What was happening in 500 bce

At Marathon the Athenian hoplites, heavily outnumbered, win a spectacular victory against the Persians — of whom the survivors escape in their ships. The Persian fleet moves south towards Athens, but then heads home across the Aegean without attempting an assault on the city. Ostracism is introduced in Athens as a way of getting rid of unpopular politicians. Aeschylus wins the prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens.

Go to Aeschylus ? Themistocles persuades the Athenians to build up their fleet against the expected renewal of the threat from Persia. Go to Themistocles c. Xerxes I, renewing the campaign of his father Darius against the Greeks, leads a large army round the Aegean and through Thrace.

The Greek city-states meet in Corinth to devise a joint strategy against the Persians. Kritios sculpts a naturalistic male nude, now the earliest surviving masterpiece in a central tradition of Greek art. Athens, abandoned to the advancing Persians, is looted and destroyed. The Athenian fleet defeats a considerably larger Persian force in the narrow strait between Salamis and the mainland. A Spartan army, led by Pausanias, wins a victory at Plataea, completing the rout of the Persians on the Greek mainland.

An Athenian force destroys at Mykale the remainder of the Persian fleet, ending the threat from them at sea. In the last joint campaign by Sparta and Athens the strategically important city of Byzantium is liberated from Persian rule.

Representatives of Athens and other Aegean city-states meet in Delos to form a coalition, later known as the Delian League. The Delian League is formed for mutual defence, but also to liberate the Greek cities of Ionia from Persian rule. A life-size bronze of a racing chariot, with its driver and horses, is presented to Delphi to commemorate a victory in the games. The Olympic games are extended to five days, the first and last of which are taken up with religious ceremonies.

Vardhamana, an Indian prince, leaves home to live as a beggar - at the start of the Jain religion. Sophocles wins the prize for tragedy in Athens, defeating Aeschylus in the competition. The Athenian general Cimon wins a spectacular victory over the Persians at the mouth of the Eurymedon River, in southwest Turkey. Pericles is one of a radical group in Athens, eager to curb the reactionaries controlling the Areopagus, and hostile to Sparta.

An earthquake in Sparta leads to an uprising by the helots, who take up a defensive position on Mount Ithome. Sparta appeals to its allies for help against the helots, and Athens - against the wishes of Pericles and his group - sends an army. With the army away, Pericles introduces full democracy for all Athenian citizens, enabling them to vote and participate in the administration of the state.

Sparta causes offence in Athens by dismissing the Athenian army without using them against the helots. Athens makes provocative alliances with two city-states opposed to Sparta.

Pericles is given the task of constructing Athens' two famous Long Walls, stretching from the city to either side of the harbour at Piraeus. Herodotus, the 'father of history', writes his account of the Greco-Persian Wars from a vantage point in Asia Minor.

Go to Herodotus c. Simmering hostilities between the allies of Sparta and Athens develop into endemic conflict among the Greek city states of the Peloponnese.

Forces of the Delian League assist the Egyptians in a successful revolt against their Persian rulers. Athens completes its famous Long Walls, providing protected access between the city and its harbour, at Piraeus. Euripides enters the drama contest at the City Dionysia in Athens for the first time. Go to Euripides c. The Greeks suffer a major reverse when their fleet is trapped on the Nile and destroyed by the Persians. The Athenians transfer into their own keeping the accumulated treasure of the Delian League.

Pericles' power is greatly increased when he is put in charge of the funds of the Delian league. Go to Delian League in World Encyclopedia 1 ed.

Empedocles states that all matter is made up of four elemental substances - earth, fire, air and water. Go to Empedocles of Acragas c. The earliest known example of Arabic writing is on an inscribed column at Tema, in northwest Arabia. The followers of Pythagoras maintain that the earth revolves on its own axis and moves in an orbit.

The Athenians mount successful attacks on the Persian forces occupying the Greek island of Cyprus. The Sophists, professional philosophers, travel round Greece educating the sons of the rich. Go to sophists in A Dictionary of World History 2 ed. The Greek historian Herodotus visits Egypt and provides, among many other details, an account of the process of mummification.

Pericles introduces payment in Athens for jury service so that no citizen is excluded by poverty. In the Peace of Kallias the Persians acknowledge the independence of Greek Ionia, and agree not to bring their fleet into the Aegean.

The Athenians begin building the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, which they complete within ten years. Ictinos, the architect of the Parthenon, blends Doric and Ionic elements in a way which will later influence many other Greek temples. Phidias sculpts a huge statue of the goddess Athena, to be the central feature of the new Parthenon. An army commanded by a Spartan king turns back mysteriously during an invasion of Attica, leading to rumours that Pericles has bribed the king.

Pericles negotiates a treaty, scheduled to hold for thirty years, establishing spheres of influence for Sparta the mainland and Athens the Aegean coast and islands. Pericles is selected by the assembly as the leading general of Athens, a post to which he is re-appointed every year until his death.

The institution was familiar to the ancient Hebrews, according to passages in the Bible. Caste and Class Caste and class are markers of socioeconomic status; the first is a formalized system of stratification, generally tied to religion, while the second is aligned closely with economic status. By this time desertification had turned the Sahara into a major barrier to travel and the only easy land route between Egypt and tropical Africa lay along the narrow valley of the middle Nile through Nubia.

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is an anthropological term that describes the most populous region of the northern American continent at the time of contact. Stretching from northern Mexico to Honduras, at the beginning of the sixteenth century it was host to a population of perhaps 25 million people, speaking more than languages.

Classic Period of Mesoamerica, the Maya Classic period Mesoamerica was a time of great social development and interaction. With the established adaptation to settled life, the expansion of domesticated plants, the development of the social and ecological landscape, and the construction of major cities from the arid highlands to the tropical lowlands, the great traditions of forest gardening, maize production, temples, and artistry coalesced.

Scholars have found remains of more than 2, major structures there. The documentary was one of the first to incorporate a rich new body of scholarly work on early Christianity which emerged in the s and s. You can watch the full program at PBS. Hadrian's Wall in Scotland This website features extensive discussion, images, maps, and video examining the purposes behind the Roman walls of the second-century CE. History of Religion The geography of faith and its wars across history; Video of spread of religon in Maps of War website.

Rome Reborn An international team have constructed a masterful virtual re-creation of classical Rome —images and information are available at the Rome Reborn site. Why Do Civiliziations Fail? This project, sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, considers several African and pre-Columbian civilizations—how they arose, and why they collapsed. With the Zhou dynasty of Ancient China weak, one of the great philosophers of world history, Confucius, preaches a message of loyalty and humanity.

Read on. Subscribe for more great content — and remove ads. The many fiefs into which earlier Zhou dynasty kings had divided their realm have, through a process of warfare and annexation, been absorbed into a few larger political units. These can now fairly be called states in their own right, only loosely acknowledging the authority of the Zhou kings.

These states are developing centralised bureaucracies , well-organized armies, and sophisticated tax systems to pay for them. Technological and conomic advances have led to the expansion of commerce, the growth of towns, a flourishing merchant class, the introduction of metal coinage and, centuries before the west, the invention of cast iron.

Into this fluctuating environment comes one of the most influential philosophers in world history, Confucius BCE.