The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the year of the first Olympic Games. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 8th or 7th centuries BC With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, which spread to the shores of the Black Sea, Southern Italy (Latin: Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece) and Asia Minor. These states and their colonies reached great levels of prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, that of classical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science, mathematics and philosophy. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens. COUNT 5
QSN1 When did the Olympic Game begin? ANS1 776 BC QSN2 The literary work "The Odyssey:, was written by whom? ANS2 Homer QSN3 What year is considered the be the last of the Dark Ages? ANS3 776 BC QSN4 Magna Graecia is Latin for what term? ANS4 Greater Greece QSN5 In what year is Democracy considered to have begun? ANS5 508 BC