The invention of arithmetic provides a way to abstractly compute numbers of objects.
The Lascaux cave paintings record the first known narrative stories.
A central event in the emergence of civilization, written language provides a systematic way to record and transmit knowledge.
Babylonian stone boundary markers begin to include inscriptions that record ownership of land.
The first known calendar system is established, rounding the lunar month to 30 days to create a 360-day year.
The 64 possible hexagrams of the Chinese I Ching are taken to enumerate possible features of life and destiny.
The Akkadian Empire adopts a single unified standard for measuring volume, based on the royal gur-cube.
The Babylonian census begins the practice of systematically counting and recording people and commodities for taxation and other purposes.
Hammurabi writes down 281 laws prescribing civil behavior in the kingdom of Babylon.
Babylonians make tables of multiplication, reciprocals, squares, cubes, and square and cube roots.
The Library at Thebes is the first known effort to gather and make many sources of knowledge available in one place.
The Turin Papyrus is the first known topographic map.
Lydia (in modern Turkey) introduces gold and silver coins to represent monetary value.
The Babylonians introduce mathematical calculation as a way to track the behavior of planets and a few other systems in nature.
The Pythagoreans promote the idea that numbers can be used to systematically understand and compute aspects of nature, music, and the world.
Panini creates a grammar for Sanskrit, forming the basis for systematic linguistics.
Plato founds his "Academy", which operates in Athens for nine centuries.
Aristotle tries to systematize knowledge, first, by classifying objects in the world, and second, by inventing the idea of logic as a way to formalize human reasoning.
The Library of Alexandria collects perhaps half a million scrolls with works covering all areas of knowledge.
Euclid writes his Elements, systematically presenting theorems of geometry and arithmetic.
Archimedes uses mathematics to create and understand technological devices and possibly builds gear-based, mechanical astronomical calculators.
Eratosthenes creates the system of longitude and latitude and uses it to create a scaled map of the known world.
A gear-based device that survives today is created to compute calendrical computation.
Julius Caesar institutes the Julian calendar, establishing the lengths of the twelve months.