I am not one of the public intellectuals who were queried by The Atlantic (link might require subscription) as to which date most changed world history — but on the Internet, you can always spout off without an invitation.
It’s hard to argue with Freeman Dyson, who nominates the day an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, clearing the evolutionary path for the likes of you and me.
(Actually, it’s remarkably easy to argue with Freeman Dyson. I know this, having done so over tea in Princeton, many years ago. He made it very easy indeed, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he was 100% right and I was 100% wrong.)
At the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum, the standup comedian W. Kamau Bell, after lamenting that there’s no way he can get this right so he might as well punt, nominates the day Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on national TV. Unfortunately, his intent to give the most ridiculous possible answer is thwarted by one Neera Tanden of something called the Center for American Progress, who, with an apparently straight face, nominates August 26, 1920 (the day American women gained the right to vote) — an answer that begins by placing 20th century America at the center of the Universe and proceeds downhill from there.
Other 20th-century answers (the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union) are at least more serious, and I think that Anne-Marie Slaughter‘s nomination of the still-very-recent-by-historical-standards signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 is even defensible. But then what about the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which arguably laid the political and intellectual groundwork that made the Declaration possible?
Going back a little further in that train of thought, I might nominate August 22, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth Field brought an end to the good-government reforms of Richard III and ushered in two mostly dreadful centuries of Tudors and Stuarts — culminating in the aforementioned Glorious Revolution. Over that two-century short run, this meant a great contraction in political and economic freedom; in the long run it had a profound effect on how we think of freedom and the means by which we preserve it. Perhaps that’s too anglocentric, or at best eurocentric, an answer — but with the effects radiating far beyond Europe, I think one could make a case for it.
On the other hand, that case would certainly be trumped by the case for July 5, 1687, the day when Newton published his Principia and set modern science firmly on the path that has since transformed almost everything about the way we live (and when I say “we” I mean all humans, everywhere) and the way we understand the world (and this time I don’t mean all humans, everywhere, but I mean a very large chunk of us).
Had the Atlantic asked, that would have been my answer. What would have been yours?
Why do you say, with an apparently straight face, that women’s suffrage in the U.S. is a more ridiculous choice of milestone than the first moonwalk on national TV? You rightly criticize the myopia of declaring any historical event from 20th century America as the most important date of all time, but the same argument applies to both dates.
I think you lose credibility by dismissing political empowerment of an entire gender as less important than a televised dance move.
@David It seems to me that his criticism is because the moonwalk nomination was intended as a joke, whereas the US suffrage nomination was intended as serious… and then he uses superlative language to stress his point.
But that’s just my guess about what he means. I might as well punt, after all…
If we are are going back to pre-history with the dinosour thing, then why not go back 13.7 billion years and include the big bang? I suppose this could not have changed world history, as there was no world then.
However, if we stick to dates in human history, it narrows it down a bit.
I think there is probably a case for the birthdays of Jesus and Muhammad. Between them they account for 54% of religious belief in the world.
I nominate 11 Dec 1241. This might not be immediately recognisable. It is the death of Ogedei Khan, son of Genghis. It represents the day the expansion of the Mongol empire ended. They had crushed all opposition and were poised at the gates of Vienna. Then Ogedei died, they retreated to sort out the succession and Europe was saved.
October 7, 1571, the battle of Lepanto, can be seen as another date on which Europe was saved. Europe has needed a lot of saving over the years.
How about 1-Jan-2000, no millennium bug after all!
I like Paul Kennedy’s answer myself, though maybe not his explanation so much. The Industrial Revolution is the most profound change humanity has undergone in its relatively short existence on earth, and I know it’s hard to pinpoint one event to it but the development of the steam engine seems as good as any.
In addition to some of the dates previously mentioned, how about October 12, 1492, when Columbus’ crew spotted the Bahamas, sparking globalization and all its far-reaching consequences, or the day in 1346 when Genoese traders landed in Sicily unwittingly bringing the Yersinia Pestis bacteria with them setting off the Bubonic Plague in Europe, essentially ending Feudal/Medieval Europe as we know it in addition to wiping out 1/3 of its population.
@Harold: You beat me to saying big bang which was also my first thought.
@everyone: If you’re picking the day the dinosaurs died then what’s wrong with the world’s other extinction events?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Major_extinction_events
@6 – the other extinction events may be no less important, but they lack the impact of an impact, so to speak, so we can’t say they happened on one day.
@7: Good point
Big Bang is a good one, as is the date that life first appears on Earth (whether by transport here from elsewhere or a particular formation of amino acids). If from human history, what about the founding of the first permanent settlement ushering in the evolution from hunter gatherer. If from recorded history, why not the Magna Carta as the first big step in migration away from authoritarian rule?
I have just looked at the article and discovered I share my idea with Timothy Snyder at Yale. I was tryimg to think of something that was not entirely Eurocentric. I also like the printing press one. The importance of the innovation is undeniable, but attaching it to one day is suspect. Similarly with the steam engine.
How about the date the moon was created. Without it, the tidal movements of our oceans would be so great that every point on the planet for at least a portion of each 24 hour day would be under water. We, or whatever life evolved, would have to swim whole lot better than I can.
We are asked for the date that most changed world history, or (in my interpretation) the date when something happened that changed the course of human history the farthest from what it otherwise would have been today.
For this reason I disapprove of landmarks that were “waiting to happen” such as the start of WWI or women getting the vote.
I’m going for a day when something didn’t happen. The 26 September 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident. One man made one choice where the alternative outcomes were (with the benefit of hindsight) spectacularly far apart.
Great choice, David!
This is a funny question. It’s not the most important “event” or “discovery”. My reading of the question would rule out the Big Bang, birth (or death) of Christ, and a host of other events for which we don’t have an actual date. [A nod to the importance of dates: the medieval church made up dates for key events so they could be properly celebrated.]
That limits us to the last thousand years or so, which makes the question narrower and therefore more interesting.
Here’s a narrower question that I’d prefer to answer: If you were to set aside one day for global observance of a historical occurance, what would it be?
On the political side, I think that July 4, 1776 trumps all dates before or since. While the Glorious Revolution (Oct. 10, 1688) was glorious, I think it’s overshadowed in terms of political development by the English Civil War (Jan. 4, 1642, perhaps?), which was not glorious. England achieved liberty and representative government very gradually; the US much more quickly. Nothing deserves selection outside the Anglo-American strain of political thought, which so utterly dominates the world that North Korea feels the need to maintain a written constitution.
But all politics is local. The U.S. rightly celebrates July 4th, and other countries rightly don’t.
Dates commemorating the salvation of civilization from a threat are too easy to duplicate.
That leaves the other major development of our civilization: science. A case could be made for Copernicus, but I’ll join Steve in celebrating July 5, 1687. (Newton Day? Science Day? Gravity Day?)
I don’t think my choices are as good as many of yours…I’d have to go with Steve’s Newton date. Or the birth (death?) of Christ.
But here are a few others that might be important:
October 31, 1517…Martin Luther’s 95 Theses
October 14, 1066…Battle of Hastings
Perhaps the date on which the Library of Alexandria was burned?
Picking dates in human history sort of overlooks the fact that events are connected. If one is going to pick July 4th, 1776, then why not reach further back and choose April 19, 1775 when the battles of Lexington and Concord took place, or April 14, 1775 when Thomas Gage received the order to disarm the rebels?
This is an easy one.
October 23 4004 BC.
(Tongue firmly in cheek)
I think there have been a few prunes more influential than any dates.
My first thought was Dec 7, 1941, because of the decisive role (I think) in WWII and thus the world thereafter (needless to say, if the
Axis had won, the world would have been awfully different, perhaps for a very long time). But Steve mentions Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, which is at least arguably as good or a better choice.
Yes, I may be focusing excessively on relatively recent history, but FWIW, in defense of either of the above dates, (1) I think the scale, scope and plausible duration of difference in the alternative outcome of WWII are chillingly immense, and (2) both reflect specific decisions that were by no means inevitable, at least at the critical points in time at which they were chosen and acted upon, as opposed to actions/events that were arguably more or less inevitable over the course of history (or perhaps even as an evolutionary part of some very broad sweep of history).
With thoughts like those Steve has about Bosworth Field, I might suggest 15 June 1215. But my real answer is the day Gutenburg got his big idea.
“I think you lose credibility by dismissing political empowerment of an entire gender as less important than a televised dance move.”
I think you lose credibility by identifying an entire gender with a small sliver of it.
Fun post.
When I read Dyson’s pick, my thoughts paralled Harold’s – the big bang gave rise to all and everything including the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs.
I really liked the creativity of David Johnson’s pick. The things that didn’t happen are probably just as important as the things that did — they are just harder to think of. It made me think about how the DNA evidence suggests that the total population of humans 100,000 years ago, may have been as low as 10,000 individuals. A whole bunch of small day to day decisions probably made the difference between us being here and us being not. Maybe one of the bands decided to stay put instead of migrating, or vice-versa, and it saved them…or camped up hill instead of next to a river that flash flooded. Who really knows?
Not sure I’d pick a human invention like the printing press or Principia (although they are excellent choices). It isn’t entirely clear that those things wouldn’t have been invented anyway. Leibniz had calculus independent of Newton, we use his notation, and it doesn’t seem far fetched that everything else Newton did would have followed from Leibniz. But who knows.
The question itself fills us with wonder. Good stuff.
@15: Steve says “date” but the original question was “day”, which could allow days for which we do not know the date such as birth of Christ, if not the big bang.
With over half the population of the world living in China or India, and only a few percent in USA, it seems likely that most of the world would give an answer different from those in the US. They may not be right, because USA has had an impact on the world disproportiaonate to its population.
For truly global events to celebrate, first man on the moon is one example. It probably did not change much.
If indeed we are descended from one Eve, that I can suggest if not a certain day, then at least a certain night …
the most important date so far is interesting to ponder, but the most important date in the future will be when we reach the point of immortality… And it _will_ come and it will create problems beyond our comprehension.
@ Ken B,
If you’re referring to Mitochondrial Eve, then think again. Mitochondrial Eve is a mathematical fact unless you believe that humans came from multiple separate evolutionary paths. Also Mitochondrial Eve is a title that has changed hands many times throughout human history. In other words it’s impossible for her not to have existed.
I think its interesting that most respondents cite specific dates and events that were simply the marking point of something that was inevitable. WW1 would have happened without the Archduke being killed and Germany would have fought with Stalin anyway. Most inventions like the printing press would have been invented by someone else shortly thereafter (in most cases, just months) so really can’t be said to have changed world history. Womens suffrage was a movement both here and around the world that took many years to unfold, so no single date could possibly be that important, even if you argue that the movement was that important.
For that reason, I would favor days like June 4th, 1942 (Battle of Midway) over December 7th, 1941 as days that changed history. Some random event, such as the severely out gunned American Navy winning a chance battle, actually proves much more important. That said, I am not sure what I would pick as the more important random event!
@Daniel
Actually I don’t mean M-Eve. I know people often confuse that with a “real” eve, and I understand the issues, but I was just looking for a way to make a relevant sex joke. To promote the safety of all here in fact: More sex comments are safer sex comments, or so I’m told.
Among the bangs, there is the original Big Bang, the bang that wiped out the dinosaurs, earlier mass extinctions that may have been caused by giant impacts, the collision that created the Moon, and the supernova that created all the heavy elements on Earth.
Have to wonder if there’s some bias as some guys here say that a bang makes a date most noteworthy. Some subconscious association perhaps?
Neera Tanden is showing historical and constitutional ignorance even of her own country. 1920 is not when women got the vote in the US. Women had been voting for decades by then. That was the date on which the Constitution was amended to REQUIRE the states which had not already given women the vote to do so. Without the amendment we can be fairly sure that the hold outs would have come into line fairly quickly. The notion that most states were against women’s suffrage depends on staggering ignorance of how the Constitution gets amended in the first place. A two thirds majority in both houses of Congress followed by ratification by three fourths of the states suggests there was a very strong consensus before the amendment: indeed as a precondition for it. So her date is the one on which a minority of states in one country were forced to adopt women’s suffrage a decade or so earlier than they otherwise might have done. The US was not the first country to adopt women’s suffrage anyway.
My preference would be 15 June 1215. Without the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence is meaningless. First you need to accept that government itself is subject to the law. This a precondition for the political developments which followed over the centuries in Britain and the US, and which were carried by those countries elsewhere. The industrial revolution has transformed countless lives, but the rule of law was probably a precondition for that, too. As far as I know, Magna Carta was the first clear expression of government being subject to the law.
Of course, King John and his barons were following in the traditions of Henry II, who established the Common Law. Without the notion that law is separate from the day to day whim of the government – as in Athens or Rome – then government cannot be made subject to the law. So perhaps 25 October, 1154, the accession of Henry II would be best.
My birthday 7/10/1945!
Paul Krugman’s birthday 2/28/1953!
I nominate whatever day it was in 1944 that Bloch, Campbell, and Hopper ran the first program on a Harvard Mark I computer. I’m probably wrong about this. It’s arguable that the invention of computers was not the most important thing ever for our species. Yet. But if artificial intelligences end up succeeding us as the most intelligent entities on the planet…
I don’t think the most important date was the day the dinosaurs were destroyed. I think the most important date was the day before the dinosaurs are destroyed. After all, if a piece of space debris hadn’t been hurling at the Earth at great speed on the day before, the day it actually hit could never have happened.
Seriously, “most important date” isn’t well-defined. “A day when something happened without which things would have been much worse for us” doesn’t work–things would have been much worse without George Washington turning 7 (since he couldn’t become president without having turned 7 at some time before that) but nobody would call that a most important date.
Yet defining it as “a day where something has big visible effects” doesn’t seem right either. The effect of the printing press was about as visible as Washington turning 7; it was only after the passage of time that the printing press changed the world. But I would imagine few of us would disqualify the invention of the printing press on these grounds.
‘…August 22, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth Field brought an end to the good-government reforms of Richard III and ushered in two mostly dreadful centuries of Tudors and Stuarts’
Well, those years included Shakespeare who arguably invented the modern English language. Also the defeat of the Spanish Armada which changed the development of not only Europe, but both American continents.
@Quentin Langley, great take-down of Neera Tanden!
And excellent point re: Magna Carta / rule of law.
It’s possible that, at some point in the future, the date which will have most changed world history will be one that no one will be able to note in retrospect: the date of a full-scale nuclear war. Given that there is more than an insignificant probability of such an occurrence, perhaps we can for now declare July 16, 1945 the date that will become (or will enable/lead to) the date that will most change world history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test
It is also possible that nuclear bombs will someday be considered to be the invention that kept world peace better than any other, and nuclear power will be the invention to save us from runaway global warming.
What about the day in the 12th century when al-Khwārizmī’s treatise on arithmetic was translated into latin, thus introducing the number zero into Western civilisation.
Posting on behalf of my girlfriend:
– For all history, the Big Bang. (I hadn’t told her others have said that. She seemed to consider it the obvious choice, and I agree, although credit to all who didn’t assume a limitation to human history.)
– For human history, the day electricity was invented.
Try this one : the date in 1900 Hilbert delivered his speech outlining his 23 famous “Hilbert problems”, in particular, the hour and minute he explained the 2nd problem “prove the axioms of arithmetic are consistent”
This led, 30 or so years on, to Gödel’s famous incompleteness result, which quickly inspired Turing’s work on computability. 10 or so years after that, the programmable digital computer was invented, and immediately started changing human history, starting with the outcome of World War II.
Skipping forward a number of decades, we see the invention of the internet leading to minor things such as the rise of the Indian economy and political changes such as the Arab Spring, and far bigger things such as the Human Genome project, AI, fMRI, robot space probes…
The indications are that computers, ultimately inspired by Hilbert’s innocuous speech, are beginning to cause a greater change in human history than the industrial revolution or even the agricultural revolution did.
Re #42 : http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2718
I think a better wording of the question would be “What’s the most important date for human history?” After all, it’s unclear whether humanity is consequential at all, or at least no more consequential than the dinosaurs.
This isn’t a particular date, but I’d say the creation of Ancient Greece, in particular, Ancient Athens, which gave birth to the pillars of Western Civilization, is the most important time in human history. The Ancient Greeks came up with constitutional government, free speech, individual rights, civilian control over the military, separation between religious and political authority, middle class egalitarianism, private property, and scientific inquiry. Basically, they came up with the idea that pretty much everyone is deserving of dignity.
The most important date of Ancient Greece is probably the date of the Battle of Delium in 424 BC. One of the most prominent warriors in that battle was Socrates. I’m sure the battle, and the wider Peloponnesian War, profoundly affected his view of the world, which profoundly affected the world view of pretty much all subsequent Westerners, and hence pretty much everyone else. There are other pretty arguable dates, as well.
Before that the Battle of Thermopylae, which was crucial to the Greek repulsion of Persian rule.
Before that the invention of farming.
Before that the invention of the spear.
Before that the harnessing of fire.
Admittedly, while those are important, 99.99% of all humans lived at subsistence levels till about 1800. But that revolution was the culmination of thousands of years of human cultural evolution. It’s hard to say what’s more important, the day an important discovery/invention, technologically and culturally, is made or the day that all the necessary discoveries/inventions were made to make poverty a thing of the past for everyone in the developed world and fading fast in the rest of the world, resulting in pretty much the unimaginable wealth a typical American has.
I’d say it’s arguable that everything was in place in 430BC, but the Peloponnesian War ended all that. Everything again seemed in place in 49BC, but the Roman Republic came to an abrubt end. But the Industrial (and Marginal) Revolution didn’t happen then. It happened in the 1800’s. It’s not clear why. Nor is it clear that if we could rewind the clock to 1750 that it would happen again.
I’d say the ancient Greeks were the most important time in human history, even more important than the extinction of the dinosaurs. It’s not at all clear that before the Greeks that humans wouldn’t be just another species on the planet.
How about the day we started digging up all those old, dead dinosaurs so we could burn them to run our computers, take road trips, grow more food and fight like the dickens?
1215 Magna Carta
23 November 1963 – Doctor Who premieres.
i agree with gordon/brooks. the day we actually cracked an atom in two.
My birthday. Where would I be without it?
A Euro-centric choice, but I’m going with Ken B. – the invention of the movable type by Gutenberg. I know the Chinese had invented movable type about 400 years earlier, but Gutenberg’s invention had a broader impact, such as enabling the Reformation.
Going back further, I might also suggest the date about 10,000 years ago when someone in present day Turkey had the idea to plant seeds, rather than scavenging plants.
Looking back from some time in the future, I think people might choose Feb. 28, 1953, when Crick and Watson figured out the structure of DNA. That hasn’t had an huge impact yet, but I think that in the long run that may turn out to be the most important scientific discovery of all time.
The invention of paper by Ts’ai Lun circa 105 AD?
Let the search for the arcane begin. Let us now seek for the flap of the butterfly wings that….
I am having a difficult time ruling out, as others have suggested, the birth/death of Christ, or maybe a key date in Islam, like the Hijrah. For the force of history that followed both men seems incomparable. Of course, this is for reasons in addition to just religious, but also cultural, militarily, geopolitical, etc etc etc.
@Kirk. Well, done. Sorry, I withdraw my petty suggestions regarding the rule of law. You are spot on. (And if you could hear the ringtone on my cell phone, you would know that I am genuine about this).
One of the more remarkable conclusions the linguists have come to is that the alphabet was only invented once, and that all subsequent alphabets derive from that first idea. I do not know how strong the argument really is, but it seems a very widely accepted conclusion amongst those who study such things. So there’s another suggestion.
I’m not sure things like that, or Dyson’s pick, really count as “dates” which implies a certain precision. The invasion of a prokaryote by a bacterium to create the first eukaryote is another such. “Date” does not really apply.
1440 – Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. I don’t know if there is one “day” that we can say it was invented.
Perhaps it is just my own Machiavellian bent, but I cannot help but think Steve has here cunningly made a point he has made before: Everything we have came from an act of invention or insight from someone else. And it’s been going on a long time. Most of the examples here fit that, from movable type, to seeds, to F=ma, to insisting on jury trials or limits on power. Even Dr Who.
Sneaky Steve — and I mean that as a compliment!
Guess I should read the comments before I comment. I think at least five people beat me to the Gutenberg idea.
@56 – I did mention this before, but the original Atlantic question was “day” not “date”.
“The invasion of a prokaryote by a bacterium to create the first eukaryote is another such. “Date” does not really apply.”
If this was in fact a single occurrence, then it would have my vote. Bacteria had hung around for 1 billion years without changing too much. Then along comes this “event”.
@LaughingShadow: I don’t that priority matters here. What you think is what’s asked; getting more votes for the same idea is informative not redundant. I’m pleased to see so many voices raised for Magna Carta just as a measure of its value and importance.
(I saw the best preserved original copy last year at Salisbury Cathedral. Most early copies on display, including the British Library and I think in Washington are from the 1225 re-issue, not 1215.)
Here is my nomination, and as far as I can tell, it has not been made before:
The first time one human traded with another.
Although we don’t know the details of that event, including the exact date on which it happened, everything that followed in human history is due to that knack. The division of labor trade allows is humanity’s differentiator and strength. Once we set down that path and made it part of our culture, progress was going to be perennial.
Like several commenters have noted above, I’m not sure about events that were inevitable. For instance, the tension in Europe in 1914 was such that WWI was going to erupt sooner or later, so the specific trigger is not really seminal.
On the flip side, this is true for almost all events. The environment in which the event happens, including the laws of nature and human agency, is more important for what follows.
So why not pick something that celebrates a trait, law or other property that, taken the universe for granted, determines the nature of the world in which we live?
And if we do that, why not pick out the chief source of our blessings?
I’ll add as a contender…
The day miniskirts were first designed. Because miniskirts are the strongest evidence (albeit still inadequate) that there is a god.
(And I suppose extra large miniskirts may be the strongest evidence that there is a devil.)
“The first time one human traded with another.”
A good one, but there’s a hidden assumption. This might have occurred *before* homo sapiens sapiens.
Both trade and the printing press led to that most important moment when I stumbled across a book called The Armchair Economist in the shelves at Barnes & Noble
Eliezer: “My birthday”
Some lessons, once learned, are never forgotten. Better is: “My girlfriend’s birthday.”
Election Day 2000.
When Gore lost Florida and the election, it set in motion the destruction of the earth as CO2 increased and cooked the earth and destroyed all life on the planet and turned the third rock from the Sun into a copy of its sisteter planet, Venus.