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609 BCE

This year falls in the Iron Age (c. 1200–500 BCE). Iron tools and weapons spread, and new powers rise, among them Assyria, Babylon, the Zhou dynasty in China and the Greek city-states. Alphabets and coined money spread, and the Persian Empire is founded in the sixth century BCE.

Within fifteen years

Philosopher · Iron Age · ChinaLaozi6th century BC (traditional)Traditional founder of Daoism and attributed author of the Daodejing, a short book of verse on the Way that cannot be named. Tradition makes him an older contemporary of Confucius. Whether he was one man is debated; the book is real and enormously influential.

Philosopher · Iron Age · TurkeyThales of Miletusc. 624–c. 546 BCGreek thinker from Miletus, on the coast of modern Turkey, counted as the first philosopher in the Western tradition. He looked for one underlying stuff behind all things and named it water. He lived about 624 to 546 BC, and almost nothing certain survives about his life.