Every article on the site, newest first. For the same list in order of time, see the timeline.
Shapur I took Valerian prisoner near Edessa in AD 260 and recorded it in a trilingual inscription and rock reliefs in Fars. Rome told it differently.
· AD 260Polybius says Hannibal told King Antiochus how, at nine, his father had him swear at an altar never to be a friend of the Romans. Livy calls it a story.
· 237 BCPtolemy I commissioned the Pharos in 299 BC and it was finished in 279. Strabo and Pliny describe its white marble, its architect Sostratus and its fires.
· 280 BCA copper statue from Bassetki says Naram-Sin won nine battles in a year, and the people of Agade asked eight gods to make him their city's god.
· 2250 BCCarter's journal for November 26, 1922 records his answer to Lord Carnarvon: "Yes, it is wonderful." The famous "wonderful things" is from his 1923 book.
· 1922Rein Taagepera's estimates give the Mongol Empire 24 million km² around 1300 and Rome 4.4 million in its years on top; only Britain's empire grew larger.
· 1300Athens could vote once a year to exile one man for ten years, his name scratched on a pottery shard (ostracon), as a check on power, not a punishment.
· 487 BCAlexander died at Babylon on June 11, 323 BC; by 280 BC his generals ruled three kingdoms, yet Greek stayed the language of eastern towns and of Bactria.
· 323 BCIn 494 BC Rome's plebeian soldiers left the city for the Sacred Mount. Livy says they came back after winning officials of their own, the tribunes.
· 494 BCSent by Emperor Wu to find the Yuezhi, Zhang Qian was held by the Xiongnu for over ten years; of more than 100 men, two came home 13 years later.
· 138 BCFor defending the general Li Ling, Sima Qian was condemned; his letter to Ren An explains why he chose to live and finish the 130 chapters of the Shiji.
· 99 BCMaya astronomers put Venus's cycle at 584 days, near NASA's 583.92, and the year at 365.242 days, using sighting sticks. A Venus table survives in Dresden.
· AD 900Priests at Memphis honored Ptolemy V in 196 BC in hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek. In 1822 Champollion read royal names from it and from a Philae obelisk.
· 196 BCThe Indus cities of 2600–1900 BC left no identified palace or royal tomb. J. M. Kenoyer proposes rule by competing elites and calls 'Great Bath' a guess.
· 2500 BCKhufu's pyramid lies within six arcminutes of true north. No Egyptian text says how; Glen Dash of AERA weighed four methods, from shadows to star transits.
· 2560 BCOn December 3, 1872, George Smith, self-taught in cuneiform, told a society what a Nineveh tablet said: a flood, a ship, a dove, a swallow, a raven.
· 1872In 1218 the governor of Otrar killed 450 merchants Genghis Khan had sent to trade; the shah then executed a Mongol envoy, and the Mongols invaded in 1219.
· 1218Arrian gives Alexander 47,000 men against a Persian army 'said to contain' a million, and has Darius flee first; a Babylonian diary says he was deserted.
· 331 BCOn August 2, 216 BC, Hannibal's 50,000 let their center bend back and closed around a Roman army of 80,000. Polybius puts the Roman dead at 70,000.
· 216 BCA 2010 JAMA study counted 130 sticks and staves in Tutankhamun's tomb, many worn by use, and found a mild clubfoot and bone disease in his left foot.
· 1323 BCIn 227 BC Jing Ke unrolled a map of Dukang before the king of Qin and seized the poisoned dagger inside. A doctor's medicine bag bought the king time.
· 227 BCSargon's inscriptions say he captured Lugalzagesi of Uruk and took lands from the sea to Mari and Ebla. Three later tales disagree on where he came from.
· 2279 BCVesuvius carbonized a Roman villa's library in AD 79. Scans and machine learning now read the scrolls unopened: a first word in 2023, a whole roll by 2026.
· AD 79Sargon's daughter Enheduanna, priestess at Ur, names herself in the Exaltation of Inana. Most copies are 500 years later, so her authorship is debated.
· 2300 BC
