Historical Event Musical event

Renaissance (1400-1600)

Josquin des Prez c.1455 – 27 August 1521

1492: Columbus lands in the Caribbean for the first time

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 3 February 1525 – 2 February 1594

1504: Mona Lisa painted1504: Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence

William Byrd 1539 – 4 July 1623

1512: Michelangelo finishes painting the Sistine Chapel

John Dowland 1563 – buried 20 February 1626

Giovanni Gabrieli c.1557 – 12 August 1612

Baroque (1600-1750)

1607: Jamestown founded 1607: Claudio Monteverdi premiers L’Orfeo

1615: Frescobaldi, Tocatte e partite

1616: Shakespeare dies

1632: Mount Vesuvius erupts1632: Taj Mahal construction begins

1635: Frescobaldi, Fiori musicali

1651: English civil war ends and Parliament overthrows King Charles I

1652: First coffee house in England

1660: Monarchy restored in England

1663: Robert Hooke discovers cells using a microscope

1670: Lully’s The Bourgeois Gentleman1670: Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre becomes a musician in Louis XIV’s court at the age of 5

1685: G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach are born

1686: Lully’s Armide

1687: Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

1689: John Locke publishes his first 'Letter Concerning Toleration'

c.1690: The clarinet is invented

1691: Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre becomes the first woman to write a French ballet

1694: Pachelbel’s Canon

1701: Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco La púrpura de la rosa, the first opera from the Americas

1705: Handel's first opera, Almira, premieres

1707: England and Scotland unite to form Great Britain

1709: The piano is invented

1712: Handel moves permanently to England

1718: Blackbeard (Edward Teach) is killed by Robert Maynard in a North Carolina inlet

1719: Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe, the first novel in English

1721: Bach, Brandenburg concertos

1722: French C. Hopffer patents the fire extinguisher

1722: Jean-Philippe Rameau, Treatise on Harmony

1725: Peter the Great, King of Russia dies 1725: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons

1726: Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

1727: Death of Isaac Newton 1727: Bach, St. Matthew’s Passion

1728: John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera

1730: Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb

1732: The colony of Georgia is founded by James Oglethorpe

1732: Haydn is born

1742: Handel, Messiah premier

1745: Bach, The Art of the Fugue

1747: Bach, Musical Offering

1749: French and British lay claim to Ohio

1750: J.S. Bach dies

Classical (1750-1830)

1751: China invades Tibet

1754–1763: The French and Indian War1754: First female doctor in Germany

1756: Mozart is born

1765: Stamp Act introduced into the American colonies by the UK Parliament

1770: Beethoven is born

1773: Tea Act is passed by Great Britain and the Boston Tea Party is staged in protest

1775-1783: American Revolution

1776: American Declaration of Independence

1778: James Cook discovers Hawaii

1785-86: Haydn composes his Paris Symphonies

1786: Mozart premiers The Marriage of Figaro opera in Vienna

1787: Constitution written in Philadelphia and sent to States for ratification

1789: George Washington elected the first U.S. President1789: Mutiny on the HMS Bounty

1789-1799: French Revolution

1791-1804: Haitian Revolution 1791: Mozart completes The Magic Flute opera, his clarinet concerto, and most of his Requiem. He dies in the same year

1796: Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto

1802: Ludwig van Beethoven performs his Moonlight Sonata for the first time

1803: Louisiana Purchase

1804: First steam locomotive begins operation1804: Lewis and Clark expedition begins1804: Napoleon becomes Emperor of the French

1806: Holy Roman Empire is dissolved

1808: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

1809: Haydn dies

1810: First valved trumpets

1812-1815: The War of 1812 1812: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony

1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice

1814: Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner poem

1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo

1816: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville

1818: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

1820: Discovery of Antarctica

1821: Mexican independence from Spain

1822: Schubert begins work on his Symphony No. 8 known as the “Unfinished Symphony”

1824: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

1825: First passenger railway1825: Opening of the Erie Canal

1825: Schubert composes his Ave Maria

1827: Beethoven dies1827: Schubert, Winterreise

1829: first electric motor built 1829: Rossini, William Tell

Romantic (1830-1890)

1830: Mary Had a Little Lamb is first published 1830: Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique is premiered

1832: Gauthe publishes the second part of Faust

1835: Tuba first patented in Prussia

1836: Battle of the Alamo ends with defeat for Texan separatists

1836-39: Chopin’s Preludes1836: Clara Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor

1837: Telegraph patented1837: Queen Victoria succeeds to British throne1837: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

1837: Berlioz composes his Grande Messe des morts (Requiem)

1838: Photography developed

1840: Schumann, Dichterliebe

1841: The word "dinosaur" is coined by Richard Owen

1842: Anaesthesia used for the first time 1842: Founding of the New York Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras1842: Felix Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream incidental music (including the Wedding March)

1843: Richard Wagner, Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)

1844: First intercity telegraph (between Baltimore, MD and Washington, D.C.)

1844: Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto1844: Hector Berlioz, Treatise on Orchestration published

1845-1849: Irish Potato Famine

1848: The Communist Manifesto is published 1848: Stephen Foster, Oh! Susanna (first American song to sell over 100,000 copies)

1849: California Gold Rush begins

1853: Giuseppe Verdi, Il trovatore and La traviata

1854: Franz Liszt, Les Preludes

1857-1858: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Souvenir de Porto Rico

1858: Phonautograph is invented (the first audio recording and playback device)

1858: Jacques Offenbach, Orpheus in the Underworld

1859: Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

1860: The Pony Express is started 1860s: First African-American spirituals published

March 1861: Abraham Lincoln elected president1861-1865: American Civil War

1861: The Russian Five forms to promote Russian nationalist music

1862: Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables 1862: Verdi, La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny)

1865: End of American Civil War and assassination of President Lincoln1865: Gregor Mendel publishes his laws of inheritance that pave the way for modern genetics

1865: Premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde

1866: Bedrich Smetana, The Bartered Bride

1867: The US purchases Alaska from Russia 1867: Modest Musorgsky, Night on Bald Mountain1867: Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt incidental music

1868: Brahms, A German Requiem

1869: The Suez Canal opens linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

c.1869: Borodin begins work on his Symphony No. 2 in B Minor

1872: Yellowstone National Park, the first national park, is created

1873: Blue jeans and barbed wire are invented

1874: Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre1874: Musorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition

1875: Bizet’s Carmen is premiered in Paris1875: Verdi premiers Aïda in Cairo

1876: Richard Wagner's complete Ring Cycle is first performed1876: Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake1876: Brahms, Symphony No. 1 is premeired after at least 14 years since the first sketches

1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph

1879: Thomas Edison tests his first light bulb. 1879: Gilbert and Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance

1880: Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture

1882: Wagner, Parsifal premiere

1884: Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1886: The Statue of Liberty is dedicated 1886: Camille Saint-Saëns, Symphony No. 3, The Organ Symphony and The Carnival of the Animals

1888: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherezade1888: César Franck, Symphony in D minor

1889: Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris.1889: Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night

1889: Richard Strauss, Death and Transfiguration

Modernist (1890-1914)

1891: Charles Ives composes Variations on America

1892: Basketball is invented 1892: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet is premiered

1893: Edvard Munch’s The Scream 1893: Dvorak’s New World Symphony1893: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, Pathétique

1894: First gramophone record

1895: Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 2, “The Resurrection” is premiered

1896: Olympic Games are revived in Athens 1896: Giacomo Puccini, La boheme1896: Richard Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra

1897: Richard Strauss, Don Quixote1897: John Philip Sousa, The Stars and Stripes Forever1897-1899: Claude Debussy, Nocturnes

1898: Spanish-American War

1899: Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

1899: Edward Elgar, Enigma Variations1899: Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag1899: Jean Sibelius, Finlandia

1900: Sergei Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor

1901: Queen Victoria Dies1901: US President McKinley assassinated

1901: Edward Elgar, Pomp and Circumstance, Marches 1 and 2

1902: The teddy bear is introduced 1902: Mahler’s Fifth Symphony

1903: Wright brother’s first airplane flight1903: The first silent movie, The Great Train Robbery1903: First World Series

1904: Construction begins on the Panama Canal

1904: Puccini, Madama Butterfly

1905: Richard Strauss, Salome opera premier

1906: Upton SInclair, The Jungle, which leads to the US Pure Food and Drug Act

1907: Pablo Picasso paints his first cubist pictures

1908: Henry Ford designs the Model T automobile

1908: Mahler makes his debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera

1909: Plastic is invented 1909: Gustav Holst: Suite No. 1 in E-flat for band

1910: Boy Scouts established in U.S. 1910: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird launches his international career in Paris

1911: Machu Picchu discovered in Peru 1911: Stravinsky, Petrushka1911: Mahler dies of bacterial endocarditis

1912: The Titanic sinks1912: Parachutes invented

1912: Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire

1913: Henry Ford creates first moving assembly line

1913: Igor Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring

Post-modernist (1914-1945)

World War I (July 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918) c.1914 Ives composes his Symphony No. 4and General William Booth Enters into Heaven

c. 1915: Holst, The Planets

1916: Albert Einstein proposes general theory of relativity

1917: Russian Revolution1917: US enters WWI

1917-1921: Alban Berg’s Wozzeck

1918: Armistice Day - Nov. 11 ends WWI

1919: Women’s suffrage is granted in the United States

1920: Maurice Ravel, La valse

1923: Darius Milhaud, La creation du monde

1924: George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue

1925: Electronic microphones introduced 1925: Henry Cowell, The Banshee

1927: The first talkie The Jazz Singer is released

1927-1928: Anton Webern, Symphony, Op. 21

1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin 1928: Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera (based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera)1928: Maurice Ravel, Boléro

U.S. Great Depression (Oct. 29, 1929- c.1941)

1929: Edgard Varèse’s Ionisation is the first percussion ensemble piece

1930: Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms

1931: The Star Spangled Banner is made the official National Anthem of the US

1933: Hitler comes to power in Germany1933: Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated U.S. President

1933: Paul Hindemith, Symphony Mathis der Maler1933: Sergei Prokofiev, Lieutenant Kije film score

1935: George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess1935: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. 4

1936: The Hoover Dam is completed 1936: Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta1936: Carl Orff, Carmina Burana1936: Louis Prima, Sing, Sing, Sing

1937: Japan invades China

1938: Germany and Austria unify 1938: Sergey Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky 1938: Samuel Barber has first performance of Adagio for Strings

1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath 1939: Frank Sinatra, I’ll Never Smile Again

World War II (Sept. 1, 1939-Aug. 15, 1945) begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland

1940: Stravinsky and Bartok emigrate to the United States1940: Duke Ellington, Cotton Tail

1941: Olivier Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time

1942: Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man

1943: Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!

1944: Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring

1945: Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and NagasakiWorld War II ends with VJ day

1945: Benjamin Britten, Peter Grimes

Post War (1945-1959)

1946: First images of Earth from space

1947: Sound barrier is broken for the first time

1948: Arab-Israeli War 1948: John Cage, Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano

1949: NATO formed 1949: Messiaen, Turangalila symphony premier

1950-1953: Korean War

1951: John Cage, Music of Changes1951: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kreuzspiel

1953: USA and USSR test hydrogen bombs 1953: The discovery of DNA

1953: Pierre Boulez, Le marteau sans maitre (The hammer without a master) 1953: Elvis Presley launches his musical career

1954: Brown v. Board of Education 1954: Iannis Xenakis’ Metastasis (for an orchestra of 12 winds, 3 percussionists and 46 strings all playing separate parts)

1955-1975: The Vietnam War 1956: Stockhausen, Gesang der Jünglinge

1957: Space Age begins with the Soviet launch of Sputnik I

1958: Varèse Poeme Electronique is premiered at the Brussels World’s Fair in a tent designed by Iannis Xenakis

1959: World population reaches 3 billion

Minimalist (1960-1980)

1960: The first laser is constructed1960: Motown Records is incorporated in Detroit, MI

1960: The Beatles form in Liverpool1960: Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

1961: First human spaceflight1961: Berlin Wall is constructed

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis 1962: Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind1962: The Beach Boys, Surfin’ Safari album

1963: President John F. Kennedy assassinated1963: Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech on the National Mall

1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 1964: The Beatles’ first American tour1964: Terry Riley, In C1964: Simon & Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence1964: Barbra Streisand, People album

1965: The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones, Now! album

1966: First Moog synthesizers are introduced 1966: Luciano Berio, Sequenza III1966: Steve Reich, Come Out

1967: Six Day War 1967: The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967: Steve Reich, Piano Phase1967: Aretha Franklin, Respect1967: Bee Gees, Bee Gees 1st album

1968: Anti-war protests in US 1968: Karel Husa, Music for Prague1968: Marvin Gaye, I Heard it Through the Grapevine1968: Simon & Garfunkel, Mrs. Robinson

1969: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon

1969: Woodstock sees half a million attendees in Bethel, NY1969: David Bowie, Space Oddity1969: Luciano Berio, Symphonia1969: Edwin Starr, War

1970: George Crumb, Black Angels (about the Vietnam War)1970: Stevie Wonder, Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours

1971: Invention of the microchip 1971: Marvin Gaye, What’s Goin’ On1971: Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story

1972: President Richard Nixon visits China 1972: Stevie Wonder, Talking Book album1972: The Temptations, Papa was a Rolling Stone1972: David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

1973: Roe v. Wade 1973: Billy Joel, Piano Man1973: Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album

1974: Impeachment and resignation of Richard Nixon

1974: The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll1974: ABBA first US tour

1975: Vietnam War ends 1975: Queen’s A Night at the Opera album released (includes Bohemian Rhapsody)1975: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run1975: Fleetwood Mac, Rumors album release1975: ABBA, ABBA album1975: David Del Tredici, Final Alice

1976: Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach

1977: Star Wars hits theaters for the first time1977: Launch of the Voyager spacecraft

1977: Billy Joel, The Stranger

1978: First test-tube baby is born1978: Pope John Paul II elected first Polish Pope

1978: The Rolling Stones, Some Girls

1979: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan1979: MSU wins NCAA Men’s Basketball National Title

1979: Elton John, 21 at 33 album1979: Iannis Xenakis designs the UPIC, a touch sensitive table that converts drawings to soundwave data in a computer1979: Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd

Post-minimalist (1980-1999)

1980: Iran-Iraq war begins 1980: Death of John Lennon1980: Billy Joel, Glass Houses1980: Frank Sinatra, New York, New York

1981: First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle 1981: Laurie Anderson, O Superman

1982: Michael Jackson’s Thriller album is released

1984: Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. album1984: Madonna, Like a Virgin1984: Prince, Purple Rain

1985: Live Aid 1985: John Adams, Harmonielehre

1986: Challenger and Chernobyl disasters 1986: John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine1986: Aretha Franklin, Aretha album1986: Janet Jackson, Control album

1987: World population reaches 5 billion 1987: John Adams, Nixon in China opera1987: Joan Tower, Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman1987: U2, The Joshua Tree1987: Prince, Sign “O” the Times album

1988: Arvo Part, Seven Magnificat Antiphons

1989: Berlin Wall torn down 1989: William Bolcom, Fifth Symphony1989: Madonna, Like a Prayer

1990: Invention of the World Wide Web1990-1991: The Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm)

1990: Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut album

1991: Soviet Union dissolves (end of Cold War)

1991: Nirvana’s Nevermind album is released

1992: Formation of the European Union 1992: Whitney Houston, The Bodyguard soundtrack (including I Will Always Love You)1992: Janet Jackson, janet album

1993: Michael Doherty, Dead Elvis

1994: End of Apartheid in South Africa

1995: Oklahoma City bombing 1995: Mariah Carey, Daydream album1995: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens in Cleveland, OH

1996: Dolly the sheep becomes the first successfully cloned animal

1997: Sound barrier broken on land1997: Princess Diana dies in car crash in

1997: Janet Jackson, The Velvet Rope album

Paris

1998: Madonna, Ray of Light album

1999: Columbine High School Massacre in Colorado1999: World population reaches 6 billion1999: Y2K scare

1999: Britney Spears, ...Baby One More Time album

21st Century (2000-present)

2000: International Space Station begins operation2000: MSU wins NCAA Men’s Basketball National Title

2001: World Trade Center bombings (9/11)2001: War in Afghanistan begins

2001: Janet Jackson, All for you

2002: Euro enters circulation as currency in the European Union

2003: Iraq War begins 2003: John Mackey, Redline Tango

2004: Indian Ocean tsunami kills over 230,000 people in 14 countries

2004: John Corigliano, Symphony No. 3: Circus Maximus (includes marching band, offstage sax quartet, and surround trumpets)

2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from Gaza2005: Hurricane Katrina

2005: John Adams, Dr. Atomic opera (about the Manhattan Project)2005: Joan Tower, Silver Ladders

2006: Mumbai bombings2006: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes President of Liberia and Africa's first elected female head of state

2007: Great Recession triggered by housing crisis and spike in food prices

2008: Barack H. Obama elected first black US President

2008: Ricky Ian Gordon, Green Sneakers for tenor soloist and string quartet2008: Ricardo Lorenz, El Muro for symphonic wind ensemble

2009: Gaza War ends2009: Great Recession ends

2009: John Mackey, Asphalt Cocktail (commissioned by a consortium including Michigan State University)

2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico2010: Earthquake in Haiti leaves an

2010: Ricky Ian Gordon, The Grapes of Wrath opera

estimated 220,000 dead and 1,000,000 homeless2010: Arab spring uprisings begin in December2010: Greece defaults on debt and triggers European debt crisis

2011: Iraq War ends2011: Independence of South Sudan2011: Japan tsunami kills 16,000 and causes Fukushima Nuclear Plant meltdown2011: World population reaches 7 billion

2011: William Bolcom, Concerto Grosso for concert band

2012: Higgs boson is discovered2012: Terrorist attack on US embassy in Benghazi, Lybia2012: Hurricane Sandy devastates the US East Coast