• ocean exploration
  • 40,000 YBP: humans begin to fish, which means that they're finally drawn to settle near the shore
  • 40,000 YBP: humans arrive at Australia, the earliest evidence we have of ocean-going boats
  • 3000 BC - 500 AD: humans explore all of Polynesia, ultimately settling Hawaii sometime between 300 - 800 AD, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in 300-400 AD.
  • 874 AD: humans arrive at Iceland, one of the last major islands settled
• transportation innovations
  • 5000 BC: earliest wheel
  • non-human transportation (before this, humans spread over continents on foot alone)
    • 4000 BC: domestication of the horse and donkey, which probably led quickly to the first animal-drawn cart
    • 3500 BC: earliest sailling (before this, humans moved solely by muscle power)
  • 4000 BC: earliest roads
  • 3000 BC: earliest galleys (oar-and-sail powered, square-rigged ships)
  • 1788 AD: the first steamboat used for commercial service (before this, humans moved by muscle and wind only)
  • 1812: the first successful steam-powered railway
  • 1818: the first production automobile
  • 1910: the first commercial airplane cargo flight
  • 1961: the first human in space
• early international trade
  • earliest overland trade routes
    • Trans-Saharan route, prehistoric
    • Silk Road, portions existed as early as 6000 BC
    • 300 BC: Incense Route, Egypt to India
  • earliest maritime trade
    • 2700 BC: Mediterranean trade
    • 200 BC: Chinese trade in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean
• 8th - 13th centuries: Islamic Age of Discovery
  • Muslim Agricultural Revolution, sometimes called the "globalization of crops".
  • Age of Navigation
• 1648: the "Peace of Westphalia", the beginning of state sovereignty
• 15th - 17th centuries: European Age of Discovery and the First European colonization wave
  • 1492: Columbian Exchange, ENORMOUS exchange of domesticated plants, domesticated animals, and diseases
  • 1714 - 1764: Longitude Prize, a major advance in international shipping
• 1789 - 1815: French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars
  • the first time mass conscription was used for war
  • 1809: canning invented, allowing larger armies to march further
• telecommunications innovations
  • prehistoric: smoke signals
  • 2400 BC: organized foot couriers
  • ?old?: relay riders
  • 1000 BC: homing pigeon
  • 405 BC: heliograph
  • 1792: optical telegraph
  • 1844: first inter-city electrical telegraph
  • 1866: first transatlantic telegraph cable
  • 1958: first communications satellite
• 1840 - 1900: development of railway time, one of the earliest efforts to standarize timezones
• economic standarization
  • 8 - 12th centuries: first monetary economy
  • the silver standard was established a while ago
  • 1566: first foreign exchange market
  • 1717 - 1900: establishment of the gold standard
  • 1944: Bretton Woods system: all currencies were pegged to the U.S.Dollar, though with allowances for revaluations if/when necessary
  • 1973: gold standard and fixed exchange rates abolished, currencies allowed to float relative to each other
• drug trade
  • 1839-1860, the Opium Wars, efforts by the British to force China into a less isolationist trade policy by promoting the one item that was most easy to stimulate demand for: opium.
  • 1912: the first of several international treaties controlling the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs
  • 20 - 21st century: United States gives large amounts of military hardware to Latin American and Asian countries where drug cartels exert a large political influence