The lost army of Cambyses
50,000 Persian soldiers march into the desert and vanish
According to Herodotus, Cambyses II sent 50,000 soldiers to subdue the oracle of Amun at the Siwa oasis. Halfway there a sandstorm engulfed them and they were never seen again. No trace has been found, and many historians consider the story a legend.
Wikipedia (English) · 6th century BC
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- c. 550 BC Greeks found Olbia — 25 years earlier
- c. 509 BC Founding of the Roman Republic — 16 years later
- 508 BC Cleisthenes' reforms and the birth of democracy — 17 years later
Middle East
- 550 BC Cyrus the Great founds the Achaemenid Empire — 25 years earlier
- 539 BC Fall of Babylon to Cyrus — 14 years earlier
- c. 520 BC The Behistun inscription — 5 years later
Asia
- c. 500 BC Sun Tzu's The Art of War — 25 years later
Alive at the time
- Pythagoras (aged 45)
- Gautama Buddha (aged 38)
- Confucius (aged 26)
- Darius the Great (aged 25)
- Sun Tzu (aged 19)
- Leonidas I (aged 15)
- Heraclitus (aged 10)