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Persia

Achaemenid, Parthian, Sasanian, and after.

1,789 CE – 1,925 CE

Persia survives as a state but loses territory and autonomy to Russia and Britain.

1,501 CE – 1,736 CE

Establishes Shia Islam as Persia's state religion, a decision still shaping the region.

651 CE

The Sasanian state falls; Persia becomes Muslim but keeps its language and much of its culture.

224 CE – 651 CE

The last pre-Islamic Persian empire, and Byzantium's great rival until both were exhausted.

247 BCE – 224 CE

Horse archers who fought Rome to a standstill for three centuries.

330 BCE

Persepolis burns and the Achaemenid line ends.

499 BCE – 449 BCE

Persia twice invades Greece and twice fails, in campaigns the Greeks never stopped writing about.

550 BCE – 330 BCE

From the Aegean to the Indus, connected by a royal road and a postal system.

559 BCE – 530 BCE

Builds the largest empire the world had yet seen, and is remembered for letting conquered peoples keep their gods.

1,000 BCE

A prophet teaches a cosmic struggle between truth and lie. His dating is genuinely uncertain.