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Earth
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4.5Bil BC |
Our moon formed when an iron-rich, Mars-sized planet or asteroid plowed into Earth while it was forming. Much of the iron ended up in the Earth’s core, whereas the cloud of dust ejected from the impact consolidated into the moon. Links: Earth, Moon, HistoryBC 
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4.37Bil BC |
Scientists in 2014 reported that a zircon crystal discovered in Western Australia in 2010 has been determined to be 4.374 billion years old, making it the oldest rock ever discovered on Earth. In 2005 Scientists had used the radioactive decay rate of uranium to date zircons from Western Australia to 4.3Bil BC - 4.1Bil BC. The evidence pointed to a watery world well-suited for life to emerge. Links: Australia, Earth, HistoryBC
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3.26Bil BC |
An asteroid at least 23 miles wide hit Earth about this time triggering global earthquakes and tsunamis across all the world’s oceans. Scientists in 2014 reported that ancient rocks in the Barberton Greenstone of East Africa indicated this to have been one of the most powerful events to ever shape the face of Earth. Links: Earth, Africa, Asteroid, HistoryBC
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2.5Bil BC |
The appearance of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere is dated to about this time along with fossil stromatolites and banded-iron formations. Links: Earth, HistoryBC
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2.4Bil BC |
About this time there was so little oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere that it could barely be measured, so no animal or plant life like we know could live. In only about 400 million years Earth’s atmosphere went to one-tenth the amount of oxygen we have now. In 2021 a study proposed that the oxygen event coincided with the timing of Earth’s days getting longer. Links: Earth, HistoryBC
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250Mil BC |
In 2006 an apparent crater as big as Ohio was found in Antarctica. Scientists thought it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth about this time. Links: Earth, Antarctica, HistoryBC
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100Mil BC |
The Earth day at this time was nearer to 23 hours than 24 hours. Links: Earth, Time
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55Mil BC |
An increase in temperature prompted a major shift in plant distribution. In 2005 scientists reported that Earth warmed 9 to 18 degrees over a 10,000 years to a warm period that lasted 80-120 thousand years. Plants in the southern US spread 1,000 miles from the gulf Coast to Wyoming, and disappeared when the climate cooled off. In 2007 scientists said that it took about 200,000 years for the atmospheric carbon from volcanic eruptions to be transferred to the deep ocean, allowing the planet to cool. Links: Environment, Earth, Volcano, Wyoming, Botany, HistoryBC
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55Mil BC |
Arctic temperatures averaged 74 degrees. This was part of a planet-wide warming period called the Paleocene Eocene thermal Maximum (PETM). Links: Arctic, Earth, HistoryBC
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50Mil BC |
There was no ice on Earth’s north or south poles. Links: Earth, HistoryBC
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4.62Mil BC 4.48Mil BC |
A reversal in the Earth's magnetic field occurred during this period. Links: Earth
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1Mil BC |
The Jaramillo event occurred and serves as a paleomagnetic marker. In 1982 William Glen authored "The Road to Jaramillo: Critical Years of the Revolution in Earth Science." The book's title comes from the Jaramillo magnetic event discovered in rocks from Jaramillo Creek in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico. Links: Earth, New Mexico, HistoryBC
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781000 BC |
Earth's magnetic field underwent a reversal about this time. The periods between polarity changes are called chrons. Links: Earth
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3000 BC 2800 BC |
The Burckle Crater, an undersea crater, formed during this period by a very large scale comet or meteorite impact event. It is located to the east of Madagascar and west of Western Australia in the southern Indian ocean and is estimated to be about 30 km (18 mi) in diameter. In 2006 the Holocene Impact Working Group believed that it was created when a comet impacted in the ocean, and that enormous megatsunamis created the dune formations which later allowed the crater to be pin-pointed. As not only the Bible, but other ancient writings from various cultures make reference to a 'great flood', it is hypothesized that these legends are associated with this event. Links: Israel, Earth, Bible, HistoryBC, Meteor
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660 BC |
In 2019 In Greenland, ice cores revealed new traces of an extreme solar storm that hit Earth about this time. Also called “solar proton events,” extreme solar storms occasionally bombard Earth with particles from the sun after phenomena such as solar flares. The storm that left the traces discovered by scientists likely temporarily degraded Earth’s ozone layer. Links: Earth, Greenland, Sun, HistoryBC
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200 BC |
About this time Eratosthenes (c276-c194), a Greek mathematician, ascribed the difference between the positions of the noon sun at Alexandria and at Styrene at the summer solstice as due to the curvature of the Earth. He thereby calculated the radius of the Earth to be about 4,000 miles. The modern value is 3963 miles. Links: Egypt, Greece, Earth, Astronomy
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151 |
The Almagest by Claudius Ptolemy, roughly translated as "the Greatest Compilation," was published around this time and became one of the most influential scientific texts in history. He argued that the cosmos consisted of concentric spheres with the Earth at the center. Links: Earth, Books
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1790 1830 |
The “Dalton Minimum,” a period of low solar activity and especially cold climate, began this year and lasted to 1830. Links: Earth, Sun
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1800 |
The population of the world doubled from what it was in 1500 to more than 800 million. The world’s population reached about 1 billion about this time. In 1927 it reached 2 billion; in 1959 3 billion; in 1987 5 billion; in 1999 6 billion and in 2011 7 billion. Links: Earth, Anthropology
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1811 Mar 25 |
A comet, dubbed the Great Comet of 1811, was discovered by Honoré Flaugergues at 2.7 AU from the sun in the now-defunct constellation of Argo Navis. In October 1811, at its brightest, it displayed an apparent magnitude of 0, with an easily visible coma. Links: Earth, Comet
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1919 |
Joseph Larmor (1857-1942), Irish mathematician, proposed that the Earth’s magnetic field was generated spontaneously by the swirling of molten metal inside the planet. Links: Earth, Ireland, Physics
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1953 |
Stanley L. Miller (1930-2007), a chemist at the Univ. of Chicago, conducted an experiment that showed a whole range of organic compounds synthesized when an electric spark was passed through a mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor. These compounds combined to produce urea and several amino-acids. His resulting paper was titled “Production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth conditions.” Links: USA, Earth, Chicago, Evolution
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1958 Jan 31 |
Explorer 1, the first successful US satellite, was launched by a Jupiter-C rocket and the United States entered the Space Age. It discovered the "Van Allen radiation belts" around Earth named after James Van Allen. Radio signals from the transmitter aboard the 30.8 pound satellite were picked up in California within a few minutes after the launch. Two months earlier, the first attempt to launch a satellite had failed. Links: USA, Earth, NASA, Space
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1961 Apr 12 |
Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, experienced the weightlessness of space for 108 minutes. He orbited the Earth once before making a safe landing. The Russians rocketed Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space. His ship, Vostok I, was guided entirely from the ground. Links: Russia, Earth, Space
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1972 Jul 23 |
NASA launched the Landsat-1 satellite. It viewed Earth at different wavelengths and opened a new era in sensing the planet’s resources and environment. Links: USA, Environment, Earth, NASA, Space
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1972 Aug 21 |
The US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus was launched. Links: USA, Earth, Astronomy, Space
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1974 Oct 5 |
Dave Kunst became the first person verified to have completed circling the entire land mass of the earth (with exception of the oceans) on foot. The Earthwalker carried a torch in the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay and he is featured in the 1997 Guinness Record Breakers Book. In 1997 the hardcover book “The Man Who Walked Around the World” was published by William Morrow, documenting the walk. Links: Earth, World Record
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1974 |
William K. Hartmann of the Planetary Science Inst. In Tucson, Arizona, presented research that proposed that the moon was formed from the remnants of a giant impact, wherein a planet about the size of Mars struck Earth. Alastair G.W. Cameron (1915-2005) of Harvard worked independently on the same idea. Links: USA, Earth, Arizona, Astronomy, Mars, Moon
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1976 |
In San Francisco Gene Farb (d.2001 at 55) and his wife joined Stan Politi to create the "First New Earth Exposition." In 1978 he helped found the Whole Earth Access store, which grew to 8 Bay Area stores and then went bankrupt in 1999. Links: USA, Earth, SF, Expo
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1977 |
Hal Lindsey wrote "The Late, Great Planet Earth." Links: USA, Earth, Books
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1979 Feb 26 |
A total solar eclipse cast a moving shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving into Canada. This was the last total solar eclipse of the 20th century for the continental US. Links: Canada, USA, Earth, Sun
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1979 |
James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis published "Gaia." In this book Lovelock proposed that the Earth is a huge living organism. The name was inspired by William Golding, author of "Lord of the Flies." Links: USA, Earth, Books
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1984 |
A commission of the Roman Catholic Church, appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1980, concluded that the Inquisition was in error in its 1632 condemnation of Galileo‘s support of the Copernican Theory of the solar system. By 1611 Galileo had made a series of discoveries and observations with his telescope that clearly confirmed the theory of Polish astronomer Copernicus that the earth and planets revolved around the sun. Controversy erupted when Galileo announced his support of Copernicus, a theory in opposition to the accepted Church belief that the sun and planets revolved around a stationary earth. Galileo‘s 1632 publication of Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World led to condemnation by the Inquisition, which forced him to renounce his views and live under house arrest until his death in 1642 [see 1992]. Links: Poland, Vatican, Earth, Sun
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1984 |
An oil industry ship was modified as a scientific drilling vessel and named the JOIDES Resolution, Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling. The Resolution was in commemoration of James Cook’s 18th cent. exploration ship. Links: Oil, Earth, Ship
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1984 1986 |
Earth’s cloud banks were monitored by satellites of the ERBE (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment). Three satellites monitored virtually all of the atmosphere. Links: Earth
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1985 |
Navigation Technologies (NavTech) was started by Russell Shields. It grew to become one of the premier suppliers of digital-map databases in the world. By 2007 Chicago-based Navtech had around 3,000 employees in 168 offices in 30 countries. Finland’s Nokia Corp. purchased Navteq in 2007. Links: USA, Earth, Chicago, Computer
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1985 |
Louis A. Frank, Univ. of Iowa physicist, proposed that small, comet-like objects rain steadily on Earth at a rate of up to 20 per minute and that altogether each might weigh as much as 20 to 40 tons. His statement was based on data from the Dynamic Explorer satellite. In 1997 more data from the 1996 NASA Polar satellite agreed with Frank’s proposal. Links: USA, Earth, NASA, Iowa, Physics
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1987 Jul 25 |
The USSR launched Kosmos 1870, a 15-ton Earth-study satellite. Links: Russia, Earth, USSR
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1987 Sep 16 |
In Canada an international convention met in Montreal and negotiators from 23 of the world’s major industrial nations signed a treaty to slow down global chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) production in order to restore atmospheric ozone. One of its most important architects was Egyptian scientist Mostafa Tolba (1922-2016). The Montreal Protocol, a treaty designed to save the Earth's ozone layer by calling on nations to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals by the year 2000, was amended in 1990 and 1992. By 2016 197 nations had signed the Montreal Protocol. Links: Canada, Environment, Earth
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1987 Dec 31 |
One second was added to the year to compensate for precession of earth's axis. Links: Earth, Time
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1987 |
The year proved to be the warmest on record based on studies by NASA’s Goddard Inst. for Space Studies in New York, and by a team at the Univ. of East Anglia in Britain led by Thomas Wigley. Links: Environment, Earth, NASA
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1987 |
Geochemist Wallace Broecker of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory 1st suggested that a greenhouse induced shutdown of a current in the Atlantic Ocean (the thermohaline circulation) could trigger abrupt climate change and plunge much of Europe into a mini-ice age. Links: EU, Environment, Earth
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1989 |
Don Anderson (1933-2014), professor of geophysics at Caltech, published the first edition of “Theory of the Earth.” Links: USA, Earth, Books
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1990 Apr 22 |
Millions of Americans joined in a worldwide 20th anniversary celebration of the first Earth Day. Harriett Burgess (d.2010 at 73) founded the San Francisco based American Land Conservatory to shelter land from development in all parts of the country. Links: USA, Environment, Earth, SF
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1991 Jul 11 |
A solar eclipse cast a blanket of darkness stretching nine-thousand miles from Hawaii to South America, lasting nearly seven minutes in some places. Links: Earth, Sun
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1994 Apr 9 |
The space shuttle Endeavour blasted off on an 11-day mission that included mapping the Earth's surface in three dimensions. Links: USA, Earth, NASA
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1995 Sep 13 |
The hole in the Earth's ozone layer was growing fast and was twice the size it was in 1994. It now reached about the size of Europe. Links: Environment, Earth
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1995 |
The US military Global Positioning System (GPS) became fully operational with 27 orbiting satellites and dual civilian use. It was conceived in the 1960s. Links: USA, Earth, Technology, Space
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1996 Jul 17 |
Scientists discovered that the earth’s solid-iron core rotates 12 miles a year faster than the liquid-iron outer core. The inner core grows about an inch in radius every 50 years. A report was published in Nature. Links: Earth
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1997 Jan 6 |
The Sun erupted with a "coronal mass ejection." The blast reached Earth on Jan 10, and may have played a role in the Jan 11 failure of the $200 million Telstar 401 communications satellite. Links: Earth, Telecom, Sun
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1997 Feb 18 |
It was reported that scientists found evidence that upheld the theory of an asteroid hitting the Earth 65 million years ago in seabed drill sediments 300 miles off the coast of northern Florida. Links: Earth, Florida, Asteroid
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1997 Mar 22 |
The Hale-Bopp comet made its closest approach to Earth at 122 million miles. On Apr 1 it will make its closest approach to the sun, perihelion, at some 85 miles distance. Links: Earth, Comet
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1997 Jun 22 |
It was reported that 34 million acres of forest are lost each year around the world due to cutting and burning. Links: Environment, Earth
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1997 Jun |
Earth Summit Two met at the UN in New York. Links: UN, Earth, Summit
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1998 Dec 14 |
This was the peak of this year's Geminid meteor shower. Links: Earth, Space, Meteor
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1999 Feb 1 |
The Morse code SOS was officially retired and replaced by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. Links: Earth, Ship
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1999 Apr 22 |
Earth Day. TV Turnoff Week began. Links: Earth, TV
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1999 May 11 |
The solar wind from the sun died away almost completely for 24 hrs and allowed the Earth's magnetic field to stretch out to the moon. Links: Earth, Sun, Moon
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1999 Oct 12 |
The world population was projected to reach 6 billion. This day was declared by the UN as the Day of 6 Billion. The designated 6 billionth baby was born in Bosnia. Links: Bosnia, UN, Earth
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1999 |
Grace Halsell authored "Forcing God’s Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture – and Destruction of Planet Earth." Links: Earth, Books, Religion
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