This timeline lists events in the external environment that have influenced events in human history. This timeline is for use with the article on environmental determinism.
For the history of humanity's influence on the environment, and humanity's perspective on this influence, see timeline of the history of environmentalism.
See List of periods and events in climate history for a timeline list focused on climate.
The time from roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BC was a time of transition, and swift and extensive environmental change, as the planet was moving from an Ice age, towards an interstadial (warm period). Sea levels rose dramatically (and are continuing to do so), land that was depressed by glaciers began lifting up again, forests and deserts expanded, and the climate gradually became more modern. In the process of warming up, the planet saw several "cold snaps" and "warm snaps", such as the Older Dryas and the Holocene climatic optimum, as well as heavier precipitation. In addition, the Pleistocene megafauna became extinct due to environmental and evolutionary pressures from the changing climate. This marked the end of the Quaternary extinction event, which was continued into the modern era by humans. The time around 11,700 years ago (9700 BC) is widely considered to be the end of the old age (Pleistocene, Paleolithic, Stone Age, Wisconsin Ice Age), and the beginning of the modern world as we know it.
Bølling oscillationinterstadial (warm and moist period) between the Oldest Dryas and Older Dryas stadials (cool periods) at the end of the Last glacial period. In places where the Older Dryas was not seen, it is known as the Bølling-Allerød.
Lake Agassiz forms from glacial meltwater. It bursts and floods out through the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean at 11,000 BC, possibly causing the Younger Dryas cold period.
c. 12,000 BC
c. 8,000 BC
Göbekli Tepe, world's earliest known temple-like structure, is created.
c. 10,800 BC
Younger Dryas impact event is proposed to have occurred, causing the onset of the Younger Dryas.
c. 10,800 BC
Younger Dryas cold period begins.
c. 10,000 BC
Preboreal period begins.
World: Sea levels rise abruptly and massive inland flooding occurs due to glacier melt.
Neolithic culture begins, end of most recent glaciation.
First cave drawings of the Mesolithic period are made, with war scenes and religious scenes, beginnings of what became story telling, and metamorphosed into acting.
10th millennium BC[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
c. 9700 BC
Lake Agassiz reforms from glacial meltwater
Bering Sea: Land bridge from Siberia to North America disappears as sea level rises. See Beringia for further information
North America: Long Island becomes an island, and not just a terminal moraine, when rising waters break through on the western end of the interior lake
c. 9660 to c. 9600 BC
Younger Dryas cold period ends. Pleistocene ends and Holocene begins. Large amounts of previously glaciated land become habitable again. Some sources place the Younger Dryas as stretching from 10,800 BC to 9500 BC. This cool period was possibly caused by a shutdown of the North Atlanticthermohaline circulation (Gulf Stream/Jet Stream), due to flooding from Lake Agassiz as it reformed.
c. 9500 BC
Ancylus Lake, part of the modern-day Baltic Sea, forms.
There is evidence of harvesting, though not necessarily cultivation, of wild grasses in Asia Minor about this time.
End of the pre-Boreal period of European climate change.
Pollen Zone IV Pre-boreal, associated with juniper, willow, birch pollen deposits.
Neolithic era begins in Ancient Near East.
Evidence of the earliest settlement in Jericho
In Antarctica, long-term melting of the Antarctic ice sheets is commencing.
Neolithic Subpluvial begins in northern Africa, Mesolithic period ends. Until about 5000 BC, the Sahara desert is substantially wetter than today, comparable to a savannah as part of the African humid period.
Chalcolithic (Copper Age) and invention of the wheel occur during this time
Paleolithic period ends and Neolithic period begins in China, continues to 2300 BC
c.6440±25 BC
Kurile volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula has VEI 7 eruption. It is one of the largest of the Holocene epoch
c. 6400 BC
Lake Agassiz drains into oceans for the final time, leaving Lakes Manitoba, Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Lake of the Woods, among others in the region, as its remnants. The draining may have caused the 8.2 kiloyear event, 200 years later
c. 6200 BC
8.2 kiloyear event, a sudden significant cooling episode
Climatic or Thermal Maximum, the warmest period in the past 125,000 years, with minimal glaciation and highest sea levels. (McEvedy)
Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separate Australia from New Guinea.
Increasing desiccation of the Sahara. End of the Saharan Pluvial period.
Associated with Pollen Zone VI Atlantic, oak-elm woodlands, warmer and maritime climate. Modern wild fauna plus, increasingly, human introductions, associated with the spread of the Neolithic farming technologies.
Rising sea levels from glacial retreat flood what will become the Irish Sea, separating the island of Ireland from the British Isles and Continental Europe.
6th millennium BC[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
c. 5600 BC
According to the Black Sea deluge theory, the Black Sea floods with salt water. Some 3000 cubic miles (12,500 km³) of salt water is added, significantly expanding it and transforming it from a fresh-water landlocked lake into a salt water sea.
c. 5500 BC
Beginning of the desertification of north Africa, which ultimately leads to the formation of the Sahara desert from land that was previously savannah, though it remains wetter than today. It's possible this process pushed people in the area into migrating to the region of the Nile in the east, thereby laying the groundwork for the rise of Egyptian civilization.
Climatic deterioration in Western Europe and the Sahara as the African humid period ends.
In Europe Pollen zone VII Sub Boreal, oak and beech.
Glacial advances of the Piora oscillation, with lower economic prosperity in areas not able to irrigate in the Middle East.
3500 BC to 3000 BC
The end of the Neolithic Subpluvial era and return of extremely hot and dry conditions in the Sahara Desert, hastened by the 5.9 kiloyear event and the Piora Oscillation.
Early Dynastic Period of Egypt. The hallmarks of Ancient Egypt (art, architecture, religion) all formed during this period. This is widely assumed to be the time and place of the first writing system, the Egyptian hieroglyphs (date is disputed, some claim they were used as far back as 3200 BC, while others believe they weren't invented until the 28th century BC).
between 3000 BC and 2800 BC
30 km/19 mi-wide Burckle Crater is formed in Indian Ocean from a possible meteor or comet impact, possibly inspiring most flood myths.
3rd millennium BC[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
c. 30th century BC
c. 3000 BC: Stonehenge begins to be built. In its first version, it consists of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts. (National Geographic, June 2008).
Sumerian Cuneiform script, considered among the oldest writing systems, is created.
2900 BC
Floods at Shuruppak from horizon to horizon, with sediments in Southern Iraq, stretching as far north as Kish, and as far south as Uruk, associated with the return of heavy rains in Nineveh and a potential damming of the Karun River to run into the Tigris River. This ends the Jemdet Nasr period and ushers in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamian cultures of the area. Possible association of this event with the Genesis flood narrative.
Suggested date for an asteroid or comet impact occurring between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse on May 10, based on an analysis of flood stories. Possibly causing the Burckle crater and Fenambosy Chevron.[7][8]
2650 BC
Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh describes vast tracts of cedar forests in what is now southern Iraq. Gilgamesh defies the gods and cuts down the forest, and in return the gods say they will curse Sumer with fire (or possibly drought). By 2100 BC, soil erosion and salt buildup have devastated agriculture. One Sumerian wrote that the "earth turned white." Civilization moved north to Babylonia and Assyria. Again, deforestation becomes a factor in the rise and subsequent fall of these civilizations.
Some of the first laws protecting the remaining forests decreed in Ur.
Sahara becomes fully desiccated, and conditions become largely identical to those of today. Desiccation had been proceeding from 7500 to 6000 BC, as a result of the shift in the West African tropical monsoon belt southwards from the Sahel, and intensified by the 5.9 kiloyear event. Subsequent rates of evaporation in the region led to a drying of the Sahara, as shown by the drop in water levels in Lake Chad. Tehenu of the Sahara attempt to enter into Egypt, and there is evidence of a Nile drought in the pyramid of Unas.
2300 BC
Neolithic period ends in China.
2200 BC
Beginning of a severe centennial-scale drought in northern Africa, southwestern Asia and midcontinental North America, which very likely caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. This coincides with the transition from the Subboreal period to the subatlantic period.
Continued mountain formation in the Himalayas contributes to the drying up of the Sarasvati River and the desertification of the Thar Region. This contributes to the decline of the Harappan civilization.
Minoan eruption destroys much of Santorini island, but does not destroy (contrary to what was previously believed) the Minoan civilization on Crete.[9] This may have inspired the legend of Atlantis.
1450 BC
Minoan civilization in the Mediterranean declines, but scholars are divided on the cause. Possibly a volcanic eruption was the source of the catastrophe (see Minoan eruption). On the other hand, gradual deforestation may have led to materials shortages in manufacturing and shipping. Loss of timber and subsequent deterioration of its land was probably a factor in the decline of Minoan power in the late Bronze Age, according to John Perlin in A Forest Journey.
1206 BC
1187 BC
Evidence of major droughts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Hittite and Ugarit records show requests for grain were sent to Egypt, probably during the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah. Carpenter has suggested that droughts of equal severity to those of the 1950s in Greece, would have been sufficient to cause the Late Bronze Age collapse. The cause may have been a temporary diversion of winter storms north of the Pyrenees and Alps. Central Europe experienced generally wetter conditions, while those in the Eastern Mediterranean were substantially drier. There seems to have been a general abandonment of peasant subsistence agriculture in favour of nomadic pastoralism in Central Anatolia, Syria and northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, the Sinai and NW Arabia.
1st millennium BC[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
800 BC
500 BC
Sub-Atlantic period in Western Europe.
Pollen Zone VIII, sub-Atlantic. End of last Sea Level rise.
Increased prosperity in Europe and the Middle East.
200 BC
Axial age, a revolution in thinking that we know as Philosophy, begins in China, India, and Europe, with people such as Socrates, Plato, Homer, Lao Tzu, Confucius, among others, alive at this time.
753 BC
Ancient Rome begins, with the founding of Rome. This marks the beginning of Classical antiquity.
508 BC
Democracy created in Athens, Ancient Greece
356 BC
323 BC
Alexander the Great
269 BC
232 BC
Reign of Ashoka the Great, and the beginning of propagation of Buddhism
c. 225 BC
The Sub-Atlantic period began about 225 BC (estimated on the basis of radiocarbon dating) and has been characterized by increased rainfall, cooler and more humid climates, and the dominance of beech forests. The fauna of the Sub-Atlantic is essentially modern although severely depleted by human activities. The Sub-Atlantic is correlated with pollen zone IX; sea levels have been generally regressive during this time interval, though North America is an exception.
c. 200 BC
Sri Lanka first country in the world to have a nature reserve, King Devanampiyatissa established a wildlife sanctuary
1st millennium AD[]
1st century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
79 AD
Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum
2nd century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
114
117
Rome reaches its greatest expanse in terms of territory, stretching from the Sahara desert, to England and Belgium, along the Danube River and Black Sea to Mesopotamia and modern-day Kuwait.
535–536: global climate abnormalities affecting several civilizations.
7th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
650
Muslim conquests of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe
600
Mount Edziza volcanic complex in British Columbia, Canada erupts
8th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
Dates unknown
ClassicalMayan civilization begins to decline; Beowulf saga is probably written in Europe sometime in this century
750
Muslim Caliphate is moved to Baghdad, ushering in its golden age as a cultural crossroads
774
775
Unusually-high levels of Carbon 14 are found in tree rings throughout Japan, most likely from a gamma-ray burst,[12] previously thought to be from cosmic rays or abnormally strong solar flares
772
804
Charlemagne invades what is now northwestern Germany, battling the Saxons for more than thirty years and finally crushing their rebellion, incorporating Old Saxony into the Frankish Empire and the Christian world.
9th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
c. 850
Severe drought exacerbated by soil erosion causes collapse of Central American city states and the end of the Classic Maya civilization.
874
According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland begins.
10th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
930
Althing, oldest parliamentary institution in the world that is still in existence, is founded
980s
Greenland settled by Viking colonists from Iceland
2nd millennium[]
11th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
985
1080
Norse Colony at L'Anse aux Meadows
1006
SN 1006 supernova, brightest apparent magnitude stellar event in recorded history (−7.5 visual magnitude)
The Hodh Ech Chargui and Hodh El GharbiRegions of southern Mauritania become desert.[13]
12th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
1104
Venice Arsenal in Venice, Italy is founded, employed 16,000 at its peak for the mass production of sailing ships in large assembly lines, hundreds of years before the industrial revolution
Catastrophic eruption of Samalas in Indonesia, with climate effects comparable to that of the 1815 Tambora eruption. This contributed to the cooling seen in the Little Ice Age.
end of the 13th century
beginning of the Renaissance era in Italy, gradually spreads throughout Europe.
Christopher Columbus lands in Caribbean islands, starting the Columbian Exchange, causing the Aztec Empire and Inca Empire to fall to the Spanish in the next century, as well as bringing various species of animals and plants across the Atlantic Ocean.
16th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
1585
1587
Roanoke Colony, now in North Carolina
End of the 16th century
End of the Renaissance era, gradual transition towards the Baroque, Romantic, Enlightenment, and Modern eras.
17th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
1600
Huaynaputina erupts in South America. The explosion had effects on climate around the Northern Hemisphere (Southern hemispheric records are less complete), where 1601 was the coldest year in six centuries, leading to a famine in Russia; see Russian famine of 1601–1603.[14]
1610
It has been posited that 1610 marks the beginning of the Anthropocene, or the 'Age of Man', marking a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the Earth system.[15][16]
18th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
c. 1750
Beginning of Industrial Revolution, which eventually turns to use of coal and other fossil fuels to drive steam engines and other devices. Anthropogenic carbon pollution presumably increases.
1755
Great Lisbon earthquake occurred in the Kingdom of Portugal on Saturday, 1 November, the holiday of All Saints' Day, at around 09:40 local time; subsequent fires and a tsunami almost totally destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas, accentuating political tensions in the kingdom and profoundly disrupting Portugal's colonial ambitions.
1770
Failure of the monsoons in the late 1760s contribute to the Bengal famine of 1770 where 10 million people die. This forces a change in tax policy in the British Empire, which was a cause of the American War of Independence.
1783
The volcano Laki erupts, emitting sufficient sulfur dioxide gas and sulphate particles to kill a majority of Iceland's livestock and cause an unusually cold winter in Europe and Western Asia.
1789
1793
A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the French Revolution was caused in part by the poor crop yields of 1788–89 in Europe, resulting from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789 and 1793.[17]
1798
Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, thus beginning Malthusian economics.
19th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
1804
World human population reaches 1 billion mark.
1815
Eruption of Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia, largest in the 2nd millennium AD. Leads to the...
Unusually wet weather in Northern Europe causes crop failures. The worst crop affected was the potato on which both Ireland (the Great Famine) and Scotland (the Highland Potato Famine) were heavily dependent. Elsewhere in Europe, the food shortages lead to civil unrest and the revolutions of 1848. Counting the Irish diaspora and the forty-eighters, millions of Europeans emigrate to North America, South America, and Australia.
1859
John Tyndall discovers that some gases block infrared radiation. He suggests that changes in the concentration of these gases could bring climate change.[18]
1883
Eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia. The sound of the explosion is heard as far as Australia and China, the altered air waves causes strange colours on the sky and the volcanic gases reduce global temperatures during the following years. A disputed but vivid sunset was captured in Edvard Munch's The Scream.
1896
Svante Arrhenius mathematically quantifies the effects of carbon dioxide on climate change related to the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels.
20th century[]
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
1900
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 hits Galveston, Texas and reverses the city's previously rapid growth.
1906
San Francisco earthquake causes collapse of insurance markets and the Panic of 1907.[19]
1908
Tunguska Explosion decimates a remote part of Siberia.
1914
1918
World War I, which involves heavy bombardment, explosions, and poison gas warfare.
1918
Spanish flu kills between 20 and 50 million people worldwide shortly after World War I.
1927
World human population reached 2 billion mark.
1932
1937
Exceptional precipitation absence in northern hemisphere exacerbated by human activities[citation needed] causes the Dust Bowl drought of the US plains and the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 (harsh economic damage in US and widespread death in USSR).
1939
1945
World War II, with heavy bombardment, genocide, and explosions. Towards the end of the war, nuclear warfare occurs for the first and only time when Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed.
post-1945
Nuclear tests are performed by the United States, Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, the United Kingdom, and France. Above-ground detonations continue until the Partial Test Ban Treaty is signed in 1963, causing fallout and spreading radiation around the explosion sites.
1955
Gilbert Plass submits his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change".[20]
1957
Sputnik is launched, becomes first man-made object to orbit the earth, and triggers the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, culminating with the first man in space in 1961, and the Moon landing, humanity's first ventures to the Moon in 1969.
1960
World human population reached 3 billion mark.[21]
1963
The Clean Air Act is passed in the United States, with subsequent amendments in 1970, 1977 and 1990.
1974
World human population reached 4 billion mark.[21]
1970s
2010s
Deindustrialization occurs in the Midwest and then much of the United States, as manufacturing industries (and their pollution) move to China, India, and other countries.
1980
Mount St. Helens erupts explosively in Washington state.
The Earth Summit is held in Rio, attended by 192 nations.
1997
The Kyoto Protocol is signed, committing nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
1999
World human population reached 6 billion mark.
3rd millennium[]
21st century[]
See also: List of years in the environment
Year(s)
Event(s)
Start
End
2004
Earthquake causes large tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.
2005
Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to coastal communities in the US Gulf Coast region, especially the New Orleans area.
2008
Cyclone Nargis makes landfall over Myanmar, causing widespread destruction and killing over 130,000 people.
2010
Earthquake in Haiti destroyed vital infrastructure and kills over 100,000 people.
Earthquake in Chile of a magnitude of 8.8, caused damage on many cities.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Gulf of Mexico causes millions of barrels of oil to pollute the gulf.
2011
Tsunami in Japan An earthquake and later a tsunami hit the continent on March 11, 2011. After this disaster, nuclear power plants in Japan have been releasing radiation due to damage from the earthquake.
World human population reached the 7 billion mark.
Tornadoes of 2011, a series of destructive and record-breakingtornado outbreaks and tornado outbreak sequences strike the heartland of the United States, killing hundreds of people, injuring scores more, and causing billions of dollars in damages, particularly in St. Louis and Joplin in Missouri, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham in Alabama, and elsewhere.
2012
Hurricane Sandy devastates the eastern third of North America, from Florida to Quebec, and from Michigan to Nova Scotia, as the largest Atlantic basin hurricane in history.
2013
Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) ravages the central Philippines, with explosive strengthening and a record-setting wind-speed at landfall of 195 miles per hour (314 km/h).
A multivortex tornado touches down in El Reno, Oklahoma and grows to a record-setting width of 2.6 miles (4.2 km).
^Kobashi, T.; Severinghaus, J.P.; Barnola, J. (30 April 2008). "4 ± 1.5 °C abrupt warming 11,270 yr ago identified from trapped air in Greenland ice". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 268 (3–4): 397–407. Bibcode:2008E&PSL.268..397K. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.01.032.
^Wilson, C. J. N.; Ambraseys, N. N; Bradley, J; Walker, G. P. L. (1980). "A new date for the Taupo eruption, New Zealand". Nature. 288 (5788): 252–253. Bibcode:1980Natur.288..252W. doi:10.1038/288252a0.
^Kerry A. Odell and Marc D. Weidenmier, Real Shock, Monetary Aftershock: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the Panic of 1907, The Journal of Economic History, 2005, vol. 64, issue 04, p. 1002-1027.