istoryworld
Events relating to china
Fire is used in China by Peking man, and may have been in use much earlier in Africa
Peking man shelters in caves south of modern Beijing, leaving many scraps of evidence of his way of life
The Chinese discover that the cocoon of a certain worm can be unwound, spun as thread and then woven - thus creating silk
Rice is by now grown in the Indus Valley civilization, in the region of Lothal in modern Pakistan, and in parts of China and Korea
The characters written in Chinese documents of the Shang dynasty are directly related to those still in use today
The Chinese develop a form of scroll, made of strips of bamboo threaded together and rolled up like a wooden blind
The Great City Shang, on a site later known as An-yang, develops as the capital of China's first dynasty
Chopsticks are in use in China, with bronze versions featuring in Shang tombs
Ancestor worship, a central theme of Chinese history, is practised by the royal family and high nobility in Shang times
China produces superb bronzes, in the ritual vessels for sacrifices to the ancestors
Chinese priests record on oracle bones the result of their divination, thus providing the earliest examples of Chinese characters
The Zhou defeat the Shang, and establish a new dynasty with a capital at Ch'ang-an (now Xi'an)
The Zhou rulers, driven east from Xi'an, create a new capital at Loyang and establish the Eastern Zhou dynasty
The poems of the Shi Jing, China's earliest work of literature, are gathered together
K'ung-fu-tzu, or Confucius, teaches a practical philosophy which will profoundly influence Chinese history
The Chinese become the first people to cast iron, after developing a furnace which can reach a very high temperature
The secret of lacquer, the sap of a tree which can be hardened by moisture, is discovered in China
The Chinese I Jing, or 'Classic of Changes', is compiled as a book of divination
The Chinese philosophy of alternating opposites is expressed as yin and yang
Daodejing ('The Way and the Power') is the book of Daoism
Daoism, attributed to the mythical sage Lao Tzu, becomes a popular alternative to the solemnity of Confucianism
Tea, now well established as a drink, features in a Chinese dictionary
The brutal philosophy of Legalism contributes to the decline of the Zhou dynasty
The earliest surviving decimal multiplication table is written in China on twenty-seven bamboo strips, known now as the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips
The Chinese develop the crossbow, many centuries before its use in Europe
