
(Circa 4,700 BCE –
4,200 BCE)
Economics Timeline Outline
8,000 BCE – 1,000 BCE

(Circa 3,200 BCE –
2,900 BCE)
1,000 BCE – 300 BCE

(Circa 500 BCE)
300 BCE – 30 CE

(215 BCE –
210 BCE)

(10 CE)
30 CE – 500 CE

(105 CE)
De rebus bellicis, Including Images of War Machines
(Circa 337 CE –
378 CE)
At the Beginning of the Dark Ages Production of New Manuscripts Essentially Ceased
(Circa 400 CE –
600)
500 CE – 600
600 – 700

(Circa 650 –
960)
700 – 800
800 – 900
900 – 1000
1000 – 1100

(December 1085 –
August 1086)
1200 – 1300
First Recorded Issue of Paper Money in the Mongol Empire
(1224 –
1227)
Possibly the First Joint-Stock Company
(Circa 1250)

(1298 –
1299)
1300 – 1400
The Earliest Use of Paper Money in Japan
(1319 –
1327)
1450 – 1500

(September 1469)
The First Great General Work on Mathematics
(November 10 –
November 20, 1494)
1500 – 1550
The First Large-Scale Production-Line
(Circa 1525)
1550 – 1600
The Beginning of the Collection of Medical Statistics
(1592 –
1593)
1650 – 1700
Political Arithmetick
(1690)
The Breslau Tables
(1693)
1700 – 1750
Lombe's Silk Throwing Mill: The First Factory
(1718 –
1721)
Theory of Annuities
(1725)
The First Correct Life Tables
(1746 –
1760)
Mechanical and Industrial Arts of 18th Century France
(1749 –
1814)
1750 – 1800
Printing about 200 Sheets per Hour
(Circa 1750)
Candide, ou l'Optimism
(1759)
Arkwright Patents his Spinning Machine
(1769 –
1775)
The Age of "Laissez-Faire"
(1776)
The First Automated Flour Mill
(Circa 1785)
"The Magna Carta of Industrial America"
(December 5, 1791)
Malthus on Population
(1798)
1800 – 1850
The Industrial Revolution Advances
(Circa 1800)
Invention of the Pie Chart
(1801)
Fourdrinier Machines for Paper Manufacture
(1804 –
1807)
The Ludd Riots
(November 11, 1811 –
January 12, 1813)
The First Publically Subscribed Passenger Railroad
(September 27, 1825)
Brownian Motion
(1828)
Exposition of Bubbles
(1841)
The Communist Manifesto
(February 21, 1848)
1850 – 1875
Origins of the Internal Revenue Service
(July 1, 1861 –
1862)
Das Kapital
(September 14, 1867)
Traveler's Cheques
(1874)
The Principia of Thermodynamics
(1874 –
1878)
1875 – 1900
The First Production Automobiles
(1893 –
1894)
Foundation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
(May 26, 1896)
The First Automobile Assembly Line
(August 21, 1897 –
1901)
1900 – 1910
Henry Ford Sponsors Improvements in the Automotive Assembly Line
(1908 –
December 1, 1913)
1920 – 1930
The Minimax Theorem
(1928)
1930 – 1940
Hundreds of Thousands of Wind Turbines Power Farms in the U.S.
(Circa 1930 –
1945)
The First Publications on Statistical Quality Control in Manufacturing
(April 1930 –
1939)
"Modern Times"
(1936)
1940 – 1950
1950 – 1960
The First Credit Card
(February 1950)
1960 – 1970
The Information Economy
(1962)
1970 – 1980
The Fractal Geometry of Nature
(1975 –
1982)
1980 – 1990
Australia Issues the First Polymer Banknote ($10)
(January 1988)
1990 – 2000
Selling Wine without Bottles
(March 1994)
The Beginning of the "Dot-Com Bubble"
(August 9, 1995)
Where's George?
(December 23, 1998)
2000 – 2005
Climax of the Dot-Com Bubble
(March 10, 2000)
"Weapons of Financial Mass Destruction"?
(December 14 –
December 21, 2000)
"The Long Tail"
(October 2004)
2005 – 2010
Reborn Digital: The First Fully Digital University Press: A 3 Year Experiment in the United States
(July 13, 2006 –
September 30, 2010)
"Anshe Chung Becomes First Virtual World Millionaire"
(November 26, 2006)
The Leading Classified Advertising Service
(September 2008)
Apple Eliminates Anticopying Restrictions from iTunes
(January 6, 2009)
Kickstarter.com is Launched
(April 28, 2009)
Size of the Online Book Market in the U.S.
(June 1, 2009)
"Revenue at Craigslist is Said to Top $100,000,000"
(June 9, 2009)
Employment in the Field of Simulation
(June 14, 2009)
2010 – 2011
General Statistics on the U.S. Book Publishing Industry
(May 6, 2010)
Seventy Online Databases that "Define Our Planet"
(December 3, 2010)
2011 – 2013
IBM's Watson Question Answering System Defeats Humans at Jeopardy!
(February 14 –
February 16, 2011)
The Impact of Automation on Legal Research
(March 4, 2011)
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Automation on Jobs
(March 6, 2011)
Technological Unemployment: Are Robots Replacing Workers?
(January 23, 2012 –
January 13, 2013)
2013 – Present
"Information Technology Dividends Outpace All Others"
(January 11, 2013)







