HISTORICAL TABLES 58BC~D1990 S H Steinberg 12th EDITION updated by John Paxton FOREWORD BY G.P.GOOCH M ©John Paxton 1964, 1966, 1973, 1979,1986,1991 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 12th edition 1991 First Edition 1939 Second Edition 1947 Third Edition 1949 Fourth Edition 1956 Fifth Edition 1959 Sixth Edition 1961 Seventh Editon 1964 Eighth Edition 1966 Reprinted 1967 Ninth Edition 1973 Tenth Edition 1979 Eleventh Edition 1986 Twelfth Edition 1991 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Twelfth edition first published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Auckland, Delhi, Dublin, Gaborone, Hamburg, Harare, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manzini, Melbourne, Mexico City, Nairobi, New York, Singapore, Tokyo. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Steinberg, S.H. Historical tables, 58 BC-AD 1990 - 12th ed. 1. Chronology, Historical I. Title 902'.02 Dll ISBN 978-1-349-12748-1 ISBN 978-1-349-12746-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12746-7 TO THE MEMORY OF THE RIGHT REVEREND BISHOP G. K. A. BELL (4 FEBRUARY 1883 - 3 OCTOBER 1958) WHO, WHILE HE HAD TIME, DID GOOD UNTO ALL MEN; AND ESPECIALLY UNTO THEM THAT ARE OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH FOREWORD FORTY years ago Lord Acton wrote a Foreword to my .Amuzls of Politics and Culture, 14!JR-1899, a work now out of print. Public events, he declared, were the foundation of history; but it derived its best virtue from regions beyond the sphere of State. Justice, he continued, must be done to its several elements, to thought as well as action, to the mass of influences which constitute opinion and govern the life of nations and the progress of civilization. His writings, fragmentary though they are, breathe the same conviction that history is the record and interpretation of the life of humanity. Goethe, declared Matthew Arnold in a celebrated phrase, saw life steadily and saw it whole. The historian must try to follow his example. Homo sum: lutmani nihil a me alienum puto. Though we all have our preferences and scholars must specialise, we must never forget that the stuff of history is the whole field of human experience. Its subject is the making of civilization, the ascent of man. How it is to be interpreted is a problem that each of us must decide for himsel£ History, as Froude used to say, is a child's box of letters : you can spell with them any word you will. The best preparation for the task is the recognition that it must be studied in all its length, in all its breadth, in all its depth. Nothing less will give us the perspective and the insight we need. Dr. Steinberg has compiled this extremely useful work in the belief that civilization is a co-operative achievement and a common heritage. To cast one's eye down the column headed Cultural Life is to realise the width of his studies and interests. Peoples are connected with one another by a network of contacts and obligations, visible and invisible. The older the world grows, the greater the debt of each to all and of all to each. Every one of us is a citizen of the world : each nation is a branch of the human tree. Geographical, racial and linguistic barriers blur but cannot destroy the fundamental unity of mankind. In presenting the life of man as a whole in so far as this is possible in the bare bones of historical tables, the author is merely holding up the mirror to the past. The flesh to cover the bones is conveniently supplied by the Cambridge Ancient, Medieval, and Modem Histories, happily completed at last. There is no propaganda either in the selection of his material or in the recesses ofhis mind. He has written history elsewhere, v vi FOREWORD but he is not writing it here. He is merely aiding teachers, students and the general reader to discover or recall what was going on in a given age in various parts of the world and in different fields of activity. It is not a book to be read through and put back on our shelves, but an indispensable companion to be kept on the table. It should prove of the greatest value in schools and colleges, and when the days of examinations are over it will remain within reach. For who can keep in mind the dates, the details and the sequences even of the most important transactions from the rise of the Roman Empire to the end of 1945? No work of precisely this character, so far as I am aware, is available for English readers. In my opinion the author has successfully achieved his purpose of filling the gap. G. P. GOOCH PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THE Foreword by Dr. G. P. Gooch has introduced the reader to the general aims of the present book, so that the author can confine himself to a few notes on some technical details. As the Historical Tables will probably be used chiefly by Anglo-Saxon students, the history of the British Commonwealth and that of the United States have been given a slight predominance, without, however, up setting the balance, and distorting the relative importance, of historical facts. It need scarcely be emphasized that the author could not go back to the primary sources in each instance; but he has always tried to avail himself of the best authorities. Apart from the sections dealing with the world wars, six columns have been provided for every period. For the greater part of the book, the left-hand pages deal chiefly with the relations of the Powers. The three columns on the right-hand pages are given to what may be described as home affairs and the history of civilization; i.e. c.onstitutional, economic, spiritual, and intellectual activities. All entries which do not expressly mention another country refer to England or, after 1707, Great Britain. This arrangement is, of course, open to criticism in many cases, since political, constitutional, and economic events have always influenced each other. The author therefore asks the reader always to regard the six columns as a unit which has been broken up only for convenience sake. The arrangement of the first ten or twelve pages has been made on different lines. It is meant to show the gradual absorption of the Roman Empire by the Papacy, the Islamic states, and the Teutonic tribes, up to the revival of the Western Empire under Charlemagne, and the first shaping of what was to become the kingdom of England, under Egbert of Wessex. Similarly the period following the Great War has been pre sented in a way different from that used for the bulk of the book. Since it is as yet impossible to pass a fair judgement on the greater or lesser importance of contemporary events, the author has confined hiInself to the role of an annalist who simply enumerates the major occurrences 3.' he sees them. Other changes of smaller significance explain themselves as being necessitated by the historical devdopment itself; e.g. the change of vii PREFACE Vlll the heading 'Islam and Asia' to 'Countries Oversea', from the age of discovery onward; and the abandonment of a special section for , Ecclesiastical History' after the close of the Thirty Years' War. The New Style has been uniformly adopted for all dates after its introduction by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, regardless of its reluctant acceptance in non-Roman countries which extended over almost two centuries. Two exceptions, however, have been deliberately conceded. as their dates are commonly known in the Old Style, namely, the deaths of Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth. Should there be found other deviations from the above rule, the benevolent critic will perhaps attribute them to the negligence of some authors who omitted to mention which style they had adopted. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, inventions and discoveries in the sphere of Natural Science which have more or less immediately influenced economic, and sometimes even political, history, have been brought under the heading of 'Economic History', whereas scientific progress on purely philosophical or academic lines has been kept under , Cultural Life ' as before. It is with great pleasure that I here acknowledge my profound gratitude to all those friends who unhesitatingly gave much time and thought to assist me in rendering the present work as reliable and useful as possible. The responsibility for its shortcomings must rest with me alone. The first edition was published a few weeks after the outbreak of the second world war. A new edition was called for immediately after the end of the 'emergency'. The author took this opportunity to revise the portions up to 1914 and to rewrite and extend the latter part from 1914 onward. In the third and later editions further corrections and inser tions have been made, for which the author is once more indebted to many friends and critics. s. s. H. PREFACE TO THE TWELFTH EDITION Dr. S. H. Steinberg died in I969 but fortunately he left detailed revisions for the ninth edition and his notes only ceased a few weeks before his death. The period I969-78 was brought up-to-date by Christine Steinberg and myself and for the tenth edition the opportunity was taken to re-arrange the tables from I945. Christine Steinberg died in I985 and so I was de prived of her help in revising the eleventh edition when I took the opportunity to 'fatten' the entries in the medieval period in the light of recent scholarship. For the twelfth edition I've re-assessed some of the entries for the period I983-85 and have extended the chronologies to the end of I990. In addition major events since 58 B.C. have been indexed. JOHN PAXTON Bruton, Somerset April I99I HISTORICAL TABLES