c. 300 BCE:  Indian mathematician Pingala writes about zero, binary numbers, Fibonacci numbers, and Pascal’s triangle.
c. 260 BCE:  Archimedes proves that π is between 3.1429 and 3.1408.
c. 235 BCE:  Eratosthenes uses a sieve algorithm to quickly find prime numbers.
c. 200 BCE:  The “Suàn shù shū” (Book on Numbers and Computation) is one of the oldest Chinese texts about mathematics.
c. 100 CE:  Nicomachus poses the oldest still-unsolved problem in mathematics: whether there are any odd perfect numbers.
c. 250 CE:  The Mayan culture in Central America flourishes, and uses a base-20 numeral system.
c. 830 CE:  Al-Khwarizmi publishes “Kitab al-jabr wa al-muqābalah”, the first book about – and the namesake of – Algebra.
1202:  Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci introduces Arabic numerals to Europe, as well as simple algebra and the Fibonacci numbers.
1482:  First printed edition of Euclid’s Elements
1545:  Cardano conceives the idea of complex numbers.
1609:  Kepler publishes the “Astronomia nova”, where he explains that planets move on elliptical orbits.
1618:  Napier publishes the first references to the number e, in a book on logarithms.
1637:  Fermat claims to have proven Fermat’s Last Theorem.
1654:  Pascal and Fermat develop the theory of probability.
1684:  Leibniz’ publishes the first paper on the calculus.
1687:  Newton publishes the Principia Mathematica, containing the laws of gravity and motion, as well as his version of calculus.
1736:  Euler solves the Königsberg bridges problem by inventing graph theory.
1761:  Lambert proves that π is irrational
1799:  Gauss proves the fundamental theorem of algebra.
1829:  Bolyai, Gauss and Lobachevsky all invent hyperbolic non-Euclidean geometry.
1832:  Galois finds a general condition for solving algebraic equations, thereby founding Group theory and Galois theory.
1858:  August Ferdinand Möbius invents the Möbius strip.
1874:  Cantor proves that there are different “sizes” of infinity, and that the real numbers are uncountable.
1895:  Poincaré’s paper “Analysis Situs” starts modern topology.
1905:  Einstein explains the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion, discovers special relativity, and E = mc².
1915:  Noether shows that every conservation law in physics corresponds to a symmetry of the universe.
1931:  Gödel’s incompleteness theorem establishes that mathematics will always be incomplete.
1939:  A group of French mathematicians publish their first book under the pseudonym of Nicolas Bourbaki, on Set theory.
1961:  Lorenz discovers chaotic behaviour in weather simulations – the butterfly effect.
1976:  Appel and Haken prove the Four Colour Conjecture using a computer.
1977:  Adelman, Rivest and Shamir introduce public-key cryptography using prime numbers.
1994:  Andrew Wiles proves Fermat’s Last Theorem.
2000:  The Clay Mathematics Institute published the seven Millenium Prize Problems.
2003:  Perelman proves the Poincaré conjecture, the only one of the seven Millennium problems that have been solved to date.
c. 9100 BCE:  Oldest known agricultural settlement in Cyprus.
c. 2030 BCE:  The Sumerian city of Ur is the largest city in the world.
c. 3500 BCE:  The first vehicles with wheels appear in Mesopotamia and Eastern Europe.
c. 3200 BCE:  The first writing systems appear in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley.
c. 3000 BCE:  First evidence of smelting iron ore to make wrought iron.
c. 2560 BCE:  The Great Pyramid of Giza is built in ancient Egypt, for Pharaoh Khufu.
c. 1754 BCE:  The Babylonian King Hammurabi Issues the Code of Hammurabi, one of the first legal documents.
776 BCE:  The first Olympic Games competition takes place in Greece.
753 BCE:  Legendary date of the founding of Rome.
c. 563 BCE:  Buddha is born in India. His teachings become the foundation of Buddhism.
c. 551 BCE:  Confucius is born in China. His teachings become the foundation of Confucianism.
490 BCE:  Greece stop the Persian invasion at the battle of Marathon. The Classical period begins.
432 BCE:  The Acropolis is built in Athens, during its golden age under the rule of Pericles.
399 BCE:  Socrates is sentenced to death, refuses to escape, and drinks a cup of poison.
327 BCE:  Alexander the Great invades India, having created an enormous empire across Asia.
c. 221 BCE:  Qin Shi Huang unifies China and starts construction of the Great Wall.
146 BCE:  The Roman army destroys Carthage, ending the Third Punic War.
44 BCE:  Julius Caesar is murdered.
4 BCE:  Jesus of Nazareth is born in Bethlehem, establishing Christianity.
180 CE:  The death of Marcus Aurelius ends the Pax Romana, a 200 year period of peace across Europe.
476 CE:  Fall of the Roman Empire
570 CE:  Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is born in Mecca.
c. 641 CE:  The Library of Alexandria is destroyed.
800 CE:  Charlemagne is crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor.
c. 870 CE:  Norse explorers discover and colonise Iceland.
1066:  William the Conqueror wins the battle of Hastings and is crowned King of England.
1088:  The first university is established in Bologna, Italy.
1096:  The First Crusade is launched by Pope Urban II.
1206:  Genghis Khan defeats his rivals and receives the title “Universal Ruler of the Mongols”.
1215:  King John of England is forced to sign the Magna Carta, restricting his powers.
1266:  Marco Polo arrives at the court of Kublai Khan in Beijing.
c. 1347:  The Black Death kills millions of people across Europe.
1439:  Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press.
1453:  The Ottoman Turks conquer Constantinople, marking the fall of the Byzantine empire.
1492:  Christopher Columbus arrives in America, starting a new age of European conquest.
1517:  Martin Luther publishes his 95 theses, starting the Protestant reformation.
1522:  Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition circumnavigates Earth.
1543:  Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus writes that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
1588:  Under Queen Elizabeth I, England defeats the Spanish Armada.
1603:  William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is performed for the first time.
1633:  Galileo Galilei is tried by the Catholic Inquisition for his scientific writings.
1649:  King Charles I is tried and beheaded during the English Civil War.
1756:  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born in Austria.
c. 1765:  James Watt invents a more efficient steam engine, that will power the industrial revolution.
1776:  America Issues its Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.
1789:  Revolutionaries storm the Bastille in Paris, starting the French Revolution.
1804:  Napoleon is crowned emperor of France.
1819:  Simón Bolívar defeats Spain at the Battle of Boyacá, leading to the independence of many South American countries.
1837:  Samuel Morse and others develop electrical telegraphs.
1859:  Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species”, introducing natural selection.
1865:  Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, at the end of the American Civil War.
1876:  Alexander Bell invents the telephone.
1903:  The Wright Brothers construct the first powered, heavier-than-air aircraft.
1914:  Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated in Sarajevo, starting the first World War.
1929:  The Black Tuesday stock market crash starts the great depression.
1939:  Adolf Hitler invades Poland, starting World War II.
1953:  Watson and Crick discover the double-helix structure of DNA.
1957:  The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite into space.
1969:  Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land and walk on the moon.
1975:  End of the Vietnam War
1989:  Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.