41 Historic Facts From B.C.E.(Before Common Era)

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1Chrysippus

Chrysippus

Greek philosopher Chrysippus of Soli died in 206 B.C., at the age of 73, after a laughing fit caused by his own joke. His biographer reports he saw a donkey eating some figs and yelled that it needed to be given a pure wine to wash the figs down.


2. The first recorded battle in history was the Battle of Megiddo in 1457 B.C. It left such an impression on the Levantine people there that they believed the final battle of humanity would take place there as well. That’s where the word Armageddon comes from.


3. The ‘Alulu beer receipt’ is an ancient stone tablet which is actually a 5,000-year-old beer receipt. It records the purchase of the “best” beer from a brewer in 2050 B.C., from the Sumerian city of Umma in ancient Iraq.


4. The first recorded autopsy was performed in 44 B.C. on Julius Caesar to determine which of the 23 stab wounds he received had killed him. It was a chest wound that severed his aorta.


5. In 480 B.C., King Xerxes I of Persia built bridges to invade Greece, but a storm destroyed these bridges. Enraged, he threw chains in the sea, whipped the sea 300 times, and burned it with red-hot irons as his men shouted at the water. The next bridge he built was not destroyed.


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6Peace treaty

Peace treaty

In 585 B.C., a solar eclipse occurred in the middle of a battle between the Lydians and the Medes. They promptly ceased fighting and signed a peace treaty.


7. King Tutankhamun who died in 1325 B.C., was entombed with a dagger of “extraterrestrial origin.” Advanced spectrometry tests strongly suggest the iron, nickel, and cobalt contained in the blade were from a meteorite that crashed near the Kharga Oasis about 200 km west of the Nile.


8. The first scientist named in history was En Hedu’anna, the chief astronomer-priestess of Ur. She lived around 2300 B.C., was the only daughter of the great empire architect Sargon of Akkad, and is called the Shakespeare of the ancient world as her works were studied for 500 years or more after her death.


9. In the year 1300 B.C., the Egyptian king Menephta defeated the Libyans. As proof of his triumph, he brought back 6000 penises of the soldiers chopped off of their opposition.


10. Ancient Greek explorer, Pytheas, was the first person to write about the mythical isle of Thule during his travels between 330-320 B.C. He described Thule as a land of fire and ice in which the sun never sets, which was located about six days of sailing north from Britain. This description by him closely resembles the island of Iceland in summer, which has Glaciers, volcanoes and is north of Britain.


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11Archytas

Archytas

The theory of an infinite universe was first proposed by a Greek philosopher named Archytas of Tarentum approximately around 400 B.C., reasoning that even if he did reach the end of the universe he would still be able to extend his staff beyond the boundary.


12. Ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene proved that the earth was round in 240 B.C. He also came up with latitudes/longitudes. He was also able to calculate earth’s circumference that was accurate to within 2%.


13. Scurvy was documented as a disease by Greek physician Hippocrates, and the Egyptians have recorded its symptoms from as early as 1550 B.C. The knowledge that consuming foods containing vitamin C is a cure for scurvy has been repeatedly rediscovered and forgotten by humanity throughout our history right into the early 20th century.


14. According to moderate estimates, the Romans possibly lost over 40,000 men in a single day at the Battle of Cannae (216 B.C.), which may have accounted for somewhere between 5 to 10% of the total Roman male population during the late 3rd century B.C. period.


15. There was a mysterious culture in Eastern Europe between 5,500 to 2,700 B.C. which constructed sophisticated, organized, densely-populated settlements - only to burn them to the ground every 60-80 years to rebuild the same settlement as before.


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16Cambyses II

Cambyses II

Cambyses II of Persia used cats to fight a battle. Against the Egyptians, in the battle of Pelusium in 525 B.C., he ordered his men to paint cats on their shields and brought 100's of cats to his front lines. The Egyptian archers refused to fire on the cats as injuring one was punishable by death.


17. The first documented cases of cancer were found on papyrus manuscripts in Egypt dating back to 3000 BC. In these manuscripts, 8 cases of breast tumors are mentioned that were removed by cauterization with a tool called the fire drill. The writing says about the disease, “there is no treatment.”


18. The earliest flush toilets were used by the people of the Indus Valley Civilization (present day Northwest India), which existed from approximately 3300 B.C. - 1700 B.C. Almost every home in the ancient cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa had a flush toilet connected to a common sewage system.


19. The Sacred Band of Thebes was a troop of select soldiers, consisting of 150 pairs of male couples which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century B.C. They were responsible for the defeat of the Spartans at the decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C.


20. Back in Persia around 450 B.C., drunk debates were once a key aspect of any important decision-making process. The Persians would make sure that particularly important arguments were debated both while sober and drunk, as according to them only ideas that made sense in both states were truly worthwhile.


21Akhenaten

Akhenaten

In the 14th century B.C., Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten’s name was so thoroughly erased from history, for installing a new state religion, that researchers didn’t rediscover his name until they found his tomb in 1907, over 3200 years later.


22. A 6 century B.C. Indian Physician named Sushruta Samhita wrote a book describing modern surgical techniques of incisions, cauterization, urethral stricture dilatation, hernia, caesarian, fistulae, and many others.


23. The oldest drinking straw in existence was found in a Sumerian tomb dated 3,000 B.C. It was a gold tube inlaid with precious stones.


24. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 B.C. by a Chinese emperor named Shen Nong when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.


25. Alphabetical order was introduced in the 3rd century B.C. by Zenodotus, who also happened to be the first librarian at the Great Library of Alexandria.

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