TIMELINE

1905: Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

1911: Chinese revolution ends millennia of imperial rule.

1914: First World War breaks out. Panama canal opens.

1917: Russian Revolution.

1918: First World War ends; collapse of Austrian, German and Turkish empires.

1923: Discovery of galaxies other than Milky Way.

1928: Discovery of penicillin.

1929: Wall Street Crash heralds Great Depression of 1930s.

1933: Nazis come to power in Germany.

1937: War between China and Japan, till 1945.

1939: Second World War begins.

1943: Colossus, first electronic computer, cracks German codes at Bletchley Park.

1945: Atomic bombs destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Second World War ends. United Nations founded. Cold War begins (until 1989).

1947: India becomes independent.

1949: Communists win civil war in China. Formation of NATO.

1950-3: Korean War.

1957: Soviets put first artificial satellite into space. Foundation of Common Market in Europe.

1960: World population 3 billion.

1961: First manned space flight.

1967: First human heart transplant.

1969: First human landing on the Moon.

1975: End of Vietnam War.

1976: US Viking landers touch down on Mars.

1978: First test-tube baby.

1979: Smallpox eradicated.

1989: Invention of the World Wide Web.

1991: Break-up of Soviet Union.

1997: First cloned mammal.

1999: World population reaches 6 billion.

2003: Human Genome Project completed.

2011: World population reaches 7 billion.

2012: Large Hadron Collider demonstrates existence of the Higgs boson.