Library of Alexandria

c. 285 BCETurning pointContested

The ancient world's greatest library tries to collect every book known.

Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Babylonian mathematics → Babylonian astronomical diaries → Thales and natural philosophy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Alexandria founded → Library of Alexandria

Contested history

Consensus: The Library declined over centuries rather than burning in a single fire.

Caesar's fire of 48 BCE destroyed itDebated by scholars

The fire burned books, possibly warehouses near the docks, but the Library continued afterward.

Gradual decline from funding cuts, purges and warsEstablished

Scholars were expelled in 145 BCE; Aurelian's war in the 270s damaged the palace quarter.

The Caliph Omar ordered it burned in 642Debunked

The story appears centuries later and is widely considered a legend.

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