The tale that Phoenicians sailed around Africa c. 600 BC is believable thanks to a detail Herodotus rejected: Pharaoh Necho II's sailors said the Sun was on their right.
That is exactly what you see sailing west south of the equator.
More amazing facts
- 660 BC · 1873 Every 11 February Japan marks the accession of an emperor most scholars think never existed.
- 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.
- 550 BC “Rich as Croesus” refers to the king who first struck coins of pure gold and pure silver.
- 547 BC The oracle did not lie to Croesus: a great empire did fall, his own. Herodotus says Delphi told the Lydian king that if he attacked Cyrus he would destroy a great empire.
- 539 BC The idiom 'the writing on the wall' comes from the fall of Babylon.