The History of South America

South America enters this timeline building an empire without wheels or writing as Europe knew them: the Inca bound the Andes together with roads, terraces and knotted-cord records, ruling millions from Cusco. The Spanish conquest of the 1530s brings that world down with steel and smallpox, and three colonial centuries follow, financed by the silver mountain of Potosi. This timeline then follows the wars of liberation, with Bolivar and San Martin converging from opposite ends of the continent, and the turbulent making of the modern republics: booms and busts, coups and constitutions, dictatorship and democracy. The events below are arranged era by era, each one linked to a full page with its date, region and context.