Our Earth's History

Timeline: Classical world

800 BC – AD 500 · 46 articles, earliest first. Browse this era by continent.

  1. 1000 BC · Oceania'Small scattered fragments do not a dwarf make': Palau, 2008
  2. 500 BC · Oceania1,800 years in Tonga and Samoa: the long pause before East Polynesia
  3. 500 BC · West AsiaHow did Persia run the largest empire the world had seen?
  4. 494 BC · EuropeHow Did Rome's Common People Win Their Rights — by Walking Out of the City?
  5. 487 BC · EuropeWhy Did Athens Choose Its Leaders by Lottery, Not Election?
  6. 487 BC · EuropeWhy Did Athens Vote to Exile Its Most Powerful Men — on Broken Pottery?
  7. 458 BC · EuropeCould Anyone Give Absolute Power Back? The Story of Cincinnatus
  8. 400 BC · Central AsiaWhat did the frozen tombs of the Altai preserve for 2,400 years?
  9. 336 BC · EuropeHow Did a 20-Year-Old Conquer the World?
  10. 331 BC · EuropeCan Half an Army Beat Hundreds of Thousands?
  11. 323 BC · EuropeThe Empire Split — So Why Did They Speak Greek All the Way to India?
  12. 280 BC · AfricaWhich Dynasty's Harbor Held One of the Seven Wonders of the World?
  13. 260 BC · South AsiaWhy did an emperor carve his regret for a war into rock across India?
  14. 250 BC · Central AsiaA Corinthian capital on the Oxus: the Greek city of Ai Khanoum
  15. 237 BC · AfricaWhy Did Nine-Year-Old Hannibal Swear an Oath Against Rome?
  16. 227 BC · East AsiaA Dagger Sprang From the Map — How Did the King of Qin, the Future First Emperor of China, Survive?
  17. 221 BC · East AsiaHow Did One Boy Become China's First Emperor?
  18. 218 BC · AfricaWhy Did One Man Lead War Elephants Over the Alps?
  19. 216 BC · AfricaWhat Single Day's Battle Is Still Taught in Military Academies?
  20. 200 BC · East AsiaHow Did the Mighty Han Empire Begin? It Paid Silk Tribute to Nomads
  21. 200 BC · OceaniaThree dark bands in a dune: Sigatoka's Levels 1, 2 and 3, dug in 1965
  22. 196 BC · AfricaHow Did a Royal Decree Revive a Script Dead for 1,400 Years?
  23. 138 BC · East AsiaWhy Did This Han Envoy Take 13 Years to Come Home?
  24. 99 BC · East AsiaDeath or Castration: Why Did Sima Qian Choose Disgrace to Finish the Shiji?
  25. 50 BC · South Asia'Carving done by the ivory-workers of Vedisa': who paid for Sanchi
  26. 36 BC · The AmericasWho Really Wrote Zero First? The Maya and the Shell-Zero
  27. 30 BC · AfricaWas Cleopatra Really a Seductress Who Charmed Rome?
  28. 30 BC · AfricaWas Egypt's Last Pharaoh Really Egyptian?
  29. AD 1 · OceaniaSand, reef and stick charts: settling the Marshall Islands
  30. AD 25 · Central AsiaA Tiberius aureus in tomb 3: the six graves of Tillya Tepe, 1978
  31. AD 50 · South Asia'A veritable Roman town': Arikamedu and the Arretine sherds of 1945
  32. AD 79 · EuropeHow Do You Read a 2,000-Year-Old Book Too Fragile to Open?
  33. AD 79 · EuropeWhy Was This Bread Trapped in the Oven for 2,000 Years? Pompeii
  34. AD 100 · West AsiaA goat for Aaron's tomb: Burckhardt at Petra, August 22, 1812
  35. AD 100 · Central AsiaTwo walled-up rooms at Begram, 1937 and 1939: glass, ivory and lacquer
  36. AD 127 · Central AsiaHe put it into Aryan: the Rabatak inscription of Kanishka, found 1993
  37. AD 200 · The AmericasHow big was Teotihuacan, and who ran it?
  38. AD 200 · The AmericasHow did the Nazca draw figures they could never see whole?
  39. AD 200 · The AmericasMound City, twenty-four mounds in 1848 and an army camp in 1917
  40. AD 200 · OceaniaOne fifth of Babeldaob: the terraced hills of Palau, 500 BC to AD 650
  41. AD 245 · West AsiaA synagogue to Damascus, a church to Yale: Dura-Europos, 1920–1937
  42. AD 260 · West AsiaDid Persia really capture a Roman emperor alive in AD 260?
  43. AD 270 · West AsiaHow did a desert oasis get rich enough to challenge Rome?
  44. AD 470 · South AsiaThirty copies of Ajanta and the Crystal Palace fire of 1866
  45. AD 477 · South AsiaSihagiri in the Culavamsa: Kassapa I's rock palace at Sigiriya
  46. AD 790 · The AmericasThree painted rooms at Bonampak, c. 790, entered by outsiders in 1946