True History - Veritas Card #13 (Green) - Persian Wars

Persian Wars - c. 500-480 B.C.

    This is where the original marathon race began. The Greeks were a powerful, military people. But the Persians were rising up and they were becoming more powerful than the Greeks. The Greeks were threatened by them now and were conquered by them as the Persians were successful in taking over the land of the Greek Ionian states on the west coast of Asia Minor. As the Greeks responded in anger toward the Persians, the Persians ended up crushing them. That was the beginning of the Persian Wars.
    There were two Greek warrior groups, the Spartans and the Athenians. They came together in unison so they could fight against the Persians. King Darius had a very large army, which outnumbered the Greek armies, but, the Greeks did win a battle, which was called, The Battle of Marathon. Here is how the marathon race got started. A messenger was sent to deliver the news of this victory to Athens. The distance from where the messenger started to the place in Athens where he was to give the message was a little bit longer than 26 miles. The messenger ran the whole way to tell the good news! So now you know how the marathon race got started.
   There were more battles though that were being fought between Greece and Persia. The Persian Empire began to decline, and it was eventually conquered by Alexander the Great.
    Modern day Iran is where the Persian Empire lived at one time.