The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or Huangdi, was a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He is revered as a deity individually or as part of the Five Regions Highest Deities in Chinese folk religion. Regarded as the initiator of Chinese culture, he is traditionally credited with numerous innovations – including the traditional Chinese calendar, Taoism, wooden houses, boats, carts, the compass needle, "the earliest forms of writing", and cuju, a ball game. Calculated by Jesuit missionaries, as based on various Chinese chronicles, Huangdi's traditional reign dates begin in either 2698 or 2697 BC, spanning one hundred years exactly, later accepted by the twentieth-century promoters of a universal calendar starting with the Yellow Emperor.