The 1st millennium BC was the period of time between from the year 1000 BC to 1 BC

and then the Carthaginians (5th to 3rd centuries). The close of the millennium sees the rise of the Roman Empire. The early Celts dominate Central Europe while Northern Europe is in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. In East Africa, the Nubian Empire and Aksum arise.

In South Asia, the Vedic civilization blends into the Maurya Empire. The Scythians dominate Central Asia. In China, the Spring and Autumn period sees the rise of Confucianism. Towards the close of the millennium, the Han Dynasty extends Chinese power towards Central Asia, where it borders on Indo-Greek and Iranian states. Japan is in the Yayoi period. The Maya civilization rises in Mesoamerica.

The first millennium BC is the formative period of the classical world religions, with the development of early Judaism and Zoroastrianism in the Near East, and Vedic religion and Vedanta, Jainism and Buddhism in India. Early literature develops in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit , Tamil and Chinese. The term Axial Age, coined by Karl Jaspers, is intended to express the crucial importance of the period of c. the 8th to 2nd centuries BC in world history.

World population more than doubled over the course of the millennium, from about an estimated 50–100 million to an estimated 170–300 million. Close to 90% of world population at the end of the first millennium BC lived in the Iron Age civilizations of the Old World (Roman Empire, Parthian Empire, Graeco-Indo-Scythian and Hindu kingdoms, Han China). The population of the Americas was below 20 million, concentrated in Mesoamerica (Epi-Olmec culture); that of Sub-Saharan Africa was likely below 10 million. The population of Oceania was likely less than one million people.^[2]

Ancient history

• 10th century BC

  • Near East: Neo-Assyrian Empire

  • Near East: Shoshenq I invades Canaan

  • Aegean: Helladic period ends

• 9th century BC

  • Egypt: 872 BC: Nile floods the Temple of Luxor

  • Egypt: 836 BC: Civil war in Egypt

  • North Africa: 814 BC: Carthage founded

  • China: 841 BC–828 BC Gonghe Regency

• 8th century BC

  • 727 BC: Egypt: Kushite invasion (25th dynasty)

  • 771 BC: China: Spring and Autumn period

  • Near East: 727 BC: Death of Tiglath-Pileser III, Babylonia secedes from Assyria

  • Near East: 722 BC: Sargon II takes Samaria; Assyrian captivity of the Jews.

  • Greece: Archaic Greece, Greek alphabet

  • Greece: Homer

  • 776 BC: Greece: First Olympiad

  • 753 BC: Europe: foundation of Rome

• 7th century BC

  • 671 BC: Assyrian conquest of Egypt

  • Near East: 631 BC: Death of Ashurbanipal, decline of the Assyrian Empire

• 6th century BC

  • Egypt: 592 BC: Psamtik II sacks Napata

  • Sudan: Aspelta moves the Kushite capital to Meroe

  • Near East: 539 BC: Achaemenid conquest of Babylon under Cyrus the Great

  • South Asia: Śramaṇa movement and "second urbanisation"

  • South Asia: Early Buddhism

  • Europe: 509 BC: Roman Republic

• 5th century BC

  • China: 479 BC: death of Confucius

  • China: 476 BC: Warring States period

  • China: 486 BC: Grand Canal construction begins

  • Near East: Second Temple Judaism, redaction of the Hebrew Bible

  • Greece: beginning of the classical period (Greece in the 5th century BC).

  • Greece: Greco-Persian Wars (Battle of Marathon, Battle of Thermopylae)

  • Greece: 440 BC: Herodotus' Histories

  • Greece: 431 BC: Peloponnesian War

  • Oceania: Austronesian expansion reaches Western Polynesia

• 4th century BC

  • Greece: 395 BC: Corinthian War

  • Egypt: 343 BC: Achaemenid conquest

  • Greece/Asia/Egypt: 330s BC: conquests of Alexander the Great, end of the Achaemenid Empire, Macedonian Empire, beginning of the Hellenistic period

  • South Asia: Mauryan Empire

• 3rd century BC

  • China: Qin Unified China

  • China: 206 BC: Han Dynasty

  • South Asia: 261 BC: Kalinga war

  • Rome: Roman expansion in Italy

  • Rome/Carthage: Punic Wars

    • 264 BC: First Punic War

    • 218 BC Second Punic War

• 2nd century BC

  • Rome/Carthage: 149 BC Third Punic War, Roman province of Africa

  • Rome/Greece: 146 BC Battle of Corinth, beginning of the Roman era

  • South Asia: 185 BC: Fall of the Maurya Empire

  • China: Confucianism became the state ideology of China

• 1st century BC

  • China: 91 BC: Records of the Grand Historian finished

  • Rome/Europe: 58-50 BC Gallic Wars

  • Rome: 32/30 BC: Final War of the Roman Republic (Battle of Actium)

  • Rome/Egypt: 31 BC: Roman conquest of Egypt

  • Rome/Europe/West Asia/Africa: 27 BC: Roman Empire

Rulers

• China: Dynasties in Chinese history, List of Chinese monarchs

• Egypt: Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (1069–664 BC)

• Carthage: List of monarchs of Carthage

• Assyrian Empire: List of Assyrian kings

• Babylonia: Neo-Babylonian dynasty

• Canaan/Israel: Kings of Israel and Judah

• Achaemenid Persia: List of monarchs of Persia

• Kingdom of Kush: List of monarchs of Kush

• Classical Greece:

  • Monarchs: List of kings of Sparta, Thirty Tyrants

  • Athenian democracy: Pericles (495 – 429 BC)

• Macedon: List of ancient Macedonians, Argead dynasty

• Hellenistic period: Ptolemaic Dynasty, Antigonid dynasty, Seleucids, Hasmonean dynasty

• Rome: kings of Rome, List of Roman consuls

• Parthian Empire: List of Parthian kings

• India: List of Indian monarchs

• Japan: List of Japanese monarchs

Religion, philosophy, scholarship

• Elijah, 9th century BC (historicity uncertain)

• Isaiah, 8th century BC

• Parshvanatha, second-to-last of the mostly legendary Tirthankaras of Jainism, mostly accepted as a historical figure who may have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC.^[3]

• Jeremiah, fl. 628 BC

• Thales of Miletus (c. 624 BC–545 BC)

• Solon (c. 638–558 BC)

• Zoroaster (historicity and date disputed)^[4]

• Mahavira, final Tirthankara of Jainism, c. 6th century BC

• Pythagoras, 6th century BC

• Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC)

• Confucius, 6th to 5th century BC

• Laozi, date uncertain (6th or 4th century BC)

• Parmenides, late 6th or early 5th century BC

• Gautama Buddha, mostly accepted as a historical figure of the 5th century BC

• Socrates (469 –399 BC)

• Thucydides (c. 460–400 BC)

• Aristophanes (446–386 BC)

• Plato (428 BC–348 BC)

• Aristotle (384–322 BC)

• Zhuang Zhou, fl. 4th century BC

• Panini, fl. 4th century BC

• Mencius (372–289 BC)

• Pingala, fl. 3rd century BC

• Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BC)

• Euclid, fl. 300 BC

• Archimedes (287–212 BC)

• Sima Qian, fl. 2nd century BC

• Varro (116–27 BC)

• Cicero (106–43 BC)