About 1500 BC was when Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt decided to build a zoo, and about 500 years later around the year 1000 BC, the Chinese emperor Wen Wang founded the Garden of Intelligence. This was an enormous zoo that covered about 1,500 acres (607 hect
ares). Many small zoos were established between 1,000 and 400 BC by rulers from Northern Africa, India, and China to show power and display wealth. To study animal and plant life, the ancient Greeks established public zoos. As part of their education,
Greek students would visit the zoos. Near the end of the 1,400's, global exploration brought Europeans to the New World. When explorers brought strange creatures back with them, it renewed the European's interest in animals and zoos.