Fifty dates in the history of the world cannot claim to be the basis for World History, even in an abbreviated version. They can nevertheless help illuminate its course, as it were, with a few flashes of the spotlight. There are stepladders in the flow of time, where the story accelerates its run or makes sharp turns. These nodal moments are irreducible to one date, they correspond to more or less long periods. The choice of dates implies a greater than the choice of periods, a share of arbitrariness. In this book, the author describes events, pushing away from which you can make a general picture of a number of milestones in the history of mankind - from mastering fire to the fall of the Berlin Wall.