Ancient History

By Ethan_Kelly
  • 4000 BCE

    First Ironwork

    An ironworks or iron works is a building or site where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ironworks is ironworks. Ironworks succeed bloomeries when blast furnaces replaced former methods.
  • Period: 3500 BCE to 3000 BCE

    Sumerian Cuneiform

    Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian city of Uruk which advanced the writing of cuneiform c. 3200 BCE.
  • Period: 2580 BCE to 2560 BCE

    Construction of Great Pyramid of Giza

    Giza pyramids. The first, and largest, pyramid at Giza was built by the pharaoh Khufu (reign started around 2551 B.C.). His pyramid, which today stands 455 feet (138 meters) tall, is known as the "Great Pyramid" and was considered to be a wonder of the world by ancient writers
  • Period: 1642 BCE to 1540 BCE

    Minoan Civilisation Destroyed by eruption on Santorini

    The Minoan eruption of Thera, also referred to as the Thera eruption or Santorini eruption, was a major catastrophic volcanic eruption with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 6 or 7 and a dense-rock equivalent (DRE) of 60 km3 (14 cu mi),[1][2] Dated to the mid-second millennium BCE,[3] the eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on Earth in recorded history. It devastated the island of Thera (now called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri and nearby islands
  • Period: 1260 BCE to 1180 BCE

    Trojan War

    he Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably through Homer's Iliad.
  • 700 BCE

    First use of money/coins

    Lydia and the earliest coins. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, the Lydians were the first people to have used gold and silver coinage. He was almost correct.
  • 551 BCE

    Birth of Confucius

    Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history
  • Period: 492 BCE to 490 BCE

    Darius’ Invasion of Greece

    The second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece.
  • Period: 447 BCE to 432 BCE

    Building of the Parthenon

    The magnificent temple on the Acropolis of Athens, known as the Parthenon, was built between 447 and 432 BCE in the Age of Pericles, and it was dedicated to the city's patron deity Athena.
  • Period: 336 BCE to 323 BCE

    Alexander the Great conquerors Persia

    Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty.
  • 279 BCE

    Celts Sack Delphi

    From their new bases in northern Illyria and Pannonia, the Gallic invasions climaxed in the early 3rd century BC, with the invasion of Greece. The 279 BC invasion of Greece proper was preceded by a series of other military campaigns waged toward the southern Balkans and against the kingdom of Macedonia, favoured by the state of confusion ensuing from the interacted succession to Alexander.
  • Period: 221 BCE to 206 BCE

    Establishment of Han Dynasty

    The Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang (known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu), was the second imperial dynasty of China. It followed the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), which had unified the Warring States of China by conquest.
  • Period: 218 BCE to 201

    2nd Punic War

    The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and the War Against Hannibal was a global war that lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved great powers in the western and eastern Mediterranean.
  • Period: 100 BCE to 650

    Establishment of Teotihuacan

    Teotihuacan cast a long cultural shadow through history and, 1,000 years after its peak, the last great Pre-Columbian civilization, the Aztecs, revered the city as the origin of civilization. They believed Teotihuacan was where the gods had created the present era, including the fifth and present sun.
  • Period: 58 BCE to 50 BCE

    Caesar Conquerors Gaul

    Rome's war against the Gallic tribes lasted from 58 BC to 50 BC and culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul (mainly present-day France and Belgium).
  • Period: 73 to 74

    Siege of Masada

    The siege of Masada was one of the final events in the First Jewish–Roman War, occurring from 73 to 74 CE on a large hilltop in current-day Israel. The siege was chronicled by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish rebel leader captured by the Romans, in whose service he became a historian.
  • 79

    Eruption of Mt Vesuvius buries Pompeii

    Mount Vesuvius, a volcano near the Bay of Naples in Italy, is hundreds of thousands of years old and has erupted more than 50 times. Its most famous eruption took place in the year 79 A.D., when the volcano buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii under a thick carpet of volcanic ash.
  • 380

    Christianity adopted as official Roman Religion

    Nicene Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, when Emperor Theodosius I made it the Empire's sole authorized religion.
  • 476

    Fall Rome

    Romulus, the last of the Roman emperors in the west, was overthrown by the Germanic leader Odoacer, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. The order that the Roman Empire had brought to western Europe for 1000 years was no more