The History of Politics

Politics is the largest thread in this corpus, and for good reason: almost everything else runs through it. This timeline collects nearly two thousand political events across the millennium, from the feudal bargains of the eleventh century to the treaties and elections of the present day. The arc it traces is the invention of the modern state. Magna Carta forces a king under law in 1215, Westphalia fixes the idea of sovereign borders in 1648, and the American and French revolutions turn subjects into citizens. The twentieth century then plays out the consequences at global scale through decolonization, the Cold War and the growth of international institutions. Browse the defining moments era by era below, each linked to its full event page and its wider period.