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.
The events
- Kalinga Warc. 261 BC · Kalinga. Emperor Ashoka conquered Kalinga; by his own edict 100,000 were killed and 150,000 deported. Shaken by the bloodshed, Ashoka turned to Buddhism and proclaimed a policy of dhamma in edicts carved on rocks and pillars.
- Battle of Changping260 BC · Changping. The Qin army under Bai Qi encircled and destroyed the forces of Zhao; tradition says hundreds of thousands of surrendered soldiers were executed. One of the bloodiest battles of the Warring States, it cleared Qin's path to dominance.
More amazing facts
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 36 BC · 31 BC The earliest known Long Count calendar date in Mesoamerica is 36 BC — just five years before the Battle of Actium.