| Prior to 1000 A.D.: Members of the Galla tribe in Ethiopia noticed that they get an energy boost when they eat a certain berry, ground up and mixed with animal fat.
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| 1000 A.D.: Arab traders brought coffee back to their homeland and cultivated the plant for the first time on plantations. They also began to boil the beans, creating a drink they call "qahwa" (literally, that which prevents sleep).
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| 1453: Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by Ottoman Turks. The world's first coffee shop, Kiva Han, opened there in 1475. Turkish law made it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.
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| 1511: Khair Beg, the corrupt governor of Mecca, tried to ban coffee for fear that its influence might foster opposition to his rule. The Sultan, meanwhile, sent word that coffee is sacred and had the governor executed.
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| 1600: Coffee, introduced to the West by Italian traders, grabbed attention in high places. In Italy, Pope Clement VIII is urged by his advisers to consider that favorite drink of the Ottoman Empire as an infidel threat. However, he decided to "baptize" it instead, making it an acceptable Christian beverage.
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| 1607: Captain John Smith helped find the colony of Virginia at Jamestown. It's believed that he introduced coffee to North America.
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| 1645: The first coffeehouse opened in Italy.
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| 1652: First coffeehouse opened in England. Coffee houses multiplied and became such popular forums for the learned and the not so learned. Coffeehouses were as dubbed "penny universities" (a penny being the price of a cup of coffee).
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| 1656: Coffee drinking is prohibited & coffeehouses were closed in Turkey by the Grand Vizir of the Ottoman Empire (penalty for drinking coffee: a dunk in the Bosphorus in a leather satchel!)
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1668: Coffee replaced beer as New York's City's favorite breakfast drink.
Also, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse opened in England and is frequented by merchants and maritime insurance agents. Eventually it became Lloyd's of London, the best-known insurance company in the world.
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| 1669: Coffee became popular in Europe after Turkish ambassador to France introduced the magic brew 1669--Coffee becomes popular in Europe after Turkish ambassador to France introduced magic brew to King Louis XIV.
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| 1672: First coffeehouse opened in Paris.
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| 1674:Women's Petition Against Coffee was established in London.
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| 1675: The Turkish Army surrounded Vienna. Franz Georg Kolschitzky, a Viennese who had lived in Turkey, slipped through the enemy lines to lead relief forces to the city. The fleeing Turks left behind sacks of "dry black fodder" that Kolschitzky recognized as coffee. He claimed it as his reward and opened central Europe's first coffee house. He also established the habit of refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk.
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| 1690: With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha, the Dutch became the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon and in their East Indian colony - Java, source of the brew's nickname.
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| 1713: The Dutch unwittingly provided Louis XIV of France with a coffee bush whose descendants will produce entire Western coffee industry, when in 1723 French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu stole a seedling and transports it to Martinique. Within 50 years, official survey recorded 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually, 90 percent of the world's coffee spread from this plant.
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| 1721: First coffee house opened in Berlin, Germany.
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| 1727: The Brazilian coffee industry got its start when Lieutenant Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta is sent by government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only did he settle the dispute, but he also stroke up a secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana's governor. Although France guarded its New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said good-bye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee.
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| 1732: Johann Sevastian Bach composed his Kaffee-Kantate. Partly an ode to coffee and partly a stab at the movement in Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee (it was thought to make them sterile), the cantata included the aria, "Ah! How sweet coffee taste! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee."
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| 1773: The Boston Tea Party made drinking coffee a patriotic duty in America.
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| 1775: Prussia's Frederick the Great tried to block imports of green coffee, as Prussia's wealth is drained. Public outcry changed his mind.
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| 1822: The first espresso machine is made in France.
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| 1886: Former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek named his popular coffee blend "Maxwell House," after the hotel in Nashville, Tenessee where it's served.
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Early 1900's:
| 1900: Hills Bros. began packing roast coffee in vacuum tins, spelling the end of the ubiquitous local roasting shops and coffee mills.
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| 1901: The first soluble "instant" coffee is invented by Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago.
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| 1903: German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius turned a batch of ruined coffee beans over to researchers, who perfected the process of removing caffeine from the beans without destroying the flavor. He marketed it under the brand name "Sanka." Sanka is introduced to the United States in 1923.
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| 1906: George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, noticed a powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation, he created the first mass-produced instant coffee (his brand is called Red E Coffee).
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| 1908:Melitta Bentz, a housewife from Dresden, invented the first coffee filter.
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| 1920: Prohibition went into effect in United States. Coffee sales boomed.
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| 1928: Coffee was declared beneficial according to Prof. Ralph H. Cheney of NYU, as written in the Science Newsletter.
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| 1938: Having been asked by Brazil to help find a solution to their coffee surpluses, Nestle company invented freeze-dried coffee. Nestle developed Nescafe and introduced it in Switzerland.
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| 1940: US imported 70 percent of the world coffee crop. Coffee production quotas were established by an Inter-American Coffee Board.
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| 1942: During W.W.II, American soldiers are issued instant Maxwell House coffee in their ration kits. Back home, widespread hoarding lead to coffee rationing.
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| 1946: In Italy, Achilles Gaggia perfected his espresso machine. Cappuccino is named for the resemblance of its color to the robes of the monks of the Capuchin order.
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| 1962: Coffee export quotas were established worldwide by the United Nations.
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| 1969: One week before Woodstock, the Manson Family murdered coffee heiress Abigail Folger as she visited with friend Sharon Tate in the home of filmmaker Roman Polanski.
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| 1970: Coffee hit the big leagues as Joe DiMaggio endorses "Mr. Coffee".
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| 1971: Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle's Pike Place public market, creating a frenzy over fresh-roasted whole bean coffee.
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| 1989: World coffee prices plunged.
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| 1991:The programming language Java was born, as developed by Sun.
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| 1994: As the coffee pandemic puts a coffee-house on every corner, the truly hip switched to tea.
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| 1995: Coffee is the world's most popular beverage. More than 400 billion cups are consumed each year. It is a world commodity that is second only to oil.
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