Prehistory
Jeulmun Pottery Period: Comb-Pattern Pottery of Prehistoric Korea
Foraging and fishing communities adopted pottery, village life and millet farming, before giving way to the rice-growing Mumun period around 1500 BC.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Prehistory
Karahan Tepe: Göbekli Tepe's Neolithic Sister Site in Turkey
An early Neolithic monumental site, excavated since 2019, that shows Göbekli Tepe was part of a wider regional culture of builders.
Prehistory
Taforalt Cave: Early Shell Beads and Burials in Morocco
Taforalt produced some of the oldest known personal ornaments and one of the largest Late Pleistocene cemeteries in Africa, along with ancient genomes that reshaped understanding of North African population history.
Prehistory
Lucy: The 3.2-Million-Year-Old Australopithecus Skeleton
The skeleton AL 288-1 became the best-known early hominin fossil and, in 1978, part of the basis for naming Australopithecus afarensis, showing that upright walking preceded large brains.
Prehistory
Paraceratherium: The Largest Land Mammal That Ever Lived
A giant browsing rhino relative, known from Asia and first described in 1911, is among the largest land mammals ever, at roughly 15 to 20 tonnes.
Prehistory
Late Heavy Bombardment: Asteroid Storm on the Early Earth
Large impacts formed many of the Moon's great basins; whether they came in a sudden late spike or as the tail of a steady decline is still debated.
Modern Era
Second Cholera Pandemic (1826-1837): Cholera Reaches Europe
Cholera struck Europe and North America for the first time, killing hundreds of thousands and prompting the first national boards of health and sanitary reform.
Modern Era
Battle of Westerplatte (1939): Poland's Seven-Day Defence
The Polish garrison surrendered on 7 September after a week of resistance, becoming a lasting symbol of Polish defiance in 1939.
Modern Era
Battle of Tannenberg (1914): Germany's Victory in East Prussia
Decisive German victory; the Russian Second Army was destroyed and around 90,000 or more of its soldiers were captured.
Modern Era
Founding of Singapore (1819): Stamford Raffles and the Treaty
A treaty with the Sultan of Johor and the Temenggong allowed the East India Company to found a trading post that grew into a major free port.
Modern Era
War of 1812: Britain and the United States at War Again
The Treaty of Ghent restored pre-war borders; Canada remained British, the United States gained confidence, and Native nations lost their British ally and much of their land.
Modern Era
Ørsted Discovers Electromagnetism (1820): Compass Meets Current
Ørsted showed that an electric current produces a magnetic effect, founding the science of electromagnetism.