THE HOLOCENE EPOCH

TIMELINE OF EARTH & HUMAN HISTORY

11,000–10,000 BCE:

• Clovis Comet Theory proposed by Richard Firestone et al. now under investigation. Multiple cometary fragments exploded over glaciated area of North America near modern-day Great Lakes; cause of disappearance of the Clovis Culture paleo-Indians in North America.
• Global extinction of megafauna, from the mammoths of Siberia to the giant rhinoceros of Europe; to the American camels, saber-tooth cats, giant beaver ground sloth, etc. Seen is a surprising event of uncontrolled violence. [i]
• Homofloresiensis, the human’s last known surviving close relative becomes extinct in Indonesia.
• Sea levels rise abruptly and massive inland flooding occurs due to glacier melt.
• Land bridge from Siberia to North America disappears as sea level rises.

c. 10,500–3500 BCE:

Earliest Mesoamerican Paleo-Indian sites, “Clovis Culture,” characterized by a nomadic hunting and gathering subsistence strategy to the establishment of agriculture and other practices (e.g. pottery, permanent settlements) and techniques characteristic of proto-civilizations. These more southerly paleo-Indians survive the Polar disaster and go onto populate Central and South America.

8000–1800 BCE:

Archaic Period in Mesoamerica, characterized by incipient agriculture, cultivation and domestication of crops. Permanent villages established. Late in this era, use of pottery and loom weaving becomes common.

c. 6000 BCE:

• Climatic or Thermal Maximum, the warmest period in 125,000 years, with minimal glaciation and highest sea levels. (McEvedy)
• Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separate Australia from New Guinea.
• Increasing desiccation of the Sahara. End of the Saharan Pluvial period.
• Rising sea levels form the Irish Sea, separating the island of Ireland from the British Isles and Continental Europe.

c. 5600 BCE:

Black Sea deluge theory: evidence of a massive flood through the Bosphorus Straits. In less than one year, the event flooded 60,000 square miles of land and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and west. The hypothesis remains an active subject of debate.

c. 5000 BCE:

Use of a sail begins. The first known picture is on an Egyptian urn found in Luxor.

4000 BCE:

The city-states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt are established and grow to prominence. Agriculture spreads widely across Eurasia. Development of “proto-cuneiform” writing; base-60 mathematics, astronomy and astrology, civil law, complex hydrology, the sailboat, potter’s wheel and wheel. World population in the course of the millennium doubles, approximately from 7 to 14 million people.

3500–1800 BCE:

Late Archaic period in Mesoamerican civilization.

3300–2900 BCE::

Construction of the Newgrange solar observatory/passage tomb in Ireland.

c. 3300 BCE:

Ötzi the Iceman dies near the present-day border between Austria and Italy.

3195 BCE:

“Tree Ring Event,” resulting from eco-disaster, per dendrochronologist, Mike Baillie; dating by means of tree-rings and Greenland ice cores. Data is suggestive of major volcanism or bolide (asteroid or comet) impact.

3123 BCE:

The Köfels Impact Event: The valley of Ötztal, in Austrian Alps was hit by a small asteroid, creating a landslide three miles long and a quarter-mile wide, with a determined volume of the rockslide mass set at 3.28 km cubed. A record of the observation of this event was carved into a Sumerian clay tablet known as “the Planisphere,” which roughly dates to 700 BCE, (No. K8538, British Museum). A new study at the University of Bristol in 2007–8 indicates it may have been a replica of an earlier tablet recording an astronomical observation of the fall of an asteroid. Although much of the tablet records planetary positions, the trajectory of the asteroid was recorded, giving a remarkably accurate path for the asteroid, within 1° in the direction of Köfels. The falling material from the explosion would have been consistent with the rain of “fire and brimstone” upon the cities of Sodom and Gommorah, which were located in the Levant near the southern end of the Dead Sea. Geologist, Mark Hempsell said, “It is probable more people died under the plume than in the Alps due to the impact blast.” [ii]

3114 BCE:

Start date of a 13-b’ak’tun epoch of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar (correlated to Gregorian calendar), used by the ancient Maya civilization.

3102 BCE:

Beginning of the Kali Yuga era, as correlated to Gregorian calendar. Date may commemorate the “flood of Manu” in Puranas. [iii]

c. 3100 BCE:

• The Indus Valley civilization constructs the first advanced system of drainage.
• Menes unifies Upper and Lower Egypt, and a new capital is erected at Memphis.

c. 3050 BCE:

The beginnings of Iberian civilizations, arrival to the peninsula, dating as far back as 4000 BCE.

c. 3000 BCE:

• Satellite imagery, Master (2001, 2002) suggests the 3.4 km diameter Umm al Binni lake in the Al Amarah region of Iraq may be an impact crater. Master estimates the age of the crater to be 5,000 years. 3,000–5,000 years ago, that region was under the Persian Gulf at a depth of approximately 10 m (Larsen and Evans 1978: 237). The alleged Umm al Binni impact could be responsible for this catastrophe, producing the energy equivalent to thousands of Hiroshima sized bombs. The impact-induced tsunamis would have devastated coastal Sumerian cities. This may provide an alternate origin of the 2.6 m sediment layer discovered during an excavation of the Sumerian city of Ur by Leonard Wooley in 1954. Descriptive passages in the Epic of Gilgamesh may describe such an impact and tsunami, suggesting a link to the Sumerian Deluge (Matthews 2001; Britt 2001).
• Neolithic period ends, Aegean Bronze Age starts, Minoan civilization starts, Troy is founded.
• Stonehenge begins to be built. In its first version, it consists of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.
• The Angono Petroglyphs are carved in the Philippines.
• Caral, the first city in the Americas (Peru), starts to be built

2807 BCE:

A very large-scale comet or meteorite impact event in the southern Indian ocean, caused enormous megatsunamis. It is theorized that the legends of the “Great Flood: in the Bible, the Maya Popol Vuh the Hindu Puranic story of Manu, through Deucalion in Greek mythology and the story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh may be associated with this event, which caused the underwater Burckle crater.

c. 2500 BCE:

Sahara becomes fully desiccated.

2345 BCE:

A “Tree Ring Event” global eco-disaster per leading dendrochronologist, Mike Baillie.

2200 BCE:

• Beginning of a severe centennial-scale drought in Northern Africa, Southwestern Asia and mid-continental North America, which likely caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
• The sudden collapse of Sumerian civilization has been linked to a comet or asteroid impact. (Courty 1997, 1998; Peiser 1997; Napier 1997; Bjorkman 1973; Weiss et al 1993; Master 2001, 2002). It has been suggested by Master (2001, 2002); Master and Woldai (2004, 2006); Hamacher (2005, 2007).
• Rapid and massive migrations westward from the Altai Mountains across the Urals into northeastern Europe and eastward into China and southeast Asia.

1900 BCE:

The Akkadian creation myth and version of the Mesopotamian “Great Flood,” Atra-Hasis, with warnings of the consequences of human overpopulation.

1800 BCE:

Preclassic, formative period begins in Mesoamerican civilization. The start of nation-states. The first large-scale ceremonial architecture, development of cities. The development and flourishing of the Olmec civilization at such sites as La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. Early Zapotec, Monte Alto Culture in Guatemala’s Pacific lowlands, and Maya civilization. Important early Maya cities include Nakbe, El Mirador, San Bartolo, Cival and Takalik Abaj.

c. 1700 BCE:

An earthquake damages palaces at Knossos and Phaistos in ancient Crete.

1600 BCE:

Shang Dynasty was founded in China.

1628 BCE:

A “Tree Ring Event” global eco-disaster, per Mike Baillie. The Exodus story — and other related stories in the Bible, such as the collapse of Jericho and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah — were legendary stories of events that occurred around the time of the eruption of Thera which has been fairly securely fixed around 1600 BCE, give or take 50 years. Whatever happened at this period of history, including this monstrous eruption as global in effect as is shown in the tree-ring chronologies … more was going on than just a volcanic eruption. Egyptian records report many strange sky, weather, and plague phenomena. [iv]

1600–1500 BCE:

Interchangeably called the Minoan, Thera or Santorini eruption, was a major catastrophic volcanic eruption, one of the largest volcanic events on Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the island of Thera. The eruption may have contributed to the collapse of the Minoan culture. The eruption seems to have inspired certain Greek myths. It has been speculated that the cataclysm provided the basis for or otherwise inspired Plato’s story of Atlantis, as related in his books, Timaeus and Critias.’

1400–400 BCE:

The Olmec flourished during Mesoamerica’s Preclassic, formative period. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. Having the hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies.

1269 BCE:

Ramses II, pharaoh of ancient Egypt, and Hattusilis III, king of the Hittites, sign the earliest known peace treaty.

1235 BCE:

Athens founded.

1206–1150 BCE:

Bronze Age collapse: The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Canaan. Almost every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter. Robert Drews describes the collapse as “the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire”. A number of people speak of the cultural memories of the disaster as stories of a “lost golden age.”

1200 BCE:

• Beginnings of Judaism.
• Austronesian eoples have migrated from Philippines to Celebes, the Moluccas, northern Borneo and eastern Java in modern-day Indonesia. From Moluccas a group heads west to Madagascar and another heads east into Oceania reaching Melanesia.

1184 BCE:

Fall of Troy.

1159 BCE:

A “Tree Ring Event” global eco-disaster per Mike Baillie. Collapse of Shang and Mycenean cultures. Collapse of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean region. A series of impacts/overhead explosions, would more adequately explain the longstanding problem of the end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 12th century BCE. At that time, many — uncountable — major sites were destroyed and totally burned.

1000 BCE:

• The pre-Classic Maya and Zapotec civilizations rise in Mesoamerica, while ancient Egypt begins its decline. The religions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism develop. Graeco-Roman Europe, India and China see the rise of literature. World population greatly increases in the course of the millennium, reaching some 170 to 400 million people at its close, depending on the estimates used.
• The Iron Age spreads to Western Europe.
• Egypt declines as a major power.
• Rise and fall of the Assyrian Kingdom. Ashurbanipal, the literate emperor extends his kingdom.

8th century BCE:

The Shàngshu, or “Classic of History” opening chapters state that Emperor Yao is facing the problem of floodwaters that “reach to the Heavens.” He went on to found the 1st Chinese dynasty.

600 BCE–100 CE:

Pre-Classic Maya settlement of Izapa at its height.

6th century BCE:

• The Roman Republic is established.
• Buddhism was founded by Siddharta Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha.
• Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Empire

5th century BCE:

The Chiemgau impact in Bavaria leaves large debris field and forms Lake Tüttensee. The 1.1-kilometer diameter rock smashed into the ground with a force equivalent to 8,500 Hiroshima bombs. Potential association with the Pha√´ton comet of Greek and Roman legend.

c. 500 BCE–200 CE:

Maya pre-Classic city-states at El Mirador and Nakbe flourish and are abandoned simultaneously.

539–334 BCE:

Estimated completion of the Torah and original Hebrew version of the Book of Genesis, which includes the “Great Flood” myth of Noah’s Ark.

4th century BCE:

• Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire. The zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world.
• Chandragupta Maurya founds the Mauryan Empire in India.

3rd century BCE:

• China was unified under the Qin Dynasty.
• Celts invaded Western Europe.
• Rome and Carthage fought the Punic wars.
• Rome invaded Ancient Greece.

250 BCE:

Ashoka introduces animal welfare legislation in India.

208 BCE:

A “Tree Ring Event” global eco-disaster per Mike Baillie. Possible fine-tuning of >Chiemgau or subsequent impact date to around 200 BCE, due to tree-ring evidence from preserved Irish oaks, which show a slowing in growth around 207 BCE. This may have been caused by a veil of dust kicked up the impact, which filtered out sunlight‚ Roman authors at about the same time wrote about showers of stones falling from the skies and terrifying the populace. [v]

2nd century BCE:

The apocryphal 1st Book of Enoch adds to the Genesis flood myth by saying that God sent the “Great Flood” to rid the earth of the Nephilim, the titanic children of the Grigori, the “sons of God.” Was included in early versions of the New Testament, but eventually failed to gain admittance to Jewish and Christian canon.

1st millennium:

This era marks the peak of the Roman Empire and its subsequent decline, the transformation of the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, while the Western Roman Empire collapses, giving rise to the Early Middle Ages. Christianity and Islam rise to power in the 4th and 7th centuries, respectively. World population, which had tripled over the preceding millennium, grew more slowly during the thousand-year era and could well have diminished. Some estimates vary suggesting world population declined from 400 million people to 250 million people.

100–400 CE:

The decline of Roman Empire may have been partly due to lead poisoning, according to modern historian and toxicologist Jerome Nriagu. Romans used lead acetate (”sugar of lead”) to sweeten old wine and turn grape pulp into a sweet condiment. An aristocrat with a sweet tooth might have eaten as much as a gram of lead a day. Widespread use of this sweetener would have caused gout, sterility, insanity and many of the symptoms, which were present among the Roman aristocrats. High levels of lead have been found in the bones of aristocratic Romans.

44 BCE:

Pliny states, “Portentous and protracted eclipses of the Sun occur, such as the one after the murder of Caesar the dictator…” Yet there were no solar eclipses visible from anywhere in the Roman Empire from February of 48 BCE through December of 41 BCE. There was, however a spectacular daylight comet in 44 BCE, perhaps the most famous comet in antiquity. There are sulfate deposits in the Greenland ice cores for this year and tree ring evidence from North America, where dendrochronology points to a climatic change in the late ’40s BCE. [vi]

c. 1 CE:

Jesus is born.

c. 30 CE:

Beginning of Christianity.

47 CE:

London founded by Romans as Londinium.

48 CE:

The Library of Alexandria, largest library in the world, burned (the first of four possible dates of its final destruction, spanning to the Muslim conquest in 642 CE).

60–70 CE:

The Destruction of Jerusalem. The story Josephus tells of famine, social unrest, institutional deterioration, and the scattering of Judeans throughout Palestine‚ Josephus reports portents, including a “brilliant daylight in the middle of the night” (Josephus, Jewish Wars 6.3). Tacitus reports portents in Book Five of his Histories, “Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city [Jerusalem], and a comet, that continued a whole year…” It very well may be that the eschatological writings in the New Testament, the very formation of the divinity of Jesus was based on cometary events of the time, including a memory of the “Star in the East.” The destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem may very well have been an “act of God,” as reported by Mark in his Gospel. [vii]

79 CE:

Volcanic explosions of Vesuvius in Roman Italy completely bury Herculaneum and most of Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and pumice.

1st century CE:

Diaspora of the Jews.

c. 190–280 CE:

Three Kingdoms period in China.

200–900 CE:

Classic period in Mesoamerican civilization, with the Maya centers of Palenque, Tikal, Coba among many others, with the Teotihuacan in Central Mexico and the Zapotec to the west, at sites as Lambityeco, Dainzu, Mitla, Yagul.

226 CE:

Rise of the Sassanid Empire of Persia.

c. 250–900 CE:

The Classic period, or height of Maya civilization. The greatest time period for the cities of the Maya southern lowlands, such as Tikal, Palenque and Copàn.

280–550 CE:

The height of Hindu culture in India under the Gupta Dynasty.

4th century CE:

The rise of Christianity.

317 CE:

Sirente crater is created by meteoroid impact in central Italy. Dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted the future Roman emperor, Constantine, to Christianity.

365 CE

A tsunami caused by an earthquake in Crete, devastated Alexandria. It was more than a 100 ft high when it hit the coast.

c. 370–469 CE:

The Hunnic Empire. The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes, mostly Turkic, from the steppes of Central Asia. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga and the Don rivers, and then quickly overthrew the empire of the Ostrogoths between the Don and the Dniester rivers. About 376 CE they defeated the Visigoths living in what is now Romania and thus arrived at the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire. Their mass migration into Europe, led by Attila, brought with it great ethnic and political upheaval.

393 CE:

The last Olympic Games of the ancient era is observed in Athens, Greece.

300–600 CE:

Germanic kingdoms are established in Northern and Western Europe.

300–700 CE:

The first “barbarian” invasions of Roman Empire, a.k.a., the migration period or Völkerwanderung.

5th century CE:

The fall of the Western Roman Empire.

400–476 CE:

The sackings of Rome by the Visigoths and the deposing of Romulus Augustus.

476 CE:

I-Hsi and Chin-ling, China: “thundering chariots” “like granite” fell to ground; vegetation was scorched. [viii]

5th–17th century CE:

The “Dark Ages” is a term in historiography referring to a period of cultural decline or societal collapse that took place in Western Europe between the Fall of Rome and the eventual recovery of learning. The dating of the Dark Ages has always been fluid, but the concept was originally intended to denote the entire period between the fall of Rome in the 5th century and the “Renaissance” or “rebirth” of classical values in the 14th to 17th centuries.

5th century CE:

• Rise of the Byzantine Empire.
• Rise of the Merovingian dynasty.

526 CE:

The Great Antioch earthquake: “…The surface of the earth boiled and foundations of buildings were struck by thunderbolts thrown up by the earthquakes and were burned to ashes by fire … Antioch became desolate … up to 250,000 people perished. [ix]

c. 536 CE:

Two large impactors, known as Kanmare and Tabban, struck off the northeastern coast of Australia, leaving underwater craters 18 km and 12 km in size respectively, causing megatsunamis, which left behind large chevron formations, followed by a period of global cooling, failed crops, famine then pestilence.

536–545 CE:

Reduced sunlight mists, known as “dry fogs”, crop failures, famines and plagues occur in China and the Mediterranean. Praetorian Prefect Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator wrote a letter documenting the conditions: “All of us are observing, as it were, a blue colored sun; we marvel at bodies which cast no mid-day shadow…” Procopius of Caesarea, a Byzantine, wrote: “… the Sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the Moon, during the whole year, and it seemed exceedingly like the Sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed.” John of Ephesus, cleric and a historian, wrote: “The Sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months … the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.”

539 CE:

The Death of King Arthur: This was also the time assigned to the legendary King Arthur, the loss of the Grail, and the manifestation of the “Waste Land.” Although scholars place the historical King Arthur in the fifth century, the date of his death is given as 539 CE. According to Mike Baillie, the imagery from the Arthurian legend is in accordance with the appearance of a comet and subsequent famine and plague: the “Waste Land” of legend … the ancient Cymric [Welsh] empire had … all but disappeared, and were replaced by Anglo-Saxons … Here we must consider that they were victims of possibly many overhead cometary explosions which wiped out most of the population of Europe, plunging it into the Dark Ages which were, apparently, really dark, atmospherically speaking.

536–539 CE:

Out on the Asian steppes, whatever happened in 536 CE caused political upheaval: the horse-based economy of the warlike Avars foundered, and their vassals, the cattle-herding Turks, overthrew them. Driven from the steppes, the Avars joined forces with the Slavs in Hungary on the borders of the Roman Empire. Gildas, who was writing at approximately 540 CE, says that the island of Britain was on fire from sea to sea “…until it had burned almost the whole surface of the island and was licking the western ocean with its fierce red tongue.” In The Life of St. Teilo, who had recently been made Bishop of Llandaf Cathedral in Morganwg, South Wales, it says: “…he could not long remain, on account of the pestilence which nearly destroyed the whole nation. It was called the “Yellow Pestilence,” because it occasioned all persons who were seized by it to be yellow and without blood, and it appeared to men a column of a watery cloud, having one end trailing along the ground, and the other above, proceeding in the air, and passing through the whole country like a shower going through the bottom of valleys. Whatever living creatures it touched with its pestiferous blast, either immediately died, or sickened for death … and so greatly did the aforesaid destruction rage throughout the nation, that it caused the country to be nearly deserted”.

540 CE:

• The Grendel impact, now under investigation, struck off the southwestern coast of Norway, creating an underwater crater 18 km in size, speculated to have caused megatsunamis on the Scottish coast and inland. A “Tree Ring Event” global eco-disaster event occurred according to leading dendrochronologist Mike Baillie.
• In Yemen, the Great Dam of Marib, dating from around the sixth century BCE, one of the engineering wonders of the ancient world and a central part of the south Arabian civilization, broke and began to collapse. By 550 CE, the dam was a complete loss and thousands of people migrated to another oasis on the Arabian peninsula, Medina. The Arab tribes, traumatized by the environmental disasters around them, began to think of conquest for the sake of survival. In 610 CE, a new leader would unify them: Muhammad.
• Although a great many historical changes happened in the seventh century, such as the Roman war with Persia, the rise of Islam, rebellion and civil war in the Roman Empire, and the advance of the Slavs driven by the Avars, it can be said that the seeds of these changes, the destruction of the old that made way for the new, all can be traced to the environmental catastrophe beginning in 536 CE.

541–542 CE:

John of Ephesus documented the progress of this “pestilence” in Constantinople, where city officials gave up trying to count the dead after two hundred thirty thousand: “The city stank with corpses … It might happen that [a person] went out to market to buy necessities and while he was standing and talking or counting his change, suddenly the end would overcome the buyer here and the seller there, the merchandise remaining in the middle with the payment for it, without there being either buyer or seller to pick it up.” [x]

c. 550 CE:

The Nahua peoples began to migrate into Mesoamerica from northern Mexico. They populated central Mexico dislocating speakers of Oto-Manguean languages as they spread their political influence south. As the former nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples mixed with the complex civilizations of Mesoamerica, adopting religious and cultural practices the foundation for later Aztec culture was laid.

580 CE:

In France a great fireball and blast occurred; Orleans and nearby towns are burned.

588 CE:

On June 25th in China a “red-colored object” fell with “noise like thunder”, it exploded and burned several houses.

616 CE:

On January 14th ten deaths reported in China from a meteorite shower; siege towers are destroyed. [xi]

670 CE:

A “Greek fire” weapon is invented in Constantinople and used to great effect by the Byzantines in battle.

7th century CE:

The beginning of Islam.

630–670 CE:

The Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa.

676 CE:

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne enacts protection legislation for birds on the Farne Islands (Northumberland, UK).

679 CE:

In Coldingham, England a monastery is destroyed by “fire from heaven” as reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

8th century CE:

Viking raids are common in Northern Europe.

c. 750 CE:

The start of the Medieval Warm period.

5th–16th century CE:

The Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christianity in the Reformation, the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance, and the beginnings of European overseas expansion.

c. 790–1076 CE:

The rise of the Ghana or Wagadou Empire in Mauritania.

800–900 CE:

The settlement of the Magyars in Hungary.

856 CE:

The Damghan earthquake in Iran kills 200,000 people.

c. 850 CE:

Severe drought exacerbated by soil erosion causes collapse of Central American city states and the end of the Classic Maya civilization.

810 CE:

In Upper Saxony, Charlemagne’s horse is startled by a meteor; it throws him to the ground.

893 CE:

The Ardabil earthquake in Iran kills 150,000 people.

900–1519 CE:

The post-Classic period in Mesoamerican civilization: Collapse of many of the great nations and cities of the Classic period, although some continue, such as in Oaxaca, Cholula, and the Maya of the Yucatán, such as at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. This is sometimes seen as a period of increased chaos and warfare. The Toltec for a time dominate Central Mexico from the 11th to 13th centuries, then collapse. The northern Maya are for a time united under Mayapan. The Aztec Empire rises in the early 15th century and seems on the path to asserting a dominance over the whole region not seen since Teotihuacan, until Mesoamerica is discovered by Spain and conquered by the conquistadores and a large number of native allies.

1010–1200 CE:

The height of Tamil civilization under the Cholas. The Indian colonization of southeast Asia occurs.

1138 CE:

The Aleppo earthquake in Syria kills 230,000 people.

1206–1368 CE:

The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in history. It emerged from the unification of Mongol and Turkic tribes in modern-day Mongolia, and grew through invasions, after Genghis Khan had been proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206 CE. At its greatest extent it stretched from the Danube to the Sea of Japan and from Novgorod to Kampuchea, covering over 33,000,000 sq. km (12,741,000 sq. mi.) — 22 percent of the Earth’s total land area — and held sway over a population of over 100 million people. The empire immediately began to split following the Succession War of 1260–1264.

c. 1250 CE:

The start of the Little Ice Age.

1290 CE:

The Chihli earthquake in China kills 100,000 people.

1293 CE:

The Kamakura earthquake in Japan kills 23,000 people.

1315–1317 CE:

The “Great Famine” affects Northern Europe. The average human life expectancy goes from 30 to 17.

1321–1368 CE:

In the O-Chia district, China “iron rain” kills people, animals and damages homes.

1347–1348 CE:

The “Black Death” killed about half the population of Western Europe. The effects of this event were possibly global though the number of deaths worldwide is unknown. Bubonic plague decimates Europe, creating the first attempts to enforce public health and quarantine laws.

1348 CE:

A January 25th earthquake in Carinthia (Austria) leaves 16 cities destroyed — “fire fell from heaven” — and over 40,000 dead.

1369 CE:

In Ho-T’ao, China a “large star” fell, starts fire and injures soldiers.

c. 1440 CE:

A large impactor, Mahuika, off the coast of New Zealand, leaves a underwater crater 20 km wide and causes megatsunamis. The local Maoris move inland.

1490 CE:

On February 3rd in Ch’ing-Yang, Shaanxi, China “stones fell like rain” — more than 10,000 killed.

1492 CE:

In Ensisheim, Alsace a 280-pound meteorite landed; in the same year Columbus reported “a marvelous branch of fire” that fell into the sea as he crossed the Atlantic. [xii]

1498 CE:

The Meiö Nankai earthquake in Japan kills 40,000 people.

1519 CE:

On March 4th Hernán Cortés lands in Mexico. The deity, Quetzalcoatl, had promised to return this year.

1516 CE:

In Nantan, China “during summertime in May of Jiajing 11th year, stars fell from the northwest direction, five to sixfold long, waving like snakes and dragons. They were as bright as lightning and disappeared in seconds.” Many of them were recovered in 1958 by local farmers when China needed steel for the “Great Leap Forward” advocated by Mao Zedong. They have coarse octahedral structure and contain 92.35 percent iron and 6.96 percent nickel, belonging to IIICD meteorite classification (Wasson et. al 1980s). Most Nantan meteorites weight from 150 to 1500 kg. [xiii]

1556 CE:

The Shaanxi earthquake kills 830,000 people.

1560–1600 CE:

Rapid industrialization in England leads to heavy deforestation and increasing substitution of coal for wood.

1586 CE:

The Mount Kelut eruption in Indonesia killed 10,000 people locally. It has erupted 30 times since 1000 CE and continues to be active, killing 5,000 with boiling mudflows in 1919, an eruption in 1990 which killed another 30 people and another again in 2007, which caused the evacuation of 30,000 residents.

c. 1600 CE:

The elephant bird, a giant flightless bird of Madagascar, becomes extinct. Known as Aepyornis, it was the world’s largest bird, believed to have been over 3 meters (10 ft) tall and weighing close to half a ton or 400 kilograms (880 lb). Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found, with a circumference of over 1 meter (3 ft) and a length up to 34 centimeters (13 in).

1600 CE:

The Huaynaputina volcano eruptions in Peru destroyed several villages and damaged major cities, Arequipa and Moquegua, killing untold thousands locally, as the largest volcano eruption in South America in historic times. The global climactic effects were even more dire, with 1601 CE being the coldest year in six centuries and a crop failure and famine in Russia killing 2 million people.

1627 CE:

The last known Auroch dies. This large wild cattle was indigenous to much of Europe.

1630–1631 CE:

A “second sun” was seen on and around May 29, 1630, and on May 20, 1631, one year later, Magdeburg fell during a bombing siege, in which 20,000 of the citizens perished in the massive fires. Apparently, the siege of the city was topped off by a cataclysmic meteor impact event.

1634 CE:

New England has a population of 10,000 English Puritans.

1639 CE:

In China a large stone fell in a market: tens were killed and tens of houses destroyed.

1654 CE:

In Milano, Italy a monk reported killed by meteorite.

1661 CE:

On August 9th in China a meteorite smashes through a roof but causes no injuries. [xiv]

1662 CE:

The last known Mauritius dodo dies. The extinction was due to hunting, but also by the pigs, rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by settlers. Later the species has become an icon on animal extinction.

1667 CE:

The Shamkhi earthquake in Azerbaijan kills 80,000 people.

1690 CE:

American Colonial Governor William Penn requires Pennsylvania settlers to preserve 1 acre (4,840 sq. yd.) of trees for every five acres cleared.

1693 CE:

An earthquake in Sicily kills 60,000 people.

1700 CE:

Some 600 ships are engaged in hauling “sea coal” from Newcastle to London, an enormous increase compared to 1650 CE, when only two ships regularly carried sea coal. Rapid industrialization and the demand for iron and naval supplies has stripped England’s forests.

1703 CE:

The Genroku earthquake in Japan kills 37,000 people.

1707 CE:

The Great Höei earthquake kills 30,000 people.

1711 CE:

Jonathan Swift notes the contents of London’s gutters: “sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud…”

1720 CE:

In India, hundreds of Bishnois Hindus of Khejadali go to their deaths trying to protect trees from the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who needed wood to fuel the lime kilns for cement to build his palace. This event has been considered as the origins of the 20th century Chipko movement.

1727 CE:

The Tabriz earthquake in Iran kills 77,000 people.

1730 CE:

THe Hokkaidö earthquake in Japan kills 137,000 people.

1755 CE:

The Lisbon earthquake kills 100,000 people.

1776 CE:

June 12–27, 1776: Thomas Jefferson, at the request of a committee, drafts a declaration of independence. Only a fragment of his original draft exists today.

1783 CE:

The American Revolutionary War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris which recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

1783 CE:

The Calabria earthquake in Italy kills 50,000 people.

1783 CE:

The Laki volcano killed 9,350 or 25 percent of Iceland’s population (another 33 percent had previously been killed due to smallpox). A thick haze of sulfur dioxide spread across Western Europe, resulting in several thousands of deaths between 1792–1793 CE. Inhaling sulfur dioxide gas causes victims to choke, as their internal organs swell. In Great Britain, alone it has been estimated that 23,000 died from this poisoning. The disruption led to a most severe winter in 1794, killing an additional 8,000 people.

1792 CE:

The eruption of Mount Unzen in Japan caused part of the volcano to collapse into the sea. The landslide caused a megatsunami 330 ft (100 meters) high that killed 15,000 people in the local fishing villages. Unzen has continuously taken lives and destroyed property, particularly during the eruptions of 1991–1995.

1797 CE:

The Quito earthquake in Ecuador kills 40,000 people.

1812 CE:

The Caracas earthquake in Venezuela kills 20,000 people.

1815 CE:

The eruption of Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia is the largest of Holocene period, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7.0. 11,000– 12,000 people were killed directly by the eruption and its climactic effects were anomalous and far ranging. 1816 became known as the “Year Without a Summer,” crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century.

1820 CE:

World human population reached 1 billion.

1828 CE:

Carl Sprengel formulates the “Law of the Minimum”, stating that growth is limited not by the total of resources available, but by the scarcest resource.

1845 CE:

The first use of the term “carrying capacity” in a report by the U.S. secretary of state to the Senate.

1854 CE:

• The Great Ansei Nankai quakes in Japan kill 85,000 people.
• Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden: Life in the Woods.

1860 CE:

The string tree from the island of St. Helena becomes extinct because of habitat destruction.

1864 CE:

George Perkins Marsh publishes The Earth as Modified by Human Action, the first systematic analysis of humanity’s destructive impact on the natural environment, which becomes (in Lewis Mumford’s words) “the fountain-head of the conservation movement.”

c. 1870 CE:

The last known Atlas Bear, Africa’s only native bear, is killed by hunters in Morocco. The bear was heavily hunted and used for sport in the Roman Empire.

1872 CE:

• The term “acid rain” is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book, Air and Rain.
• German graduate student Othmar Zeidler first synthesizes DDT, later to be used as an insecticide.

1876 CE:

The British River Pollution Control Act makes it illegal to dump sewage into a stream.

1883 CE:

Krakatoa was among the most violent volcanic events in modern times. The sound of the explosion is heard as far as Australia and China, the altered air waves causes strange colors on the sky and the volcanic gases reduce global temperatures during the following years. This volcano had wreaked similar devastation several times previously and continues to be very active, most recently in April 2008. Scientists monitoring in the volcano have warned people to stay with a 3km zone around the island.

1883–1891 CE:

The great suffering in East Africa extreme drought period that followed Krakatoa’s eruption between 1883–1902 called Emutai by the Maasai was published by Oscar Baumann, Austrian explorer of East Africa.

1884 CE:

The last known Great Auk killed. The bird was hunted to extinction. It was the only species of penguin to survive in the Northern Hemisphere until modern times.

1886 CE:

The red alga known as Bennett’s Seaweed from Australia disappears because of the massive human activities.

1889 CE:

The eastern hare-wallaby of Southeastern Australia becomes extinct.

1895 CE:

Sewage cleanup in London brought the return of some fish species (grilse, whitebait, flounder, eel, smelt) to the River Thames.

1900 CE:

The Galveston Hurricane hits Galveston, Texas. More than 8,000 residents are killed and the city’s previously rapid growth is reversed.

1902 CE:

• The explosion of Mount Pelée in Martinique caused 30,000 deaths.
• The explosion of Santa Maria in Guatemala caused 6,000 deaths.
• George Washington Carver writes How to Build Up Worn Out Soils.

1905 CE:

The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux, in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution.

1906 CE:

• The Antiquities Act, passed by the U.S. Congress, authorizes the president to set aside national monument sites.
• The San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire destroy much of the city, killing more than 3,000 residents.

1907 CE:

• On September 5th in Hsin-p’ai Wei, Weng-Li, China a “stone fell from the sky” and a whole family crushed to death.
• On December 7th in Bellefontaine, Ohio a meteorite starts a fire and destroys a house.

1908 CE:

• On June 30th the Tunguska Event in Siberia occurs. Two reportedly arekilled, and many injured. Although the meteor or comet burst in the air rather than directly hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from between 5–30 megatons of TNT — 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 sq. km (830 sq. mi.). It is estimated that the earthquake from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale (which didn’t exist yet). An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. This possibility has helped to spark discussion of asteroid deflection strategies.
• The Messina earthquake in Italy kills 100,000 people.

1910 CE:

The Usambara annone, a member of the magnolia family from Tanzania, no longer grows in the tropical forests.

1914 CE:

The last known passenger pigeon dies. Due to massive hunting to feed the poor and slaves, the passenger pigeon went from being one of the world’s most populous birds to extinction.

1916 CE:

The U.S. Congress created the National Park Service.

1918 CE:

• Spanish Flu kills between 50 to 100 million people worldwide.
• The Carolina parakeet goes extinct, the only parrot species in the Eastern U.S.
• The last Tarpan, a Ukrainian wild horse, dies in captivity.

1920 CE:

The Haiyuan earthquake in China kills 240,000 people.

1921 CE:

Thomas Midgley discovers lead components to be an efficient antiknock agent in gasoline engines. In spite of the well-known toxic effects, lead went into ubiquitous use. First banned from use in Japan in 1986.

1922 CE:

On April 24th in Barnegat, New Jersey a meteor fall rocked buildings, shattered windows, left clouds of noxious gas.

1923 CE:

The Great Kanto earthquake in Japan kills 105,000 people.

1927 CE:

• The Great Mississippi Flood occurs.
• The Gulang, Gansu earthquake in China kills 40,000 people./li>

1928 CE:

Thomas Midgley develops chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a non-toxic refrigerant. The first warnings of damage to stratospheric ozone were published by Molina and Rowland in 1974. They shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work. Since 1987 world production is reduced under the Montreal Protocol and banned in most countries.

1929 CE:

The Swann Chemical Company develops polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) for transformer coolant use. Research in the 1960s revealed PCBs to be potent carcinogens. Banned from production in the U.S. in 1976, probably 1 million tons of PCBs were manufactured globally, in total.

1930 CE:

• On August 13th the Rio Curaca event occurs, known as the “Brazilian “Tunguska event.” An ear-piercing “whistling” sound is heard in Brazil, which might be understood as being a manifestation of the electrophonic phenomena associated with meteors. The sun appears to be “blood-red” before the explosion. It is theorized that the Earth was within the tail of the small comet. There was a fall of fine ash prior to the explosion, which covered the surrounding vegetation with a blanket of white.
• The last known giant aye-aye killed in Madagascar. The primate species was 2.5 to 5 times the size of the currently endangered aye-aye.
• World human population reached 2 billion.

1931 CE:

• On July 10th in Malinta, Ohio a blast occurs leaving a crater, the smell of sulfur, windows broken in a farmhouse, four telephone poles snapped and wires down; it’s believed to have been an overhead cometary fragment explosion.
• On September 8th in Hagerstown, Maryland a meteor crashes through a roof.

1932 CE:

• On August 4th in São Cristóvão, Brazil a meteor fall destroys a warehouse roof.
• On August 10th in Archie, Missouri a homestead is struck; a person residing there was missed by less than 1 meter.
• The Changma, Gansu earthquake in China kills 70,000 people.

1933 CE:

• The Diexi earthquake in China kills 9,000 people.
• The Sanriku earthquake in Japan kills 3,000 people.

1932–1937 CE:

An exceptional precipitation absence in the Northern Hemisphere, exacerbated by human activities, causes the Dust Bowl drought of the U.S. Plains and the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. (The result being harsh economic damage in the U.S. and widespread death in USSR.)

1933 CE:

• The cry Pansy from Europe becomes extinct due habitat loss and overcollection in the only place where it grows, France.
• On February 24th in Stratford, Texas a bright fireball, 4-lb metallic mass falls, burning a field a grass.

1934 CE:

• On February 16th a pilot flying over Texas swerves to avoid crash with a fireball.
• On February 18th in Seville, Spain a house is struck and burned by an object.
• On September 28th a pilot flying over California escapes a fireball shower (one assumes this means he performed several evasive maneuvers).
• The Bihar earthquake in India kills 10,700 people.

1935 CE:

• The Baluchistan earthquake in Pakistan kills 60,000 people.
• On December 11th in British Guyana, devastation occurs that might be greater than that the Tunguska event. Eyewitness accounts were in accord with a large meteoroid entry, with a body passing overhead accompanied by a terrific roar (presumably electrophonic effects) that later became concussions for observers, and the sky being lit up like daylight. A local aircraft operator reported seeing an area of forest more than twenty miles (32 kilometers) in extent which had been destroyed, and he later stated that the shattered jungle was elongated rather than circular, as occurred at Tunguska. (The most likely entry angle for all cosmic projectiles is 45 degrees.)

1939 CE:

• An earthquake in Chile kills 20,000 people.
• The Erzincan earthquake in Turkey kills 32,962 people.
• The insecticidal properties of DDT discovered by Paul Hermann Müller, who was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his efforts. The first ban on its use came in 1970.

1942 CE:

The Vegas Valley leopard frog is last seen in Nevada.

1943 CE:

The Toolache Wallaby, an Australian marsupial is declared extinct.

1945 CE:

• On July 16th the U.S. successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
• On August 6th and 9th, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occur, the first use of atomic weapons during war. The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, with roughly half of those deaths occuring on the days of the bombings.
• The Balochistan earthquake in Pakistan kills 4,000 people.

1947 CE:

On February 12th in Sikhote Alin, Vladivostok (Russia) an iron meteorite breaks apart about 5 miles above the Earth: raining debris. It produced over 100 craters with the largest being around 85 feet in diameter. The strewnfield covered an area of about 1 mile by a 1/2 mile, damaging many trees in this area. A total of 23 tons of meteorites were recovered and it’s been estimated the total mass was around 70 tons when it broke up.

1948 CE:

• Ashgabat earthquake in Turkmenistan kills 110,000 people.
• Fukui earthquake in Japan kills 3,894 people.

1949 CE:

Khait earthquake in Tajikistan kills 18,000 people.

c. 1950 CE:

The Israel painted frog goes extinct because its marsh habitat is drained.

1954 CE:

The first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid started operations at Obninsk, Soviet union on June 27th. The first substantial accident happened on October 10, 1957 in Windscale, England.

1956 CE:

• Minamata disease, a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning.
• U.S. establishes the Fish and Wildlife Act.

1958 CE:

• Mauna Loa Observatory initiates monitoring of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) levels. The time series eventually became the main reference on global atmospheric change.
• Lituya Bay megatsunami: On July 9, 1958, a giant landslide at the head of Lituya Bay in Alaska, caused by an earthquake, generated a wave with an initial amplitude of 1,720 ft (524 m). This is the highest wave ever recorded, and surged over the headland opposite, stripping trees and soil down to bedrock, and surged along the fjord which forms Lituya Bay, destroying a fishing boat anchored there and killing two people. Howard Ultrich and his son managed to ride the wave in their boat, and both survived.

1960 CE:

• Valdivia earthquake in Chile kills 6,000 people.
• Agadir earthquake in Morocco kills 15,000 people.
• World human population reached 3 billion.

1966 CE:

• Xingtai earthquake in China kills 8,064 people.
• US. establishes the National Wildlife Refuge System Act and the Fur Seal Act.
• The last Arabian ostrich died.

1968 CE:

The National Trails System Act and Wild and Scenic Rivers Acts are passed by the U.S. Congress.

1969 CE:

• The National Environmental Policy Act includes the first requirements on environmental impact assessment in the U.S.
• Accidental pollution of the Rhine in Europe, by 500 liters of endosulfan, a kind of insecticide. More than 600 km of the river was contaminated and at least 20 million fish died.
• >The Icelandic herring stock collapses as a result of a combination of high fishing pressure and deteriorating environmental conditions.
• Category 5 Hurricane Camille caused damage and destruction across much of the Gulf Coast of the United States.
• Several meteorite strikes occured throughout the world: 25 April 25th, Bovedy, North Ireland; August 7th, Andreevka, USSR; September 16th, Suchy Dul, Czechoslovakia; September 28th, Murchison, Australia.

c. 1970 CE:

The Caspian tiger becomes extinct. Nearly exterminated by the Russian government in the early 20th century the last of its population succumbed to deforestation and hunting.

1970 CE:

• The Ancash earthquake in Peru kills 66,000 people.
• On April 22th, millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth day organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is established.
• The Clean Air Act and the Resource Recovery Act are enacted.
• Arne Naess leads the non-violent civil disobedience protest against damming of the Mardalsfossen waterfall, later publishing on the deep ecology philosophy

1971 CE:

• Greenpeace founded in Vancouver, Canada. The international environmental organization later developed national and regional offices in 41 countries worldwide.
• International Institute for Environment and Development established in London, UK. One offshoot is the World Resources Institute with its biannual report World Resources since 1984.
• Nonprofit Keep America Beautiful launches the nationwide “Crying Indian” television public service advertisement, reaching nearly every American household.

1972 CE:

• The Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden from June 5th–16th is the first of a series of world environmental conferences. The United Nations Environment Program is founded as a result of the Stockholm conference.
• The Oslo Convention on dumping waste at sea is later merged with the Paris Convention on land-based sources of marine pollution into the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the northeast Atlantic.
• The Club of Rome publishes its report Limits to Growth, which has sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations, making it the bestselling environmental book in world history.
• The Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (also known as Ocean Dumping Act), the Noise Control Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act are passed in the U.S.
• The first photograph of the whole illuminated Earth, taken from space in Apollo 17, results in the famous “Blue Marble” photograph, said to have been at least partly responsible for launching the modern environmental movement.
• Major amendments passed to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

1974 CE:

• The Hunza earthquake in Pakistan kills 5,300 people.
• Chlorofluorocarbons are first hypothesized to cause ozone thinning.
• The National Reserves Management Act and the State Natural Heritage Program Network are launched in the U.S.
• World human population reached 4 billion.

1975 CE:

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act is passed.

1976 CE:

• The Tangshan earthquake in China kills 255,000 people.
• The Guatemala earthquake in capital kills 23,000 people.
• The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is passed.

1977 CE:

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act are passed.

On January 31th in Louisville, Kentucky three buildings and a car are struck by meteorites.

1978 CE:

Brominated flame-retardants replaces PCBs as the major chemical flame retardant. Swedish scientists noticed these substances to be accumulating in human breast milk 1998. First ban on use in the EU 2004.

1979 CE:

• Three Mile Island occurs, the worst nuclear power accident in U.S. history.
• The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution is established to reduce air pollutant emissions and acid rain.
• Hans Jonas publishes The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age.
• On September 22nd, the Vela Incident (sometimes known as the “South Atlantic Flash”): The flash was detected at 00:53 GMT, by a U.S. Vela satellite that was specifically developed to detect nuclear explosions. The satellite reported the characteristic double flash (a very fast and very bright flash, then a longer and less-bright one) of an atmospheric nuclear explosion of two to three kilotons, in the Indian Ocean between Bouvet Island and the Prince Edward Islands at 47° S, 40° E. Hydrophones operated by the U.S. Navy detected a signal which was consistent with a small nuclear explosion on or slightly under the surface of the water near the Prince Edward Islands. The radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, also detected an anomalous traveling ionospheric disturbance at the same time. “There remains uncertainty about whether the South Atlantic flash in September 1979 recorded by optical sensors on the U.S. Vela satellite was a nuclear detonation and, if so, to whom it belonged.”

1980 CE:

• Mount St. Helens erupts explosively in Washington state.
• Superfund (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or CERCLA) is established.

1984 CE:

An active year for meteor strikes:

• On June 15th in Nantong, China a meteor misses man by 7 m.
• On June 30th in Aomori, Japan a building struck by a meteor.
• On August 22nd in Tomiya, Japan two buildings hit by meteors.
• On September 30th in Binnigup, Australia two sunbathers missed by 5 m.
• On December 5th in Cuneo, Italy a strong explosion breaks windows and the daytime fireball seen is described as “bright as the Sun.”
• On December 10th in Claxton, Georgia a mailbox destroyed by meteorite.

1985 CE:

The Mexico City earthquake kills 9,500 people.

1986 CE:

The Chernobyl disaster occurs on April 26th at a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union. It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7 instance on the International Nuclear Event Scale. It resulted in a severe release of radioactivity into the environment, with four hundred times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The plume drifted over extensive parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America, with light nuclear rain falling as far as Ireland. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people.

1987 CE:

• The world human population reached 5 billion.
• The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future on sustainable development, is published.

1988 CE:

• The Spitak earthquake in Armenia kills 25,000 people.
• The Ocean Dumping Ban Act is passed.
• Th eIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by two United Nations organizations, the >World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to assess the “risk of human-induced climate change”.

1989 CE:

The Exxon Valdez creates largest oil spill in U.S. history.

1991 CE:

• The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed October 4th. The agreement provides for the protection of the Antarctic environment through five specific annexes on marine pollution, fauna, and flora, environmental impact assessments, waste management, and protected areas. It prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific.
• The world’s worst oil spill occurs in Kuwait during the Gulf War.

1992 CE:

• The Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3rd to June 14th, was unprecedented for a United Nations conference, in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns.
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened for signature on May 9th ahead of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
• The International Convention on Biological Diversity opened for signature on June 5th and World Ocean Day began on June 8th at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
• The Canadian government closes all eastern seaboard fishing grounds due to insufficient recovery of the stock.
• Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency is established.
• The metaphor “ecological footprint” is coined by William Rees.

1993 CE:

One of the most destructive floods in United States history involving the Missouri and Mississippi river valleys occured.

1994 CE:

• United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification occured.
• The first genetically modified food crop released to the market. It remains a strongly controversial environmental issue.
• Saint Croix Racer, a snake native to the Virgin Islands, declared extinct.
• Levuana Moth from Hawaii goes extinct.
• An explosion occurred in the village of Cando, Spain on the morning of January 18th. There were no casualties in this incident, which has been described as being like a small Tunguska event. Up to 200 cubic meters of terrain was missing and trees were found displaced 100 m down the hill.
• On July 16th fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy began impacting Jupiter.

1995 CE:

Scotland’s Environmental Protection Agency is established.

1996 CE:

• According to an Associated Press report on November 26th: “A meteorite slammed into a sparsely populated area of Honduras last month, terrifying residents and leaving a 165-foot-wide crater, near San Luis, in the western province of Santa Barbara.
• Western Shield, a wildlife conservation project, is started in Western Australia, and through successful work has taken several species off of the state, national, and international (IUCN) endangered species lists.

1997 CE:

• In July, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which stated that theUnited States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as other industrialized nations.
• The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. It is actually an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases.
• The last known Aldabra banded snail from the Seychelles Islands found. Scientists believe global warming >may have been the reason for the snail’s demise.
• The hainan ormosia (a species of legume) which was native to China is no longer seen.

1999 CE:

World human population reached 6 billion.

2000 CE:

• The last Pyrenean Ibex dies under a fallen tree. The reasons for the extinction of this wild goat are still being debated.
• Ice chunks, weighing up to 6.6 pounds, rained on Spain for 10 days in January causing extensive damage to cars and an industrial storage facility. At first, scientists thought the phenomenon was unique to Spain. During the past three years, however, they’ve accumulated strong evidence that megacryometeors are falling all around the globe. More than 50 falls have been confirmed, and researchers believe that’s a small fraction of the actual number, since others may hit unoccupied areas or melt before discovery. Most megacrymeteor falls occur in January, February and March. Megacryometeors show the telltale onionskin layering seen in hailstones. They also contain dust particles and air pockets found in hail. But they are formed in cloudless skies, a notion that defies research on hail formation.
• The same month in Canada a 150-ton meteoroid lit the skies over Whitehorse, Yukon and exploded over a lake about 100 kilometers south of the city. The Tagish Lake meteor produced a treasure of information about a rare kind of meteorite.

2001 CE:

• The U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol.
• From July 25th to 23 September 23rd in Kerala, India, red rain sporadically fell; staining clothes with an appearance similar to that of blood. Yellow, green, and black rain was also reported. The rains were the result of the atmospheric disintegration of a comet, according to a study conducted at the School of Pure and Applied Physics of Mahatma Gandhi University by Dr. Godfrey Louis and his student Santosh Kumar. The red rain cells were devoid of DNA, which suggests their extraterrestrial origin. The findings published in the international journal Astrophysics and Space Science state that the cometery fragment contained dense collection of red cells.
• On June 6th an asteroid/comet explosion occurs over the Mediterranean. Estimated at five to 10 meters (30 ft) in diameter, it released a burst of energy comparable to double the yield of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

2002 CE:

• On June 6th the Eastern Mediterranean event occured, a high-energy aerial explosion over the Mediterranean Sea, at around 34° N, 21° E (between Libya and Crete, Greece). This explosion has been related to an asteroid undetected while approaching the Earth. The object disintegrated and no part was recovered. It was detected by satellites and seismographic stations, with a calculated yield of about 26 kilotons of TNT (approximately double the yield of the Hiroshima bomb). At the time, India and Pakistan — nations with nuclear weapons — were in the middle of a military standoff and on high alert. It has been said that had the explosion happened in this area (the location of the event and Kashmir are on the same latitude), >it could have been possibly taken for an attack, potentially triggering a nuclear war between these countries.
• On September 24th near Irkutsk, Siberia at 1:50 a.m. (local time) eyewitness accounts of the event reported a large luminous object falling to Earth. Hunters in the region have also reported the existence of a crater surrounded by burnt forest suggesting that an impact event had occurred. The event was detected by near-by geophones as a moderate-earthquake. The event was also detected by a U.S. anti-missile defense military satellite. Some attempts were made to define the magnitude of the explosion. US military analysts calculated it was between 0.2–0.5 kilotons, while Russian physicist Andrey Olkhovatov estimates it at 4–5 kilotons. [xv]

2003 CE:

• The Bam earthquake in Iran kills 30,000 people.
• A European heat wave results in the premature deaths of at least 35,000 people.
• The last individual from the St. Helena olive, which was grown in cultivation, dies off. The last plant in the wild died in 1994.

2004 CE:

• In June in Auckland, New Zealand a meteor crashes through roof of home, damaging a sofa. The meteorite was a four billion-year-old 1.3 kg rock; it bounced off the couch, ricocheted off the ceiling and landed back on to the couch before ending up on the floor.
• On September 3rd a small asteroid exploded in the stratosphere above Antarctica depositing sufficient micron-sized dust particles to cause “local cooling” and much speculation as to the possible effects on the ozone layer. [xvi]
• The Indian Ocean earthquake on December 26th causes large tsunamis, killing 286,000 people. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.4 inches) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

2005 CE:

• The Kashmir earthquake in India kills 86,000 people.
• Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to coastal communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast region and the deaths of almost 2,000 people.
• The Kyoto Protocol comes into force on February 16th following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004.

2006 CE:

• Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore releases An Inconvenient Truth a documentary that describes global warming. The next year Gore is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (jointly with the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) for this and related efforts.
• The Stern Review is published.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that it shows that scientific evidence of global warming was “overwhelming” and its consequences “disastrous.”
• World human population reached 6.5 billion.
• China’s freshwater river dolphin, the baiji, is declared “functionally extinct,” after a survey failed to find a single animal.
• The Western Black Rhinoceros is declared the subspecies to be tentatively extinct.
• On Febraury 1st in Calgary, Canada 20 people reported seeing a fireball, an exceptionally bright meteor, streak across the sky lasting for several seconds before breaking up into fragments. It was estimated that remnants of the meteorite landed about 400 km south of Calgary somewhere in Montana about two minutes after it appeared as a ball of fire.
• Also on Febraury 1st in Bangladesh a “meteor” from outer space fell with a big bang on a field in Singpara village of Sadar Upazila creating panic and curiosity among people. The meteor was kept in custody of the Thakurgaon Police Station.
• On Febraury 17th and on 20th in Scotland meteors strike the earth near Stirling Castle.
• On April 12th in Australia a Perth astronomer says a spectacular light show in the sky was a meteor. Sightings were made as far south as Albany and inland through the Wheat Belt. It lit up the countryside for hundreds of kilometers around the southwest of Western Australia. Witnesses say the sky “lit up” and the light was followed by a “thundering sound” that shook buildings.
• On May 4th in Texas astronomers said a large meteor shower crossed straight over El Paso just before 9:45 p.m. (local time). One meteor was so large that it cast an orange glow against the mountain. An eyewitness said that “the animals were going wild, the horses were bucking and dogs were barking and howling and then, all of a sudden right above my house, there was a big bright light and then just ‘Bang!’. And it lit up the five acres that are around us, and then I covered my eyes like this because it was bright and when it got past. I saw there was a tail and it just went ‘Shhhh’ toward the Hueco Mountains.”
• On June 2nd in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Canada a fireball was spotted estimated to be some 20 miles above the Earth’s surface. A sonic boom was heard in Minnesota, so there may be some pieces of the meteor that survived the fall.
• On June 7th in Norway alarge meteorite struck, landing with an impact an astronomer compared to the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima. The meteorite appeared as a ball of fire just after 2 a.m. (local time), visible across several hundred miles in the sunlit summer sky above the Arctic Circle.
• On June 25th in Pennsylvania residents of the Tuscarawas Valley heard a deafening boom about 12:40 a.m. and stepped outside likely saw what one person described as “a marvelous fireball with red streaks in the sky.” Several said their homes shook.
• On July 10th in South Africa an ice ball that landed in Douglasdale, South Africa, might be one of the first “megacryometeors” recorded in Africa. The ice ball, which landed on the pavement in suburban Douglasdale was about the size of a microwave oven. The impact of the ice ball’s fall created a small crater on the pavement, which was covered with pieces of broken ice. Despite sharing many chemical characteristics with hail, the ice balls are formed under clear-sky conditions.
• On July 14h in Norway at 10:20 a.m. (local time) a bus driver from Ås, was sitting in the outhouse at his holiday cabin when he heard an enormous blast. Right after that, some particles from a meteor that exploded over the Oslo area rained down just outside. He said he didn’t think too much about the surprising blast at first, dismissing it as probably coming from an exercise at a nearby military air station at Rygge. But he said the blast and the rumbling it caused was terrible. He was just hooking the door when he heard a new noise, a whistling sort of sound, followed by a new bang on some aluminum plates lying near the outhouse. Sure enough, it was particles from a meteor that exploded somewhere over the Oslo Fjord area. Astronomers confirmed the remarkable discovery of meteorite particles on his property. “This is Norway’s 14th meteorite, but we’ve never heard about a meteorite landing so close to a person before.”
• On September 12th in New Zealand a farmer found a 10 cm by 5 cm piece of “almost weightless” rock in his field near the town of Dunsandel, south of Christchurch. A meteorite tore across the sky over the northern half of the South Island that afternoon, leaving a bright, burning trial behind it and causing a sonic boom that rattled houses and shook the ground. It then apparently erupted into a fireball, sending forth a thick puff of smoke. People were sent running from their homes and offices when they heard the boom, fearing buildings could collapse. The sonic boom was registered on earthquake-detecting equipment. The boom meant the meteorite was probably traveling “very low.”
• On October 10th in Germany a fire that destroyed a cottage near Bonn and injured a 77-year-old man was probably caused by a meteor and witnesses saw an arc of blazing light in the sky. Burkhard Rick, a spokesman for the police in Siegburg east of Bonn, said the fire gutted the cottage and badly burnt the man’s hands and face in the incident.
• On December 1st NASA reported that meteoroids are smashing into the Moon a lot more often than anyone expected. Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said this after his team observed two Leonids hitting the Moon on Nov. 17th. “We’ve now seen 11 and possibly 12 lunar impacts since we started monitoring the Moon one year ago. That’s about four times more hits than our computer models predicted.”

2007 CE:

• On January 4th authorities in eastern New Jersey were trying to identify a mysterious metallic object that crashed through the roof of a house. Nobody was injured when the golf-ball sized object, weighing nearly as much as a can of soup, struck the home and embedded itself in a wall. Approximately 20 to 50 rock-like objects fall every day over the entire planet, said Carlton Pryor, a professor of astronomy at Rutgers University.
• On January 10th in Russia a meteorite fell in the Altai Territory of southern Siberia. Researchers found an extraterrestrial substance which could be meteorite fragments. “We have collected about 50 samples, and vitreous threads (traces of comet substance) were discovered in the first of them using a microscope.” Local motorists and residents witnessed the impact of a fiery ball, which eventually ended in a loud explosion.
• On January 24th in Virginia, Giles County residents were a shaken after a tremor-like event. Virginia Tech researchers say they received several calls about a meteor sighting the same time of the tremors. The bizarre incident took place around 8 p.m. Researchers say the seismic station in Giles County did get a very short but intense seismic signal.
• On January 31st in Turkey police were inundated with calls from scores of people from Didim to Bodrum after they heard a big bang and a flash of light across the skies. The flashing green, yellow and red lights were from a meteorite which crashed through the earth’s atmosphere and landed in Yesilkent.
• On February 4th across the Midwestern United States, scores of people reported seeing flames and fiery explosions in the sky. Reports came from residents in central Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
• On February 15th in central Ohio there was a loud bang, something loud enough to be heard all county-wide, and loud enough to make small objects move in houses. One man said he saw a meteor with a relatively long trail, with red, green and gold coloration. It was headed east to west and lasted about three seconds; after it faded, the sonic boom washed over him. An eyewitness said, “I saw it first. It was the most eerie, cool, scary, wonderful thing. You just see this dragon tail going across the sky. All of a sudden, everything goes boom.”
• On February 22nd in Rajasthan, India three people were killed and four injured in a mysterious blast. Villagers claim was caused by a meteorite.
• On Feburary 23rd Panamanian geologists found a meteorite at Rio Hato, a coastal town west of the capital Panama City. The landing was witnessed by a security guard, who described it as a ball of fire crashing down from the sky onto the sand. The 4.2 kg red object, measuring 20 cm in diameter, was X-rayed for more details. The meteorite shows burn marks on its exterior, and appears to be mainly carbon-based, in contrast to most meteorites, which mainly contain iron.
• On March 29th flaming debris of a possible meteor almost hit a plane. The pilots of a Chilean passenger jet reported seeing flaming debris fall past their aircraft as it approached the airport at Auckland, New Zealand. The pilots reported the near-miss to air traffic controllers, reportedly saying the noise of the debris breaking the sound barrier could be heard above the roar of his aircraft’s engines.
• On May 10th in Spain a fireball fell across the center of the country, with sightings in Cuenca, Toledo, Ciudad Real and Valladolid.
• On May 14th in Hubbardton, Vermont a quake, recorded as a 2.1 on the Richter scale, hit at 4:10 a.m. One Hubbardton resident who said he was wide awake at 4 a.m. said he not only felt the earthquake, but saw what caused it. He said he saw something in the sky to the northeast of Lake Hortonia: “It was like a streak of fire. I’ve heard meteorites hit before and that was what it sounded like. It was no earthquake, it was a meteor.”
• On May 26th in Woburn, Massachusetts a meteorite punched a hole through a warehouse roof.
• On Jume 10th in Sri Lanka the strange objects that lit the night skies were confirmed as meteors. News reports said “This is the first time that meteors of such magnitude have fallen in Sri Lanka. The shockwaves and vibrations have been heard throughout the country, from Galle to Puttalam.” The loud explosions were some of the particles exploding, probably about 50 to 100 km above the ground.
• On July 6th in Cali, Colombia an incoming object broke apart in the lower atmosphere with a trio of ferocious explosions that shattered windows and shook the ground violently. Moments later, stones rained from the sky and pelted homes in the poor barrios surrounding the city. Some smashed through the roofs of homes. Recovered objects were chondritic meteorite.
• On July 26th in Iowa at 5:30 a.m. a Dubuque woman said she is lucky to be alive after a 50 pound chunk of white ice crashed through the roof of her home. Other large chunks of ice fell from the sky in this northeast Iowa city, tearing through nearby trees. Dubuque had clear skies at the time the ice fell.
• On September 15th in the Peruvian Highlands a meteorite’s impact sent debris flying up to 820 feet (250 meters) away, with some material landing on the roof of the nearest home 390 feet (120 meters) from the crater. Nearby residents who visited the impact crater complained of headaches and nausea.
• On October 3rd in Minnesota people across the Twin Cities reported seeing a “metallic” object or “flaming ball” falling from the sky. A man who lives near the town of Amiret says it shook his house and sounded like a sonic boom from an F-14 breaking the sound barrier at close range. Coincidentally, at the same time, drivers in the Twin Cities metro were dodging debris in the middle of Interstate 94. [xvii]
• Power Shift 2007, the first National Youth Climate Conference, was held in College Park, MD and Washington, D.C. from November 2nd to 5th. It saw over 5,000 youth converge in Washington, D.C. to build their movement, lobby Congress, and make a statement about the way youth feel about global warming.

2008 CE:

• The Sichuan earthquake in China kills 69,197 people.
• On February 19th an apparent meteor streaked through the sky over the Pacific Northwest, drawing reports of bright lights and sonic booms in parts of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
• On March 5th the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Western Ontario captured video of a large fireball. The department received a number of calls and emails from people who actually saw the light.
• On March 8th in Turkey a resident of Yaka said he heard a loud roaring noise at around 11:20 a.m. on the day a meteorite fell, sounding as if “a plane had crashed.”
• On March 10th in Sudbury, Canada great balls of fire were seen falling from the sky.
• On March 13th a meteorite was videotaped hitting the Moon.
• On April 6th in Argentina a “space rock” reportedly crashed in Entre Rios Province. [xviii]




ENDNOTES

[i] Leonard, R. Cedric, 1979, Appendix A in “A Geological Study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,” Special Paper No. 1 (Bethany: Cowen Publishing)

[ii] University of Bristol. March 31st, 2008. Cuneiform clay tablet translated for the first time, Physorg.com See also University of Bristol’s Aerospace Engineering Köfels impact Home Page and links: www.bris.ac.uk/aerospace/research/dynamicsandsystems/kofels.

[iii] Saraswati, Prakashanand. January 1, 2002.The True History and the Religion of India New Delhi, India (Motilal Banarsidass) 978-8120817890

[iv] Knight-Jadczyk, Laura, April 2008, “THE LIST: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls” laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com

[v] October, 15 2004, “Scientists Say Comet Smashed Into Southern Germany In 200 BC” Spacedaily.com (Agence France-Presse).

[vi] Op Cit. Knight-Jadczyk, Laura.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] John Malalas quoted by Jeffreys, E., Jeffreys, M. and Scott, R. 1986, “The Chronicle of John Malalas”, Byzantina Australiensia, Melbourne Australia (Australian Assoc. Byzantine Studies 4)

[x] Op Cit. Knight-Jadczyk, Laura.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Ibid.

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Ibid.