| 2300 BCE | The first city map was created in stone for Lagash, Mesopotamia |
| 450 | Herodotus compiled a map of the known world |
| 334 | Alexander the Great began conquring the Middle East and India |
| 240 | Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth |
| 45 | Julian calendar established |
| 20 CE | Strabo published his 17 volume Geography |
| 77 | Pliny the Elder wrote his encyclopedia of geography |
| 79 | Mount Vesuvius erupted and Pompeii was destroyed |
| 150 | Ptolmey published his Geography and included a map of the world with places labeled with a coordinate grid system |
| 271 | The magnetic compass was in use in China |
| 326 | Helena, Constantine's mother, traveled to the Holy Land to identify places sacred to Christianity |
| 476 | The Fall of Rome |
| 632 | Muhammed died and Muslim expansion began |
| 982 | Eric the Red reached Baffin Island in North America |
| 995 | Leif Ericson established a colony in Newfoundland |
| 1095 | The first Crusade began |
| 1154 | Edrisi's book of world geography was published |
| 1170 | The letter from Prester John, asking for help against infidels, "arrived" at the Pope |
| 1271 | Marco Polo headed for China |
| 1325 | Tenochtitlan founded by Aztecs |
| 1347 | Bubonic Plague, "Black Death," in Europe, 30 million die |
| 1377 | ibn-Khaldun completed his history of the world |
| 1405-1433 | China ruled the seas through the seven voyages of Cheng Ho's Treasure Fleet |
| 1410 | A translation of Ptolmey's Geography was published in Europe |
| 1418 | Prince Henry the Navigator established the Sagres research institute |
| 1455 | Gutenberg invents the printing press |
| 1492 | Columbus reached the West Indies |
| 1494 | Treaty of Tordesillas established Spanish and Portuguese control over new discoveries |
| 1500 | Cabral discovered Brazil |
| 1505 | Portugal established trading posts in East Africa |
| 1517 | Martin Luther begins Protestant Reformation |
| 1519 | Magellan began his circumnavigation of the earth |
| 1543 | Copernicus published his On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres |
| 1569 | Mercator created his map |
| 1582 | Gregorian calendar established |
| 1602 | The Dutch East India company was founded |
| 1620 | Pilgrims landed in New England |
| 1675 | The Royal Observatory was established at Greenwich, England |
| 1714 | The British government offered a 20,000 pound reward to the person who could accurately determine longitude at sea |
| 1761 | John Harrison's chronometer was perfected, allowing determination of longitude at sea |
| 1768-1779 | James Cook explored the earth |
| 1769 | Alexander von Humboldt was born |
| 1776 | British colonies in America declare independence |
| 1779 | Carl Ritter was born |
| 1788 | Hutton's theory of uniformitarianism was introduced ("no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end") |
| 1789 | French Revolution |
| 1798 | Thomas Malthus' first essay on population |
| 1803 | Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase |
| 1804-1806 | Lewis and Clark explored the western United States |
| 1817 | The first volume of Ritter's Die Erkunde was published |
| 1821 | Simon Bolivar gains independence for Venezuela, sparking widespread independence in South America |
| 1825 | Erie Canal complete |
| 1830 | The Royal Geographical Society was formed in London |
| Lyell published his Principles of Geology |
| 1831 | Charles Darwin began his travels |
| 1840 | The Geological Survey of Canada was established |
| 1845 | The first volume of von Humboldt's Kosmos was published |
| 1848 | Gold was discovered in Calfornia |
| 1850 | The first use of the camera for mapping takes place in France |
| William Morris Davis was born |
| 1851 | The American Geographical Society was formed |
| 1855 | Maury's The Physical Geography of the Sea was published |
| 1859 | von Humboldt and Ritter died |
| 1864 | George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature was published |
| 1867 | The USGS was established |
| 1869 | Japan opened to western influence and trade |
| Transcontinental railroad established in United States |
| The Suez Canal opened |
| 1874 | The first Department of Geography was established in Germany (the Prussian government established a
Chair of Geography in every Prussian university) |
| 1884-1885 | Berlin Conference divides Africa among European colonial powers |
| 1888 | The National Geographic Society was formed |
| 1895 | The first Times Atlas of the World was published |
| 1903 | University of Chicago established first American Department of Geography |
| 1904 | The Association of American Geographers was established |
| Mackinder proposed his Heartland Theory |
| 1909 | Peary reached the North Pole |
| 1911 | Amundsen reached the South Pole |
| 1912 | Wegner proposed his theory of continental drift |
| 1913 | Greenwich is accepted as 0° longitude |
| 1914-1918 | World War I |
| 1914 | The Panama Canal opened |
| 1922 | The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established |
| 1923-1957 | Carl O. Sauer taught at the University of California, Berkeley |
| 1931 | Commonwealth of Nations founded |
| 1933 | Walter Christaller introduces Central Place Theory |
| 1934 | William Morris Davis died |
| 1939-1945 | World War II |
| 1945 | The United Nations was founded |
| 1946 | First Levittown |
| 1949 | Peoples Republic of China formed |
| 1953 | Hillary and Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest |
| 1957-1958 | The International Geophysical Year |
| 1961 | Antarctic Treaty established |
| 1969 | Humans land on the moon |
| 1970 | The first Earth Day |
| 1979 | China established One-Child rule |
| 1984 | Hole in Ozone Layer was first observed |
| 1989 | Berlin Wall tumbled down |
| 1990 | Reunification of Germany |
| 1991 | The end of the USSR and Yugoslavia |
| Persian Gulf War |
| 1992 | The end of the Cold War |
| 1994 | Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) opened, linking Great Britain to Europe |
| 1997 | Geography at About.com site established (formerly called Geography at The Mining Company) |
| Hong Kong returned to China |
| 1999 | Euro established as currency in 11 European countries |
| Macau returned to China |
| 2000 | U.S. President Clinton orders GPS Selective Availability turned off, instantly making GPS more accurate |
| 2001 | New millenium began |
| Southern Ocean established by the International Hydrographic Organization |
| 2002 | East Timor gains independence |
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