King Philip II of Macedon and Alexander

Smarter in sixty minutes. Get smarter in just 60 minutes with in60Learning. Concise and elegantly written non-fiction books and audiobooks help you learn the core subject matter in 20% of the time that it takes to read a typical book. Life is short, so explore a multitude of fascinating historical, biographical, scientific, political, and financial topics in only an hour each. King Philip II of Macedon conquered most of Classical Greece during his reign from 359 BCE until his assassination in 336 BCE. This was due in large part to his reform of the Macedonian army, in particular the introduction of the phalanx that proved so effective in battle. Philip II led the effort to establish a federation of Greek states under his command for a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. His assassination led to the immediate succession of his twenty-year old son Alexander, known as Alexander the Great, (356 - 323 BCE), who would proceed to invade the Persian Empire in his father's stead. Most of Alexander's reign was spent on a far-reaching military campaign through northeast Africa and Asia. By the age of thirty Alexander had established one of the largest empires of the ancient world, which encompassed the areas of what is known today as Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, The Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Pakistan and north-western India.