Convention on Human Chronology

The Convention on Human Chronology (commonly shortened to CHC) is a set of norms and standards used to classify and date human historical periods and events. The CHC is part of the standardization initiative launched by the republican government in 2430. The convention was opened for signature in 2435 as part of the first year of scientific unity.

The convention has been accepted and signed by all republican systems as well as Nevis, making it official in all core human space. New signatory states are expected to adapt their school curriculum and knowledge database to reflect the standards of the CHC, as well as creating a division of history as part of their Scientific Discipline Committee.

According to republican conventional law, any citizen of a signatory state can submit suggestions for changes to the CHC to be approved by the Republican Institute of History. Most suggestions are made by republican historians and members of the institute. 752 changes to the original convention have been approved and applied as of January 1, 2575.

Origin
History is defined as the 4th core science by the Republican Council of Knowledge and Techniques. The month of April is dedicated to history during the year of scientific unity.

The need for regulation of historical studies and study of the discipline (historiography) arose from the conflicting claims made by various cultural groups throughout the Republic about their heritage and historical territories. The earlier historians look back in time, the harder it is to extract valuable information from documents, and documents themselves become rarer, rendering some claims unverifiable.

The advent of the Internet at the very end of the Cold War was vital in saving many precious documents and scans, by making them easy to share and copy. It is estimated that 97% of all historical manuscripts known in the year 2000 have been preserved thanks to the Internet. The omnipresence of the network in human society since the latter half of the 21st century allows modern historians to paint a very accurate picture of life up until the Coalition Wars.

The destruction brought upon federal infrastructure during the Unification Wars did not destroy any historical data, as many Federal Knowledge Base copies had already been done on many different servers throughout federal space, however communication lanes were highly perturbed, records were kept by many different factions and sometimes destroyed as part of information warfare or as collateral damage, as such, little information remains on territorial changes and population displacements during the wars. One of the tasks of the Republican Committee for Memory, part of the RIH, is to recover all relevant information pertaining to periods of trouble in human history, to help reconstitute events and recognize rightful claims.

Historical Periods
The CHC considers that human history starts around 3200 BCE, with the invention of writing. All that came before is referred to as prehistory or pre-literary history. The former is more often used for periods before the rise of man on Earth, while the latter tends to be used when talking about periods between the rise of man and the invention of writing, though both terms are interchangeable.

The RIH stated that this classification of human periods is only relevant when talking about a globalized society, and that the First Colonial Age can be considered the first period to be properly classified, as the two earliest periods (Antiquity and the Classical Ages) are too long and encompass many different populations with greatly varying cultural, technological and societal values that are impossible to categorize homogeneously. These periods only serve as reference, and later amendments to the convention defined specific norms regarding the history of the many cultures present on Earth before globalization.