India's Maurya Empire arose about a year after Alexander the Great died — and its founder, Chandragupta, is said to have met Alexander himself.
The events
- Death of Alexander the Great323 BC · Babylon. Alexander died in Babylon aged 32, leaving no capable heir. His generals, the Diadochi, carved up the empire into Hellenistic kingdoms — Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Antigonid — spreading Greek language and culture across the region.
- Founding of the Maurya Empirec. 322 BC · Pataliputra. Chandragupta Maurya, aided by his adviser Chanakya, overthrew the Nanda dynasty and took Pataliputra. He built the first empire to unite most of the Indian subcontinent.
More amazing facts
- 563 BC · 551 BC · 530 BC By traditional dating, the Buddha, Confucius and Pythagoras were contemporaries: all three lived in the 6th century BC.
- 509 BC · 508 BC Rome expelled its last king in 509 BC and Athens got democracy from Cleisthenes in 508: republic and democracy were born almost side by side.
- 480 BC · 479 BC Confucius died in 479 BC — one year after the Greeks defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis.
- 261 BC · 260 BC Almost simultaneously, Ashoka conquered Kalinga (261 BC) and repented the bloodshed, while China saw the Battle of Changping (260 BC), one of antiquity's bloodiest.
- 240 BC Around 240 BC, Eratosthenes measured the Earth's circumference in Egypt, while Chinese chroniclers made the first sure record of Halley's Comet.
- 202 BC In 202 BC, empires were decided at both ends of Eurasia: Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama, and Liu Bang founded the Han dynasty.