Thucydides is considered one of the fathers of modern history. Unlike Herodotus, whose tone was very familiar, Thucydides was more dry and tried to stick to objective facts. He was, however, an Athenian soldier during the war, which colored his account of the conflict.

The Hagia Sophia was built in Constantinople in 537 CE, during the reign of Justinian I. For several hundred years it served as a church of Eastern Orthodoxy, and was the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople (sort of like the Pope of Eastern Orthodoxy), until it was converted into an Islamic mosque, following the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453.

Legend holds that Helen of Troy was so beautiful that men pledged their loyalty to her with such fierceness that they would go to war for her hand in marriage. Such oaths reportedly led to the invasion of Troy and the Trojan War.

Nero, seeking pleasure, paid for and built the so-called Bathes of Nero. The largest baths in Rome, they were still in use up to the 5th century. While other Roman landmarks came and went depending on economic and political stability, the longevity of the bathes, as well as their complexity, set them apart.

Pueblos were houses built by the Anasazi people in the caves, and on the plains, of the American southwest.

The Chinese city of Chang’an was the capital of Qin and Han China. It notably featured urban planning and had an efficient grid system.

The Athenian historian Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War tells the bitter civil war and decline of the Golden Age of Athens. Thucydides starts chronologically where Herodotus's Histories leaves off. Xenophon's Hellenica in turn picks up the historical narrative where Thucydides ends. The Athenian Aristophanes wrote comedy plays around the same era. Cicero was a Roman philosopher and statesmen who lived in the 1st century BC.

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus is most famous for his works of drama. Most notable he wrote the Oresteia trilogy.

The Oresteia, Aeschylus' trilogy of plays detailing the fall of the House of Atreus, is one of the finest examples of Greek tragedy. Starting with Agamemnon's murder at the hands of his wife and finishing with Orestes, Agamemnon's son, being tried for the murder of the aforementioned wife (and Orestes mother), the plays explore the themes of justice, revenge and family like few other works. Extremely popular from the time of their first performance, the cultural impact of the Oresteia can still be felt today.

Qin Shi Huangdi, who ruled as the only emperor during the short-lived but immensely important Qin Dynasty, ordered the construction of the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Army. The Great Wall of China was built to prevent barbarian invasions into Chinese territory. The Terracotta Army was built for the slightly less practical purpose of furnishing the emperor with an army for the afterlife. The Grand Canal was built during the rule of the Sui Dynasty to connect northern and southern China. The Forbidden City was built during the rule of the Ming Dynasty and served as the seat of the imperial government until the Chinese revolution in the early twentieth century.