Iron Age and Antiquity (1000 BC To AD 500)
- 8th century BC – Roughly the start of Greek Olympic Competition. Through the popularity of the Olympics, martial arts like boxing, wrestling, and pankration flourished.
- 8th century BC – Homer's Iliad describes many scenes of hand-to-hand combat in detail.
- 6th century BC – Sun Tzu writes The Art of War, one of the seminal works in military strategy and tactics, during the Warring States period of Chinese history.
- 300 BC – Foundation of Taoism, which later influences Chinese internal or soft styles such as Xingyiquan and T'ai chi ch'uan (Taijiquan), which involve the cultivation of qi (ch'i) and the study of nature and animal movements.
- 264 BC – First recorded Gladiatorial combat staged in Rome during the funeral of Junius Brutus.
- 50 BC – Earliest records of Korean indigenous martial arts called Taekkyon found in paintings in the Muyong-chong, a royal tomb from the Koguryo dynasty.
- AD 72 – The Colosseum opens in Rome, providing the public with the world's largest martial arts venue for over the next three hundred years.
- 2nd century – P.Oxy. III 466, a Greek papyrus manuscript on wrestling, is written. It is the earliest known European martial arts manual.
- AD 477 – The first abbot of Shaolin was Batuo, an Indian dhyana master who came to China in AD 464 to spread Buddhist teachings.
Read more about this topic: Martial Arts Timeline
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