I'm with "what about the fire and the wheel," because like, seriously what's the odds that the ten most important events in All Of Written Human History (~10k years) happened in the last thousand years (AND in the Western World ;P)?
Anyway, I have a thing for the importance of indirect causes, so I present a very different list:
1) Whenever we decided to burn shit to make energy on an industrial scale --> This has resulted in global warming, which will dramatically affect the course of human history for a few thousand years to come... if it doesn't kill us all. If it kills us all, that's a huge plus to its importance. 2) The development of irrigation in the Tiger/Euphrates valley --> This is the origin of farming techniques for Eurasia and North Africa, which enabled the creation of every single empire outside of the Americas and therefore everything those empires were able to achieve. 3) The development of germ theory --> This is the greatest difference between modern western medicine and every other spiritual understanding of medicine in the world, and it's largely responsible for the biggest population booms we've seen since the development of farming. Insofar as disease was the biggest killer in the densely-populated world until this point--with more people dying of the flu than battle wounds in WWI--the results of this breakthrough have saved an order of magnitude more lives than any single dictator has destroyed. (I guess this is sort of like Krad's "penicillin" answer except I think that the general theory was the biggest part.) 4) Columbus landing in America in 1492 --> I happen to agree with y'all on the importance of this one conventionally important moment. This brought two halves of Earth into contact with resultant profound upheavals on both sides.
idk if I can come up with the next 6 right away. Most things seem kind of petty in scale compared with the above. There are a lot of big modern events like WWI where we can say "this was the first time X happened and it really upped the ante in warfare" but I'm pretty sure that it's not the first time the ante has been upped and it's gonnna be far from the last.
Eta: 5) I'm gonna agree with Krad on the Cold War, but for the actual event I'd choose the disarmament treaty at its end. Without it, odds are in favor of accidental mutual annihilation that would probably snowball into the end of the human race due to environmental effects beyond the scale of the dinosaur extinction. (Though one might argue that the treaty was more likely than not to happen, but eh.)
6) The development of nuclear weapons, because I don't think said treaty will keep the peace forever and we're facing extinction every time we re-arm.
7) I'm gonna rip off myself and choose the development of rice terraces, which happened independently of middle eastern irritation and also powered the rise of many empires.
8) The development of computers. Much of historical power has been about harnessing unskilled physical labor via technology: hence guns over bows, machines over looms. Computers basically allow for the harnessing of unskilled intellectual labor (actual paraphrased quote from a medical school director: "computers can diagnose people; we need our human doctors to provide empathy") and I think they have and will continue to dramatically shape the nature of power in the future.
So far my list looks like "nature is powerful and individual accomplishments are fleeting" lol. Very Chinese American nihilist mathematician. I think a lot of stuff we learn in high school is overrated from a global perspective bc it's about the origins of our fledgling empire (which has been #1 in power for a fleeting 100 years) filtered through our own biases and mythologies. I saw an African tribal mask that basically commented on the importance of free speech in a democracy. The world is very big and very old and I think we give the supposed sources of our current culture undue attention.
no subject
Anyway, I have a thing for the importance of indirect causes, so I present a very different list:
1) Whenever we decided to burn shit to make energy on an industrial scale --> This has resulted in global warming, which will dramatically affect the course of human history for a few thousand years to come... if it doesn't kill us all. If it kills us all, that's a huge plus to its importance.
2) The development of irrigation in the Tiger/Euphrates valley --> This is the origin of farming techniques for Eurasia and North Africa, which enabled the creation of every single empire outside of the Americas and therefore everything those empires were able to achieve.
3) The development of germ theory --> This is the greatest difference between modern western medicine and every other spiritual understanding of medicine in the world, and it's largely responsible for the biggest population booms we've seen since the development of farming. Insofar as disease was the biggest killer in the densely-populated world until this point--with more people dying of the flu than battle wounds in WWI--the results of this breakthrough have saved an order of magnitude more lives than any single dictator has destroyed. (I guess this is sort of like Krad's "penicillin" answer except I think that the general theory was the biggest part.)
4) Columbus landing in America in 1492 --> I happen to agree with y'all on the importance of this one conventionally important moment. This brought two halves of Earth into contact with resultant profound upheavals on both sides.
idk if I can come up with the next 6 right away. Most things seem kind of petty in scale compared with the above. There are a lot of big modern events like WWI where we can say "this was the first time X happened and it really upped the ante in warfare" but I'm pretty sure that it's not the first time the ante has been upped and it's gonnna be far from the last.
Eta:
5) I'm gonna agree with Krad on the Cold War, but for the actual event I'd choose the disarmament treaty at its end. Without it, odds are in favor of accidental mutual annihilation that would probably snowball into the end of the human race due to environmental effects beyond the scale of the dinosaur extinction. (Though one might argue that the treaty was more likely than not to happen, but eh.)
6) The development of nuclear weapons, because I don't think said treaty will keep the peace forever and we're facing extinction every time we re-arm.
7) I'm gonna rip off myself and choose the development of rice terraces, which happened independently of middle eastern irritation and also powered the rise of many empires.
8) The development of computers. Much of historical power has been about harnessing unskilled physical labor via technology: hence guns over bows, machines over looms. Computers basically allow for the harnessing of unskilled intellectual labor (actual paraphrased quote from a medical school director: "computers can diagnose people; we need our human doctors to provide empathy") and I think they have and will continue to dramatically shape the nature of power in the future.
So far my list looks like "nature is powerful and individual accomplishments are fleeting" lol. Very Chinese American nihilist mathematician. I think a lot of stuff we learn in high school is overrated from a global perspective bc it's about the origins of our fledgling empire (which has been #1 in power for a fleeting 100 years) filtered through our own biases and mythologies. I saw an African tribal mask that basically commented on the importance of free speech in a democracy. The world is very big and very old and I think we give the supposed sources of our current culture undue attention.
(Not to bash on you, though I guess I kinda am.
/hacker answer to icebreaker)