From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Music Outline

The Earliest Musical Instruments
(Circa 33,000 BCE)

The Mawangui Silk Texts
(Circa 175 BCE)

Ancient Greek Songs
(Circa 125 CE)

Ancient Musical Notation
(Circa 125 CE)

Greek Writings on Music and Rhythm
(Circa 250 CE)

Thedoric Executes the Philosopher Boethius: Beginning of the Middle Ages
(524 – 525)

The First Programmable Machine & the Earliest Known Mechanical Musical Instrument
(850)

The Earliest Codex Preserving Ancient Greek Music Theory
(January 14, 1040)

Medieval Handbook of Applied Arts Including Book Production
(1100 – 1120)

Written and Illuminated by the Nun Herrad of Landsberg
(1167 – 1185)

One of the Earliest Sources of Trecento Secular Polyphonic Music
(1370)

The Largest Primary Source for Music of the Trecento
(Circa 1410 – 1415)

The Mainz Psalter. . . .without "Any Driving of the Pen"
(August 14, 1457)

The Earliest Printed Music
(Circa 1473)

The First English Book Printed on Paper Made in England
(1495 – 1496)

The First Record of a Privilege Granted for Music Printing
(May 25, 1498)

The First Book of Music Printed from Moveable Type
(1501)

Dissolution of the Monasteries Brings Destruction and Dispersal of Libraries
(1536 – 1541)

Baroque Counterpoint
(1725)

Complex Enough to Provide a Credible Imitation of Life
(1731 – 1738)

The First Successful Speech Synthesizer
(1791)

The First Thematic Index of a Composer's Work, Based on Mozart's Own Index
(1805)

Cantata by Mendelssohn to Honor Gutenberg
(June 1840)

Earliest Sound Recordings, without Playback
(1860)

The Kochel-Verzeichnis
(1862)

Edison Invents the Phonograph
(August 12, 1877)

The Loose-Contact Carbon Microphone
(1878)

Edison Describes Future Uses for his Phonograph
(June 1878)

The Flat Disc Gramophone
(1887)

The Oldest Surviving Magnetic Audio Recording
(1900)

Lee de Forest Invents the Triode
(1906)

The Theremin
(1919)

The First Hi-Fi Sound Recording
(1924)

Invention of Magnetic Tape
(1927)

The Hammond Electric Organ
(April 24, 1934 – April 1935)

The First Practical Tape Recorder
(1935)

Bombing of Dresden Destroys Books and Manuscripts
(February – March 1945)

The First Long Playing Record (LP)
(1948)

Schmieder's Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
(1950)

The First Rock and Roll Recording, Named After First American Muscle Car?
(March 3 – March 5, 1951)

The First Demonstration of Computer Music
(August 7 – August 9, 1951)

The Oldest Known Recordings of Computer Music
(Circa November 1951)

Perhaps the First Computer-Controlled Aesthetic System
(1953)

The First Sample-Playback Keyboard
(Circa 1956)

The First Significant Computer Music Composition
(1957)

First Book on Computer Music
(1959)

The Moog Synthesizer
(October 1964)

The Word Multimedia Coined
(July 1966)

First First Digital Sampler in the First Digital Music Studio
(Circa 1969)

The CD is Developed
(1976 – 1982)

The First Widely Used Music Scheduling System
(1979)

The Rolling Stones Present the First "Cyberspace Multicast Concert"
(November 1994)

MP3
(1998)

Napster
(June 1999)

An Injunction Against Napter to Prevent Trading of Copyrighted Music
(March 5, 2001)

iPod Launched
(October 23, 2001)

iLike
(2006)

The Effect of Decay Fungi on Wood Used in the Production of Violins
(June 28, 2008)

Downloads Trump CDs
(November 25, 2008)

Apple Eliminates Anticopying Restrictions from iTunes
(January 6, 2009)

The First Collaborative Online Orchestra
(April 15, 2009)

Using YouTube Videos to Study the Origins of Music in Societies
(April 30, 2009)

The Death of Michael Jackson Impacts the Internet
(June 25, 2009)

MySpace Acquires iLike
(August 19, 2009)

Confirmation that Fungally-Treated Wood Enables Great Violin Sound
(September 2009)