Iran, founded in the Middle East and Near East during the Arsacid Dynasty. Allied with the Jews against Rome.

Arch–enemy of the Roman Empire to the west, Parthia reaches its greatest extent around 150 BCE under Mithridates and lasts approximately 500 years. It was defeated in 224 CE by a vassal group, the Persians of the Sassanid Dynasty.

230 BCE: ARISTARCHUS

Greek mathematician and astronomer from Samos, an island off ancient Greece.

The first recorded person to place the sun, moon and planets in correct orientation with each other (known as heliocentric theory). Although the proposal of Aristarchus was rejected as wrong and impious, the world eventually caught up with his thinking – about 1800 years later – when Copernicus proposed the same theory c.1543 in the year leading–into his death. The heliocentric theory was finally “accepted” about 100 years subsequent to the death of Copernicus.

221 BCE: THE (FIRST) GREAT WALL OF CHINA

First Emperor Qin Shi, regarded by many as the founding father of China, builds a wall along 1,200 miles of China’s northern border. The wall stands between 20 and 50 feet high and 18 and 30 feet wide. It has a roadway on top, along with many periodic stations and connecting towers.

The wall’s more muscular successor, the 4,000–mile–long Great Wall, is built 17 centuries later under the extraordinary Ming Dynasty.