The Cosmic Second (11:59:59 p.m. - Midnight)

1/10 second = 50 years

years ago time what happened
500 23:59:59.0 swift development of printing; Nostradamus; Copernicus; first attempt to license physicians; Dürer designs a flying machine; first manual of surgery; first European arrives in Japan; first trigonometry tables; Martin Luther; Henry VIII; Michelangelo
450 23:59:59.1 first Chamber of Commerce in Marseilles; first iron-clad warship (Korea); billiards invented; first hand grenades; first cataract operation; Mercator's Cosmographica - map of Earth for navigational use; public lottery in London to finance repairs on port; postal service in Germany; Drake sails around the world; first life insurance; invention of thermometer and toilet, Gregorian calendar refines use of leap years thus entrenching the accumulated 11-day error
400 23:59:59.2 Dutch East India Company -- first modern public company; Kepler's Optics; first public library in Rome; Galileo's telescope; first bank checks; first textbook of chemistry; Shakespeare; first slaves in North America; Harvey discovers circulation of blood; first weekly newspaper in London; dueling outlawed in France; René Descartes says, "Cogito, ergo sum."
350 23:59:59.3 population of Earth reaches 500 million; >u> Leeuwenhoek's microscopes; theory of probability (Fermat & Pascal); first pendulum clocks; first fountain pens; first daily newspaper (Berlin); toilets arrive in France; Trappist Order founded; differential calculus invented independently by Newton and Leibnitz; Rembrandt; Newton determines dimensions of Lunar Orbit; first cheddar cheese; Steno begins the modern science of Geology; flexible fire hose; ice cream; wild boars extinct in Britain; John Locke; first directory of addresses published in Paris; Daniel Defoe recommends income tax
300 23:59:59.4 first lighting of streets at night; J. S. Bach; Halley correctly predicts the return of the comet; the piano is invented; three-color printing; last execution for witchcraft; compulsory schooling in Prussia; smallpox inoculation; first boxing champ of Britain; rifles in America; Quakers demand abolition of slavery; first successful appendectomy; Samuel Johnson's Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language; invention of sign language for deaf-mutes
250 23:59:59.5 first practical hot-air balloon in Europe; atmosphere of Venus discovered; Galvani discovers the electrical nature of nerve impulses; steam engine invented; Mesmerism; Lavoisier proves that air consists mainly of oxygen and nitrogen; Uranus discovered; first telegraph (Paris); first chocolate factory (Germany); house numbers (London); Industrial Revolution takes off; first public restaurants (Paris); French and American Revolutions; metric system adopted (France); Rosetta Stone found; electricity and magnetism linked; William Blake; Immanuel Kant; Voltaire; Haydn; Mozart; Benjamin Franklin; The Enlightenment; Alessandro Volta invents the battery, the first source of real, continuous, controllable electric current... one of the greatest inventions of all time
200 23:59:59.6 speed of light measured; first sewing machine; first submarine cable across the English Channel; artificial fertilizer; first electric clock; Babbage creates the concept of "analytic engine" which will lead to the modern computer; theoretical unification of electromagnetism and light; discovery of cell nucleus in plants; photography; railroads become an important economic factor; first canning of food; first use of rockets in warfare (British Army); Dalton's atomic theory; England outlaws slave trade; Braille invented; first steamship crosses Atlantic Ocean (26 days); first sulfer friction matches; first typewriter; Barnum's first "Freak Show"; first University degrees granted to woman in America; first night club (Paris); wood pulp paper; Gold Rush in California; Beethoven; Davey Crockett; Grand Opera; Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto; Charles Dickens; European colonialism on a global scale; the word "socialism" comes into common use; first bicycle
150 23:59:59.7 Darwin publishes Origin of Species; first mass production (Colt firearms); first use of the word "evolution" (Herbert Spencer); hypodermic syringe; electric light; first "artificial" fabrics; germ theory of disease; internal combustion engine; refrigeration; Gatling gun; antiseptic surgery; Mendel's Laws of Heredity; dynamite invented; first color photography; Mendeleyev's Periodic Table of Elements; invention of telephone and phonograph; beginning of psychoanalysis; hydroelectric installations at Niagra Falls; first automobiles; X-rays discovered; radio; motion pictures; Zeppelin's first airship; radioactivity discovered by the Curies; first magnetic recording; first zipper; first entirely steel frame building (Chicago); first beauty contest (Belgium); Jack the Ripper; frozen meat shipped to Europe from Argentina; end of slavery; Suez Canal built; mandatory smallpox vaccination in Britain; Romantic Era; Friedrich Nietzsche; labor movement; Nobel Prize established; Oscar Wilde; Mary Baker Eddy; spreading Socialism
100 23:59:59.8 first atomic bomb; television; global communications; United Nation founded; first global war; Russian Revolution; mass production of everything; women win the right to vote in America; guided missiles used in warfare; global commercial flight; the Great Depression; World War II; airmail; continental radio and T.V. broadcasting; English language dominates Earth; zoot suits; invention of transistor; galaxies discovered; xerography invented; jazz; high energy physics; penicillin; magnetic recording tape; emergence of psychology as a science; Einstein's Theory of Relativity; Korzybski's Theory of Time-binding and General Semantics; Quantum Theory; Scope's monkey trial; von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory; behaviorism; self-winding wristwatch; Sigmund Freud; Kurt Weil; Bela Bartok; Igor Stravinsky; Mickey Mouse; Cole Porter; Hollywood movies; high-rise cities; global population explosion; pollution of global environment; first electronic computer
50 23:59:59.9 The Great Light, Phase 8; thermonuclear devices (hydrogen bombs); birth control pill; real-time global communications; organ transplants; merging of science and religion; super computers; digital wristwatches; immortality; I Love Lucy; genetic engineering; pet rocks; Viet Nam War; emergence of Earth as a conscious living entity; space stations; cloning; global student anti-war protest; rock & roll; artificial intelligence; slam dancing; first space probe leaves the Solar system; structure of DNA determined; clinical epistemology; computer assisted design & computer assisted manufacture; robotics; sapes on the moon; elimination of small pox; synthetic psychoactive chemicals; electric knife; Macintosh computers; gendo, etc.
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