Famous leaders A-Z

Kublai Khan

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great (ruled 336–323 BC) was a Greek Emperor. He came from Macedonia, a mountainous area on the northern borders of Greece. His father Philip became king of Macedonia in 359 BC and united all of Greece under his rule. When Philip died, Alexander became king at the age of 20. In 334 BC, he set out with an army to march on the Greeks’ old enemy, the Persians. Alexander defeated the armies of Darius III, the king of Persia, at Granicus. By 326 BC, he had all of the Persian Empire under his control, as far as the Indus River in modern Pakistan. He then marched his troops into India, but, exhausted by eight years of fighting, his men refused to go any further. In 323 BC, on the long journey back to Greece, Alexander died of a fever in Babylon.