“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana
“I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
— William Faulkner (in Requiem for a Nun)
Those of you who follow Make Lists, Not War may remember the four-part Timeline of Human History that I published a while back. In recognition that many of us are so busy that we don’t have time to go through the hundreds of events that make up the Timeline, I have created an abridged version of sorts. The new, shorter list is called The 55 Most Important Events in Human History and it was created by compiling a number of “Most Important Events in Human History” and “Events that Changed the World” lists that I have collected. It begins in Mesopotamia in 4500 BCE and ends in New York City on September 11, 2001. In between are: the birth of nations; the rise and fall of vast empires; the founding of religions; the winning of battles and the losing of wars; the invention of new technologies; and the discovery of new scientific laws and theories, among other things. I hope you enjoy it.
If the brevity of the new history list does not satisfy your hunger for history, you can return to the Timeline of Human History: Part I (Prehistory-1499) ; Part II (1500-1799) ; Part III (1800-1899) ; Part IV (1900-Present) . If you want to see history through the lens of individual world historical figures (pace G.W.F. Hegel), take a look at The Most Influential People of All Time.