Alexander the Great

   When Alexander was ten years old, he found a great war horse he wanted. The horse wasn't tamed, so his father said no. Alexander found a way to tame it and bought the horse, and named it Bucephalas. His school teacher was Aristotle and his favorite author was Homer. Alexander carried one of his books wherever he went.

   Alexander became king at age 20 in 336 B.C. Alexander wanted to take over all of the states, so he started with Greece. Next, he moved to Asia. There was a knot no one could untie and everyone wanted to untie it because whoever untied it became the next king of all Asia. Alexander untied this knot by slicing it in two with his sword. Then, he conquered Egypt. Alexander never lost a battle.

   Alexander died in 323 B.C. at the age of 32. His death may have been of a disease or injuries from war. Alexander was very successful with conquering all of the cities known in History and making himself a name. The name was The Great.

The Peloponnesian Wars

   Athens and Sparta were the two city-states that started the wars. The starting of the war was when Sparta wouldn't let Athens help them with anything. The first war broke out in 495 B.C. and lasted 15 years. Sparta forced the Athenians to return to the lands it conquered was by attacking their main city Attica. The peace agreement at the end of the war was called the Thirty Year Peace treaty. Athens was the first one to break this in many ways. One of those ways was commanding the walls of Potidaea to be torn down.

   The second Peloponnesian War was called the Archidamia War. It began in 432 B.C. Te first step Sparta did was marching into Attica. It was hard to have whole battles because Sparta preferred land battles, but Athens preferred naval battles. In 430 B.C. a plague struck Athens and killed 30,000 men! At the end of this war, there was not a peace treaty.

   In the third Peloponnesian War, the Persians and some other cities helped Sparta fight Athens. Athens was likely to survive because its foes didn't want to destroy quickly. In 406 B.C. Athens won a naval victory. The Spartans took off to conquer the Hellespont because it was where Athens got their grain, and without grain, Athens couldn't eat.

Queen Esther

   One day King Ahasuerus decided to have a festival. The festival was 180 days. One of those days, Ahasuerus called for Vashti, the queen, to show off all her beauty. She refused to come and because everyone had to obey the King, she could not be queen anymore.

   The King wanted a new queen so his people looked. There was a Jew named Hadassah. In Persian, that name is Esther. Her cousin, Mordecai, brought her to the king's palace. It took her about a year to get ready. The king chose Esther as the new queen because of her beauty.

   Haman was a descendant of King Agag, so he hated all Jews. He asked the king if he could put the king's seal on a decree to kill a group of people. The king said yes because he didn't know which group. Mordecai saw the decree, told Esther to tell the king to take back the decree, and Esther agreed. She prayed because it was wrong to go to the king without being invited, but she went and asked the king to take back the decree. The king said yes and wrote a new decree. He killed Haman and his family, and Mordecai took his position.