Appendix C

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Appendix C

Events shaping changes in World Leadership Centers

ANCIENT (BC)		Start Date event	End Date event
4000	2700	First major cities in Mesopotamia	Warfare among Sumerian cities
2700	1075	First pyramids built	Last of New Kingdom pharaohs, Egypt in chaos
1075	745	Phonecian cultural, trading leadership	Phonecian city Tyre conquered by Assyrians
745	612	Assyrians conquer Tyre	Nineveh falls to Babylonians
612	539	Babylonians conquer Nineveh	Babylon conquered by Persians
539	478	Persian Cyrus conquers Babylon	Xerxes loses 2 battles to Greeks
478	323	Athens creates the Delian league	Death of Alexander the Great
323	197	Ptolemy gains rule of Egypt	Macedon conquered by Rome
197BC	378AD	Rome defeats Macedon	Visigoths defeat Romans at Adrianople

MIDDLE (AD)
378	467	** Chandragupta II starts reign 376	Death of last great Gupta king. Hun invasions, major Gupta territory lost.
467	589	Events leading to Rome's fall in 476 put focus on Byzantium	Byzantine army pay cut 25%, leading to revolts and civil strife
589	756	Emperor Wen reunites China	Rebel An Lushan takes Tang capital Chang'an
756	929	Abbasids/ Iraq in power 750	Cordoba caliphate established 929
929	976	Cordoba caliphate established 929	Al-Hakam II dies 976, leaving 10 year old son Caliph
976	1071	Basil II becomes Byzantine ruler	Byzantine defeats at Manzikert and Bari
1071	1294	Wang An-shih's governing/ fiscal reforms foster prosperity*	Death of Kublai Kahn

MODERN (AD)
1294	1400	** By the late 13th century, Venice is the most prosperous city in Europe.	Wars against Milan and Ottoman empire victories weaken Venice
1400	1453	Medici family establishes Florence banking wealth	Loss of Constantinople hurts Italian prosperity
1453	1545	Ottomans conquer Constantinople	Spanish silver upsets European trade and prices, Weak sultans after 1460
1545	1588	Spain finds huge silver mine in Bolivia	Defeat of Spanish Armada
1588	1609	English defeat Spanish Armada	James I has problems with Parliament; he dissolves it in 1610
1609	1672	Spanish driven out of N. Netherlands	France and Britain declare war on the Dutch
1672	1814	French troops rout Dutch army, enter Rhineland	Napoleon abdicates
1814	1830	Congress of Vienna starts	Beethoven dies 1827, loss of Vienna vigor
1830	1918	First railroad operates (in Britain)	Britain/ France need US help to win WWI
1918	present	Wilson leads WWI treaty

*Military power is normally part of the world leadership centers above. A notable exception is Sung China. In a 1141 peace treaty, they declared themselves vassals of the Jurchen in northern China. The Sung also agreed to pay an annual tribute in silver and silk. But the huge prosperity in their remaining lands nevertheless made them the world's cultural leader. The splendors of the Sung era are regarded by many as the apogee of traditional Chinese civilization.

As shown above, often war losses (or victory) are major factors in the shifting of the world's top civilization from one nation to another. But other major devastations have not affected top standings. Examples: A Venice plague in 1347-9 wiped out 3/5 its population. But Venetian prosperity continued. The French Revolution 1789-1799 brought anarchy. But its ideals added to France's world intellectual leadership.

**Neighboring power shifts are apparent in most of the leading civilization changes. Two exceptions:

1. from Rome to India. By the time of Augustus up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos (a Red Sea port in Egypt) to India. So much gold was used for this trade, and apparently recycled by the Kushan Empire for their own coinage, that Pliny the Elder complained about the drain of specie to India:[11] "India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us." from Wikipedia on Indo-Roman trade and relations

2. from China to Venice. The prosperous Silk Road trade encouraged Venetians like Marco Polo to travel to China and bring back reports of what that civilization had accomplished.

Go to: Cities, empires and dates of above civilizations

Go to: outline of this World Civilizations section of the website

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