Ancient Greek Historical Timeline

3000 ~ 1450 B.C.E. – Minoan Crete (early to middle Bronze Age).

1650 ~ 1100 B.C.E. – Mycenaean Greeks (until late Bronze Age).

1100 ~ 800 B.C.E. – Greek Dark Ages (Iron Age commences).

# 800 ~ 650 B.C.E. – Homeric epics Iliad and Odyssey are composed; Greeks adopt Phoenician alphabet, (re-)acquiring a written language; phalanx warfare begins: Greek colonies spread across the Mediterranean world.

# 776 B.C.E. – Olympic Games and Olympic truce are founded (with the Greeks now measuring time in 4-year intervals or ‘Olympiads’).

800 ~ 480 B.C.E. – Archaic Period of Greece. 

480 ~ 323 B.C.E. – Greek Classical Era.

# circa 450 B.C.E. – Herodotus invents the study of history.

323 ~ 146 B.C.E. – Hellenistic Period (after the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors).

# 146 B.C.E. – Rome conquers Greece.

(Note: B.C.E. = Before Common Era, equivalent to BC)