+ Despite widespread expectations, THE WORLD DID NOT END as 1000 dawned.

+ China in 1024 issued the first PAPER MONEY. A Swedish bank followed suit in 1661.

+ In 1099 the FIRST CRUSADE captured Jerusalem from the Muslims; In 1187 Saladin took it back. In 1453 Turkish Muslims took Constantinople. In 1492 Christians took Granada, the last Muslim state in Spain.

+ A UNIVERSITY was founded at Bologna towards 1100, at Paris and Oxford in the 1100's, Salamanca in 1218, Heidelberg in 1366. Harvard came in 1636.

+ From 1206, MONGOL ARMIES spread across central Asia, into Eastern Europe, the Middle East and, by 1279, all of China. But in 1368 a Chinese dynasty was restored, and a defeat in Russia in 1380 began the western Mongols' downfall.

+From around 1250, European sailors began to use the (Chinese-invented) MAGNETIC COMPASS. In 1433 China's last long-sea expedition ended.

+ Cimabue was born in 1251, Dante in 1265, Petrarch in 1304, Leonardo da Vinci in 1452, Machiavelli in 1469, Michelangelo in 1475, and with them Europe's RENAISSANCE.

+ ITALIAN BANKS were flourishing by 1300 -- though default by England's King Edward III in the 1340's brought a huge financial crash.

+The BLACK DEATH in 1347-9 killed millions in Asia and North Africa, and maybe European in three.

+ The first European book printed with MOVABLE TYPE was published in 1457.

+ In 1492 CRISTOBAL COLON sailed the Atlantic. In 1519 a Spanish force seized the Aztec capital in Mexico. Latin America in 1810-25 broke free from Europe -- under, everywhere, ethnic-European rule.

+ MARTIN LUTHER nailed his 95 theses criticising papal "indulgences" to a church door in Wittenberg in 1517. The Reformation, splitting western Christendom, was on its way.

+ From 1524, Turkic invaders created the Muslim MUGHAL EMPIRE in India. From the 1750s British ones took it over.

+ In 1553 the Muscovy Company, of London, issued the first EQUITY SHARES. The first limited-liability law came in 1811, from New York state.

+ From the mid-16th century until the 19th, Europeans shipped maybe 12m Africans, bought from their African captors, across the Atlantic as SLAVES. Arab slavers took millions more to the Middle East.

+ In 1600 the English EAST INDIA COMPANY was set up, in 1602 the Dutch one; big steps for world trade, giant ones to European rule in Asia.

+ JAPAN cut itself off in 1639 from the outside world, to reopen only in 1853 -- and catch up on three centuries of western technology in one.

+ Ruler from 1682 to 1725, Peter the Great tried to MODERNISE RUSSIA. From 1924 to 1953, Joseph Stalin tried again.

+ Newton published his "Principia", setting out the LAWS OF MOTION, in 1687; Darwin his "Origin of Species" in 1859; Einstein his special theory of relativity in 1905.

+ From 1733, John Kay's flying shuttle and (1769) Richard Arkwright's spinning machine revolutionised textiles, mankind's biggest industry. Driven by James Watt's steam engine (1765), the machines, ships and railways of the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION gave the world a new economy, society and (briefly) top dog, Britain.

+ The future United States in 1776 declared itself independent of Britain, and all men created equal; and stuck to slavery until 1865. France in 1789 rose against its royal regime and proclaimed THE RIGHTS OF MAN; and in 1804 hailed its ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte, as emperor.

+ Europe in 1848 burst into near-revolution. Little came of it at the time -- except Karl Marx's COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.

+ America's first OIL WELL was drilled in 1859. The first Middle East oil strike came in 1908.

+ Eleven slave-owning states seceded from the United States in 1860-61, but by 1865 had lost the resultant CIVIL WAR.

+ In 1861 the tsar ABOLISHED SERFDOM in Russia. In 1917 Marxists seized power there.

+ In 1861 a unified Italy was proclaimed, in 1871 a unified Germany. The NATION STATE had triumphed; many new states and many wars followed.

+ In 1876 Alexander Bell showed off his telephone, in 1879 Thomas Edison his electric lighting; in 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the air; in 1908 Henry Ford launched his Model T car; 1946 brought the first general-purpose computer; 1947 the first transistor. All MADE IN AMERICA.

+ In 1912 a republican regime replaced CHINA'S IMPERIAL DYNASTY. In 1949 Mao Zedong made it a communist one.

+ 1914-45 brought DISASTER: a huge European war; a communist coup in Russia; global slump; Nazi takeover in Germany; Japanese attacks on China; a world war and Nazi murder of millions of Jews; and the first use of nuclear weapons, against Japan.

+ From the late 1940s, EUROPE'S COLONIES won independence. Many soon succumbed to authoritarian rule of their own.

+ From 1945 to 1989, a capitalist block led by the United States and a communist one led by the Soviet Union and China fought a COLD WAR. In 1991 the Soviet Union fell apart. China, still communist in name, rediscovered market forces.

+ In 1969 an American spacecraft landed the first two MEN ON THE MOON.

+ As 1999 ended, millenarian loonies declared THE WORLD ABOUT TO END too. Copyright © 2000 The Economist