The very first step in grasping History is to understand chronology.
Chronology in history refers to thearrangementof events in the order in which they occurred. It is the study of how time is organised and divided in relation to historical events.
The goal of chronology in history is to place events in their proper order, so that they can be studied and understood in their historical context.
There are several rules that have been developed over time to achieve this and they are outlined below. The terms and concepts outlined here can be used in your own historical writing to improve your academic vocabulary.
How time is ordered in history
The measurement of time is traditionally based around the birth of Jesus Christ.
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For events that occurred before Jesus’ birth, type ‘BC’ (an abbreviation for ‘Before Christ’) after the number of the year.
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For example: 48 BC.
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For events that happened after Jesus’ birth, type ‘AD’ (an abbreviation for the Latin phrase anno domini, which means “Year of our Lord”) before the number of the year.
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For example: AD 120.
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For those who prefer a non-religious version, the following alternatives are placed after the number of the year:
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BCE (Before Common Era) = BC
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- For example:48 BC becomes 48 BCE
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CE (Common Era) = AD
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- For example: AD 120 becomes 120 CE
Watch a video explanation on the History Skills YouTube channel:
Watch on YouTube
Additional notes regarding dates:
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If there isn’t a ‘BC’ or ‘AD’ next to a date, it is probably AD
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Before the birth of Christ, the number of years counts down, but after that, the years count upwards
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There is no year ‘0’: the year 1 BC is followed immediately by AD 1
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‘BP’ after a number stands for ‘Before the Present’
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‘Circa’ means ‘around about’ and is a small ‘c.’ before the year. For example: c. 50 BC
How time is divided
Since human history has occurred over tens of thousands of years, historians have had to develop a system to help them talk about large sections of time easily.
As a result, names are given to groups of years. The groups and their names are as follows:
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Decade= 10 years
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Century = 100 years
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Millennium = 1000 years
Watch a video explanation on the History Skills YouTube channel:
Watch on YouTube
Therefore, time can be split into centuries or millennia, as is demonstrated below:
| Years | Century | Millennium |
| 1000-901 BC | 10th century BC | 1st millennium BC |
| 900-801 BC | 9th century BC | |
| 800-701 BC | 8th century BC | |
| 700-601 BC | 7th century BC | |
| 600-501 BC | 6th century BC | |
| 500-401 BC | 5th century BC | |
| 400-301 BC | 4th century BC | |
| 300-201 BC | 3rd century BC | |
| 200-101 BC | 2nd century BC | |
| 100-1 BC | 1st century BC | |
| AD 1-100 | 1st century AD | 1st millennium AD |
| AD 101-200 | 2nd century AD | |
| AD 201-300 | 3rd century AD | |
| AD 301-400 | 4th century AD | |
| AD 401-500 | 5th century AD | |
| AD 501-600 | 6th century AD | |
| AD 601-700 | 7th century AD | |
| AD 701-800 | 8th century AD | |
| AD 801-900 | 9th century AD | |
| AD 901-1000 | 10th century AD | |
| AD 1001-1100 | 11th century AD | 2nd millennium AD |
| AD 1101-1200 | 12th century AD | |
| AD 1201-1300 | 13th century AD | |
| AD 1301-1400 | 14th century AD | |
| AD 1401-1500 | 15th century AD | |
| AD 1501-1600 | 16th century AD | |
| AD 1601-1700 | 17th century AD | |
| AD 1701-1800 | 18th century AD | |
| AD 1801-1900 | 19th century AD | |
| AD 1901-2000 | 20th century AD | |
| AD 2001-present day | 21st century AD | 3rd millennium AD |
Historical periods
To make sense of the past, it is divided into even larger blocks of time called ‘periods’.
Each of these ‘periods’ can be broken down further into smaller times called ‘ages’ and even into smaller times called ‘eras’.
| Time Period | Ages | Eras | Approximate Years |
| Pre-History (The time before humans had developed writing) | Stone Age | Palaeolithic | c. 2,500,000 - 6000 BC |
| Mesolithic | 6000 - 4000 BC | ||
| Neolithic | 4000 - 3000 BC | ||
| Bronze Age | Early Bronze Age | 3000 - 2100 BC | |
| Middle Bronze Age | 2100 - 1550 BC | ||
| Late Bronze Age | 1550 - 1200 BC | ||
| Iron Age | Iron Age | 1200 - 800 BC | |
| History (From the time humans began writing until now) | Classical Age | Greek Era | 800 - 400 BC |
| Macedonian Era | 400 - 300 BC | ||
| Hellenistic Era | 300 - 146 BC | ||
| Roman Era | 146 BC - AD 476 | ||
| Middle Ages | Early Middle Ages | AD 476 - 1000 | |
| High Middle Ages | AD 1000 - 1300 | ||
| Late Middle Ages | AD 1300 - 1450 | ||
| Modern Age | The Renaissance | AD 1450 - 1600 | |
| Age of Discovery | AD 1600 - 1750 | ||
| Industrial Revolution | AD 1750 - 1900 | ||
| Modern Era | AD 1900 - Present Day |
Test your learning
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Additional resources
Looking for a digital timeline resource?
Timeline Creator (Years)
A nifty Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that allows the user to enter years and sort events by categories. The spreadsheet maps out the events by category in a tabled view that allows the user to see the relationship between the events. Simple y ... (Read More)
$4.00
