-
Crop rotation was important because it was an important agriculture discovery that led to a greater crop yield. -
Uruk was a large city by 3500 BCE. This is important because it was a major center for long-distance trade. -
Egypt was divided between “Upper Egypt,” the southern stretch of the Nile Valley that relied on the Nile floods for irrigation, and “Lower Egypt,” the enormous delta region where the Nile meets the Mediterranean. The two regions had been politically distinct for centuries, but in roughly 3100 BCE Narmer, a king of Upper Egypt, conquered Lower Egypt and united the country for the first time. -
The Mesopotamians created the first system of writing, which they used for taxes. Their style of writing is called cuneiform. -
The emergence and evolution of increasingly sophisticated ancient states, some of which evolved into real empires. It was a period in which long-distance trade networks and diplomatic exchanges between states became permanent aspects of political, economic, and cultural life in the eastern Mediterranean region. It was, in short, the period during which civilization itself spread and prospered across the area. It was named after one of its key technological advances: the crafting of bronze.
-
The date used for the founding of the Old Kingdom of Egypt is when the third royal dynasty to rule all of Egypt established itself. Its king, Djoser, was the first to commission an enormous tomb to house his remains when he died: the first pyramid. The Old Kingdom represented a long, unbroken line of kings that presided over the first full flowering of Egyptian culture, architecture, and prosperity. -
King Sargon the Great, also known as Sargon of Akkad, conquered almost all of the major Mesopotamian cities and forged the world's first true empire, in the process uniting the regions of Akkad and Sumer. -
The last Egyptian pyramids are built. 200 years later the Old Kingdom collapses. -
The most substantial surviving law code is that of the Babylonian king Hammurabi. It drew legal distinctions between the “free men” or aristocratic citizens, commoners, and slaves, treating the same crimes very differently. It also included legal protections for women in various ways. -
The Iron Age started right as the Bronze Age ended. Iron wasn't used primarily for 5 centuries after the Iron Age began.