Ancient history: Encyclopedia II - Ancient history - Chronology

Ancient history - Chronology

Ancient history - Prehistory

• c. 60th millennium BC - Modern humans migrate out of Africa and begin spreading across Asia
• c. 40th millennium BC - Australia first reached by modern humans
• c. 35th millennium BC - Europe first reached by modern humans
• 14th to 10th millennium BC - Americas first reached by humans
• 10th millennium BC - Invention of agriculture is the earliest given date for the beginning of Ancient Era
• 5th millennium BC - Possible invention of writing, Tartaria tablets in the lower Danube Valley date from this period
• 4th millennium BC - First writings in the cities of Uruk and Susa (cuneiform writings); followed by inscriptions in Harappa and hieroglyphs in Egypt
• 33rd century BC - Oldest historical documents

Ancient history - Important events

• 3300 BCE - Bronze Age begins in the Near East (Sumer and Ancient Egypt) and South Asia (Indus Valley Civilization), Bronze Age slowly begins spreading to the rest of Eurasia
• 3000 BCE - First known use of papyrus by Egyptians
• 2800 BCE - Kot Diji phase of the Indus Valley Civilization begins
• 2580 BCE - Completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza
• 2000 BCE - Domestication of the horse
• 1700 BCE - Indus Valley Civilization comes to an end but is continued by the Cemetery H culture
• 1600 BCE - The beginning of Shang Dynasty in China, development of first Chinese writing system
• 1600 BCE - Beginning of Hittite dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region
• 1500 BCE - Composition of the Rigveda is completed.
• 1200 BCE - The Hebrews arrive to Israel after their exodus out of Egypt, and begin to conquer and settle the land
• c. 1200 BCE - Theorized time of the Trojan War
• c. 1100 BCE - King Saul unifies the 12 tribes of Israel into the united kingdom of Israel
• c. 1180 BCE - Disintegration of Hittite Empire
• 1122 BCE - The Zhou people overthrow the last king of Shang Dynasty; Zhou Dynasty established in China
• 1004 BCE - King David conquers Jebus, renames it Jerusalem and declares it as the Israeli capital
• 1000s BCE - Kurukshetra War may have taken place between members of the Kuru dynasty. The ancient epic Mahabharata is later based on this war
• 928 BCE - The united kingdom of Israel separate into 2 individual kingdoms: The Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel
• 800 BCE - Rise of Greek city-states
• 753 BCE - Founding of Rome (traditional date)
• 751 BCE - The Rise of LeChe
• 745 BCE - Tiglath-Pileser III becomes the new king of Assyria. With time he conquers neighboring countries and turns Assyria into an empire
• 722 BCE - Spring and Autumn Period begins in China; Zhou Dynasty's power is diminishing; the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought
• 653 BCE - Rise of first Persian state
• 600 BCE - Sixteen Maha Janapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") emerge. A number of these Maha Janapadas are semi-democratic republics.
• c 600 BCE - Pandyan kingdom in South India
• 563 BCE - Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism is born as a prince of the Shakya dynasty, which ruled parts of Magadha, one of the Maha Janapadas
• 549 BCE - Mahavira, founder of Jainism is born
• 544 BCE - Rise of Magadha as the dominant power under Bimbisara.
• c. 512 BCE - Persian Empire at largest extent under Darius I
• 509 BCE - Expulsion of the last King of Rome, founding of Roman Republic (traditional date)
• 500 BCE - Panini standardizes the grammar and morphology of Sanskrit in the text Ashtadhyayi. Panini's standardized Sanskrit is known as Classical Sanskrit
• 500 BCE - Pingala uses Zero and Binary numeral system.
• 490 BCE - Greek city-states defeat Persian invasion at Battle of Marathon
• 424 BCE - Nanda dynasty comes to power.
• 404 BCE - End of Peloponnesian War between the Greek city-states
• 403 BCE - Warring States Period begins in China as the Zhou king became a mere figurehead; China is annexed by regional warlords
• 331 BCE - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela
• 323 BCE - Death of Alexander the Great
• 273 BCE - Ashoka the Great becomes the emperor of the Mauryan Empire
• 230 BCE - Emergence of Satavahanas in South India
• 221 BCE - Qin Shi Huang unifies China, end of Warring States Period; beginning of Imperial rule in China which lasts until 1912
• 202 BCE - Han Dynasty established in China, after the death of Qin Shi Huang; China in this period officially becomes Confucian state and opens trading connections with the West, i.e. the Silk Road
• 202 BCE - Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama
• c 200 BCE - Chera dynasty in South India
• 185 BCE - Sunga Empire founded.
• 149 BCE-146 - Third and final Punic War; destruction of Carthage by Rome
• 146 BCE - Roman conquest of Greece, see Roman Greece
• c 100 BCE - Chola Dynasty rises in prominence.
• 49 BCE - Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great
• 44 BCE - End of Roman Republic; beginning of Roman Empire
• 6 BCE - Earliest theorized date for birth of Jesus of Nazareth
• 9 - Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Roman Army's bloodiest defeat
• 14 - Death of Emperor Augustus (Octavian), ascension of his adopted son Tiberius to the throne
• 68 - Year of the four emperors in Rome
• 117 - Roman Empire at largest extent under Emperor Trajan
• 220 - Three Kingdoms period begins in China after the fall of Han Dynasty
• 285 - Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empires
• 313 - Edict of Milan declared that the Roman Empire would be neutral toward religious worship
• 335 - Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
• 378 - Battle of Adrianople, Roman army is defeated by the Germanic tribes
• 395 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlaws all pagan religions in favour of Christianity
• 410 - Alaric sacks Rome for the first time since 390 BC
• c. 455 - Skandagupta repels an Indo-Hephthalite attack on India.
• 476 - Romulus Augustus, last Western Roman Emperor is forced to abdicate by Odoacer, a half Hunnish and half Scirian chieftain of the Germanic Heruli; Odoacer returns the imperial regalia to Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno in Constantinople in return for the title of dux of Italy; most frequently cited date for the end of ancient history
• 528 - Yasodharman decisively defeats the Indo-Hephthalites.

Ancient history - End of ancient history in Europe

The date used as the end of the ancient era is entirely arbitrary and is a matter of some dispute amongst historians. Some other dates that are given for the end of antiquity are:

• 293 - reforms of Roman Emperor Diocletian
• 395 - the division of Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire
• 476 - the fall of Western Roman Empire
• 529 - closure of Platon Academy in Athens by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I
• 622 - Muhammad travels to Medina
• 962 - coronation of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XII, the translatio imperii

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Chronology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki