Timeline: Early modern world

1500 – 1800 · 42 articles, earliest first. Browse this era by continent.

1. 1498 · South AsiaTwelve pieces of striped cloth: da Gama's gift to the Zamorin, 1498
2. 1504 · Central AsiaBabur's memoir: from losing Samarkand to taking Delhi, 1497–1526
3. 1510 · Central AsiaMerv, December 2, 1510: Shah Ismail's feint against Shaybani Khan
4. 1513 · West AsiaTwenty sources in the margin: the Piri Reis map of 1513
5. 1514 · West AsiaChaldiran, August 23, 1514: guns behind gun-carriages, 40,000 horsemen
6. 1526 · AfricaKongo's king writes to Lisbon, 1526: no slave trade in these kingdoms
7. 1529 · West AsiaWhy did Suleiman turn back from Vienna in 1529, and what came next?
8. 1532 · The AmericasWhy did an empire of millions fall to 168 men at Cajamarca?
9. 1542 · AfricaFour hundred men and one witness: Castanhoso in Ethiopia, 1541–1543
10. 1543 · EuropeBasel, June 1543: Vesalius's Fabrica, and the copy found in 2007
11. 1558 · Central AsiaBukhara, 1558: an Englishman finds the Silk Road trade too small
12. 1572 · The AmericasHow did silver from a mountain in the Andes end up in Ming China?
13. 1575 · South AsiaHow did Akbar hold together an empire of many faiths?
14. 1577 · The AmericasTwelve books, 2,446 pages: the Florentine Codex Philip II confiscated
15. 1587 · The AmericasCROATOAN on a post, 1590: John White returns to Roanoke
16. 1592 · East AsiaSixty-three ships in the Veritable Records: Hansan Island, 1592
17. 1600 · East AsiaHow did one morning at Sekigahara settle Japan for 250 years?
18. 1600 · AfricaWhy did the Benin Bronzes leave Benin City, and are they going home?
19. 1601 · East AsiaJanuary 24, 1601: a clock and a world map arrive at the Ming court
20. 1605 · West AsiaOctober 21 to November 19, 1604: Julfa emptied, New Julfa built
21. 1606 · OceaniaAustralia del Espiritu Santo: Quiros at a bay in Vanuatu, 1606
22. 1610 · EuropeMarch 12, 1610: a Venice pamphlet with four new moons around Jupiter
23. 1611 · West AsiaNaqsh-e Jahan: the 524-meter square of Shah Abbas's Isfahan
24. 1616 · South AsiaA coach, virginals and two farmans: Roe before Jahangir, 1616–1618
25. 1622 · AfricaAn envoy to Luanda in 1622: Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba
26. 1629 · OceaniaPelsaert's journal, June 4, 1629: the Batavia on Morning Reef
27. 1632 · South AsiaWritten by the humble faqir Amanat Khan: the Taj Mahal, 1631–1653
28. 1633 · West AsiaA fire in Istanbul, September 2, 1633, and the coffeehouses closed
29. 1636 · Central AsiaA beast, a deer and a sun on a madrasa: the Sher-Dor, Samarkand
30. 1637 · EuropeNinety thousand guilders at Alkmaar's orphan sale, February 5, 1637
31. 1641 · East AsiaSix hundred feet by one hundred and twenty: Dejima, Nagasaki, 1641
32. 1642 · OceaniaDecember 19, 1642: four Dutch sailors die in a bay Māori already held
33. 1653 · East AsiaThirty-six of sixty-four: Hamel's Journael and the Sillok, 1653
34. 1680 · The AmericasKnotted cords and a moved date: the Pueblo Revolt of August 10, 1680
35. 1692 · The AmericasCleared in 2022: Salem's last conviction, and the court of 1692
36. 1696 · AfricaFort Jesus, Mombasa: a 1593 cornerstone and a siege of 33 months
37. 1755 · EuropeLisbon, November 1, 1755: a death toll counted from 6,000 to 100,000
38. 1757 · South AsiaPlassey, June 23, 1757, and the inquiry that followed Clive home
39. 1769 · OceaniaTupaia, the Tahitian navigator who sailed with Cook in 1769
40. 1771 · Central AsiaFour scripts on one stone: the Torghuts' march to the Ili, 1771
41. 1771 · EuropeWhy did factories appear first in one corner of England?
42. 1789 · Oceania"Come, captain Bligh": the Bounty mutiny of April 28, 1789, on record