World Population History
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©2016 Population Connection, a 501(c)3 organization. 2120 L St NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20037

Milestones

  • World Population Reaches 8 Billion
  • Trail of Tears
  • COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Antibiotics
  • World Population at 9 Billion
  • Freshwater Scarcity
  • Living Beyond Our Means
  • World’s Largest Solar Plant
  • Hole in the Ozone Layer Shrinking
  • Record-breaking CO2 Concentrations
  • U.S and China to Curb Carbon Emissions
  • More Megacities
  • Warming Temperatures
  • Effects of Climate Change
  • Meat Production Rising
  • Future of Megacities
  • Global Cancer Burden
  • Coral Reefs in Danger
  • Urban World
  • World Hunger
  • Farm Labor
  • Safe Drinking Water Goal
  • Growing Ecological Footprint
  • Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
  • World Population Reaches 7 Billion
  • Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan
  • Lifestyle Diseases on the Rise
  • Recycled Content of Paper
  • Global Health Progress
  • Hybrid Electric Cars
  • World Population Reaches 6 Billion
  • Meat Consumption Rising
  • Millennium Development Goals
  • Obesity Epidemic
  • Human Genome Sequenced
  • Katrina Strikes New Orleans
  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • China Surpasses U.S. as Largest Carbon Emitter
  • Global Fisheries in Jeopardy
  • Climate Change is Unequivocal
  • Global Financial Crisis
  • Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal, India
  • Hole in the Ozone Layer
  • Nuclear Meltdown at Chernobyl
  • World Population Reaches 5 Billion
  • Declining Biodiversity
  • The IPCC
  • World Wide Web
  • Passing 350 ppm
  • Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
  • Jobs vs. Owls
  • Iodine Deficiency Prevention
  • The Earth Summit
  • GMOs in our food supply
  • World Population Conference
  • Rwandan Genocide
  • Ban of DDT
  • Cellular Phone
  • An End to Leaded Gas
  • Curbside Recycling
  • World Population Reaches 4 Billion
  • First Female President
  • Cambodian Genocide
  • Tobacco Consumption
  • Test-Tube Baby
  • Home Pregnancy Test Kit
  • Toxic Waste at Love Canal
  • Nuclear Meltdown at Three Mile Island
  • China’s One-Child Policy
  • Smallpox Eradicated
  • Solar Power
  • HIV Identified
  • Silent Spring Sparks a Movement
  • Farm Workers Rights
  • Environmental Protection in America
  • Smoking Warnings
  • The Bullet Train
  • Family Planning in Iran
  • The Population Bomb
  • The Tragedy of the Commons
  • Measles Vaccine
  • A Walk on the Moon
  • Santa Barbara Oil Spill
  • The Cuyahoga River Fire
  • Earth Day and the EPA
  • Green Revolution
  • Earth’s Ecological Footprint
  • First Email Sent
  • Family Planning in India
  • First Solar Cell
  • Polio Vaccine
  • The Space Race
  • The Great Leap Forward
  • Curbing Urban Sprawl
  • CO2 Monitoring in Hawaii
  • New Auto Emission Laws in California
  • World Population Reaches 3 Billion
  • Birth Control Pills
  • World Food Program
  • Discovery of DDT
  • World War II
  • Cigarettes in WWII
  • The Holocaust
  • Species Protection in America
  • Manhattan Project
  • The United Nations
  • The Baby Boom
  • Rise of Poultry Consumption
  • Malaria Eradication Efforts
  • Migration Between India and Pakistan
  • World Health Organization
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • Megacities
  • First Self-Service Grocery Store
  • Hermetically-Sealed Refrigerator
  • Spanish Flu Epidemic
  • Women€™’s Suffrage
  • Advent of Frozen Foods
  • World Population Reaches 2 Billion
  • First World Population Conference
  • Invention of the Television
  • The Great Depression
  • The Dust Bowl
  • Kwashiorkor
  • Hoover Dam
  • Washing Machine
  • Electricity-Generating Windmill
  • Ellis Island Opens
  • First Voting Machine
  • The Sierra Club
  • Invention of the Radio
  • Invention of Air Conditioning
  • Wright Brothers Flight
  • Workers’ Rights
  • Meat Inspection Act
  • Ford’s Model T
  • Beginning of Chemical Fertilizer
  • World War I
  • Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
  • Passenger Pigeon Driven to Extinction
  • First Birth Control Clinic
  • Pasteurization
  • Charles Darwin and Evolution
  • U.S. Conservation – National and State Parks
  • The National Labor Union
  • Transcontinental Railroad Completed
  • American Public Health Association
  • Aquaculture in the U.S
  • Epic Droughts
  • Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone
  • Light Bulb
  • Malaria
  • Gas-powered Car
  • Hydrogen Fuel Cell
  • Child Labor
  • First Fertilizer Factory
  • Start of Public Health Movement
  • Invention of the Telegraph
  • Irish Potato Famine
  • Pioneer of Antiseptic Procedures
  • Women’s Suffrage Movement
  • First Female Doctor in U.S.
  • Pre-Industrial CO2 Levels
  • Water-borne Diseases and Sanitation
  • American Romanticism
  • Rubber Condom
  • Thresher
  • First U.S. Census
  • Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin
  • Smallpox Vaccine
  • Thomas Malthus
  • A City of One Million
  • World Population Reaches 1 Billion
  • Lewis and Clark Expedition
  • Invention of Canning
  • Iodine in Salt
  • Commercial Natural Gas Well
  • Steam-Powered Railway
  • City Public Transit
  • New Farm Equipment
  • Sustainable Resource Management in Japan
  • Leeuwenhoek Observes Microbes
  • Urban Planning in Pennsylvania
  • Commercial Steam Engine
  • Seed Drill
  • Personal Sacrifice in India
  • Effects of the Industrial Revolution
  • Flush Toilet
  • Capitalism
  • The Great Exchange
  • African Slave Trade
  • Smallpox in the Americas
  • Copernicus and his Heliocentric Model
  • Compound Microscope
  • Collapse of Easter Island
  • Jamestown Settlement
  • Invention of Forceps
  • Peace of Westphalia
  • Age of Enlightenment
  • The Little Ice Age
  • Magnetic Compass
  • The Great Famine
  • Aztecs
  • The Black Death
  • Aquaculture in the Ming Dynasty
  • Pollution Control in England
  • Age of Iron in West Africa
  • Aztec Medicine
  • Invention of the Printing Press
  • Voyages of Christopher Columbus
  • Maritime Route between Europe and India
  • Gunpowder Discovered
  • First Windmills
  • Smallpox Identified
  • Medieval Warm Period
  • Pound Lock
  • Avicenna and The Canon of Medicine
  • Angkor Wat
  • Paper Money
  • Forestry in Germany
  • Cloth Mills
  • Blast Furnace in Europe
  • Mongol Invasions
  • Energy from Coal
  • Al-Mansuri Hospital
  • First Oil Wells
  • Water Mill
  • Breastcollar Horse Harness
  • Fall of the Roman Empire
  • Peak of the Mayan Civilization
  • Dust Veil Event in South America
  • Justinian Plague
  • Heavy-wheeled Plow
  • Three-crop Rotation
  • Beginning of Islam
  • Papermaking in the Arab World
  • Japanese Smallpox Epidemic
  • Decline of the Mayan Civilization
  • Roman Aqueducts
  • Spice Trade
  • Chinese Medicine
  • Horse Collar
  • Roman Roads
  • Papermaking in China
  • The Silk Road
  • Ptolemys Geographia
  • Antonine Plague
  • Christianity and the Roman Empire
  • Golden Age of India
  • Major Civilizations