3873 entries. Last updated May 19, 2013.

Music Timeline Outline

  • Eras
  • Themes

2,500,000 BCE – 8,000 BCE

A flute, found in the hills west of Ulm Germany, that is believed to be 35,000 years old.
The Earliest Musical Instruments
(Circa 33,000 BCE)

300 BCE – 30 CE

The First Keyboard Musical Instrument
(250 BCE)

A Taoist text preserved on silk and discovered in Mawangui in 1973.
The Mawangui Silk Texts
(Circa 175 BCE)

30 CE – 500 CE

Hero of Alexandria
Automata Invented by Hero of Alexandria
(Circa 30 CE – 70 CE)

The Yale Musical Papyrus. (View Larger)
Ancient Greek Songs
(Circa 125 CE)

The Michigan Instrumental Papyrus. (View Larger)
Ancient Musical Notation
(Circa 125 CE)

Fragment 2687 of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which supplements fragment 9. (View Larger)
Greek Writings on Music and Rhythm
(Circa 250 CE)

500 CE – 600

Boethius teaching his students. (View Larger)
Thedoric Executes the Philosopher Boethius: Beginning of the Middle Ages
(524 – 525)

800 – 900

A diagram of a 'self trimming lamp' from the Book of Ingenious devices, preserved in the 'Granger Collection' in New York. (View Larger)
The First Programmable Machine & the Earliest Known Mechanical Musical…
(850)

900 – 1000

The Oldest Documentation of Occidental Music
(960 – 970)

1000 – 1100

The Earliest Codex Preserving Ancient Greek Music Theory
(January 14, 1040)

1100 – 1200

Folio 1 of Codex 2527, preserved at the Austrian National Library. (View Larger)
Medieval Handbook of Applied Arts Including Book Production
(1100 – 1120)

An Illuminated Medieval Travel Guide and Music Compendium
(Circa 1150)

Plate 8 of the Englehardt facsimile of the Hortus delicarum. In the centermost circle, Philosophy rests upon a queenly throne, holding a banner that says 'All wisdom comes from God, only the wise can do what they want.' Directly below sit Socrates and Plato, at abutting desks. In the surrounding orbs stand the Seven Liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. (View Larger)
Written and Illuminated by the Nun Herrad of Landsberg
(1167 – 1185)

1200 – 1300

Modern replicas of Al-Jazari's automated musicians, perhaps the oldest programmable automata known. (View Larger)
First Recorded Designs of a Programmable Automaton
(1206)

A depiction of the Castle Water Clock from al-Jazari's 'Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.' This manuscript is preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (View Larger)
Perhaps the Earliest Programmable Analog Computer
(1206)

1300 – 1400

Folio 31r of the Rossi Codex, upon which is written a madrigal entitled 'in un broleto, al'alba.' (View Larger)
One of the Earliest Sources of Trecento Secular Polyphonic Music
(1370)

1400 – 1450

A facsimile version of the Squarcialupi Codex. (View Larger)
The Largest Primary Source for Music of the Trecento
(Circa 1410 – 1415)

1450 – 1500

The colophon of the 1457 Mainz Psalter, featuring the first printer's mark. (View Larger)
The Mainz Psalter. . . .without "Any Driving of the Pen"
(August 14, 1457)

The Earliest Printed Music
(Circa 1473)

The First Dated Printed Book Containing Music
(October 12, 1476)

The First Appearance of a "Musical Idea" in a Printed Book
(March 21, 1480)

The First English Book Printed on Paper Made in England
(1495 – 1496)

The First Record of a Privilege Granted for Music Printing
(May 25, 1498)

1500 – 1550

'Harmonice Musices Odhecaton,' a collection of secular songs, was the first book of music to be printed using movable type. (View Larger)
The First Book of Music Printed from Movable Type
(1501)

In 1536, King Henry VIII formally disbands all monasteries in his realm and seizes their property, including thousands of books and manuscripts, most of which were subsequently lost or destroyed. (View Larger)
Dissolution of the Monasteries Brings Destruction and Dispersal of Libraries
(1536 – 1541)

1700 – 1750

Baroque Counterpoint
(1725)

Complex Enough to Provide a Credible Imitation of Life
(1731 – 1738)

1750 – 1800

The First Successful Speech Synthesizer
(1791)

Invention of Lithography
(1796 – 1800)

1800 – 1850

The First Thematic Index of a Composer's Work, Based on Mozart's Own Index
(1805)

The Star Spangled Banner
(September – November 1814)

Cantata by Mendelssohn to Honor Gutenberg
(June 1840)

1850 – 1875

The Earliest Sound Recordings, without Playback
(1860)

The Kochel-Verzeichnis
(1862)

1875 – 1900

Edison Invents the Phonograph
(August 12, 1877)

David Hughes Invents the Loose-Contact Carbon Microphone
(1878)

Edison Describes Future Uses for his Phonograph
(June 1878)

Listening to the Earliest Surviving Recording of a Musical Performance
(June 22, 1878 – October 2012)

The Flat Disc Gramophone
(1887)

1900 – 1910

The Oldest Surviving Magnetic Audio Recording
(1900)

Lee de Forest Invents the Triode
(1906)

1910 – 1920

The Theremin
(1919)

1920 – 1930

George Owen Squier Invents Muzak
(1922 – 1936)

The First Hi-Fi Sound Recording
(1924)

Invention of Magnetic Tape
(1927)

The First Full-Length Film with Synchronized Dialogue
(October 1927)

1930 – 1940

The Hammond Electric Organ
(April 24, 1934 – April 1935)

The First Practical Tape Recorder
(1935)

1940 – 1950

Bombing of Dresden Destroys Books and Manuscripts
(February – March 1945)

The First Long Playing Record (LP)
(1948)

1950 – 1960

Schmieder's Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
(1950)

The First Rock and Roll Recording, Named After First American Muscle Car?
(March 3 – March 5, 1951)

The First Demonstration of Computer Music
(August 7 – August 9, 1951)

The Oldest Known Recordings of Computer Music
(Circa November 1951)

Perhaps the First Computer-Controlled Aesthetic System
(1953)

The First Sample-Playback Keyboard
(Circa 1956)

The First Significant Computer Music Composition
(1957)

First Book on Computer Music
(1959)

1960 – 1970

Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' "
(1963)

The Moog Synthesizer
(October 1964)

The Word Multimedia Coined
(July 1966)

The First Live, International Satellite Television Production
(June 25, 1967)

The First Widely-Attended International Exhibition of Computer Art
(August 2 – October 20, 1968)

First First Digital Sampler in the First Digital Music Studio
(Circa 1969)

The First Book on Computer Music to Include Recordings of Compositions
(1969)

1970 – 1980

The First Comprehensive Treatise on Computer Graphics with the First History of Computer Art
(1971)

The CD is Developed
(1976 – 1983)

Launching "Messages in a Bottle" into the Cosmic Ocean
(1977)

The First Widely Used Music Scheduling System
(1979)

1980 – 1990

The First Music CDs Pressed in the United States
(September 1984)

The CD-ROM is Introduced
(1985)

The First PostScript Type Font: "Sonata" for Musical Notation
(1985)

1990 – 2000

The Rolling Stones Present the First "Cyberspace Multicast Concert"
(November 1994)

The First Internet Only Broadcast of a Live Band
(November 10, 1994)

DVDs are Introduced.
(September 1996 – March 1997)

MP3
(1998)

Napster is Founded
(June 1, 1999)

2000 – 2005

Pandora Radio is Founded
(January 2000)

An Injunction Against Napter to Prevent Trading of Copyrighted Music
(March 5, 2001)

The BitTorrent Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Protocol
(July 2, 2001)

iPod Launched
(October 23, 2001)

Rhapsody is Launched
(December 2001)

Apple Opens the iTunes Store
(April 28, 2003)

2005 – 2010

iLike
(2006)

File-Sharing Exceeds Sales of Digital Music Downloads
(January 22, 2006)

Over One Billion iTunes Downloads
(February 22, 2006)

The Biggest Music Retailer in the World: Apple's iTune Store
(April 23, 2006)

Five Billion Songs
(June 2008)

The Effect of Decay Fungi on Wood Used in the Production of Violins
(June 28, 2008)

Downloads Trump CDs
(November 25, 2008)

Apple Eliminates Anticopying Restrictions from iTunes
(January 6, 2009)

The First Collaborative Online Orchestra
(April 15, 2009)

Using YouTube Videos to Study the Origins of Music in Societies
(April 30, 2009)

The Death of Michael Jackson Impacts the Internet
(June 25, 2009)

MySpace Acquires iLike
(August 19, 2009)

Confirmation that Fungally-Treated Wood Enables Great Violin Sound
(September 2009)

2010 – 2011

The First Recording of Ancient Asian Melodies
(September 15, 2010)

2011 – 2013

The First Independently Published Magazine Exclusively for the iPad
(January 2011)

Universal Music Group Donates a "Mile of Music" to the Library of Congress
(January 10, 2011)

The First Major Print Magazine Publisher to Offer iPad Subscriptions
(May 9, 2011)

Steve Jobs Dies
(October 5, 2011)

Penguin to Merge with Random House
(October 29, 2012)

<p>Screen shot from first video to hit one billion views on youtube.com</p>
The First YouTube Video to Reach a Billion Views
(December 12, 2012)

The Year In Graphics and Interactives from The New York Times
(December 30, 2012)

2013 – Present

Billboard Starts to Include YouTube Streams in its Calculation of the Most Popular Songs of the Week
(February 20, 2013)