Early Modern
Funj Sultanate of Sennar (1504-1821): Kingdom on the Blue Nile
A Muslim kingdom dominated the middle Nile for three centuries before falling to the Ottoman-Egyptian army of Muhammad Ali in 1821.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Early Modern
Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535): Spanish Rule from Mexico City
New Spain became the richest and most populous part of the Spanish Empire, governed from Mexico City until Mexican independence in 1821.
Early Modern
Tanegashima (1543): How the First Guns Arrived in Japan
Japanese smiths copied the Portuguese matchlock within about a year, and firearms spread across Japan to become a decisive weapon of the Sengoku wars.
Early Modern
Battle of Chaldiran (1514): Ottoman Guns Defeat Shah Ismail
Decisive Ottoman victory; Selim briefly occupied Tabriz and the Ottomans went on to annex most of eastern Anatolia.
Early Modern
Leonardo da Vinci's Anatomical Drawings (c. 1510): Art as Science
Leonardo produced the most accurate anatomical drawings of his age, but they stayed unpublished for centuries and had little direct influence on medicine.
Early Modern
Battle of Marignano (1515): Francis I Defeats the Swiss
French victory; Francis I took the Duchy of Milan and the Swiss withdrew from the Italian Wars as an independent power.
Early Modern
Behaim Globe (1492): The Oldest Surviving Terrestrial Globe
Completed in 1492, the globe survives in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg as the oldest known terrestrial globe.
Contemporary
North Sea Flood of 1953: Disaster in the Netherlands and Britain
About 1,836 deaths in the Netherlands, 307 in England, 19 in Scotland and 28 in Belgium; it led to the Delta Works and, later, the Thames Barrier.
Contemporary
Wirtschaftswunder: West Germany's Postwar Economic Miracle
West Germany achieved rapid growth, near full employment and rising living standards, becoming Western Europe's largest economy by the 1960s.
Contemporary
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): Rights for All
The UN General Assembly adopted the declaration with 48 votes in favour, none against and eight abstentions, creating the founding text of international human rights.
Contemporary
Invention of the Transistor (1947): Bell Labs and the Chip Age
The point-contact transistor, demonstrated on 23 December 1947, began the replacement of vacuum tubes and laid the foundation of modern electronics.
Contemporary
Chinese Civil War 1946-1949: Mao's Communists Defeat Chiang
Communist victory on the mainland; the People's Republic of China was proclaimed and the Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan.