Comprehensive Timeline of Capitalism, Colonialism, and Resistance

1400s–1500s: European Expansion and the Birth of Global Capitalism

1453 – Ottoman Empire captures Constantinople, making overland trade with India and China more expensive for Europeans.
→ This disruption forces European states to seek alternative trade routes, accelerating maritime exploration, leading to the Age of Discovery, colonial expansion, and the early capitalist push for global markets and resource extraction.

1488 – Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope, opening a new sea route to Asia.
→ This marks the beginning of European dominance over global trade networks, shifting economic power from the land-based Silk Road to oceanic commerce controlled by emerging European capitalist states and merchant capitalists.

1492 – Columbus arrives in the Caribbean, initiating European conquest, Indigenous genocide, and forced labor in mines and plantations.
→ The violent incorporation of the Americas into the European economy lays the foundation for plantation slavery, extractive colonialism, and a globalized system of resource exploitation that fuels the rise of capitalism.

1494 – Treaty of Tordesillas divides the Americas between Spain and Portugal, granting Spain most of the New World.
→ This agreement institutionalizes state-backed colonial monopolies, reinforcing a system where capital accumulation depends on territorial conquest, forced labor, and the commodification of land and people.

1500s – Spanish Conquistadors enslave Indigenous people for gold and silver mining, especially in Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico).
→ The extraction of massive amounts of gold and silver floods European markets, triggering inflation (the "Price Revolution"), which destabilizes feudal economies and accelerates the transition to capitalism by fueling financial speculation and merchant expansion.

1519–1521 – Cortés conquers the Aztec Empire, extracting wealth through forced labor and tribute.
→ The destruction of the Aztec economy allows Spain to seize control of pre-existing tribute and labor systems, repurposing them for capitalist extraction, reinforcing a pattern of imperial plunder as the engine of early European capitalism.

1532–1533 – Pizarro conquers the Inca Empire, seizing gold and silver that funds Spanish and European economies.
→ The influx of precious metals from the Andes into Europe not only funds wars and empire-building but also triggers runaway inflation, breaking feudal economic structures and fueling the rise of banking, credit, and capitalist financial institutions.

1545 – Potosí silver mine discovered in Bolivia, becomes one of the most profitable mining operations in history.
→ Potosí produces so much silver that it floods global markets, driving economic expansion in Europe and fueling early capitalist banking and international trade while simultaneously devastating Indigenous populations through forced labor and ecological destruction.

1550s – Enclosure Acts begin in England, privatizing communal lands and forcing peasants into wage labor or debt.
→ The Enclosure movement destroys the medieval commons, creating a landless proletariat that is forced into wage labor, accelerating the development of industrial capitalism by providing a desperate, mobile workforce for factories and urban expansion.

1600s–1700s: Rise of Mercantilism, the Slave Trade, and Capital Accumulation

1600 – British East India Company founded, marking the beginning of European corporate imperialism.
→ The East India Company pioneers the modern corporation, demonstrating how private enterprises backed by state military power could dominate global trade, exploit local economies, and extract wealth for capitalist expansion.

1619 – First enslaved Africans arrive in Virginia, beginning racialized plantation slavery in British North America.
→ This marks the beginning of racialized chattel slavery as a central economic system, ensuring cheap labor for agricultural capitalism while constructing a racial hierarchy that justifies exploitation and wealth concentration.

1640s–1660s – British and Dutch merchants dominate the transatlantic slave trade, transporting millions of Africans to the Americas.
→ The transatlantic slave trade becomes the backbone of early capitalism, providing an endless supply of forced labor that fuels plantation economies, generates vast profits, and finances European banking and industrial development.

1660s – England strengthens Enclosure Acts, accelerating the displacement of rural peasants and expanding wage labor.
→ By forcibly privatizing common lands, the Enclosure Acts eliminate peasant self-sufficiency, creating a desperate, mobile workforce that is pushed into urban factories, setting the stage for industrial capitalism’s reliance on wage labor.

1700s – Slavery fuels the expansion of banking and finance, funding the rise of capitalism in London, Paris, and Amsterdam.
→ The vast profits from sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations flow into European financial centers, funding banks, insurance companies, and stock exchanges that create the infrastructure for modern capitalism.

1703 – Bank of England expands operations, financing colonial enterprises and slave plantations.
→ The Bank of England becomes a central institution in capitalist expansion, providing credit for merchants, slavers, and industrialists, showing how state-backed finance plays a key role in imperial capitalism.

1713 – Asiento Treaty grants Britain control over the Spanish slave trade, increasing British dominance in transatlantic slavery.
→ By securing the monopoly on selling enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies, Britain cements its position as the dominant capitalist empire, using slavery to bankroll military power and industrial expansion.

1750s – Industrial Revolution begins in Britain, funded in part by profits from the slave trade and plantation economies.
→ Cotton from U.S. plantations—produced by enslaved labor—feeds British textile mills, while slave-produced sugar fuels working-class calories, demonstrating how industrial capitalism is directly built on the foundations of slavery.

1776 – American Revolution begins, driven by colonial elites resisting British control over taxation and trade.
→ While framed as a fight for "freedom," the revolution was primarily a struggle over economic autonomy, as American elites sought to control their own trade, expand westward onto Indigenous lands, and preserve the plantation economy without British interference. The result was a bourgeois republic that enshrined property rights, protected slavery, and laid the groundwork for U.S. capitalist expansion.

1776 – Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations, criticizing mercantilism and advocating for free-market capitalism.
→ Smith’s work rationalizes the emerging capitalist system, arguing for unregulated markets and competition, but conveniently ignores how slavery, colonialism, and state-backed violence underpin capitalist accumulation.

1789 – French Revolution begins, challenging monarchy and elite rule but maintaining colonial control.
→ While revolutionary rhetoric proclaims liberty and equality, France continues exploiting its colonies, revealing how capitalism and revolutionary democracy can coexist through imperialism and economic domination.

1791–1804 – Haitian Revolution—enslaved Africans overthrow French rule, creating the first Black republic.
→ Haiti’s revolution shatters the idea that slavery is permanent, proving that enslaved people can overthrow their oppressors, while terrifying European capitalist powers that rely on slavery for economic growth.

1804 – Napoleon reinstates slavery in French colonies but fails to retake Haiti, weakening France’s empire.
→ Napoleon’s attempt to restore slavery and reassert colonial control fails, marking the beginning of France’s decline as a global capitalist power, while Haiti’s independence exposes the contradictions between capitalism and true human liberation.

1800s: Industrial Capitalism, Abolition, and the Underdevelopment of Latin America & Africa

1807 – Britain abolishes the transatlantic slave trade, shifting to forced labor in African and Indian colonies.
→ While Britain ended the direct trade of enslaved Africans, it replaced chattel slavery with systems of indentured servitude and colonial forced labor, ensuring that capitalist extraction continued under a different legal form, fueling British industry and global markets.

1810s–1830s – Latin American independence movements free nations from Spain and Portugal, but economies remain dependent on European trade.
→ These revolutions broke political ties but not economic dependency, as newly independent nations relied on European banks and industrial centers to buy their raw materials, trapping them in a system of neocolonial economic subjugation.

1833 – Britain officially abolishes slavery, compensating slave owners but not the formerly enslaved.
→ Rather than redistributing land or wealth, Britain paid massive reparations to slaveowners, reinforcing capitalist property rights while leaving freed Black populations in economic destitution, forcing many into exploitative labor systems.

1834 – British banks expand in Latin America, financing cash crop economies that keep the region dependent.
→ By controlling credit and investment, British finance ensured that Latin America remained a supplier of raw materials for European industries, blocking local industrialization and solidifying a capitalist core-periphery structure.

1845–1849 – Irish Potato Famine, worsened by British land policies, forces mass migration to the U.S.
→ The famine was not just a natural disaster but a capitalist-driven crisis, as British landlords continued exporting food from Ireland while millions starved, illustrating how capitalist markets prioritized profit over human survival.

1850s – U.S. banking and insurance industries expand, backed by profits from Southern slavery.
→ The massive profits from cotton plantations were channeled into Northern banks, fueling U.S. industrialization and creating the financial structures that would later dominate the global economy.

1861–1865 – U.S. Civil War ends slavery, but Black Codes and sharecropping maintain racial labor control.
→ The formal abolition of slavery did not mean economic freedom, as the Southern economy shifted to debt peonage, convict leasing, and state-backed racial violence to sustain a plantation-style labor hierarchy without legal chattel slavery.

1865 – KKK founded in the U.S. to terrorize freed Black people and suppress labor movements.
→ The KKK’s rise highlights how capitalist elites used racial terror to maintain an exploitable workforce, ensuring that freed Black laborers could not build economic independence or challenge landowners.

1870s – Europe begins full-scale colonization of Africa, exploiting land, labor, and resources.
→ The "Scramble for Africa" was driven by capitalist hunger for raw materials, cheap labor, and new markets, as industrial nations sought to extract resources and suppress local self-sufficiency to ensure dependency on European goods.

1870s–1914: The "New Imperialism" and Global Industrial Capitalism

1884–1885 – Berlin Conference—European powers carve up Africa, dividing it into colonies.
→ The Berlin Conference formalized capitalist imperialism by turning African societies into raw material suppliers, ensuring that Africa’s land, labor, and wealth were forcibly integrated into European industrial capitalism, preventing local economic independence.

1890s – British cotton mills rely on U.S. and Indian raw cotton, linking global labor exploitation.
→ This demonstrates how capitalism thrives on interconnected systems of exploitation, as Britain’s industrial economy depended on plantation slavery’s legacy in the U.S. South and forced labor in British-ruled India, making raw materials cheap and profits high.

1898 – Spanish-American War—U.S. takes Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, marking its imperial expansion.
→ The war marks the transition of the U.S. from a regional power to a global capitalist empire, seizing colonies not just for military power but to secure resources, markets, and cheap labor for U.S. industries.

1901 – U.S. enforces Platt Amendment in Cuba, ensuring economic control over Cuban industries.
→ Though Cuba was nominally independent, the Platt Amendment made it a U.S. economic colony, forcing Cuba to prioritize sugar production for U.S. markets, showing how imperialism and capitalism function through economic dependency rather than direct rule.

1905 – Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founded, promoting global worker solidarity against capitalism.
→ The IWW represented one of the strongest challenges to capitalist hegemony, advocating for direct worker control over industry and rejecting both state capitalism and reformist unions that compromised with corporate power.

1910–1920 – Mexican Revolution challenges U.S. and British corporate control.
→ The revolution was not just a nationalist movement but an anti-capitalist struggle, as U.S. and British oil, mining, and agricultural interests had turned Mexico into an economic colony, demonstrating the global fight against capitalist imperialism.

1914–1945: World Wars, Economic Collapse, and Socialist Resistance

1914–1918 – World War I devastates Europe, leading to economic crisis and U.S. financial dominance.
→ The war destroys European economies, bankrupting old colonial powers like Britain and France, allowing the U.S. to emerge as the world's dominant financial power, setting the stage for dollar hegemony and global capitalism’s new structure.

1917 – Russian Revolution overthrows capitalism in Russia, creating the first socialist state.
→ The revolution proves that capitalism is not invincible, terrifying capitalist elites worldwide, who respond with violent crackdowns on socialist and labor movements, reinforcing the link between state power and capitalist preservation.

1919 – Treaty of Versailles forces Germany to pay massive reparations, leading to hyperinflation.
→ By drowning Germany in debt to pay off France and Britain (who in turn owed money to U.S. banks), the treaty ensures that capitalism remains unstable, as financial collapse fuels nationalist resentment and creates conditions for fascism.

1920s – Roaring Twenties speculative bubble in the U.S., fueled by European debt.
→ The U.S. becomes the global lender, creating a fragile economy based on speculative finance rather than production, showing how capitalism inherently produces financial crises through unsustainable debt and market bubbles.

1929 – Wall Street Crash, triggering the Great Depression and global financial collapse.
→ The collapse of speculation-driven capitalism plunges the world into crisis, proving how capitalist markets are inherently unstable, requiring mass suffering to "reset" profit systems.

1930s – Fascism rises in Germany, Italy, and Japan, as capitalists back dictators to suppress worker movements.
→ Fascism emerges as capitalism’s violent self-defense mechanism, with industrialists and bankers supporting authoritarian regimes to crush socialist uprisings and reestablish control over labor.

1936–1939 – Spanish Civil War—anarchists and socialists fight fascists but lose, solidifying right-wing dominance.
→ Spain’s anarchist and socialist revolutionaries create a living example of worker-run governance, but capitalist states (U.S., Britain) refuse to support them, while Nazi Germany and fascist Italy arm Franco’s forces, ensuring capitalist-fascist victory.

1939–1945 – World War II, ending in the defeat of fascism but leaving the U.S. and USSR as rival superpowers.
→ WWII forces capitalism to reorganize, leading to U.S. global dominance through financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, while the USSR presents an alternative, forcing capitalism to adopt welfare-state reforms to prevent communist uprisings.

1944–1945: The Birth of U.S. Financial Empire

1944 – Bretton Woods Conference establishes the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency, solidifying financial hegemony.
→ By tying the global economy to the U.S. dollar, the Bretton Woods system ensures U.S. dominance over international finance, allowing American banks and corporations to dictate global trade and investment flows.

1945 – U.S. drops atomic bombs on Japan, asserting dominance over global postwar reconstruction.
→ Beyond ending WWII, the atomic bombings demonstrate U.S. military supremacy and serve as a warning to the USSR, ensuring that postwar reconstruction happens on American capitalist terms rather than socialist ones.

1945 – World War II ends, leaving the U.S. and USSR as the world’s two superpowers.
→ With Europe in ruins, the U.S. and USSR become the central forces shaping the postwar order, leading to the Cold War—a global battle between state-backed capitalism and socialist alternatives.

1945–1947 – U.S. implements the Marshall Plan ($13B in aid to Europe), ensuring capitalist recovery.
→ The Marshall Plan prevents socialist uprisings in war-torn Europe by rebuilding capitalist economies under U.S. control, ensuring that Europe remains politically and economically aligned with Washington.

1945–1949 – Decolonization begins as India, Indonesia, and parts of Africa push for independence.
→ WWII weakens European colonial powers, allowing anti-colonial movements to challenge imperial rule, but newly independent nations remain economically trapped by debt, trade dependency, and neocolonial financial institutions.

1946 – Bank of England is nationalized, and the UK establishes a welfare state (NHS, social security, labor protections).
→ The postwar Keynesian compromise prevents worker uprisings by redistributing wealth through social programs, showing that capitalism can temporarily reform itself under pressure from labor movements.

1947 – Truman Doctrine and Cold War begin, establishing U.S. opposition to socialism worldwide.
→ The Truman Doctrine sets the stage for U.S. military and economic interventions across the world, ensuring that any socialist or anti-capitalist movement is framed as a security threat and violently suppressed.

1949 – Chinese Communist Revolution, creating a second major socialist state after the USSR.
→ China’s revolution proves that capitalism is not inevitable, terrifying Western elites and leading to U.S. strategies of containment, proxy wars, and global anti-communist repression.

1950–1953 – Korean War, first major Cold War conflict, dividing Korea into capitalist South and socialist North.
→ Korea becomes a blueprint for future U.S. intervention, where capitalism is preserved through military force, preventing socialist expansion in Asia and maintaining a permanent war economy.

1950s–1960s – G > R (economic growth > return on capital) due to state intervention, strong unions, and public investment.
→ This period of high economic growth shows that capitalism became more equitable through state intervention, but as capitalists profited from increased consumer demand, they regained strength and dismantled these reforms, reasserting worker dependence on wages even as purchasing power declined.

1954 – CIA overthrows Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz, preventing land reforms that threatened U.S. corporations.
→ The coup shows that U.S. foreign policy serves corporate interests, proving that capitalism requires military violence and authoritarianism to suppress worker-led land redistribution.

1955–1975 – Vietnam War—U.S. loses despite mass bombing campaigns; Vietnam unites as a socialist state.
→ The failure in Vietnam proves that military force alone cannot always maintain capitalist domination, inspiring further resistance movements in the Global South.

1957 – Ghana becomes first African nation to gain independence, inspiring further decolonization.
→ Ghana’s success accelerates anti-colonial struggles across Africa, but Western powers respond with economic sabotage, assassinations, and debt traps to keep Africa dependent.

1960s – Global uprisings in the U.S., Europe, and the Global South demand racial, economic, and gender justice.
→ From the Civil Rights Movement to anti-colonial revolutions, mass movements expose capitalism’s failures, leading to violent state repression, co-optation, and ultimately the capitalist counteroffensive of neoliberalism.

1960s–1970s: The High Point of Social Movements & Labor Power

1960 – Cuban Revolution—Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrow U.S.-backed dictator Batista.
→ Cuba’s revolution challenges U.S. dominance in Latin America, proving that anti-capitalist alternatives could succeed, leading to decades of U.S. economic sabotage, assassination attempts, and military interventions to prevent socialist expansion.

1963 – Civil Rights Movement peaks in the U.S., leading to the Civil Rights Act (1964).
→ While the Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation, it did not dismantle economic oppression, forcing Black activists to push beyond civil rights toward economic justice, leading to state repression and COINTELPRO surveillance.

1965–1973 – Anti-Vietnam War movement escalates, forcing U.S. withdrawal.
→ The anti-war movement exposes the brutality of U.S. imperialism and the military-industrial complex, proving that sustained mass resistance could challenge capitalist war efforts.

1966 – Black Panthers founded, advocating for armed self-defense and socialism.
→ The Panthers reject liberal reformism, emphasizing community self-defense, mutual aid, and anti-capitalism, prompting the U.S. government to violently suppress them through FBI infiltration, assassinations, and mass incarceration.

1968 – Global uprisings in France, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and the U.S.; workers and students challenge capitalism.
→ The uprisings expose the failures of postwar capitalism, as workers and students unite against exploitation, war, and state violence, terrifying elites into preparing a counteroffensive.

1969 – Stonewall Riots spark the modern LGBTQ+ movement.
→ Stonewall represents the broader radicalization of social movements, as marginalized groups demand full liberation rather than token inclusion in capitalist society.

1970s – Economic slowdown (stagflation)—high inflation + slow growth due to oil crises and falling corporate profits.
→ Stagflation ends the postwar economic boom, exposing capitalism’s contradictions, leading elites to abandon Keynesian policies in favor of neoliberalism, financialization, and austerity to restore profit margins.

1970s–1990s: The Neoliberal Counterattack

1973 – U.S.-backed coup in Chile overthrows socialist president Salvador Allende; Pinochet imposes brutal neoliberal reforms.
→ The Chilean coup serves as the first major test case for neoliberalism, proving that capitalism will use dictatorship and violent repression to dismantle socialist policies and impose free-market reforms that benefit foreign investors.

1973 – First Oil Crisis quadruples oil prices, exposing Western economic fragility.
→ The oil shock reveals capitalism’s dependence on cheap energy, creating stagflation and accelerating the push for deregulation, financial speculation, and austerity as capitalists seek to restore profits.

1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes UK Prime Minister, launching neoliberalism (privatization, union-busting, austerity).
→ Thatcher proves that neoliberalism is a deliberate attack on labor, dismantling public services, crushing unions, and shifting power from workers to corporate elites.

1980 – Ronald Reagan elected in the U.S., beginning full-scale neoliberal policies.
→ Reagan cements neoliberalism as U.S. economic doctrine, cutting taxes for the rich, deregulating finance, and expanding corporate power while gutting social protections.

1981 – Reagan fires air traffic controllers (PATCO Strike), breaking U.S. labor power.
→ By destroying one of the last militant unions, Reagan signals that labor resistance will not be tolerated, paving the way for wage stagnation and the erosion of worker protections.

1982 – Latin American Debt Crisis, forcing countries to accept IMF structural adjustments (privatization, austerity).
→ The debt crisis allows U.S. financial institutions to take control of developing economies, using IMF and World Bank policies to force privatization, weaken labor laws, and deepen economic dependency on the Global North.

1986 – Neoliberal tax cuts—top U.S. tax rate drops from 70% to 28%, increasing wealth inequality.
→ Slashing taxes for the wealthy concentrates power among the ruling class, shifting the economy away from productive labor and toward financial speculation and corporate monopolization.

1989 – Berlin Wall falls, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) and U.S. global dominance.
→ With the USSR gone, the U.S. no longer faces a geopolitical rival, allowing capitalism to expand unchecked, enforcing neoliberalism as the sole economic model worldwide.

1990s – IMF and World Bank enforce “Washington Consensus” globally, forcing neoliberalism on developing countries.
→ The Washington Consensus entrenches corporate imperialism, as poor nations are forced to dismantle public infrastructure, cut social spending, and sell off resources to Western investors.

1994 – NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) shifts manufacturing jobs to Mexico, accelerating U.S. deindustrialization.
→ NAFTA exposes workers to global wage competition, crushing unions and accelerating the shift toward precarious, low-wage labor, while corporations profit from cheap, deregulated production.

2000s–Today: Global Neoliberalism, Crisis, and Instability

2001 – 9/11 attacks lead to the U.S. War on Terror, expanding military imperialism in the Middle East.
→ The War on Terror justifies permanent militarization and mass surveillance, allowing the U.S. to expand its control over oil-producing regions while curtailing civil liberties domestically.

2003 – U.S. invades Iraq under false pretenses (Weapons of Mass Destruction), securing oil resources.
→ The Iraq War exposes how capitalist imperialism operates through military force, ensuring that oil profits flow to Western corporations while devastating Iraq’s infrastructure and society.

2008 – Global Financial Crisis caused by deregulated banks & mortgage fraud; governments bail out banks, not workers.
→ The financial crash reveals capitalism’s core contradiction—privatized profits but socialized losses, as governments rescue billionaires while imposing austerity on the working class.

2010s – Mass protests worldwide (Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring, anti-austerity movements in Europe).
→ The global uprisings expose growing disillusionment with capitalism, as people recognize that financial elites manipulate governments, while wages stagnate, inequality deepens, and basic needs go unmet.

2013 – Black Lives Matter movement begins in response to police killings of Black people in the U.S.
→ BLM highlights how racialized state violence upholds capitalist order, ensuring that Black communities remain hyper-policed, economically disenfranchised, and politically suppressed.

2016 – Trump elected on right-wing populism; Brexit vote weakens European integration.
→ The rise of Trump and Brexit demonstrates capitalism’s strategy of fueling nationalism and xenophobia, using racism and fear to redirect working-class anger away from the wealthy elite.

2018–2020 – Worldwide climate protests intensify, as global warming worsens under neoliberalism.
→ The climate crisis proves that capitalism prioritizes short-term profit over planetary survival, showing that corporate interests will block meaningful climate action to preserve economic dominance.

2020 – COVID-19 pandemic exposes capitalist failures, with billionaires gaining record wealth while millions suffer.
→ The pandemic proves capitalism’s inability to protect human life, as governments bail out corporations while healthcare collapses, wages shrink, and the rich consolidate even more power.

2020s – Decline of U.S. global power—China rises as a major economic competitor as U.S. attempts to reassert its hegemony through more extreme measures.
→ As China challenges U.S. dominance, American capitalists and politicians escalate military buildup, trade wars, and propaganda, signaling that global capitalism is fracturing under geopolitical competition.

Key Sources: A People’s History of the World by Chris Harman, Black Marxism by Cedric J. Robinson