Every Historical Time Period Explained in 10 Minutes

Stone Age The Stone Age is divided into three periods, the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic. The Paleolithic is the oldest and longest one out of the three, and it's the first one to have seen the Homo habilis, the first true human species. The Homo habilis were able to craft primitive tools such as chipped stones with a sharp edge, and they were also able to build basic shelters. After the Homo habilis, the Homo erectus appeared, which was the first one to learn to control fire for cooking and defense against large beasts in the cold. Homo erectus was able to walk from Africa into Europe and Asia, making it the first intercontinental human species. He also improved his tool crafting skills, making him able to hunt larger beasts using spears. He often used animals' fur to protect himself from the cold, and he started building huts. After Homo erectus, the Neanderthals appeared, which were the most commonly found extinct human species. They were the first ones to make tools out of bones instead of stones, and they started wearing clothes and making ornaments. They even buried the dead with flowers. Even though they were very advanced, they went extinct, and they were replaced by modern humans, the Homo sapiens. The Homo sapiens is the only remaining human species, as all of the other ones went extinct. So you and I are Homo sapiens. The Paleolithic people formed tribes and used shelters just for the night, since they were still nomadic. During the Mesolithic period, some humans started building camps around rivers, which made them more sedentary. The bow and arrow was invented, being the first long-range weapon, and the refining of tool crafting skills made it possible to craft tools for fishing and boats. The Neolithic period ended the hunter-gatherer lifestyle completely, as they discovered agriculture and developed numerous farming tools. Cattle breeding also began, and sheep, goats, and pigs were domesticated. All of these discoveries caused humans to stay in the same places for longer periods of time, thus enabling them to create villages. Pottery, basketry, weaving, and the wheel appeared. The Stone Age lasted so long that it represents 99% of humans' history. The discovery of metalworking, more specifically the melting and smelting of copper, put an end to the Stone Age, even though some basic forms of metalworking were already known, like the use of gold for ornamentation. Bronze Age. When people noticed that putting copper on fire made it softer and easier to shape, they started using it, since it was a more durable material. But copper was too soft to be used as a weapon, until they discovered that adding other stuff like arsenic or zinc created bronze, a much harder metal. Bronze enabled humans to create the first swords, helmets, armors, and shields. Farming was also much quicker and more efficient, thanks to bronze sickles and irrigation. Food was much easier to produce, which made the population grow and cities expand, becoming more and more complex. Big, majestic buildings, such as the ziggurats, the pyramids, and multiple temples were made in the Bronze Age. Bronze also made it possible to upgrade ships, which enabled humans to trade. The first forms of writing developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt. After all of these positive discoveries, though, the Bronze Age ended with a societal collapse, where many large civilizations disappeared off the face of the Earth almost instantaneously, and many technological inventions were lost. The most acclaimed theories suggest that these civilizations may have been wiped off by volcanic eruptions, droughts, disease, invasions, and earthquakes. Iron Age. After the Bronze Age collapse, humans discovered that they could also smelt iron, even though they already knew this material thanks to meteoric iron, which didn't require smelting and was more rare and valuable than gold. The initial forms of iron smelting didn't provide any advantage if compared with bronze smelting, but since iron was much less rare, they could mass-produce tools and weapons. During this age, a lot of construction and farming tools were discovered, such as forks and sewing needles. Coins became a widespread currency for trade, and the famous Great Silk Road trade route was created. The Iron Age was the last age of prehistory. Classical Antiquity. The first period of Classical Antiquity, called the Archaic Period, is the first one in which we start to have historic written books. The first one is considered to have been made by Herodotus, who is known as the father of history. In the western part of the world, the Greeks and Romans laid the foundation for what would become known as Western Civilization, while the eastern part had the first Chinese Imperial Dynasty. The moral and philosophical foundations of today's western and eastern world belonged to this period, as Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle lived in it. The Bible, the Hindu scriptures, and the writings of Confucius also belonged to this era. Art played a huge role, as classical art pieces are still considered to be some of the best ones in history and have inspired future artistic currents. The ancient Greeks experimented with the first democracy, and there was evidence of the first truly scientific thinking. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, also lived in ancient Greece. A lot of the most famous leaders ruled in this period, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Classical antiquity ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Middle Ages. The Middle Ages are divided into three parts, the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages. The Early Middle Ages, also called the Dark Ages, represent the period after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which had a great economic, intellectual, and cultural decline. Some also use the term Dark Ages because of the scarcity of records regarding this period. In this era, central states in Europe started losing their power, and Islam began emerging. The High Middle Ages were characterized by feudalism, which was a societal system where one party granted property, typically land, to the other in return for services, mostly of military nature, that the recipient, or vassal, had to render to the grantor, or lord. The Catholic Church also started militarizing after clashes with other powers, and the schism with the Eastern Church, which became the Orthodox Eastern Church, and they conducted the Crusades. The state power started to rebuild its legitimacy and strength, and the famous Gothic architecture style emerged. The Late Middle Ages started with some pretty negative events, with the Little Ice Age, which caused the Great Famine, the Hundred Years' War between France and England, and the Black Death, which killed one-third of Europe's population. It wasn't all bad, though. The printing press was invented, enabling the creation of mass-produced newsletters, which, however, had a big problem. There wasn't a good enough variety of sources to get an idea of what the We do have more variety nowadays, but because using multiple sources is a timely and costly process, many prefer to get their news from one source, resulting in a biased and filtered vision. That's why Ground News, which is actually today's sponsor, gives a solution to this problem. 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Also, West Africa had several major empires, including the Mali Empire with Mansa Musa, who is the richest person that ever lived, while Asia saw the rise of the Mongol Empire with Genghis Khan. Modern Age The early period of the modern age was characterized by the most important cultural and scientific changes, such as humanism, which is the philosophical focus on humans, their agency, and their potential. The Renaissance started flourishing, with the goal of reviving classical antiquity's values and surpassing its achievements. The Renaissance, especially the Italian Renaissance, is arguably the period with the most famous and impactful artists, scientists, and philosophers in history, with figures like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Donatello, Botticelli, Galileo Galilei, Shakespeare, Caravaggio, Christopher Columbus, etc. After the Renaissance, Protestantism started with Martin Luther and his 95 Theses. The Scientific Revolution also happened, where the basis for modern science has been laid thanks to the works of figures like Isaac Newton, Copernicus, and Descartes. After the Scientific Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment came, which was an intellectual and philosophical movement that featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and political ideals, such as natural law, liberty and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The early modern age also saw the Age of Discovery, where the Europeans, mainly the Spanish and Portuguese, started trying to find new trade routes, ending up with the discovery of the Americas and its subsequent colonization. We had the First Industrial Revolution, which was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient, and stable manufacturing processes thanks to the use of automated machines and the spread of steam and water power. Inspired by the American Revolution and the French Revolution, the Age of Revolution started, which is a period where most of the nations revolted and passed from absolutist monarchies to representative governments with a constitution. A Second Industrial Revolution happened, since previously there was a slowdown in important innovations. This time we discovered things like standardization, mass production, telegraph and railroad networks, gas and water supply, sewage systems, which had earlier been limited to a few select cities, electrical power, and telephones. After that, the two World Wars happened, and we entered the Information Age, which some refer to as the Third Industrial Revolution, with the computer, internet, artificial intelligence, robots, etc. The period after World War II is called Contemporary History.