3500 BC Olive oil in Crete
Olives are cultivated in Crete and will provide, in the form of olive oil, one of the main staples of Mediterranean trade

3000 BC Cycladic marble figures
The sculptors of the Cyclades produce stylized and formal figures, mainly female, in white marble

2000 BC Knossos built in Crete
Knossos, and other such palaces, are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete

1600 BC Bull-fighting at Knossos
A bull-fighting fresco in the palace of Knossos is linked with the island's cult of the bull

1525 BC Frescoes of Akrotiri
The eruption of a volcano, on the island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri

1500 BC Linear B in Mycenae
Texts written at Mycenae, in the script known as Linear B, are the earliest surviving version of Greek

1400 BC Giants build walls of Tiryns?
The massive architecture of Mycenaean cities such as Tiryns is said in Greek legend to have been built by one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes

1400 BC Treasury of Atreus
The so-called Treasury of Atreus, at Mycenae, is the most spectacular of the beehive tombs of this period

1300 BC Mycenae dominant
Mycenae prevails as the dominant power throughout the Peloponnese and the entire Aegean

1300 BC Bronze suit of armour
The earliest known suit of armour, made of bronze, survives from a tomb in Mycenaean Greece

1150 BC Dorian Greeks crush Mycenae
Mycenae and other states of the Peloponnese are overwhelmed by invading Dorian Greeks

776 BC Olympic games
The traditional date for the first athletic contest at Olympia

750 BC Ionian League in Asia Minor
Ionia emerges as a political entity, forming a league of twelve Greek cities in Asia Minor

750 BC Homer is written down
The Homeric texts, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are written down - probably in Ionia

704 BC Wrestling in Olympic games
Wrestling is included in the Olympic games, followed by a terrifying form of all-in wrestling from 652 BC

700 BC Greeks add vowels to alphabet
The Greeks make the Phoenician alphabet much more flexible by the addition of vowels, from alpha to omega

700 BC Phoenician and Greek Sicily
The island of Sicily is colonized from the eastern Mediterranean by both Phoenicians and Greeks

688 BC Boxing in Olympic games
Boxing is included in the Olympic games, with each bout going on until one fighter gives up

667 BC Byzantium founded
Byzantium (the future Constantinople) is founded as a colony of Megara, a Greek city-state

650 BC State officials consult oracle at Delphi
The Greek city states make a habit of consulting the oracle at Delphi, hoping mainly for reassurance

650 BC Greek pillars take shape
The capitals of Greek pillars are by now in the two basic patterns of Doric and Ionic

650 BC Sparta enslaves neighbours
The inhabitants of Messenia revolt against Spartan rule and are reduced, in retaliation, to the status of serfs or helots

630 BC Council on hill in Athens
The Areopagus, named from the hill on Athens where it meets, is the council through which the nobles keep power in their own hands

600 BC Dancing at heart of Greek theatre
The choros, originally danced in a circle by temple virgins, is the centrepiece of the developing Greek theatre

600 BC Dionysiac frenzies
Frenzied dances, in honour of the god Dionysus, become part of Greek theatre - deriving probably from the northeast, in Thrace

594 BC Solon cleans up Athens
Solon is elected archon in Athens, immediately cancelling the debts of the peasants of Attica and making it illegal to enslave a debtor

585 BC Greek predicts solar eclipse
Thales of Miletus, traditionally the first philosopher, is credited with the prediction of a solar eclipse

560 BC Peisistratus rules in Athens
Peisistratos seizes power in Athens and rules as a benevolent dictator for more than thirty years

550 BC Black-figure style in Greek vases
The painters of Greek vases develop the black-figure style, with the scene depicted in black silhouette against a red ground

550 BC Greeks develop Babylonian zodiac
The Greeks develop the Babylonian theme of the zodiac, naming it the zodiakos kyklos or circle of animals

550 BC Peloponnesian League run by Sparta
The city-states of the Peloponnese unite in a defensive league under Spartan leadership

550 BC Hoplites can do you grievous bodily harm
The hoplite - a Greek citizen, heavily armed in bronze and leather - proves a formidable fighting man

550 BC Beware the Greek phalanx
The phalanx, though not originally devised in Greece, is a devastating formation on the battlefield when composed of hoplites

550 BC Citizen armies in Greece
The Greek city states pioneer the use of citizen armies, made up of free men who bring their own fighting equipment

545 BC Persians annexe Ionia
Cyrus annexes the Greek territory of Ionia as part of his empire, giving Persia a presence on the Aegean

534 BC Thespis wins drama prize
Thespis, traditionally considered the first actor, wins the drama competition in Athens

529 BC Pythagoras in Italy
The Greek mathematician Pythagoras establishes himself, along with his followers, in southern Italy

510 BC Greek map of known world
Hecateus, a geographer in Miletus, produces a map showing the Greek idea of the known world

508 BC Cleisthenes reforms Athens
Cleisthenes, brought to power by popular support, puts into effect a major programme of political reform in Athens

500 BC Magnets found in Magnesia
The Greeks are intrigued by the iron-attracting property of a mineral which they find in the district of Magnesia

500 BC More games in Greece
The Isthmian games at Corinth are by now a regular event, as are the Pythian games and the Nemean games

500 BC Electricity in amber
The Greeks observe the strange effect of electricity, seen when amber (known to them as electron) is rubbed

500 BC Red-figure style in Greek vases
The new and more sophisticated fashion in Greek vases is the red-figure style

500 BC Parmenides puts the logic in philosophy
Parmenides is the first pure philosopher, using logic as a philosophical tool in his poem Nature

500 BC Greeks discover octave
The followers of Pythagoras discover the mathematical basis of the octave

500 BC Third bank of oars for Greek trireme
The Greeks add a third bank of oars to their war galleys, turning the bireme into a trireme

499 BC Rebellion in Ionia against Persians
The Greek cities of Ionia rebel against Persian rule, with the partial support of Athens

493 BC Persians recover Ionia
After six years the Persians recover control of Ionia, but Athens is now identified as a target for invasion

490 BC Persians send fleet against Greece
Darius sends a fleet across the Aegean, carrying a large army of infantry and cavalry for an attack on Athens

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

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

490 BC Battle of Marathon
At Marathon the Athenian hoplites, heavily outnumbered, win a spectacular victory against the Persians – of whom the survivors escape in their ships

487 BC Athenians invent ostracism
Ostracism is introduced in Athens as a way of getting rid of unpopular politicians

484 BC Aeschylus wins drama prize
Aeschylus wins the prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in Athens

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

481 BC Persians return in force
Xerxes I, renewing the campaign of his father Darius against the Greeks, leads a large army round the Aegean and through Thrace

481 BC Greek city-states combine
The Greek city-states meet in Corinth to devise a joint strategy against the Persians

480 BC Male nude by Kritios
Kritios sculpts a naturalistic male nude, now the earliest surviving masterpiece in a central tradition of Greek art

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

480 BC Persians destroy Athens
Athens, abandoned to the advancing Persians, is looted and destroyed

480 BC Persians defeated at Salamis
The Athenian fleet defeats a considerably larger Persian force in the narrow strait between Salamis and the mainland

479 BC Persians defeated at Plataea
A Spartan army, led by Pausanias, wins a victory at Plataea, completing the rout of the Persians on the Greek mainland

479 BC Battle of Mykale
An Athenian force destroys at Mykale the remainder of the Persian fleet, ending the threat from them at sea

478 BC Delian League led by Athens
Representatives of Athens and other Aegean city-states meet in Delos to form a coalition, later known as the Delian League

478 BC Delian League against Persia
The Delian League is formed for mutual defence, but also to liberate the Greek cities of Ionia from Persian rule

477 BC Delphi charioteer in bronze
A life-size bronze of a racing chariot, with its driver and horses, is presented to Delphi to commemorate a victory in the games

472 BC Five-day Olympic games
The Olympic games are extended to five days, the first and last of which are taken up with religious ceremonies

468 BC Sophocles wins drama prize
Sophocles wins the prize for tragedy in Athens, defeating Aeschylus in the competition

464 BC Uprising of helots
An earthquake in Sparta leads to an uprising by the helots, who take up a defensive position on Mount Ithome

462 BC Pericles leads democratic Athens
With the army away, Pericles introduces full democracy for all Athenian citizens, enabling them to vote and participate in the administration of the state

461 BC Athenians build Long Walls
Pericles is given the task of constructing Athens' two famous Long Walls, stretching from the city to either side of the harbour at Piraeus

460 BC Herodotus father of history
Herodotus, the 'father of history', writes his account of the Greco-Persian Wars from a vantage point in Asia Minor

460 BC First Pelopponesian War
Simmering hostilities between the allies of Sparta and Athens develop into endemic conflict among the Greek city states of the Peloponnese

454 BC Euripides in drama contest
Euripides enters the drama contest at the City Dionysia in Athens for the first time

454 BC Athenians filch Delian funds
The Athenians transfer into their own keeping the accumulated treasure of the Delian League

450 BC Four elements in nature say Greeks
Empedocles states that all matter is made up of four elemental substances - earth, fire, air and water

450 BC Earth in orbit say Pythagoreans
The followers of Pythagoras maintain that the earth revolves on its own axis and moves in an orbit

450 BC Sophists wander round Greece
The Sophists, professional philosophers, travel round Greece educating the sons of the rich

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

447 BC Work starts on Parthenon
The Athenians begin building the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, which they complete within ten years

447 BC New style for Parthenon
Ictinos, the architect of the Parthenon, blends Doric and Ionic elements in a way which will later influence many other Greek temples

446 BC Phidias sculpts Athena
Phidias sculpts a huge statue of the goddess Athena, to be the central feature of the new Parthenon

446 BC Treaty between Sparta and Athens
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)

440 BC Myron sculpts (Discus Thrower
Myron sculpts the Discus Thrower, an outstanding example of the Greek ability to suggest movement

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

431 BC Thucydides writes up war
The renewal of the Peloponnesian War prompts Thucydides to begin a great work of contemporary history

430 BC Phidias sculpts Zeus
Phidias creates a massive statue of Zeus, covered in gold and ivory, to stand in the temple at Olympia

430 BC Plague in war-torn Athens
A plague strikes Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian War

427 BC Dramatic reprieve for Mytilene
Athenians vote to kill all the men on the captured island of Mytilene, but the next day change their mind - almost too late

425 BC Aristophanes the comedian
Aristophanes wins first prize in Athens for his comedy The Acharnians

423 BC Socrates satirized by Aristophanes
Socrates is now sufficiently prominent to be satirized in Clouds, a comedy by Aristophanes

420 BC Matter consists of atoms
The Greek philosopher Democritus declares that matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible atoms

416 BC Athenians kill the men of Melos
The Athenians, capturing Melos, kill all the males of the island and sell the women and children into slavery

414 BC Persia funds Spartan fleet
The Persians, renewing their interest in the Aegean, fund the Spartans in the building of a fleet to match that of Athens

410 BC Classical orders of architecture
The Greeks develop the three classical styles of column, the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian

405 BC Athenian fleet destroyed by Spartans
The last remaining Athenian fleet is surprised and destroyed by the Spartans in the Hellespont

404 BC Defeat of Athens ends Peloponnesian Wars
The famous Long Walls of Athens, her impregnable defence, are dismantled by the Spartans in the final act of the Peloponnesian War

401 BC Xenophon writes up long journey home
Greek mercenaries, on the losing side at Cunaxa, begin a long journey home - described by Xenophon in the Anabasis

400 BC Doctors swear Hippocratic oath
Hippocrates, on the Greek island of Kos, founds an influential school of medicine

399 BC Socrates drinks hemlock
Socrates, convicted in Athens of impiety, is sentenced to death and drinks the hemlock

387 BC Plato as schoolmaster in Athens
Plato establishes a school in Akademeia, a suburb of Athens

380 BC Plato's theory of forms
Central to Plato's philosophy is the theory that there are higher Forms of reality, of which our senses perceive only a transient shadow

380 BC Four humours in human body say Greeks
A Greek text, attributed to Polybus, argues that the human body is composed of four humours

371 BC Epaminondas destroys Spartans
A Spartan army is overwhelmed at Leuctra by a smaller number of Thebans under Epaminondas

367 BC Aristotle in Plato's school
Aristotle, at the age of seventeen, comes to Athens to join Plato's academy

356 BC Philip rules Macedonia
Philip II sets about making Macedon the most powerful state in Greece

356 BC Alexander is born in Pella
Alexander the Great is born in Pella, the capital of his father Philip II, at the heart of the expanding Macedonian kingdom

350 BC Eudoxus imagines heavenly spheres
Eudoxus of Cnidus proposes the concept of transparent spheres supporting the bodies visible in the heavens

350 BC Financial services in Athens
Private financiers in Athens give loans, take deposits, change money from one currency to another and arrange credit for travellers

350 BC Pulley in Greece
The earliest description of a pulley appears in a Greek text

348 BC Mosaic floors in ghostly Olynthus
The citizens of Olynthus abandon their houses, with elaborate mosaic floors, when their city is attacked by Philip of Macedon

343 BC Aristotle teaches Alexander
Aristotle is employed in Macedon as tutor to the 13-year-old heir to the throne, Alexander

340 BC Theatre at Epidaurus
The theatre at Epidaurus is the earliest and best surviving example of a classical Greek stage and auditorium

340 BC Alexander shows his paces
Alexander the Great, at the age of sixteen, conducts his first successful military campaign – against the Thracians

340 BC Catapult as siege engine
The Macedonians develop the catapult as a siege engine for the armies of Philip II and Alexander the Great

338 BC Macedonian victory at Chaeronaea
Philip of Macedon defeats Athens and Thebes at Chaeronaea, giving him control of Greece

337 BC Philip imposes League of Corinth
Philip of Macedon persuades most of the Greek city-states, brought together in Corinth, to agree to a military alliance with himself as leader

335 BC Alexander destroys Thebes
Before departing for the east, Alexander destroys Thebes and enslaves the Thebans for rebelling against the League of Corinth

330 BC Aristotle's encyclopedic approach
Aristotle tackles wide-ranging subjects on a systematic basis, leaving to his successors an encyclopedia of contemporary thought

300 BC Earliest work on botany
The Greek author Theophrastus writes On the History of Plants, the earliest surviving work on botany

300 BC Epicurus brings pleasure into philosophy
Epicurus postulates a universe of indestructible atoms in which man himself is responsible for achieving a balanced life

292 BC Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus, a giant statue of Helios the sun god, is erected beside the harbour of Rhodes

270 BC Aristarchus says earth orbits sun
On the small Greek island of Samos an astronomer, Aristarchus, comes to the startling conclusion that the earth is in orbit round the sun

250 BC Archimedes leaps from bath
Archimedes (it is said) leaps out of his bath shouting eureka ('I have found it') when he perceives how to test for relative density

250 BC Archimedes screw raises water
To help the king of Syracuse extract water from the hold of a ship (so the story goes), Archimedes invents the screw now known by his name

220 BC Circumference of world calculated
The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the world with the help of shadows and camels

196 BC Rome 'liberates' Greece
The Romans, after defeating Macedon, announce at the Isthmian Games that all Greek states are now free under Roman protection

188 BC Flogging as tourist attraction
Sparta's ancient political system comes to an end, but the ordeal by flogging lingers on as a tourist attraction in the temple of Artemis

185 BC Plautus and Terence copy Greeks
Plautus and Terence, in the second and third century BC, create a Roman drama based on Greek originals

140 BC Hipparchus and the astrolabe
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus is credited with the invention of the astrolabe, measuring the angle of sun or star above the horizon

130 BC Hipparchus observes precession
The Greek astronomer Hipparchus, mapping the stars, observes but cannot explain the precession of the equinoxes

130 BC Hipparchus proposes grid for maps
Hipparchus proposes a grid of 360° of latitude and longitude for mapmaking

129 BC Hipparchus completes star catalogue
Hipparchus completes the first scientific star catalogue, mapping some 850 stars

100 BC Venus of Milo
A Venus is carved in marble, and centuries later becomes an ideal of female beauty after being found on the island of Milo

86 BC Athens looted by Romans
Sulla, campaigning to the east, besieges Athens and then allows his army to loot the city

48 BC Caesar defeats Pompey
Julius Caesar defeats his rival Pompey at Pharsalus, in Greece, and makes himself master of the Roman world

42 BC Octavian wins at Philippi
Octavian and Mark Antony defeat the armies of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, after which Brutus and Cassius commit suicide

31 BC Octavian wins at Actium
Octavian defeats the forces of Antony and Cleopatra (both are at sea with their fleets) in a battle off the Greek coast at Actium

50 Paul's first epistle
The Thessalonians receive the first of Paul's epistles - the earliest text in the New Testament, written in Greek

66 Nero performs in Athens
Nero comes to Athens to give some of his officially celebrated performances at the Greek games

325 Constantine executes Licinius
Constantine executes Licinius in Thessalonica on a charge of attempted rebellion, a year after defeating him in battle

350 Greece finds new Christian role
Greece begins to find a new and influential role in a Christian context, through the Byzantine empire

393 Olympic games banned
The ancient games at Olympia, with an unbroken tradition of more than 1000 years, are brought to an abrupt end by the emperor Theodosius

529 Philosophy schools closed in Athens
Justinian closes down the schools of Athens, famous for their tradition of pagan philosophy

1204 Venice takes Corfu and Crete
Venice takes the useful islands of Corfu and Crete as part of the spoils of the fourth crusade

1309 Knights of St John capture Rhodes
The Knights of St John capture the island of Rhodes, which they rule as their own sovereign state for more than two centuries

1460 Turks occupy Greece
The Turks complete the occupation of Greece, which remains within the Ottoman empire until the nineteenth century

1571 Last galleys rowed into battle
Galleys are rowed into battle for the last time at Lepanto, ending a fighting career of some 2500 years

1821 Massacre of Muslims by Greek insurgents
An uprising in Greece against Turkish rule is followed by the massacre of several thousand Muslims

1823 Byron joins Greek rebels
Lord Byron arrives in Greece to support the cause of Greek independence

1824 Byron dies in Greece
Lord Byron dies of a fever in Greece, in Missolonghi, at the age of thirty-six

1827 Victory at Navarino helps Greek cause
Britain, France and Russia, supporting Greek independence, defeat the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino

1832 Greece independent
Greece wins independence, with the 17-year-old Otto of Bavaria as king

1847 Don Pacifico sues for damages
Don Pacifico's house in Athens is burnt by an anti-Semitic crowd, provoking an international incident

1864 Corfu joins Greece
The island of Corfu is ceded by Britain to the kingdom of Greece

1885 Young Turks organize
A secret revolutionary group (Union and Progress, later known as the Young Turks) is formed in Salonika in the Ottoman empire

1896 First modern Olympics
The first modern Olympic Games, organized by Pierre de Coubertin, are held in Athens

1904 Cavafy prints his first poems
Constantine Cavafy prints fourteen of his poems in a pamphlet for private distribution

1910 Cavafy prints some more poems
Constantine Cavafy prints a few more of his poems to add to the fourteen privately printed in 1904

1912 Albanian uprising
An Albanian uprising against the Ottoman empire is so successful that the Albanians are able to capture Skopje in Macedonia

1913 Greece includes nearly all Greeks
The Treaty of Bucharest assigns to Greece nearly all the Greek-speaking regions in the Balkans and Mediterranean

1915 October 5 Allies establish base at Salonika
French and British troops land at Salonika and push north to relieve Serbia

1916 June 27 Greece joins Allies
Greece joins the Allies by declaring war on Bulgaria

1918 September Allies advance into Serbia
The Allies, with Serb troops in the vanguard, press north from Salonika into Serbia

1935 Cavafy's poems are published
A collection of Constantine Cavafy's poems is published in Alexandria in an undated edition

1940 October28 Italy has designs on Greece
Italian troops cross the Albanian border in the hope of a blitzkrieg against Greece

1941 Maria Callas begins her career
Greek soprano Maria Callas sings her first Tosca, in the opera house in Athens

1941  April 7-28 Germany invades Greece
German troops move on from Yugoslavia into Greece, driving a small British force from the mainland across the sea to Crete

1941  May Germans take Crete
German forces evict the British from the island of Crete after a week-long battle

1942 June 9 Massacre at Lidice
Hitler orders a massacre at Lidice, a village near Prague, in retaliation for the death of Heydrich

1944 October 18 Greek government returns to Athens
Athens is liberated and the Greek government-in-exile returns, with George Papandreou at its head

1944 December 3 Civil war in Greece
Civil war breaks out in Greece between rival groups of partisans resisting demobilization

1954 Grivas leads EOKA
George Grivas leads a guerrilla movement, EOKA, fighting for Cyprus's independence from Britain and union with Greece

1955 Phidias workshop unearthed
Archaeologists at Olympia excavate the workshop of the Greek classical sculptor Phidias

1965 Maria Callas takes her final bow
Maria Callas gives her last performance, as Tosca at Covent Garden in London

1967 Coup by Greek colonels
A coup in Greece brings in an incompetent and repressive military junta that becomes known as the 'Greek colonels'

1968 Onassis marries Jacqueline Kennedy
Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis marries Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated president

1977 Royal tombs found at Vergina
Royal tombs are excavated at Vergina, in Macedonia, probably including that of Philip of Macedon