135 Banished from Jerusalem by the Romans, Jews begin to spread throughout the Mediterranean region.
184 The Revolt of the Yellow Turbans, which will be suppressed five years later by General Ts'ao Ts'ao, signals the beginning of the end for China's Han dynasty.
220 The Han dynasty of China comes to an end, plunging the country into three centuries of turmoil. This begins with the period of the Three Kingdoms from 220 to 265. More than a thousand years later, Lo Kuan-chung will retell the story of this era in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
300s Buddhism, which originated in India, begins to take hold in China.
312 Roman emperor Constantine converts to Christianity. As a result, the empire that once persecuted Christians will embrace their religion and eventually will begin to persecute other religions.
410 Led by Alaric, the Visigoths sack Rome, dealing the Western Roman Empire a blow from which it will never recover.
413-425 Deeply affected—as are most Roman citizens—by the Visigoths' attack on Rome, Augustine writes City of God, one of the most important books of the Middle Ages.
Mid-400s Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from Scandinavia invade the former Roman colony of Britain.
451 Roman troops score their last important victory, against Attila's Huns in Gaul.
452 Leo I, the first significant bishop of Rome (in other words, pope), persuades Attila not to attack Rome itself: an early sign of the political authority that will be wielded by the church during the Middle Ages.
455 The Vandals sack Rome.
476 The German leader Odoacer removes Emperor Romulus Augustulus and crowns himself "king of Italy." This incident marks the end of the Western Roman Empire.
481 The Merovingian Age, named for the only powerful dynasty in Western Europe during the period, begins when Clovis takes the throne in France.
496 Clovis converts to Christianity, an action later documented by the historian Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks. By establishing strong ties with the pope, Clovis forges a strong church-state relationship that will continue throughout the medieval period.
500 Date commonly cited as beginning of Middle Ages.
500-1000 Era in European history often referred to as the Dark Ages, or Early Middle Ages.
532 in large part to the counsel of his wife Theodora, Justinian—greatest of Byzantine emper-ors—takes a strong stand in the Nika Revolt, ensuring his continued power.
534-563 Belisarius and other generals under orders from Justinian recapture much of the Western Roman Empire, including parts of Italy, Spain, and North Africa. The victories are costly, however, and soon after Justinian's death these lands will fall back into the hands of barbarian tribes such as the Vandals and Lombards.
535 Justinian establishes his legal code, a model for the laws in many Western nations today.
552 A collection of scriptures, sent as a gift from the court of the Paekche kingdom in Korea to Japan, helps introduce Buddhism to Japan.
C. 565 Greek historian Procopius dies. Procopius's scandalous and gossipy account of the rule of Justinian, Secret History, is not published until many centuries later.
589 More than three centuries of upheaval in China come to an end with the establishment of the Sui dynasty.
590 Pope Gregory I begins his fourteen-year reign. Also known as Gregory the Great, he ensures the survival of the church and becomes one of its greatest medieval leaders.
604 Prince Shotoku Taishi of Japan issues his "Seventeen-Article Constitution."
618 A revolt agasint the cruel Sui dynasty leads to the establishment of the highly powerful and efficient T'ang dynasty in China.
622 Muhammad and his followers escape the city of Mecca. This event, known as the hegira, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.
632-661 Following the death of Muhammad, the Arab Muslims are led by a series of four caliphs who greatly expand Muslim territories to include most of the Middle East.
661 The fifth caliph, Mu'awiya, founds the Umayyad caliphate, which will rule the Muslim world from Damascus, Syria, until 750.
732 A force led by Charles Martel repels Moorish invaders at Tours, halting Islam's advance into Western Europe.
750 A descendant of Muhammad's uncle Abbas begins killing off all the Umayyad leaders and establishes the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, Iraq.
751 The Carolingian Age begins when Charles Martel's son Pepin III, with the support of the pope, removes the last Merovingian king from power.
751 Defeated by Arab armies at Talas, China's T'ang dynasty begins to decline. A revolt led by An Lu-shan in 755 adds to its troubles.
768 Reign of Charlemagne, greatest ruler of Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages, begins.
793 Viking raiders destroy the church at Lindisfarne off the coast of England. Lindisfarne was one of the places where civilized learning had weathered the darkest years of the Middle Ages. Thus begins two centuries of terror as more invaders pour out of Scandinavia and spread throughout Europe.
800s Feudalism takes shape in Western Europe.
800 Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne "Emperor of All the Romans." This marks the beginning of the political alliance later to take shape under Otto the Great as the Holy Roman Empire.
820 A group of Vikings settles in northwestern France, where they will become known as Normans.
900s The 264 stories that make up The Thousand and One Nights, a collection of tales from Indian, Persian, and Arab sources, are first assembled.
907 China's T'ang dynasty comes to an end after almost three centuries of rule, and the empire enters a period of instability known as "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms."
960 Beginning of the Sung dynasty in China.
962 Having conquered most of Central Europe, Otto the Great is crowned emperor in Rome, reviving Charlemagne's title. From this point on, most German kings are also crowned ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
987 The last Carolingian ruler of France dies without an heir, and Hugh Capet takes the throne, establishing a dynasty that will last until 1328.
1000-1300 Era in European history often referred to as the High Middle Ages.
1000s Guilds, which had existed in ancient times but disappeared from Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages, come back into existence.
1002 In Japan, Murasaki Shikibu begins writing the Tale of Genji, the world's first novel. This romantic tale heavily influences another Japanese woman writer, Lady Sarashina, who reflects that influence in her autobiography, The Diary of Lady Sarashina.
1002 Ethelred the Unready of England marries Emma of Normandy, giving the Normans a foothold in Britain.
1025 Emperor Basil II dies, having taken the Byzantine Empire to its greatest height since Justinian five centuries earlier; however, it begins a rapid decline soon afterward.
1042 Edward the Confessor, son of Ethelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, becomes English king. During his reign many Normans settle in England.
1054 After centuries of disagreement over numerous issues, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church officially separate.
1060 Five years after Turks seize control of Baghdad from the declining Abbasid caliphate, their leader, Toghril Beg, declares himself sultan and thus establishes the Seljuk dynasty.
1066 William the Conqueror leads an invading force that defeats an Anglo-Saxon army at Hastings and wins control of England. The Norman invasion, which has its roots in King Ethelred's marriage to Emma of Normandy in 1002, is the most important event of medieval English history, greatly affecting the future of English culture and language. This event will be documented later by historian William of Malmesbury in his work Gesta regum Anglorum.
C. 1067 Al-Bekri, a Spanish Muslim, travels to the great empire of Ghana in West Africa, a trip he will later write about in Al-Masalik wa 'l-Mamalik.
1071 The Seljuk Turks defeat Byzantine forces at the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia. As a result, the Turks gain a foothold in Asia Minor (today known as Turkey) and the Byzantine Empire begins a long, slow decline.
1075-77 Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV become embroiled in a church-state struggle called the Investiture Controversy, a debate over whether popes or emperors should have the right to appoint local bishops. Deserted by his supporters, Henry stands barefoot in the snow for three days outside the gates of a castle in Canossa, Italy, waiting to beg the pope's forgiveness.
1080 Invaders from Morocco destroy Ghana, the first significant kingdom in sub-Saharan Africa.
1084 Reversing the results of an earlier round in the Investiture Controversy, Henry IV takes Rome and forcibly removes Gregory VII from power. The pope dies soon afterward, broken and humiliated.
1084 Ssu-ma Kuang, an official in the Sung dynasty, completes his monumental history of China, Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.
1092 Following the death of their sultan Malik Shah, the Seljuk Turks begin to decline.
1094 Norman warrior Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, takes control of Rome from Henry IV and hands the city over to Pope Urban II. Fearing the Normans' power and aware that he owes them a great debt, Urban looks for something to divert their attention.
1095 Byzantine Emperor Alexis Comnenus asks Urban II for military assistance against the Turks. Urban preaches a sermon to raise support at the Council of Clermont in France, and in the resulting fervor the First Crusade begins. Among its leaders are Bohemond and his nephew Tancred.
1096-97 A pathetic sideshow called the Peasants' Crusade plays out before the real First Crusade gets underway. The peasants begin by robbing and killing thousands of Jews in Germany; then, led by Peter the Hermit, they march toward the Holy Land, wreaking havoc as they go. In Anatolia a local Turkish sultan leads them into a trap, and most of the peasants are killed.
1099 The First Crusade ends in victory for the Europeans as they conquer Jerusalem. It is a costly victory, however—one in which thousands of innocent Muslims, as well as many Europeans, have been brutally slaughtered—and it sows resentment between Muslims and Christians that remains strong today.
C. 1100-1300 Many of the aspects of life most commonly associated with the Middle Ages, including heraldry and chivalry, make their appearance in Western Europe during this period. Returning crusaders adapt the defensive architecture they observed in fortresses of the Holy Land, resulting in the familiar design of the medieval castle. This is also the era of romantic and heroic tales such as those of King Arthur.
1118 After being banished because of her part in a conspiracy against her brother, the Byzantine emperor, Anna Comnena begins writing the Alexiad, a history of Byzantium in the period 1069-1118.
1147-49 In the disastrous Second Crusade, armies from Europe are double-crossed by their crusader allies in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. They fail to recapture Edessa and suffer a heavy defeat at Damascus.
1159 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa begins a quarter-century of fruitless, costly wars in which the Ghibellines and Guelphs—factions representing proimperial and pro-church forces, respectively—fight for control of northern Italy.
1165 A letter supposedly written by Prester John, a Christian monarch in the East, appears in Europe. Over the centuries that follow, Europeans will search in vain for Prester John, hoping for his aid in their war against Muslim forces.
C. 1175 Usamah ibn Munqidh writes his Memoirs, describing from a Muslim point of view the uneasy relationship between the Arabs of the Middle East and the Christian Europeans who occupied their lands as a result of the Crusades.
1182 France under Philip II Augustus becomes the first European country to expel all its Jews.
1187 Muslim armies under Saladin deal the crusaders a devastating blow at the Battle of Hittin in Palestine. Shortly afterward Saladin leads his armies in the reconquest of Jerusalem.
1189 In response to Saladin's victories, Europeans launch the Third Crusade.
1191 Led by Richard I of England and Philip II of France, crusaders take the city of Acre in Palestine.
1192 Richard I signs a treaty with Saladin, ending the Third Crusade.
1198 Pope Innocent III begins an eighteen-year reign that marks the high point of the church's power. Despite his great influence, however, when he calls for a new crusade to the Holy Land, he gets little response—a sign that the spirit behind the Crusades is dying.
1202 Four years after the initial plea from the pope, the Fourth Crusade begins. Instead of going to the Holy Land, however, the crusaders become involved in a power struggle for the Byzantine throne.
1204 Acting on orders from the powerful city-state of Venice, crusaders take Constantinople, forcing the Byzantines to retreat to Trebizond in Turkey. The Fourth Crusade ends with the establishment of the Latin Empire.
1206 Genghis Khan unites the Mongols for the first time in their history and soon afterward leads them to war against the Sung dynasty in China.
1208 Pope Innocent III launches the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, a heretical sect in southern France.
1215 English noblemen force King John to sign the Magna Carta, which grants much greater power to the nobility. Ultimately the agreement will lead to increased freedom for the people from the power of both king and nobles.
1217-21 In the Fifth Crusade, armies from England, Germany, Hungary, and Austria attempt unsuccessfully to conquer Egypt.
1227 Genghis Khan dies, having conquered much of China and Central Asia, thus laying the foundation for the largest empire in history.
1228-29 The Sixth Crusade, led by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, results in a treaty that briefly restores Christian control of Jerusalem—and does so with a minimum of bloodshed.
1229 The brutal Albigensian Crusade ends. Not only are the Cathars destroyed, but so is much of the French nobility, thus greatly strengthening the power of the French king.
1231 Pope Gregory IX establishes the Inquisition, a court through which the church will investigate, try, and punish cases of heresy.
C. 1235 The empire of Mali, most powerful realm in sub-Saharan Africa at the time, takes shape under the leadership of Sundiata Keita.
1239-40 In the Seventh Crusade, Europeans make another failed attempt to retake the Holy Land.
1241 After six years of campaigns in which they sliced across Russia and Eastern Europe, a Mongol force is poised to take Vienna, Austria, and thus to swarm into Western Europe. But when their leader, Batu Khan, learns that the Great Khan Ogodai is dead, he rushes back to the Mongol capital at Karakorum to participate in choosing a successor.
1243 Back on the warpath, but this time in the Middle East, the Mongols defeat the last remnants of the Seljuk Turks.
1248-54 King Louis IX of France (St. Louis) leads the Eighth Crusade, this time against the Mamluks, former slave soldiers who control Egypt. The result is the same: yet another defeat for the Europeans.
1260 The Mamluks become the first force to defeat the Mongols, in a battle at Goliath Spring in Palestine.
1260 Kublai Khan, greatest Mongol leader after his grandfather Genghis Khan, is declared Great Khan, or leader of the Mongols.
1261 Led by Michael VIII Palaeologus, the Byzantines recapture Constantinople from the Latin Empire, and Byzantium enjoys one last gasp of power before it goes into terminal decline.
1270-72 In the Ninth Crusade, last of the numbered crusades, King Louis IX of France again leads the Europeans against the Mamluks, who defeat European forces yet again.
1271 Marco Polo embarks on his celebrated journey to the East, which lasts twenty-four years.
1279 Mongol forces under Kublai Khan win final victory over China's Sung dynasty. Thus begins the Yuan dynasty, the first time in Chinese history when the country has been ruled by foreigners.
1281 A Mongol force sent by Kublai Khan on a second attempt to take Japan—a first try, in 1274, also failed— is destroyed by a typhoon. The Japanese call it a "divine wind," or kamikaze.
1291 Mamluks conquer the last Christian stronghold at Acre, bringing to an end two centuries of crusades to conquer the Holy Land for Christendom.
1294 At the death of Kublai Khan, the Mongol realm is the largest empire in history, covering most of Asia and a large part of Europe. Actually it is four empires, including the Golden Horde in Russia; the Il-Khanate in the Middle East and Persia; Chagatai in Central Asia; and the Empire of the Great Khan, which includes China, Mongolia, and Korea. Within less than a century, however, this vast empire will have all but disappeared.
1300-1500 Era in European history often referred to as the Late Middle Ages.
1303 After years of conflict with Pope Boniface VIII, France's King Philip the Fair briefly has the pope arrested. This event and its aftermath marks the low point of the papacy during the Middle Ages.
1308 Dante Alighieri begins writing the Divine Comedy, which he will complete shortly before his death in 1321.
1309 Pope Clement V, an ally of Philip the Fair, moves the papal seat from Rome to Avignon in southern France.
1324 Mansa Musa, emperor of Mali, embarks on a pilgrimage to Mecca. After stopping in Cairo, Egypt, and spending so much gold that he affects the region's economy for years, he becomes famous throughout the Western world—the first sub-Saharan African ruler widely known among Europeans.
1337 England and France begin fighting what will become known as the Hundred Years' War, an on-again, off-again struggle to control parts of France.
1347-51 Europe experiences one of the worst disasters in human history, an epidemic called the Black Death. Sometimes called simply "the Plague," in four years the Black Death kills some thirty-five million people, or approximately one-third of the European population in 1300. The cause of the Plague can be traced to a bacteria carried by fleas, which in turn are borne by rats aboard ships arriving in Europe from Asia. Members of fanatical religious sects, however, claim that Jews started the epidemic by poisoning public water supplies. As a result of the anti-Semitic hysteria, many thousands of innocent people are murdered in addition to the millions dying from the Plague itself. Historian Jacob von Konigshofen writes of one such massacre of Jews in the town of Strasbourg, a German-speaking city in what is now France.
1368 A group of Chinese rebels overthrows the Mongol Yuan dynasty and establishes the Ming dynasty, China's last native-born ruling house.
1378 The Catholic Church becomes embroiled in the Great Schism, which will last until 1417. During this time, there are rival popes in Rome and Avignon; and from 1409 to 1417, there is even a third pope in Pisa, Italy.
1386 Geoffrey Chaucer, heavily influenced by Dante, begins writing the Canterbury Tales.
1402 After conquering much of Iran and surrounding areas and then moving westward, Tamerlane defeats the Ottoman sultan Bajazed in battle. An unexpected resuit of their defeat is that the Ottomans, who seemed poised to take over much of Europe, go into a period of decline.
1404-05 Christine de Pisan, Europe's first female professional writer, publishes The Book of the City of Ladies, her most celebrated work.
1417 The Council of Constance ends the Great Schism, affirming that Rome is the seat of the church and that Pope Martin V is its sole leader. Unfortunately for the church, the Great Schism has weakened it at the very time that it faces its greatest challenge ever: a gathering movement that will come to be known as the Reformation.
1429 A tiny French army led by Joan of Arc forces the English to lift their siege on the town of Orleans, a victory that raises French spirits and makes it possible for France's king Charles VII to be crowned later that year. This marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
1430-31 Captured by Burgundian forces, Joan of Arc is handed over to the English, who arrange her trial for witchcraft in a court of French priests. The trial, a mockery of justice, ends with Joan being burned at the stake.
1441 Fourteen black slaves are brought from Africa to Portugal, where they are presented to Prince Henry the Navigator. This is the beginning of the African slave trade, which isn't abolished until more than four centuries later.
1451 The recovery of the Ottoman Empire, which had suffered a half-century of decline, begins under Mehmet the Conqueror.
1453 Due in large part to the victories of Joan of Arc, which lifted French morale twenty-four years earlier, the Hundred Years' War ends with French victory.
1453 Turks under Mehmet the Conqueror march into Constantinople, bringing about the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Greece will remain part of the Ottoman Empire until 1829.
1455 Having developed a method of movable-type printing, Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, prints his first book: a Bible. In the years to come, the invention of the printing press will prove to be one of the most important events in world history. By making possible the widespread distribution of books, it will lead to increased literacy, which in turn creates a more educated, skilled, and wealthy populace. It will also influence the spread of local languages, and thus of national independence movements, and also spurs on the gathering movement for religious reformation.
1464 In the last-ever crusade, Pope Pius II attempts to retake Turkish-held Constantinople for Christendom. However, he dies en route to Greece, bringing the crusading movement to an end.
1470 One of the first printed books to appear in England, La Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory helps establish the now-familiar tales of Arthurian legend.
1472 Ivan the Great of Muscovy marries Zoe, niece of the last Byzantine emperor, and adopts the two-headed Byzantine eagle as the symbol of Russia, the "Third Rome" after Rome itself and Byzantium. His grandson, Ivan the Terrible, will in 1547 adopt the title czar, Russian for "caesar," title of Roman and Byzantine emperors for the past fifteen hundred years.
1492 Spain, united by the 1469 marriage of its two most powerful monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, drives out the last of the Muslims and expels all Jews. A less significant event of 1492, from the Spanish perspective, is the launch of a naval expedition in search of a westward sea route to China. Its leader is an Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus, who has grown up heavily influenced by Marco Polo's account of his travels.
1493 Mohammed I Askia takes the throne of Africa's Song-hai Empire, which will reach its height under his leadership.
1500 Date commonly cited as the end of Middle Ages, and the beginning of the Renaissance.
1517 Exactly a century after the Council of Constance ended the Great Schism, a German monk named Martin Luther publicly posts ninety-five theses, or statements challenging the established teachings of Catholicism, on the door of a church in Germany. Over the next century numerous new Protestant religious denominations will be established.
1550 The publication of Description of Africa by Leo Africanus gives most Europeans their first glimpse of sub-Saharan Africa, and the fame of Timbuktu—a city of scholars who prize books more than gold—spreads.
1591 Songhai, the last of the great premodern empires in Africa's Sudan region, falls to invaders from Morocco.
World History
