The Discoverers

Chapter 1

Egyptians create Nile Calendar

3241 BC

Metonic Cycle Discovered

432 BC

Pope Gregory XIII took 10 days out of the calendar

1582 AD

Old Style calendar replaced with New Style calendar

1752 AD

Decimal calendar replaced

1792 AD

China reforms calendar

1911 AD

Soviet Union uses revolutionary calendar

1929 AD

Soviet Union returns to Gregorian calendar

1940

Chapter 2

Astrologers banished from Italy

139 BC

Romans accept 7-day week

201 AD - 300 AD

Chapter 3

Caesar burns Alexandrian library

48 BC

Ptolemy's 'Geography' reaches Europe

1406 AD

Copernicus writes 'De Revolutionibus'

1543 AD

Tycho Brahe writes 'Astrominae Instaurate Mechanica'

1598 AD

Chapter 4

Ctesibius contrives water clock

201 BC - 100 BC

Seneca

4 bc - 65 ad

Sand hourglasses invented

701 AD - 800 AD

China makes fire clocks

1073 AD

Pendulum clock invented

1700 AD

Chapter 5

The hour became our modern hour, with 24 hours per day

1330 AD

Giovanni de Dondi combines planetarium and timepiece.

1364

Duke of Orléans installs cannon clock in Palais Royal

1786 AD

Chapter 6

Galileo discovers isochronism

1583 AD

Parliament passes act for rewarding anyone who figures out longitude

1714 AD

Chapter 7

Su Sung's Heavenly Clockwork

1090

Mateo Ricci decided to join the Society of Jesuit

1577 AD

Eclipse: Imperial Astronomers vs. Jesuits

June 21, 1629 AD

Imperial Astronomers predicted than an eclipse would start at 10:30 and last 2 hours. They were wrong. The Jesuits forecast that the eclipse would start at 11:30 and last 1-2 minutes.

Chapter 8

Genoa's first mechanical public clock was mad in Milan

1353 AD

Salisbury clock made without any screws

1380 AD

German clockmaker devised a lathe

1480 AD

Luther publishes 95 Theses

1517 AD

Juanelo Torriano built large planetary clock for Emperor Charles V of Spain

1540 AD

Clcockmaker's guild begun in Paris

1544 AD

Thirty Years War

1618 - 1648

French clock maker invented the "fuse machine".

1741 AD

Chapter 9

The earliest verifiable eclipse reported by any people is recorded by the Chinese.

1361 BC

King Cheng

221 BC

The " Chinese Caesar" , King Cheng, managed within 25 years to unify a half-dozen Chinese provinces into a single great empire, with a vast hierarchy of bureaucrats.

The Emperor of China ordered all imperial observers to keep quiet on their duties

840 AD

Chapter 10

Herodotus described the Tower of Babel as a pile of solid towers, each slightly smaller than the one on which it rested.

460 BC

Chapter 11

Orphic Greeks and Etruscans developed a mythology of judgement day.

600 BC - 501 BC

The Manichaean followers of the Persian sage Manes gave the moon a role in their mystic doctrines.

216 AD - 276 AD

The Life Porphyry

232 AD - 304 AD

He explained that each soul was by nature a "fiery breath" tending to rise to the heavens, yet as a soul lowered into the earthly atmosphere it tended to become damp and heavy.

Dante Alighieri. during his life he wrote "Divine Comedy".

1265 AD - 1321 AD

Chapter 12

Aristotle

384 BC - 322 BC

Hipparchus discovered the procession of the equinoxes, cataloged 1,000 stars, and invented trigonometry.

165 BC - 127 BC

Posidonius and Strabo declared the earth to be 18,000 miles around.

135 BC - 51 BC

Chapter 13

Saint Brendan was an Irish Monk believing that Paradise was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

484 AD - 578 AD

Isidore of Seville

560 - 636

Al-Idrisi reported an expedition to locate the wall that held back these pagan forces of the Apocalypse.

1099 - 1166

Hereford Cathedral built

1275 AD

The Portuguese opened a new Eastern waterway to India around the tip of Africa.

1488

Chapter 14

Rites of Chou

1120 BC - 256 BC

Ch'in Dynasty

221 B.C. - 206 B.C.

Numerous references to maps and their uses in China.

Han Dynasty

202 BC - 220 AD

Maps appear again as the 'indispensable apparatus of the empire.'

Chang Heng

78 ad - 139 ad

Chin Dynasty

265 - 420

18 sheet map of China

T'ang Dynasty

618 - 907

Grip map of Chinese empire created in 801

Sung Era

960 - 1279

North placed at the top of maps

Chapter 15

Venerable Bede

673 - 735

15,000 Pilgrims joined The Crusades.

April 12, 1096

First Crusade ends

July 1099

William the Conqueror and his men set up the Kingdom of Sicily

1130

This is where Christians, Jews and Arabs exchange knowledge, arts, and ideas.

Jerusalem falls to Turkish Saladin

1187

Chapter 16

Genghis Khan came to Peking

1214

6th Crusade

1228 - 1229

Tartar horsemen ravage Poland and Hungary

1241

Iron Curtain of Middle Ages Lifted Temporarily

1250 - 1350

Kublai Khan comes to Mongol throne

1259

Chapter 17

John of Pian de Carpine

1180 - 1252

Francis of Assisi

1181 AD - 1226 AD

Roger Bacon

1220 - 1292

Pope Innocent IV elected

1243

Pope Innocent IV calls council in Lyons 'finding a remedy for Tartars/spurners of faith.'

1245

Pope Innocent IV dispatches Friar John to Mongolia

April 16, 1245

Friar John's journey home

November 13, 1246 - 1247

Seventh Crusade

1248 - 1254

Louis IX arrives in Cyprus

September 1248

Friar William and Barholomew of Cremona's journey from Constantinople to Mongolia

May 7, 1253 - December 27, 1253

Friar William back in Cyprus

June 1255

Chapter 18

Jean de Joinville

1224 - 1317

Nicolò and Maffeo Polo's journey to the East

1260 - 1269

Nicolò, Maffeo Polo, and Marco Polo leave Venice to see Kublai Khan

1271 - 1295

Marco Polo delivers Tartar princess to Persia

1292

Climatic sea battle between Venice and Genoa, Marco Polo taken prisoner along with 6,999 others

September 6, 1298

Chapter 19

John of Montecorvino travels from Italy to Peking

1289 - 1295

Friar John appointed Archbishop of Peking

1307

Toghon Temur Khan

1320 - 1370

Hung Wu

1328 - 1398

Odoric of Pordenone returns to Padua

1330

Toghon Temür Khan comes to throne

1333

Friar John Marignolli reaches Peking

1342

Hung Wu emerges as leader of Chinese rebellion

1368

Battle of Nocopolis

1396

Hans Schiltberger a slave of Ottoman sultan Bajazet and Tamerlane

1396 - 1418

Ruy González of Clavijo sent by King Henry III to make an ally of Tamerlane

1403

Tamerlane dies

1405

Chapter 20

Darius the Great

549 BC - 486 BC

Mariners in the Mediterranean were noting landmarks, coastal features, etc.

499 BC - 400 BC

The Great Interruption

300 - 1399

Catalan Atlas

1375

Latin versions of Ptolemy circulating through Europe

1400

Nicolo de' Conti's trip to India

1419 - 1444

On return, Pope Eugenius IV orders Nicolo to dictate his story to Poggio Bracciolini

1444

Ptolemy's maps printed

1508

Marine charts start showing latitude

1525

Mercator and Ortelius open new era of mapping the planet

1550

Dutch mariners guided by coastal outlines, hints, and cautions of mariners 2 centuries before

1595

Seafaring clock invented to determine longitude

1700

Chapter 21

Vivaldi bros. disappeared trying to round Africa by sea

1291

King John I seizes Portuguese throne

1385

Prince Henry the Navigator born

1394

Portugal = united kingdom

1400 - 1499

Portuguese armada storms Ceuta

August 24, 1415

Alvise da Cadamosto

1432 - 1511

King Alfonso complains that navigators' maps are sloppy

October 22, 1443

Venetian square-riggers

1450

Turks capture Constantinople

1453

Chapter 22

Fire in Madeira

1420 - 1427

Prince Henry sends out 15 expeditions to round African cape

1424 - 1434

Gil Eannes tells Prince Henry that Cape Bojador is impassable

1433

Prince Henry sends Eannes again

1434

Prince Henry sends Eannes out again with Baldaya

1435

Prince Henry sends Baldaya

1436

Prince Henry sends Nuno Tristão and Antāo Conçalves

1441

Eannes brings 200 African slaves back

1444

Prince Henry dies

1460

Joseph Vizinho sets out on voyage to determine latitude

1485

Torquemada gives Jews 3 months to convert to Christianity or leave

1492