Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great's campaigns (336—323 BC) were the single most astonishing military campaign in history. In thirteen years the young Macedonian king marched from the Balkans to the Indus, destroyed the Persian Empire of Darius III, founded some twenty cities named Alexandria, and died at thirty-two in Babylon. The decisive battles were Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, and the Hydaspes; the defining symbols were the cut Gordian knot, the burning of Persepolis, and the return through the Gedrosian desert. The empire collapsed at his death, but the Hellenistic culture he spread endured for a millennium.