Trace the sequence of the Persian Wars from the Ionian Revolt through Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, and explain their significance for Greek independence.
By 500 BCE, the Persian Empire under Darius I was the era's superpower, stretching from Egypt to India. When Greek cities in Ionia (western Asia Minor) revolted against Persian rule in 499 BCE and Athens sent limited help, Darius resolved to punish Athens directly. In 490 BCE he landed an invasion force on the plain of Marathon, where the heavily outnumbered Athenians, with allies from Plataea, won a stunning victory -- the source of a later legend that a runner named Pheidippides raced to Athens to announce the win, the origin of the modern marathon race.
Darius's son Xerxes returned with a far larger invasion in 480 BCE. At the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, King Leonidas of Sparta and a small force, including 300 Spartans, held off the Persian army for days before being surrounded, after a traitor revealed a hidden path around the pass, and defeated. But the delay bought time: the Athenian general Themistocles lured the Persian navy into the cramped strait of Salamis, where the more maneuverable Greek ships won a decisive victory in 480 BCE, and Greek land forces finished the invasion at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. Together, the Persian Wars preserved Greek political independence -- and with it, the diversity of experiments, including Athenian democracy, that the rest of this unit explores.
Mastery looks like: They can sequence the Persian Wars' major battles correctly and explain why the Greek victory mattered for Greek independence.
Common stumbles: Mixing up the order of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, or thinking Thermopylae was a Greek victory.