All Events

The traditional date for the first athletic contest at Olympia

The Zhou rulers, driven east from Xi'an, create a new capital at Loyang and establish the Eastern Zhou dynasty

This year is later selected by Roman scholars as the date of the founding of Rome, becoming the first year (AUC 1) in Roman chronology

Ionia emerges as a political entity, forming a league of twelve Greek cities in Asia Minor

The Etruscans establish Italy's first civilization, in the region between the Arno and the Tiber

The Homeric texts, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are written down - probably in Ionia

The inhabitants of Sparta organize their society on military lines and consider themselves the descendants of the Dorians

The Assyrians overwhelm the north of Israel and the ten northern tribes vanish from history - the majority of them probably dispersed or sold into slavery

The king of Cush, or Nubia, conquers down the Nile to the sea, establishing the Cushite dynasty

The first known lock and key is fitted in the new palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad, in Assyria

The Greeks make the Phoenician alphabet much more flexible by the addition of vowels, from alpha to omega

Egyptian scribes develop an abbreviated version of hieroglyphs for everyday use, in the script known as demotic ('for the people')

Judah and Benjamin, together forming the kingdom of Judah, are the only two surviving tribes of Israel

Sennacherib moves the Assyrian capital to a new site at Nineveh

The island of Sicily is colonized from the eastern Mediterranean by both Phoenicians and Greeks

The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, destroys with great brutality the city of Babylon

Boxing is included in the Olympic games, with each bout going on until one fighter gives up

Byzantium (the future Constantinople) is founded as a colony of Megara, a Greek city-state

The Egyptian city of Memphis falls to an Assyrian army, soon to be followed by Thebes

The Greek city states make a habit of consulting the oracle at Delphi, hoping mainly for reassurance

The capitals of Greek pillars are by now in the two basic patterns of Doric and Ionic

The earliest known coins are minted in Ephesus, bean-shaped and struck on one side with a distinguishing mark

The inhabitants of Messenia revolt against Spartan rule and are reduced, in retaliation, to the status of serfs or helots

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