Every article on the site, newest first. For the same list in order of time, see the timeline.
Several editions of the Gilgamesh epic existed by about 2000 BC. A king of Uruk loses his friend Enkidu, seeks eternal life and loses the plant of youth.
· 2000 BCTrapped for seven days at Baideng, Emperor Gaozu of Han escaped through the chanyu's consort; Han then sent a princess and yearly silk, wine and food.
· 200 BCThree or four horses per rider, a decimal army the Khitans and Jurchens already used, relay stations a day apart and Chinese siege technicians.
· 1206In 458 BC Rome made Cincinnatus dictator for six months to save a blockaded army. He resigned on the sixteenth day and, Dionysius says, refused the spoils.
· 458 BCAlexander succeeded Philip II in 336 BC, crossed to Asia in 334, beat Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela and reached the Punjab before his army turned back.
· 336 BCLater building buried KV62 and its location was lost; floodwater never filled it, the Theban Mapping Project says. It may not first have been his tomb.
· 1323 BCAt Mohenjo-daro almost every house had a bathing area draining to covered street drains big enough for workmen to enter; only two brick toilets are known.
· 2500 BCHannibal left Spain in 218 BC with 37 elephants; Polybius gives a five-month march and 15 days in the Alps. His numbers and his pass are still argued.
· 218 BCAthens filled most offices, from the Council of 500 to its juries, by lottery with a stone machine, the kleroterion, to keep the rich from taking power.
· 487 BCCleopatra VII came from a dynasty of Macedonian origin, yet Plutarch says she spoke many languages. Horace called her a monster; how she died, no one knew.
· 30 BCThe Maya wrote zero as a shell glyph in base-20 numbers by 665. The Long Count dates to 40–20 BC; India's first agreed dated zero is 876.
· 36 BCEgyptian crews fed by the state, not slaves, built the Giza pyramids. A town for the workers, their cemetery and gang names inside the pyramid show it.
· 2560 BCBorn in Handan to a Qin hostage prince and king at thirteen, Zheng of Qin took six kingdoms by 221 BC and named himself huangdi, the First Emperor.
· 221 BCVesuvius buried Pompeii under about 4 m of ash in AD 79. Pliny dates it to August 24; Pompeii's park says the October date has no documentary basis.
· AD 79Germany's archaeological institute calls Uruk one of the world's earliest metropolises: 200 hectares, perhaps 40,000 people, writing from about 3300 BC.
· 3300 BC
