ESP Timeline: Evolutionary Biology vs History (All-Years)

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ESP Timelines

Comparative Timelines

The ESP Timeline (one of the site's most popular features) has been completely updated to allow the user to select (using the timeline controls above each column) different topics for the left and right sides of the display.

Select:

New Left Column

Dates

Decade

New Right Column

Evolutionary Biology

History

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1420

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1421

The third Ming emperor moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and begins laying out the Forbidden City

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1422

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1423

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1424

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1425

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1426

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1427

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1428

A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, hears the voices of saints urging her to relieve the siege of Orléans

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1429

Joan of Arc wins her way into the presence of Charles VII at Chinon and persuades him, eventually, to trust her. Joan of Arc leads French forces in the successful relief of Orléans. Joan of Arc stands nearby while Charles VII is anointed at Reims, then kneels before him and for the first time calls him her king.

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1430

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1431

Admiral Zheng He of China leads a fleet of 52 ships, with nearly 30,000 men, to the east coast of Africa.

Some Englishmen see Joan of Arc as truly a witch and as an agent of the devil — a common response to adversity in this age. Joan is captured. The English turn her over to ecclesiastic authorities — the Inquisition — and at the French town of Rouen, then under English rule, Joan is burned at the stake.

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1432

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1433

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1434

Cosimo de Medici comes to power in Florence.

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1435

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1436

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1437

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1438

The Chanca tribe attacks the Inca city-state of Cusco from the north. In defense, the Inca begin to reorganize their governmental system, to expand their alliances and with force to build the Tahuantinsuyu Empire.

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1439

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1440

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1441

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1442

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1443

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1444

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1445

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1446

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1447

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1448

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1449

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1450

In Kyoto, the Ryoanji Zen temple is built. It has a garden of fifteen rocks on raked white sand — an austerity to aid meditation.

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1451

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1452

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1453

Constantinople has been declining economically, in population and military strength. Using European artillery and experts, the Ottoman Turks break through Constantinople's walls. Disciplined Muslim forces capture the city. This ends Constantinople as the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the heart of the remains of the Roman Empire.

The French capture Bordeaux, the last place the English hold except for the port city of Calais, on the English channel. The Hundred Years' War ends without a formal treaty signed and no renouncing of rights to the French throne by an English king. Nationalism had increased, and common people in England are upset at what they see as England having lost the war. With the end of the Hundred Years' War, trade revives and economic depression ends.

The French defeat of the English at Castillon ends the Hundred Years' War.

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1454

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1455

With humanistic leanings and an enthusiasm for literature and art, Pope Nicholas V has in the last five years given rebirth to the Vatican Library — putting it on course to becoming one of the largest libraries in the world. He dies at age 58.

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1456

Judges and commissioners in the archbishop's palace in the city of Rouen declare that Joan of Arc was innocent of the charges that led to her execution — after nineteen years of appeal and almost one year of hearings. The Archbishop declares the case ended.

The Ottoman Turks overrun Athens, begin a stay that will last 400 years, and they turn the Parthenon into a mosque.

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1457

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1458

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1459

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ESP Quick Facts

ESP Origins

In the early 1990's, Robert Robbins was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, where he directed the informatics core of GDB — the human gene-mapping database of the international human genome project. To share papers with colleagues around the world, he set up a small paper-sharing section on his personal web page. This small project evolved into The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

ESP Support

In 1995, Robbins became the VP/IT of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Robbins secured funding, through the ELSI component of the US Human Genome Project, to create the original ESP.ORG web site, with the formal goal of providing free, world-wide access to the literature of classical genetics.

ESP Rationale

Although the methods of molecular biology can seem almost magical to the uninitiated, the original techniques of classical genetics are readily appreciated by one and all: cross individuals that differ in some inherited trait, collect all of the progeny, score their attributes, and propose mechanisms to explain the patterns of inheritance observed.

ESP Goal

In reading the early works of classical genetics, one is drawn, almost inexorably, into ever more complex models, until molecular explanations begin to seem both necessary and natural. At that point, the tools for understanding genome research are at hand. Assisting readers reach this point was the original goal of The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

ESP Usage

Usage of the site grew rapidly and has remained high. Faculty began to use the site for their assigned readings. Other on-line publishers, ranging from The New York Times to Nature referenced ESP materials in their own publications. Nobel laureates (e.g., Joshua Lederberg) regularly used the site and even wrote to suggest changes and improvements.

ESP Content

When the site began, no journals were making their early content available in digital format. As a result, ESP was obliged to digitize classic literature before it could be made available. For many important papers — such as Mendel's original paper or the first genetic map — ESP had to produce entirely new typeset versions of the works, if they were to be available in a high-quality format.

ESP Help

Early support from the DOE component of the Human Genome Project was critically important for getting the ESP project on a firm foundation. Since that funding ended (nearly 20 years ago), the project has been operated as a purely volunteer effort. Anyone wishing to assist in these efforts should send an email to Robbins.

ESP Plans

With the development of methods for adding typeset side notes to PDF files, the ESP project now plans to add annotated versions of some classical papers to its holdings. We also plan to add new reference and pedagogical material. We have already started providing regularly updated, comprehensive bibliographies to the ESP.ORG site.

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Timeline

The new, dynamic Timeline from the Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project gives users more control over the timeline display.

We seek your suggestions for timeline content, both for individual events and for entire subjects.

To submit a correction or a recommendation or to propose new Timeline content (or to volunteer as a Timeline Editor), click HERE.