Happiness
5th BCE
Chinese philosopher, Confucius, created the basis of Buddhism and Taoism, which first gave followers a path to achieving happiness. Those steps included caring for others, engaging in social organizations, an investment in your craft (in modern terms, your career), and others.
c. 150 CE
Every Indo-European language can trace its word for "happiness" to the ancient Greek word "eudaimonia," which was also a cognate for the word "luck." As time progressed and more languages developed, there continued to be a strong correlation (linguistically) between "happiness" and "luck" or "chance."
4th BCE
Religion also has much to do with our current perception of happiness. Specifically, Christianity views happiness as an unnatural state, only truly achievable when one completely hands themself over to God. Another interpretation was that happiness and blessedness were hand-in-hand, where one received blessings from God.
18th Century
As with most things, the European Enlightenment dramatically changed things. The Western understanding of happiness shifted to a more positive view. Previously, scholars and thinkers were taken seriously only if they had some justification of their intelligence through melancholy. After the Enlightenment, thinkers began to see happiness as a goal rather than a momentary stop.
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“Oh happiness! Our being’s end and aim!” - Alexander Pope
1776
Thomas Jefferson declares that the pursuit of happiness is a basic human right in the Declaration of Independence, the most blunt stance on happiness at this point in history. It is important to note that there is no guarantee that happiness will occur or is a right, but the pursuit of happiness as a state of being is a human right.
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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
--Thomas Jefferson, from the Declaration of Independence
1920s
In the early 20th century (especially in the United States), there was a huge upturn in the creation of (now-called) "self-help" books that emphasized the importance of being happy. These books also stressed the importance of personal responsibility in order to attain happiness.
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Some examples of titles in this genre are "14,000 Things to Be Happy About," "Happiness Is a Choice," and "A Thousand Paths to Happiness."
