Short answers, pulled from the story.
Johannes Gutenberg set his movable type printing press into motion in Mainz Germany in the year 1450. This invention dismantled the monopoly of the written word and fundamentally altered the human capacity to store and transmit knowledge. The cost of books plummeted within a few decades and literacy rates began to climb across Europe.
Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas in 1492. This event initiated sustained contact between Europe and the New World that reshaped the global balance of power. European powers began to colonize vast regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas driven by the promise of gold and spices.
The Industrial Revolution began around 1760 in Britain. This period marked a fundamental shift from an economy based on manual labor to one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. The introduction of steam power fuelled primarily by coal underpinned dramatic increases in production capacity.
World War II began on the 1st of September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and ended on the 2nd of September 1945 when Japan surrendered. The war was the largest and deadliest in history with around 62 million people dying. The conflict involved the majority of the world's nations with battles raging across Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, North Africa, Southeast Asia, China, and the Pacific Ocean.
The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The period following the Cold War includes most of the 1990s and the last decade of the 21st century. This post-Cold War era has been marked by the rise of new powers, the spread of democracy, and the challenges of managing a globalized world.