belong directly to the human lineage."}} The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia,{{harvnb|Villmoare|Kimbel|Seyoum|Campisano|2015|pp=1352–1355}} and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago.{{harvnb|Spoor|Gunz|Neubauer|Stelzer|2015|pp=[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273149772 83–86]|loc="The latter is morphologically more derived than OH 7 but 500,000 years older, suggesting that the H. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo."}} The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=5|loc="What most distinguished Homo habilis from the australopithecines was a brain that was nearly 50 percent larger."}} H. erectus{{efn|the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster}} evolved about 2 million years ago{{harvnb|Herries|Martin|Leece|Adams|2020}}{{efn|Or perhaps earlier; the 2018 discovery of stone tools from 2.1 million years ago in Shangchen, China predates the earliest known H. erectus fossils.{{harvnb|Zhu|Dennell|Huang|Wu|2018|loc="Fourth, and most importantly, the oldest artefact age of approximately 2.12 Ma at Shangchen implies that hominins had left Africa before the date suggested by the earliest evidence from Dmanisi (about 1.85 Ma). This makes it necessary to reconsider the timing of initial dispersal of early hominins in the Old World."}}}} and was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia.{{harvnb|Dunbar|2016|p=10}} Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Gowlett|2016|p=20150164|loc="We know that burning evidence occurs on numbers of archaeological sites from about 1.5 Ma onwards (there is evidence of actual hearths from around 0.7 to 0.4 Ma); that more elaborate technologies existed from around half a million years ago, and that these came to employ adhesives that require preparation by fire."}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=11}}}}

Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia, and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=400n}}|{{harvnb|Dunbar|2016|p=11}}}} Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Hammer|2013|pp=66–71}}|{{harvnb|Yong|2011|pp=34–38}}}} Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.{{harvnb|Ackermann|Mackay|Arnold|2015|pp=1–11}} DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non-sub-Saharan African populations. Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Reich|Green|Kircher|Krause|2010|pp=1053–1060}}|{{harvnb|Abi-Rached|Jobin|Kulkarni|McWhinnie|2011|pp=89–94}}}}

{{Main|Early modern human|Early human migrations}}

File:Spreading homo sapiens la.svg (yellow), {{color box|#e4ca30}} Homo neanderthalensis (ochre) during Out of Africa I and {{color box|#e9252c}} Homo sapiens (red, Out of Africa II), with the numbers of years since they appeared before present.]]

Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago{{efn|Some authors suggest a later date at around 200,000 years ago.{{harvnb|Wragg-Sykes|2016|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tbbjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 180]}}}} from the species Homo heidelbergensis.{{efn|The term Homo rhodesiensis is also sometimes used.}}{{multiref|{{harvnb|Hublin|Ben-Ncer|Bailey|Freidline|2017|pp=289–292}}|{{harvnb|Fagan|Durrani|2021|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NNFKEAAAQBAJ 3. Enter Homo Sapiens (c. 300,000 Years Ago and Later)]}}|{{harvnb|Coolidge|Wynn|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=DAJCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 5]}}}} Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry and ocher to adorn the body.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=319}} By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|pp=319–320, 330, 354}} One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|pp=344–346}} Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|pp=17–18}} or shamanism.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|pp=357–358, 409}} The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Morley|2013|pp=42–43}}|{{harvnb|Svard|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mC6oEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 23]}} }} Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=22|loc="Most Paleolithic communities lived by foraging, nomadizing over familiar territories."}}

The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago.{{harvnb|Weber|Hershkovitz|Gunz|Neubauer|2020|pp=[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618219308080 29–39]}}{{efn|These dates come from a 2018 study of an upper jawbone from Misliya Cave, Israel.{{harvnb|Herschkovitz|2018|pp=456–459}} Researchers studying a fossil skull from Apidima Cave, Greece in 2019 proposed an earlier date of 210,000 years ago.{{harvnb|Harvati|Röding|Bosman|Karakostis|2019|pp=[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1376-z 500–504]}} The Apidima Cave study has been challenged by other scholars.{{harvnb|Rosas|Bastir|2020|p=[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003552120300042 102745]}}}} The dominant view among scholars is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=283}}|{{harvnb|O'Connell|Allen|Williams|Williams|2018|pp=8482–8490}}|{{harvnb|Posth|Renaud|Mittnik|Drucker|2016|pp=827–833}}}}{{efn|Other scholars argue in favor of a northern dispersal of humans through Central Asia into China, or a multiple dispersal model with several different routes of migration.{{harvnb|Li|Petraglia|Roberts|Gao|2020|pp=1699–1700}}}} H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago,{{harvnb|Clarkson|Jacobs|Marwick|Fullagar|2017|pp=306–310}} Europe 45,000 years ago,{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=283}} and the Americas 21,000 years ago.{{harvnb|Bennett|2021|pp=[https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586 1528–1531]}} These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age, when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable.{{multiref | {{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=316|loc="Dispersal over an unprecedented swath of the globe...coincided with an Ice Age that...spread ice in the northern hemisphere as far south as the present lower courses of the Missouri and Ohio rivers in North America and deep into what are now the British Isles. Ice covered what is today Scandinavia. Most of the rest of what is now Europe was tundra or taiga. In central Eurasia, tundra reached almost to the present latitudes of the Black Sea. Steppe licked the shores of the Mediterranean. In the New World, tundra and taiga extended to where Virginia is today."}} | {{harvnb|Pollack|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jV47VHRpmisC&pg=PA93 93]}} }} Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=400|loc="In any case, by the end of the era of climatic fluctuation, humans occupied almost all the habitats their descendants occupy today, with the exception of relatively remote parts of the Pacific, accessible only by high-seas navigation and unsettled, as far as we know, for many millennia more."}} Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and the Neanderthal extinction.{{harvnb|Christian|2015|pp=321, 406, 440–441}} These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Koch|Barnosky|2006|pp=215–250}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2015|p=406}}}}

{{Main|Neolithic}}

Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle.{{harvnb|Lewin|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xryuw8sqNsoC 247]}} Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe,{{harvnb|Stephens|Fuller|Boivin|Rick|2019|pp=897–902}} and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centers of origin.{{harvnb|Larson|Piperno|Allaby|Purugganan|2014|pp=6139–6146}} Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley, sheep, and goats.{{harvnb|McNeill|1999|p=11}} The Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000–7000 BCE; the Yellow River Valley may have cultivated millet by 7000 BCE.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|pp=325, 336|loc="More recent improvements in archaeobotanical recovery have indicated that rice domestication was underway durin...the Hemudu cultural phase in the lower Yangtze valley...This points to a start of cultivation in this region of c. 10,000–9,000 years ago; in the middle Yangtze valley it could have begun someone earlier but may represent a parallel process to the lower Yangtze...it has been suggested on the basis of phytolith and starch residue evidence that broomcorn and foxtail millet were already in use in northern China prior to 7000 BCE. Nonetheless, the most abundant macrofossil evidence of broomcorn and foxtail millet is found in association with the early Neolithic sites post-7000 BCE."}} Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=323}} People in Africa's Sahara cultivated sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE,{{efn|This occurred during the African humid period, when the Sahara was much wetter than it is today.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=59}}}} while other agricultural centers arose in the Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=21}} In the Indus River Valley, crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=265}} In the Americas, squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=518|loc="Arrowroot was the earliest domesticate [in Panama], dating to 7800 BC at the Cueva de los Vampiros site and 5800 BCE at Aguadulce...Plant domestication began before 8500 BCE in southwest coastal Ecuador. Squash phytoliths were recovered from terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at Vegas sites. Phytoliths recovered from the earliest levels are from wild squash, with domesticated size squash phytoliths directly dated to 9840–8555 BCE."}} Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes of South America, where the llama was also domesticated.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=85}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=202}}}} It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Adovasio|Soffer|Page|2007|pp=243, 257}}|{{harvnb|Graeber|Wengrow|2021|loc="Seen this way, the 'origins of farming' start to look less like an economic transition and more like a media revolution, which was also a social revolution, encompassing everything from horticulture to architecture, mathematics to thermodynamics, and from religion to the remodelling of gender roles. And while we can't know exactly who was doing what in this brave new world, it's abundantly clear that women's work and knowledge were central to its creation; that the whole process was a fairly leisurely, even playful one, not forced by any environmental catastrophe or demographic tipping point and unmarked by major violent conflict. What's more, it was all carried out in ways that made radical inequality an extremely unlikely outcome"}}}}

File:Göbeklitepe Building C sept 2019 5373crop.jpg|alt=Stone pillar with animals carved on it]]

Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=218}} Some theories identify population growth as the main factor, leading people to seek out new food sources. Others see population growth not as the cause but as the effect of the associated improvements in food supply.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=95}} Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|pp=216–218}} The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production,{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|pp=34–35}} permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities and states.{{harvnb|Lewin|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xryuw8sqNsoC 247]|loc="The date of 12,000 years before present (BP) is usually given as the beginning of what has been called the Agricultural (or Neolithic) Revolution...The tremendous changes wrought during the Neolithic can be seen as a prelude to the emergence of cities and city states and, of course, to a further rise in population."}}

Cities were centers of trade, manufacturing, and political power.{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|pp=313, 391}} They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding countrysides, receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|p=193}}|{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|pp=313–316}}}} Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the Eurasian Steppe or the African Sahel.{{harvnb|Barker|Goucher|2015|pp=161–162, 172–173}} Conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=99}}

Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE. Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments. The first signs of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, date to around 4500 BCE,{{harvnb|Radivojevic|Rehren|Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic|Jovanovic|2013|pp=[http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1420706/ 1030–1045]}} but the alloy did not become widely used until the 3rd millennium BCE.{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|pp=30–31}}

{{Main|Ancient history|Timeline of ancient history}}

{{Main|Cradle of civilization|Bronze Age|Iron Age}}

File:All Gizah Pyramids.jpg, Egypt|alt=Three large pyramids in the desert, together with subsidiary pyramids and the remains of other structures]]

The Bronze Age saw the development of cities and civilizations.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McClellan|Dorn|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aJgp94zNwNQC 41]}}|{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=46}}}} Early civilizations arose close to rivers, first in Mesopotamia (3300 BCE) with the Tigris and Euphrates,{{multiref|{{harvnb|Stearns|Langer|2001|p=21}}|{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=53}}}} followed by the Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3200 BCE),{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bard|2000|p=63}}|{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=70}}}} the Norte Chico civilization in coastal Peru (3100 BCE),{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=563}} the Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan and northwestern India (2500 BCE),{{multiref|{{harvnb|Graeber|Wengrow|2021|p=314}}|{{harvnb|Chakrabarti|2004|pp=10–13}}|{{harvnb|Allchin|Allchin|1997|pp=153–168}}}} and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (2200 BCE).{{harvnb|Ropp|2010|p=2}}{{efn|This is the traditional date for the founding of the Xia dynasty and has not been confirmed by archaeology. Chinese civilization had its origins in the earlier Yangshao and Longshan cultures (4000–2000 BCE),{{harvnb|Tignor et al.|2014|p=71}} but the Shang is the first dynasty that can be archeologically verified (1750 BCE).{{harvnb|Ropp|2010|pp=2–3}}}}

These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, and systems for keeping records.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=23}} These cultures variously invented the wheel,{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=32}} mathematics,{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=59}} bronze-working,{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=35}} sailing boats,{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=91}} the potter's wheel, woven cloth,{{harvnb|McNeill|1999|p=16}} construction of monumental buildings, and writing.{{harvnb|McNeill|1999|p=18}} Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites.{{harvnb|Johnston|2004|pp=[http://archive.org/details/religionsofancie0000unse_d0s1 13, 19]}}

File:Xerxes Cuneiform Van (cropped).png inscription, eastern Turkey|alt=Photo of a cuneiform inscription]]

Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|pp=43–46}} It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE),{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=118}} Egypt (around 3250 BCE),{{multiref|{{harvnb|Regulski|2016}}|{{harvnb|Wengrow|2011|pp=99–103|loc=The Invention of Writing in Egypt}}}} China (1200 BCE),{{harvnb|Boltz|1996|p=[https://archive.org/details/worldswritingsys0000unse/ 191]|loc=Early Chinese Writing}} and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE).{{harvnb|Fagan|Beck|1996|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ystMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA762 762]}} The earliest system of writing{{efn|Various forms of proto-writing existed earlier but they did not constitute fully developed writing system.{{harvnb|Trubek|2016|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uRcLDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT11 The Strangely Familiar Very Far Past]}}}} was the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, which began as a system of pictographs, whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|pp=53–54}}|{{harvnb|Tignor et al.|2014|pp=49, 52}}}}{{efn|Cuneiform texts were written by using a blunt reed as a stylus to draw symbols upon clay tablets.{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=33}}}} Other influential early writing systems include Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Indus script.{{harvnb|Robinson|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zcXH52jICOEC&pg=PA38 38]}} In China, writing was first used during the Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE).{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=80}}|{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=136}}}}

Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Abulafia|2011|pp=[http://archive.org/details/greatseahumanhis0000abul xvii, passim]}}|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=89}}}} The Bronze Age also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots, that allowed armies to move faster.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=35}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xFHOahfX0R4C&pg=PA256 256]}} }} Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings of archaic globalization.{{harvnb|Tignor et al.|2014|pp=48–49}} Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England.{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=31}}

The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires.{{harvnb|Graeber|Wengrow|2021|p=362|loc="There is no doubt that, in most of the areas that saw the rise of cities, powerful kingdoms and empires also eventually emerged."}} In Egypt, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE.{{harvnb|Bard|2000|pp=57–64}} Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=320}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=46}}}} Mesopotamian history was characterized by frequent wars between city-states, leading to shifts in hegemony from one city to another.{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=257}} In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and the Neo-Sumerians arose in this area.{{harvnb|McNeill|1999|pp=36–37}} In Crete, the Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=56}}

Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world.{{harvnb|McNeill|1999|pp=46–47}} By 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop.{{harvnb|Price|Thonemann|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/birthofclassical00pric 25]}} It flourished until the Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=331}} The foundations of many cultural aspects in India were laid in the Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), including the emergence of Hinduism.{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|pp=116–122}}{{efn|The Vedas contain the earliest references to India's caste system, which divided society into four hereditary classes: priests, warriors, farmers and traders, and laborers.{{harvnb|Graeber|Wengrow|2021|p=317}}}} From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent.{{harvnb|Singh|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=GW5Gx0HSXKUC 260–264]}}

File:San Lorenzo Monument 4 crop.jpg, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa|alt=A stone head]]

Speakers of the Bantu languages began expanding across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE until 1000 CE.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=646–647}} Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in the displacement of the Pygmy peoples and the Khoisan, and in the spread of mixed farming and ironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for later states.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=648}}

The Lapita culture emerged in the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea around 1500 BCE and colonized many uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania, reaching as far as Samoa by 700 BCE.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=617}}

In the Americas, the Norte Chico culture emerged in Peru around 3100 BCE. The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of Caral, dated 2627–1977 BCE.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=562}}|{{harvnb|Shady Solis|Haas|Creamer|2001|pp=[https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1059519 723–726]}}}} The later Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first Andean state,{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=564}} centered on the religious site at Chavín de Huantar.{{harvnb|Graeber|Wengrow|2021|p=389}} Other important Andean cultures include the Moche, whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the Nazca, who created animal-shaped designs in the desert called Nazca lines.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=565}} The Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE{{harvnb|Nichols|Pool|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=AHWarqdXsfIC 118]}} and are known for the colossal stone heads that they carved from basalt.{{harvnb|Brown|2007|p=150}} They also devised the Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the Maya and Teotihuacan.{{harvnb|Brown|2007|pp=150–153}} Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=539–540}} They built earthworks such as Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=540–541}}

{{Main|Axial Age}}

File:Gandhara Buddha (tnm).jpeg, 2nd century CE|alt=A statue of a standing man wearing a cloak]]

From 800 to 200 BCE,{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=101}} the Axial Age saw the emergence of transformative philosophical and religious ideas that developed in many different places mostly independently of each other.{{harvnb|Baumard|Hyafil|Boyer|2015|p=e1046657}} Chinese Confucianism,{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|p=67}} Indian Buddhism and Jainism,{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=665}} and Jewish monotheism all arose during this period.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=115}} Persian Zoroastrianism began earlier, perhaps around 1000 BCE, but was institutionalized by the Achaemenid Empire during the Axial Age.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=304}} New philosophies took hold in Greece during the 5th century BCE, epitomized by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle.{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|pp=73–74}} The first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE, marking a period known as "classical antiquity".{{harvnb|Short|1987|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uGE9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA10 10]}} In 508 BCE, the world's first democratic system of government was instituted in Athens.{{harvnb|Dunn|1994}}

Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along with Taoism and Legalism.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=9}} The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=439}} Confucianism would later spread to Korea and Japan.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=314}} Buddhism reached China in about the 1st century CE{{harvnb|Paine|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=s5X3EAAAQBAJ&pg=RA3-PA273 273]}} and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=453, 456}} Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=467–475}} The Greek philosophical tradition{{harvnb|Stearns|Langer|2001|p=63}} diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon.{{harvnb|Stearns|Langer|2001|pp=70–71}} Both Christianity and Islam developed from the beliefs of Judaism.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=63}}

The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw a series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects.{{harvnb|Burbank|2010|p=[http://archive.org/details/empiresinworldhi0000burb 56]}} International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=229, 233}}

File:Persepolis The Persian Soldiers.jpg, Achaemenid Empire, 5th century BCE|alt=Stone relief depicting two groups of three men facing each other]]

The kingdom of the Medes helped to destroy the Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic Scythians and the Babylonians.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=238, 276–277}} Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE.{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|p=110}} The Median Empire gave way to successive Iranian states, including the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE),{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=279}} Parthian (247 BCE{{snd}}224  CE),{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=286}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=248}}}} and Sasanian Empires (224–651 CE).{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=248}}

Two major empires began in modern-day Greece. In the late 5th century BCE, several Greek city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars. These wars were followed by the Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization, including the first theatrical performances.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Strauss|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQFtMcD5dOsC 1–11]}}|{{harvnb|Dynneson|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9fk4lGzmhiwC&pg=PA54 54]}}|{{harvnb|Goldhill|1997|p=54}}}} The wars led to the creation of the Delian League, founded in 477 BCE,{{harvnb|Martin|2000|pp=[https://archive.org/details/ancientgreecefro00mart_1 106–107]}} and eventually the Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the Peloponnesian War.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=353}} Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Tignor et al.|2014|p=203}}|{{harvnb|Burstein|2017|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lwFLDgAAQBAJ 57–58]}}}} The empire divided into several successor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and the spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to as Hellenization.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=283–284}} The Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE until 31 BCE, when Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome.{{harvnb|Hemingway|Hemingway|2007}}

In Europe, the Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=337–338}} and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE.{{harvnb|Kelly|2007|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=eUgSDAAAQBAJ 4–6]}} Prior to this, the Carthaginian Empire had dominated the Mediterranean, however lost three successive wars to the Romans. The Republic became an empire and by the time of Augustus (63 BCE{{snd}}14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=149, 152–153}} The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia.{{harvnb|Beard|2015|p=[http://archive.org/details/spqrhistoryofanc0000bear_v4f6 483]}} The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.{{harvnb|McEvedy|1961}} Christianity was legalized by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution. It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE.{{harvnb|Williams|Friell|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=I8KRAgAAQBAJ 105]}}

In South Asia, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under Ashoka the Great.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Kulke|Rothermund|1990|pp=[https://archive.org/details/historyofindia0000kulk/page/60/mode/2up 61, 71]|loc="At any rate Chandragupta seems to have usurped the throne of Magadha in 320 BC...the last ruler of the Maurya dynasty, Brihadratha, was assassinated by his general, Pushyamitra Shunga, during a parade of his troops in the year 185 BC."}}|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=488–489}}}} From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's golden age.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=502–505}} The resulting stability helped usher in a flourishing period for Hindu and Buddhist culture in the 4th and 5th centuries, as well as major advances in science and mathematics.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=503–505}} In South India, three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras, Cholas, and Pandyas.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=187}}

File:Ashoka pillar at Vaishali, Bihar, India.jpg, a Mauryan Emperor in India|alt=Stone pillar in front of a river]]

In China, Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic Warring States period by uniting all of China under the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE).{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=416}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=160}}}} Qin Shi Huang was an adherent of the Legalist school of thought and he displaced the hereditary aristocracy by creating an efficient system of administration staffed by officials appointed according to merit.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=415}} The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=417}} It was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BCE{{snd}}220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureaucratic system with Confucian ideals.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=417}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=160}}}} The Han dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=143}} As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia, Manchuria, Korea, and northern Vietnam.{{harvnb|Gernet|1996|pp=119, 121, 126, 130}} As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=165, 169}}|{{harvnb|Gernet|1996|p=138}}}} The Han invented the compass, one of China's Four Great Inventions.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Merrill|McElhinny|1983|p=1}}|{{harvnb|Seow|2022|p=351}}}}

File:Rome Stele.jpg, Ethiopia|alt=Column with markings carved on its surface]]

In Africa, the Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=92}} It ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of Meroë until the fourth century CE.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=94–95}} The Kingdom of Aksum, centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=651–652}} It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelae to mark its emperors' graves.{{harvnb|Iliffe|2007|p=41}}

Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE.{{harvnb|Fagan|2005|pp=390, 396}} In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being the Zapotec civilization (700 BCE{{snd}}1521 CE),{{multiref|{{harvnb|Flannery|Marcus|1996|p=146}}|{{harvnb|Whitecotton|1977|pp=26, LI.1–3}}}} and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period ({{circa|250–900 CE|lk=no}}),{{harvnb|Coe|2011|p=91}} but continued throughout the post-classic period.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=560}} The great Maya city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=557–558}} The Maya developed a writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=208}} West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the obsidian trade.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=555}} Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=204}}

Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=122}} There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as the Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=134|loc="But the impression that no significant technological advances occurred in ancient civilization is misleading. In fact, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE, the Mediterranean world witnessed a series of innovations that would influence the development of civilization."}} Greek science, technology, and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the Antikythera mechanism.{{harvnb|Kosso|Scott|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=UTkXFLfmLTkC&q=hellenistic%20mathematics%20science%20technology&pg=PA51 51]}} There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=133}} Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE){{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=142–143}} and the stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE),{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=59|loc="Toe stirrups were known in India in the second century BCE, and foot stirrups appeared in northern Afghanistan in the first century CE."}} both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=145}} The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing concrete, perfecting the use of arches in construction, and creating aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=136}}|{{harvnb|Deming|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JZONR6frqcQC&pg=PA174 174]}}}}

Most ancient societies practiced slavery,{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=80}} which was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=79–80}} Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.{{harvnb|Kent|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cYYEEAAAQBAJ 6]|loc="Ancient societies ruled themselves according to a system known as patriarchy, or the rule of the father, in which male heads of households and states claimed nearly absolute power over women."}}

File:Invasions of the Roman Empire 1.png, 2nd–6th centuries]]

The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=170–172}} In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and barbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution. The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=158, 170}} From the Eurasian Steppe, horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=10}} The development of the stirrup and the use of horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=248, 264}}

In the 4th century CE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=14}} The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE to German influence under Odoacer in the Migration Period of the Germanic peoples. The Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire, was more long-lasting.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=562, 583}} In China, dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=513}} After the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=165}}

{{Main|Post-classical history|Timeline of post-classical history}}

File:Al- Fargānī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad – Compilatio astronomica, 1493 – BEIC 13262685.jpg in the {{lang|la|Compilatio astronomica}}, 1493. Islamic astronomers began just before the 9th century to collect and translate Indian, Persian and Greek astronomical texts, adding their own astronomy and enabling later, particularly European astronomy to build on.{{cite web |last=Akerman |first=Iain |title=The language of the stars |website=WIRED Middle East |date=2023-05-17 |url=https://wired.me/culture/arab-astronomy-the-language-of-stars/ |access-date=2024-11-23 |archive-date=2 December 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241202135957/https://wired.me/culture/arab-astronomy-the-language-of-stars/ |url-status=live }} Symbolic for the post-classical period, a period of an increasing trans-regional literary culture, particularly in the sciences, spreading and building on methods of science.]]

The post-classical period, dated roughly from 500 to 1500 CE,{{efn|The exact dates are disputed and some periodizations use 1450 as the end point.{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LMMtCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 33]}}}} was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies intensified.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LMMtCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 33]}}|{{harvnb|Stearns|2001|loc=III. The Postclassical Period, 500–1500}}|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=348}}|{{harvnb|Wiesner|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=oZiNCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA204 204]}}}} From the 10th to 13th centuries, the Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=334}} It was followed by the Little Ice Age, which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia. Major inventions of the period were gunpowder, guns, and printing, all of which originated in China.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=317}}|{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008b|p=xxiv}}}}

The post-classical period encompasses the early Muslim conquests, the Islamic Golden Age, and the commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade, followed by the Mongol invasions and the founding of the Ottoman Empire.{{harvnb|Shaw|1976|p=[https://archive.org/details/historyofottoman00stan 13]}} South Asia had a series of middle kingdoms, followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=215}}

In West Africa, the Mali and Songhai Empires rose.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=379, 393}} On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold, spices, and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join the Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in the Swahili culture.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=393}}

China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and early Ming dynasties.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=297, 336, 339}} Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Mississippians,{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=214}} Aztecs,{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=395}} Maya,{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=205}} and Inca reached their zenith.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=397}}

{{Main|History of the Middle East|History of North Africa|History of the Caucasus|History of Central Asia}}

File:Umayyad Mosque night.jpg in Damascus]]

Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions.{{harvnb|Hourani|1991|pp=5, 11|loc="In the early seventh century a religious movement appeared on the margins of the great empires, those of the Byzantines and Sasanians, which dominated the western half of the world....The Byzantine and Sasanian empires were engaged in long wars, which lasted with intervals from 540 to 629."}} This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=249–250}} The birth of Islam created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=385}}

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, initiated the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=387–389}} He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in the establishment of Muslim rule on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by 750 CE.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=255}} The subsequent Abbasid Caliphate oversaw the Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which philosophy, art, and literature flourished.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=295}}|{{harvnb|Mirsepassi|Fernée|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zibeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 182]}}}}{{efn|For example, the folktales One Thousand and One Nights were written in this period.{{harvnb|Chainey|Winsham|2021|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=OokmEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT82 82]}}}} Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=295}} the manufacture of paper from China{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=26}} and the decimal positional numbering system from India.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=149}} At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such as Al-Khwarizmi's development of algebra and Avicenna's comprehensive philosophical system.{{harvnb|Tiliouine|Renima|Estes|2016|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=f9f7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37 37, 41]}} Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=156–157, 393}} Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=393–394}}

Arab domination of the Middle East ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=373–374}} The Seljuks were challenged by Europe during the Crusades, a series of religious wars aimed at rolling back Muslim territory and regaining control of the Holy Land.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=292–293}} The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with the sack of Constantinople in 1204.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=162, 579}} In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongols, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Shaw|1976|p=[https://archive.org/details/historyofottoman00stan 13]}}|{{harvnb|Kuran|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tTHEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 11]}}}}

In the 7th century, North Africa saw the extinguishment of Byzantine Africa and the Berber kingdoms in the Early Muslim conquests.{{Cite book |last=Mones |first=H. |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The conquest of North Africa and the Berber resistance |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }} From the 10th century, the Abbasid Caliphate's African territory was consumed by the Fatimid Caliphate centered on Egypt, who were supplanted by the Ayyubids in the 12th century, and them later by the Mamluks in the 13th century.{{Cite book |last=Hrbek |first=Ivan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The emergence of the Fatimids |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }} In the Maghreb and Western Sahara, the Almoravids dominated from the 11th century,{{Cite book |last1=Hrbek |first1=Ivan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |last2=Devisse |first2=Jean |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Almovarids |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }} until it was subsumed by the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century.{{Cite book |last=Saidi |first=O. |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The unification of the Maghreb under the Alhomads |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} The Almohads' collapse gave rise to the Marinids in Morocco, the Zayyanids in Algeria, and the Hafsids in Tunisia.{{Cite book |last=Hrbek |first=Ivan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The disintegration of the political unity of the Maghreb |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }}

The Caucasus was fought over in a series of wars between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. However, the two opposing powers became exhausted due to continuous conflict. Hence, the Rashidun Caliphate was able to freely expand into the region during the early Muslim conquests.{{harvnb|Robinson|2010|p=[https://archive.org/details/newcambridgehist0001unse/page/236/mode/2up 236]}} The Seljuk Turks later subjugated Armenia and Georgia in the 11th century. The Mongols subsequently invaded the Caucasus in the 13th century.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=535}}

Steppe nomads from Central Asia continued to threaten sedentary societies in the post-classical era, but they also faced incursions from the Arabs and Chinese.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=365–366, 401, 516}} China expanded into Central Asia during the Sui dynasty (581–618).{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=297–298}} The Chinese were confronted by Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in the region.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Ebrey|Walthall|Palais|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/eastasiacultural00ebre_0 113]}}|{{harvnb|Xue|1992|pp=149–152, 257–264}}}} Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the Ordos Desert.{{harvnb|Xue|1992|pp=226–227}} In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east.{{harvnb|Pillalamarri|2017}} From the 9th to 13th centuries, Central Asia was divided among several powerful states, including the Samanid,{{harvnb|Tor|2009|pp=279–299}} Seljuk,{{harvnb|Ṭabīb|Faḍlallāh|Nishapuri|Nīšāpūrī|2001|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jmMpaJZemk0C 3–4]}} and Khwarazmian Empires. These states were succeeded by the Mongols in the 13th century.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=371}} In 1370, Timur, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the Timurid Empire.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=247–248}} Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death,{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=248}} but his descendants retained control of a core area in Central Asia and Iran.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=354|loc="He maintained jurisdiction principally in Central Asia and Iran."}} They oversaw the Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=355|loc="Despite the political infighting and progressively unstable political situation, Shah Rukh in Herat and Ulugh Beg in Samarkand fostered a cultural and artistic renaissance in the Timurid domains."}}

{{Main|History of Europe|Middle Ages}}

File:Notre-Dame de Paris, 4 October 2017.jpg, France|alt=Cathedral]]

Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in shaping the culture, values, and institutions of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Hayas|1953|p=2|loc="...that certain distinctive features of our Western civilization—the civilization of western Europe and of America—have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."}}|{{harvnb|Woods|Canizares|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jYvmAgAAQBAJ 1]|loc="Western civilization owes far more to Catholic Church than most people—Catholic included—often realize. The Church in fact built Western civilization."}}|{{harvnb|McNeill|2010|p=204}}|{{harvnb|Faltin|Wright|2007|p=83}}|{{harvnb|Spielvogel|2016|p=156}}|{{harvnb|Duchesne|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kuF5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA461 461]}}}} Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in late antiquity.{{harvnb|Brown|2007|pp=128, 136}} The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=384–385}} Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=158}} Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=282, 285}} In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe;{{harvnb|Deanesly|2019|pp=339–355|loc=The Carolingian Conquests}} it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the Vikings, Magyars, and Arabs.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=159}} It split into West Francia and East Francia, which developed into middle ages France and the Holy Roman Empire, middle ages Germany. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called neume which became the basis for the modern notation system.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=205}} Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet|Crossley|Headrick|Hirsch|2011|p=250}}|{{harvnb|Brown|Anatolios|Palmer|2009|p=66}}}}

File:Cleric-Knight-Workman.jpg with the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry)|alt=A miniature depicting a tonsured man, a fully armored man wearing a shield, and a man who holds a spade]]

During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=289}} The establishment of the feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included manorialism, the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and vassalage, a political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=280–281}} Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=496–497}} In 1054, the Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe.{{harvnb|Bideleux|Jeffries|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U39AYJm1L94C 48]}} The Crusades were a series of religious wars waged by Christians to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims and succeeded for long enough to establish some Crusader states in the Levant.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=293}} Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing.{{harvnb|Phillips|2017|pp=[https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004346611/BP000028.xml 665–698]}} Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of Gothic cathedrals and churches was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age.{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|p=146}} The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century.{{harvnb|Bentley|Ziegler|2008|p=595}}

The Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and conquered Kievan Rus', along with briefly invading Poland and Hungary.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=324}} Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in the late 14th century formed a personal union with Poland.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=335}} The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=246–248}} Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe.{{harvnb|Aberth|2001}} The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Dunham|2008}}|{{harvnb|BBC|2001}}}} It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during the late 1340s,{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=60|loc="Then, in the 1340s, Mongol armies attacked the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimean region, and from that point on the infection spread into the Mediterranean, and then north into Europe, reaching Scandinavia within two years, and east and south into the Muslim societies of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa."}} and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished.{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|p=120}}

{{Further|History of Africa}}

Sub-Saharan Africa was home to many different civilizations. In Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush was succeeded by the Christian kingdoms of Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia. In the 7th century, Makuria conquered Nobatia to become the dominant power in the region and resisted Muslim expansion.{{Cite book |last=Jakobielski |first=Stefan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Christian Nubia at the height of its civilization |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }} They later entered a severe decline following civil war and Arab migrations to the Sudan and had disintegrated by the 15th century, giving rise to the Funj Sultanate.{{Cite book |last=Kropacek |first=Lubos |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Nubia from the late 12th century to the Funj conquest in the early 15th century |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }}

File:Lalibela, san giorgio, esterno 24.jpg constructed during the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia]]

In the Horn of Africa, Islam spread among the Somalis, while the Kingdom of Aksum declined from the 7th century following Muslim dominance over the Red Sea trade, and collapsed in the 10th century.{{Cite book |last=Mekouria |first=Tekle-Tsadik |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Horn of Africa |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }} The Zagwe dynasty emerged in the 12th century and contested hegemony with the Sultanate of Shewa and the powerful Kingdom of Damot.{{Cite book |last=Tadesse |first=Tamrat |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Horn of Africa: The Solomonids in Ethiopia and the states of the Horn of Africa |pages=423, 431 |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} In the 13th century, the Zagwe were overthrown by the Solomonic dynasty of the Ethiopian Empire, while Shewa gave way to the Walashma dynasty of the Sultanate of Ifat.{{harvnb|Tamrat|1977|pp=123-134, 140}} Ethiopia emerged victorious against Ifat and occupied the Muslim states.{{harvnb|Tamrat|1977|p=143}} The Ajuran Sultanate rose on the Horn's east coast to dominate the Indian Ocean trade.{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Ajuran Sultanate |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire |date=2016 |pages=1–2 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-44064-3 |editor-last=Dalziel |editor-first=Nigel |doi=10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe146 |editor-last2=MacKenzie |editor-first2=John M.}} Ifat was succeeded by the Adal Sultanate who reconquered much of the Muslim lands.{{harvnb|Tamrat|1977|p=149}}

In the Sahel region of West Africa, the Ghana Empire formed from between the 2nd and 8th centuries, while from the 7th century the Gao Empire ruled to its east.{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Gestrich |first=Nikolas |title=The Empire of Ghana |date=2019-03-26 |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.396 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4}}{{Cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-44064-3 |editor-last=Dalziel |editor-first=Nigel |title=Gao Empire |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe312 |editor-last2=MacKenzie |editor-first2=John M.}} Almoravid capture of royal Aoudaghost led to Ghana’s conversion to Islam in the 11th century,{{cite journal |last1=Conrad |first1=David |last2=Fisher |first2=Humphrey |year=1983 |title=The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. I. The External Arabic Sources |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/conquest-that-never-was-ghana-and-the-almoravids-1076-i-the-external-arabic-sources/4C43B158FD3D74BE744D8634781A4E0A |journal=History in Africa |volume=10 |doi=10.2307/3171690 |jstor=3171690 |archive-date=8 June 2018 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180608012932/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/conquest-that-never-was-ghana-and-the-almoravids-1076-i-the-external-arabic-sources/4C43B158FD3D74BE744D8634781A4E0A |url-status=live }} and climatic changes led to Ghana's conquest by its vassal Sosso in the 13th century.{{cite journal |last=McIntosh |first=Susan |year=2008 |title=Reconceptualizing Early Ghana |journal=Canadian Journal of African Studies |publisher=Taylor and Francis |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=347–373 |jstor=40380172}} Sosso was quickly overthrown by the Mali Empire who conquered Gao and dominated the trans-Saharan trade.{{Cite book |last=Niane |first=Djibril |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Mali and the second Mandingo expansion |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} The Mossi Kingdoms were established to its south.{{Cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-44064-3 |editor-last=Dalziel |editor-first=Nigel |title=Mossi Empire |pages=1–2 |doi=10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe127 |editor-last2=MacKenzie |editor-first2=John M.}} To the east, the Kanem–Bornu Empire ruled from the 6th century, and projected power over the Hausa Kingdoms.{{Cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-44064-3 |editor-last=Dalziel |editor-first=Nigel |title=Kanem-Bornu Empire |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe014 |editor-last2=MacKenzie |editor-first2=John M.}}{{Cite book |last=Mahdi |first=Adamu |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Hausa and their neighbours in central Sudan |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} The 15th century saw the crumbling of the Mali Empire, with the dominant power in the region becoming the Songhai Empire centered on Gao.{{Cite book |last=Ly-Tall |first=Madina |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The decline of the Mali empire |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }}

File:Head of an Oba MET DP231468.jpg head from Nigeria|alt=Bronze head]]

In the forest regions of West Africa, various kingdoms and empires flourished, such as the Yoruba empires of Ife and Oyo,{{Cite book |last=Akintoye |first=Stephen Adebanji |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iZcQEAAAQBAJ&dq=history+of+the+yoruba&pg=PT7 |title=A History of the Yoruba People |date=2010 |publisher=Amalion |isbn=978-2-35926-027-4}} the Igbo Kingdom of Nri,{{Cite book |first=M. Angulu |last=Onwuejeogwu |url=https://archive.org/details/an-igbo-civilization-nri-kingdom-and-hegemony |title=An Igbo Civilization: Nri Kingdom and Hegemony |date=1980}} the Edo Kingdom of Benin (famous for its art),{{Cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-44064-3 |editor-last=Dalziel |editor-first=Nigel |title=Benin (Edo city-state) |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe124 |editor-last2=MacKenzie |editor-first2=John M.}} the Dagomba Kingdom of Dagbon,{{Cite web |date=2024 |title=Dagbon History: Kings, Towns, and Cultural Legacy |url=https://dagbonkingdom.com/dagbon-history/ |access-date=2024-10-06 |archive-date=7 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007103922/https://dagbonkingdom.com/dagbon-history/ |url-status=live }} and the Akan kingdom of Bonoman.{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Hargrove |first=Jarvis |title=Early Asante, Akan, and Mossi States |date=2024 |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1354 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4}} They came into contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century which saw the start of the Atlantic slave trade.

In the Congo Basin by the 13th century there were three main confederations of states: the Seven Kingdoms, Mpemba, and one led by Vungu.{{Cite book |chapter=The Development of States in West Central Africa to 1540 |date=2020 |title=A History of West Central Africa to 1850 |pages=16–55 |editor-last=Thornton |editor-first=John K. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/development-of-states-in-west-central-africa-to-1540/CE71122CF8DFD7B4B188BA34F8F65BFC |series=New Approaches to African History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-56593-7 |archive-date=8 October 2024 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008080246/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-west-central-africa-to-1850/development-of-states-in-west-central-africa-to-1540/CE71122CF8DFD7B4B188BA34F8F65BFC |url-status=live }}{{Rp|24–25}} In the 14th century the Kingdom of Kongo emerged and dominated the region. Further east, the Luba Empire was founded in the Upemba Depression in the 15th century.{{Cite book |last=Vansina |first=Jan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Equatorial Africa and Angola: Migrations and the emergence of the first states |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} In the northern Great Lakes, the Empire of Kitara rose around the 11th century, famed for its total lack of written record. It collapsed in the 15th century following Luo migrations to the region.{{Cite book |last=Buchanan |first=Carole Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70U1cAAACAAJ |title=The Kitara Complex: The Historical Tradition of Western Uganda to the 16th Century |date=1974 |publisher=Indiana University}}

On the Swahili coast the Swahili city-states thrived off of the Indian Ocean trade and gradually Islamized, giving rise to the Kilwa Sultanate from the 10th century.{{Cite book |last=Masao |first=Fidelis |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |title=General History of Africa |volume=3 |date=1988 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The East African coast and the Comoro Islands |archive-date=2 December 2023 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202073127/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184282 |url-status=live }}{{Cite book |last=Matveiev |first=Victor |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The development of Swahili civilization |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }} Madagascar was settled by Austronesian peoples between the 5th and 7th centuries, as societies organized at the behest of hasina.{{cite book |last=Randrianja |first=Solofo |author-link1=Solofo Randrianja |title=Madagascar: A short history |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2009 |chapter=Transforming the island (1100–1599) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/madagascarshorth0000rand/page/42/mode/2up}}{{rp|43, 52–53}} In Southern Africa, early kingdoms included Mapela and Mapungubwe,{{Cite journal |last=Huffman |first=Thomas N. |date=2015 |title=Mapela, Mapungubwe and the Origins of States in Southern Africa |journal=The South African Archaeological Bulletin |volume=70 |issue=201 |pages=15–27 |issn=0038-1969}} followed by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe in the 13th century, and the Mutapa Empire in the 15th century.{{Cite book |last=Fagan |first=Brian |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |title=General History of Africa |volume=4 |date=1984 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Zambezi and Limpopo basins: 1100–1500 |archive-date=18 October 2022 |access-date=6 October 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221018084811/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184287 |url-status=live }}

{{Main|History of India}}

File:Hoysala emblem.JPG, Belur, India|alt=Statue]]

After the fall of the Gupta Empire in 550 CE, North India was divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingdoms.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=189–190}} Early Muslim incursions began in the northwest in 711 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphate conquered much of present-day Pakistan. The Arab military advance was largely halted at that point, but Islam still spread in India, largely due to the influence of Arab merchants along the western coast. The 9th century saw the Tripartite Struggle for control of North India between the Pratihara, Pala, and Rashtrakuta Empires.{{harvnb|Keay|2000|p=192}}

Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of the Chalukyas, Hoysalas, and Cholas.{{harvnb|Keay|2000|pp=168, 214–215, 251}} Literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished under the patronage of these kings.{{harvnb|Keay|2000|pp=169, 213, 215}} Some of the other important states that emerged in South India during this time included the Bahmani Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=169}}

{{Main|History of East Asia|History of Siberia}}

After a period of relative disunity, China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=426|loc="After China was reunified in 589 by the Sui dynasty (581–618) and suddenly became a looming regional superpower, Silla began exploring even more active ties with China."}} Under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907), China entered a golden age during which political stability and economic prosperity were accompanied by literary and artistic accomplishment, like the poetry of Li Bai and Du Fu.{{harvnb|Ning|2023|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=nJ3fEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA203 203–204]}}{{harvnb|Lewis|2009|p=1}} The Sui and Tang instituted the long-lasting imperial examination system, under which administrative positions were open only to those who passed an arduous test on Confucian thought and the Chinese classics.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=453}}|{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=118}}}} China competed with Tibet (618–842) for control of areas in Inner Asia.{{harvnb|Whitfield|2004|p=[https://archive.org/details/aurelsteinonsilk0000whit 193]}} However, the Tang dynasty eventually splintered. After half a century of turmoil, the Song dynasty reunified much of China.{{harvnb|Lorge|2015|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9UTjCgAAQBAJ 4–5]}} Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=532}} By 1127, northern China had been lost to the Jurchens in the Jin–Song Wars, and the Mongols conquered all of China in 1279.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=528, 534}} After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368.

File:Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba.jpg|alt=Painting of a battle]]

In Japan, the imperial lineage was established during the 3rd century CE, and a centralized state developed during the Yamato period (c. 300–710).{{harvnb|Henshall|1999|pp=11–12}} Buddhism was introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=426, 428–430, 454–455}} The Nara period (710–794) was characterized by the appearance of a nascent literary culture, as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and architecture.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Totman|2002|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_a_QgAACAAJ 64–79]}}|{{harvnb|Henshall|2012|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD76fF5hqf8C 24–52]}}}} The Heian period (794–1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans and the samurai.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=316–317}} It was during the Heian period that Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel.{{harvnb|Huffman|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=MNzQCwAAQBAJ 29, 35]}} From 1185 to 1868, Japan was dominated by powerful regional lords (daimyos) and the military rule of warlords (shoguns) such as the Ashikaga and Tokugawa shogunates.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=346–347}}|{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=485}}}} The emperor remained but did not wield significant influence.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=720|loc="In Japan the emperor was revered but had no power."}} Meanwhile, the power of merchants grew.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=222}} An influential art style known as ukiyo-e arose during the Tokugawa years, consisting of woodblock prints which originally depicted famous courtesans.{{harvnb|Huffman|2010|p=67}}

Post-classical Korea saw the end of the Three Kingdoms era, in which the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla had competed for hegemony.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=517–518}} This period ended when Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668,{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008e|p=464}} marking the beginning of the Northern and Southern States period, with Unified Silla in the south and Balhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north.{{harvnb|Naver}} In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to the Later Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo{{efn|Goguryeo was called Taebong at that time and eventually named Goryeo.}} emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936.{{harvnb|The Association of Korean History Teachers|2005|p=113}} The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by the Joseon dynasty,{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|p=345}} which ruled for approximately 500 years.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=550}}

In Mongolia, Genghis Khan united various Mongol and Turkic tribes under one banner in 1206.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|p=120}}|{{harvnb|Butt|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uOXEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA128 128]}}}} The Mongol Empire expanded to comprise all of China and Central Asia, as well as large parts of Russia and the Middle East, to become the largest contiguous empire in history.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=534–535}} After Möngke Khan died in 1259,{{harvnb|Stearns|Langer|2001|p=153}} the Mongol Empire was divided into four successor states: the Yuan Dynasty in China, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the Ilkhanate in Iran.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=535}}|{{harvnb|O'Brien|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ffZy5tDjaUkC&pg=PA99 99]}}}}

{{Main|History of Southeast Asia}}

File:Angkor wat temple.jpg temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century|alt=Large temple]]

The Southeast Asian polity of Funan, which had originated in the 2nd century CE, went into decline in the 6th century as Chinese trade routes shifted away from its ports. It was replaced by the Khmer Empire in 802 CE.{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|pp=216–217}} The capital city of the Khmers at Angkor was the most extensive city in the world before the industrial age and contained Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Evans|Pottier|Fletcher|Hensley|2007|p=14279|loc="The 'boundary' of the urban complex of Angkor, as it can be loosely defined from the infrastructural network, encloses ~900–1,000 km² compared with the ~100–150 km² of Tikal, the next largest preindustrial low-density city for which we have an overall survey. Mirador, a Pre-Classic Maya urban complex, and Calakmul, a Classic site near Tikal, may be more extensive, but as yet we do not have comprehensive overall surveys for these sites; it is nonetheless clear that no site in the Maya world approaches Angkor in terms of extent."}}|{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=219}}}} The Sukhothai (mid-13th century) and Ayutthaya Kingdoms (1351) were major powers of the Thais, who were influenced by the Khmers.{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|pp=244–245}}

Starting in the 9th century, the Pagan Kingdom rose to prominence in modern Myanmar.{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=91}} Its collapse brought about political fragmentation that ended with the rise of the Toungoo Empire in the 16th century.{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|pp=149–150}} Other notable kingdoms of the period include Srivijaya{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=240}} and Lavo (both coming into prominence in the 7th century), Champa{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=350}} and Hariphunchai (both about 750),{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=235}} Đại Việt (968),{{harvnb|Taylor|1976|p=[https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=search&query=rid:48459 159]|loc=The Rise of Đại Việt and the Establishment of Thăng-long}} Lan Na (13th century),{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=243}} Majapahit (1293),{{harvnb|Anthony|2015|p=[http://archive.org/details/a-history-of-southeast-asia-crossroads 45]}} Lan Xang (1353),{{harvnb|Coedès|1968|p=[https://archive.org/details/indianizedstates0000cdes 225]|loc="However that may be, various texts agree that the solemn coronation of Fa Ngum, which marks the founding of the kingdom of Lan Chang, took place in 1353; this date has most probably been transmitted correctly."}} and Ava (1365).{{harvnb|Lieberman|2003|p=125|loc="In the heart of the dry zone, near the juncture of the Irrawaddy with the famed granary of Kyaukse, Ava was founded in 1365."}} Hinduism and Buddhism had been spreading in Southeast Asia since the 1st century CE when, beginning in the 13th century, Islam arrived and made its way to regions such as present-day Indonesia.{{multiref| {{harvnb|Ricklefs|2001|p=[http://archive.org/details/historyofmoderni0000rick_s3o0 4]|loc="The first evidence of Indonesian Muslims concerns the northern part of Sumatra. In the graveyard of Lamreh is found the gravestone of Sultan Suleiman bin Abdullah bin al-Basir, who died in AH 608/AD 1211. This is the first evidence of the existence of an Islamic kingdom in Indonesia."}}|{{harvnb|Baumann|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qejaEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1326 1326]}}}} This period also saw the emergence of the Malay states, including Brunei and Malacca.{{harvnb|Andaya|Andaya|2015|pp=[http://archive.org/details/historyofearlymo0000anda 100, 109]}} In the Philippines, several polities were formed such as Tondo, Cebu, and Butuan.{{harvnb|Abinales|Amoroso|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TwglDwAAQBAJ 36]}}

{{Main|History of Oceania}}

File:Moai Rano raraku.jpg, Easter Island{{multiref|{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=625}}|{{harvnb|Flenley|Bahn|2003|p=109|loc="From the islanders' testimony and other Polynesian ethnography it is virtually certain that the statues represented high-ranking ancestors, often served as their funerary monument, and kept their memory alive–like the simple upright slabs in front of platforms in the Society Islands, which represented clan ancestors, or the statues dominating the terraces of sanctuaries in the Marquesas, which were famous old chiefs or priests."}}}}]]

The Polynesians, descendants of the Lapita peoples, colonized vast reaches of Remote Oceania beginning around 1000 CE.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=621–622}}{{efn|They traveled the open ocean in double-hulled canoes up to {{convert|37|m|ft}} long, each canoe carrying as many as 50 people and their livestock.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=406–407}}}} Their voyages resulted in the colonization of hundreds of islands including the Marquesas, Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and New Zealand.{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|p=622}}

The Tu{{fakau'a}}i Tonga Empire was founded in the 10th century CE and expanded between 1250 and 1500.{{harvnb|Burley|1998|pp=368–369, 375}} Tongan culture, language, and hegemony spread widely throughout eastern Melanesia, Micronesia, and central Polynesia during this period.{{harvnb|Kirch|Green|2001|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=WRapfjQ_iTEC&pg=PA87 87]}} They influenced east 'Uvea, Rotuma, Futuna, Samoa, and Niue, as well as specific islands and parts of Micronesia, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.{{harvnb|Geraghty|1994|pp=236–239|loc=Linguistic Evidence for the Tongan Empire}} In Northern Australia, there is evidence that Aboriginal Australians regularly traded with Makassan trepangers from Indonesia before the arrival of Europeans.{{harvnb|MacKnight|1986|pp=69–75}} In Aboriginal societies, leadership was based on achievement while the social structure of Polynesian societies was characterized by hereditary chiefdoms.{{harvnb|McNiven|2017|pp=603–604, 629}}

{{Main|History of the Americas}}

File:Chichén Itzá Mayan observatory.jpg observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico|alt=Ruins of a domed building with steps leading to it]]

File:Machu Picchu, Perú, 2015-07-30, DD 47.JPG, Inca Empire, Peru|alt=Stone ruins in the mountains]]

In North America, this period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern-day United States {{c.|950|lk=no}} CE,{{harvnb|Benjamin|2015|pp=546–547}} marked by the extensive 11th-century urban complex at Cahokia.{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=437}} The Ancestral Puebloans and their predecessors (9th–13th centuries) built extensive permanent settlements, including stone structures that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.{{harvnb|Fagan|2005|p=35}}

In Mesoamerica, the Teotihuacan civilization fell and the classic Maya collapse occurred.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=205, 208}} The Aztec Empire came to dominate much of Mesoamerica in the 14th and 15th centuries.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=622}}

In South America, the 15th century saw the rise of the Inca. The Inca Empire, with its capital at Cusco, spanned the entire Andes, making it the most extensive pre-Columbian civilization.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=638}} The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent road system and elegant stonework.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|pp=644, 658}}

{{Main|Early modern period|Timelines of modern history}}

The early modern period is the era following the European Middle Ages until 1789 or 1800.{{efn|The time span varies depending on the type of history studied: literary studies can define it as short as about 1500–1700 while some general historians extend its span from 1300–1800.}} A common break with the medieval period is placed between 1450 and 1500 which includes a number of significant events: the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, the spread of printing and European voyages of discovery to America and along the African coast.{{harvnb|Wiesner-Hanks|2021|loc=§ Creating 'Early Modern'}} The nature of warfare evolved as the size and organization of military forces on land and sea increased, alongside the wider propagation of gunpowder.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Wiesner-Hanks|2021|p=12}}|{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008c|pp=xxxv–xxxvi}}}} The early modern period is significant for the start of proto-globalization,{{harvnb|Martell|2010|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zGfy7s_CfPsC&pg=PA52 52–53]}} increaslingly centralized bureaucratic states{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=449}} and early forms of capitalism.{{harvnb|Wiesner-Hanks|2021|p=12}} European powers also began colonizing large parts of the world through maritime empires: first the Portuguese and Spanish Empires, then the French, English, and Dutch Empires.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=455}}|{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|pp=37–38}}}} Historians still debate the causes of Europe's rise, which is known as the Great Divergence.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=16}}

File:NanbanCarrack-Enhanced.jpg, a result of globalizing maritime trade|alt=Painting of a ship]]

Capitalist economies emerged, initially in the northern Italian republics and some Asian port cities.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=192|loc="The Italian city-states developed business procedures that have been described as early capitalism, although this was already business as usual in Asian port-cities such as Cambay, Calicut and Zayton."}} European states practiced mercantilism by implementing one-sided trade policies designed to benefit the mother country at the expense of its colonies.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=448, 460, 501}}|{{harvnb|Horn|2016|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qhbHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 68–69]}}}} Starting at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese established trading posts across Africa, Asia, and Brazil, for commodities like gold and spices while also practicing slavery.{{harvnb|Kazeroony|2023|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=KIvXEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1981 § European Colonialism]}} In the 17th century, private chartered companies were established, such as the English East India Company in 1600{{snd}}often described as the first multinational corporation{{snd}}and the Dutch East India Company in 1602.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=194}} Meanwhile, in much of the European sphere, serfdom declined and eventually disappeared while the power of the Catholic Church waned.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=448, 460, 501}}

The Age of Discovery was the first period in which the Old World engaged in substantial cultural, material, and biological exchange with the New World. It began in the late 15th century, when Portugal and Castile sent the first exploratory voyages to the Americas, where Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492. Global integration continued as European colonization of the Americas initiated the Columbian exchange: the exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015b|pp=103–134}} It was one of history's most important global events, involving ecology and agriculture.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=38}} New crops brought from the Americas by 16th-century European seafarers substantially contributed to world population growth.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=383|loc="Because such crops flourished where more familiar staples grew less well, American crops effectively increased the area under cultivation and thereby made possible population growth in many parts of Afro-Eurasia from the 16th century onward."}}

The Ottoman Empire quickly came to dominate the Middle East after conquering Constantinople in 1453, which marked the end of the Byzantine Empire.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=417}}|{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008c|p=xv}}}} Persia came under the rule of the Safavids in 1501,{{harvnb|Axworthy|2008|p=121}} succeeded by the Afshars in 1736, the Zands in 1751, and the Qajars in 1794.{{harvnb|Axworthy|2008|p=171}} The Safavids established Shia Islam as Persia's official religion, thus giving Persia a separate identity from its Sunni neighbors.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=469|loc="Having determined to build a distinctive Iranian, Shi'a identity for their empire, the Safavids forced the conversion of all Muslims in their territory to Shi'ism."}} Along with the Mughals in India, the Ottomans and Safavids are known as the gunpowder empires because of their early adoption of firearms.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=456|loc="In the Middle East, Central Asia and India, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires adopted firearms so enthusiastically that they are often referred to as 'gunpowder empires.{{'"}}}} Throughout the 16th century the Ottomans conquered all of North Africa save for Morocco, which came under the rule of the Saadi dynasty at the same time, and then the Alawi dynasty in the 17th century.{{Cite book |last=Vesely |first=Rudolf |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Ottoman conquest of Egypt}}{{Cite book |last=Cherif |first=Mohammed |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Algeria, Tunisia and Libya: The Ottomans and their heirs}}{{Cite book |last=El Fasi |first=Mohammad |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Morocco}} At the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire began its conquest of the Caucasus.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=626|loc="In the region of the Caucasus Mountains, the third area of southward expansion, Russia first took over Christian Georgia (1786), Muslim Azerbaijan (1801), and Christian Armenia (1813) before gobbling up the many small principalities in the heart of the mountains."}} The Uzbeks replaced the Timurids as the preeminent power in Central Asia.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=358|loc="Political and military instability, succession disputes and conflicts with the Türkmen and Uzbeks vitiated these remarkable economic achievements, weakening the Timurids and making them vulnerable to the previously nomadic Uzbeks, who became the dominant force in Central Asia from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century."}}

{{Main|Early modern Europe}}

{{See also|Renaissance|Reformation|Age of Enlightenment}}

File:Badia fiorentina, campanile, veduta da, duomo 01.jpg, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance|alt=A city with red roofs and a larger domed building in the center.]]

The early modern period in Europe was an era of intense intellectual ferment. The Renaissance{{snd}}the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginning in Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th{{efn|Some scholars date the period later, to the 15th and 16th centuries.{{harvnb|Carter|Butt|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mHJvKVq0vXoC 4]|loc="Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."}}}}{{snd}}comprised the rediscovery of the classical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=363, 368}} This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015a|pp=365–368}} Petrarch's poetry, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, and the paintings and sculptures of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, as part of the Northern Renaissance, are some of the great works of the age. After the Renaissance came the Reformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement started in Germany by Martin Luther that resulted in the creation of Protestant Christianity.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015b|pp=338–339, 345}}

The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to humanism{{harvnb|Tignor et al.|2014|pp=426–427}} and the Scientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Roberts|Westad|2013|pp=683–685}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=436}}}} The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as the Enlightenment, by thinkers such as John Locke and Immanuel Kant.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=444}}|{{harvnb|Bristow|2023|loc=Lead Section}} }} This development was accompanied by secularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres.{{harvnb|Schulman|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=4vOoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1–2]}} Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type printing in 1440{{efn|The Chinese invented movable type centuries earlier, but it was better suited to the alphabetical writing systems of European languages.{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=85}}}} helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Headrick|2009|p=85}}|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=436}}|{{harvnb|Chrisp|2016|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tbbjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA267 267]}}}}

File:10 2599 Wittenberg - Marktplatz.jpg, birthplace of Protestantism]]

In addition to changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans experienced an increase in the power of the state.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=452}} Absolute monarchs in France, Russia, the Habsburg lands, and Prussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=455, 535, 591, 670}} In Russia, Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventually replacing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=165}}|{{harvnb|Davies|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=b912JnKpYTkC 313, 386]}}}} The countries of Western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advances and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=455|loc="As a result, the major European nations were nearly always at war somewhere."}} Wars of particular note included the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015b|pp=41, 44, 47, 343}} The French Revolution, starting in 1789, laid the groundwork of liberal democracy by overthrowing monarchy. It led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|p=41}}|{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008d|p=xxxi}}|{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=529|loc="The French Revolution ended in the rule of Napoleon in 1799, and his attempts to conquer Europe began in 1803."}}}}

In the Horn of Africa, there was the Oromo expansion in the 16th century, which weakened Ethiopia and caused Adal's collapse. Ajuran was succeeded by the Geledi Sultanate.{{Cite book |last=Haberland |first=Eike |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Horn of Africa}} In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Ethiopia rapidly expanded.{{Cite book |last=Pankhurst |first=Richard |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Ethiopia and Somalia}}

In West Africa, the Songhai Empire fell to Moroccan invasion in the late 16th century.{{Cite book |last=Abitbol |first=Michel |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The end of the Songhay empire}} They were succeeded by the Bamana Empire. The Fula jihads beginning in the 18th century led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate, the Massina Empire, and the Tukulor Empire.{{Cite book |last=Batran |first=Aziz |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The nineteenth-century Islamic revolutions in West Africa}}{{Cite book |last=Last |first=Murray |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Sokoto caliphate and Borno}}{{Cite book |last=Ly-Tall |first=Madina |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Massina and Torodbe (Tukuloor) empire until 1878}} In the forest regions, the Asante Empire was established in present-day Ghana.{{Cite book |last=Boahen |first=Albert |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The states and cultures of the Lower Guinea coast}} Between 1515 and 1800, 8 million Africans were exported in the Atlantic slave trade.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=512}}

In the Congo Basin, Kongo fought three wars against the Portuguese who had begun colonizing Angola, ending in the conquest of Ndongo in the 17th century.{{Cite book |last=Vansina |first=Jan |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Kongo kingdom and its neighbours}} Further east, the Lunda Empire rose to dominate the region.{{Cite book |last=Nzieme |first=Isidore |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The political system of the Luba and Lunda: its emergence and expansion}} It fell to the Chokwe in the 19th century.{{Cite book |last=Vellut |first=Jean-Luc |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Congo basin and Angola}} In the northern Great Lakes, there were the kingdoms of Bunyoro-Kitara, Buganda, and Rwanda among others.{{Cite book |last1=Webster |first1=James |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |last2=Ogot |first2=Bethwell |last3=Chretien |first3=Jean-Pierre |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Great Lakes region: 1500–1800}}

Kilwa was conquered by the Portuguese in the 16th century as they began colonizing Mozambique. They were defeated by the Omani Empire who took control of the Swahili coast.{{Cite book |last=Salim |first=Ahmed |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=East Africa: The coast}} In Madagascar the 16th century onward saw the emergence of Imerina, the Betsileo kingdoms, and the Sakalava empire;{{Cite book |last=Kent |first=Raymond |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Madagascar and the islands of the Indian Ocean}} Imerina conquered most of the island in the 19th century.{{Cite book |last=Mutibwa |first=Phares |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Madagascar 1800–80}} In the Zambezi Basin Mutapa was followed by the Rozvi Empire,{{Cite book |last=Bhila |first=Hoyini |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Southern Zambezia}} with Maravi around Lake Malawi to its north.{{Cite book |last1=Phiri |first1=Kings |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |last2=Kalinga |first2=Owen |last3=Bhila |first3=Hoyini |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The northern Zambezia-Lake Malawi region}} Mthwakazi succeeded Rozvi.{{Cite book |last=Isaacman |first=Allen |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1989 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The countries of the Zambezi basin}} Further south, the Dutch began colonizing South Africa in the 16th century, who lost it to the British.{{Cite book |last=Denoon |first=Donald |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000121577 |title=General History of Africa |volume=5 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=Southern Africa}} In the 19th century Dutch settlers formed various Boer Republics, while the Mfecane ravaged the region and led to the establishment of various African kingdoms.{{Cite book |last=Ncgongco |first=Leonard |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000184295 |title=General History of Africa |volume=6 |date=1992 |publisher=UNESCO |chapter=The Mfecane and the rise of the new African states}}

File:Taj Mahal in March 2004.jpg, Mughal Empire, India|alt=A white stone building with three domes flanked by a wall and four towers]]

In the Indian subcontinent, the Mughal Empire was established under Babur in 1526 and lasted for two centuries.{{harvnb|Stein|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=QY4zdTDwMAQC 159]}} Starting in the northwest, it brought the entire subcontinent under Muslim rule by the late 17th century,{{harvnb|Lal|2001}} except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which remained independent.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=529}} To resist the Muslim rulers, the Hindu Maratha Empire was founded by Shivaji on the western coast in 1674.{{harvnb|Wolpert|1997|p=115}} The Marathas gradually gained territory from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the Mughal–Maratha Wars (1680–1707).{{harvnb|Osborne|2020|pp=992, 1005}}

Sikhism developed at the end of the 15th century from the spiritual teachings of ten gurus.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Singh|2000|p=17}}|{{harvnb|Haigh|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=2zLUpxh8E74C&pg=PA30 30]}}}} In 1799, Ranjit Singh established the Sikh Empire in the Punjab.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Keay|2000|pp=410–411, 420|loc="This brought the British into potential conflict with Ranjit Singh, a young Sikh leader who had been prominent in repulsing Afghan attacks by Ahmed Shah Abdali's successors and who, since occupying Lahore in 1799, had been pursuing a policy of conquest and alliance that mirrored that of the British...over the next 30 years the Raja of Lahore, comparatively free of British interference, would blossom into the Maharaja of the Panjab, creator of the most formidable non-colonial state in India...Ranjit had by 1830 created a kingdom, nay an 'empire', rated by one visitor 'the most wonderful object in the whole world'."}}|{{harvnb|Grewal|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=2_nryFANsoYC&pg=PA99 99]}}}}

File:Chemin de ronde muraille long.JPG section, Great Wall of China|alt=A stone wall going uphill with towers spaced along it]]

In 1644, the Ming were supplanted by the Qing,{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=116}} the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which ruled until 1912.{{harvnb|McNeill|McNeill|2003|p=247}} Japan experienced its Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), followed by the Edo period (1600–1868).{{harvnb|Henshall|1999|pp=41, 49, 60, 66}} The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, repelling invasions from Japan and China in the 16th and 17th centuries.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=545–546, 550}} Expanded maritime trade with Europe significantly affected China and Japan during this period, particularly through the Portuguese in Macau and the Dutch in Nagasaki.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=541, 544}} However, China and Japan later pursued isolationist policies{{efn|They are known as haijin in China and sakoku in Japan.}} designed to eliminate foreign influences.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=554–555, 704}}

In 1511, the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and Indonesian Sumatra.{{harvnb|Yoffee|2015|p=74|loc="When the Portuguese admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque conquered the sultanate of Melaka (Malacca) on August 24, 1511, he brought under Portuguese control a Southeast Asian polity whose reach stretched across the Malay peninsula."}} The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641. The Johor Sultanate, centered on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015b|p=257|loc="As of about 1500, the power in this region, and the main enemy of the Estado da Índia, was the sultanate of Johor."}}

European colonization expanded with the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese in Timor, and the Spanish in the Philippines.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|pp=200, 276, 381–382}}

The Pacific Islands of Oceania were also affected by European contact, starting with the circumnavigational voyage of Ferdinand Magellan (1519–1522),{{efn|Magellan died in 1521. The voyage was completed by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522.{{harvnb|Paine|2013|pp=[http://archive.org/details/seacivilizationm0000pain 402–403]}}}} who landed in the Marianas and other islands. Abel Tasman (1642–1644) sailed to present-day Australia, New Zealand, and nearby islands.{{harvnb|Serle|1949}} James Cook (1768–1779) made the first recorded European contact with Hawaii.{{harvnb|Siler|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BA-TSRWOnIcC xxii]}} In 1788, Britain founded its first Australian colony.{{harvnb|Matsuda|2012|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vvy2VITgvCIC 161]}}

Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|pp=37–38}}|{{harvnb|Burbank|Cooper|2021|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XuUXEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163 163–164]}}}} Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|pp=39, 66}} In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberate genocide of indigenous peoples.{{multiref| {{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=430|loc="That said, and ever since the initial Eastern seaboard settler wars against the Tsenacommacahs and Pequots in the 1620s and early 1630s, systematic genocidal massacre was a core component of native destruction throughout three centuries of largely 'Anglo' expansion across continental North America."}} | {{harvnb|Blackhawk|Kiernan|Madley|Taylor|2023|p=38|loc="With these works, a near consensus emerged. By most scholarly definitions and consistent with the UN Convention, these scholars all asserted that genocide against at least some Indigenous peoples had occurred in North America following colonisation, perpetuated first by colonial empires and then by independent nation-states"}} | {{harvnb|Kiernan|Lemos|Taylor|2023|p=622|loc="These mass killings represent turning points in the history of the Spanish Atlantic conquest and share important characteristics. Each targeted Amerindian communities. Each was entirely or partially planned and executed by European actors, namely Spanish military entrepreneurs under the leadership of friar Nicolás de Ovando, Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado respectively. Each event can be described as a 'genocidal massacre' targeting a specific community because of its membership of a larger group"}}}} Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=475}} One side-effect of the slave trade was cultural exchange through which various African traditions found their way to the Americas, including cuisine, music, and dance.{{harvnb|Stearns|2010|p=137}}{{efn|In Brazil, this influence resulted in the development of Capoeira.}} Portugal claimed Brazil, while Spain seized the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015a|p=277}} The Spanish mined and exported prodigious amounts of gold and silver, leading to a surge in inflation known as the Price Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe.{{harvnb|Bentley|Subrahmanyam|Wiesner-Hanks|2015b|pp=216–229}}

In North America, Britain colonized the east coast while France settled the central region.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008c|p=xxi}}|{{harvnb|Wiesner|2015|loc=§ Colonization, Empires, and Trade}}|{{harvnb|Springer|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uDvsEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1157 1157]}}}} Russia made incursions into the northwest coast of North America, with its first colony in present-day Alaska in 1784,{{multiref|{{harvnb|Wheeler|1971|p=441|loc="This view overlooks the fact that, in the forty years since Shelikhov had founded the first permanent settlement on Kodiak Island in 1784, only eight additional settlements had been established, none of which was south of 57° north latitude."}}|{{harvnb|Gilbert|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yz5PEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 44]}}}} and the outpost of Fort Ross in present-day California in 1812.{{harvnb|Chapman|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-Q_qdriEP_UC&pg=PA36 36]}} France lost its North American territory to England and Spain after the Seven Years' War (1756–1763).{{multiref|{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=482|loc="The peace agreement forced France to yield Canada to the English and cede Louisiana to Spain."}}|{{harvnb|Wiesner|2015|loc=§ Colonization, Empires, and Trade}}}} Britain's Thirteen Colonies declared independence as the United States in 1776, ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War.{{harvnb|Tindall & Shi 2010|pp=219, 254}} In 1791, African slaves launched a successful rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. France won back its continental claims from Spain in 1800, but sold them to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.{{harvnb|Tindall & Shi 2010|p=352}}

{{Main|Modern era|19th century|20th century|21st century}}

{{Main|Long nineteenth century}}

{{See also|Age of Revolution|New Imperialism}}

File:Maquina vapor Watt ETSIIM.jpg's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.|alt=A steam engine]]

The long nineteenth century traditionally starts with the French Revolution in 1789,{{efn|Some historians use a different periodization, saying that it began as early as 1750{{harvnb|Stearns|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bjgucmvp_-8C&pg=PA219 219]}} or as late as 1800.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Morys|2020|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IX0IEQAAQBAJ&pg=PR7 vii]}}|{{harvnb|Becker|Platt|2023|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rkHUEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25 1–2]}}}}}} and lasts until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Haynes|Hough|Pilbeam|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=PJGREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 43]}}|{{harvnb|Berger|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=80F76LFgBrsC&pg=PR17 xvii]}}}} It saw the global spread of the Industrial Revolution, the greatest transformation of the world economy since the Neolithic Revolution.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=562|loc="Manchester's rise as a large, industrial city was a result of what historians call the Industrial Revolution, the most profound transformation in human life since the beginnings of agriculture."}} The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain around 1770 and used new modes of production—the factory, mass production, and mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster while using less labor than previously required.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=137}}

Industrialization raised the global standard of living but caused upheaval as factory owners and workers clashed over wages and working conditions.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=584–585}} Along with industrialization came modern globalization, the increasing interconnection of world regions in the economic, political, and cultural spheres.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=490}}|{{harvnb|Babones|2008|p=146|loc=Studying Globalization: Methodological Issues}}}} Globalization began in the early 19th century and was enabled by improved transportation technologies such as railroads and steamships.{{harvnb|O'Rourke|Williamson|2002|pp=23–50}}

File:World 1898 empires colonies territory.png

European empires lost territories in Latin America, which won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=529, 532}} but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=563|loc="The first countries to industrialize grew rich and powerful, facilitating a second great wave of European imperialism in the 19th century."}} Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, North Borneo, Hong Kong, and Aden; the French took Indochina; and the Dutch cemented their rule over Indonesia.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=336}} The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|pp=532, 676–678, 692}}

Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=448}} The United States completed its westward expansion, establishing control over the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.{{harvnb|Greene|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LBjHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PR12 xii]}}

In the late 19th century to early 20th century, the European powers, driven by the Second Industrial Revolution, rapidly conquered and colonized almost the entirety of Africa.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=562}} Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=532}} Imperial rule in Africa involved many atrocities such as those in the Congo Free State and the Herero and Nama genocide.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=429}}|{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=2}}}}

Within Europe, economic and military competition fostered the creation and consolidation of nation-states, and other ethno-cultural communities began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for their own cultural and political autonomy.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=306, 310–311}} This nationalism became important to peoples across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.{{multiref | {{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=312}} | {{harvnb|Stearns|2010|pp=41–44}} }} In the first wave of democratization, between 1828 and 1926, democratic institutions were established in 33 countries worldwide.{{harvnb|Huntington|1991|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IMjyTFG04JYC 15–16]}}

Most of the world abolished slavery and serfdom in the 19th century.{{multiref | {{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=112}} | {{harvnb|Stearns|2010|p=42}} }} Over several decades, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing throughout the 20th,{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=35}} in many countries the women's suffrage movement won women the right to vote,{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=95}} and women began to enjoy greater access to education and to professions beyond domestic employment.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=448}}

File:Wright First Flight 1903Dec17 (full restore 115).jpg, flew on 17 December 1903.|alt=An airplane flying on a beach]]

In response to encroachment by European powers, several countries undertook programs of industrialization and political reform along Western lines.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=390–392}} The Meiji Restoration in Japan led to the establishment of a colonial empire, while the tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire did little to slow the Ottoman decline.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=370, 386, 388, 390–391}} China achieved some success with its Self-Strengthening Movement but was devastated by the Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war, which between 1850 and 1864 killed 20–30 million people.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Meyer-Fong|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IyD00vXZlfkC 1]}}|{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=390, 623}}}}

By the end of the century, the United States became the world's largest economy.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=600, 602}} During the Second Industrial Revolution, new technological advances, involving electric power, the internal combustion engine, and assembly-line manufacturing, further increased productivity.{{harvnb|Landes|1969|p=[https://archive.org/details/unboundprometheu0000land_a8r2 235]}} Technological innovations also provided new avenues for artistic expression through the media of photography, sound recording, and film.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=210, 249–250, 254}}

Meanwhile, industrial pollution and environmental degradation accelerated drastically.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=80}} Balloon flight had been invented in the late 18th century, but it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that powered aircraft were developed.{{multiref | {{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008a|p=xxxiii}} | {{harvnb|Curley|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=iemcAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR9 ix]}} }}

The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power.{{harvnb|Kedar|Wiesner-Hanks|2015|p=206|loc="The half-century preceding the outbreak of World War I stands out as an era of European economic, political, and cultural dominance never achieved before and impossible to sustain at the end of the war."}} Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=313–314}} As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers experienced severe strains and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independent nation states.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=306}}

{{Main|World War I|World War II}}

This transformation was catalyzed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation. World War I was a global conflict from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies, led by France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, and the Central Powers, led by Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. It had an estimated death toll ranging from 10 to 22.5 million and resulted in the collapse of four empires{{snd}}the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires.{{multiref | {{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=308}} | {{harvnb|Heyman|1997|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YBTHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA114 114–115]}} | {{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008a|pp=419}} | {{harvnb|Diener|Hagen|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-cl2C2v7-nQC&pg=PA123 123]}} | {{harvnb|Showalter|Royde-Smith|2024}} }} Its new emphasis on industrial technology had made traditional military tactics obsolete.{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=25}}

The Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides saw the systematic destruction, mass murder, and expulsion of those populations in the Ottoman Empire.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Suny|2015|pp=245, 330}}|{{harvnb|Bozarslan|Duclert|Kévorkian|2015|p=187}}}} From 1918 to 1920, the Spanish flu caused the deaths of at least 25 million people.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=246–247}}

In the war's aftermath a League of Nations was formed in the hope of averting future international conflicts;{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=296–297, 324}} and powerful ideologies rose to prominence. The Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first communist state,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=450}} while the 1920s and 1930s saw fascist political parties gain control in Italy and Germany.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=452}}{{efn|Some historians also classify Francoist Spain as a fascist regime.{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|pp=159–160n}}}} The Soviet Union, during Joseph Stalin's rule from 1924 to 1953, committed countless atrocities against its own people, including mass purges, forced labor camps, and widespread famine caused by state policies.{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008a|pp=xxxii, xlii, 359}}

Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the Great Depression, helped precipitate World War II.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=301–302, 312}} In that war, the vast majority of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The leading Axis powers were Germany, Japan, and Italy;{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=312}} while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.{{harvnb|Sainsbury|1986|p=[https://archive.org/details/turningpointroos0000sain/page/14/mode/2up 14]}}

File:Nagasakibomb.jpg, 1945|alt=A mushroom cloud]]

The militaristic governments of Germany and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course of imperialist expansionism. In the course of doing so, Germany orchestrated the genocide of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, and of millions of non-Jews across German-occupied Europe,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=423–424}} while Japan murdered millions of Chinese.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=507–508|loc="Indeed, Japan's China war between 1931 and 1945 exacted the heaviest toll in lives of all colonial wars – between 10 and 30 million Chinese deaths being the best estimates available in the absence of official or authoritative statistics."}} The war also saw the introduction and use of nuclear weapons, which brought unprecedented destruction and ultimately led to Japan's surrender.{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008a|p=xlii}} Estimates of the war's total casualties range from 55 to 80 million.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=319}}

{{Main|Contemporary history}}

When World War II ended in 1945, the United Nations was founded in the hope of preventing future wars,{{harvnb|Fasulo|2015|pp=1–3}} as the League of Nations had been formed following World War I.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=324}} The United Nations championed the human rights movement, in 1948 adopting a Universal Declaration of Human Rights.{{harvnb|Simmons|2009|p=41}} Several European countries formed what would evolve into a 27-member-state economic and political community, the European Union.{{harvnb|Dinan|2004|pp=[https://archive.org/details/europerecasthist0000dina_u0v7/ xiii, 8–9]}}

World War II had opened the way for the advance of communism into Eastern and Central Europe, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=319, 451}} To contain this advance, the United States established a global network of alliances.{{harvnb|Acheson|1969}} The largest, NATO, was established in 1949 and eventually grew to include 32 member states.{{harvnb|Kunertova|2024|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YwYDEQAAQBAJ&pg=PT182 182]}} In response, in 1955 the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies formed the Warsaw Pact mutual-defense treaty.{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008|p=xl}}

File:Thefalloftheberlinwall1989.JPG, 1989|alt=People standing on a wall]]

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the primary global powers in the aftermath of World War II.{{harvnb|Kennedy|1987|p=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofgreatp00kenn/ 357]}} Both nations harbored deep suspicions and fears about the global spread of the other's political-economic system — capitalism for the United States and communism for the Soviet Union.{{harvnb|Bulliet et al.|2015b|p=817}} This mutual distrust sparked the Cold War, a 45-year stand-off and arms race between the two nations and their allies.{{harvnb|Allison|2018|p=126}}

With the development of nuclear weapons during World War II and their subsequent proliferation, all of humanity was put at risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers, as demonstrated by many incidents, most prominently the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=321, 330}} Such war being viewed as impractical, the superpowers instead waged proxy wars in non-nuclear-armed Third World countries.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Allison|2018|pp=127–128}}|{{harvnb|Stevenson|2020|pp=[https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n20/tom-stevenson/in-the-grey-zone 41–43]}}}} The Cold War ended peacefully in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=342}} partly due to its inability to compete economically with the United States and Western Europe.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|pp=456–457|loc="The collapse of the Soviet Union was, as Mikhail Gorbachev understood, a failure to compete economically and technologically."}}

Cold War preparations to deter or fight a third world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such as jet aircraft,{{harvnb|Scranton|2006|p=[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1177/1744935906064096 131]}} rocketry,{{harvnb|Wolfe|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mmR_eJYhPAwC 90]}} and computers.{{harvnb|Naughton|2016|p=7}} In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel; artificial satellites with innumerable applications,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=195}} including GPS;{{harvnb|Easton|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pb7TAAAAQBAJ 2]}} and the Internet, which in the 1990s began to gain traction as a form of communication.{{harvnb|Naughton|2016|p=14}} These inventions revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=195–196}}

File:Apollo 17 Cernan on moon.jpg (1972)|alt=A man standing on the moon with an American flag in the background]]

The second half of the 20th century also saw groundbreaking scientific and technological developments such as the discovery of the structure of DNA{{harvnb|Pääbo|2003|p=[https://archive.org/details/50yearsofdna00clay/page/95 95]|loc=The Mosaic That Is Our Genome}} and DNA sequencing,{{harvnb|Pettersson|Lundeberg|Ahmadian|2009|pp=105–111}} the worldwide eradication of smallpox,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=258}} the Green Revolution in agriculture,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=91}} the discovery of plate tectonics,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=200}} the moon landings,{{harvnb|Gleick|2019}} crewed and uncrewed exploration of space,{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|p=198}} advances in energy technologies,{{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008|p=xxxiv}} and foundational discoveries in physics phenomena ranging from the smallest entities (particle physics) to the greatest (physical cosmology).

These technical innovations had far-reaching effects.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=442}} During the 20th century the world's population quadrupled to six billion, while world economic output increased by a factor of 20.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|pp=442, 446}} Toward the end of the 20th century, the rate of population growth started to decline, in part because of increased awareness of family planning and better access to contraceptives.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Ivanov|2009|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sThmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA249 249–250]}}|{{harvnb|Huhle|2022|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=2kZuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT151 141–142]}}}} Parts of the world now have sub-replacement fertility rates.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=196–197, 204, 207–208}}

Public health measures and advances in medical science contributed to a sharp increase in global life expectancy at birth from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.{{multiref | {{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=a30_EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1]}} | {{harvnb|DeLaet|DeLaet|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=zWfvCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 8]}} | {{harvnb|Mathew|Bhatia|2010|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ykvlALiqW6YC&pg=PA8 8]}} | {{harvnb|Getzen|2022|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=4iyWEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA234 234]}} }}{{efn|One of the main factors responsible for this was the reduction of infant mortality.{{harvnb|Nohr|Olsen|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=A1F2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA637 637]}}}} In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than one dollar a day, while in 2001 only about 20% did.{{harvnb|Vásquez|2001}} At the same time, economic inequality increased both within individual countries and between rich and poor countries.{{harvnb|Christian|2011|p=449}} The importance of public education had already begun to increase in the 18th and 19th centuries{{efn|The Aztec civilization is an exception, having established compulsory formal education for children as early as the 14th century.{{multiref|1={{harvnb|Reagan|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bCGRAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA108 108]}}|2={{harvnb|Murphy|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aX9hDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA80 80]}}|3={{harvnb|Kte'pi|2013|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Yub3CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63 63]}}}}}} but it was not until the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century that compulsory free education was provided to most children worldwide.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Barro|Lee|2015|pp=13, 55–56}}|{{harvnb|Urata|Kuroda|Tonegawa|2022|pp=40–41}}|{{harvnb|Shelley|2022|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=gErEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 2]}}|{{harvnb|Scott|Vare|2020|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=k1YAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT54 54–56]}}}}{{efn|According to one estimate, about 90% of the global population aged 15–64 was uneducated in 1870. This number had dropped to 10% by 2010.{{harvnb|Barro|Lee|2015|pp=55–56}}}}

In China, the Maoist government implemented industrialization and collectivization policies as part of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), leading to the starvation deaths (1959–1961) of 30–40 million people.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|pp=459–460}} After these policies were rescinded, China entered a period of economic liberalization and rapid growth, with the economy expanding by 6.6% per year from 1978 to 2003.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=629}}

In the postwar decades, in a process of decolonization, the African, Asian, and Oceanian colonies of European empires won their formal independence.{{harvnb|Abernethy|2000|p=[https://archive.org/details/dynamicsofglobal0000aber/ 133]}} Postcolonial states in Africa struggled to grow their economies, facing structural barriers such as reliance on the export of commodities rather than manufactured goods.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=578–579}} Sub-Saharan Africa was the world region hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the late 20th century.{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|p=111}} Moreover, Africa experienced high levels of violence, as in the Second Congo War (1998–2003), the deadliest conflict since World War II.{{harvnb|Schoppa|2021|pp=140–141}}

The Near East experienced numerous conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War, the first and second Gulf wars, and the Syrian Civil War, as well as tensions and conflicts between Israel and Palestine.{{multiref | {{harvnb|Nugent|2021|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JlUuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA347 347]}} | {{harvnb|Ackermann|Schroeder|Terry|Upshur|2008|p=xlii}} }} Development efforts in Latin America were hindered by over-reliance on commodity exports{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=550–551}} and by political instability, some of it caused by United States involvement in regime change in Latin America.{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015b|pp=547–550}}

File:Pudong Shanghai November 2017 panorama.jpg. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.|alt=A city skyline with tall buildings]]

File:COVID-19 Nurse.jpg, 2020]]

The early 21st century was marked by growing economic globalization and integration,{{harvnb|Friedman|2007|pp=[https://archive.org/details/worldisflat00thom 137–138, passim]}} which brought both benefits and risks to interlinked economies, as exemplified by the Great Recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McNeill|Pomeranz|2015a|p=609|loc="But the crisis beginning in 2007, with the eddying effects of the subprime lending-induced financial crash, demonstrated how vital the health of the American economy remained for global growth and stability. Events and processes outside the United States continued to affect the internal politics and economics, and vice versa. The United States and the rest of the world were interconnected, and disengagement was impossible."}}|{{harvnb|Tozzo|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=iH86DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 116]}}}} Communications expanded, with smartphones and social media becoming ubiquitous worldwide by the mid-2010s. By the early 2020s, artificial intelligence systems improved to the point of outperforming humans at many circumscribed tasks.{{multiref|{{harvnb|The Economist|2023}}|{{harvnb|Roivainen|2023}}}}

The influence of religion continued to decline in many Western countries, while some parts of the Muslim world saw the rise of fundamentalist movements.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Martikainen|2017|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tpsuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72 72–73]}}|{{harvnb|Hiro|1989|loc=§ Introduction}}}} In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted global trading, caused recessions in the global economy, and spurred cultural paradigm shifts.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Casselman|2022}}|{{harvnb|Howe|Chauhan|Soderberg|Buckley|2020}}}}

Concerns grew as existential threats from environmental degradation and global warming became increasingly evident,{{multiref|{{harvnb|Armstrong McKay|Staal|Abrams|Winkelmann|2022|p=eabn7950}}|{{harvnb|Kolbert|2023|loc="[T]he world's phosphorus problem [arising from the element's exorbitant use in agriculture] resembles its carbon-dioxide problem, its plastics problem, its groundwater-use problem, its soil-erosion problem, and its nitrogen problem. The path humanity is on may lead to ruin, but, as of yet, no one has found a workable way back."}}|{{harvnb|Kolbert|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ra9RAQAAQBAJ 267]}}}} while mitigation efforts, including a shift to sustainable energy, made gradual progress.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Oreskes|2022}}|{{harvnb|The Economist|2023a}}|{{harvnb|Ritchie|2024}}}}

The study of human history has a long tradition and early precursors were already practiced in the ancient period as attempts to provide comprehensive accounts of the history of the world.{{efn|Some historian use the terms world history and global history to refer to all these attempts while others understand world history and global history in a more narrow sense as one among several competing approaches to study the development of the world on a global scale.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Clavin|2005|pp=435–436}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|p=3}}|{{harvnb|Hughes-Warrington|2015|p=41}}|{{harvnb|Conrad|2016|pp=217–219}}}}}} Most research before the 20th century focused on histories of individual communities and societies after the prehistoric period. This changed in the late 20th century, when attempts to integrate the diverse narratives into a common context reaching back to the emergence of the first humans became a central research topic.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|pp=1–4}}|{{harvnb|Northrup|2015|pp=111–112}}| {{harvnb|Cajani|2013|loc=§ Current Trends}}|{{harvnb|Andrea|Neel|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=s5X3EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1–2]}} }} This transition to a widened perspective was accompanied by questioning Eurocentrism and the Western-focused perspective that had previously dominated academic history.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|pp=2–4}}|{{harvnb|Northrup|2015|pp=110–111}}}}

Like in other historical disciplines, the methodology of analyzing textual sources to construct narratives and interpretations of past events plays a central role in the study of human history. The scope of its topic poses the unique challenge of synthesizing a coherent and comprehensive narrative spanning different cultures, regions, and time periods while taking diverse individual perspectives into account. This is also reflected in its interdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from fields belonging to the humanities and the social, biological, and physical sciences, such as other historical disciplines, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, genetics, paleontology, and geology. The interdisciplinary approach is of particular importance to the study of human history before the invention of writing.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Manning|2013|loc=§ Conceptualization, § Conclusion}}|{{harvnb|Manning|2020|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=iuv_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1–4]}}|{{harvnb|Norberg|Deutsch|2023|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_VXGEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15 15]}}|{{harvnb|Aldenderfer|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=s5X3EAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1 1]}}|{{harvnb|Neel|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=s5X3EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 11–12]}}}}

To provide an accessible overview, historians divide human history into different periods organized around key themes, events, or developments that have shaped human societies over time. The number of periods and their time frames depend on the chosen topics, and the transitions between periods are often more fluid than static periodization schemes suggest.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|pp=5–6}}|{{harvnb|Northrup|2015|p=110}}|{{harvnb|Lang|2015|pp=84–85}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BYLrRXaZrAkC&pg=PA97 97–99]}}}}

A traditionally influential periodization in European scholarship distinguishes between the ancient, medieval, and modern periods{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|p=7}}|{{harvnb|Northrup|2015|p=110}}|{{harvnb|Cajani|2013|loc=§ Biblical Chronology Challenged}}}} organized around historical events responsible for major shifts in political, economic, and cultural structures to mark the transitions between the periods: first the fall of the Western Roman Empire and later the emergence of the Renaissance.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Christian|2015a|p=7}}|{{harvnb|Northrup|2015|p=110}}|{{harvnb|Gamble|1981|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5zRIEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 2]}}}} Another periodization divides human history into three periods based on the way humans engage with nature to produce goods. The first transition happened with the emergence of agriculture and husbandry to replace hunting and gathering as the main means of food production. The Industrial Revolution constitutes the second transition.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Cajani|2013|loc=§ Current Trends}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BYLrRXaZrAkC&pg=PA102 102–103]}}}} A further approach uses the relations between societies to divide the history of the world into the periods of Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE, and Western dominance afterwards.{{multiref|{{harvnb|Cajani|2013|loc=§ Current Trends}}|{{harvnb|Denemark|2000|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SjpKFSq9VD0C&pg=PA32 32–33]}}}} The invention of writing is often used to demark prehistory from the ancient period while another approach divides early history based on the type of tools used in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.{{multiref|{{harvnb|McNeill|2017|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=IwxpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 69–70]}}|{{harvnb|Christian|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BYLrRXaZrAkC&pg=PA101 101]}}}} Historians focusing on religion and culture identify the Axial Age as a key turning point that laid the spiritual and philosophical foundations of many of the world's major civilizations. Some historians draw on elements from different approaches to arrive at a more nuanced periodization.{{harvnb|Cajani|2013|loc=§ Current Trends}}

{{notelist}}

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Category:World history

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