
(Circa 75,000 BCE –
73,000 BCE)
Writing / Palaeography / Calligraphy Timeline Outline
2,500,000 BCE – 8,000 BCE
The Advantages of Orally Transmitted Traditions
(Circa 30,000 BCE)

(25,000 BCE –
20,000 BCE)
(10,000 BCE)

(Circa 8,000 BCE)
8,000 BCE – 1,000 BCE
The Earliest Known Fermented Beverage
(Circa 7,000 BCE)

(Circa 6,600 BCE)
The Earliest Precursors to Writing in Egypt are Rock Drawings
(Circa 3,750 BCE)

(Circa 3,600 BCE –
3,200 BCE)

(Circa 3,320 BCE –
3,150 BCE)

(Circa 3,200 BCE –
2,900 BCE)
The Oldest-Known List of Titles and Occupations
(Circa 3,200 BCE)

(3,200 BCE)

(Circa 3,100 BCE –
3,050 BCE)

(Circa 3,100 BCE)

(Circa 3,000 BCE –
1,200 BCE)
The Wooden Panels of Hesy-Ra: Government Official, Physician, and Scribe
(Circa 2,600 BCE –
2,500 BCE)
(Circa 2,400 BCE –
2,300 BCE)

(Circa 2,291 BCE –
2,254 BCE)

(Circa 2,000 BCE –
1,700 BCE)

(Circa 2,000 BCE)

(Circa 1,550 BCE –
1450)
In Ancient Egypt Only the "Book of the Dead" Papyri Were Commercially Produced
(Circa 1,550 BCE –
50 BCE)

(Circa 1,500 BCE)
One of the Earliest Known Examples of Writing in Europe
(Circa 1,490 BCE –
1,390 BCE)
(1,450 BCE –
1,050 BCE)

(Circa 1,360 BCE –
1,330 BCE)

(Circa 1,292 BCE –
1,069 BCE)

(Circa 1,200 BCE –
1,050 BCE)

(Circa 1,200 BCE –
1,045 BCE)
1,000 BCE – 300 BCE

(Circa 1,000 BCE)

(Circa 1,000 BCE)

(Circa 950 BCE)
The Cascajal Block, the Earliest Precolumbian or Mesoamerican Writing Yet Discovered
(Circa 950 BCE –
600 BCE)
The "Chicago Syllabary"
(Circa 900 BCE)

(Circa 800 BCE)
The First Olympic Games
(776 BCE)

(Circa 750 BCE)

(Circa 750 BCE)

(Circa 740 BCE)

(Circa 740 BCE –
720 BCE)

(700 BCE)

(689 BCE –
691 BCE)
(668 BCE –
627 BCE)
(Circa 646 BCE)

(604 BCE –
562 BCE)

(Circa 550 BCE)

(Circa 550 BCE)
The Greek Origin of Monumental Roman Stone Inscriptions
(Circa 550 BCE)

(522 BCE –
486 BCE)

(Circa 500 BCE)
How Herodotus Used Writing and Messages in his Histories
(Circa 450 BCE –
420 BCE)

(Circa 350 BCE)
The Archives of the Athenian Cavalry
(Circa 350 BCE –
250 BCE)
Writing on Lead Tablets in Antiquity
(Circa 350 BCE –
250 BCE)
Probably the Earliest Surviving Papyrus of a Greek Text
(Circa 350 BCE)
The Earliest Datable Appearance of the Serif in Stone Inscriptions
(334 BCE –
330 BCE)
300 BCE – 30 CE

(300 BCE –
68 CE)

(Circa 300 BCE)

(Circa 280 BCE)

(Circa 264 BCE)
(Circa 250 BCE)

(Circa 175 BCE)
The Earliest Bookbindings
(Circa 100 BCE)
The Earliest Surviving Datable Examples of Rustic Capitals
(31 BCE –
79 CE)
30 CE – 500 CE

(Circa 50 CE –
250 CE)
Note-Taking Versus "Place Memory" from Antiquity through the Renaissance and Later
(Circa 50 CE –
1700)

(70 CE –
110 CE)

(Circa 75 CE)

(Circa 100 CE)
The Earliest Runic Inscriptions
(Circa 150 CE)
A Door-to-Door Bookseller in Egypt, Second Century CE
(Circa 150 CE)

(Circa 160 CE)
One of the Oldest Papyrus Codices of the New Testament
(Circa 175 CE –
250 CE)
The Diptych Document Format
(198 CE)
The Earliest Stage of Half-Uncial
(Circa 250 CE –
350 CE)
Death of Wei Tan, Discoverer of Ink
(251 CE)
The Transition from Papyrus to Parchment
(Circa 300 CE –
700)
A Sarcophagus Showing a Greek Physician in His Library
(Circa 320 CE)

(Circa 350 CE)
The Oldest Surviving Manuscript of the Comedies of Terence
(Circa 350 CE –
450 CE)

(Circa 350 CE –
475 CE)
The Most Widely Used Medieval Grammar
(Circa 350 CE)
500 CE – 600

(Circa 575 –
599)
600 – 700

(Circa 600)

(659 –
661)

(Circa 685 –
710)
700 – 800

(Circa 715 –
720)

(780 –
796)
800 – 900

(800 –
830)

(Circa 800)

(Circa 816 –
850)
1000 – 1100
Production of Medieval Arabic Manuscripts
(Circa 1025)
1100 – 1200
Origins of the Paris Book Trade
(Circa 1170)
1200 – 1300
The Earliest Surviving German Document Written on Paper
(1246 –
1247)

(1265 –
1268)
1300 – 1400

(Circa 1304 –
1340)
The Oldest Known English Public Advertisement
(Circa 1340)
Zilbaldone
(Circa 1350)
Routine Everyday Messages Inscribed on Rune-Sticks
(Circa 1350)
Scribes in London First Organize
(September 23, 1373)
1400 – 1450
1450 – 1500

(October 6, 1459)

(1467)
Three Ways that Printing Changed Manuscript Culture
(Circa 1470)
The Earliest Portrait of an Author in a Printed Book
(August 28, 1479)
The Most Complete Pattern Book from Medieval Britain
(Circa 1490)
1500 – 1550

(Circa 1500 –
1565)

(July 1518)
The First Manual on Humanistic Cursive
(1522 –
1524)
1550 – 1600
Destruction of the Maya Codices
(July 12, 1562)
The Vigenere Cipher
(1586)
1600 – 1650
Erasable Paper from 1609
(1609)
The First History of Writing
(1617)
1650 – 1700
Locke's Method of Indexing Commonplace Books
(1685 –
1706)
1700 – 1750
The Word Palaeography Coined
(1708)
1750 – 1800
The First Discovery of Ancient Papyri in Europe
(October 19, 1752 –
1754)
Invention of the Rubber Eraser
(April 15, 1770)
The Beginnings of Papyrology
(1788)
The Rosetta Stone
(July 15, 1799)
1800 – 1850
Gradual Disappearance of the Long S in Typography
(Circa 1800 –
1820)
Invention of Carbon Paper
(1806)
Foundation of the Ecole nationale des chartes
(February 22, 1821)
Invention of the Mechanical Pencil
(December 20, 1822)
The Penny Black
(May 1, 1840)
Invention of Anastatic Printing
(October 1841 –
October 25, 1845)
Spencerian Script
(Circa 1848 –
1920)
1850 – 1875
Invention of the Micropantograph
(1852 –
1862)
The First QWERTY Keyboard
(1873 –
1874)
1875 – 1900
The Electric Pen
(1875)
Edison Describes Future Uses for his Phonograph
(June 1878)
Development of an Efficiently Functioning Fountain Pen
(Circa February 12, 1884)
The Berne Convention
(September 9, 1886)
Gregg Shorthand
(1888)
The Telautograph
(July 31, 1888)
The Palmer Method
(1894)
Lewis Carroll Wrote or Received 98,000 Letters
(January 14, 1898)
1930 – 1940
The First Commercially Successful Ballpoint Pen
(1931 –
June 15, 1938)
1940 – 1950
Sealing of the Crypt of Civlization
(May 25, 1940)
1950 – 1960
The Bic Pen
(1950)
Chartae Latinae Antiquiores
(1954)
1960 – 1970
One of the Earliest Computer Text Editors
(December 1960)
The First Word Processing Program
(1961 –
1962)
Email Begins
(1965)
Hypertext, Text Editing, Windows, Email and a Mouse
(December 8, 1968)
Generalized Markup Language is Introduced
(Circa 1969)
1970 – 1980
The @ in Email
(March 1971)
The First Email Management Program
(July 1971)
First CRT Based Word Processor
(June 1976)
1980 – 1990
Origins of the Smiley on the Internet
(September 19, 1982)
Microsoft Word 1.0
(September 1983)
1990 – 2000
The Unicode Standard: Now 107,000 Charcters in 90 Scripts
(October 1991)
"You've Got Mail"
(1998)
2000 – 2005
8,000,000 U.S. Blogs
(November 2004)
2005 – 2010
Making Handwritten Manuscripts Searchable
(February 9, 2006)
Google Apps are Introduced
(August 2006)
Web-Footed?
(September 2006)
In 2007 There Were 12,000,000 U.S. Blogs
(February 2007)
An Encyclopedia with More than Ten Million Articles
(October 27, 2008)
Virtual Reunification of the Codex Sinaiticus
(July 6, 2009)
Algorithm to Decipher Ancient Texts
(September 2, 2009)
2010 – 2011
World Texting Competition is Won by Koreans
(January 14, 2010)
2011 – 2013
A Program for Signing and Inscribing Ebooks
(April 2011)
The First Book Stored in DNA and then Read
(August 16, 2012)
2013 – Present
The First 3D Printing Pen; Drawing Enters the Third Dimension
(February 2013)

























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