| 3000 B.C.E. | Bronze tools and weapons become common in Greece |
| ca. 1900 B.C.E. | Minoan culture begins to thrive on Crete |
| ca. 1650 B.C.E. | Mycenaean culture develops in Greece |
| ca. 1300–1100 B.C.E. | “Bronze Age Collapse”; migration, destruction |
| ca. 1100–800 B.C.E. | Dark Age; population declines; trade decreases; writing disappears |
| ca. 800–500 B.C.E. | Archaic age; rise of the polis; Greek colonization of the Mediterranean; Homer and Hesiod compose epics and poetry |
| ca. 750–500 B.C.E. | Sparta expands and develops a military state |
| ca. 600–500 B.C.E. | Political reforms in Archaic Athens |
| ca. 600–450 B.C.E. | Pre-Socratics develop ideas about the nature of the universe |
| 500–338 B.C.E. | Classical period; development of drama, philosophy, and major building projects in Athens |
| 499–479 B.C.E. | Persian wars |
| 431–404 B.C.E. | Peloponnesian War |
| 427–347 B.C.E. | Life of Plato |
| 384–322 B.C.E. | Life of Aristotle |
| 371–362 B.C.E. | Thebes, with an alliance of city-states, rules Greece |
| 338 B.C.E. | Philip II of Macedonia gains control of Greece |