The Persian fleet secures the Greek island of Euboea before making the short crossing to Marathon on the mainland – where they await the Greeks

Pheidippides, given the task of running from Athens to Sparta to request help at Marathon against the Persians, completes the journey in two days

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

Themistocles persuades the Athenians to build up their fleet against the expected renewal of the threat from Persia

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

300 Spartans, led by Leonidas, die attempting to hold the pass of Thermopylae against the advancing Persian army

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

The Athenian general Cimon wins a spectacular victory over the Persians at the mouth of the Eurymedon River, in southwest Turkey

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

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

The Greeks suffer a major reverse when their fleet is trapped on the Nile and destroyed by the Persians

The Athenians mount successful attacks on the Persian forces occupying the Greek island of Cyprus

In the Peace of Kallias the Persians acknowledge the independence of Greek Ionia, and agree not to bring their fleet into the Aegean

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)

A sudden attack on Plataea (an ally of Athens) by Thebes (an ally of Sparta) begins the Second Peloponnesian War