- Aeschylus: Wrote only complete tradgedy we possess today, Oresteia
- Akhenaton: introduced Aton, god of the sun disk, as the sole god
- Akkadians: "Semitic people" north of the Sumerian city-states
- Alexander the Great: Became macedonia's king at age 20, concquered Greece and the Persian Empire
- Antony: Caesars's ally and assistant, took the east side of Rome, part of second Triumverate
- Archimedes: worked on geometry of spheres and cylinders, and established the value of pi. Practical inventor
- Aristotle: argued that one should be loyal and patriotic to their state
- Aristotle: Believed in examining the thing itself not their essence, believed there was no eternal world
- Assyrians: Semitic-speaking people who exploited hte use of iron weapons to establish and empire
- Augustus: "the revered one" same as Octavian
- Cleisthenes: created the foundations for Athenian democracy
- Cleopatra VII: tried to reestablish Egypt's independence with involvement with Rome
- Constantine: became the first Christian emperor, issued Edict of Milan, and founded Constantinople
- Constantine: like Diocletian, strengthened and enlarged administrative bureaucracies, enlarged army and public service
- Crassus: richest man in rome, and was part of the first Triumverate
- Cyrus: unified nomadic groups into the powerful Persian state that stretched from asia Minor to western India
- Darius: added a new Persian empire in western India that extended to the Indus River
- Darius: first Persian ruler to attack and seek revenge on Greece
- Diocletian: divided Rome into 4 units and each with its own ruler
- Donald Johanson: discoverer of australopithecines
- Eratosthenes: determined the Earth was round and calculated its circumference
- Etuscans: People living in Etruria, development of Rome was influenced by these people
- Euclid: wrote The Elements, a textbook on plane Geometry
- Hammurabi: created new Mesopotamian Kingdom, and made the Code of Hammurabi
- Hannibal: the greatest of the Carthaginian generals, led army through the mountain pass, many died and were defeated by the Romans
- Hatshepsut: the first woman to become pharoah
- Hittites: first peoples to make and use iron and threatened power of the Egyptians, lived in Asia minor
- Homer: epic poem writer, wrote Illiad and Odyssey
- Horace: prominent augustan poet, wrote satires
- Huns: came from Asia and moved into Europe and put pressure on the Visigoths
- Hyksos: western-asians that invaded Egypt and fought with horse-drawn war chariots
- Immortals: infantry force whose numbers were never below 10,000
- Indo-Europeans: people who used a language derived from a single parent tounge
- Isaiah: Jewish prophet who visioned the end of all wars and peace for all nations of the world
- Israelites: Semitic-speaking people who leaved in commonday Isreal
- Jesus: son of god, jewish prophet and preached throughout Judea, sacrificed himself to forgive all sins
- Julius Caesar: successful commander in Spain and military hero, became the dicator from the first Triumverate
- King Solomon: ruled iraelites and known for his widom, and built the temple in Jerusalem
- Latins: people who lived in the region of Latium
- Livy: provided a number of short stories to teach Romans the virtues that had made Rome great
- Livy: wrote the most famous Lani prose work- the History of Rome
- Menes: the king united the villages of upper and lower egypt into a single kingdom and created the first Egyptian royal dynasty
- Mesoamericans: inhabitants of present-day Mexico and Central America
- Minoans: earliest greek civilization, settled on Crete, known for shipbuilding, capital Knossos, discovered by Arthur Evans
- Myscenaeans: discovered by Heinrich Scliemann, inland greeks, conquered Minoans, alliance of kings
- Nebuchadnezzar: Chaldean king who made Babylonia their empire and leading state in western Asia
- Nero: Killed innocent people and started the presecution of Christians
- Octavian: part of the second Triumverate, and took the west side of Rome
- Paul of Tarsus: hichly educated Jewish Roman citizen and founded Christian commmunities throughout Asia Minor
- Pericles: dominant figure in Athenian politcs and made a direct democracy and set up an ostracism
- Persians: Indo-European who lived in now what is called Iran, one of the largest empires of the world
- Philip II: king of Macedonia and turned Macedonia into the cheif power of the greek world
- Phoenicians: lived in the area of Palestine, great shipbuilders, known for their 22 character alphabet
- Plato: greatest philosopher of Western civilization. Believed a higher eternal world existed
- Pompey: Successful commander in Spain and military hero, part of the first Triumverate
- priests: supervised rituals and aimed at pleasing the gods
- Pythagoras: Pythagorean theorem, taught that the universe was made of music and numbers
- Ramses II: under him Egyptians gained control of Palestine, but could not reestablish their borders
- Romulus Augustulus: western emperor, deposed by the Germanic head of the army
- Sargon: leader of Akkadians overran Sumerian city-states and set up the first empire in world history
- Simon Peter: a Jewish fisherman and follow of Jesus, leader of the apostles
- Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." question and answer format of learning
- Solon: Athenian reforminded aristocrat, freed all people who became slaves due to debts
- Sophocles: Wrote the famous play Oedipus Rex
- Spartacus: gladiator, led a sucessful slave revolt in Italy
- Sumerians: creaters of the first Meospotamian civilization
- Theodosius the Great: under him Romans adopted Christianity as their official religion
- Theucydides: greatest historian of the ancient world, wrote History of the Peloponnesian War
- Tutankhamen: Akhenaton's son who restored the old gods
- Vandals: poured into southern Spain and Africa, and sacked Rome for the second time
- Virgil: most distinguished poet of the Augustan Age - Aeneid
- Visigoths: moved south and west and reolted against the Romans
- Xerxes: vowed revenge and invaded Greece, was stopped at Platea
- Zoroaster: came up with Zoarasterism wrote down in Zend Avesta