Early Modern
La Pérouse Expedition (1785-1788): The Lost French Voyage
The two frigates charted much of the Pacific rim but were wrecked at Vanikoro in 1788 with no confirmed survivors; their fate was solved only from 1826 onwards.
Region
Worldwide
Modern Era
Napoleonic Code (1804): The Civil Law That Reshaped Europe
France gained a single civil code of 2,281 articles, which became a model for civil law across Europe, Latin America and beyond.
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
Voyage of HMS Beagle (1831-1836): Darwin Sails the World
The Beagle completed its hydrographic survey and a chain of measurements around the globe, while Darwin's collections and observations led him to the idea of evolution by natural selection.
Modern Era
The Communist Manifesto (1848): Marx and Engels' Pamphlet
A small pamphlet with little impact in 1848 became, from the 1870s onwards, one of the most widely read and influential political texts in history.
Modern Era
Third Plague Pandemic (1855-1960): Bubonic Plague Returns
Bubonic plague killed an estimated 12 to 15 million people, mostly in India and China, and research during the pandemic identified the plague bacterium and its spread by rat fleas.
Modern Era
Krakatoa Eruption of 1883: The Volcano Heard Across the World
Most of the island collapsed into a caldera; tsunamis killed an officially recorded 36,417 people and the ash and aerosols affected weather worldwide.
Modern Era
Russian Flu Pandemic (1889-1890): The First Modern Pandemic
A respiratory pandemic killed an estimated one million people worldwide and showed how fast disease could travel in the age of railways and steamships.
Modern Era
Continental Drift (1912): Alfred Wegener's Moving Continents
Wegener's theory of continental drift was widely rejected for decades, then vindicated in the 1960s as part of plate tectonics.
Modern Era
Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918-1920): The Deadliest Flu in History
An estimated 500 million people were infected and roughly 17 to 50 million or more died, making it the deadliest influenza pandemic on record.
Modern Era
Paris Peace Conference (1919): The Big Four Redraw the World
The victorious Allies drafted the League of Nations Covenant and the peace treaties with the defeated Central Powers, beginning with the Treaty of Versailles.
Modern Era
Treaty of Versailles (1919): The Peace That Ended World War I
Germany accepted territorial losses, disarmament, reparations and responsibility for the war; the treaty came into force on 10 January 1920.