2nd millennium

(1st millennium – 2nd millennium – 3rd millennium – other millennia)

Events

• The Black Death
• Mongol Empires in Asia
• The Renaissance in Europe
• The Protestant Reformation
• The agricultural and industrial revolutions
• The rise of nationalism and the nation state
• European discovery of the Americas and Australia and their colonization
• European colonization and decolonization in Africa and Asia
• Population explosion
• World-spanning wars (Seven Years' War, French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II)
• Capitalism and Communism

Significant persons

• Genghis Khan, (c. 1155/1162/1167 – 1227), Mongolian conqueror
• Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274), Italian theologian
• Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321), Italian poet
• Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398 – 1468), Inventor of movable type
• Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506), Spanish explorer
• Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1543), Polish astronomer and mathematician
• Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), German religious reformer
• Miguel de Cervantes (1547 – 1616), Spanish playwright and novelist
• Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), Italian scientist
• William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), British playwright and poet
• René Descartes (1596 – 1650), French philosopher and mathematician
• Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727), British scientist
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790), American founding father and scientist
• George Washington (1732 – 1799), first American president
• Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826), American founding father and president
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791), Austrian Composer
• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821), French conqueror and emperor
• Sir Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867), British scientist and inventor
• Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865), American president
• Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), British natural scientist
• Otto von Bismarck (1815 – 1898), German chancellor
• Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), German political philosopher
• Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901), Queen of the United Kingdom
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), German philosopher
• Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931), Inventor
• Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), Austrian psychoanalyst
• Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943), Inventor
• Henry Ford (1863 – 1947), Industrialist
• Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924), Soviet leader
• Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965), British prime minister
• Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), German physicist
• Joseph Stalin (1879 – 1953), Soviet leader
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 – 1945), American president
• Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945), German dictator
• Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976), Chinese revolutionary
• Walt Disney (1901 – 1966), American film producer and animator
• John Paul II (1920 – 2005), Pope of the Roman Catholic Church
• Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977), American Rock and Roll singer
• Muhammad Ali (1942 – ), American heaveyweight boxer
• Bill Gates (1955 – ), American computer engineer

Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions

• The Printing press
• Gunpowder
• The Steam engine
• The discovery of the scientific method
• Theory of evolution
• The discovery of genetics and DNA
• Calculus
• Human Flight
• Nuclear Power
• Space travel and mankind's first flight to the moon
• The internal combustion engine
• Capitalism and socialism
• The computer and the Internet
• Universal suffrage

Centuries and Decades