Key religious and philosophical figures or events
	Dates (years)	Person or event
	-2000(approx)	The Ayran and Indus valley systems mingle and lead to the birth of the oral Vedas, the beginnings of Hinduism
	b. -1900 (approx)	Abraham: Father of the Jewish people and of Judaism. Entered into a covenant with God
	b. -1200 (approx)	Moses: legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian, given the commandments by God
	b. -624 (approx)	Thales of Miletus: Is considered by some to the be the pioneer of science
	b. -610	Anaximander of Miletus: A student of Thales. Might have introduced early scientific instruments such as the sundial and the gnomon to Greece
	b. -546	Birth of Siddharta Gautama, known more commonly as , 'The Buddha' founder of Buddhism
	b. -585	Anaximenes of Miletus: A student of Anaximander. Suggested that air is the source of all things. The last of the trio (above) who moved thinking from the mythological to the theoretical
	b. -580 (approx)	Pythagoras of Samos: Mathematician and philosopher. Most famous for his work on geometry
	b. -535	Heraclitus of Ephesus: The nature of everything is change, "Everything flows, nothing stands still"
	b. -500	Anaxagoras: May have been the first person to consider the idea of atoms, proposed an early cosmological theory
	b. -490 (approx)	Zeno of Elea: Most well know for his paradoxes
	b. -469	Socrates: No writing survives but he is credited with the development of the socratic method, the dialectic method of inquiry mostly applied to morals
	b. -427	Plato: Student of Socrates. Writer of the Dialogues. A key theme for Science and Religion is the division of knowledge and opinion
	b. -412	Diogenes of Sinope: Famous for the story of walking the streets with a lamp "looking for an honest man" he was an early aesthetic and lived a simple life
	b. -384	Aristotle: Studied with Plato and along with him and Socrates is considered one of the most influential of Greek philosophers. He wrote books on many subjects, including physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, government, and biology
	b. -325	Euclid of Alexandria: Often described as the 'Pioneer of geometry' the best known work is the Elements which deduces the profiles geometrical objects and integers from a small set of axioms
	b. -287	Archimedes of Syracuse: Considered by many to be the best mathematician in antiquity. Most famous for the narrative of running through the streets crying 'Eureka' on the discovery of the principles of buoyancy when taking a bath
	b. -99	Lucretius: Published On the nature of things in which he says that the operations of the world can be accounted for entirely in terms of the purposeless motions of atoms through empty space, instead of in terms of the will of the gods.
	b. 0	Jesus of Nazereth: Founder of Christianity preached a gospel of love and forgiveness
	b. 354	Augustine of Hippo: Bishop and scholar of the early Christian church
	b. 570	Muhammad [pbuh] : is believed by Muslims to be God's final prophet sent to guide all of mankind with the message of Islam.
	b. 1033	Anselm of Canterbury: Set a number of the classic proofs for the existence of God especially the ontological argument
	b. 1126	Averroes (Ibn Rushd): An Andalusian-Arab philosopher and physician, a master of philosophy and Islamic law, mathematics, and medicine. Worked to reconcile Aristotle with Islam
	b. 1225	Thomas Aquinas: Considered to the greatest scholar of the church. Wrote many books including On the Principles of Nature. His most famous book was Summa Theologica. He was influenced by the works of Aristotle
	b. 1271	Roger Bacon: One of the earliest advocates of the scientific method. Wrote the Opus Majus, a treatise on the sciences (grammar, logic, mathematics, physics, and philosophy)
	b. 1469	Guru Nanak Dev: Founder of the Sikh religion, after a revelation he siad, "there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim". It is this secularist, humanitarian principle that governed his thought
	b. 1483	Martin Luther: Key thinker in the formation of the Protestant movement, translated the bible from the Latin to German
	b. 1509	John Calvin: An important French Christian theologian during the Protestant Reformation. The idea of predestination predestination meant that God is in sovereign control of all things, including the ultimate destiny of everyone
	b. 1561	Francis Bacon: Has become best known as a philosophical advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. His works establish and popularise an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, he also saw the scientific method in terms of an interplay between theory and experiment
	b. 1564	Galileo Galilei: Referred to as 'the pioneer of modern physics', 'the pioneer of modern astronomy and 'the pioneer of modern science'. A key thinker whose achievements included improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations and effective support for Copernicanism
	b. 1596	René Descartes: The 'Pioneer of modern Mathematics" one of the key thinkers of the scientific revolution in the Western World. Famous for the axiom Cogito Ego Sum. He developed methodological skepticism
	b. 1632	Baruch Spinoza: Prepared the way for the 18th century Enlightenment, and a founder of modern biblical criticism.
	1632	Galileo published the book Dialogues concerning the two chief world systems a "conversation" arguing the geocentric and the heliocentric world views
	1633	Galileo sentenced by the inquisition (church court) for heresy for his book Dialogues and ordered to be imprisoned (commuted to house arrest)
	b. 1707	Buffon: is best remembered for his great work Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (36 volumes). It included everything known about the natural world up until that date
	b. 1711	David Hume: Writer of An enquiry concerning Human Understanding Hume was a skeptic and empiricist. His enquiries into the concept of miracles was an important philosophical step
	b. 1724	Immanuel Kant: His work served as a bridge between the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions of the 18th century. He had a decisive impact on the Romantic and German Idealist philosophies of the 19th century. His work has also been a starting point for many 20th century philosophers.
	b. 1744	Jean-Baptise Lamarck: was a French naturalist and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. Lamarck is however remembered today mainly in connection with a discredited theory of heredity, the "inheritance of acquired traits" (see Lamarckism). He was also one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense.
	b. 1856	Sigmund Freud: was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, based on his theory that human development is best understood in terms of changing objects of sexual desire
	1859	Charles Darwin: Published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" heralding the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection
	1860	The Huxley - Wilberforce debate on Origins at the Oxford Museum of Natural History, leads to famous quote "Are you descended from an ape on your Grandmother's or Grandfather's side?"
	1925	The Scopes trial. William Bryan and Clarence Darrow [representing teacher John Scopes] fight a court action against the law in Tennessee forbidding any teaching "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals"
	2005	United States District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature.