Mike Woolley

1922: British archaeologist Howard Carter and his team discover a staircase leading to the entrance of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor. After years of searching, they had been close to abandoning the search when a worker discovered a stone step buried beneath the sand. Carter eventually made a small opening in the sealed doorway and famously peered inside by candlelight. When asked whether he could see anything, he replied: "Yes, wonderful things!" The tomb contained more than 5,000 objects, including golden furniture, jewellery, chariots and the famous solid-gold funerary mask, which had remained largely intact for over 3,000 years. The discovery became one of the most significant archaeological finds in history, capturing the world's imagination and sparking a renewed fascination with ancient Egypt.

1960: British primatologist Jane Goodall witnesses chimpanzees stripping leaves and twigs from branches to create tools in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, which they then use to extract termites from holes in termite mounds. This was the first recorded observation of wild chimpanzees deliberately modifying objects to use as tools. The discovery challenged a long-held belief that toolmaking was an exclusively human ability and fundamentally changed our understanding of animal intelligence, behaviour and the evolutionary relationship between humans and other primates.

1994: The first conference to ever exclusively focus on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web takes place in San Francisco.

2008: Barack Obama becomes the first person of biracial or African-American descent to be elected as President of the United States. His victory, secured with 365 electoral votes, was a landmark moment in American political and civil rights history, nearly 150 years after the abolition of slavery. His campaign's slogan, “Yes We Can”, becomes internationally recognised.