Thales and the eclipse of 585 BCE
Tradition credits Thales of Miletus with predicting a solar eclipse and with proposing a single natural substrate — water — behind all things.
Humanity
115 events across three thousand years — chosen to be multi-regional and honest about uncertainty. Follow a thread to trace one capability through time, or filter by region and kind.
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Socrates questions Athens
Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.
Plato founds the Academy
Plato's school outside Athens — 'let no one ignorant of geometry enter' — pursued definitions, mathematics and the theory of Forms for centuries.
Aristotle classifies the world
Aristotle systematized logic, biology, ethics, politics and poetics — the first person to organize knowledge into fields and investigate them empirically.
Augustine writes the Confessions
Augustine of Hippo invented the introspective autobiography, probing memory, time, will and desire in his search for God.
Machiavelli writes The Prince
Written in exile near Florence and published in 1532, The Prince analyzed power as it is practiced rather than as preachers say it should be.
Descartes doubts everything
Meditations on First Philosophy razed every belief that could be doubted, rebuilding from a single certainty: a thinking self — cogito, ergo sum.
Chronology
Thales and the eclipse of 585 BCE
Tradition credits Thales of Miletus with predicting a solar eclipse and with proposing a single natural substrate — water — behind all things.
Socrates questions Athens
Socrates wrote nothing; he walked and talked, pressing Athenians to define justice, courage and the good — and died for refusing to stop.
Plato founds the Academy
Plato's school outside Athens — 'let no one ignorant of geometry enter' — pursued definitions, mathematics and the theory of Forms for centuries.
Aristotle classifies the world
Aristotle systematized logic, biology, ethics, politics and poetics — the first person to organize knowledge into fields and investigate them empirically.
Augustine writes the Confessions
Augustine of Hippo invented the introspective autobiography, probing memory, time, will and desire in his search for God.
Machiavelli writes The Prince
Written in exile near Florence and published in 1532, The Prince analyzed power as it is practiced rather than as preachers say it should be.
Descartes doubts everything
Meditations on First Philosophy razed every belief that could be doubted, rebuilding from a single certainty: a thinking self — cogito, ergo sum.