The Most Important Events in Human History

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Originally posted 21 October 2015

It seems to me that the events that were truly critical for humanity’s history are not the ones we were taught about in school, or even in university. They’re not wars, they’re not the rise or fall of nations, and they’re not actions of “great men”. They’re bigger than that.

As an example, consider wars. Which war of more than 500 years ago continues to have major ramifications on human development now? I don’t mean political development, I mean the development of the human species. I go through the list and can think of none. While some have shifted boarders or even changed nationalities, none have shifted the development of humanity itself.

This same measure of long-lasting effect can be used to determine (and/or predict) the importance of many other historical events as well.

So, my list of the most important events in human history:

First, the prerequisites to “us”;

  • The big bang
  • The formation of Earth
  • Life on Earth
  • The rise of homo sapiens

The top ten human actions;

  1. The development of agriculture (more info)
    (had many consequences beyond food stability)
  2. The creation of religion
    (good or bad, it had a major effect. See the timeline of religion. There is little clear writing on the historical significance of religion on general)
  3. The invention(s) of writing
  4. The birth of philosophical enquiry
  5. The concept of the rule of law (also see here)
    (indicated in in the Magna Carta)
  6. The printing press
    (information could now be shared like never before, and languages stabilised)
  7. The idea of evidence and the scientific method.
    (The Enlightenment (more information here))
  8. The industrial revolution
    (electricity, the internal combustion engine, efficient mass transport (railways, cars and aircraft) factory production etc.)
  9. The sixth great mass extinction
    (The Holocene extinction / Anthropocene extinction – We’ll be feeling the effects of this one for millennia to come)
  10. The information revolution
    (the age of computers)

And, in the future;

  1. The age of extreme weather
    (as a result of climate change)
  2. The rise of genetically engineered beings
  3. The rise of sapient machines
    (The technological singularity – when this happens, we’ll find ourselves in utopia or hell. It’s hard to predict which).

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