First writing system is Mesopotamia, consisting of wedge-shaped impressions in soft clay.  Named from the Latin word for "wedge-shaped," it was developed about 3500-3100 B.C.

Important because: One of the first languages that we know of, and the Sumerians used it to keep records for just about everything.  A lot of what we know about early human history is from cuneiform.

Stepped tower. Seven-stage structures that were used as "stairways" connecting humans and the gods.

Timeline: 2200-500 B.C.

Important: Temples for the Babylonians, Sumerians, and Assyrians.

A system of government that holds it's highest ruler to be a diety.  Ie: Ancient Egypt.

Timeline: ???

Important because:  It helps us understand the culture of the ancient times better, and was an effective tactic to be a ruler that people respected.

Military leader who attacked Mesopotamia.  Most successful of several attackers.  Adopted a "great many of Sumerian customs and ideas." Conquered all of Mesopotamia, and adopted Sumerian religion and wrote Akkadian (his common language) in cuneiform (a Sumerian custom).

Timeline:  2371-2316 B.C.

Important:  Shows that not all military conquerers ruled with an iron fist, and that the Sumerians had some truly revolutionary ideas if they were adopted by those who invaded them.

Babylonian ruler (600 years after Sargon.)  Ushered in an era of prosperity and cultural flowering.  Known most for Hammurai's Code.

Timeline: 1792-1750 B.C.

Important: Hammurabi's code was the first written account of crimes and punishments.

The blending of mutually opposed beliefs, principles, or practices.

Timeline: Egyptian empire 5500 B.C. - 30 B.C.

Important: Nobody was troubled by inconsistencies of Egyptian religious teachings, they believed that a fundamental unity underlay the varieties of nature.

Ancient Egyptians' title for their king, an absolute, all-powerful, and all-providing ruler.

Timeline: Egyptian... 5500 B.C. - 30 B.C.

Important:  The pharoah was the head of the Egyptian theocracy, and was treated by everyone in Egypt as a god.

Location of a huge battle in northern Syria.  20,000 Egyptian troops faced seventeen thousand Hittites.

Timeline: 1274 B.C.

Important because:  First major documented battle in history.  Neither side won, so they established a peace treaty.  It is the oldest surviving peace treaty.

Ruler of ancient Egypt.  He ordered everyone to worship the sun disk.

Timeline: 1352-1336 B.C.

Important because: He was the first person to suggest worshiping one god over others.

Inhabitors of modern day Isreal.  They were master ship builders and sailors.

Timeline: 1050-450 B.C.

Important: They were the first to circumnavigate Africa, and made the first commercial sailing trip to Britain.  Also, they planted the colonies in the Mediterrainian.

A man who migrated to Canaan from the city of Haran.  He settled on territory north and west of the Dead Sea.

Timeline: 2000-1500 B.C.

Important because:

Founder of the three of the most prominant monotheistic religions today: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

A divinely appointed leader of the Hebrews who led the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt (the Exodus)

Timeline: 13th century B.C.

Important:  Huge prophet and authority figure in the Bible.

A book (Old Testament) written by the Hebrews that contained all their religious beliefs and stories.

Timeline: 1400 B.C.

Important: Heavily shaped Judaism and Christianity.  Established exclusive monotheism and promoted ethical behavior

As told in the Hebrew bible, the pact God made with Abraham.  In return for the land of Canaan and the promise of becoming a great nation, the Isrealites agreed to worship no other gods.

Timeline:  13th Century B.C.

Important: Duh.

Persian king talked about a lot in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.  Didn't really like the Hebrews and made them worship idols and stuff. Threw Daniels gang into a firey furnace.

Timeline: 605 BC – 562 BC

Young Persian king.  Took only twenty years to conquer most of western Asia and much of central Asia.

Timeline: 559-530 B.C.

Important:  One of the first major conquerers an empire.

The largest Minoan palace.  Sprawled across 3 acres.

Timeline: 1800-1490 B.C.

One of the first recorded palaces, and was an archetechual wonder.  It had a mazelike structure of staterooms, residence quarters, storage rooms, workshops, and bathrooms.

Used by Cretans in 2000 B.C., it was a writing system of syllables that formed words.  It is not Greek, but scholars don't really know what it is beyond that.

Timline: 2000 B.C.

Important:  I have no idea.

The first recorded culture in Greece.  Started the language referred to as "Linear B."  They were warriors, and conquered Crete.

Timeline: 1400-1200 B.C.

Important because they were the first ones to establish themselves on Greece.

Language of writing used by the Myceneans.  We can't read it today.

Timeline: 1400-1200 B.C.

Important because it is a very early form of Greek, which came to be the most spoken language in the area for a long time.

The Greeks established colonies all over the Meditteranian - in Italy, Sicily, Black Sea, North Africa, Massalia.

Timeline: 1000 B.C. - 500 B.C.

Important: Spread Greek culture.

Set in the 10th year of conflict during the Trojan war.  Story about Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior.  Not historical. 

Timeline: 800-725 B.C.

Important because: highlights some key features of Greek life: Greek's are competitive and individual, and also gives a clear understanding on what they thought the gods were.

Communities in ancient Greece.  Small, less than 100 square miles in size.  Communities of Greek people, similar to cities.

Timeline: 700 B.C.

Important:  The community belonged to its people, not to a few nobles or to a king or a god.  Equality was stressed among members.

The legendary lawgiver who supposededly founded Sparta and came up with their unique way of life.

Timeline: 700's B.C.

Important: Probably didn't exist, but the ideas attributed to him such as woman's semi-equality and the rigorous military training are very different from the rest of the world at the time.

A network of alliances built up by Sparta between themselves and all of the other polises besides Argos in Greece.  It was a dominant land power.

Timeline: 550 B.C.

Important: Established a sense of safety in Greece, and bounded all of the polises for a similar cause.

A statesman of early Athens, he transformed Greek society through mediation, moderation, respect for law, and measures that liberated the poor and downtrodden.

Timeline: 630-560 B.C.

Important because: the ideas that he presented never were taken seriously before. Ie: everyone is equal.

A tyrant of Athens who instituted a grand festival and made efforts to "canonize" the Homeric Epics.

Timeline: 546-528 B.C.

Important: Establishing the epics as canon meant that those stories would be passed on for generations.

One of the first advocates for demokratia,he was known for ostracism.  He also founded the great Athenian navy.  was not an advocate for complete democracy though.

Timeline: 500 B.C.

Important because:  the rise of democracy here in ancient greece was an idea used again in the 1700's AD when America was founded.  Many of the same ideas were implemented.

A council of elders who met on the "hill of Ares."  They were past members of the magistraces of Athens.

Timeline: 650 B.C.

Important:  Their council dominated both politics and justice, for it also served as a court.

A practice put into place by Cleisthenes that involved exiling a citizen who was voted out by his fellow citizens.

Timeline: 500 B.C.

Important: Kept scary people from interfereing with government and causing uprisings.

A way of thinking invented by Greeks.  It parted ways with religion for the answers to the "big questions."  What is the world made of?  How do we know anything? How should we live?

Timeline - 600 B.C.

Important:  These questions are questions humans have always had and perhaps always will have...

Professional teachers of thetoric and other subjects in the mid-fifth century B.C., whose training of ambitious young Athenians challenged the stability of standard values and established institutions.

Timeline - mid fifth century B.C.

Important: In a modern context, they are now looked back on as decievers, but they were the first to draw a distinction between law and nature.

A very famous and the first great Greek philosopher.  Smug and brilliant, he argued against the sophists.  He was put to death for corrupting the youth.

Timeline - 469-399 B.C.

Important:  Revolutionary thinker that stressed how ignorant we all really are about the world.

The form of debate essential to the Socratic method.

Timeline: 428 B.C.

Important:  It is the foundation of all logical thinking.

A Greek philosopher who was a student of Socrates.  He founded the academy. He also wrote a ton of stuff.

Timeline: 429-347 B.C.

Important:  Asked the questions what is morality? what is the nature of knowledge? and wrote socratic dialogues that encouraged logical thinking.

The school founded by Plato that encouraged philosophical thinking and the teachings of the Greek philosophers.

Timeline: 387 B.C.

Important:  First institution of higher learning.

A student of Plato that founded another institution for learning, the Lyceum.  He was known for thinking in terms of common sense.  Did not write charmingly but wrote on a bunch of different subjects.  He came up with 10 categories to describe things.

Timeline:384 B.C.

Important: His scientific wwritings were very influencial in Greek and Roman society even though they were completely wrong.

A man born in Ionia who is known as the father of history.  Said facts are a mean to an ends.

Timeline: 485-425 BC

A military conquest led by the Persians to try to conquer Greece and other areas in the Mediterranian.  Although it was largely succesful, Greece held it's ground because of it's phalynx.

Timeline: 499-479 B.C.

Croesus

A Lydian king who was ruling when coins were invented.  He was known to be very wealthy.

Timline: 560-547 B.C.

Military rebellions against Persian rule by the Ionians.

Timeline: 499 B.C.

Timeline- 490 B.C.

A battle that took place during the first Persian invasion of Greece.  The Athenians were successful, and a running myth was founded.  Also, the phalynx was first used against light soldiers in this battle and it was very successful.

480 B.C.

Battle between Greece and Persia during an invation by Xerxes.  The Persians won because the Greeks withdrew almost all of their men to fight at Salamis.  One of hte most famous last stands happened at this battle with Leonidas and his men.

A naval battle between Greece and Persia during the second invasion of Greece. The Greeks won a decisive victory.

480 B.C.

A security organization founded on the island of Delos in the Aegean Sea.  It aimed at protecting Greek lands and plundering Persian territory.

477 B.C.

Turned the Delian League into an Athenian Empire, and led Athens during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. He was a good speaker.

495-429 B.C.

431 B.C.-404 B.C.

A conflict between Athens and Sparta over ideologies.It was a bloody cival war.

Kind of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great, he was a brilliant soldier and statesman who conquered the Greek world.

382-336 B.C.

356-323 B.C.

A very powerful ruler of Macedon (son of Philip) who conquered a lot of land.  He died at age 32 of malaria.  Charismatic, handsome, intellegent, and well educated.

436-338 B.C.

Isocrates was an Athenian thinker who promoted the idea that Greece is not a collection of city-states but a civilization.  This helped Greeks mantain an identity.

384-322 B.C.

An Athenian thinker and orator who sought to preserve Athen's freedom and protect it from Philip II.

3rd Century B.C.

A school of thought that revolved around avoiding destructive emotions.  It made its followers "immune to destruction."

341-270 B.C.

A philosophy put forth by Epicurus which said that the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of intellectual pleasure is good.

376 B.C.

A set of laws that gave rights back to Plebians, and introduced limits on how much land you can conquer.

287 B.C.

Maintained the cencus, overlooked the governments finances, and supervised public morality.

A name for the authority the Roman Senate had.

Timeline:

The idea that Romans always claimed they were defending, not attacking.  The truth was, Rome was attacked by others but they provoked it generally.

Third Century BC

Three wars which the Roman Empire eventually destroyed Carthage.  Hannibal led the Carthaginian troops, and used war elephants to battle.

(264-241 BC) (218-201 BC) (149-146 BC)

Hannibal was from the Barca family, he was a military genious that led Carthage's troops in the second Punic War.

(247-183 BC)

241-187 BC

Was the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire.  He was an ambitious ruler.  His early attempts in war against the Ptolemaic Kingdom were unsuccessful, but when he led a conquest he proved himself as the most successful Seleucid King after Seleucus I himself.

A civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome.  The triumph publicly celebrated and sanctified the military achievements of an army commander who had won great military successes.  Often, the triumphing general was ritually elevated to near-divine or near-kingly status for the day of the triumph.

Date... Roman empire?

A Roman statesman often given the names "the Censor" "the Wise" "the Ancient" or "the Elder."  He was also a general.  He was the first Roman historian to write in Latin, which started a huge trend of writing in Latin.

(234-149 BC)

Philosopher, writer, and statesman who was Rome's greatest orator.  He wrote papers on all kinds of subjects including philosophy and government.  He wasn't as original as Plato or Aristotle, but was widely known and was pretty dang smart.

(106-43 BC)

Roman Plebian noblemen who served as tribunes in 2nd century BC.  They tried to pass land reform that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians.  They are considered to be the founding fathers of socialism and populism.

2nd Century BC.

157-86 BC.

He was a Roman general and statesman.  He was elected consul seven times during his career.  He made the army a professional force so people could be paid just to be in the army.  After he made that reform, the army became very involved in politics.

138-78 BC

Became member of the consul in 88BC because people are afraid of Marius.  He became big rivals with Marius, and a civil war erupts between Sulla's and Marius's men.  Sulla eventually won when he executed as many as 2000 of Marius's men.

Made up of Pompey, Crassas, and Caesar.  They all had ulterior motives for joining, but they essentially became a Roman superpower.  Eventually Caesar was the only one left.

60 BC-53BC

43 BC - 33 BC.

The alliance between Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony.  Unlike the first, the second was an official, legally established institution.

63BC - 14 AD

Smart Roman emperor and first of the Roman Empire. Handed power over to senate, and they gave it back.  The people had the power but it was clear he was in charge.  He also never put roman troops within Rome's conquered areas.