Events in Sequence Trivia Quiz

206-220:
Prior to the invention of navigational aids like a map or compass, sailors relied on what they could actually see to determine their route. However, such techniques were useless on days or nights that were particularly foggy or cloudy. The compass - invented in China during the Han Dynasty and originally known as a 'south-governor' - would come to revolutionize navigation.

1215:
By 1215, thanks to years of unsuccessful foreign policies and heavy taxation demands, England's King John was facing down a possible rebellion by the country's powerful barons. Under duress, he agreed to a charter of liberties known as the Magna Carta (or Great Charter) that would place him and all of England's future sovereigns within a rule of law.

Though it was not initially successful, the document was reissued (with alterations) in 1216, 1217 and 1225, and eventually served as the foundation for the English system of common law. Later generations of Englishmen would celebrate the Magna Carta as a symbol of freedom from oppression, as would the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, who in 1776 looked to the charter as a historical precedent for asserting their liberty from the English crown.

King John I became the first English sovereign to suffer the punishment of excommunication (later meted out to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I). After another embarrassing military defeat by France in 1213, John attempted to refill his coffers and rebuild his reputation by demanding scutage (money paid in lieu of military service) from the barons who had not joined him on the battlefield. By this time, Stephen Langton, whom the pope had named as archbishop of Canterbury over John's initial opposition, was able to form an allegiance among the barons and put increasing pressure on the king for concessions.

With negotiations stalled early in 1215, civil war broke out, and the rebels led by baron Robert FitzWalter, John's longtime adversary, gained control of London. Forced into a corner, John yielded, and on June 15, 1215, at Runnymede he signed the Magna Carta.

1439:
Prior to Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, printing had been done by hand using wooden blocks. Gutenberg's press used mechanical movable type, which was both faster and cheaper and effectively introduced mass production to the publishing process. It revolutionized mass communication and allowed for the mass production of the Bible.

1687:
In 1687, prolific British mathematician and astronomer Isaac Newton published a book that would shape thinking about the universe for the next 200-plus years. His "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) set out his thoughts about gravity, tides and the movement of planets, all but confirming that the Solar System's planets revolve around the Sun.

1792:
The most famous work of feminist and author Mary Wollstonecraft, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", was radical for its time. Her theory was that women appeared inferior to men because they lacked an education. Wollstonecraft died tragically early at the age of 38, just after giving birth to a daughter whom she also named Mary. Mary married Percy Shelley and authored "Frankenstein" as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

1822:
Discovered in Egypt in 1799, 23 years elapsed before the Rosetta Stone was fully deciphered. and revealed the mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphics. The stone (known as a stele) bears inscriptions in three languages: Greek, Egyptian demotic and hieroglyphics. Only when the first two were translated did it become apparent that they were saying the same thing: a decree issued in 196 BC on behalf of Ptolemy V. Thus it was correctly assumed that the hieroglyphics were a third transcription, allowing French scholar Jean-François Champollion to decode them.

1859:
Charles Darwin had developed his theory of evolution - that species adapt and evolve over time as a process of natural selection during his travels in the 1830s, specifically during The Beagle's visit to the Galápagos Islands. But it would be 20 years before he published it in "On the Origin of the Species".

1957:
Sputnik 1 was the world's first artificial satellite. It was launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957 and marked the beginning of the "space race" between the Soviet Union and the United States. Sputnik circled the Earth every 96 minutes and stayed in orbit for 57 days.

1991: In 1989, after noticing that the large number of global scientists he was working with at CERN (the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland) were having difficulty sharing information, Oxford graduate and software engineer Tim Berners-Lee developed an idea that would revolutionize the way we communicate. Essentially, what Berners-Lee was suggesting was an application that uses the Internet (conceived in the late 1960s) to share information such as videos and text. By the end of 1990, the first web page appeared on the Internet, and in 1991, this new web community was made available to people outside of CERN.

1994:
On May 10, 1994, four years after his release from jail, where he had been held for nearly three decades, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was sworn in as the first black president in South Africa's history. Mandela had devoted his life to fighting the Apartheid system. After black citizens had been denied a voice at the polling booth for generations, this marked the spot of a new beginning.