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For all of us, the most significant day in history is our birthday, that is when each of us got thrown into the mix and made our stories part of history.
D Day helped turn the tide of WWII, leading to defeat of Germany....which saved the world from Hitler and his regime.
Russia had already won WWII by that point; it was just a matter of how fast they could chase the Germans who were running headlong back to Berlin. But D-Day did ensure that the Western powers would have a strong stake in how Europe was divided up after the war, which made an enormous difference in the balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union.
1066 - Battle of Hastings arguably set the course for western civilization from then on.
It had no bearing on Western Civilization. It only impacted the British Isles.
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Originally Posted by Dd714
5 b.c. (estimated) - Birth of Jesus. Even if you are atheist you cannot deny the impact.
There was no impact.
The real impact came through decrees by Roman emperors.
American christians practice a particular flavor of christianity, namely Nicaean christianity, and not Manichean, Nestorian, Byzantine, Alexandrian or other flavors.
That's only because edicts issued by Roman emperors authorized the persecution of Manicheans, Nestorians and the like. Had those emperors not done that, you might be a Manichean, instead of Nicaean.
Also, if Emperor Theodosius doesn't issue his edict in 382 CE, you wouldn't know anything about christianity.
His edict banned all other religions under pain of death, and made christianity the official State religion of the Roman Empire.
If that doesn't happen, then christianity dies out like all other mythological belief systems.
And, then, 533 CE is also an important year.
Emperor Justinian of the Eastern Roman Empire issues an edict making John the Bishop of Rome the first pope and the chief persecutor of heretics.
An heretic was anyone inside or outside the church who didn't subscribe 100% to John's belief system.
John immediately starts purging the church, and persecution those outside the church. He also implements an hierarchical system within the church that paralleled the Western Roman Empire.
Later, in 800 CE when Charlemagne was crowned by a pope, that system is foisted on the people of Western Europe.
Whereas the Greeks and Romans had moved away from the ridiculous idea of rule by "divine right," we now have that system re-introduced, and the creation of democratic republics in Western Europe is delayed for centuries, resulting in numerous wars and Millions of deaths, because of it.
Not only did rule by "divine right" create kingship in Western Europe, it created the class of greater and lesser nobles who brutally lorded over people.
Maybe you could then take us one more year to 1963, when what did happen was Oswald put an end to that risk forever.
I have no idea why anyone would think that the death of Lee Harvey Oswald ended forever the possibility of a nuclear war between superpowers, though I suspect it involves some tortured conspiracy theory that makes even less sense in the details as it does in the conclusion stated above.
I have three votes.
476: Fall of the Roman Empire leads to the Middle Ages and the rise of the Middle Eastern Empire and Baghdad as the cultural center of the world.
1917: End of Czarist Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution, start of communism with Lenin, End of the Ottoman Empire which had been in power since the siege of Constantinople in 1453, Interception of the Zimmerman Telegram enters the US into World War I.
1989: Death of Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran, Tiannamen Square Protests, Fall of the Eastern Bloc and the Berlin Wall signals the end of the Cold War.
I have three events as well.
322 BC the Death of Alexander the Great. His death saw the division of his empire, which would be concqu3ered by the growing Roman Republic centuries later. His death saw the mixing of Greek culture with native cultures such as Greco-Egyptian, Greco-Indian, Greco-Persian, Greco-Syrian, Greco-Bactrian and Greco-Jewish. The Greco-Jewish culture will eventually lay the foundations for a new faith called Christianity. Which combined elements of Greek philosophy and other Euro Mediterranean elements with morality of Judaism. This faith will conquer the Greek and Roman Worlds, and eventually conquer the world.
1 AD, the birth of Christ.
476 AD, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, like what you stated before. Cultural center of Europe moved to Constantinople located in Southeastern Europe.
1453 AD the Fall of Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople marks the end of the Eastern Roman Empire by the Ottoman Turks. The Fall of Constantinople changed the way how wars will be fought, ended the age of Castles, marked the beginning of forts for war warfare. Most Importantly the fall of Constantinople will lead to the age of discovery, the event also help create Christopher Columbus due to the fact that Columbus is from Genoa, and during the time Genoa was a patron and benefactor of the Eastern Roman Empire based in Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople saw the decline of Genoa, and the hegemony of Venice. Thus leading a maned named Columbus not to seek his fortunes east like most Italians, but west into the unknown.
1492 AD, the discovery of the New World. With fall of Constantinople in 1453. Trade for most westerners except for Venice was closed due to the Venice controlled European trade to the East. This allowed a Genoese citizen who instead of seeking his fortunes east like many of his cohorts did in the past in Constantinople. The Genoese citizen named Columbus will seek his fortunes west. 1492 also saw the discovery of the New World which sill spur Spain as the first global empire, but also open the world to true global trade. 1492 also saw Spain expel Muslims after the battle of Granada. 1492 will create the great Western mercantile empires within 500 years. Those powers are Spain, Great Britain, and British child colony the United States.
476: Fall of the Roman Empire leads to the Middle Ages and the rise of the Middle Eastern Empire and Baghdad as the cultural center of the world.
An overrated date, it's symbolic more than anything. To all intents and purposes the western empire had died long before then, and Rome remained formidable in the east for many more centuries.
It had no bearing on Western Civilization. It only impacted the British Isles.
In the immediate sense, yes. But Britain's subsequent impact on world makes it a major event in world history. For a start the language we're typing in now would be much different had it not taken place.
I don't think it's a candidate for most important, but it was definitely a significant turning point.
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