If the FENCE is a timeline...
Each post marks two generations:
(Hover mouse to travel back in time)
- TimeLine
-
Me - born 2000 AD
When I am older, maybe there will be... cars that drive by themselves, better medicines, robots in every home, flying cars, batteries that never run out.
There are more ways to use words, pictures and sounds than ever before – using computers, mobile phones, televisions and cameras
Latest 'must have' machines - Personal computers, Mobile phones, digital cameras, DVDs, CDs
-
Dad - born 1975
There were no... computers, mobile phones, CDs and DVDs.
More people worked in offices and shops as shipyards, steelworks, mines and factories closed down. New food and goods arrived from other countries as travelling around the world became easy.
New inventions - Space rockets, Early computers, Video recorders, ?Microwave ovens? Felt tip pen? Photocopier? Supermarket
New foods: Avocados, kiwi fruit became readily available
-
Grandad - born 1950
The Second World War had recently finished, but food was still rationed; Most people worked in factories, producing clothes, cars, ships, steel, coal etc.
Few people had TVs or telephones, but they had radios and record players. supermarkets, central heating in homes
Cars, buses and bicycles replaced the work of horses. Electric washing machines, fridges & vacuum cleaners made life easier in the home. People started going on holidays in other countries for the first time.
New Inventions - the first jet airplanes & passenger planes, Antibiotics, Plastics, Rockets, Nuclear power
-
Great Grandad - born 1925
The First World War had completely changed the world. Winners and losers, Britain, France and Germany, were broken by the struggle, but America rose in power. The rich could no longer ignore the poor as before. Women were finally accepted in universities, and from 1928, were allowed to vote for government.
Cars began to appear on the streets, pushing their way past horse traffic. Homes didn't have electricity yet, but street lighting becoming common. Without electricity, there were no TV, fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner. Most houses didn't have bathrooms either. When people got ill, there were no good medicines, so people often died young. But people also had bigger families.
New Inventions - airplane, television, telephone, washing machine, fridge, vacuum cleaner
-
Great Great Grandad - born 1900
Britain's Queen Victoria was the most powerful ruler in the world. But the vast wealth wasn't shared equally. , because
People travelled on horseback or in horse-pulled carriages and trams. There were more horses in London than people. The first underground lines were built, running trains powered by the very latest technology - electricity.
First generation to use - Ocean liners, Modern Asphalt roads, Cinemas
-
5 generations back - born 1875
Britain's Queen Victoria was the most powerful ruler in the world. But the vast wealth wasn't shared equally. The rich were only just beginning to realise how poor most people were, and some people wanted to do something about it.
Affordable travel became possible for everyone, as the railway network spread across the land.
First generation to use -
-
6 generations back - born 1850
Britain's Queen Victoria was the most powerful ruler in the world. But the vast wealth wasn't shared equally. The rich were only just beginning to realise how poor most people were, and some people wanted to do something about it. As new revolutions sweep across Europe (1848), in the UK, Chartists demand a fairer society.
Railway lines built across Britain - travel became very fast and affordable. 1834 Poor laws force the poor into 'work houses'.
First anaesthetics (1847)
-
7 generations back - born 1825
Napoleonic wars are over, but social unrest is brewing.
Industrial revolution is in full swing. Many factories opening, especially around Manchester, attracting the rural poor to migrate there for work. Whilst factory owners get rich, the poor live in terrible conditions in towns. Engels’ Manchester slums (back-to-backs with earth floors, many families in one house, one outdoor privy for the street, sewage thrown in street). Slavery finally banned (1833)
First gas lights tested in London,
-
8 generations back - born 1800
Britain fights the French revolution as French 'Emigrés' flee to Britain. Napoleon's armies sweep across Europe.
Cotton, Coal mining, French émigrés, Raikes’ schools (Sunday school)
-
9 generations back - born 1775
America declares independence from Britain (1776), but the empire in India grows, and Captain Cook discovers Australia (1770). People were thinking of new ways to get rich, by doing things better than they were before, using science and machines. Farmers grew more food, using machines that did the work better than people. Many people moving to cities. Growth in glass making, brick-making, iron production & coal mining.
New inventions - Boulton Watt steam engines, spinning jenny (1764), flush toilet (1775) iron founding (Ironbridge@ 1780),Hot Air balloon (Montgolfier, 1783), Sextant (1757) & maritime clock (1761)
First generation to use - canals (from 1776)
-
The 1700s - around 10 generations back
Rise of Britain and its empire as the dominant world power, profiting especially from trade in cotton, spices ... and slaves. At home, new, better farming ideas meant more food growing than ever before (the 'agricultural revolution'), but not everybody benefitted. Smaller farmers were brushed aside as parliamentary passed 'enclosure' acts, effectively privatising the ancient field systems. Homes were rebuilt in brick and stone, which was much warmer and drier than the traditional wooden homes. Chimneys became common, so homes were less smoky
New inventions - the first steam engine (1698),
-
The 1600s
Stuarts - Shakespeare; Francis Bacon, Newton & the Enlightenment; colonisation of America; Puritanism, civil war, restoration & the Glorious Revolution; fire & plague; Pepys. New foods brought to Britain - bananas, chocolate, sugar, tea, coffee
New inventions - Telescope (1608, Netherlands),
-
The 1500s
Tudors - CofE, dissolution of monasteries, Spanish Armada, pirates. Abroad, the reformation, renaissance, and copernicus/scientific revolution
Tobacco, potatoes & tomatoes, slaves, manumission of serfs. Water was too dangerous, so children drank milk and adults beer. Peasants go to town to sell excess at market
Latest inventions - ,
-
The Middle Ages (1066-1500)
Norman Conquest, Crusades, Magna Carta, 100 years war, Black Death, Peasants revolt...
Less than 3 million people lived in England in 1350. Only 10% lived in towns, which were basically small villages by today’s standards, with defensive walls round them. Nobles & freemen were free, but most people were not. Villeins, cottars, bordars or slaves. They were effectively property belonging to their master, usually the lord of the manor. They had to work for him, and couldn’t do things, such as travel or get married, without his permission. Farm animals were much smaller than today. Knights & chivalry were not necessarily a good thing – more often, they were highly armed dangerous violent thugs and bullies, terrorising everyone that they met, killing & stealing for fun. All men had to practice archery by law.
Latest inventions - spinning wheel, windmill, eye-glasses, mechanical clocks, first cannons, printing press (1440)
-
The Dark Ages (400-1066)
Angles & Saxons, Vikings, monasteries
-
Roman Era (0AD - 400)
Roman conquest, first written language, brick and stone buildings, paved roads
1000 posts back, near the Natural History Museum, is 50,000 years back in time. Neanderthals still walked the earth:
2 million years of Human evolution is 50 KILOMETERS:
but ... where are the dinosaurs?!
- TimeLine
-
Homo Sapiens
Homo Sapiens had a smaller brain and body than it's famous relative Homo Neanderthalis
Human-like apes diverge from chimpanzees between 0.2 and 8 million years ago
etc etc
-
Neanderthal Man
Lived in Europe & Asia from about 400,000 years ago. Widespread until about 40,000 years ago, with some surviving at the fringes until 28,000
Neanderthals had a larger brain than humans, greater body mass, and were better adapted to cold climates.
-
Homo Erectus
Lived from about 1.8 million years ago, until about 70,000, well into the Human era.
Homo Erectus evolved from Homo Habilis in Africa. The slight differences from its ancestor included a larger brain, locking knees and a shift in the hole in the base of the skull, so it was better suited to walking upright.
-
Homo Habilis
Evolved about 2.8 million years ago in South and East Africa
It used tools made out of stone and bone, but was better adapted to living in trees than walking upright. Its had a larger brain and smaller chewing teeth than its ancestors.
Travel over a million posts - 2 million generations - to the last of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago:
The 4.5 billion years of time:
- TimeLine
-
Cenozoic Era
After the dinosaurs, the age of mammals
Human-like apes diverge from chimpanzees between 0.2 and 8 million years ago
etc etc
-
Mesozoic Era - the age of dinosaurs
text
Triassic Jurassic Cretaceous
-
Paleozoic Era - lasted 300 million years
stretching from the Cambrian explosion to the Permian mass extinction
The Cambrian 'explosion' was a period when early multicellular animals diversified rapidly into a large range of complex creatures that filled the oceans and fossil records for the first time. Typical fossils include trilobites, echinoderms (pre-starfish), Most of the modern-day animal phyla (major categories) appeared at this time, including chordates, the group from which vertebrates evolved, arthropods (the family that covers insects, spiders, lobsters and centipedes today), annelids (worms & leeches) and molluscs. Ozone layer forms.
The Ordovician Period - Invertebrates, particularly molluscs and arthropods dominated the oceans, but primitive fish were gaining a foothold. Mosses may have been the first plants to colonise land, accelerating the conversion of the CO2-rich atmosphere to oxygen, causing global cooling. Oceans temperatures plummeted from a sizzling 45 Celcius to ice-age levels by the end of the Ordovician Period, and a mass-extinction.
The Silurian Period - Greenhouse gasses warmed the air again, and warm shallow seas returned. On land, forests of moss spread along rivers and lakes, and the first 'vascular' plants - land plants with roots and leaves - appeared. The first land invertebrates included predatory millipedes and a spiders. In the seas, the first bony fish appeared, as well as a sea scorpion the length of a crocodile.
The Devonian Period - 'the age of fish' saw great diversity and development of many modern features, jaws, cartilage or bone skeletons, and the first sharks. Shellfish and corals also dominated, including the first ammonites. On land, dead moss created the first soil, and taller plants, including the first trees began to rise above the carpet of primitive land-hugging plant life. The close relationship between plants and insects has its origins in this Period.
The Carboniferous Period - This was the age of coal formation, when vast forests covered the land. Atmospheric oxygen peaked at nearly double today's levels. Whilst amphibians became well-established on land, there were also giant scorpions the size of a cat, dragonflies the size of a seagull, and at 7ft, the world's longest ever millipede. Amphibians declined as the world cooled, but the first amniote eggs allowed reptiles to thrive away from water. These would later evolve into dinosaurs, birds and mammals. The period ended with an ice age, falling sea levels, a collapse in rainforests and amphibians, and survival of the reptiles.
The Permian Period - As the ice age receded very slowly, much of the land became vast desert. Conifers came to dominate much of the surviving forests. Reptiles continued to diversify, into turtles, pre-dinosaurs, and earliest mammals. The Period ends with the great Permian mass extinctions, during which up to 70% of land and 95% of all marine species became extinct.
-
Proterozoic Era
Great oxygenation crisis
Cryogenian period ('snowball earth')
Evolution of abundant soft-bodied multicellular organisms
-
Archean Era
Late bombardment
Evidence of bacteria and stromatolites
-
Hadean Era
Formation of the Earth; oceans; moon
INTERACTIVE TIMELINE MAP ...
