View source for 660s BC

{{Short description|Decade}}
This article concerns the period '''669 BC – 660 BC'''.
{{Decadebox BC|66}}
 
==Events==
* [[669 BC]]: [[Taharqa]], king of [[Kingdom of Kush|Kush]], invades and reconquers Egypt from the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Assyrian Empire]].
* 669 BC: [[Esarhaddon]], king of Assyria, dies in [[Harran]] on his way to recover Egypt.
* [[668 BC]]: [[Ashurbanipal]], son of Esarhaddon, starts to rule Assyria.
* 668 BC: [[Shamash-shum-ukin]], son of [[Esarhaddon]], becomes King of [[Babylon]].
* 668 BC: [[Nineveh]], capital of [[Assyria]] becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] in [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] (estimation).<ref>{{cite web | url=http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm | title=What Were the Largest Cities Throughout History? | access-date=2006-03-01 | archive-date=2016-08-18 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818124242/http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm | url-status=dead }}</ref>
* [[667 BC]]: Traditional date of the founding of [[Byzantium]] by [[Megara]]n colonists under [[Byzas]].
* [[666 BC]]: [[Ashurbanipal]] sends a small Assyrian army corps to Egypt which recovers Lower Egypt from Taharqa's forces.
* [[664 BC]]: First [[naval battle]] in [[Greece|Greek]] [[recorded history]], between [[Corinth, Greece|Corinth]] and [[Corcyra]].
* 664 BC: [[Tantamani]] succeeds his uncle Taharqa as king of Kush. He invades Egypt to try to take it back.
* 664 BC: [[Necho I]], puppet Pharaoh of Egypt, is killed by invading Kushite forces under Tantamani.
* [[663 BC]]: Assyrian army captures and sacks [[Thebes, Egypt]], ending the [[Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt|Nubian period]] in Egypt.
* 660 BC: Traditional founding date of [[Japan]] by [[Emperor Jimmu]] on [[11 February]].
* [[660 BC]]: First known use of the [[Demotic (Egyptian)|Demotic]] script.
* 660 BC: Mythical founding of the [[Imperial House of Japan|Japanese royal family]].

At a slightly uncertain date during the latter part of this decade, there was an extreme [[solar particle event]] comparable with the event detected for AD [[774]]/[[775]]<ref>{{cite journal |title=Multiradionuclide evidence for an extreme solar proton event around 2,610 B.P. (~660 BC) |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |author1=Paschal O'Hare |date=2019 |volume= 116|issue=13 |pages=5961–5966 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1815725116 |pmid=30858311 |pmc=6442557 |bibcode=2019PNAS..116.5961O |doi-access=free }}</ref> The exact date and duration of the event is uncertain due in part to an approximate 2-year residence time of the nuclei generated in the atmosphere, before they "rained out" to be incorporated into tree rings and glacial ice, but the event seems to have happened during the latter part of this decade. The possibility of there being a series of events spread over a period of time remains in consideration. What meteorological and astronomical phenomena would have accompanied this event is unknown. The estimated "brightness" of the event is about 2 orders of magnitude stronger than any that has been recorded instrumentally since the beginning of the Space Age.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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