The true reason behind Socrates’ death sentence will challenge your assumptions: was he a philosopher or a criminal?

In 399 BC, a jury of 500 Greek citizens sentenced Socrates to death on charges of impiety and corrupting the minds of Athens’ youth. Yet Socrates calmly accepted these preposterous charges and chose to end his life by drinking hemlock. Why on earth did this philosopher, regarded as the founder of Western philosophy, have such charges brought against him by his own government? And why was Socrates able to accept all this so calmly, even though he had had the opportunity to flee?