World history

Sargon

The founder of the Akkadian empire.

Hammurabi

A Babylonian king famous for his law code.

Cuneiform

The writing system of ancient Mesopotamia.

Old, Middle, and New Kingdom

Periods of Egyptian history.

Hieroglyphs

A writing system of ancient Egypt.

Linear B

The writing system of the Mycenaeans.

Darius

A Persian king who began construction of Persepolis.

Xerxes

A Persian king during the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis.

The Phoenicians

Seafaring traders from the vicinity of modern-day Lebanon, noteworthy for their use of an alphabetic script.

Indus civilization

An early civilization in ancient India/Pakistan, known for their carefully planned cities.

The Zhou dynasty

A Chinese dynasty during the time of Confucius and the Warring States Period.

The Shang dynasty

A Chinese dynasty at the time of the earliest known writing from China.

The Mycenaeans

An early Greek civilization.

Nebuchadnezzar II

A king of Babylon who appears in the Bible.

Ziggurat

A Mesopotamian pyramidal structure.

Pericles

A military commander and politician from democratic Athens.

Julius Caesar

A Roman leader assassinated on the Ides of March.

Augustus

The first Roman emperor.

Qin Shi Huangdi

The first Chinese emperor.

Diocletian

A Roman emperor who divided up the empire between four co-emperors ('Caesars' and 'Augustuses').

Constantine

The first Christian Roman emperor.

Julian the Apostate

A Roman emperor who rejected Christianity, despite being raised Christian.

Akkadian civilization

The first empire of ancient Mesopotamia.

Ur

A prominent Sumerian city.

Sardis

A Persian city burned down in the Ionian revolt.

Knossos

A city on Crete; the mythical home of the Minotaur.

Trireme

A type of Greek warship.