|
Date |
Event |
|
|
|
|
B.C. |
|
|
|
|
|
Circa 300 |
Bronze Age begins. |
|
Circa 2200 |
Minoan culture on Crete begins to flourish. |
|
Circa 1600-1450 |
Eruption of Thera volcano and takeover of Minoan places by Mycenaens from the Greek mainland. |
|
Circa 1200-800 |
Greek Dark Ages. First Greek settlements on the coast of Asia Minor. |
|
Circa 850 |
Traditional date for Homer's writing of Iliad. |
|
800-500 |
Archaic period. |
|
776 |
First Olympic Games.  |
|
750-700 |
Development of Greek alphabet. Soldiers begin to fight as hoplites. |
|
730 |
Rise of Corinth as leading city. |
|
621 |
The statesman Draco makes the first written laws in Athens. |
|
594 |
Salon becomes leader of Athens. |
|
546 |
Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers Greek cities of Ionia. |
|
508 |
Cleisthenes establishes Athenian democracy. |
|
500-300 |
Classical period. |
|
490 |
Athenians defeat Persians in battle of Marathon. |
|
482 |
Discovery of silver in Laurium. |
|
480 |
Greeks defeat Persians in the sea battle of Salamis. |
|
479 |
Greeks defeat Persians at Plataea and Mycale, forever ending the Persian threat to Europe. |
|
461 |
Pericles leads Athens, until 429. Athens at war with Sparta until 451. |
|
451 |
Athens passes a law defining who is a citizen. |
|
447 |
Work begins on Parthenon.  |
|
circa 430 |
Hippocrates and Socrates active, Pheidias sculpts statue of Zeus. |
|
425-405 |
Playwrights Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles popular. |
|
404 |
Sparta wins Peloponnesian War and dissolves Athenian democracy. |
|
404-360 |
Plato active. |
|
358 |
Work starts on theater at Epidauros.  |
|
338 |
Philip II of Macedon conquers Athens. |
|
336 |
Philip II dies. His son Alexander 'the Great', becomes king and conquers Asia Minor, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and parts of India. |
|
334 |
Alexander invades Persia. |
|
323 |
Death of Alexander and break-up of his empire (by 311), although Greek kings still rule Egypt and Syria. |
|
300-148 |
Hellenistic period. |
|
|
|
|
A.D. |
|
|
|
|
|
30 |
Rome makes Egypt a province and dismantles the Ptolemaic kingdom, last of the independent Greek states. |
|
64 |
Seleucid kingdom ends. |