Dates List

From the earliest years of the school until the early 1970s Chapin students were required to learn this list of dates. Alumnae often enjoy revisiting them. Today, while students no longer memorize the Dates List, dates of significant events are always identified and reinforced in classes.

B.C.

c.3000 Pyramid Age began First Calendar in Egypt
c.1720 Hammurabi’s Code of Laws in Babylon
c.1600 Golden Age of Cretan Civilization
1000 David, King of the Hebrews
c.800 Homer and the Iliad
c.776 The First Olympiad
753 Rome founded
621 The Deuteronomic Code of the Hebrews
612 Nineveh destroyed by Medes and Chaldeans
586 Fall of Jerusalem
c.563 Birth of Buddha
551 Birth of Confucius
550 Croesus, King of Lydia
510 Expulsion of Kings from Rome, Establishment of Roman Republic
490 Battle of Marathon
480 Battles of Thermopolae and Salamis
c.445 Periclean Age
404 End of the Peloponnesian Wars
399 Death of Socrates
218 Hannibal crossed the Alps
55 Caesar invaded Britain
31 Battle of Actium
27 Augustan Age, Beginning of Roman Empire

A.D.

70 Siege of Jerusalem by Titus
79 Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum
180 Death of Marcus Aurelius, End of Pax Romana
325 First Council of Nicaea
378 Battle of Adrianople
410 Alaric, the Goth, took Rome
440 Pope Leo I, the Great
450 Conquest of Britain by Angles and Saxons
451 Battle of Châlons
476 Fall of the Roman Empire in the West
496 Conversion of Clovis to Orthodox Christianity
526 St. Benedict’s Rule
597 St. Augustine sent to England by Pope Gregory I, the Great
622 The Hegira
664 Synod of Whitby-brought Church of England under
supervision of Church of Rome
732 Battle of Tours
752 Pippin crowned King of the Franks by St. Boniface
800 Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III
899 Death of Alfred the Great
962 Otto I crowned Holy Roman Emperor
987 Hugh Capet in France
1066 Norman Conquest of England
1077 Henry IV submitted to Gregory VII at Canossa
1096 First Crusade, Pope Urban II
1188 Third Crusade, Richard I of England, Philip II of France,
Frederick I of Germany, Yorimoto, First Shogun of Japan
1210 St. Frances and Innocent III
1215 Magna Carta
1250 Death of Frederick II
1280 Kublai Khan, Mongol ruler of China, Marco Polo
1295 Model Parliament under Edward I
1300 Dante’s Divine Comedy
1302 Commons or Third Estate called to Estates General by Philip IV of France
1337 Death of Giotto
1346 Battle of Crecy at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War
1377 End of the Babylonian, Captivity of the Church, Beginning of the Great Schism
1381 John Wyclif, Peasants’ Revolt in England
1414 Council of Constance
1415 Burning of John Huss, Battle of Agincourt
1431 Burning of Joan of Arc
1453 End of the Hundred Years’ War, Constantinople taken by the Turks, Fall of the Eastern Empire
1456 Bible printed at Mainz by John Gutenberg
1492 Columbus discovered the New World, Moors expelled from Spain, Death of Lorenzo de' Medici
1497 John Cabot claimed North America for England
1519 Emperor Charles V, Henry VIII, Francis I, Pope Leo X, Death of Leonardo da Vinci, Beginning of Magellan’s voyage
1521 Edict of Worms outlawed Luther
1538 Order of Jesuits established by Ignatius Loyola
1543 Copernicus published his theory of solar system
1564 Death of Michelangelo
1568 Rebellion of The Netherlands against Philip II of Spain led by William the Silent of Orange
1572 Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day
1588 Spanish Armada, Elizabeth of England, Philip of Spain
1598 Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV of France
1607 Settlement of Jamestown
1614 First settlement on Manhattan
1616 Death of Shakespeare
1642 Civil War in England, Death of Galileo , Birth of Sir Isaac Newton
1644 Antonio Stradivari born: perfected the violin
1648 Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years’ War about Religion
1649 Execution of Charles I
1685 Johann Sebastian Bach born: polyphonic writing Edict of Nantes revoked by Louis XIV
1687 Newton formulated the laws of gravitation
1688 Glorious Revolution in England: James II, William III and Mary
1713 Treaty of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession
1748 End of the War of the Austrian Succession between Frederick the Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria
1769 James Watt patented the steam engine
1770 Ludwig van Beethoven born, sonata and symphonic forms
1776 Declaration of American Independence
1777 Battle of Saratoga
1787 United States Constitution
1789 French Revolution, Washington first President of the United States
1804 Napoleon, Emperor of France
1806 Holy Roman Empire dissolved
1807 Robert Fulton’s steamboat in the United States
1813 Richard Wagner born
1815 Battle of Waterloo
1822 Louis Pasteur born
1825 Locomotive invented by George Stephenson in England
1831 Michael Faraday discovered principal for electric generator
1848 European revolutions Second French Republic, End of war between United States and Mexico , Karl Marx – Communist Manifesto
1852 Second French Empire: Napoleon III
1853 Beginning of Crimean War
1859 Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species
1861 Alexander II freed the serfs in Russia, Kingdom of Italy founded by Victor Emmanuel
1861-65 Civil War in the United States
1870 Franco-Prussian War, Third Republic in France, End of Temporal Power of the Pope
1871 German Empire united under William I of Prussia by Bismarck
1898 Spanish-American War
1899 Beginning of Boer War
1901 Marconi-first wireless message across the Atlantic
1903 Wright brothers flew in heavier-than-air machine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
1905 Einstein announced his Theory of Relativity, End of Russo-Japanese War
1909 Discovery of the North Pole by Peary
1911 Discovery of the South Pole by Amundsen
1912 Republic of China
1914 Beginning of World War I, Battle of the Marne
1917 The United States declared war against Germany, Fall of the Russian Empire and establishment of the Soviet State
1918 Armistice signed, Fall of the German and Austrian Empires
1919 League of Nations established
1927 Lindbergh’s nonstop solo flight to France
1929 Stock market panic on Wall Street, Vatican City established as a sovereign state by Pope Pius XI and Mussolini
1931 Japan took Manchuria
1935 Italy attacked Ethiopia
1937 Japan invaded China
1939 World War II began with Hitler’s attack on Poland
1940 Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
1942 First nuclear-controlled chain reaction- University of Chicago
1945 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, End of World War II, United Nations Charter drawn up at San Francisco
Since 1945 Decline of overseas empires and formation of indepedent nations in Africa and Asia
1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Communists control China mainland, Chiang Kaishek at Taiwan
1950 Korean War started
1953 Mount Everest climbed by British expedition
1954 United States Supreme Court decision against school segretation
1957 Russian sputnik in orbit
1957-58 International Geophysical Year
1969 Americans landed on the moon