Timeline

Timeline of the Bear

27 million BC	1.5 million BC	300,000 BC	100,000 BC
Dawn bear roamed parts of Europe. This earliest member of the Ursidae family was about the size of a small terrier and probably looked much like a raccoon	Ursus etruscus evolved and became a direct ancestor of the brown bear, American and Asian black bears, sloth bear and the sun bear	Ursus spelaeus, the great European cave bear, roamed much of Europe	Encounters between bears and humans led to paintings of bears in the caves of western Europe and perhaps to bear cults

27 million BC

1.5 million BC

300,000 BC

100,000 BC

Dawn bear roamed parts of Europe. This earliest member of the Ursidae family was about the size of a small terrier and probably looked much like a raccoon

Ursus etruscus evolved and became a direct ancestor of the brown bear, American and Asian black bears, sloth bear and the sun bear

Ursus spelaeus, the great European cave bear, roamed much of Europe

Encounters between bears and humans led to paintings of bears in the caves of western Europe and perhaps to bear cults

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4th century AD	8th century AD	C. 500–800	C. 1000	1580
St Blaise, patron saint of Candlemas, is associated with bears since Candlemas occurs in the spring when bears emerge from their winter dens	Norse warriors who took on the frenzied attributes of bears in battle were known as berserkers and were greatly feared throughout northern Europe	Common for bears to be associated with chieftainships or kingships, as with the legendary King Arthur and Beowulf	An early menagerie at the abbey of St Gall in Switzerland included bears	Charles IX of France includes bears in his animal park in Paris

1872	1894	1902	1911	1926
Yellowstone Park is founded, which will serve as the main refuge for grizzly bears in the United States outside Alaska	Rudyard Kipling publishes The Jungle Book and introduces children to the bear Baloo	The first teddy bear is made in Brooklyn, New York, by Morris Michton, followed closely by the Steiff bears made by Margarette Steiff in Gingen-an-der-Brenz, Germany	The British Parliament outlaws dancing bears	Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne is published, and it quickly becomes a children’s classic

1872

1894

1902

1911

1926

Yellowstone Park is founded, which will serve as the main refuge for grizzly bears in the United States outside Alaska

Rudyard Kipling publishes The Jungle Book and introduces children to the bear Baloo

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The first teddy bear is made in Brooklyn, New York, by Morris Michton, followed closely by the Steiff bears made by Margarette Steiff in Gingen-an-der-Brenz, Germany

The British Parliament outlaws dancing bears

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne is published, and it quickly becomes a children’s classic

40,000 BC	285 BC	C. AD 30	2nd century AD
Cult objects and figurines portraying bears originated about this time	It is recorded that a great white bear at Ptolemy II’s court was paraded through the streets of Alexandria on ceremonial occasions	The Roman emperor Caligula killed 400 bears in the Colosseum in one day	Bears are pitted against humans and other animals in the Colosseum in Rome

1607	1804	1835	1837	1869
Edward Topsell includes a description of bears in his bestiary, History of Four-Footed Beasts	Meriwether Lewis and William Clark travel across the North American continent and record some of the first accounts of the grizzly bear	The British Parliament makes bear baiting illegal	The children’s story Goldilock’s and the Three Bears is first published in London.	French missionary Père Armand David sends a panda skin to the Paris Museum of Natural History. This is the first record of a panda skin reaching the West

1607

1804

1835

1837

1869

Edward Topsell includes a description of bears in his bestiary, History of Four-Footed Beasts

images

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark travel across the North American continent and record some of the first accounts of the grizzly bear

The British Parliament makes bear baiting illegal

The children’s story Goldilock’s and the Three Bears is first published in London.

images

French missionary Père Armand David sends a panda skin to the Paris Museum of Natural History. This is the first record of a panda skin reaching the West

1942	1944	1958	C. 1961	2001
William Faulkner expands his short story ‘The Bear’ in his collection Go Down, Moses	The fire-fighting Smokey Bear first appeared in the United States on posters urging the public to prevent forest fires	Michael Bond creates Paddington Bear, and stories of his adventures are translated into 22 languages	Bear farming to extract bile from bears is begun in North Korea	Berlin’s ‘Summer of the Bears’ entertains tourists and Berliners alike. In the us, the Post Office issues stamps commemorating the teddy bear