AP World History: Must Know Dates

British abolition of slave trade

New York Stock Market crash and beginning of Great Depression

Genghis Khan begins Mongol conquests

Decline of Mayan civilization

Alexander the Great dies

"Arab Spring" begins

Haitian independence

9/11 Attacks

William the Conqueror invades England

Chinese Communist Revolution

Great schism in Christian Church

Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" published

NATO founded

Discovery of silver at Potosi (world's largest silver mine) in South America

World War I began

Russia frees serfs as part of "Great Reforms"

Glorious Revolution in England

German unification

Beginnings of Christianity

Ibn Battuta begins his travels

Sputnik launched

Russian Revolution and rise of Bolsheviks

Edward Jenner's inoculation for smallpox

Thirty Years' War ends with Peace of Westphalia

Italy united

Invention of the Spinning Jenny

Founding of Islam

Great Recession begins

Dias rounds Cape of Good Hope

Han Dynasty begins in China

Kwame Nkrumah helped secure Ghana's independence

Berlin Wall comes down

Magna Carta signed in England

Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa

Confucius, Buddha, Laozi all alive

First Crusade begins

Cuban Missile Crisis

Ottomans capture Constantinople

Brazil ends slavery

Rwandan genocide

World War II begins

Treaty of Versailles

Independence of most Latin American countries

Beginnings of farming

Chinese Cultural Revolution begins

Bubonic plague reaches Europe

Communist Manifesto published

Sepoy Mutiny

New Zealand grants women's suffrage

Marco Polo begins his journey

Independence and partition of India

Mansa Musa's hajj

Gandhi's Salt March

Iranian Revolution

USSR collapses

Matthew C. Perry arrives in Japan

Defeat of the Spanish Armada

The fall of Rome

Congress of Vienna

Invention of printing press

Creation of Tokugawa Shogun ate

Birth of modern Israel

NAFTA formed

Facebook founded

China's Four Modernizations under Deng Xiaoping

Cortez conquers Aztecs

Zheng He makes first voyage

Berlin Conference carves up Africa

Mexican Revolution begins

Tiananmen Square massacre

Mongols sack Baghdad ending the Abbasid caliphate

Martin Luther posts 95 Theses

U.S. declares its independence

Tanzimat Reforms begin in Ottoman Empire

French Revolution begins