Coffee was harvested from wild bushes in Ethiopia and transported across the Red Sea to Yemen, starting in the middle of the fifteenth century. Coffee seems to have spread rapidly in the Near East. By the time the Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt from the Mamelukes in 1517, coffee-drinking was already widespread in Cairo.The spread of coffee to the rest of the world took place in the seventeenth century.

The origin of tea in the world started in China around 2750 BC. The Dutch were the first to drink tea in Europe, shipping it in 1610, with the introduction to Britain around 1650. It arrived a few years after coffee had reached England. It was through the coffeehouses that the new drink spread to the people. 

The Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 makes China cede Taiwan and the Peng-hu Islands to Japan in perpetuity. Tokyo’s first attempt at colonialism is a great success as it establishes order, eradicating disease, building infrastructure, and creating a modern economy. Taiwan soon becomes the most-advanced place in East Asia outside Japan itself. Post WWII, Taiwan is handed over to China, but Chiang Kai-Shek is defeated by Mao and he flees to Taiwan and is seated in the UN Security Council as ROC (Republic of China). Chiang surrounds himself with Economists and Technocrats to build a strong Taiwan economy and his son, CCK continues the same trajectory, making Taiwan a democracy in the process. Tensions between the PRC and ROC restart after President Xi’s 2017 19th Party Congress report sets a deadline for reunification by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Communist rule in Mainland China.

In October 1950, Mao Tse Tung decides to invade Tibet.In 1953, India finds out that China has built a road in India's Aksai Chin region to connect Mainland China to Tibet. India protests and China suggests that it will withdraw claim on any territory south of the McMahon line in exchange for retaining Aksai Chin. This is rejected and India implements the Forward Policy to push back China. On October 20, 1962, China make 2 simultaneous attacks on the Indian border, 1000 kilometers apart. The India China War of 1962 starts. As China keeps making inroads, Nehru appeals to President Kennedy for help.

In October of  1962, President John F. Kennedy was stunned to learn that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. Though Moscow was trying to balance out the equation between the two Super Powers, JFK was against any Soviet presence in the Western Hemisphere. Through a combination of involving the UN Security Council, to enforcing a Naval Blockade around Cuba to initiating an indirect negotiation with Premier Khrushchev, President Kennedy displayed leadership, restraint and pragmatism to pull the world out of a nuclear showdown.

On June 15, 1215, King John of England signs the Magna Carta declaring the King to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by free men.  The Magna Carta lays the  foundation for individual rights enshrined in several Constitutions across the globe, including the US Constitution. The Industrial Revolution creates a new educated Middle Class which further promotes a free society and in essence, a democracy. Further gains are made in the 19th Century and post WWII, a big portion of Europe turns democratic. After the collapse of the Soviet Union democracy spreads even further but in the current period, a new trend of Authoritarian Democracies seem to be on the rise.

The first bank bailout in history, happened in Rome in 33 A.D. The first medium of exchange was the barter system and this was replaced by Commodity Money. Coins were first minted in Lydia (modern day Turkey) and Chinese were the first to make paper money.

Money continued to evolve and the latest disruption has been digital currency, aka Bitcoin.

Around late 18th Century the acceleration in the processes of technical innovation brought about new tools and machines which led to the concept of mass production, thereby triggering an Industrial Revolution. It's impact was profound - from the creation of a new Middle Class to a new set of wealthy industrialists. Capitalism swept the globe and Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. The wealth gap led to the emergence of new concepts of Marxism and Communism.

In 1978 Deng Xiaoping becomes China's new leader after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. He takes on a pragmatic approach towards reform, opening up SEZs (Special Economic Zones along the Pearl River Delta, overlooking Hong Kong. It's an experiment and will be expanded to other parts of the country, if successful. Hong Kong and Taiwan show interest and invest, triggering the biggest economic turnaround in history.

Igor Gouzenko,  a Soviet cipher clerk stationed at the Soviet Union’s Ottawa embassy during the Second World War, defects to the Canadian government with proof that his country had been spying on its wartime allies: Canada, Britain and the United States. This prompts the Gouzenko Affair. His defection is considered the start of the Cold War.

In 1946 the United States, working with Britain, deciphers the code Moscow used to send its telegraph cables. As Venona decryption improves in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it blows the cover of several spies, notably the Atomic Bomb spies.

In his farewell address, President George Washington warned against political parties, particularly those based on geographic loyalties. However his own Cabinet fostered an intense rivalry between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jeffersonians formed the Democratic-Republican party, while the Hamiltonians formed the Federalist party. The Federalist Party would gradually fade into oblivion and the Democratic Party split into the Democrats and the National Republicans. The National Republicans become the Whig Party. The political and economic environment eventually kindles rivalries between the 2 parties and both evolve with respect to their beliefs and ideologies.