The Ancient Egyptian empire reigned for so long, and the pyramids were built so long ago — that Queen Cleopatra, one of the last queens of Egypt, lived closer to our times now than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that is still standing today.

Despite being one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world, the writings of Aristotle were almost lost after his death in 332 BCE. They were stored in an old basement and largely forgotten.

The Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, was a strict vegetarian.

The first Ancient Greek Olympics were held way back in 776 BCE. The last, before they were revived in the 19th century, were held in 393 CE, under the European Emperor Theodosius the Great.

The Ancient Greeks did not live entirely on what is now Greece. They had overseas territories dotted across the Mediterranean, including what is now Italy, Turkey and northern Africa.

In parts of Ancient Greece, special votes could be held each year in which unpopular people could be ejected from the city and forced into exile. The word the Greeks used  for the shards of pottery on which the exiled people’s names would be written – ostakon – is the origin of our word ostracism.