2nd millennium AD

(1st millennium AD - 2nd millennium AD - 3rd millennium AD - other millennia)

• The Renaissance
• The Protestant Reformation
• The start of the Industrial revolution
• The rise of nationalism and the modern nation state
• European discovery of the Americas, and colonization there, Africa, and elsewhere
• Two World Wars (I and II)
• Creation of the United Nations

Significant persons:

• Thomas Aquinas, theologian
• Genghis Khan, Mongolian conqueror
• Christopher Columbus, explorer
• Martin Luther, religious reformer
• René Descartes, philosopher and mathematician
• Isaac Newton, scientist
• Benjamin Franklin, American founding father and scientist
• Thomas Jefferson, American founding father and president
• Napoleon Bonaparte, French conqueror and emperor
• Abraham Lincoln, American president
• Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor
• Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
• Karl Marx, political philosopher
• Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Soviet leaders
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, American president
• Adolf Hitler, German dictator
• Winston Churchill, British prime minister
• Albert Einstein, physicist

Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions:

• The Printing press
• Gunpowder
• The Internet
• The Steam engine
• The discovery of the Scientific method
• Human Flight
• Nuclear Power
• Space travel
• The internal combustion engine
• Capitalism and socialism
• The Computer

Centuries and Decades