Pytheas sails to Thule
A Greek from Marseille first describes the midnight sun
Around 325 BC Pytheas of Massalia sailed around Britain and on to mysterious Thule in the far north. He is the first person on record to describe the midnight sun and polar ice, and the first to link tides to the Moon; many contemporaries called him a liar.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 4th century BC
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Middle East
- 331 BC Battle of Gaugamela — 6 years earlier
- 323 BC Death of Alexander the Great — 2 years later
Africa
- 331 BC Founding of Alexandria — 6 years earlier
Asia
- c. 322 BC Founding of the Maurya Empire — 3 years later
Americas
- c. 300 BC Maya script — 25 years later
- c. 300 BC–150 El Mirador, capital of the Preclassic Maya — 25 years later
Alive at the time
- Aristotle (aged 59)
- Alexander the Great (aged 31)
- Mencius (aged 47)
- Chandragupta Maurya (aged 15)
- Euclid (aged 0)
- Olympias (aged 50)
- Zhuangzi (aged 44)
- Ptolemy I Soter (aged 42)
- Pytheas (aged 25)
- Qu Yuan (aged 15)