World Wars and the AtomScience & Math DNA double helix 1953Turning point Watson and Crick, using Rosalind Franklin's X-ray data, reveal the structure of DNA. ▲ MattersSaveShareTrace roots Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Babylonian mathematics → Babylonian astronomical diaries → Thales and natural philosophy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Alexandria founded → Library of Alexandria → House of Wisdom → Al-Khwarizmi and algebra → Fibonacci's Liber Abaci → Bills of exchange → Medici Bank → Double-entry bookkeeping → Dutch East India Company and first stock exchange → Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations → Malthus on population → Darwin's On the Origin of Species → DNA double helix Community notesLoading notes… Learn more ranked by votesDocumentnature.comWatson and Crick (1953), Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids (Nature) ↗Editor's pickDocumentnobelprize.orgThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 (Crick, Watson, Wilkins) ↗Editor's pickBookJames D. WatsonThe Double Helix ↗Editor's pickBookBrenda MaddoxRosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA ↗Editor's pickVideoSearch on YouTubeRosalind Franklin Photo 51 DNA ↗Editor's pick