A free, self-paced textbook in 8 chapters. Read a chapter, then drill it with the 100 companion flashcards using spaced repetition.
Mesopotamia, the "land between the rivers," occupies the fertile region between the Tigris and Euphrates in modern Iraq. Often called the "Cradle of Civilization," it produced some...
Ancient Egyptian civilization emerged around 3100 BCE when King Narmer, also called Menes, unified Upper and Lower Egypt, inaugurating over three thousand years of continuous cultu...
Ancient Greek civilization developed from around 800 BCE on the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands, and the western coast of Asia Minor. Its mountainous terrain encouraged politic...
The Roman Republic was established in 509 BCE after the overthrow of the last Etruscan king, Tarquin the Proud. It was governed by elected officials, including two consuls, and an...
The earliest major civilization of the Indian subcontinent was the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished from about 3300 to 1300 BCE across present-day Pakistan and northwest...
Chinese civilization began historically with the Shang Dynasty, around 1600 to 1046 BCE, the first historically verified Chinese dynasty. The Shang developed sophisticated bronze c...
The Achaemenid Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great around 559 BCE, became the largest empire of the ancient world up to that time. Cyrus conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylon,...
Long before European contact, the Americas supported several sophisticated civilizations. The Olmec civilization, which flourished in present-day Mexico from about 1500 to 400 BCE,...