The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus:
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.

— English novelist Terry Pratchett (1948-2015),
quoted from David Christian's "Origin Story: A Big History of Everything"

Introduction

I. History of the Universe 1. The Big Bang (13.8 Ga) 2. Of Quarks, Hadrons and Photons (13.8 Ga) 3. From Atoms to Stars to Atoms 4. Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes 5. The Cosmic Web 6. The Milky Way 7. The Formation of Our Solar System (4.6 Ga) 8. Exoplanets

II. History of Earth and Life 9. The Hadean Eon (4.6 - 4.0 Ga) 10. First Life (~3.7 Ga) 11. The Great Oxygenation Event (2.4 Ga) 12. Plate Tectonics 13. Paleozoic Life (541 - 252 Ma) 14. The Age of Reptiles (252 - 66 Ma) 15. The Age of Mammals (since 66 Ma) 16. The Emergence of Humans (~2.5 Ma - 70 ka)

[Ga = gigaannus (10⁹ years), Ma = megaannus (10⁶ years), ka = kiloannus (10³ years)]

III. Ancient Human History 17. The Cognitive Revolution (~70 - 30 ka) 18. The Agricultural Revolution (~10,000 BCE) 19. Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (~3200 - 539 BCE) 20. The Indo-European Migrations (~1500 - 800 BCE) 21. The Achaemenid Empire (550 - 330 BCE) 22. The First Unification of India (322 - 185 BCE) 23. The First Unification of China (221 BCE - 220 CE) 24. The Roman Empire (27 BCE - 395 CE)

IV. Medieval Human History 25. The Second Unification of China (581 - 907) 26. The Islamic Conquests and the Abbasid Caliphate (630 - 1258) 27. The Holy Roman Empire (800/962 - 1806) 28. The Mongol Conquests (1206 - 1279) 29. The Columbian Exchange and European Colonialism (1492 - 1776) 30. The Ottoman Empire (1453 - 1922) 31. The Expansion of Russia (1480 - 1917) 32. The Mughal Empire (1526 - 1857)

V. Modern Human History 33. The Industrial Revolution (1760 - 1830) 34. The British Imperial Century (1815 - 1914) 35. The Birth of Modern Physics (1900 - 1928) 36. The Two World Wars and the Cold War (1914 - 1991) 37. The Age of Oil (since 1870) 38. The Chinese Economic Reforms (since 1978) 39. The Digital Revolution (since 1989) 40. The Anthropocene

[ka = kiloannus (10³ years), BCE = Before the Common Era, CE = Common Era]

Contact:   ingo.nosske@universalhistory.info