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776 BCE
First Olympic Games
The first Olympic Games were held during a religious festival in honor of Zeus. The games were held in Olympia and all participants were male. Although some wore shorts, nudity was very common among the athletes. -
499 BCE
The Persian Wars
Persia wanted revenge on Athens for helping one of their colonies rebel. The Battle of Marathon was won by the Greeks due to their phalanx formation. In the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks try to prevent Xerxes from taking Athens, leading to a Persian victory. During The Battle of Salamis, the Greeks sank around one-third of the Persian fleet in a sea battle. The Greeks won and the Persian Wars ended. Greece is released from the threat of the Persians and Athens builds a powerful empire. -
479 BCE
The Golden Age
After the Persian Wars, Athens became wealthy and powerful as the leader of the Delian League, an alliance of Greek city-states. Due to the economic prosperity of Athens, culture and democracy came to be. It began after the Persian war and ended after the Peloponnesian war. The Golden Age led to the creation of Greece’s strongest navy yet. It also included the building of the Parthenon in Athens for their patron goddess, Athena. The Greeks invented two types of theatre, Comedy and Tragedy. -
431 BCE
The Pelopponesian War
The Peloponnesian War was fought between two major Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta. The war took place between 431 BC and 404 BC. Although the two city-states had fought before the outbreak of the war, they came up with a truce in 445 BCE called the Thirty Years Treaty. -
331 BCE
Battle of Guagamela
In the Battle of Guagamela, Alexander the Great defeated the Persians with a series of long attacks, soon taking down King Darius. Darius managed to flee the city, and the battle is sometimes known as the Battle of Arbela. -
323 BCE
The Hellenistic Period
The Hellenistic Period is usually said to have started with Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC and said to have ended in 31 BC. It was characterized by a division and split of his former empire -
323 BCE
The Classical Period
The time after the end of the Persian wars and before the death of Alexander the Great’s death was known as the classical period. It was the end of war and conflict and unprecedented political and cultural achievement. -
285 BCE
The Division of Rome
Because the Roman Empire has grown so much, it was unable to be ruled by only one person. The emperor, Diocletian, divided the empire into two halves called the Eastern Empire controlled by the Byzantium and the Western Empire, controlled by Rome.
