| c. 2500 BC | Babylon | A temple in the Babylonian city of Nippur is filled with clay tablets to create the first known library. |
| c. 1200 BC | China | The I Ching/Book of Changes, a Chinese dissertation on divination, may have been written in this century. |
| 668 BC | Neo-Assyrian Empire | At Nineveh, Assyrian king Ashurbanipal begins to assemble the world's first great library. Consisting of thousands of catalogued tablets (over 20,000 still exist) accumulated from temple libraries throughout the Middle East, the collection includes medical treatises (including prescriptions and guides to the diagnosis and treatment of disease), tables of multiplication, lists of plants, astronomical and astrological tables, and a treatise on glassmaking. |
| c. 300 BC | Egypt, Ptolemaic Kingdom | Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I establishes a museum and library at Alexandria, Egypt. Organized by Demetrius of Phaleron, the library contains hundreds of thousands of vellum and papyrus scrolls, the texts of classical antiquity. Although it is intended to be an international library most scrolls are in Greek. It is destroyed in AD 391. |
| 787 | Carolingian Empire | Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Lombards, issues a directive to his bishops encouraging the study of Latin literature and language in monasteries and bishop's houses. The palace school at Aachen, in the Frankish kingdom, becomes one of Europe's greatest centres of scholarship and learning. |
| 890 | Wessex, England | The court of Alfred the Great becomes a centre of learning. Alfred translates works by St Gregory the Great, Orosius (a 5th century work of history and geography), Bede, and Boethius. He may also have initiated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an annalistic history of England continued to 1154. |
| 7 March 1274 | Italy | St Thomas Aquinas (‘Doctor Angelicus’), Italian Dominican theologian, outstanding medieval scholasticist, dies in Fossanova, near Terracina, Italy (c. 50). He is the author of Summa contra gentiles/The Main Argument Against the Gentiles and his greatest work, Summa theologiae/Summary of Theology, which is left incomplete. A vast compendium of moral and political philosophy, it attempts to reconcile reason, faith, and Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. |
| 1298 | China | Marco Polo writes Il milione/The Million (Travels of Marco Polo) while in prison. It is the first European account of the geography, economy, civilization, and government of China. |
| 1449 | Italy | Italian scholar and humanist Poggio Bracciolini publishes his dialogue Contra hypocritas/Against Hypocrites. |
| 1472 | Italy | Italian diplomat and military adviser Roberto Valturio publishes his influential De re militari libri XII/Twelve Books on the Art of War. |
| 1478 | Italy | Arnold Buckinck produces printed maps, in Rome, Italy. Twenty-seven maps by Conrad Sweynheym appear in Ptolemy's Cosmographia. |
| 1496 | England | The English humanist John Colet delivers a series of lectures at Oxford University on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Opposed to scholastic readings of the gospels, Colet introduces an interpretation strongly influenced by European humanism. |
| 1500 | Netherlands | Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus publishes Adagia in Paris, France. One of the most widely read books of the century, it consists of Greek and Latin proverbs, with comments, opinions, quotations, and long commentaries by Erasmus. An English translation appears in 1539. |
| 1516 | England | English statesman and scholar Thomas More publishes Insula Utopiae/Island of Utopia (the original Latin text of his Utopia). The English translation appears in 1551. |
| 1536 | Swiss Confederation | French religious reformer John Calvin publishes his Institutio Christianae religionis/Institutes of the Christian Religion in Basel, Swiss Confederation. It establishes his pre-eminence among reformers throughout Europe. The definitive edition appears in 1559. |
| 1559 | France | The French religious reformer John Calvin publishes the definitive edition of his Institutes. The first edition appeared in 1536. |
| 1589 | England | More Marprelate Tracts (anonymous attacks on English bishops) are published, including Certain Mineral and Metaphysical Schoolpoints and Martin Junior. The first Marprelate Tracts appeared in 1588. Writers such as John Lyly are employed to defend the bishops. John Penry, thought to be the author, is to be executed in 1593. |
| 1625 | Netherlands | Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius publishes De jure belli et pacis/The Law of War and Peace, which lays the foundation of modern international law. |
| 1628 | England | English jurist Edward Coke publishes The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England. The last part is published in 1644. |
| 1643 | England | Religio Medici/Religion of a Doctor by the English writer on science and religion Thomas Browne is published in an authorized edition. (An unauthorized edition appeared in 1642.) Reflections on his religious beliefs, the book contains a wealth of contemporary lore and learning. |
| 1643 | England | English poet John Milton publishes The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, the first of his tracts defending the legitimacy of divorce. |
| 1648 | Bohemia | The Bohemian philosopher and educationalist Comenius publishes his reflections on the religious consequences of the Thirty Years' War: Kšaft Umírající Matky Jednoty Bratrské/Testament of the Dying Mother, the Unity of Brethren. |
| 1651 | England | English philosopher Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan, his major philosophical work. |
| 1651 | UK | English poet John Milton publishes his pamphlet Pro populo Anglicano defensio/In Defence of the English People, a reply to those who condemned the execution of Charles I of Britain. |
| 1652 | UK | English political radical Gerrard Winstanley publishes The Law of Freedom in a Platform, which argues for a system of communism. |
| 1655 | England | English philosopher Thomas Hobbes publishes De corpore/On the Body, which attempts to explain all phenomena through mechanics, the first part of his work Elementorum philosophiae/Elements of Philosophy. |
| 1656–1657 | France | The French mathematician and religious thinker Blaise Pascal publishes Lettres provinciales/Provincial Letters, a series of 18 anonymous pamphlets written in support of Jansenist views. |
| 1658 | England | The English writer on science and religion Thomas Browne publishes Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial, a reflection on mortality in which he advocates cremation, and a companion work The Garden of Cyrus. |
| 1660 | UK | English poet John Milton publishes The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, a tract in favour of Republicanism. After the Restoration later this year his books are publicly burnt. |
| 1 January 1660 | England | English diarist Samuel Pepys begins his Diary, which he keeps until May 1669. |
| 1663 | Germany | German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried von Leibniz publishes De Principio individui/On the Principle of the Individual, a defence of nominalism (the view that names are merely conventions and do not imply the existence of universals). |
| 1665 | France | The French author François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, publishes Réflexions, ou Sentences et maximes morales/Reflections, or Axioms and Moral Maxims, a collection of witty epigrams on social and psychological themes. The book becomes known simply as his Maximes. |
| 1670 | France | Pensées/Thoughts, a collection of religious meditations by the French mathematician and religious thinker Blaise Pascal, is published posthumously. |
| 1674 | France | French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche publishes De La Recherche de la vérité/On the Search for Truth, his major work. An English translation, The Search for Truth, appears in 1694. |
| 1674 | North America | English-born North American judge Samuel Sewall (one of the judges in the Salem witch trials) starts his Diary, covering both his private life and the public affairs of Massachusetts, which he keeps (with some long gaps) until 1729. It is first published in 1878. |
| 1677 | Netherlands | Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata/Ethics Demonstrated According to the Geometrical Order by the Dutch philosopher Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza is published posthumously. One of the major works of Western philosophy, it attempts to construct a comprehensive world-view in which there is a single substance (God) with infinite attributes. |
| 1677 | North America | North American preacher Increase Mather publishes The Troubles That Have Happened in New England by Reason of the Indians There. |
| 1680 | France | The French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche publishes Traité de la nature et de la grâce/A Treatise on Nature and Grace. |
| 1689 | England | English philosopher John Locke publishes his first Letter Concerning Toleration, arguing for religious toleration. The second appears in 1690, the third in 1692. |
| 1690 | England | English philosopher John Locke publishes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A major work in the theory of knowledge, it lays the foundation of British empiricism. |
| 1690 | England | English philosopher John Locke publishes Two Treatises on Civil Government, a book that has a profound effect on the development of political philosophy. The first attacks the theory of the divine right of kings set out in Filmer's Patriarcha, published in 1680. The second expounds Locke's theory of the social contract between society and its ruler. |
| 1693 | America | English-born North American religious leader and colonialist William Penn publishes An Essay on the Present and Future Peace of Europe and Some Fruits of Solitude, a collection of aphorisms. |
| 1697 | France | French philosopher Pierre Bayle publishes his two-volume Dictionnaire historique et critique/Historical and Critical Dictionary, which offers a critical guide to a wide range of religious and philosophical arguments. |
| 1699 | UK | English church historian Gilbert Burnet publishes Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, a classic exposition of Church of England beliefs. |
| 1699 | England | The English philosopher Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, publishes An Enquiry Concerning Virtue. |
| c. 1700 | North America | North American merchant Thomas Brattles writes A Full and Candid Account of the Delusion Called Witchcraft, an attack on the Salem witch trials. It is not published until 1798. |
| 1702 | England | English writer Daniel Defoe publishes his pamphlet ‘The Shortest Way with the Dissenters’, a satire on religious intolerance in the form of a spoof of bigotry, which some readers take seriously. Defoe is imprisoned and pilloried. |
| 1710 | Ireland | Irish philosopher and churchman George Berkeley publishes A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. His major philosophical work, it is a classic of idealism, the view that objects are representations in the mind. |
| 1710 | Germany | German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz publishes Théodicée/Theodicy, an attempt to show that the existence of evil and the creation of the world by a loving God are compatible. His argument that (philosophically) this world is the ‘best of all possible worlds’ is ridiculed by Voltaire in Candide, which is published in 1759. |
| 1713 | Ireland | Irish philosopher and churchman George Berkeley publishes Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. |
| 1724 | England | English antiquarian William Stukeley publishes Stonehenge: A Temple Restored to the British Druids, one of the earliest studies of Stonehenge. His works mark the growing interest in Druids and in Celtic myths. |
| 1725 | Italy | Italian philosopher Gianbattista Vico publishes Scienza nuova/The New Science, in which, applying the laws of science to history, he charts the growth, maturity and decay of civilization. A revised edition appears in 1730. |
| 1728 | Ireland | Irish churchman and writer Jonathan Swift publishes A Short View of the State of Ireland. |
| 1733 | France | The French writer Voltaire publishes Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais/Philosophical Letters on the English, in which, admiring liberal democracy, he expresses criticisms of the French monarchy. |
| 1746 | France | French writer and encyclopedist Denis Diderot publishes Pensées philosophiques/Philosophical Thoughts. |
| 1748 | France | French social philosopher Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, publishes De l'Esprit des lois/The Spirit of the Laws. His major work, it has a profound effect on the development of political thinking. |
| 1749 | France | French philosopher Etienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, publishes Traité des systèmes/Treatise on Systems. |
| 1750 | France | Swiss-born French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes Discours sur les lettres et les sciences/Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, which establishes his reputation. |
| 1751 | Scotland | Scottish philosopher David Hume publishes Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, a reworking of part of his Treatise of Human Nature. A revised version appears in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which is published in 1758. He also publishes Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, another reworking of part of the Treatise of Human Nature. |
| 1753 | France | French scientist Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, delivers the lecture Discours sur le style/Discourse on Style on his admission to the Académie Française. It contains his celebrated line: ‘Le style est l'homme même’ (‘Style is the man himself’). |
| 1754 | America | North American philosopher Jonathan Edwards publishes A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of Freedom of the Will, his most important work, an attack on Arminianism, a doctrine that that is ascendant in North American theology and departs from strict Calvinist predestination, allowing for salvation by good works. |
| 1755 | America | North American writer and statesman Benjamin Franklin publishes Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. |
| 15 January 1759 | UK | The British Museum opens, on the site of Montagu House, in Bloomsbury, London, England, partly funded by a government-sponsored lottery. |
| 1761 | France | The French philosopher Baron d'Holbach (Paul Heinrich Dietrich) publishes Le Christianisme dévoilé/Christianity Unveiled, an attack on Christian belief. D'Holbach is one of the leading contributors to Diderot's Encyclopédie/Encyclopedia. |
| 1764 | Italy | The Italian jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria publishes Dei delitti e delle pene/On Crimes and Punishments. A denunciation of capital punishment and torture, it has a wide influence on penal reform. |
| 1766 | Sweden | The Swedish scientist and religious thinker Emanuel Swedenborg publishes The Apocalypse Revealed, expounding his highly individual blend of science and mysticism. His works influence, among others, the English poet and artist William Blake. |
| 1771 | England | The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the oldest English-language encyclopedia, is published. Parts appeared in 1768. |
| 1802 | USA | US mathematician and astronomer Nathaniel Bowditch publishes The New American Practical Navigator. Based on corrected tables from J H Moore's The Practical Navigator, Bowditch's book goes through 60 editions and sets the standards for maritime navigation. |
| 1802 | England | The English theologian and philosopher William Paley publishes his major work Natural Theology. Paley argues that the natural world shows clear evidence of design and purpose and that, therefore, a creator God exists. |
| 1821–1822 | France | French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion deciphers the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. |
| 1835 | Germany | The German theologian David Friedrich Strauss publishes Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet/The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. Asserting that many elements of the life of Jesus are to be understood as ‘myth’ rather than literal fact, the book is highly controversial. |
| 1844 | Scotland | Scottish writer Robert Chambers publishes The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which dispels the idea of divine creation and anticipates some of Charles Darwin's conclusions. |
| 1890 | Scotland | The Scottish anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer publishes the first volume of his 12-volume The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, which details the cults, legends, myths, and rites of the world's peoples. The final volume appears in 1915. |
| 1890 | England | The English evangelist leader William Booth publishes In Darkest England and the Way Out. |
| 1904 | | Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud publishes Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens/The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. |
| 1923 | | Austrian theologian Martin Buber publishes Ich und Du/I and Thou. |
| 1930 | | Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky publishes Permanentnaia revoliutsiia/The Permanent Revolution. |
| 1932 | | French philosopher Henri Bergson publishes Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion/The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, which analyses the role of morality and religion in society. |
| 1948 | USA | The US theologian Paul Tillich publishes The Shaking of the Foundations. |
| 1952 | England | The English philosopher R M Hare publishes The Language of Morals. |
| 1953 | UK | British cryptographer Michael Ventris publishes ‘Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives’, in which he announces his decipherment (1952) of the Minoan Linear B script, an ancient form of Greek written between 1500 and 1200 BC. |
| 1957 | USA | The US linguist Noam Chomsky publishes Syntactic Structures, which establishes transformational-generative grammar as a linguistic theory. |
| 1972 | USA | US palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Nils Eldridge propose the punctuated equilibrium model – the idea that evolution progresses in fits and starts rather than at a uniform rate. |
| 1983 | USA | Palestinian-American critic Edward Said publishes The World, the Text, and the Critic. |
| 1993 | USA | US writer Gore Vidal publishes United States, Essays 1952–1992. |
