One scroll,
three millennia
From the hexagrams of the Zhou to the Black Ships of 1853. Scroll to travel; the faint track below shows what was happening in the West at the same moment.
221 BCE · China
Qin unifies China
秦
Ying Zheng becomes the First Emperor, ruling by Legalist law.
661 CE · Korea
Wonhyo's awakening
元曉
On the road to China, a drink from a skull teaches him that the mind makes all things. He turns back home.
1145 · Korea
The Samguk Sagi
三國史記
Kim Busik writes the oldest surviving history of Korea.
1377 · Korea
The Jikji is printed
直指
The oldest surviving book printed with movable metal type, at Heungdeok Temple.
1592 · Korea
The Imjin War begins
壬辰倭亂
Japan invades Korea. Yi Sun-sin's fleet wins at Okpo, Sacheon, and Hansan Island.
1600 · Japan
Sekigahara
関ヶ原
Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory ends the Sengoku; he becomes shogun in 1603.
- Meanwhile in the West, for scale
- First Olympic Games776 BCE
- Socrates born470 BCE
- Plato's Academyc. 387 BCE
- Aristotle's Lyceum335 BCE
- Caesar assassinated44 BCE
- Fall of the Western Roman Empire476
- Magna Carta1215
- Gutenberg's pressc. 1450
- Machiavelli writes The Prince1513
- Descartes' Discourse on Method1637
- American independence1776
- Clausewitz's On War1832