In ecology, the spread of species into a new habitat, such as a freshly cleared field, a new motorway verge, or a recently flooded valley. The first species to move in are called pioneers, and may establish conditions that allow other animals and plants to move in (for example, by improving the condition of the soil or by providing shade). Over time a range of species arrives and the habitat matures; early colonizers will probably be replaced, so that the variety of animal and plant life present changes. This is known as succession.
| c. 4500 BC | China | The fourth of the great Neolithic river valley civilizations is formed on China's Huang He or Yellow River, the other three being the Nile, the Tigris–Euphrates, and the Indus valley civilizations. The oldest culture in the Huang He region is known as Dang-shao, economically based on millet, the pig, the goat, and the dog. |
| c. 4000 BC | Europe | The Neolithic way of life develops in northern Europe, including Britain, in this millennium. This development may be spontaneous or it may be indebted to influence, or even migrations, from the Mediterranean area. |
| c. 1600 BC | Greece | Greek-speaking invaders in the Aegean have penetrated the Peloponnese, where they begin to prosper and grow rich. They evolve the Mycenaean culture, named after its chief stronghold. Mycenae is ruled by a dynasty of kings, whose ‘shaft graves’ contain great wealth and fine art and weaponry, indicating that the Mycenaean princes are rapidly accumulating wealth. |
| 1340 BC | Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire | The Hittite king Suppiluliumas defeats and ends the power of the Mitanni, capturing Carchemish and making Syria his dependency. The Assyrians, however, absorb the Mitanni's lands. |
| c. 1200 BC | Greece | The Dorian Greeks, or at least a new group of Greek speakers, probably first arrive in the Peloponnese. Their arrival is followed during the remainder of the century by the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces. The palaces destroyed are Mycenae itself, Tiryns (probably caused by an earthquake), and Pylos. |
| c. 1100 BC | Crete | The Dorians spread to Crete. The Minoans reach the end of their distinctive civilization after three centuries of Mycenaean domination during which they have still retained their identity; for a few generations they flee before the invaders to live in the hills. The dispossessed Mycenaeans escape, partly to Arcadia, but largely to Attica and Athens itself. They also begin the so-called Ionian migration into the Aegean coastline of Asia Minor. The Dorians themselves migrate to the southern corner of this coastline. Cyprus has an influx of Greek immigrants at about this time, or even earlier. |
| c. 1100 BC–c. 1000 BC | Babylon, Assyria | Both Assyria and Babylonia suffer from incursions by a confederacy of tribes, speaking a northern Semitic language called Aramaeans. Even the Assyrians, relapsing into a dark-age period of which little is known, are apparently fighting for their very existence. |
| 814 BC | Carthage | The city of Carthage in north Africa is traditionally founded. It is developed as a Phoenician colony by the city of Tyre. |
| c. 800 BC | Greece | The Greeks begin colonization and foundation of new cities along the mid-Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. This movement is caused by increased prosperity and the pressure of expanding populations. |
| 550 BC | Europe | Celts from Europe begin to arrive in the British Isles, mainly in Ireland, but also in Scotland and England. |
| 480 BC | Europe | Celts of the Hallstatt culture of upper Austria begin to arrive in Britain in substantial numbers. This is the main period of Celtic immigration, greatly augmenting and changing the balance of Britain's population, and is known as Britain's ‘Iron Age’ culture. |
| c. 400 BC | Italy, Europe | Celtic tribes begin to move into northern Italy; the Boii and Senones cross the River Po and settle in the Po valley. The Insubres occupy Lombardy, with their capital at Milan (Roman Mediolanum). These Celtic tribes are collectively called Gauls by the Romans. At the same time, other Celtic groups are colonizing the banks of the Yonne and Seine rivers in France, and yet others are moving into Bohemia and Bavaria. |
| 270 BC | Rome, Italy | Rome, having successfully concluded its lengthy Italian wars, continues with a determined economic policy of colony planting within Italy and road building; the Via Appia is extended southwards. |
| 189 BC | Bactria, India, Mauryan Empire | The kingdom of Bactria (in modern Afghanistan) under Euthydemus and his son Demetrius is now strong enough to expand and to take over the Persian satrapies (provinces) that lie between it and India. This consolidates Bactria's hold on the trade routes and eventually leads its kings on to India. |
| 183 BC | Bactria, India, Mauryan Empire | King Demetrius of Bactria crosses the mountains between Bactria and India and proceeds down the Kabul valley to the town of Taxila, which he captures. He advances to the River Indus, capturing the city of Pattala in Arachosia and refounding it as Demetrias. He sends his general, Menander, east through the Punjab, where he occupies Sagala and the Mauryan capital, Paliputra, on the Upper Ganges River. Demetrius takes his Indian allies into the ruling council to form a joint government. Greek craftsmen are brought in, coins minted, and the sea route from the Indus to Arabia is developed. |
| 150 BC | China, Former Han Empire | During this period, the Huns, faced with a strong and expanding China under the Han dynasty, find themselves pushed inwards from the east rather than themselves pushing into China. They press on a kindred people, the Yue Ji, who infiltrate westwards into Turkestan and around the Sea of Aral. This affects the Scythians, soon to be known by the Indians as the Shakas. |
| 108 BC | China, Former Han Empire | The Chinese emperor, Wudi, founds a military colony, Lak Lang, in northern Korea. |
| 80 BC | UK | The second wave of Celtic Belgae arrives in Britain from Gaul during this period. They settle mostly in the southeast and tackle the less well drained and still forested land, farming with a plough that can turn the sod. They are probably responsible for the white horse on the chalk downs at Uffington in Oxfordshire. |
| 58 BC | Rome, Gaul | The tribe of the Helvetii from Switzerland begins to migrate west into Gaul (France) under their leader, Orgetorix, but is checked by the Roman statesman and general Julius Caesar, in alliance with the Gallic tribe of the Aedui, at the Battle of Bibracte (near Autun, France). This victory brings several requests for friendship and help from the tribes of central Gaul against Ariovistus, the leader of the Suevi, a Germanic people who have crossed the River Rhine and settled in northern Gaul, threatening the Gallic tribes in the area. |
| 48 | China, Mongolia | Chinese emperor Guang Wudi reconquers Inner Mongolia, which revolted during the civil wars of 18–25. |
| 106 | Roman Empire, Arabia | On the death of King Dabel of Arabia Petraea, the last buffer state between Syria and Parthia, comprising the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev Desert and commanding the trade routes to the East, the area is added to the Roman Empire in a campaign led by A Cornelius Palma, the Roman governor of Syria. |
| 120 | Europe | The Roman historian Tacitus refers to the Goths as having moved south from their original home around the Baltic Sea. They are a Germanic people who migrate to Scythia (modern southern Russia) about this time. |
| 167 | Roman Empire, Europe | The second wave of northern European peoples moves south in the shape of the Germanic Marcomanni, Quadi, and Vandals. They pose a serious threat to the borders of the Roman Empire, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius has to recruit from all classes of the population and bring in help from other Germanic tribes to resist them. He leads the army himself. The Germans cross the River Danube, destroy a Roman garrison of 20,000 troops, and pour south until they besiege the town of Aquileia in northern Italy. |
| 201 | Poland, Belarus | By the time of the reign of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, the Goths, a Germanic tribe who moved from their original homeland around the Baltic Sea in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, have founded an empire on the northern shores of the Black Sea (known as the Cernjachov culture) and around the Danube delta (known as Wielbark cultures). |
| 380 | Pacific | Easter Island, in the south Pacific Ocean, has been occupied by Neolithic seafarers who about this time begin to fortify the island. They also build platforms of cut and polished stone on which they set statues, although not the gigantic statues for which the island is famous – these do not appear until later. |
| 640 | Pannonia, Dalmatia | Slav tribes, later known as the Serbs and Croats, settle in the old Roman provinces of Pannonia (modern Hungary) and Illyria (Dalmatia, modern Croatia). They adopt the Greek and Roman forms of Christianity respectively. |
| 841 | Ireland, Scandinavia | Norwegian Vikings found a permanent raiding base at the mouth of the River Liffey in Ireland. It becomes an important trading centre and develops into the first city in Ireland (Dublin), until this time a country entirely without urban development. |
| 860 | Russia | Rurik, a semi-legendary Viking chief, founds a state in northwest Asia with its capital at Novgorod. Taking its name from Rus, the Finnish name for the Swedish Vikings, the state becomes known as Russia. |
| 870 | Iceland | Foster brothers Ingolf and Hjorleif become the first Viking colonists of Iceland. Hjorleif is murdered by his Irish slaves, but Ingolf founds a successful settlement at Reykjavik. |
| 900–1000 | Pacific | The Polynesian ancestors of the Maori people discover and begin the settlement of New Zealand. |
| 982 | Europe, North America | Eric the Red begins the Viking colonization of Greenland. |
| c. 1000 | Pacific | Polynesian migrants reach New Zealand, where they settle and become the Maori people. The Polynesian migration across the Pacific Ocean, using the stars for navigation, has taken centuries to complete. |
| 1241 | Germany, Poland | German immigrants flood into Poland to settle land depopulated by the Mongol invasion. |
| 12 December 1329 | Holy Roman Empire, Italy | King Ludwig IV of Bavaria returns to Germany from Italy, ending the final attempt to restore German imperial authority in Italy. |
| 1510 | Spain, South America | Spanish expeditions from the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, under Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa respectively, attempt to found colonies on the gulf of Uraba (Colombia) and the Panama isthmus, the first attempts at colonization of the South American mainland. |
| 8 November 1519 | Spain, Mexico, Aztec Empire | The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the vast Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in the Valley of Mexico, at the head of his 500 Spanish forces and 1,000 Tlaxcalan allies, and is received by its ruler Montezuma II, who suspects him to be a reincarnation of the god Quetzalcoatl. |
| June 1520 | Mexico, Aztec Empire, Spain, Central America | The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, holding the huge Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlán in the Valley of Mexico with his small force, hears that Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, governor of Cuba, has sent 900 troops under Panfilo Narváez to Veracruz to depose him. He takes four-fifths of his Spanish troops back towards the coast and defeats Narváez, Cuban commander, persuading most of the newcomers to join him. |
| 30 June 1520 | Mexico, Aztec Empire, Spain | The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés returns, reinforced, to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in the Valley of Mexico to find the force he left behind under Pedro de Alvarado besieged by Aztecs under Cuitlahuoc, following Alvarez's murder of Cuitlahuoc's predecessor, the Aztec emperor Montezuma II. The Spaniards break in and out, losing a third of their army in ‘the Bloody Night’ as they escape the city. |
| 18 April 1537 | Spain, Inca Empire, Central America | The Spanish expedition of Diego de Almagro, returning from the area of modern Chile, relieves Cuzco from its siege by the Quechua insurgents of the Inca leader Manco Inca, but then seizes the city from Hernando Pizarro, starting the civil wars between the conquistadors. |
| 28 April 1538 | Spain, Central America | The Spanish conquistador Hernando Pizarro, half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, leads his forces to victory over the rival faction of Diego de Almagro, capturing their leader, at Las Salinas; Almagro is subsequently executed in Cuzco (8 July). |
| 1540 | Ethiopia | The Oromo people of the Horn of Africa begin to advance northwards in a series of eight-yearly campaigns (based on the emergence of new generations of warriors) into the Ethiopian highlands, wresting control from the Ethiopians; they also become the world's major producers of coffee as it gains a steadily wider market. |
| 1542–1549 | New Spain, Central America | The Spanish conquistador leader Francisco de Montejo subdues bitter resistance by the Maya in the southern half of the Yucatán Peninsula in Central America. Their resistance causes him to abandon attempts to conquer the rest of the peninsula. |
| 9 April 1548 | Peru | The Spanish viceregal general Pedro de la Gasca defeats Gonzalo Pizarro at the battle of Jaquijahuana (Sacsahuaman) and executes him the following day, ending the conquistador regime in Cuzco against the authority of Lima in Spanish Peru. |
| August 1590 | North America, England | English navigator John White returns to resupply the colony he founded three years earlier on Roanoke Island (in present-day North Carolina), North America, but the only trace remaining is the word ‘Croatoan’ carved on a tree. |
| 1598 | United Netherlands | A United Netherlands expedition lands on and claims the uninhabited island of Mauritius (named after Count Maurice of Nassau) in the Indian Ocean; it becomes the first Dutch colony. |
| 26 December 1620 | UK, North America | The Pilgrim Fathers land at New Plymouth (modern Plymouth), Massachusetts, North America, to found the Plymouth Colony, with John Carver as governor. The colony is outside the territory assigned to the Plymouth Company of London. |
| 1624 | UK, Central America, West Indies | English settlers under Thomas Warner establish a colony on the Caribbean island of St Christopher (St Kitts). |
| 1630 | UK, North America | The English Puritan governor John Winthrop arrives in Massachusetts, North America, with 1,000 settlers, to found Boston. ‘The Great Migration’ to the Massachusetts Bay Colony continues (–1642) with the arrival of 16,000 settlers from England. |
| 1635 | North America | The colonization of Connecticut, North America, begins in earnest. A group of refugees from Dorchester, Massachusetts, settles in the newly established trading post of Windsor and colonists from Newtown settle in the area around Hartford. John Winthrop the younger takes control of the mouth of the Connecticut River and, before March 1636, is accepted as governor of the colony by its inhabitants. |
| May 1648 | Poland | Following a period of colonization of their lands by Polish noblemen, the Zaporog and Dneiper Cossacks, led by Bohdan Khmel'nitsky, rise in revolt against Poland. Polish rule collapses in the southeastern districts of Poland and it is never restored. |
| 9 April 1682 | North America | René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, reaches the mouth of the Mississippi and takes possession of the entire Mississippi Valley for France, naming it Louisiana in honour of King Louis XIV of France. |
| 22 October 1764 | India | The victory of British East India Company forces at Buxar, in Bihar, eastern India, over the forces of Mir Kasim (the deposed nawab of Bengal), the nawab of Oudh, and the titular Mogul emperor, leads to the establishment of British control over the Indian provinces of Bengal and Bihar. |
| 1778 | India | The British governor-general in India, Warren Hastings, captures the French base of Chandernagore in Bengal, and an expedition under Hector Munro takes Pondicherry in the Carnatic. |
| 1 July 1781 | India | Sir Eyre Coote, Irish-born British commander in chief in India, defeats Hyder Ali, Sultan of Mysore, at Porto Novo, establishing British hegemony over southern India. |
| 22 August 1788 | Africa | A British settlement is founded in Sierra Leone, West Africa, for freed slaves. |
| 9 July 1810 | France, Netherlands | Emperor Napoleon I annexes the Netherlands, making it part of the Empire of the French. |
| 2 June 1818 | UK, India | The leader of the Maratha confederacy in India, Baji Rao, the Peshwa of Poona, surrenders to the British forces of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings and governor-general of Bengal. Britain annexes the Peshwa's lands, effectively destroying the Maratha Confederacy, the last significant rival to British domination of the subcontinent. |
| 1822 | Liberia | Liberia, west Africa, is founded as a colony for freed US slaves by the Washington Colonization Society. |
| 6 June 1837 | Natal | The Republic of Natal is formally established by Dutch settlers in southern Africa and a constitution is proclaimed. |
| 16 December 1838 | Natal | The Boers (Dutch settlers) decisively defeat a Zulu army at Blood River, in retaliation for the attack on Pieter Retief's force on 6 February, and secure their position in Natal, southern Africa. |
| 20 January 1841 | China, UK | British sovereignty is proclaimed over the Chinese port of Hong Kong. |
| 3 May 1841 | New Zealand, UK | New Zealand is formally proclaimed a British colony. |
| 4 May 1843 | Natal, UK | Natal in southern Africa is proclaimed a British colony. |
| 8 August 1843 | India, UK | Britain formally annexes the Indian province of Sind (in modern-day Pakistan), having militarily subdued its inhabitants. |
| 26 August 1847 | Liberia | Liberia, the colony established in west Africa for freed US slaves, is proclaimed an independent republic under the presidency of Joseph Roberts. |
| 29 August 1848 | UK, Orange Free State | The Boers (Dutch settlers) in southern Africa are defeated at Boomplaats in the Orange Free State by British forces, and retire across the Vaal River, ensuring British sovereignty over the Orange River. |
| 12 August 1873 | Russian Empire, Central Asia | Russia assumes suzerainty of the Khanates of Khiva and Bukhara, pushing further into central Asia. |
| 12 April 1877 | UK, Transvaal | The British colonial administrator Theophilus Shepstone annexes the southern African Republic of Transvaal for Britain on grounds of bankruptcy and danger from Basutos and Zulus, though this annexation violates the Sand River Convention of 1852. |
| 25 August 1883 | Southeast Asia, France | France proclaims a protectorate in Annam and Tonkin, in Southeast Asia. |
| April–August 1884 | German South West Africa, Togoland, Cameroon, Germany | Germany occupies South West Africa, Togoland, and Cameroon. |
| 1885 | Pacific, UK, Germany | Britain proclaims a protectorate in Southern New Guinea, following German annexation of the north part of the island. |
| 5 February 1885 | Congo, Belgium | The Congo State is established as a personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium. |
| 25 February 1885 | Africa, Germany | Germany annexes Tanganyika and Zanzibar, forming German East Africa and continuing its expansion into East Africa. |
| 17 May 1885 | Pacific, Germany | Germany annexes Northern New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. |
| 5 June 1885 | Africa, UK | The British proclaim a protectorate in the Niger River region of West Africa. |
| 1 January 1886 | Burma, UK | Britain annexes Upper Burma, though guerrilla warfare continues. |
| 1887 | French Indochina, France | France organizes Cochin-China, Cambodia, Annam, and Tonkin as the Union Indo-Chinoise (French Indochina). |
| 12 May 1888 | Netherlands East Indies, UK | The British proclaim a protectorate in North Borneo and Brunei. |
| 10 January 1889 | Côte d'Ivoire, France | France proclaims a protectorate over the Ivory Coast. |
| 18 December 1890 | Uganda, UK | Sir Frederick Lugard occupies Uganda for the British East Africa Company. |
| 4 April 1891 | Germany | The Pan-German League is founded, a popular association dedicated to agitating for German expansionism. |
| 1893 | Laos, France | France proclaims a protectorate in Laos, continuing the expansion of its influence in Southeast Asia. |
| 10 March 1893 | Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, France | The French colonies of French Guinea and the Ivory Coast are formally established. |
| 22 June 1894 | Dahomey, France | The protectorate of Dahomey is proclaimed a French colony. |
| 23 July 1894 | Korea, Japan | Japanese troops seize the royal palace in Seoul, Korea, and take control of the country, which has traditionally been a Chinese fiefdom. |
| 2 May 1895 | Southern Rhodesia | Territory belonging to the British South Africa Company south of the Zambezi is organized to form Southern Rhodesia. |
| 11 June 1895 | Togoland, UK, Transvaal | Britain annexes Togoland in order to block the Transvaal's access to the sea. |
| 1 July 1895 | Africa | The British government creates an East African protectorate on the dissolution of the British East Africa Company. |
| 18 August 1896 | Madagascar | France annexes Madagascar, whose external treaties with other states are annulled. |
| 12 August 1898 | Pacific, USA | The islands of Hawaii are annexed to the USA. |
