Modern Era
Lister's Antiseptic Surgery (1865): Carbolic Acid Saves Lives
Lister's carbolic acid method sharply reduced deaths from wound infection and established the principle that germs must be kept out of surgical wounds.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Modern Era
Battle of Quatre Bras (1815): The Prelude to Waterloo
Tactical draw; the Anglo-Allied army held the crossroads, but withdrew the next day after the Prussian defeat at Ligny.
Middle Ages
Settlement of Rapa Nui: Hotu Matu'a and the First Islanders
Polynesian voyagers founded a lasting society on one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth, the people who later carved the moai.
Middle Ages
Djinguereber Mosque (1327): Mansa Musa's Mosque in Timbuktu
Timbuktu gained its great Friday mosque, which survives as one of the oldest earthen mosques in West Africa and part of a World Heritage Site.
Middle Ages
Majapahit Empire Founded (1293): Raden Wijaya and Java
Raden Wijaya defeated Jayakatwang with Yuan help, then drove out the Yuan army and was crowned first king of Majapahit.
Middle Ages
Foguang Temple (857): China's Surviving Tang Wooden Hall
The East Hall survived more than eleven centuries and, after its identification in 1937, became the key evidence for Tang dynasty timber architecture.
Middle Ages
Zanj Rebellion (869-883): Slave Revolt in Abbasid Iraq
After fourteen years of war the Abbasid regent al-Muwaffaq captured the rebel capital al-Mukhtara in 883 and killed Ali ibn Muhammad, ending the revolt.
Middle Ages
University of Cambridge (1209): Founded by Scholars From Oxford
Scholars leaving Oxford formed a lasting community of masters at Cambridge, which gained royal and papal privileges and became England's second university.
Middle Ages
Pepin the Short Crowned King (751): The Carolingian Takeover
Pepin replaced the Merovingian dynasty and became the first Carolingian king of the Franks; the papacy and the Frankish monarchy formed a lasting alliance.
Middle Ages
Battle of Kleidion (1014): Basil II, the Bulgar Slayer
Byzantine victory; Samuel's army was destroyed, he died weeks later, and Bulgaria was annexed by 1018.
Early Modern
Battle of Poltava (1709): Peter the Great Defeats Charles XII
Decisive Russian victory; the Swedish army surrendered at Perevolochna days later and Charles XII fled into Ottoman territory.
Early Modern
Asiento of 1713: Britain's Slave-Trade Contract with Spain
Britain won a 30-year monopoly on supplying enslaved Africans to Spanish America, run by the South Sea Company until it was surrendered in 1750.