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3500 BCE
Mesopotamia Organized
Mesopotamia is placed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is the earliest human civilization and the first to use written language. -
3100 BCE
Egypt Organized
Ancient Egypt was the first empire and was the most tradition-bound empire in the history of the world. Egyptian society was organized hierarchically, with gods at the top, the Pharaohs beneath, humanity next, and the dead at the bottom. The Pharaoh was known as a god-man and Egyptians are mostly known for the Great Pyramids. -
2500 BCE
India Organized
Indian civilization is best known for the caste system, which is its hierarchical ordering of civilization. It was helpful for controlling a massive society with vastly different socioeconomic
classes. -
1750 BCE
China Organized
China is mostly known for the building of the Great Wall. Their first “sovereign emperor” was Shih Huang-ti who began construction of the Great Wall and abolished the feudal system and
replaced it with a state bureaucracy built on Confucian principles. -
Period: 1728 BCE to 323 BCE
Babylonian Empire
Babylonia is an ancient cultural region occupying southeastern Mesopotamia. Because the city of Babylon was the capital of this area for so many centuries, the term Babylonia has come to refer to the entire culture that developed in the area. Before Babylon’s rise to political prominence, however, the area was divided into two countries: Sumer in the southeast and Akkad in the northwest. -
Period: 625 BCE to 574 BCE
Thales
He was an ancient Greek philosopher who took Aristotlethe as his major source for philosophy and science. He is the founder of the school of natural philosophy. -
Period: 580 BCE to 500 BCE
Pythagoras
An Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and the putative founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down
centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. -
Period: 563 BCE to 528 BCE
Siddhartha Gautama “Buddha”
While sitting under a tree to meditate a demon tempted him all night. By the next morning, he had become enlightened and became a supreme Buddha. -
Period: 551 BCE to 479 BCE
Confucius
His teachings and philosophy formed the basis of East Asian culture and society and continues to remain influential across China and East Asia still today -
Period: 525 BCE to 465 BCE
Aeschylus
He was an ancient Greek author of Greek tragedy and is often described as the father of tragedy. -
Period: 484 BCE to 406 BCE
Euripedes
He is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians -
Period: 484 BCE to 420 BCE
Herodotus
He wrote a systematic, thorough study of the Greco-Persian Wars and tried to explain the cause-and-effect of it. After Herodotus, historical analysis became an indispensable part of intellectual and political life. -
Period: 471 BCE to 400 BCE
Socrates
He is known as the founding figure of Western philosophy. His style of teaching became known as the Socratic Method and He wrote nothing himself. He was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death. Choosing not to flee, he spent his final days in the company of his friends before drinking a cup of poison -
Period: 460 BCE to 370 BCE
Democritus
He was one of the two founders of ancient atomist theory in antiquity as well as the "laughing philosopher" because of his emphasis on the value of cheerfulness. -
Period: 460 BCE to 404 BCE
Thucydides
He was one of the greatest ancient historians. He chronicled nearly 30 years of war between Athens and Sparta. He relied on the testimony of eyewitnesses and his own experiences as a general during the war. -
Period: 335 BCE to 263 BCE
Zeno The Stoic
He was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic and he is best known for his paradoxes. -
Period: 234 BCE to 149 BCE
Cato The Censor
He was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. As well as the first to write history in Latin. -
Period: 108 BCE to 62 BCE
Catiline
He was a Roman patrician, soldier, and senator of the 1st century. best known for the second Catilinarian conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic and the power of the aristocratic Senate. -
Period: 106 BCE to 48 BCE
Pompey
He was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from Republic to Empire. He was a student of Roman general Sulla as well as the political ally of Julius Caesar. -
Period: 106 BCE to 43 BCE
Cicero
He was a lawyer and the first of his family to achieve Roman office. He was also one of the leading political figures of the era of Julius Caesar. He was eventually murdered, but Cicero’s writings barely had any influence over the centuries. It was through him that the thinkers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment discovered the riches of Classical rhetoric and philosophy. -
Period: 95 BCE to 52 BCE
Titus Lucretius Carus
He was a Roman poet and philosopher. Only known for the philosophical poem "De rerum natura." -
Period: 85 BCE to 42 BCE
Brutus
He was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. -
Period: 70 BCE to 19 BCE
Virgil
He was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period and composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. -
Period: 63 BCE to 14
Augustus
He was the first Roman emperor, reigning from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is one of the most famous roman leaders is all of history -
Period: 42 BCE to 37
Tiberius
He was the second Roman emperor reigning from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. -
Period: 10 BCE to 54
Claudius
He was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, He was born where his father was stationed as a military legate. -
Period: 12 to 41
Caligula
He was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 to 41. The son of the popular Roman general Germanicus and Augustus's granddaughter Agrippina the Elder, He was born into the first ruling family of the Roman Empire, conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. -
Period: 37 to 68
Nero
He was the fifth emperor of Rome after being adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius and succeeding him to the throne. he was popular with his Praetorian guards, lower-class commoners, and the provinces. But was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. -
Period: 121 to 180
Marcus Aurelius
He was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana. He also served as Roman consul -
Period: 205 to 270
Plotinus
He was a major Hellenistic Greek philosopher, regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who belonged to the Platonic tradition -
Period: 280 to 337
Constantine
Constantine's father was the Western Roman emperor, but after his death, Constantine became the Western emperor and the sole Roman emperor. Constantine was also the first emperor to adhere to Christianity. He issued an edict that protected Christians in the empire and before his death converted to Christianity -
Period: 354 to 430
Augustine
He wrote many famous and influential works. He also Embraced the philosophy of Cicero as a young man, then took up Manicheanism. He started to become dissatisfied and began to follow Plotinus. Then in 386, He converted to
Christianity and thereafter became the most influential Christian thinker Later he became the Bishop of Hippo, but his most influential work is The City of God -
Period: 480 to 524
Boethius
He was a Roman senator, consul, and magister and is most famous for being the one who translated Aristotle's logical works into Latin -
Period: 570 to 632
Muhammad
He is the founder of Islam and is believed to be a descendant of Ishmael. He received a revelation from God by an angel saying that he was God's messenger. -
Period: 980 to 1037
Avicenna
Westerners benefited from his works, which were translated into Latin. But Muslims, however, called him a heretic for reading a lot of Aristotle's work. One of his main contributions to medieval times is his defense of the transcendental agent intellect. -
Period: 1126 to 1198
Averroes
He wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s work, interpreted
Plato’s Republic as being lacking only in the need for Allah and Muhammad, and argued that women’s rights should be raised the way Plato raised them. -
Period: 1225 to 1274
Aquinas
An authority of the Roman Catholic Church and a prolific writer, he was ranked as one of the most influential thinkers of medieval times. -
Period: 1254 to 1324
Marco Polo
He was best known for his voyage through Asia along the Silk Road -
Period: 1265 to 1321
Dante
Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. He is best known for the monumental epic poem "La commedia", that was later named La divina commedia -
Period: 1270 to 1317
Giotto
He was an Italian painter and architect and is believed to have painted many chaples in different places -
Period: 1342 to 1400
Geoffrey Chaucer
He was an English poet and author and was considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales and has been called the "father of English literature." -
Period: 1398 to 1468
Gutenberg
He was a German craftsman and inventor who originated a method of printing from movable type. -
Period: 1451 to 1506
Christopher Columbus
He was an excellent navigator and experienced seaman who plotted a route to the Indies but ended in the Americas. -
Period: 1452 to 1519
Leonardo Da Vinci
He produced a small number of paintings but also wrote a bunch of works on subjects such as anatomy, architecture, animals, and angels. -
Period: 1463 to 1494
Pico della Mirandola
While onbly living into his thirties, He received a humanistic education and knew a lot of languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. He wrote On the Dignity of Man, in which he argued that man is either the spiritual center of the universe or he is a co-center with God. -
Period: 1473 to 1543
Nicolaus Copernicus
By the time he was in his late twenties, he had mastered medicine, law, mathematics, and astronomy. Copernicus developed his theories throughout his life, but because of the gravity of them, only allowed them to be printed when he was on his deathbed. -
Period: 1483 to 1533
Francois Rabelais
He was a French Renaissance writer, physician, monk, and Greek scholar and is mostly known as a writer of satire material -
Period: 1496 to 1544
Clement Marot
He was one of the greatest poets of the French Renaissance, whose use of different literary devices had a big influence on the style that other poets after him used. -
1519
Aztecs Discovered
The Aztec rulers were governed by fear and force but crumbled because of the Europeans. They created a written language
and an accurate calendar as well as constructed elegant and elaborate buildings made of stone, and they
developed an agricultural system that included a sophisticated irrigation system. They were very violent and had human sacrifice as a common practice -
Period: 1524 to
Pierre de Ronsard
After nearly losing all his hearing, he studied Greek and later became the official poet of King Charles IX’s court. He also led a generation of poets, known first as the Brigade and later as Le Pléiade, who sought to bring the values of humanism to the french. -
1532
Inca Discovered
The Incan rulers like Aztec rulers governed by fear and force as well. They also fell because of the Europeans and They constructed great buildings and road systems. Inca's were also very violent and had human sacrifice as a common practice -
Period: 1544 to
William Gilbert
He was an English physician who loved science and was also fascinated by lodestones because of their magnetism, and eventually discovered that the world itself is a magnet. He also supported Copernicus’ heliocentrism and suggested that some kind of magnetism held the planets in their orbits. -
Period: 1546 to
Tyho Brahe
He was Danish and was best known as an astronomer, astrologer, and alchemist. -
Period: 1547 to
Cervantes
He was first a soldier, who at one point endured five years of captivity, but he left being a soiler to become a writer. Which he created many pieces of work, but sadly they all failed. -
Period: 1552 to
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English as well as one of the greatest poets in the English language. -
Period: 1571 to
Johannes Kepler
He is best known for his three laws of planetary motion and was also fascinated by the question "What holds the planets in orbit? and what drives them forward?" -
Period: to
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet who served as a civil servant in the Council of State in England. He wrote a lot of religious and political writings and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. -
Period: to
Thirty Year War
This war was started after the Roman Emperor Ferdinand II tried to push Roman Catholicism on his people, which they rebelled in response.