40 Interesting Facts about Alexander The Great
Alexander The Great was one of the most influential figures in history. We gather a really interesting list to learn more about this fascinating figure you probably never knew.
1. The name Alexander comes from the Greek word “alexo” which means “defend” and “ander,” means “protector of men.”
2. Alexander was born on July 20, 356 B.C. in Pella, Macedonia.
3. Alexander suffered from heterochromia iridium: having one blue eye and the other was brown.
4. Alexander the Great’s real name is Alexander III of Macedon.
5. Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and Queen Olympia.
6. The temple of Artemis, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was burned down on the day Alexander was born.
7. Alexander The Great was a student of philosopher Aristotle of Stagira.
8. Alexander feared that he would be forbidden by his father and hence escaped the country with his mother to Epirus.
9. Alexander the Great was a king of Macedonia who conquered an empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan.
10. In August 338, Alexander showed his mettle helping Philip win the Battle of Chaeronea.
11. Alexander’s empire stretched from Greece to modern-day Pakistan. Alexander endorsed the Greek culture to the foremost part of the world.
12. In 15 years of conquest, Alexander never lost a single battle.
13. Alexander the Great believed that shaving looked tidier and could avoid “dangerous beard-grabbing in combat”, so he strongly promoted shaving during his reign in the 4th century BCE.
14. Alexander’s testament called for a transplant of populations from Asia and Europe to “bring the largest continent to unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage & family ties.”
15. Alexander washed his hair in saffron to keep it orange and shiny.
16. Alexander the Great started dressing like Persians do and took two Persian wives after defeating Persia.
17. Alexander earned the honorific epithet “the Great” due to his supreme accomplishment as a military commander.
18. Alexander The Great married three times with Roxana, princesses Stateira II and Parysatis II for political reasons.
19. Once, Alexander the Great held a drinking challenge among his combatants. When it was over, 42 combatants were dead from alcohol poisoning.
20. Three of Fidel Castro’s sons are named after Alexander the Great: Alexis, Alejandro, and Alexander.
21. Alexander the Great suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.
22. Alexander the Great was simultaneously the King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Persia and King of Asia.
23. Alexander The Great may have been bisexual.
24. He loved his horse Bucephalus so much that a statue was created when he died and named a city after him.
25. In the Quran, the story of Dhul-Qarnayn is accepted as a reference to Alexander the Great by most scholars.
26. When the island city of Tyre defied Alexander the Great, he built a kilometer-long causeway out to the city to attack it, connecting the island permanently to the Asian continent.
27. Alexander never tried to attack the city-state of Sparta while he occupied the known world.
28. Alexander the Great’s father had 3000 POWs executed by “ritual drowning.”
29. Architect Dinocrates proposed to have the whole of Mount Athos carved in the general’s likeness after the death of Alexander the Great.
30. King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, once saved a man from slavery for pointing out that Philip’s junk was showing.
Source: Media Source
31. Alexander approved a policy of employing Persians to his army while he was attacking Persia. In addition, he also took the Persia practices of ‘Sajda’ and ‘Pabos.’
32. When the island city of Tyre defied Alexander the Great, he built a kilometer-long causeway out to the city to attack it, connecting the island permanently to the Asian continent.
33. Alexander The Great succeeded his father, Philip II, to the throne of Macedonia at the age of 20.
34. Alexander was fond of Homer’s Iliad and read it often; he even kept a copy of Homer’s Iliad with him which was a gift from Aristotle.
35. Alexander’s mother, Olympias, was the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of the Molossians, an ancient Greek tribe in Epirus. Angelina Jolie portrayed her successfully in Oliver Stone’s 2004 film Alexander.
36. Alexander The Great initiated his time in supremacy by abolishing latent opponents to the throne, including his cousin, former Amyntas IV, who was executed.
37. War Elephants kept Alexander the Great from expanding further east into present-day India because he saw that the kings of the Nanda Empire and Gangaridai could deploy between 3,000 and 6,000 war elephants if need be.
38. Alexander The Great died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age.
39. Alexander the Great had the most expensive funeral of all time. In today’s currency, the entire funeral would have cost $600,000,000 dollards.
