Late in Thutmose III's seventh regnal year — conventionally around 1473 BCE — Hatshepsut relinquished her queenly titles, adopted the united crowns and took the fivefold titulary of an Egyptian king.
The evidence places the transformation between the beginning and end of that seventh year. It does not preserve a coronation day that can be converted to a modern date.
Egyptian absolute chronology varies by several years; UCL summarises her dates as approximately 1479/1473–1458/1457 BCE.
"Started to rule" is ambiguous
She had been governing already. Thutmose III inherited the throne as a child around 1479 BCE, and Hatshepsut ran the government as his regent for roughly six years before adopting full kingship.
Why she did so is not securely known; the political and religious motives commonly proposed are interpretations.
Her marriage to Thutmose II and her descent from Thutmose I are background, not events of 1473.
Two kings, not a deposition
She did not depose Thutmose III. Egypt formally had two kings: Hatshepsut held senior precedence and full royal powers while he remained the legitimate co-ruler, and the existing regnal count continued.
Royal imagery followed the change — she acquired the conventional insignia and representational forms of a king — but it did not simply replace her with a masculine figure. The imagery shifted over time, and inscriptions could keep feminine grammatical forms even where she wears male royal regalia.
Calling her a usurper imports a disputed modern reading; contemporary monuments went on recognising Thutmose III.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-1473.
What the sources leave uncertain
The approximately 1473 BCE date refers to Hatshepsut’s transformation from regent/queen into king, not the beginning of her involvement in government, which started around Thutmose III’s accession in 1479 BCE.
Evidence places the transformation between the beginning and end of Thutmose III’s seventh year; it does not preserve a securely convertible coronation day.
Egyptian absolute chronology varies by several years. UCL summarizes her dates as approximately 1479/1473–1458/1457 BCE.
The entry's title says 1178 BCE while its date points to roughly 1430. About 1178 belongs near the end of the Hittite state, not its beginning.
No exact accession year or calendar date survives for the event itself. Amélie Kuhrt places the start of the empire phase around 1430/1420 BCE; Trevor Bryce's chronology puts the new era around 1400.
Scholars also disagree about how many early New Kingdom kings there were, which is why the first is styled Tudhaliya I/II.
A palace killing and a short civil war
Muwattalli I was killed in a conspiracy involving the senior officials Kantuzzili and Himuili, apparently in order to put Tudhaliya on the throne. A seal identifies Tudhaliya as Kantuzzili's son.
Muwa, the dead king's chief bodyguard, opposed the succession with infantry, chariotry and Hurrian support.
Tudhaliya and Kantuzzili defeated that force, and Tudhaliya's kingship was secured.
'Beginning of the empire' is modern bookkeeping
Historians conventionally treat this accession as the start of the Hittite New Kingdom or empire-building era. It was not a dated proclamation creating an empire, and the territorial empire emerged through later campaigns.
The Hittite kingdom itself began centuries earlier, with Hattusili I and the rulers assigned to the Old Kingdom — Hattusa became the capital around 1650 BCE.
One name trap: the Muwattalli assassinated here is Muwattalli I, not the thirteenth-century Muwattalli II who fought Ramesses II at Kadesh.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-1430.
What the sources leave uncertain
No exact accession year or calendar date survives. Amélie Kuhrt places the start of the empire phase around 1430/1420 BCE, while Trevor Bryce’s chronology places the new era around 1400 BCE.
Scholars disagree about the number and sequence of early New Kingdom kings. The first ruler is consequently often styled Tudhaliya I/II.
The title-as-listed says 1178 BCE, while the slug and date-as-listed point to approximately 1430 BCE. About 1178 BCE belongs near the end of the Hittite state, not its beginning.
The date is not a birthday. San Lorenzo had already been occupied for roughly six centuries by the time the listing has a civilization appearing there.
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Around 1200 BCE archaeological chronology marks a transition at San Lorenzo, from the San Lorenzo A phase of roughly 1400–1200 BCE into the peak San Lorenzo B phase of about 1200–1000 calibrated BCE.
Refined chronology puts occupation of the site from about 1800 to 800 calibrated BCE, with several phases preceding 1200. Older publications used uncalibrated radiocarbon and often gave the San Lorenzo phase as 1200–900.
This is an archaeological phase boundary, not a written date or a witnessed event.
What the peak phase looked like
During this phase San Lorenzo was a large constructed landscape with public monuments and an administrative complex, holding an estimated 8,000 to 18,000 people — and no royal graves have been found there.
Its builders reshaped a plateau rather than raising a single founding monument, and the basalt for the colossal heads came from a source roughly 80 kilometres away across difficult terrain. The sixteen known heads from San Lorenzo, La Venta and Tres Zapotes stand 1.47 to 3.4 metres and weigh 6 to 25.3 tons.
The development followed the spread of maize agriculture and sustained communal investment in platforms, engineered structures and gathering spaces — not the sudden appearance of a civilization from nothing.
"First in Central and North America" overreaches
San Lorenzo lies in present-day Veracruz, in southern Mexico rather than Central America, and the defensible claim is that it was the centre of Mesoamerica's first large, complex society.
Complexity was not confined to the Gulf Coast: by the Locona phase, about 1400–1250 BCE, communities on the Pacific coast of Chiapas were already building large architecture and importing obsidian and jade.
"Olmec" is a modern label derived from the later Nahuatl Olman, place of rubber; the inhabitants left no deciphered text naming themselves, their rulers or a founding year.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-1200.
What the sources leave uncertain
The date is an archaeological phase boundary, not a written date or witnessed event.
Older publications used uncalibrated radiocarbon and often placed the San Lorenzo phase at 1200–900 BCE; newer calibrated chronologies begin important San Lorenzo development earlier and place the peak B phase at 1200–1000 BCE.
Civilization is an analytical label whose criteria vary. San Lorenzo can responsibly be called Mesoamerica’s first large, complex center, but broader claims about all North and Central America require qualification.
The inhabitants left no deciphered historical text identifying themselves, their rulers, or a founding year.
The Books of Samuel do not preserve a single unambiguous accession, and 1026 BCE is at best an approximate traditional placement — no contemporary inscription dates it, and estimates run to about 1025–1005 or 1020–1000 BCE.
Saul is privately anointed by Samuel, then selected by lot and acclaimed at Mizpah, then made or confirmed king at Gilgal. Scholars commonly treat these as distinct literary traditions or stages.
At Mizpah the lot fell first on Benjamin, then Saul's clan, then Saul himself — who could not be found, because he was hiding among the baggage.
The acclamation that did not stick
Mizpah produced no instant unanimity. Samuel sent the assembly home, Saul returned to Gibeah, and some men openly questioned whether he could save them.
What changed things was a military emergency: Nahash the Ammonite's attack on Jabesh-gilead, and Saul's deliverance of the town.
After the victory Saul refused demands to execute the men who had rejected him.
Gilgal
Samuel then called the people to Gilgal to renew the kingship. There they made Saul king before the Lord, offered sacrifices and rejoiced.
That is a ratification of an unfolding process, not a dated one-day creation of a centralised state — and claims about a fully centralised monarchy go beyond what the accession episode supports.
Even the reign's basic figures are unrecoverable: the damaged accession formula at 1 Samuel 13:1 preserves no reliable age or reign length for Saul.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-1025.
What the sources leave uncertain
No contemporary inscription dates Saul’s accession, and scholarship cannot verify 1026 BCE as an exact year.
The three accession scenes are commonly treated as distinct literary traditions or stages: private anointing, selection at Mizpah, and confirmation at Gilgal.
The damaged accession formula in 1 Samuel 13:1 does not preserve a reliable age or reign length for Saul.
Saul’s historical reign and the scale of the polity associated with him remain intensely debated.
The listing's 962 BCE is not the usual reconstruction either; chronologies built from Kings generally place Solomon's accession around 970, and the exact year cannot be established.
In the narrative, Adonijah mounted a rival succession bid while the elderly David still lived, and Nathan and Bathsheba brought it to David's attention.
David then ordered Zadok, Nathan and Benaiah to put Solomon on the royal mule, take him to Gihon, anoint him, sound a trumpet and seat him on David's throne that same day.
Down to the spring, back to the throne
Zadok anointed Solomon with oil at Gihon. The crowd acclaimed him and followed him back into the city, where he occupied the royal throne.
Benaiah accompanied the procession with David's Cherethite and Pelethite guards. Solomon's public symbol of legitimacy was his father's mule.
The rival feast ended when Adonijah's supporters heard that David had made Solomon king; they dispersed.
The purge came later
Adonijah sought sanctuary at the altar, and Solomon's first recorded ruling as king was not an execution: he spared him conditionally and sent him home. Adonijah's death, Joab's killing and Abiathar's removal come later, in 1 Kings 2, after David has died.
The episode is known from biblical literary tradition rather than a contemporary inscription, and the scale and historicity of the United Monarchy remain debated archaeologically.
The Hebrew text does not give Solomon's age at accession, and Kings and Chronicles arrange the accession differently, so they should not be silently harmonised.
Researched 24 Aug 2026·6 sources·not yet auditedTraditional date
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Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at ~-0970.
What the sources leave uncertain
The event is known from biblical literary traditions rather than a contemporary inscription, and the scale and historicity of the United Monarchy remain subjects of archaeological debate.
The listed 962 BCE date is not the usual modern reconstruction. Chronologies built from Kings generally place Solomon’s accession around 970 BCE, but the exact year cannot be established.
The Hebrew Bible does not state Solomon’s age at accession. Later traditions offer differing figures.
Kings and Chronicles arrange Solomon’s accession differently, so they should not be silently harmonized into a single eyewitness chronology.
The supportable event here is textual: the Spring and Autumn, the state of Lu's annalistic record, begins its surviving coverage in 722 BCE, the first year of Duke Yin. Van Auken's chronology runs that coverage to 479 BCE.
The opening entry announces only Duke Yin's first year, spring and the king's first month. The first recorded action is his third-month covenant with Yifu of Zhu at Mie.
Other 722 entries record the earl of Zheng defeating Duan at Yan, a royal emissary bringing funeral gifts to Lu, a covenant with Song at Su, and the death of Gongzi Yishi.
King Ping was already decades into his reign
The listing says the period begins as King Ping reigns in name only. He neither acceded nor moved the capital in 722: the conventional eastward relocation of the Zhou court, and with it the usual start of the Eastern Zhou, is dated to 770 BCE, and his reign is conventionally 770–720.
A recent reconstruction places his establishment in 772 and the eastward move in 770, while noting conflicts among the Shiji, Xinian and Bamboo Annals traditions.
So the historical period usually starts in 770, while the book that gave it its name does not begin until 722.
Not a powerless throne, and not a declared era
Calling the king a purely nominal figurehead is too absolute. The 722 annals themselves record a Zhou royal emissary arriving in Lu with funeral gifts.
The 722 boundary comes from the start of Duke Yin's reign and the surviving Lu sequence, not from a new Zhou king or a sudden constitutional change; no source describes an overnight collapse of royal authority.
"Spring and Autumn period" is a retrospective label. Nobody in 722 BCE announced that a named era had begun.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at -0722.
What the sources leave uncertain
Historians use competing endpoints and sometimes competing starting conventions: 770 BCE follows the Eastern Zhou transition, while 722 BCE follows the opening of the Lu annals from which the period takes its name.
A recent chronological reconstruction places King Ping’s establishment in 772 BCE and his eastward move in 770, while noting conflicts among the Shiji, Xinian, and Bamboo Annals traditions.
The label Spring and Autumn period is retrospective; people in 722 BCE did not announce that a named era had begun.
No recoverable event belongs to a day in 700 BCE. One scholarly chronology places the oral composition of the Upaniṣads in Sanskrit broadly between about 700 and 300 BCE, with an early group assigned to roughly 700–500.
That early group includes the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya and Kauṣītakī.
Other reference scholarship starts earlier still, giving about 900–300 BCE for the early classical Upaniṣads — a difference of roughly two centuries in where to begin.
Composed by voice, in schools
These are layered compilations that accumulated in different Vedic schools through recitation and teaching, not a single act of authorship. Separate passages within one named Upaniṣad may have different dates.
They incorporate several forms at once: ritual interpretations, creation accounts, teacher lineages, formulas, narratives and philosophical dialogues.
Oral composition, compilation, textual stabilisation and the dates of surviving manuscripts are four separate questions, and "written in 700 BCE" answers none of them.
Not a break with ritual, and not one doctrine
The early works stayed closely connected to Vedic ritual interpretation even as some passages moved toward sustained inquiries into the body, self, life, death and reality. One passage maps the body of a sacrificial horse onto elements, regions and units of cosmic time.
The identity of ātman and brahman is highly influential but does not exhaust the corpus: different teachers give different, sometimes competing accounts.
The familiar figure of 108 is a traditional canonical motif, not a count. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy counts thirteen major Upaniṣads, and hundreds of later works have carried the name.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-700.
What the sources leave uncertain
The date 700 BCE is only a convenient approximation near one proposed boundary of a broad compositional range.
A major reference work gives roughly 900–300 BCE for the early classical Upaniṣads, while the IEP places oral composition of the corpus around 700–300 BCE and its first stage around 700–500 BCE.
These are layered compilations, so separate passages within the same named Upaniṣad may have different dates.
The texts were composed and transmitted orally; 'written in 700 BCE' is not supported.
The Early Years of Nabopolassar Chronicle, covering the revolt that made him king in 626 BCE, says his troops entered Babylon at night, fought there through the following day, defeated the Assyrians and put Sîn-šarra-iškun's garrison to flight. The month of that entry is lost in a damaged passage.
After further fighting across Babylonia, Babylonians coming out of Babylon inflicted what the chronicle calls a major defeat on an Assyrian army and plundered it.
Only then does the chronicle pause to note that the land had gone one year without a king.
The date is unusually exact
Nabopolassar ascended Babylon's throne on the twenty-sixth day of Arahsamna, which the edition converts to 23 November 626 BCE.
Precision like this is possible because a Babylonian chronicle states the day and the Babylonian calendar can be converted — and because that chronicle survives on a tablet measuring 52 by 60 millimetres.
His origins are far less clear. Nabopolassar's later self-description as a "son of a nobody" is royal rhetoric, not a recoverable genealogy, and the proposed link to Uruk elites is a hypothesis.
A dynasty, not yet an empire
The accession founded the line conventionally called Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean. Calling the polity an empire that day is retrospective: it founded a dynasty and a rival kingship, while territorial consolidation took years.
It did not end the war either. Assyrian forces kept campaigning in Babylonia, and the chronicle records Nabopolassar retreating before them the following year.
The Medes did not create his kingship in 626; their decisive intervention against the Assyrian heartland came much later.
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Date corrected. The research places this at -626-11-23.
What the sources leave uncertain
The accession date is unusually precise because it is stated in a Babylonian chronicle and can be converted from the Babylonian calendar.
The tablet is damaged: the month of Nabopolassar's initial entry into Babylon and portions of several battle notices are missing.
Nabopolassar's ancestry and ethnic identification remain uncertain. His later self-description as a 'son of a nobody' is genuine royal rhetoric, not a recoverable genealogy.
Calling the polity an 'empire' on accession day is retrospective; the event securely founded a dynasty and rival kingship, while territorial consolidation took years.
The corpus article for this entry is about the Crusader defeat at Harran in 1104 CE — Baldwin II, Bohemond, Tancred, Jikirmish and Sokman — none of whom had anything to do with 609 BCE.
The actual participants were the remaining Assyrians under Aššur-uballiṭ II, their Egyptian allies, and Nabopolassar's Babylonians.
The listing's own summary is also off by a year: Babylonian and Median forces captured Harran in 610 BCE. What happened in 609 was a failed attempt to take it back.
Du'uzu to Ululu, outside the walls
In Nabopolassar's seventeenth regnal year, 609/608 BCE, Aššur-uballiṭ II crossed the Euphrates with a large Egyptian army and advanced on Harran. On the approach the force captured a place whose name is lost in a damaged passage and defeated the Babylonian garrison there.
They then encamped against Harran and fought from the month Du'uzu until Ululu without taking the city.
Nabopolassar moved north to support his troops but, the chronicle says, never met the main enemy army in battle; he campaigned instead in the mountain region of Izalla.
What 'disappears from history' means
After the failed counteroffensive, Aššur-uballiṭ II is not attested again. That is the limit of the evidence — no source records his death in 609 or anywhere else.
The chronicle also does not report a Babylonian victory over the main Assyro-Egyptian force in a pitched battle. It reports that the attackers failed and that Nabopolassar did not engage them.
The Assyrian population and culture did not vanish with the last attested king; Egypt kept contesting northern Syria until its defeat at Carchemish in 605 BCE.
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What the sources leave uncertain
The chronicle supplies months but no exact day for the campaign.
A damaged passage prevents secure identification of the place captured before the siege of Harran.
Aššur-uballiṭ's fate is unknown. 'Disappears from history' means he is no longer attested, not that his death in 609 BCE is recorded.
The conventional chronology places Solon's annual archonship in 594/593 BCE. No particular day of his accession or his legislation is preserved.
The fourth-century Constitution of the Athenians says Athenians facing prolonged conflict between rich and poor selected him as both mediator and archon and entrusted the constitution to him.
The eponymous archonship was a pre-existing annual magistracy, not a dictatorial office invented for him; the extraordinary part was the mediating and lawgiving commission.
What the reforms did
The seisachtheia prohibited loans secured on a debtor's person and, on the Constitution's account, cancelled public and private debts. Solon replaced most of Draco's ordinances while keeping the homicide laws, and had the new laws displayed on wooden stands in the King's Porch.
The Constitution singles out three especially popular features: ending personal security for loans, permitting third parties to seek redress for an injured person, and allowing appeals to citizen juries.
It also names a Council of 400 — a hundred from each of the four tribes — while the Areopagus kept supervision of the laws and substantial punitive authority.
Not equality, and possibly not one year
Political eligibility stayed graduated by wealth across four property classes. The three wealthier ones could hold specified offices; the lowest, the thetes, got the Assembly and the juries but no magistracy. The Constitution says Solon divided citizens into four classes "just as" they had been divided before.
A peer-reviewed chronological reassessment argues the seisachtheia belongs to the 594/593 archonship but that a separate lawgiving commission may belong to 592/591 BCE — so the programme should not be forced into a single year, let alone a day.
Nor did Solon create the mature Athenian democracy: the decisive later changes came under Cleisthenes, Ephialtes and others.
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Traditional date. This date is the conventional one, not one fixed by a contemporary record.
What the sources leave uncertain
594/593 BCE is the standard ancient and modern date, but the evidence is retrospective rather than contemporary.
A peer-reviewed chronological reassessment argues that the seisachtheia belongs to the 594/593 archonship but that a separate lawgiving commission may belong to 592/591 BCE. The entire program should therefore not be forced into one day or even necessarily one year.
Many institutional details come from the Constitution of the Athenians, composed nearly three centuries later; even ancient accounts disagreed about such matters as whether the seisachtheia cancelled debts outright.
In the campaign conventionally dated to 546 BCE, an inconclusive battle at Pteria sent Croesus back toward Sardis, where he began dispersing his forces and expecting time to summon his allies. Cyrus followed him home before those allies could arrive.
Cyrus defeated the remaining Lydian army near Sardis and besieged the strongly fortified capital. Herodotus reports that the soldier Hyroeades noticed an apparently unguarded route up the citadel, and that the city fell on the fourteenth day.
The capture ended Croesus's independent kingdom and transferred Lydia's central territory and resources to Persia. Herodotus has Croesus survive to advise Cyrus; other traditions differ, so his fate should not be stated as certain.
The year rests on a damaged tablet
Herodotus gives the sequence but no year. The traditional 547/546 date depends on restoring a broken place-name in the Nabonidus Chronicle as "Lydia," a reading repeatedly disputed. The Metropolitan Museum uses 546 BCE; Encyclopaedia Iranica uses 547 conditionally.
The secure conclusion is narrower: Sardis fell between Cyrus's conquest of Media and his capture of Babylon in 539 BCE.
Herodotus's camel tactic and the story of Croesus on the pyre are literary traditions, not contemporary Persian reports.
Two events glued together
The listing also says Cyrus made Pasargadae his capital at the same moment. There was no such datable ceremony: archaeological analysis places most major construction there between 546 and 530 BCE, and some inscribed or completed features belong to Darius's reign.
Lydia's fall did not hand Cyrus all of Anatolia either. Resistant Ionian, Carian and other coastal communities were subdued afterwards by commanders including Mazares and Harpagus, once Cyrus had left.
The stonework at Pasargadae used Ionian techniques that became available only after the Anatolian conquest — the architecture preserves the order of events the listing collapses.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-0546.
What the sources leave uncertain
Herodotus supplies the sequence but no year. The traditional 547/546 dating depends on restoring a damaged place-name in the Nabonidus Chronicle as 'Lydia'; that reading has been repeatedly disputed.
The Metropolitan Museum uses 546 BCE, while Encyclopaedia Iranica conditionally uses 547 BCE. The secure conclusion is that Sardis fell between Cyrus's conquest of Media and his capture of Babylon in 539 BCE.
Herodotus depicts Croesus surviving and advising Cyrus, whereas other traditions differ; his fate should not be stated as certain.
Pasargadae was not made a capital in a datable ceremony tied securely to Sardis. Its construction unfolded over years, and some inscribed or completed features belong to Darius's reign.
Cyrus took Babylon in 539 BCE. His first Babylonian regnal year — the setting Ezra gives for the authorization — ran through 538/537, and most modern summaries date the decree to 538, not the 537 the listing supplies.
According to Ezra, in that first year Cyrus proclaimed that the temple of YHWH at Jerusalem should be rebuilt and invited members of the exiled community to go there.
The book also says Cyrus released the Jerusalem temple vessels held in Babylon, with the treasurer Mithredath transferring them to Sheshbazzar, identified as a Judean leader or governor.
Two versions that do not say the same thing
Ezra preserves a Hebrew proclamation in chapter 1 and an Aramaic memorandum in chapter 6, and they differ substantially. The Aramaic version authorises rebuilding the temple at royal expense and returning its gold and silver vessels — but does not explicitly order a population return.
Scholars dispute how much of either preserves an authentic Persian document; the Book of Ezra is much later than the events.
The Cyrus Cylinder is not a copy of any Jerusalem decree. It independently records Cyrus restoring displaced gods and peoples in parts of Mesopotamia, and it names neither Judah nor Jerusalem nor the Judeans.
Not a prison release
Some exiles returned, but the permission did not empty the Babylonian community; the evidence is consistent with gradual migration rather than one mass departure, and the size and date of any first group remain uncertain.
Calling this the moment the captivity closed is a traditional theological periodisation, not a statement that every exile went home. Enduring Jewish communities remained in Mesopotamia.
The immediate documented change was legal and material: royal authorisation for the temple project and vessels entrusted to Sheshbazzar. Zerubbabel belongs to the later building phase under Darius, and the Second Temple was completed conventionally in 516/515 BCE.
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Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-0538.
What the sources leave uncertain
537 BCE is not a secure single date. Cyrus's first regnal year over Babylon ran through 538/537 BCE, but most modern historical summaries date the authorization to 538 BCE.
The principal evidence for a Judean return decree is the much later Book of Ezra. Its Hebrew proclamation in chapter 1 and Aramaic memorandum in chapter 6 differ substantially, and scholars dispute how much preserves an authentic Persian document.
The Cyrus Cylinder is not a copy of the Jerusalem decree. Its restorations concern named Mesopotamian regions, and it contains no reference to Jews, Judah, or Jerusalem.
Archaeological and textual evidence is consistent with gradual migration rather than one mass return. The date and size of an initial group remain uncertain.
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