1. c. 7000 BCE Millet farming on the Yellow River
2. c. 5000 BCE Yangshao painted pottery
3. c. 3300 BCE The jade city of Liangzhu
4. c. 2070 BCE The Xia, half history and half legend
5. ★ c. 1600 BCE The Shang dynasty founded
6. ★ c. 1250 BCE Oracle bones at Anyang
7. c. 1200 BCE The bronze masks of Sanxingdui
8. ★ c. 1046 BCE Battle of Muye ends the Shang
9. ★ c. 1045 BCE The Mandate of Heaven
10. c. 1000 BCE The fengjian order
11. ★ 771 BCE The capital moves east to Luoyang
12. 722 BCE The Spring and Autumn Annals begin
13. 651 BCE Duke Huan of Qi becomes hegemon
14. ★ 551 BCE Confucius is born at Qufu
15. c. 500 BCE The Art of War
16. ★ 475 BCE The Warring States period opens
17. c. 400 BCE Cast iron and the crossbow
18. c. 370 BCE Laozi and the Daoist current
19. ★ 359 BCE Shang Yang's reforms in Qin
20. c. 256 BCE The Dujiangyan irrigation works
21. 256 BCE Qin extinguishes the last Zhou king
22. ★ 221 BCE Qin Shi Huang unifies China
23. ★ c. 220 BCE Script, coin and axle widths standardised
24. 215 BCE The northern walls are joined
25. 213 BCE Books burned, scholars buried
26. ★ 210 BCE The Terracotta Army
27. 209 BCE The Dazexiang uprising
28. ★ 202 BCE Liu Bang founds the Han
29. 141 BCE Emperor Wu takes the throne
30. 138 BCE Zhang Qian is sent west
31. ★ 136 BCE Confucianism becomes state doctrine
32. ★ c. 130 BCE The Silk Road opens
33. c. 91 BCE Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian
34. 9 Wang Mang usurps the throne
35. 25 The Han restored at Luoyang
36. ★ c. 65 Buddhism reaches the Han court
37. ★ 105 Cai Lun's papermaking
38. 132 Zhang Heng's seismoscope
39. ★ 184 The Yellow Turban Rebellion
40. ★ 208 Battle of Red Cliffs
41. ★ 220 The Han ends and three kingdoms divide
42. 263 Shu Han falls to Wei
43. 280 The Jin briefly reunite China
44. ★ 311 The Disaster of Yongjia
45. 317 The court flees south to Jiankang
46. 386 The Tuoba found the Northern Wei
47. 399 Faxian sets out for India
48. 460 The Yungang grottoes
49. 494 Northern Wei moves to Luoyang
50. 581 The Sui dynasty founded
51. ★ 589 Sui conquers Chen; China is one again
52. ★ 605 The Grand Canal
53. 612 The invasions of Goguryeo fail
54. 618 The Sui collapse and the Tang are proclaimed
55. 626 The Xuanwu Gate incident
56. ★ 629 Xuanzang leaves for India
57. 640 Tang power reaches the Tarim Basin
58. 645 Xuanzang returns with the sutras
59. ★ 690 Wu Zetian declares herself emperor
60. 713 The Leshan Giant Buddha begun
61. c. 730 Li Bai and Du Fu
62. 751 Battle of Talas
63. ★ 755 An Lushan rebels
64. 780 The twice-a-year tax
65. 845 The great persecution of Buddhism
66. ★ 868 The Diamond Sutra is printed
67. 875 Huang Chao's rebellion
68. ★ 907 The Tang fall and five dynasties follow
69. ★ 960 The Song founded at Kaifeng
70. ★ c. 1000 Gunpowder goes to war
71. ★ c. 1041 Bi Sheng invents movable type
72. 1069 Wang Anshi's New Policies
73. c. 1085 The first government paper money
74. ★ 1127 The Jingkang incident
75. 1138 The Southern Song capital at Lin'an
76. 1142 Yue Fei is executed
77. ★ 1206 Genghis Khan unites the Mongols
78. 1234 The Mongols destroy the Jin
79. ★ 1271 Kublai Khan proclaims the Yuan
80. c. 1275 Marco Polo at the Yuan court
81. 1279 Battle of Yamen ends the Song
82. 1281 The invasions of Japan fail
83. 1351 The Red Turban rebellions
84. 1368 Ming armies take Dadu
85. ★ 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang founds the Ming
86. ★ 1405 Zheng He's first treasure voyage
87. ★ 1406 The Forbidden City begun
88. 1421 The capital moves to Beijing
89. ★ 1433 The treasure fleets are ended
90. 1449 The Tumu Crisis
91. c. 1550 The Great Wall rebuilt in brick
92. 1557 The Portuguese settle at Macau
93. 1573 Zhang Juzheng's reforms
94. 1582 Matteo Ricci reaches China
95. 1592 Ming armies fight Japan in Korea
96. 1616 Nurhaci founds the Later Jin
97. c. 1627 Famine and rebellion in Shaanxi
98. April 1644 Li Zicheng takes Beijing
99. ★ May 1644 The Manchus enter through Shanhai Pass
100. 1645 The queue order
101. 1661 Koxinga takes Taiwan from the Dutch
102. 1683 The Qing annex Taiwan
103. 1689 The Treaty of Nerchinsk
104. c. 1720 The Canton System
105. 1755 The Dzungar campaigns
106. 1793 The Macartney embassy is rebuffed
107. ★ 1839 Lin Zexu destroys the opium at Humen
108. ★ 1842 The Treaty of Nanking
109. ★ 1851 The Taiping Rebellion begins
110. 1860 The Summer Palace is burned
111. 1861 The Self-Strengthening Movement
112. ★ 1894 War with Japan; Taiwan ceded
113. 1898 The Hundred Days' Reform
114. ★ 1900 The Boxer Uprising
115. ★ 1905 The imperial examinations abolished
116. ★ 10 October 1911 The Wuchang Uprising
117. ★ 1 January 1912 The Republic of China is proclaimed
118. 1915 Japan's Twenty-One Demands
119. 1916 The warlord era begins
120. ★ 4 May 1919 The May Fourth Movement
121. ★ July 1921 The Communist Party is founded
122. 1926 The Northern Expedition
123. ★ April 1927 The Shanghai massacre
124. 1928 The Nanjing decade opens
125. ★ 18 September 1931 Japan seizes Manchuria
126. ★ October 1934 The Long March
127. December 1936 The Xi'an incident
128. ★ 1937 Full war with Japan
129. 1938 The capital moves to Chongqing
130. August 1945 Japan surrenders
131. 1946 Civil war resumes
132. ★ 1949 The Nationalists withdraw to Taiwan
133. ★ 1 October 1949 The People's Republic is proclaimed
134. 1950 Land reform
135. October 1950 Chinese troops enter Korea
136. 1951 The Seventeen Point Agreement on Tibet
137. ★ 1958 The Great Leap Forward
138. ★ 1959 Famine, and the Dalai Lama flees
139. 16 October 1964 China tests an atomic bomb
140. ★ 1966 The Cultural Revolution begins
141. 25 October 1971 The PRC takes China's seat at the UN
142. ★ February 1972 Nixon visits Beijing
143. September 1976 Mao dies and the Gang of Four fall
144. ★ December 1978 Deng Xiaoping opens the economy
145. 1980 Shenzhen becomes a special economic zone
146. 1980 The one-child policy
147. ★ 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square
148. ★ 1 July 1997 Hong Kong returns to Chinese rule
149. ★ December 2001 China joins the World Trade Organization
150. August 2008 The Beijing Olympics
151. 2013 The Belt and Road Initiative
152. January 2020 Covid emerges in Wuhan