In 331 BC Alexander the Great defeated the Persian army (led by Darius III) in the Battle of Gaugamela.
Philip II of Macedonia was a great king and military leader who is believed to have coined the phrase ‘divide and conquer’. As a child Philip was held captive in Thebes but received military training and lessons in diplomacy. In 360 BC his older brother was killed along with 4,000 of his country men during a battle with the Dardanians (a tribe from Illyria). Upon the death of his brother he returned to Macedonia to become King in 359 BC. At this time Macedonia was being ravaged by other Greek City-States such as the Thracians and Athenians. From the moment Philip became King he began to change the tide of the Greek wars until finally on the 2nd of August 338 BC Philip, and his son Alexander, led the Macedonian army to defeat the combined forces of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. Their victory in this battle ended the Third Sacred War and brought peace to Greece with Macedonia now very much the central power of Ancient Greece. In 336 AD Philip II was assassinated and his son ascended to the throne as Alexander III of Macedonia (aged 20)
Alexander III of Macedonia quickly dealt with all possible rivals within Greece including the Prince of Lyncestis, believed to have been behind his fathers assassination, conquering the Thracians and the Illyrians, invading Macedonia and killing his uncle. With Macedonia’s power well established in Greece, Alexander the Great went on to conquer the Persian Empire. Under his great leadership of his very skilled army Alexander conquered Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), followed by Syria, Egypt and finally on the 1st of October 331 BC he defeated the Persian army (led by Darius III) in the Battle of Gaugamela which ended the Persian Empire.
But Alexander wanted to conquer the entire of the known world and so in 327BC he began his invasion of the Indian sub-continent. In July 326 BC Alexander and his Army fought against a huge army at the Battle of Hydaspes. The forces of King Porus outnumbered those of Alexander 10-1 and also consisted of nearly 100 war elephants, yet Alexander was once again victorious loosing a fraction of men compared to the enemy and conquering the Paurava Kingdom (in modern day Punjab province of Pakistan). On the request of his men Alexander the Great returned to Babylon (now in modern day Iraq just south of Bagdad), the city he planned to make the capital of his empire. While planning to conquer Carthage (modern day Tunisia) and Rome, he died of fever aged 33 on the 13th of June 323 BC in Babylon.
Alexander the Great was the ruler of Greece, the Great King of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt and conqueror of the largest empire the world had ever seen and in his entire campaign he remained undefeated in battle. Shortly after his death civil wars led to the breakup of his great empire.
