1st millennium BC

Millennia:	2nd millennium BC · 1st millennium BC · 1st millennium AD
Centuries:	10th century BC · 9th century BC · 8th century BC · 7th century BC · 6th century BC · 5th century BC · 4th century BC · 3rd century BC · 2nd century BC · 1st century BC

Iron Age This box: view • talk • edit
↑ Bronze Age
Bronze Age collapse Ancient Near East (1300–600 BC) Aegean, Anatolia, Assyria, Caucasus, Egypt, Levant, Persia India (1200–200 BC) Painted Grey Ware Northern Black Polished Ware Mauryan period Europe (1000 BC–400 AD) Novocherkassk Hallstatt C Villanovan culture British Iron Age Greece, Rome, Celts Scandinavia China (600–200 BC) Warring States Period Japan (500 BC–300 AD) Yayoi period Korea (400–60 BC) Nigeria (400 BC–200 AD)
Axial Age Classical Antiquity Zhou Dynasty Vedic period alphabetic writing, metallurgy
↓Historiography Greek, Roman, Chinese, Islamic

The 1st millennium BC encompasses the Iron Age and sees the rise of successive empires.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the Achaemenids. In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the rise of Hellenism. The close of the millennium sees the rise of the Roman Empire. In South Asia, the Vedic civilization blends into the Maurya Empire. The early Celts dominate Central Europe while Northern Europe is in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The Scythians dominate Central Asia. In China, the Spring and Autumn Period sees the rise of Confucianism. Towards the close of the millennium, the Han Dynasty extends Chinese power towards Central Asia, where it borders on Indo-Greek and Iranian states. The Maya civilization rises in Central America, while in Africa, Ancient Egypt begins its decline and Ethiopian civilization its rise. The religions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism (Vedic religion and Vedanta), Jainism and Buddhism develop. Graeco-Roman Europe, India and China see the rise of literature. World population greatly increases in the course of the millennium, reaching some 170 to 400 million people at its close depending on the estimates used.

1 Events
2 Significant persons
3 Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions
4 Cultural landmarks
5 Centuries and Decades
6 See also

Events

c. 1000 BC — Helladic period ended in Ancient Greece.
The Iron Age spreads to Western Europe.
Egypt declined as a major power.
Rise and fall of Assyrian Kingdom. Ashurbanipal, the literate emperor extends his Kingdom.
The Tanakh was written.
The Roman Republic is established (6th century BC).
Buddhism was founded by Siddharta Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha (6th century BC).
Jainism was preached by Mahavira (6th century BC). He was the last Tirthankar[24th](Preacher) of Jainism.
Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Empire (6th century BC)
Sparta and Athens fought the Peloponnesian War.
Darius the Great expanded the Persian Empire to its greatest reach, which extended from Greece, down towards Egypt, and east towards Pakistan (5th century BC).
Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire (4th century BC).
Hellenic Greek culture spread through the Mediterranean.
Chandragupta Maurya founded the Mauryan Empire (4th century BC).
Ashoka the Great expanded the Mauryan Empire to its greatest extent, after conquering most of the Indian subcontinent along with Afghanistan (3rd century BC).
Gojoseon ruling over northern Korean peninsula and southern Manchuria first appears on record of Qi state of China as their trade opponent. (7th century BC).
China was unified under the Qin Dynasty (3rd century BC).
Celts invaded Western Europe.
Rome and Carthage fought the Punic wars.
The Maya civilization began.
Rome invaded Ancient Greece
Austronesian Peoples reached Micronesia and began settlement of Western Polynesia by 500BC

Significant persons

David, Israelite king
Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism (circa 1200 BC, give or take six centuries)
Mahavira, preacher of Jainism (6th century BC)
Gautama Buddha, Hindu prince, founder of Buddhism (6th century BC)
Lao Zi, Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism (6th century BC)
Confucius, Chinese philosopher (6th century BC)
Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire (6th century BC)
Darius the Great, ruler of the Persian Empire (5th century BC)
Pānini, Indian Sanskrit grammarian, world's first known linguist, considered the father of computing machines (7th–4th century BC)
Homer, Greek poet (6th–3rd century BC)
Isaiah, Hebrew prophet
Jeremiah, Hebrew prophet
Ezekiel, Hebrew prophet
Pericles, Athenian statesman
Socrates, Greek philosopher
Plato, Greek philosopher
Aristotle, Greek philosopher
Alexander the Great, Greek conqueror (4th century BC)
Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan empire (4th century BC).
Ashoka the Great, ruler of the Mauryan empire (3rd century BC)
Pingala, Indian mathematician, inventor of the binary number system and the concept of zero
Qin Shihuang, first emperor of China (3rd century BC)
Euclid, Alexandrian mathematician
Archimedes, Greek scientist
Cicero, Latin orator and philosopher
Julius Caesar, Roman conqueror and dictator (c. 100 BC–44 BC)
Virgil, Latin poet
Leonidas, king of Sparta until the Battle of Thermopylae
Tiruvallur, a celebrated Tamil language poet who wrote the Thirukkural, a well known ethical work in Tamil literature.

Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions

Iron use becomes widespread
Buoyancy principle is discovered
Geometry is developed
Pythagorean theorem proved
Eratosthenes proves that the earth is a sphere and estimates its diameter.
The Phoenicians propagate the phonetic alphabet in the Mediterranean
Many major religious and philosophical viewpoints are created, further explored or codified

Cultural landmarks

The Axial Age (8th century BC — 2nd century BC), according to the theory of Karl Jaspers.
Late 3rd century BC or 2nd century BC — Veiled and masked dancer is made. It is now kept at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Centuries and Decades

10th century BC	990s BC	980s BC	970s BC	960s BC	950s BC	940s BC	930s BC	920s BC	910s BC	900s BC
9th century BC	890s BC	880s BC	870s BC	860s BC	850s BC	840s BC	830s BC	820s BC	810s BC	800s BC
8th century BC	790s BC	780s BC	770s BC	760s BC	750s BC	740s BC	730s BC	720s BC	710s BC	700s BC
7th century BC	690s BC	680s BC	670s BC	660s BC	650s BC	640s BC	630s BC	620s BC	610s BC	600s BC
6th century BC	590s BC	580s BC	570s BC	560s BC	550s BC	540s BC	530s BC	520s BC	510s BC	500s BC
5th century BC	490s BC	480s BC	470s BC	460s BC	450s BC	440s BC	430s BC	420s BC	410s BC	400s BC
4th century BC	390s BC	380s BC	370s BC	360s BC	350s BC	340s BC	330s BC	320s BC	310s BC	300s BC
3rd century BC	290s BC	280s BC	270s BC	260s BC	250s BC	240s BC	230s BC	220s BC	210s BC	200s BC
2nd century BC	190s BC	180s BC	170s BC	160s BC	150s BC	140s BC	130s BC	120s BC	110s BC	100s BC
1st century BC	90s BC	80s BC	70s BC	60s BC	50s BC	40s BC	30s BC	20s BC	10s BC	0s BC