221 BC – 1912

221 BC – 1912

in Tags

From the birth of China as a unitary state until the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China has been an example of remarkable durability in the Far East for more than 20 centuries.

221 BC

221 BC

in Tags

Chinese unification as a single kingdom under the Qin dynasty (pronounced “chin,” hence the name “China”). In the West, another name that would become popular was Seres, the homeland of silk, and Cathay, as Marco Polo called it.

225 BC

225 BC

in Tags

Tuscan Apennines. The Roman general Claudius Martellus defeats the Gauls at Talamone and then pursues them along the Apennine valleys, taking the war into Cisalpine Gaul (present-day Po Valley), finally triumphing at Casteggio, near the Po River.

238 BC

238 BC

in Tags

Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Pillar of Ashoka is a fragment of a column, with carvings that tell of the reign of Ashoka the Great, a pluralistic and nonviolent government that held the happiness of the people, respect, and consideration for all, in high regard. Ashoka renounced war to resolve disputes and declared that the state must distance itself from religious matters. These ideals, however, would not outlive him…

240 BC

240 BC

in Tags

Eratosthenes (director of the library of Alexandria) computed the terrestrial meridian at 25,000 stadia (46,250 km) based on the distance Alexandria-Syene and on the shadow of a pole in Alexandria at the summer solstice when the sun is at its zenith in Syene.

240 BC

240 BC

in Tags

The Greek mathematician and astronomer Apollonius of Perga publishes the 8-volume work Conic Sections, on ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas.

250 BC

250 BC

in Tags

Diophantus of Alexandria wrote the Arithmetica, a treatise composed of 13 books of which only 6 have survived to this day and inspired Renaissance mathematicians such as Pierre de Fermat.

300 BC

300 BC

in Tags

Euclid’s “Elements” remained for a long time an unsurpassed example of deductive scientific theory; probably the most successful text in history after the Bible; The Elements is composed of 13 books that summarize all the mathematical knowledge of the time.

300 BC

300 BC

in Tags

Native to Asia, asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) was already known as a wild plant by the time of the Egyptians, who spread its cultivation throughout the Mediterranean basin. The first literary document relating to this vegetable (the “History of Plants” by the Greek Theophrastus) dates back to about 300 BC, but only Cato, a century later, would discuss asparagus from an agronomic perspective, describing its cultivation techniques. Pliny, in addition to extolling its gastronomic qualities, would also illustrate its cultivation method in his Naturalis Historia.

300 BC

300 BC

in Tags

Ptolemy founded the Great Library of Alexandria (600,000 texts); upon entering the city, visitors had their books confiscated, copied, the original given to the Library and the copy given to the visitor; thanks to this mechanism, many copies of ancient texts are still found throughout the world despite the destruction of the original at the Library of Alexandria.

300 BC

300 BC

in Tags

Mesoamerica (present-day Mexico). The first evidence of state organization in the Americas, which generally involved a complex social structure and the maintenance of an army, is present. In Mesopotamia, the transition occurred 3,400 years earlier; in the Andes, China, and Southeast Asia, it occurred around the 1st century BC; and in West Africa around the 10th century AD.

4th – 5th century BC

4th – 5th century BC

in Tags

The Gallic tribes, a warlike and proud people, raiders and shepherds, are masters of the Po Valley: the Insubres in Milan, the Cenomani in Brescia, the Boii in Bologna, the Senones in Senigallia. Bologna was previously called Velzna and the Boii renamed it Boionia.

323 BC

323 BC

in Tags

Israel. With the death of Alexander the Great, the land of Israel was contested between Ptolemy’s Egypt and Seleucus’s Asiatic kingdom. From 300 to 200 BC, the Ptolemies prevailed.

323 BC

323 BC

in Tags

Modern Western culture can be thought of as a Greco-Roman-Jewish-Christian legacy developed in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great.

June 10-11, 323 BC

June 10-11, 323 BC

in Tags

Alexander the Great dies. Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who conquered an empire that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean to India, dies in Babylon at the age of 33. Son of King Philip II of Macedon, he had received a classical education from Aristotle himself and at 16 had led his first troops into battle. Having ascended to the throne in 336 BC after his father’s assassination, two years later he set out to conquer the world. In his great military campaigns he was never defeated in battle. He founded important cities such as Alexandria in Egypt and spread the Greek model of civilization, introducing important changes. Upon returning from a campaign in the East, he fell ill and died, without having chosen a successor. His gigantic empire quickly collapsed.

326 BC

326 BC

in Tags

Alexander the Great arrives in Punjab, crossing the Indus River; Battle of the Hydaspes River between 75,000 of Alexander’s soldiers (of which only 15,000 were Macedonians) and 50,000 Indian soldiers commanded by the mighty Porus; the Indian army also made use of numerous elephants: Alexander wins the most terrible of his battles but his army now wants to return

329 BC

329 BC

in Tags

Alexander the Great arrives in Samarkand, where he is still remembered, and signs of it are everywhere. His name here is Iskander Khan. The city of Termez, near the border with present-day Afghanistan, still bears the name given to him by Macedonian troops. In the Pamir Mountains, there are still villages whose people are said to be descended from his soldiers.

October 1, 331 BC

October 1, 331 BC

in Tags

Battle of Gaugamela in northwest Persia, between Alexander the Great and Darius III, Persian Emperor Alexander fields 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry facing 250,000 Persian soldiers awaiting him; the battle ends with a Macedonian triumph that opens the way to the heart of the Persian Empire

in Tags

Egypt: Lagid Dynasty: Ptolemy I or Soter I (323-284), Ptolemy the Philadelphus (284-246), Ptolemy III Evergetes I (246-221), Ptolemy IV Philopator (221-205), Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205-182), Ptolemy VI Phytometor (181-164) (163-145), Ptolemy VII Neo Philopator (146), Ptolemy VIII Evergetes II (170-163) (145-116), Ptolemy Ixsoter II (121-119), Ptolemy X Alexander I (117-107 and 88-80), Ptolemy XI Alexander II (117-88), Ptolemy XII neo-Dionysus (81-80), Ptolemy XIII (80-51), Ptolemy XIV (51-47), Cleopatra VII (51-30)

334 BC

334 BC

in Tags

Battle of the Granicus River in Anatolia (Persian Empire): Alexander the Great, at the beginning of the campaign that will make him Great, risks death: on his horse Bucephalus (bull’s head), he receives an axe blow to the head from Spithridates, a Persian nobleman; only the intervention of Cleito (later and thousands of kilometers later, he was killed by Alexander himself in a brawl after a drunken bout) saves the Macedonian king.

350 BC

350 BC

in Tags

The Greek Menaechmus studied ellipses for the first time, together with parabolas and hyperbolas, as lines obtainable by sectioning a conical figure.

356 BC

356 BC

in Tags

Alexander the Great is born, son of King Philip II of Macedon and Olympias of Epirus (present-day Albania).

373 BC

373 BC

in Tags

The passage of a bright comet, also observed by Aristotle at the age of just 11. In the treatise that Aristotle would write as an adult, “+H966” describes comets as vapor exhalations from the Earth, which we see shining due to friction with the upper spheres. They are therefore a meteorological phenomenon.

February 15, 399 BC

February 15, 399 BC

in Tags

Socrates dies, poisoned by the alkaloid coniine, found in the hemlock plant. The alkaol family has had a greater influence on human history than any other family of chemical compounds. They affect the nervous system and are generally highly toxic, depending on the amount ingested, of course. They are natural fungicides, insecticides, and pesticides. Examples include Mandrake, which restores sexual vigor; belladonna, which dilates the pupils; and henbane, which is a sleeping pill and analgesic. These and other hallucinogenic alkaloids have been consumed over the centuries in various forms and cultures. Some reports (see Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson – Napoleon’s Buttons) say that those who would later be (obviously unfairly) called witches applied fats with dissolved alcohols to the handle of a broom, and, sitting astride it, rubbed the mixture containing atropine and scopolamine on their genital mucosa, where it is best absorbed by the body. The resulting flights are illusions created by hallucinogenic alkaloids, which have also been used for millennia in other, earlier cultures. These include the sensation of flying, falling, distorted vision, euphoria, hysteria, and the sensation of leaving the body. Other similar examples include foxglove, parsley (in large quantities), aconite, hemlock, and jimson weed. Another way to accelerate its absorption into the bloodstream is through the lungs, namely by smoking the substance. Other plants in the nightshade family, introduced to Europe from the New World, include tobacco (Nicotiana), peppers (Capsicum), tomatoes, and potatoes. An alkaloid similar to atropine is coca (Erythroxylon coca), also of American origin. Coca leaves have been used for centuries as a stimulant in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, but in quantities of only half a gram per day, which is believed to be non-addictive. This method of ingesting the alkaloid in small but frequent doses is similar to our caffeine intake in tea and coffee. The situation is quite different for those who consume extracted and purified cocaine. Other alkaloids include morphine, derived from the opium poppy, and nicotine, found in tobacco (also of American origin).

400 BC

400 BC

in Tags

The Romans inherited the idea of the ventral bow and improved it: the ballista (large precision crossbow) was born.

400 BC – 300 AD

400 BC – 300 AD

in Tags

The Hindu text Bhagavad Gita (भगवद्गीता), part of the Mahabharata (महाभारतम्), is written in Sanskrit. Here are some quotes: “Every day countless people die, yet those who remain live as if immortal.” “The earth has lost its youth, which has passed like a happy dream. Now every day brings us closer to destruction, to aridity.” and the famous quote by Robert Oppenheimer: “Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”

404 BC

404 BC

in Tags

The plague rages in Athens for over a year and leads to its conquest and the collapse of its hegemony in the Mediterranean.

410 BC

410 BC

in Tags

Southern Egypt. In a Persian military colony, some Egyptian priests of the god Khnum bribe Vidranga, the local Persian governor, to order the destruction of the Jewish temple, which is then looted and burned. The reason may have been the lambs sacrificed for Passover, which would have offended the religious sentiments of the Egyptians.

428 BC

428 BC

in Tags

Greece. Anaxagoras hypothesized that the Sun and Moon were two enormous spheres of rock, one shining and the other merely reflecting the light of the other.

5th century BC

5th century BC

in Tags

Ancient Greece: Alphabetic codes are used to write numbers. The first nine letters of the Greek alphabet represent the first nine digits, the next nine letters represent 10, 20, 30, …90, the last six letters plus three additional symbols represent 100, 200, 300, …900. And the order in which they are written is not important. So an arithmetic operation is something likeFGS +JDS

5th century BC

5th century BC

in Tags

Anaxagoras devises a theory about the physical nature of the Sun: upon encountering a newly landed meteorite and finding it smoking and red-hot, he has an epiphany. He believes it came directly from the Sun. The Sun is therefore composed of incandescent iron. This theory will remain in vogue for nearly two millennia.

5th century BC

5th century BC

in Tags

Anaxagoras: there are infinite seeds and all things are composed, but to a greater extent of those corresponding to a particular one; celestial phenomena are identical to terrestrial ones.

430 BC

430 BC

in Tags

Hippocrates takes the famous written oath: “I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Panacea and by all the gods and goddesses, calling them as witnesses, that I will perform […] this oath and this written commitment […] I will regulate the way of life for the good of the sick […] into whatever house I go, and I will enter there for the relief of the sick, and I will abstain from all voluntary injury and harm […] on the bodies of women and men, free and slave […] I will keep silent about what is not necessary to be divulged.”

431 – 404 BC

431 – 404 BC

in Tags

The Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. It is recounted by the historian Thucydides and is known as the “Thucydides Trap.” Thucydides’ work is not just a list of battles but an attempt to identify the causes and dynamics of a devastating, and perhaps avoidable, military conflict: moves and countermoves, all sensible in themselves, which nevertheless lead to a vortex of actions leading to war.

450 BC

450 BC

in Tags

Israel. Ezra and Nehemiah consolidate Jerusalem’s role, prohibit mixed marriages, and punish non-observance of the Sabbath.

450 – 375 BC

450 – 375 BC

in Tags

China. In a classic Taoist text, the Liezi, in the chapter “Questions of the Tang,” the tale of Yanshi appears: a skilled craftsman builds a human-like automaton (robot), capable of walking, dancing, and singing. He exhibits it to the King, who believes he’s being mocked. The craftsman must then completely disassemble the automaton to prove there’s no human inside, thus destroying it.