Confucius died in 479 BC — one year after the Greeks defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis.
The events
- Battle of Salamis480 BC · Salamis. Following Themistocles' plan, the Greek fleet lured the Persian ships into the narrow strait off Salamis and destroyed them. Xerxes withdrew to Asia, and after Plataea in 479 BC the Persian invasion of Greece collapsed.
- Death of Confucius479 BC · Qufu (State of Lu). Confucius, a teacher who stressed filial piety, ritual and virtuous government, died in the state of Lu. His disciples compiled his sayings as the Analects; under the Han dynasty Confucianism became China's state ideology.
More amazing facts
- 650 BC · 612 BC The fire that destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC baked the clay tablets of Ashurbanipal's library — helping them survive to the present day.
- 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.
- 323 BC · 322 BC India's Maurya Empire arose about a year after Alexander the Great died — and its founder, Chandragupta, is said to have met Alexander himself.
- 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.