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From 500AD to 1000AD

See: Early documents of English history at (URL may now be defunct): http://britannia.com/history/docs/

Circa 1000AD: Chinese perfect gunpowder and begin to use it in warfare. (It is not true that the Chinese never used gunpowder for military purposes.)

Circa 1008-1020AD: Japanese court lady Murasaki Shikibu writes the famous novel, Tale of Genji.

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900-1100AD: Medieval warm interval with improved farming conditions. In America the towns of Chaco Canyon are built in this period. Also the era of Gothic Cathedrals.
According to an article, 'Prehistory of Warfare', by Steven A. LeBlanc, in Archaeology, May-June, 2003.

1000AD: Otto III visits the Shrine of St Adalbert in Poland and the tomb of Charlemagne in Aachen. Olaf Trygvasson dies following his defeat by Sweyn Forkbeard. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

999AD: Otto III appoints Gerbert of Aurillac as Pope in Rome. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

999AD: Vikings, Ireland, Irish hero Brian Boru takes Dublin from the Vikings (from Sihtric). Boru by 1005 is regarded as "Emperor of the Irish".

998AD: Holy Roman Emperor Otto III suppresses an insurrection in Rome. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

997AD: Hungary: The first steps towards consolidation are undertaken by King Stephen's father, Géza (972-997), the last Magyar prince, who called in feudal knights and missionaries from the west to help break the resistance of his people which was impending the spread of the new faith and checking the transformation taking place within the country.

997-1030AD: Mohammed of Ghazni rules Afghan empire; he invades India 17 times.

997AD: Vikings, The English West Country is raided, notably Tavistock. Later, Dorset and Hampshire are attacked. The Danes create a useful base on Isle of Wight.

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997AD: Islam, Mahmud, of Ghazni, comes to the throne. He reigns till 1028. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

996AD: Islam, Spain, Moorish capture of city of Leon. Al-Mansur now takes Compostella. In Africa, Al-Mansur's generals have victories in Mauretania. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

996-997AD: Otto III becomes (Holy Roman) Emperor. Otto III appoints his cousin as Pope.Robert II Capet (The Pious) is (associate) King of France. Al-Mansur, the effective ruler of Moorish Spain (al-Andalus), sacks Santiago. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

995AD: Islam, Aleppo is taken from Mohammedans by emperor Basil. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

994AD: Vikings, Forcible conversion of the Vikings-ruled Orkneys to Christianity. In 994, the crowned king of Denmark, Svein Forkbeard, usurping son of Harald Blue-Tooth, arrives in England with a raiding fleet of 94 ships. London is attacked, but wins. The Vikings ravaged the south-east coast. By now, the Vikings are far more professionally organised.

993AD: Vikings, The Danes sack Bamborough and ravage both sides of the Humber River.

992AD: The death of monk Adso of Montier-en-Der while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

992AD: Vikings, Ethelred assembles all English ships at London and tries to trap Vikings at sea. The plan is betrayed by Aelfric, an earldorman from East Anglia. (H. R. Lyon, Vikings in Britain, p. 84)

991AD: The Battle of Maldon. Fire in Rome almost destroys St Peter's. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

991AD: Islam, The emir, Baha ad-Daula, compels Tai to abdicate, and appoints Kadir, grandson of Muktadir, to the caliphate. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

991AD: Vikings, England, A major warfleet of 93 Viking ships arrives in Thames estuary commanded by Olaf Tryggvason (Anlaf), earlier a "Baltic pirate" who aspires to the throne of Norway. Folkestone is attacked. Ipswich is overrun. A battle at Ipswich/Maldon in Essex. Defeat of Essexman Byrhtnoth. Olaf is King of Norway (995-1000). The Danes take a danegeld payment from King Aethelred but do not leave England, Aethelred set a naval trap for them in 992, but was betrayed by an earldorman of East Anglia, Aelfric. Later, Aethelred had Aelfric's son blinded, in revenge.

989AD: France - The Papacy - Beginning of the Movement for The Peace of God.

988AD: Vikings raid parts of Wales. Wales suffers variously in 968, 971, 972, 980, 987, with Anglesey often the target.

989AD: At The Council of Charroux, the bishops of Aquitaine (the more southern maritime areas of France on the Atlantic coast) suggest that the Church should be able to guarantee "that the poor can live in peace". (Runciman, The First Crusade.) Might such a suggestion later involve the Church in military adventurism? By 1000AD, William "the Great", Duke of Guienne, expanded on this idea at The Council of Poitiers, which he had convened. It was no accident that church properties were also not safe from military action. By 1016, the French nobility had subscribed to a peace movement wanting a guarantee that peasants and clerics, their crops and animals, would not be interfered with. The other side of the coin here was demonstrated when it began to be promoted that arms could be taken up legitimately against anyone breaking such a peace code. From notions of The Peace of God reigning in Western society, which was supported by William the Conqueror by 1042, arose an idea that "he who slays a Christian sheds the blood of Christ". In sum, the later response of the Papacy was to direct the obviously aggressive tendencies of Christians into warfare against the Heathen, when Moslem power could spring into France from Spain, when Moslem civilisation was often seen as superior to Western ways, when Arabic shipping or piracy made Western trade insecure in the Mediterranean. In short, the Westerners were less well-organised than Arabic/Moslem societies.

991AD: Vikings, Treaty of Amity between Aethelred of England and Viking Duke Richard II De Conteville of Normandy. In 1000, in defiance of this treaty, Normandy houses the Danish army in 1000AD.

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987AD: An assembly of nobles elects High Capet as king of France (the title king at this time does not confer extra power or revenue). The Capet family has domains in the Middle Seine area, including Paris.

987AD: Maya legend, dated about 987AD that non-Mayan invaders from the West are led by a chief called "Feathered Serpent", Kulkulkan, who conquers all Yucatan and makes a new capital at Uucil-abnal or Chichen-Itza. This people used metal tools, then later came a second wave of invaders, a Mexicanized tribe called the Itza, who went all over the Mayan homelands. And in 1224-1244AD they settled at new capitol, Chichen-Itza. Result is, regional morale falls, 16 warring city-states arose in Yucatan, - then came the Spanish invasion of 1528. Meantime in the high west of Mexico arose Aztecs, in 750AD, with chaos after destruction of Teotihuacan by barbarian invaders, circa 750AD, are a warlike people, the Toltecs, who created a new empire in Mexican highlands with capital Tula.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974., p. 193.

987AD: Islam: Spain, Bermudo tries to free himself from Moorish sovereignty, Al-Mansur razes Coimbra and in 988 invades to the heart of Leon. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

987AD: Russia: Vladimir, Grand Duke of Kiev, becomes a Christian in a context of Viking influence on his area. He is regarded as a saint when he dies in 1015AD.

987AD: Hugh Capet is elected King of the Franks. Fulk Nerra becomes Count of Anjou. Viking Sweyn Forkbeard deposes his father Harold Bluetooth to become King of Denmark. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

985AD: Conversion to Christianity of Stephen of Hungary. (He becomes King of Hungary in 996AD.)

985AD: Chola king Rajaraja I (985-1014) conquers Kerala in south India, and Sri Lanka in 1001.

985AD: Gerbert (later Pope) learns of Astronomy, use of the Astrolabe from Arabs.

985-986AD: Islam: al-Mansur conquers and sacks Barcelona, a port of eastern Spain.

983AD: The Revolt of the Slavs. Otto II dies in Rome. His infant son Otto III is crowned King. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

983AD: Otto III is King of Germany.

983AD: 1,000 chapter encyclopedia, Taiping Yulan, produced in China.

982AD: East Francia: The Battle of Cotrone. Otto II retreats to Rome. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

982AD: Greenland is discovered and colonised by Vikings.

982AD: Islam: Spain, Ramiro's successor, Bermudo II, pays tribute to Moorish Cordova. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

982AD: Vikings, In England, Dorset and Portland suffer from Viking raids. London is burned down.

981AD: Islam: The Moslem leader, Mahomet ibn Abi Amir, al-Mansur (d.1002), The Victorious, takes Zamora, in the south of Spain in the Kingdom of Leon. Spaniards called al-Mansur, Almanzor. In 996, al-Mansur sacked Leon and in 997 he burned the city of St James at Compostella, a noted place of Christian pilgrimage, though he did not harm the shrine. In 981, Al-Mansur defeats Ramiro III of Leon. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

980AD: Vikings: Viking raids on England on shorter, sharper, more aggressive, better-organised, and made mainly for booty, not settlement. In 980, Southampton is ravaged, the Isle of Thanet sacked and Cheshire is overrun. The earlier raids may have been conducted by men made restless by the rule of Harald Blue-Tooth in Denmark.

980AD: Vikings: Ireland, Olaf Cuaran of Dublin finds his sons defeated in Battle of Tara. He dies on the Isle of Iona and is succeeded by his son Iron Knee, Gluniarainn. Another son of Olaf is Sihtric of the Silken Beard, who is Viking king in time of the Irish Brian Boru (who is born 941).

979AD: Settlement of Isle of Man. 5 July, allegedly. Settlement seems to have been quite earlier. Olaf Cuaran (945-980AD) of Dublin and his sons and a Scandinavian dynasty are part responsible for settlement. The island perhaps becomes a base for raiding Viking ships.

978AD: England: Accession to throne of Aethelred the Unready (The Ill-advised), only ten-years-old. England will have forty more years of harrassment from Vikings till the time of Knut (Canute), King of Denmark. Earlier, the murder in Dorset of Aethelred's older half-brother, Edward, son of King Edgar (died 975). It is thought by some that Queen Aelfthryth had instigated Edward's murder for reasons of dynastic succession. (See Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

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976AD: Otto III makes Leopold of Babenberg the new ruler of Austria, so stabilising Austria's progress.

976AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Al-Hakam, his ten-year-old son Hisham II succeeds, after some opposition, real power is in hands of Ibn abi Amir, who reorganises the army. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

975AD: England: The Death of Edgar, King of the English.

975AD: The rulers of Hungary are converted to Christianity. This allows the development of a pilgrim's route down the Danube River and through the Balkans to Constantinople, then the Holy Land.

974AD: Islam: Riots in Baghdad force the Caliph to declare a jihad (holy war).

974AD: Islam: Abdication of Muti, succeeded by his son Tai. The Buyid princes contend furiously for the office of Emir.

973AD: East Francia: Death of King Otto. Succeeded by his son Otto II. In England, King of the English, Edgar, has an imperial coronation at Bath and establishes a single currency. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

973AD: Hungary: In 973 Geza I and all his household are baptised, and a formal peace concluded with Emperor Otto I. Geza's only son, Vajk, was baptised Istvan (Stephen) and went on to be canonised a saint. Geza enlisted Bavarians to serve as his bodyguards, and settled large estates on them.

972AD: Constantinople: The arrival in Rome of the niece of John Tzimiske, Theophanu. A council is held at Aurillac, to promote The Peace of God. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

970AD: Paper money introduced by Chinese government

969AD: Constantinople: The assassination of Nicephorus Phocas, and his replacement as emperor by John Tzimiskes. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

969AD: Rise of the port of Alexandria, used by the new Fatamid dynasty of Egypt, and linked to the new Fatamid capital, Cairo, founded in 969. Fatamid trade soon vies with that of their political rivals in Baghdad, the Abbasids. The Red Sea is revived as a trade conduit. (The major Fatamid period is 909-1171.) (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

968AD: Vikings are bothering Portugal in 968AD.

By 968 AD to 1000-1100AD, before and after William the Conqueror moves into England, ruling families had already set up a remarkably "quilting" over the European countrysides. The Honhenstaufers of Germany had linked with Guelf (Welf) plus Tuscany and "Italy", also Poland. The French Capetians had intermarried with the Pamplonas of Spain, and the Normans, De Conteville, plus the House of Anjou (Angevines). Also with the notable houses of France, Flanders, Hainault, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Vermandoise, and via links with Hohenstaufers, with Kievian and Swedish rulers. Capets also had links with Guelf and the Wessex kings of England. The name Anjou later helped provide the English Plantagenets. To the east of Germany, to the north of the Byzantines at Constantinople, were troublesome people not yet Christianized, who moved each other about, producing instability.

968AD: Islam: Byzantine Nicephorus takes Antioch from the Byzantines. (Item from Historians' History of the World. London, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

967AD: Christianity: Magdeburg is established as an archbishopric.

966AD: Baptism of Miesco, Duke of the Poles. Christian conversion of Poland.(From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

962AD: Alptigin, Turkish warrior slave, seizes Afghan fortress of Ghazni and founds Ghaznavid dynasty.

962AD: Germany: Otto the Great son of Henry (The Fowler) is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope (a true successor to Charlemagne?). (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

961AD: Arabs are removed from Crete and the strength of the Byzantine Navy suggests a revival for more pirate-free Mediterranean trade. In 961, foundation of the Islamic principality of Ghazni.

961AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Abd ar-Rahman, his son Al-Hakam II succeeds, a patron of literature. There follows the rise of Muhammed Ibn abi Amir. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

960AD: Islam: Spain, The Caliph restores the deposed Sancho I to the throne of Leon. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

960AD: Song dynasty reunifies China. Song Dynasty is 960AD-1126AD. From 960AD to 1279AD, China has another burst of seafaring activity, partly as the country is under siege from the north of China. (Levathes, When China Rules The Seas)

958AD: Islam: The Fatimite Caliph, Muiz ad-Din, subdues all Africa and Egypt and is acknowledged by Arabia. (Item from Historians' History of the World. London, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

955AD: Slovakia: Slovakia now sees fifty years of battles and skirmishing between the nomadic Magyars and the neighboring Franks, which finally came to an end in 955 when the Frankish King, Otto I, completely destroyed the Magyar army at Battle of the Lech. This heavy defeat forced the Magyars to give up their nomadic lifestyle of attacking and pillaging towns, and settle down. Over the next three centuries the Magyars slowly but surely integrated themselves into the lands of the former Great Moravia, adopting many of the Slovaks customs, as well as Christianity. (From a website) (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

955AD: Hungary: When the Magyars invade Bavaria in 955, the armoured cavalry of Otto the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, check their advance, and in the decisive battle at Lechfeld it annihilated the Magyar assailants. Although the Magyars launched further attacks on Byzantium following this devastating defeat, it became clear that they had arrived at a decisive historic cross-road. Two alternatives confronted them: either they settle down, form a state and adjust themselves to the peoples of Europe, or else the same fate would befall them as that of the other nomadic peoples who had been annihilated in previous centuries.

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950AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Ramiro enables Abd ar-Rahman to make many victories. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

Circa 950AD: Central America: Toltecs learn metal-smelting.

Circa 950AD: Denmark: Formation of a Danish state, and so former Viking raiders become more ambitious for conquest.

947AD: Hungary: From 947, Germany under Otto I (the Great) begins to expand into Hungary's sphere of influence, re-taking Bavaria, invading western Hungarian settlements, subduing the Czechs and in 951, conquering Italy, where Otto had himself crowned King in place of the Magyar vassal Berengar II.

946AD: Islam: Mustafki conspires against Akhmed, who seizes and blinds him. Muktadir's son Muti is chosen to succeed. Constant war with the Byzantines. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

German cathedral bones 'are Saxon queen Eadgyth'

From GeneaNet newsletter of 18 June 2010)

Scientists have revealed that they think bones found in a German cathedral are those of one of the earliest members of the English royal family. The remains of Queen Eadgyth, who spent her childhood in Southern England, and who died in 946, were excavated in Magdeburg Cathedral in 2008. The granddaughter of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, the Saxon princess married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 929.

The findings were presented at the University of Bristol on Thursday. A spokesman from the university said the bones were the oldest surviving remains of an English royal burial.

As the half sister of Athelstan, who is considered to have been the first king of all of England, Eadgyth had at least two children with Otto and lived most of her married life in Magdeburg, in what is now the state of Saxony-Anhalt. She died aged about 36. She was buried in the monastery of St Maurice but her bones were moved at least three times. She was finally interred in an elaborate tomb at Magdeburg Cathedral in 1510, wrapped in silk in a lead coffin. Professor Mark Horton: "The historical record and the scientific records match"

A study of the bones at the University of Mainz confirmed that the remains were those of a woman who died aged between 30 and 40. Professor Kurt Alt found evidence that she was a frequent horse rider and ate a high-protein diet, including a lot of fish, hinting at her high status.

Director of the project Professor Harald Meller, of Germany's State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, said: "Medieval bones were moved frequently and often mixed up, so it required some exceptional science to prove that they are indeed those of Eadgyth. "It is incredible that we have been able to do this using the most recent analytical techniques." Banished to a monastery

Crucial evidence came from the study of teeth in Eadgyth's upper jaw. Researchers at the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and the Institute of Anthropology at Mainz University studied strontium and oxygen isotopes that mineralise in the teeth when they form.

Dr Alistair Pike, from the University of Bristol, explained: "By micro-sampling, using a laser, we can reconstruct the sequence of a person's whereabouts, month by month up to the age of 14." Raising the lid of the tomb. Picture supplied by Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege und Archaologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Juraj Liptak The queen was interred in an elaborate tomb They found the isotope results exactly matched records of Eadgyth's childhood and adolescence in Wessex.

Professor Mark Horton said: "Eadgyth seems to have spent the first eight years of her life in southern England, but changed her domicile frequently, matching quite variable strontium ratios in her teeth. Only from the age of nine, the isotope values remain constant.

"Eadgyth must have moved around the kingdom following her father, King Edward the Elder, during his reign. "When her mother was divorced in 919 - Eadgyth was between nine and 10 at that point - both were banished to a monastery, maybe Winchester or Wilton in Salisbury."

Her bones will be reburied in Magdeburg Cathedral later this year, 500 years after they were interred there in 1510.

945AD: England, King Edmund of England cedes all of Cumbria to King Malcolm I of Scotland, a great-great-grandson of Kenneth McAlpin, in return for assistance and support by land and by sea. .

944AD: Islam: Turun seizes Muttaki and blinds him. Mustafki, son of Muktafi, is chosen by Turun to succeed. Owing to the unpopularity of Zirak, the emir of the emirs, the people call on Akhmed, the Buyid ruler, who becomes vizier to the Caliph with title Muiz ad-Daula. He and his successors under the title of emir of the emirs, absorb all political power. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

942AD: Possibly the reason that Wales suffers less from Viking raids is due to defence by Welsh king Hywel Dda, Hywel The Good. From 920, in Pembrokeshire.

941AD: Fujiwara Tadahira becomes civil dictator in Japan.

940AD: Islam: Death of Radhi, succeeded by his brother Mutakki. Al-Baridi, head of a Chaldean principality, besieges Baghdad but is repulsed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

939AD: The Battle of Andernach. Otto King of East Franks crushes a revolt led by his brother. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

939AD: Islam: Capture of Mosul. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

939AD: Islam: Spain, Great defeat of Moors at Alhandega, but Ramiro is compelled to abandon moves against the Moors due to his conflict with the Count of Castile. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

936AD: Henry, King of East Franks, dies and is succeeded by his son Otto. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

935AD: Koryo state founded in western central Korea.

934AD: Vikings, England, Olaf Guthfrithsson, son of Guthfrit expelled from York in 927, succeeds to leadership of the Dublin Vikings. He raises an army against Athelstan and is joined by King Constantine of the Scots. Battle of Brunanburh follows, Athelstan winning. Out of the chaos strides Icelandic warrior-poet, Egil Skallagrimsson, an outlaw from a Norwegian point of view, subject of Egil's Saga by Snorri Sturluson. Egil is an enemy of Eric Bloodaxe.

934AD: Islam: Spain, Ramiro II of Spain restores peace to his kingdom, resumes war on Moors and wins at Simancas. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

934AD: Islam: Kahir deposed and blinded. His nephew Radhi succeeds. He creates an office, emir of the emirs, corresponding to the Mayor of the Palace. He is the last caliph to wield considerable spiritual or temporal power. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

933AD: Islam: Foundation in Persia of the Buyid Dynasty. The Caliphate is reduced to a province of Baghdad. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

932AD: Islam: Death of Muktadir in battle with his rebellious minister, Munis. His brother, Kahir, succeeds. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

930AD: By now, the Viking population of Iceland and their slaves is about 3000-4000 families. Most of the Icelanders are from the western fjords of Norway. Celts were about 15 per cent of Iceland's population.

930AD: Iceland: The sitting of the world's first democratic parliament, the Althing.

Circa 930AD: Hungary: In the first half of the tenth century, during the decades the followed the Conquest, raiding expeditions of Magyar mounted warriors subjected all Europe to a constant state of terror. In time, however, they began to feel the effects of Western counter-strategy.

930AD: Islam: Caliph Muktadir is deposed and his brother Kahir is made caliph, but Muktadir regains the throne. Revolt of Mosul and foundation of the Hamdanite dynasty in Mesopotamia. The Karmathians seize Mecca and carry off the holy Black Stone of the Kaaba, the square shrine. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

By 930AD: The army of the Byzantine Emperors can include Scandinavians/Vikings (Varangian guards). Later arose "a special Norse regiment", The Varangian Guard. Some such soldiers visited Jerusalem as a kind of Christian pilgrimage. Most famous of the Varangians was Harald Hardrada. Some pilgrims from Scandinavia itself made a round trip, by sea in through the Straits of Gibraltar, returning home from the Holy Land through Russia.

929AD: Islam: And al-Rahman III, Emir of Al-Andalus (Spain), proclaims himself Caliph. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008. (Re Abd-al-Rahamn I (731-788AD).

927AD: Vikings: Expulsion from York of Guthfrith, whose son Olaf Guthfrithsson later leads a Scandinavian coalition against England. This Olaf has a brother Raegnald Guthfrithsson and a cousin Olaf Sihtricson (949-952).

907-926AD: Khitan Mongols under Ye-lu a-pao-chi conquer inner Mongolia and several districts of northern China.

926AD: England, Athelstan gives one of his sisters in marriage to Viking Sygtrygg, successor as ruler of York to Rognvald. Sygtrygg however dies in 927, when his son by an earlier marriage, Olaf Sigtrygsson, supported by his uncle Guthfrith, the Norse king of Dublin, tries to claim his inheritance by force. Athelstan promptly razes York and ranges his own influence north to Scotland.

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924AD: Hungary: Henry the Fowler, after being defeated by the Magyars in 924, copies their light cavalry and is thus able to defeat them in his turn in 933.

922AD: Baghdad: The great Islamic mystic Al-Hallaj is executed by crucifixion, dismemberment and burning. Adherents to his teachings formed an offshoot of Islam known as al-Haqq. Al-Hallaj's crime was to affirm the primacy of individual religious experience, if at the price of repudiating the authority of the state to define religion for a believer.

922AD: Vikings and a tale of human sacrifice: A Viking chieftain's funeral in the depths of Russia, as witnessed by an Arab diplomat, Ibn Fadlan. One of the outstanding Vikings has died and is given a ship-burial. His family asks his young women and men slaves, "Who among you will die with him?" A volunteer is found. The day for cremation arrives, the ship is set by the river. An old woman appears, The Angel of Death, she who will kill the slave girl who volunteers. The dead man is carried into a tent on the ship. The slave girl goes from one tent to another and has sexual intercourse with the master of each tent. They tell her, "Tell your lord that I did this out of love for him." Later she is taken to the ship, and removes two bracelets she wears, and gives them to the Angel of Death. Men come with shields and staves, to make noise as the girl is killed, The Angel of Death and the girl enter the tent on the ship. The slave girl is laid at her master's feet. The old woman loops a cord around her neck and gives the ends to two men. Then she draws a dagger and knifes the girl between the ribs, as she is garrotted. The closest relative of the dead man, who is now naked, then comes forward and takes a piece of lighted wood, which he uses to torch the wood beneath the cremation ship. So the master and his slave girl enter paradise.
(Any such story, however, does not necessarily tend to prove or disprove claims that the Russian state was created by Vikings settling in Russia, nor that local Slavs were merely influenced by Viking visitors. Such questions remain in dispute with scholars.)
From Magnus Magnusson, Vikings!

921AD: Islam: Spain, Ordono invades the Moslem territory as far as Cordova. Defeat of Ordono at battle of Val de Junquera. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

919AD: Henry, Duke of Saxony, is elected King of East Franks. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

918AD: Islam: Spain, Brilliant victory of Abd ar-Rahman over Ordono II and Sancho I of Navarre. Abd ar-Rahman penetrates as far as Pamplona. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

917-918AD: Vikings, More conflict between Vikings and English, at Derby. An English victory at Tempsford.

917AD: Islam: Akhmed, Aglabite emir of Sicily, is defeated at sea. Egyptian Fatimites control Sicily. They attack Liguria and take Genoa. Attack Omayyads by sea, also confront them on land. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 46.)

917AD: Sicily falls to the Saracens, "an Arabic race" based at Palermo.

916AD: Islam: Spain, Ordono II of Leon defeats Moslem army sent to avenge a raid he made two years before. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

916AD: Islam: Fatimite (of Egypt) and Aglabite factions in Sicily enable Latins and Italians in alliance with Byzantines, drive Saracens out of Italy. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

915AD: Pope John X cooperates with a court at Constantinople to drive Moslems from a castle at Garigliano. In 941 the Byzantines join forces with Hugh of Provence to attack a Moslem stronghold. (Moslems had sacked Rome in 846.)

914AD: Vikings, possibly as an outcome of their settlement of Normandy, a Viking squad from Brittany led by two earls, Ohter and Hroald, ravages the Welsh coast and into the Rye Valley. They capture Bishop of Llandaff, Cyfeiliog.

912AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Abdallah. His son succeeds, Abd ar-Rahman III, the greatest of the Spanish caliphs. He encourages the African Moslems to hold out against the Fatimites. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

911AD-912: Successful Danish/Viking incursions in what is to become the Duchy of Normandy, France. In Normandy, a major Viking player is Rollo (Gongu-Hrolf), probable leader, a Christian convert this year, an ex-exile to the Hebrides, is the son of the Earl of More, of a noble Norwegian house. By 911, Charles the Simple King France recognises the influence of the Vikings in his region (does he assume that these Vikings will fend off later Viking raiders?). The Viking leader Rollo (Rolf the Ganger), who had led an attack on Chartres, accepts a grant of land he already controlled in fact. By 924-933 the Vikings control the area about Rouen and later the Duchy of Normandy (province of the Northmen Normenn). This was the birth of the Normans, who had used to build with wood, but begin to now build with stone. Soon they have fortified bridges to block the river routes used by the Vikings. By the Treaty with King Charles of St Clair-sur-Epte, the Normans would have Rouen, Lisieux, Evereux and all lands between the Bresle and the Epte - and become Christians. Rollo also grasped the difference between the Frankish feudal system, and the Norse systems of organisation.

910AD: Count William I of Aquitaine in France establishes the Abbey of Cluny. Later, by 1000AD, "Cluniac views" tend to be seen as the reforming conscience of Christendom, well-regarded by the Papacy, and also by the rival Anjou and De Conteville dynasties in Northern France. Cluniac views promoted pilgrimages, firstly the shrines in Spain, later to Jerusalem. In 997 the Count of Verdun made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. (See Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

908AD: Islam: Death of Muktafi. His son Muktadir succeeds. Rebellion in favour of Abdallah b. Motazz is put down and Abdallah is killed. Muktadir is a weak caliph and hands power to ministers. Establishment in Egypt of Fatimite Dynasty in Egypt and Africa, which subverts the Aglabite and Edrisite dynasties. THe Byzantines invade Mesopotamia and the Karmathians are again disorderly. The Caliph's inaction and laziness cause reaction against him, to 930. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

908AD: Islam: (Re Fatimite Dynasty of Egypt 908-1117AD). Fatimites claim descent from Mohammed through his daughter Fatima wife of Ali, although this claim of theirs is disputed. The first to claim power is Obaid Allah, of the Ismailian sect. He is proclaimed Al-Mahdi. Fatimites oppose the Moslem Aglabite emirs in Sicily.

907AD: Viking legend: Oleg, Great Prince of Kiev, Russia, is said to have gone down the Dneiper with a huge fleet and over the Black Sea. The defenders of Constantinople are said to have tried to stop him by placing heavy chains across the Bosphorus, but Oleg's men dragged their boats ashore, put them on rollers, and took them past any obstacles. The result was a trade treaty with Constantinople, which the Vikings called, "Great City", Mikligarour. Later arose the Viking Varangian guard for the Byzantine Emperor.

906AD-907AD: Collapse of Tang dynasty in China after many years of war; for the next 50 years, China is divided into many warring states.

905AD: The termination of the Carolingian line of Emperors (France). The Imperial throne of the West (since Charlemagne) is left vacant. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

905AD: Islam: Muktafi takes Egypt from the Tulunites and gives it to the Ikhshidites. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

905AD: Japan: First imperial anthology Kokin-shuu (Collection of Ancient and Modern Verse) preface by editor, Tsurayuki (905), on nature of waka.

904AD: Islam: Moslems capture Thessalonica. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, p. 43.)

902AD: Islam: Death of Mutadid, leaving the throne to his son, Muktafi. Struggles with the Karmathians. They plunder the pilgrimage to Mecca and slay 20,000 pilgrims. They are then defeated and remain quiet for a time. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

902AD: Cearbhall the native king of Leinster attacks and sacks Viking-controlled Dublin on the Liffey River, Ireland.

About 900AD: Islam: City of Baghdad boasts possibly the world's richest state, with 1000 physicians, a large free hospital, postal service, banks with some banks having branches in China, good water supply system, organised sewage system and a paper mill. (Peter James and Nick Thorpe.)

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300AD-900AD: Maya Culture - period of. Today's Guatemala, Belize, Honduras. Mayan worshippers sometimes (as individuals) had to sacrifice their own blood - there is some Mayan human sacrifice, re human hearts being removed. Is there a macro-microcosm belief here, that all is concentrated in the heart, re any realisation of blood circulation at all? What is thought to be the role of the brain as an organ?
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974.

900AD: Viking raids end the Golden Age of the Celts in Ireland.

900AD: King of Greater Moravia (in Czech lands), is destroyed by Magyar invasions, and also taken over is Slovakia.

900AD: Central America: A pre-Inca culture is established in Bolivia (Upper Peru), by the Aymaras, a farming people.

899AD: Hungarians begin their raids on Christendom. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

899AD: England: Death in Wessex of Alfred the Great.

In 898-899AD: Hungary: Emperor Arnulf makes use of the Magyars to raid Italy, but on their return they swept through Bavaria, a Frankish possession, returning home laden with loot. There are 33 raids on record between 898 and 955, ranging through Italy, Germany, France and Burgundy, and even reaching the Atlantic coast and crossing the Pyrenees into Spain.

898AD: Dies Wilfrid I, Count Barcelona, regarded as "the patron saint" of the spirit of Catalan independence.

Vikings had begun moving south, raiding, from C8th to C10th. They were some of the best shipbuilders and sailors in the world, their war ships had 30 oarsmen and about 90 crew, The Vikings were called Danes in England and Varangians in Russia. Two prompts for Viking expansionism to Germany, the Low Countries, France and Spain had been population growth and efforts by Harold I of Norway to subjugate the Vikings, who were raiding northern France by 843AD. Vikings attack Ireland from the Eighth Century till 1014.

896AD: Hungary: In the year 896, only two years after Svatopluk the Great's death, Magyar tribes cross into the territory that is now Slovakia for the first time. As the Great Moravian Empire crumbled, the Magyars slowly but surely forged deeper into Slovakian territory, until finally at the Battle of Bratislava, in 907, the Great Moravian Empire was defeated once and for all. It would be the last time that Slovaks ruled their lands for more than a Millennium.

Circa 895AD: A part of the Onogurs people withdraw from the Khazar overlordship and migrate to the south to found a Bulgarian homeland on the lower Danube. Another group of the remaining Onogurs drifted towards the Volga, while the rest form a tribal alliance under Khazar overlordship. As time went on, they begin to use the name of the strongest tribe in the alliance - the Megyer tribe - as a generic term for the whole group. This is the origin of the name Magyar, and of Magyarország - the name for a Hungarian and for Hungary in their own language today. The word applied to them in foreign languages (Hungarus, Hongrois, Hungarian, Ungar, etc.) derives from the term Onogur. Accounts of the Magyar migration differ in different sources. All we know for sure is that they were forced by attacks of the Pechenegs to move west to the land between the Don and the Dnieper. Fleeing from this region after another sweeping offensive in or around 895-896, they entered the Carpathian Basin, familiar to them from their earlier raiding expeditions. At the time of the Magyar Conquest, the area was inhabited mostly by Slavic ethnic groups; and Great Moravia, situated on the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, had been in a state of disintegration since the death of Prince Svatopluk. The military power of the Pannonian Slav principality in the west did not represent notable strength. The rule of the Bulgars, extending over the Great Plain and Transylvania, was not consolidated. Under these circumstances, the Magyars were able to overrun the whole area of the country without difficulty. The military leader of the conquering tribes was Árpád, and after the founding of the state, his descendants became the rulers of the country.

894AD: Islam: The Karmathians have ravaged Mecca, but the Caliph rebuilds the city. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

892AD: France: A Viking army short of supplies retires to Boulogne and then goes to England, to be repelled by King Alfred's army. It attacks South Kent, and the Thames estuary. By 896 this disappointed army breaks up and settles into East Anglia and Northumbria. The Viking losers here get ships and retire to the Seine River area. It is evidently this Viking host which later takes over Normandy. It is possible that one of this army is Rolf the Ganger, (Rollo, Hrolf) the huge man who became the progenitor of the Norman family, the De Conteville, who conquered England in 1066. Rollo is thought to be the son of Earl Rognvald of More, of the Orkneys, and brother of Earl Turf-Einar, an early Norse earl (jarl) of the Orkneys.

892AD: Islam: Death of Mutamid. His nephew Mutadid succeeds. Rise of the Karmathian sect, inimical to the pomp of the court of Baghdad. Turkestan becomes independent under Samani, who later conquers Persia and extinguishes the Saffarid Dynasty. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

September 891-September 892AD: Some 250 ships sail from Boulogne, France, with horses, and land at estuary of river Lympne in south-east Kent, England. Alfred's defenses are incomplete. Danish reinforcements under Haesten camp at Milton in north-east Kent. Danes have a complex plan to take the Thames River estuary from the English, but the plan fails by 896 despite Danish incursions into Wales from the English north, south-west of the origins of the Thames. It seems that part of this quite long-lasting Viking army is Rollo (a giant of man, so large that no horse could carry him, so "Ganger", or, walker?) (Gongu-Hrolf, Rolf the Ganger, "according to Icelandic tradition" the son of Earl Rognvald of More and brother of Earl Turf-Einar, an early Norse earl of Orkney), who later by 911 laid siege to Chartres in France, failing but still meeting Charles III to discuss issues. Later, Rollo is the founder of the Duchy of Normandy.

891AD: Scandinavian kings Sigfred and Godfred are killed on the River Dyle (Louvain, France. This is a victory of the East Frankish/German realm. Vikings earlier disappointed in England are beaten by Emperor Arnulf son of Louis the German.

890AD: Monks of St Gall add a cam and trip-hammer to their waterwheel.

890AD: Probable date (872?) for Battle of Hafrsfjord, Norway. A central event re throne of Norway and the country's trading wealth. Some scholars see the settlement of Iceland as one outcome (In the days of King Harold Finehair.)

890AD: Islam: Spain, Defeat of Omar b. Hafsan, who has had an independent area in Andalusia. Serious risings occur in Elvira and Seville. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

889AD: Cambodia: Khmers start to build capital city at Angkor, Cambodia.

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889AD: Hungary: In 889, the Magyars under their leader Arpad, evidently fleeing the Turkic steppe race known as the Pechenegs (or Patzinaks) landed in the middle of a war between Byzantium and Bulgaria. The Byzantines bribed them to attack the Bulgars, which they did with initial success. But the Bulgarian Kijnaz (king) Symeon made an alliance with the Pechenegs, who drove the Magyars up the Danube valley into the region now known as Hungary.
This area was nominally under Frankish rule, but had been sparsely populated since Charlemagne's destruction of the Avar state in 803 and the Magyars were able to move in virtually unopposed. Frankish Emperor Arnulf even found them useful in subduing a rebellious vassal. But once in place they were impossible to get rid of. They defeated several attempts to bring them to heel, and eventually wrested the region from Frankish control.
The territory they now owned - the Danube basin - was surrounded by the Transylvanian and Carpathian mountain ranges but had access eastward to Bulgarian and Byzantine territories, and westward to Italy and the rest of Europe. It was a virtual fortress from which they could raid east, west and south with almost total impunity.

887AD-888AD: Islam: Mohammedan invasions of Asia Minor. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

887AD: Fujiwara Mototsune (836-91) becomes chief advisor to the Japanese emperor.

886AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Muhammed, his son Mundhir succeeds, but he dies in 888 and his brother Abdallah succeeds. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

886-1267AD: Chola dynasty rules much of South India from capital at Tanjore.

886AD-887AD: France: Paris successfully defends itself against Viking attacks. Followed by Arnulf's victory at Battle of River Dyle near Louvain in 891. In England, Alfred occupies London and attempts to control the Thames estuary against Viking piracy.

885AD: Circa, Vikings: Up to 700 Danish Viking ships cruise up the Seine River, to confront king Charles the Fat.

885AD: Yemen, North: Rise of the Rassid Dynasty, which rules North Yemen to 1962, one of the world's longest-surviving aristocracies.

880AD: Vikings, From 880, a notable Viking leader in England is Guthfrith, after the death of Healfden.

879AD: Vikings, Guthorm's Vikings begin to settle East Anglia systematically. By 879, Guthorm is a Christian king (dies in 890) who takes the name of Athelstan.

878AD: China: End of Tang Dynasty, and a revolt in China led by Huang Chao, discontented by heavy taxes and corrupt officials. He sails to Gunagzhou, killing Chinese and to an estimated 120,000 Jews, Christians, Moslems and Magians (Persians?). (Levathes, When China Rules The Seas)

878AD: Vikings: England, Vikings disarrayed in London England return to the coasts of France and ravage Flanders for eight years. Their army in 885 returned to England and besieged Rochester to be beaten by Alfred, they return to France. Later they attacked Paris. In 878, Guthorm (Guthrum) in England makes his third assault on Wessex. One result is the creation of five Danish boroughs - Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Stamford. Ubbi has meantime brought a fleet of 23 ships from Wales. Wessex King Alfred The Great operates as a guerrilla leader, sometimes harrassing Danes who had turned soldier-settlers-farmers. The Danes finally surrendered at Edington.

878AD: Islam: Akhmed b. Tulun, governor of Egypt, makes himself independent and founds Tulunite Dynasty, that lasts to 905. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

877AD: Vikings: Halfdan of the Wide Embrace visits Ireland to assist his brother there, Ivar, but is killed in a sea-battle off Ireland.

876AD: Vikings: Guthrom the Viking king advances from Cambridge on Wessex.

875AD: Vikings: England, Vikings move from the London area to Cambridge. In 876 they launch a surprise attack on Wessex, aided by Vikings from Ireland. They confront Alfred the Great, are bottled up, but in 877 they overrun Wessex.

874AD: Beginning of settlement of Iceland, led by Ingolfur Arnarson, a Norwegian outlaw.

874AD: Vikings: England, The Danish army moves to Repton and drive out the Mercian king, Burgred, to install a puppet named Ceolwulf. The Danish plan is to divide England into two, north and south of the Humber River, under Guthorm and Halfdan of the Wide Embrace.

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873AD: Vikings: England: Following a revolt against Danes in Northumbria in 872, the Danes suppress it in 873:

872AD: Islam: The Tahirites are overthrown in Persia, and the Saffarid Dynasty is founded. War with the Byzantines recommences. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

871AD: Vikings: Danish Viking led by a king called Guthorn leads his "Great Summer Army" into East Anglia, prior to assault on Wessex/King Alfred. The Danes take their danegeld protection money and retire to London. They have used a base at Reading. From 871-878, the Viking hold on East Anglia is tighter.

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870AD: Vikings: Son of Ragnar, Ivar the Boneless, with Vikings from Ireland attack Dumbarton, the fortress of Strathclyde, in Scotland. Ivar then goes to Dublin, to become king of the Vikings there, and die there in 873.

870AD: The Vikings "discover" Ireland.

870AD to 1262: Existence of Iceland (Viking settlers) as a free state. During 870-930, Celtic people (often Irish) are used for servile labour on Iceland.

1880: Discovery at Gokstad, Norway, of a marvellous Viking ship. On the west side of Oslo fjord, 50 miles from Oslo, under a funerary mound. A sailing boat, nearly 80 feet long, 17.5 feet at the widest point, built of oak with decking of pine. The keel was of a 60-foot long piece of single timber, suitable for shallow water moving; the hull was clinker style. Weight of 8.5 tons, 10 tons when fully laden. A replica was built in 1892 and sailed to New York is less than a month in April 1893, Capt Magnus Anderson. The replica made speeds of over ten knots with unsophisticated rigging.

870AD: Islam, Mutahdi is slain by Turks. Mutamid, son of Mutawakkil, chosen as caliph. He reduces power of Turkish soldiery and re-establishes capital at Baghdad. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

869AD: England, Vikings return to East Anglia, and ravage the kingdom of the saint-king, Edmund, killing Edmund on 20 November, who is later regarded as a saint. Later they move south to London and impose the Danegeld tribute. They soon move north to Cambridge by 875.

869AD: Islam, Turks besiege the Caliph, who is imprisoned and dies. Mutahdi, son of Wathik, is chosen Caliph. He tries in vain to reform his empire. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

868AD: England: Vikings again descend on York.

868AD: The Diamond Sutra, the oldest printed book still in existence, is produced by wood-block printing in China.

868AD: China: Appearance of possibly the world's first printed book, a Buddhist text, The Diamond Sutra.

867AD: Vikings, England, Now occupying York in the north, Vikings move south into Mercia, and fortify Nottingham. York rises to a population of 30,000 and becomes the largest trading city in Britain.

866AD and later: The family of Hugues, Count Paris, intermarried with the Hohenstaufers, of Germany/Bavaria (see Luidolf died 866AD Duke Savoy). Gisela Hohenstaufer married Stephen I of Hungary, King Hungary, Saint Stephen (969-1038); Gisela, daughter of Duke of Bavaria, Henry the Wrangler (died 995).

866AD: Vikings, A Viking "army" of only 400 men ravages northern France and destroys a Frankish army led by a marquis and three regional counts; in 866-867, Vikings attempt to dominate Northumbria in England.

866AD: Islam, The Turks revolt against Mustain and choose his brother Motazz as caliph. Surrender of Motazz, who is put to death. He tries to free himself from the yoke of Turkish soldiery. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

866AD: Fujiwara Yoshifusa (804-72) becomes regent over child emperor Seiwa.

865AD: Vikings especially attack England 835-865. In 865AD, Main onslaught against England. The harsh coast of Wales serves to protect its people from Viking landings. A large body of Vikings, "the great army", occupy East Anglia, evidently peacefully, and are supplied with horses. They are possibly reinforced in 866 by Vikings from the Seine Valley, France. These Vikings move north and occupy York. It seems the invasion is led by three Viking brothers, Halfdan of the Wide Embrace, Ubbi and Ivar the Boneless, the latter known in Ireland. They are sons of Ragnar, perhaps the Ragnar who attacked Paris in 845? The brothers ride into York on 1 November, 866, in the middle of a local civil war.
The Carolingians were to the south of Viking influence, and in Burgundy, France; notable are the names Brabant, Welf/Guelf (the predecessors of the Hanoverian Guelfs of England), Merovingians, Charlemagne, the Kings of Wessex in England (see Alfred the Great died 899). And in France, the Capetians, and the Counts of Flanders, such as Baldwin, Count VIII of Flanders.

863AD or before: Chinese scholar Duan Chengshi has written of China either getting regular/reliable information from Persia, or from Arab traders, and also of Chinese junks sailing to East Africa. Chinese seem to have information on East Africa, possibly from Bobali, which was possibly Berbera of Somalia. (Levathes, When China Rules The Seas)

863AD: Islam, Great victory for Byzantines over Moslems at Amasia. Death of the general, Omar. Some years of peace result. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

862AD: Islam, Death of Muntasir, probably by poison. His cousin, Akhmed, who takes name of Mustain, is chosen to succeed by the Turkish soldiery. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) In Moslem Spain in 862, Muhammed recovers Tudela and Saragossa after the death of Musa, the head of the rebels Beni Casi, but the latter with help from Alfonso II of Asturias and Leon, soon expel his soldiers. Ibn Merwan forms an independent state in the west.

861AD: Islam, Murder of Mutawakkil by his Turkish guard, bribed by his son, Muntasir, who takes the Caliphate. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

860AD: A Norwegian Viking named Floki Vilgerdarson and two freemen, Thorolf and Herjolf, and a Hebridean, Faxi, sail to Iceland. Norwegians in the 870s went en masse to Iceland, and found earlier-settled Irish Christian hermits there who left rather than live with heathens. By 930AD, over 20,000 Norwegians had come to Iceland, till all arable land was occupied. A latecomer was Thorveld and his son Eric the Red, exiled because of "some killings". They settled at Hornstrandir, fishing and sealing, and heard from an Icelander, Gunnbjorn Ulfkrakason, of a discovery of new land. Eric married by soon committed new killings, so he was exiled for three years. He sailed due west, to Greenland. Later is discovered, Labrador, and Newfoundland/Vinland.
J. H. Parry, (Consultant), Reader's Digest Discovery: The World's Great Explorers: Their Triumphs and Tragedies. Sydney, Reader's Digest, 1978.

860AD: In maritime history: before 860AD, Irish monk-mariners were said to sail to Iceland before it was settled by Vikings from 860AD - (See Njal's Saga - in legends of Vikings "discovering" parts of Canadian North America - and so on.) In 860 By about 860, Viking Norwegian Floki Vilgeroarson took livestock with him to Iceland, which had earlier been visited by a Norwegian King called Naddod and a Swede called Garoar Svafarsson. Floki went first to the Shetlands, and lost a daughter drowned in an accident, then to the Faroes ("sheep islands"), where another daughter was married. Legend has it that Irish monks had been on the Faroes for one hundred years. It is 400km from the Faroes to Iceland, where Floki landed on the west coast, only to be disgusted by the climate, so he returned to Norway. Other settlers later followed, by legend, avoiding the power plays of King Harold Finehair. By legend, the first settler was Ingolf Arnarson, from western Norway, needing a new start, which he found at Reykjavik ("Steamy Bay"). He had a brother-in-law, Hjorleif. The settlement period is dated 870-930AD.

860AD: Islam, Byzantine defeat near Melitene. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

859AD: Vikings, Some 62 Viking ships (up to 2000 men) sail from the Loire River France to harrass the Spanish coast. They had no success there, so tried the North African coast, then wintered on the Rhone River and ravaged as far as Arles. They then sailed along the shores of Italy, where they evidently met the fleets of the Saracens unsuccessfully, as when in 861 the Vikings returned to Loire, they had only 22 ships left. At this time the Saracen fleets are engaging the Franks in Italy; the Mediterranean remained a Saracen sea. The Vikings returned attention to England.

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858AD: Islam, Great war with Byzantines begins in Asia Minor. Mohammedans capture the Byzantine commander. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

858AD: Beginning of Fujiwara clan's control of Japanese emperors.

857AD: Vikings, Paris, merely a bastion of Isle de Paris, is sacked by Vikings (possibly led by son of Ragnar, Bjorn Ironside and his friend Hastein. The plan then arises to sack Rome, via Moorish Spain? Via Straits of Gibraltar. Plunder of Algericas, taking Negro slaves/prisoners for Ireland, then attacking Balearics, Narbonne, sailing up the Rhone. French Coast, the Ligurian River of Northern Italy, possibly sacking Pisa. By mistake, the Vikings sacked Luna, or Luni, north of Rome, so they massacred in petulance. They possibly proceed as far east as Alexandria. Moorish ships waited for them once they returned past Gibraltar. They returned to the Loire in mid-France by 862.

856AD: Viking pirates sack Orleans, France. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

855AD: Vikings, More Vikings seem to want to settle in England as they winter on the Isle of Sheppey near London.

855AD: Major Viking attack on Wales fails, in time of Danish leader Gorm d855. Versus Welsh leader Rhodri Mawr, prince of Gwynedd, 844-878.

853AD: Ireland, Vikings, Arrival in Dublin of Norwegian prince, King Olaf, who founds a kingdom based on the coasts but bothers little of the hinterland.

852AD: Islam, Serious revolt suppressed in Armenia. (Item from Historians' History of the World. London, 1907., pp. 32ff.) In Spain, in 852 dies Abd ar- Rahman, succeeded by his son Muhammed I. The Christian monarchs now have control of Castile and Navarre. Revolts continue in many areas.

850AD: Probable beginning of Viking settlement in Outer Hebrides of Scotland, probably with violence. The later leader seems to be Thorffin the Mighty, who inherited an Orkney earldom at the age of five, in 1014, he died in 1064. He extended his power deep into Scotland

850AD: Vikings: The worrying trend of "the settling Viking" moves from France to England, when Vikings winter in Thanet in England.

850sAD: Arabs perfect use of The Astrolabe.

9thCAD: More than one-third of Japan's nobility are of Korean or Chinese descent.

9th Century: Russia: Swedish Vikings of the Rus people sail down the Volga River to the land they call Russia.

850AD: Circa, Viking merchant-princes found the first Russian states at Kiev and Novgorod.

Circa 850AD: In the Ninth Century, in Baghdad, the three Banu Musa Brothers, scientists, produce The Book of Ingenious Devices. Two of these brothers came close to estimating the circumference of the Earth.

Circa 850AD: Pope Leo IV declares that any Christian dying in battle for the defence of the Church would receive a heavenly reward. (Runciman, The First Crusade). This more or less established the spiritual justification for later Christian military action against any Moslem incursions.

Circa 850AD: Vikings: Probable date of building of a medium-sized ship, the Viking "Gokstad ship" later found in a funerary mound containing a dead king (plus slaughtered animals), in Norway in 1880, near Sandefjord, western side of Oslo Fjord.

Circa 848AD: As part of the story of the Counts of Barcelona. Sunifred (Borell), a Count of Barcelona, rebels against the rulers of Septimania (Southern France-North-eastern Spain) - as led by Bernard Plantvelue, a relative of Charlemagne. Sunifred, who became a Count Barcelona after the killing in 844 of Bernard (Plantvelue), in 848-849 is killed in a counter-attack by a Duke of Aquitaine. Sunifred is succeeded as Count Barcelona by his son Wilfrid I. (Quifre "The Hairy").

847AD: Islam: Death of Wathik. State officials elect his son Mohammed to succeed him, but change their mind and appoint his brother Mutawakkil. He is noted for atrocious cruelty and persecutes Jews and Christians. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

846AD: A fleet of Moslem pirates seizes Ostia and besieges Rome. St Peter's and St Paul's are sacked. Carolingian power in Italy seems defeated.

846AD: Islam, Moslem forces sack Rome. Sacking of St Peter's. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

845AD: Vikings, France, A Viking fleet of up to 600 ships is sent to burn Hamburg by King Horek. In 845, a Viking fleet of up to 120 ships sails up the Seine River, commanded by Ragnar, perhaps a relative of the Friesian chiefs and of the Danish royal family, past Rouen, taking captives, pillaging monasteries and towns on either river bank. On Easter Day 845 Vikings sacked Paris. They took away their booty plus a protection-money from King Louis (danegeld), tribute to go away. In 845, A Danish Viking, Ragnar, enters the Seine with 120 ships, probably the legendary Ragnar Loobrok, ()Ragnar Hairy-Breeks). Confronted by Charles the Bald. Ragnar hanged 111 prisoners in front of the Frankish army. Charles the Bald paid him 7000 pounds of silver, protection money, to depart. Later, Viking fleets sail up the Gironde and Garonne to ravage Aquitaine and Bordeaux. Spain and Portugal are attacked. The Vikings with an attack on Seville on the River Guadalquivir lost a thousand in battle and had 400 taken prisoner and hanged. In 845 a notable Viking pagan, Thorgils, is captured by his enemies and drowned. (On Ragnar, see the TV drama broadcast in 2015-2016 by History Channel, The Vikings, starring Australian actor Travis Fimmel as the Viking leader Ragnar Lothbrock, based on Ragnar Loobrok.)

845AD: Buddhism is banned in China

845AD: Islam, Truce with Byzantine empress, Theodora. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

843: Frankish Empire: The Treaty of Verdun. Charlemagne's empire is divided amongst his three grandsons. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

843AD: Scotland, King Kenneth McAlpin brings Picts and Scots into a political union, sometimes known as Scotland, more often by the Roman name of Albany.

843AD: Vikings, France, A Viking fleet attacks the town of Nantes on the Loire River, south of Paris and the Seine River. Ominously in 843, Vikings, the earlier raiders of Nantes, establish their first permanent fortified base from which they can terrorise the French coast, at Noirmoutier, an island at the mouth of the Loire River, as a Frankish historian noted, "as if they meant to stay forever".

842AD: Norwegian Vikings visit the Loire area, France.

841AD: Islam: Death of Mutasim, his son Wathik succeeds. The Caliphate begins to decline. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

841AD: Vikings, Ireland, Norwegian Vikings fortify a base for their ships at Ath Cliath (The Black Pool, Dubh Linn), on the Liffey River - Dublin.

841AD: Vikings, Perhaps following a civil war between the sons of Louis of France, and maybe due to the use of Scandinavian mercenaries by both sides, Vikings send a fleet up the Seine River and sack Rouen. In 842, a Viking fleet sacked the usefully-trading port of Quentavic near Boulogne.

839AD: Moslem occupation of Southern Italy.

838AD: Islam: Moslem victory at Dasymon. Amorium captured. Second revolt of Abbas, who dies in prison. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

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838AD: Japan: last mission to China, termination of official relations with China 858 - The Fujiwara family secures ruling power as regents to the imperial throne. (marriage politics: Fujiwara marry daughters to emperor, produce heir, force abdication, become regent for grandchild). 9c - KANA developed from kanji (31 syllable -Tanka; diary written in Kana - man, but pretended to be a woman).

836AD: Islam, Byzantine emperor Theophilus destroys Zapetra in his savage war with the Moslems. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

835AD: Vikings: Danish Vikings devastate Sheppey on the north coast of Kent, England, which is under the hegemony of Egbert, King of Wessex (Cornwall to Kent). Egbert seems to have redirected Viking attacks to the coasts of France. Vikings also attack a monastery at Noirmoutier. (See work of the monk from there, Ermentarius).

834AD: Vikings: Following the surrender of Louis of France to Lothar, and Louis' subsequent imprisonment, a fleet of Danish Vikings sail up the Rhine River and sack the trading centre of Dorestad. For the next 40 years, Frisia is under Viking control. Dorestad loses its role as a trading centre. The first Danish Viking raids are against large trading centres of other people. Earlier raids had been conducted by Norwegians. In 834, a raid of Frisia. (Annals of St Bertin's).

813-833AD: Rule of Abbasid caliph al-Mamun; he sets up a House of Wisdom in Baghdad that becomes the most important school in the Arab world.

833AD: Islam: Idea that the world is round: Death of Mamun. His reign is the Augustan Age of Arabian literature. Works on science and philosophy are translated from the Greek. Mamun orders the measurement of a degree of the earth's circumference. The designated heir, his brother Mutasim, succeeds. A party in favour of Manun's son, Abbas, is put down. Mutasin employs Turks in his bodyguard, but their excesses cause Baghdad to revolt. The Caliph removes the capital to Samarra. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

832AD: Islam: Capture of Heraclea. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) In Spain in 832, Toledo rebels against Moslem rule and is suppressed again.

831AD: Islam: Mohammedans being long invasion of Asia Minor. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

829AD: Islam: Euphemius invites the Mohammedans from Africa into Sicily. They take Palermo. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

829AD-842: Movements of some people of Turkish tribal origin. From 829, a colony of Persians settles on the Vardar (Axios). They supply soldiers - Vardariots - for Byzantine Imperial Guard. In 1065 a colony of Uzes settled in Macedonia, its senior men becoming senators of Byzantium. Before 1081, colonies of Turks move to Achrida area. By 1123, a colony of Patzinaks settle in western Macedonia in time of Byzantine John II. By 1243, colonies of Romans are in Macedonia and Thrace, after areas had been depopulated by Crusaders and Bulgarians. (Finlay, History of Greece, p. 32).

829AD: Islam: Spain, Abd ar-Rahman assumes title of Caliph. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

825AD: If not 30 years earlier, Iceland, Irish monks in search of solitude have sailed to Iceland and back. They call Iceland, "Thule". These monks left when the Viking settlers arrived by 860.

820sAD: Persian mathematician Musa al-Chwarazmi develops system of algebra.

823AD : Islam: Spain, Sancho captures Viguera. Death of Ordono enables Abd ar-Rahman to complete work of internal organisation. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

823AD: Islam: Spain, A band of Cordovan exiles from Alexandria conquer Crete. The king defeats his great-uncle, Abdallah. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

821AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Ak-Hakim, succeeded by his son Abd ar-Rahman II. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

820AD: Vikings: France, Viking attacks on the coast of Flanders and at the mouth of the Seine River, driven off successfully. (A fleet from "Nordmannia".)

820AD: Islam: Appointment of Tahir as governor of Khorasan, where his descendants rule until 872. (Sometimes called Tahirite Dynasty). (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

817AD: Islam: Mamun appoints Musa b. Ali to the throne. The people of Baghdad declare Mamun deposed and elect his uncle Ibrahim as Caliph. Sudden death of Musa. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

815AD: Islam: Spain, Rising in Cordova against Moslems put down with great cruelty. Exile of the inhabitants who go to Africa. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

814AD: Death of Charlemagne, when his kingdom is broken up.

813AD: Islam: Capture and assassination of Emin. Mamun is proclaimed at Baghdad. Civil war continues. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

809AD: Islam: Death of Harun on way to quell disturbances in Khorasan. Arts and sciences flourish during his reign. His son Emin succeeds, but has to cope with rebellion from his brother Mamun, who gradually wins all the provinces except Baghdad to his side. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

808AD: Islam: Edrisite Dynasty founded at Fez. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

807AD: Islam: Spain, After continual disorder in Toledo, Al-Hakim massacres the chief citizens. Resistance is abandoned. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

806AD: Islam: Peace restored with Nicephorus after hostilities. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

806AD: Japan: Kuukai (a.k.a. Kooboo Daishi, 774-835) returns from China to found Shingon Sect of Buddhism on Mt. Kooya (Wakayama) emphasis on rituals, court patronage, secret transmission of teachings sutra, mudra (hand poses), mandala (cosmic diagrams).

805AD: Japan: Saicho (767-822) returns from China to found Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei (Kyoto), Tendai Sect of Buddhism.

804AD-805AD: Islam: Rebellion in Khorasan. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

803AD: Hungary: This area stays sparsely populated since Charlemagne's destruction of the Avar state in 803.

802AD: Islam: Byzantine emperor Nicephorus refuses further tribute payment to Islam. Harun invades Asia Minor devastatingly so Nicephorus sues for peace. He breaks the peace in 803 and the same process is repeated. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

802AD: King Jayavarman II of Khmer people of Cambodia founds Angkorian dynasty which becomes centre of Khmer life.

801AD: Islam: Harun sends an embassy to Charlemagne. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

800AD-1600AD: Unexpected in the Amazon region: Researchers are surprised to find evidence of "civilization" in the Amazon Rainforest region, spread about a 39sq/km area at the headwaters of the Xingu River, a 1000-year-old network of towns and villages, evidence of a complex, sophisticated society aware of "mathematics, astronomy and other sciences", The area was occupied 800AD-1600AD. There were about 19 villages each housing about 2500-5000 people, spaced 2.5-3.5 km apart, and connected by straight roadways up to 45 metres wide. The people utilised ditches, bridges, irrigation, ponds, causeways, canals. One view is, "not earth-shattering, but not expected in the Amazon". Researchers involved include Robert Carneiro of American Museum of Natural History, lead archaeologist Michael Heckenberger, of University of Florida and Jim Petersen, archaeologist of University of Vermont. See from this date a forthcoming issue of journal Science (Reported Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 2003)

800AD: Charlemagne, King of Franks, is crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

800AD approx: Genetic evidence from the Kingdom of the Khazars?: Unexpectedly, a mutant genetic strain originating from the Kingdom of the Khazars (Turkey) may still be active in some human populations, providing carriers with some protection against the AIDS virus. The story comes from Sydney geneticist Marc Buhler of the Westmead Millennium Institute and co-authors from the Kolling Institute of Medical Research, who have possibly tracked the mutation to its source. The mutation is now found amongst people living in Iceland (descendants of Vikings), and Jewish people living in Australia; it was found in 1996 in a gene known as CCR5. People with one copy of the gene take several years to become infected if they contract HIV, people with two copies rarely become infected. A finding is that about 15 per cent of Ashkenazi Jews (from Germany and Eastern Europe) are carriers, but only 6 per cent of Sephardic Jews (from Southern Europe and Africa) care carriers. About 20 per cent of Ashkenazi Jewish people had the mutation if their grandparents had come from Russia, Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. The mutation also presumably arose after the exodus of Jews from Israel about 2000 years ago. It seems, the Khazars, a little-known kingdom of people in Turkey and/or Southern Russia, possibly descendants of Central Asian nomads, had settled north-east of the Black Sea before 500AD, to become embattled with Arabs. The Khazars also felt pressed to convert to either Islam or Christianity - they asserted themselves by adopting Judaism about 1000AD. Such wars ended 800-1000AD, at about which time, Swedish Vikings were moving south via Russian rivers toward Khazar and/or Arab-held territory. (Perhaps wanting Arab coins?) Due to intermarriages, some Vikings may have taken the mutation back to Scandinavia, with a result that descendants ended up in Iceland. Possibly around 1300, as plague struck Europe and some Jews were thrown out of Germany, some Jews went east to rejoin remnants of Khazar populations - who became absorbed into Russia? (Reported 12-13 July 2003 in weekend Sydney Morning Herald, article by Deborah Smith) NB: The best treatment this website has ever seen on the conversion of the Khazars to Judaiism is in David Keys, Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books. 2000.

800AD-810AD: Vikings: King of the Danes and an affront to the Franks is King Godfred, 800-810.

Circa 800AD-90AD: Magyar colonisation of Middle Danube Plain, led by Arpad, a semi-legendary leader. The Magyars had crossed from the Urals of Russia and defeated the existing Slav tribes of the area.

About 800AD: Seven Magyar tribes contribute 20,000 men to the Khazar army, and in 836 a Magyar army allies with the Bulgars, attacking a Byzantine fleet near the mouth of the Danube River. In ensuing decades they take control of large areas of southern Russia, raiding Slav settlements for booty and slaves and in 862, they raid the eastern Frankish Empire.

800AD: The Mayan culture begins to collapse between 800-900AD for unknown reasons.

800AD: Chinese begin to use gunpowder, and later use it also for weaponry.

800AD: Cambodia: The Khmer king is Jayavarman II, who lays foundation of a state from city of Angkor. A royal cult arises called devaraja, identifying the king with the Hindu god, Shiva.

800AD: Ireland: Approx date, Creation of The Book of Kells, on show in Australia by February 2000. Normally housed in the Long Room of the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

1964: Mystery and legends surround mummies from Peru

DNA testing is expected to be the destiny of Peruvian mummies found at Gran Vilaya. Are they the remains of a legendary lost tribe of tall Europeans, or whites, with blonde hair, the Chacapoyas, or, Cloud People?

A story arose in 1964, when an American explorer, Gene Savoy, found a fortress in Chacapoyas land in north-eastern Peru. This fortress was later found to be surrounded by 24,000 round structures. The site was found to pre-date the Incas, to about 800AD.

In the area, Savoy was intrigued by local people who demonstrated an unexpected incidence of tall people with fair hair and blue eyes. Perhaps their ancestors were people of such description as mentioned by Cieza de Leon, writing in 1553? Were these the mysterious people crushed by the Incas in 1480?

The mummies in question have been recently evacuated to remove them from risks posed by grave-robbers. They are about 178cm tall, but their hands are bound over their hands or temples, suggestive of death scenes filled with horror. DNA tests are expected to be completed about the end of 1999.

Researchers mentioned in reports include: Gene Savoy, Andean Explorer's Foundation, Reno, Nevada. Savoy contends that the mummies are the remains of people representing early (but unexplained) South American contact with people originally from Israel, Egypt, India, Phoenicia, while another people named are... Vikings
Sonia Guillen, Peruvian expert on mummies
Adriana Von Hagen, Peruvian historian and archaeologist
John Hemming, author of The Conquest of the Incas, a former director of The Royal Geographical Society.
(Reported 21 November 1998)

About 800AD: About 800AD the Khazar King Obadiah reforms the Judaism of the Khazars, absorbs The Talmud and other Jewish writings earlier de-emphasised, and builds synagogues and schools. There were evidently politics afoot, as a disaffected Khazar group, the Kabars, Jewish in religion, fled from the Khazar heartlands and moved toward Hungary, a leading group amongst the early Magyars who would occupy Hungary. By about 900AD, the Pecheneg Turks had forced the Magyars to migrate west into Hungary. By 950AD the Magyars had actually invited into Turkey. (David Keys)

C7th-C11th: The lost story of the Khazars of the Middle East, who0 were disinclined to become either Christian or Moslem, so declared Judaism as their state religion. See The Story of the Non-Semitic Jews by Tawfic Abdul-Fattah at: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/63/006.html

800AD: Approx, Vikings, Denmark, Appearance of first Danish king, Godfred.

800AD: Islam, The Aglabite Dynasty is founded at Kairwan. In Spain, the Franks invade Catalonia and retake Barcelona from Moslem control. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

800AD: Charles the Great is crowned Emperor in basilica of St Peter's, Rome, by Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day. Is this a sign that the barbarians are tamed?

800AD: Vikings, Norwegians begin to penetrate the Orkneys coastal area of Scotland, bothering the Picts. However, the Norwegians only penetrate on the mainland in the areas of Caithness and Ross, as shows in the history of the Earls of Caithness. About 800, Vikings also bother the Christian Celts of the Isle of Man. They tend to land on the north of the Isle of Man. Later the Vikings establish a system of government, the Tynwald.

799AD: Further Viking raids on Aquitaine coast, France.

798AD: By about now, Norwegian Vikings are attacking the coasts of Aquitaine, France.

797-798AD: Islam, Victories for Byzantines over Islam till empress Irene sues for peace. The Khazars are driven out of Armenia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

796AD: Islam: Spain, Death of Hisham, succeeded by his son Al-Hakim, who suppresses his rebellious uncle. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

796AD: Charlemagne of France destroys the Asiatic Avars on the Middle Danube.

795AD: First recording Viking attack on Ireland, at Lambey. Norsemen had sailed south from Skye in Scotland. They are probably Norwegians.

794AD-1191AD: Japan: HEIAN PERIOD - The imperial court establishes Heian-kyo (Kyoto), which represents a capital of peace and tranquillity (laid out on larger scale than Nara; again on Chinese model of Chang-an, but Buddhist temples were excluded from city proper. Kyoto becomes permanent site of residence of emperors until 1868 Isolation, Assimilation and Naturalization of Cultural Influences Malevolent influence of Buddhism on politics, especially the priest Dookyoo, who was close to Empress Shootoku (r. 764-770), the last empress to reign in Japanese history Development of urban culture (city vs. country dichotomy) Zenith of courtly or aristocratic life-style emperor, court, and bluebloods (Kuge) wealth derives from large land estates or shooen authority derives from bloodlines, cultural prestige emperors "reign, but do not rule".

794AD: Heian-kyo (Kyoto) becomes capital of Japan.

794-1185AD: Heian period in Japan; more independence from China.

794AD: England, A Viking raid on a Northumbrian monastery, possible at Jarrow, is thwarted. (Dixon, Barbarian Europe, p. 117.) In 795, Vikings raid the western sea, Iona, an island off the Irish coast.

793AD: Vikings, England, Lindisfarne Monastery, A Norwegian Viking raiding party descends, it is said, accompanied by high winds, lightning and fiery dragons in the sky, on Holy Island, off the Northumbrian Coast. Events widely regarded as beginning of "Viking Age".

792AD: Moslem invasion of Southern France.

792-793AD: Islam, Suppression of the party formed by Yahya b. Abdallah. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

792AD: Islamic invasion of Southern France, from Spain.

789AD: Islam, Arabs invade Rumania. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

788AD: Islam, Spain, Death of Abd ar-Rahman. His son and appointed heir, Hisham I, succeeds. He proclaims a holy war and finishes the mosque of Cordova. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

786-820AD: Serious Norwegian Viking raids from three ships from the north, down the east and west coasts of Britain, the Dorset coast. See archaeological finds at Jarlshof in Shetland. Also, the Jarls (Earls) of Orkney. In the time of the Wessex King Brihtric (786-802).

786AD: Islam, Hadi attempts to exclude Harun from the caliphate, and is smothered at instigation of his mother. Harun ar-Rashid, the most celebrated of the caliphs, succeeds without opposition. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

786AD: Islam in Spain, Suppression of the rebellion of Beni Yusuf.

786-809AD: Reign of Harun-al-Rashid, greatest Abbasid ruler.

785AD: Islam, Rebellion of Mahdi's eldest son, Musa, because Harun is preferred as heir. Death of Mahdi on way to crush this rebellion. Mus takes the title Hadi and succeeds. Rising of Hosein b. Ali is suppressed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

645-784AD: Japanese court imitates Chinese form of government

710AD-784AD: Nara, south of present-day Kyoto, is capital of Japan.

782AD: Islam, Renewal of war between Byzantines and Mohammedans. Victory for Byzantium in Cilicia. Harun ar-Rashid takes command. He marches to the Bosphorus, and compels empress Irene to pay annual tribute. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

780AD: Islam, Capture of Semaluos by Harun ar-Rashid. In Spain, capture of Saragossa, Hosein is taken and executed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

776AD: Islam, Destruction of Charlemagne's army at Roncesvalles, on its return from the invasion to restore Hosein to power in Spain. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.)

775AD: Islam, Death of Mansur, succeeded by his son, Muhammed, Al-Mahdi. He restores peace and improves internal conditions. Revolt of Hakim in Khorasan. Continued invasion of Asia Minor. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

770sAD: Aral Sea area: The Turcic people the Oghus, have reasons to flee west and arrive to the Aral Sea area, to its north, west and east. Some of these are the Seljuk Turks, who in 985 converted to Islam. In 1040 a coalition of Seljuks and Oghuzis war on the Qarlug "slave-soldier" empire and win. The Qarlugs retreated into India. (David Keys)

765AD: Arabs with Bukhtu Yishu found hospital in Baghdad.

765AD: Arabs discover surviving Greek texts near Baghdad.

763AD: Islam, Muhammed Mahdi falls in battle after being proclaimed caliph. His brother Ibrahim also revolts and is killed in battle. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

763AD-764AD: From about 400 A.D. to around 900, the climate became much colder. The winters of 763-764 and 859-860 were extraordinarily cold, with the ice so thick in the Adriatic near Venice that it could hold up heavily-loaded wagons. There was ice even on the Nile.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World.)

762AD: Abbasid dynasty ruling Iraq makes Baghdad its capital.

762AD: Islam: Baghdad made the capital of the Islamic Caliphate. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

760AD: approx: China invented paper money 500 years before Marco Polo brought the idea of Europe. Europeans took 300 years to realise that printed money could be a substitute for coined money. China had hyperinflation, the first recorded case of it, in 1020AD, as war costs and imports made for a coin-famine, and private banks over-reacted by printing paper money.

759AD: Japan: MANYOOSHU (Collection of Myriad Leaves), Japan's first anthology of poems 4516 native Japanese poems in 20 volumes, covering 400 yrs of poetry (from Emperor Nintoku (d. 399) to 759) beginning of written poetic tradition; imperial patronage after 905 Waka (Japanese songs, syllable count 5-7-5-7-7) cf. Tanka (short poems) and Chooka (long poems); Themes - romantic love, nature, seasons (Spring vs. Autumn), change, parting and separation, passage of time techniques - fixed epithets, pillow words, pivot words Further development of kana symbols (manyoogana) Great poets (e.g., Hitomaro, Yakamochi) Manyo spirit - expansive, life-affirming, natural 8c - SHOOSOOIN (Imperial storehouse/museum) - 10,000 treasures from Middle East (in particular from Iran (silk road)), India, China, Korea, etc. - raised platform construction of a rice granary (Nara today: has withstood abandonment, samurai wars, WWII to become the greatest surviving repository of Buddhist and continental art and architecture from China of the Six Dynasties (220-589), Suit Dynasty (589-618), and Tang Dynasty (618-907), as well as other parts of Asia).

757-769AD: Offa is king of the Mercians in England. (Germanic peoples south of the Humber River.)

756-757AD: Islam, Invasion of Asia Minor, capture of Malatiya, defeat of the Byzantines in Cilicia (Mediterranean/southern coast of Turkey). Seven years' truce with the emperor. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

756AD: Islam, Foundation of the western Omayyad caliphate. The Omayyad Dynasty has dates 756-1031AD. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) In 756, Abd ar-Rahman I defeats the Abbaside emirs, and founds his kingdom at Cordova. His reign sees constant warfare, he has to suppress many revolts.

755AD: Islam, Mohammedans in Spain elect Abd ar-Rahman b. Moawiyah as caliph, ending years of disunity since 715 or so. Spain is lost to the Abbasids. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

754: Pope Stephen II crosses the Alps to anoint the new Frankish King, Pepin. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

754AD: Islam, Death of Abul-Abbas. He has designated Abu Jafar (Al-Mansur) his cousin as his successor. Abdallah b. Ali revolts, but is defeated at Nisibia. Several risings are suppressed. Revolt arises in Africa, which now is only nominally guided by the caliphs. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

752AD: Japan: Founding of Toodaiji Temple (rebuilt 3 times), The Great Buddha, Kegon Sect largest wooden structure in the world Bronze-cast Great Buddha (Daibutsu) -dedicated in 752- Buddha of Light (Vairochana or Dainichi Nyorai) parallels other mammoth Buddhist temples built in Asia at same time (e.g., Borobudor Temple in Indonesia, Pagan Temple in Myamar/Burma) All reality is mirrored in every other part of reality "A speck of dust rises in the air: it contains the whole of the earth; a single flower blooms: the whole world blossoms forth."

751AD: Frankish King Pepin makes himself king, deposing the dynasty of Clovis. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

751AD: Chinese secrets of making paper (from 105AD), go to Europe, as some Chinese papermakers are captured by Arabs during a battle in Central Asia.

751AD: Arabs win Battle of River Talas, central Asia; Islam comes to China.

751AD: Arabs learn Chinese paper-making techniques in Samarkand.

751AD: Japan: KAIFUUSOO, first collection of Chinese poetry written by Japanese.

751AD: Italy: The Lombard invaders capture Ravenna.

751AD: Muslims defeat a Chinese army at Talas, north of the Oxus River, is what is now Kyrgyzstan. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August, 2005)

C8th: Spain: Commercial whaling is started by the Basques as early as the C8th.

750AD: Islam: As result of ferment in eastern part of the Empire, the Abbasid Abul-Abbas assumes title of Caliph. War between Omayyads and Abbasids. Battle of the Zab. Defeat of Merwan. Downfall of the Omayyad dynasty. Abul-Abbas is established in the Caliphate. He has all the Omayyad princes except Abd ar-Rahman b. Moawiyah, who escapes to Africa, put to death. Revolts arise due to his cruelty, but are suppressed. Abul-Abbas makes his residence at Anbar. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

747AD: Founding of the Saharan caravan city of Morocco, Sijilmasa, in Southern Morocco. It becomes evident that in Southern Sahara, salt is a very valuable commodity, worth up to the price of gold by weight. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

746AD: Islam: Mohammedan invasion of Cyprus. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

744AD: Islam: Death of Walid in battle with his rival. Yazid III succeeds. Signs of disintegration appear. Abd ar-Rahman b. Muhammed declares himself independent in Africa. Revolt of Emessa over Walid's death. Merwan, Yazid's grandfather, attempts to obtain Caliphate. Yazid makes him governor of Mesopotamia. Death of Yazid after reign of six months, succeeded by his brother Ibrahim. Merwan marches against Damascus. Ibrahim flees after reign of two months. Merwan II is acknowledged as Caliph. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

743AD: Islam: Death of Hisham, succeeded by his nephew Walid II, whose debaucheries make him hated. Yazid, son of Walid I, assumes title of Caliph and is received at Damascus in absence of Walid. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

740AD: Khazars of Northern Turkey convert to Judaism. David Keys writes that the stability of the Turkic empire was dislodged as the ruling Ashina clan was overtaken by Turks known as Uighurs, and their allies. Qarlugs. The Qarlugs then are attacked by the Uighurs and flee west in 745 and they take over the western outposts of the Ashinas.

739AD: Islam, Byzantine victory at Acroinon. Death of Sid (Said) al-Battal. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

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737AD: Islam: Peace restored in the Abbasid faction. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

734AD: Islam, Mohammedan invasion of Asia Minor. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

732AD: Charles Martel (the grandfather of Charlemagne) stops the advance of Moslems between Poitiers and Tours.

732AD: "Islam versus Europe": Battle of Tours in France.

Circa 731AD: The Venerable Bede publishes his book, Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples. Bede popularised the custom of dating events from the supposed birth date of Jesus Christ.

726AD: Islam: Mohammedans invade Cappadocia (Central Turkey, part-bounded by Taurus Mountains). (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

725AD: Islamic armies have moved up the Rhone River.

725AD: Islam: Abbasid revolt at Balkh. Abbasid troubles continue. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

724AD: Islam: Death of Yazid. His son Hisham, the appointed heir, succeeds. He is a severe and pious ruler. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

721AD: Islam: Death of Ibn Muhallab in battle. Mohammedans cross the Pyrenees and capture Narbonne, France, but are defeated at Toulouse, and they retire under Abd ar-Rahman. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

720AD: Islam: Death of Omar. Yazid II, son of Abdul-Malik, succeeds. Yazid B. Muhallab, who has been in disgrace for some years, makes a small army and takes Basra (Bassora). (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

720AD: Japan: NIHON-SHOKI or NIHONGI (Chronicles of Japan), Japan's first written mythology.

718AD: Islam: Repulse of the Mohammedans from Constantinople, in revenge the Caliph excludes all Christians from servants of the state. Omar's reign is not especially warlike. This marks the beginning of the Abbasid movement in favour of the descendants of Abbas, an uncle of The Prophet, acquiring the Caliphate.

717AD: Islam: Siege of Pergamus, siege of Constantinople, death of Suleiman, the appointed heir Omar II, grandson of Merwan I, succeeds. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

716AD: Islam: Mohammedans invade Asia Minor, siege of Amorium, the town is relieved by Leo the Isaurian. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

715AD: Islam: Death of Walid and accession of Suleiman, the pre-designated heir. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

712AD: Islam, Mohammedans take Antioch in Pisidia. Great success for Moslem generals Kotaiba and Muhammed b. Kasim in Asia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

712AD: Japan: Kojiki - (Records of Ancient Matters), Japan's first written history book,

712AD: China: Tang emperor Xuanzong succeeds to throne. Legend has it that he develops desire to explore the South Seas but is talked out of it by Confucians. (Levathes, When China Rules The Seas)

707-711AD: Drought in North Africa. Ireland had a drought in 714.

711-712AD: Islam: Arab and Berber armies cross the Strait of Gibraltar, Africa to Spain. The Moors are the Mauri, a Berber people based at Cordoba, hence the name of Spain's Moslem invaders, Moors.

711AD: Muslim armies invade both Spain in the west, and the area of Sind, roughly modern Pakistan. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

711AD: The Moroccan port of the western Mediterranean, Ceuta, becomes the launch-point of the Muslim invasion of Spain. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

711AD: Omayyads conquer Sind and found first Moslem state in India.

711AD: Tariq ibn Ziyad lands at Gibraltar, begins Moorish conquest of Spain.

711AD: Islam, Moslem forces occupy Spain. By 717, Moslem forces are trying to take Constantinople. Religion as never before became a means of securing a sense of personal identity, somewhat replacing senses of regionalism, nationalism, views on economic interest, cultural/racial traditions. (From Runciman on The First Crusade.) (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907, Vol. 8, pp. 38ff.) By 715, almost all the Iberian peninsula except for mountainous northern areas, is under Moslem control. Many emirs succeed each other. The Moslems move north into France but are repulsed by Charles Martel in 732.

711AD: Islam: Invasion of Spain by Moslems at instigation of Julian, governor of Ceuta. Battle of Xerxes. Tarik destroyed the Visigothic Kingdom. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

710 - 784AD: Japan: NARA PERIOD - Imperial court moved to the newly built city Nara, Japan's first permanent capital and urban centre (Heijoo-kyo) - the court left the old city to escape Buddhist political influence City laid out on symmetrical grid-pattern of Changan, capital of T'ang China.

709AD: Islam, Conquest of Tyana. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

705AD: Islam, Death of Abdul-Malik, succession of his brother Walid I, earlier designated as heir to Caliphate. Schools are founded, public works undertaken, a culminating glory for the Omayyad. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

702AD: A major volcanic eruption in Northern Hemisphere possibly disrupts food production.

701AD: Japan: TAIHOO CODE (creates administrative offices and legal system).

700AD-900AD: From India, the Cholo Dynasty transmits Hinduism to Burma and Northern Sumatra.

Circa 700AD: Plaques halve European population.

698AD-705AD: Moslem forces end the Roman control of North Africa, a seven-year campaign. Later invading Southern Europe. Conquering Spain in 711. Moving into France by 718-732AD. (David Keys) By 700 it seems that Moslems campaign against the Berbers of North Africa.

697AD: Venice elects its first local leader, the mayor, or Doge.

697-698AD: Islam, Hassan invades Africa, takes Carthage. Last remnants of Roman Empire disappear from southern shores of the Mediterranean. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

697AD: Sweeping Arab Moslems capture Tunisia, a state with parts of Algeria. Matters here are later wrecked by Bedouin tribes from the East. After 700, Arab governance took steps to stop Bedouins wrecking agricultural productions.

697AD: Italy: Appearance of the first elected Doge of the Venetians.

Kharijites revolt in Jazira and Ahwaz. Battle of the Karun. Moslems have campaigns against Kahina in North Africa. Moslems withdraw to Barqa. Moslems makes advances in Transoxiana and occupy Kish (Southern Afghanistan, modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, parts of Khazakstan). in 706-712 Moslems took Bukhara and Samarkand. To make gains in this region the Moslems had to variously fight their own army mutiny, Sogdians and Turgesh, plus Tang-dynasty Chinese. Moselsm were reignocrede from Syria and retook lost ground by 741. In 751 Moslems defeated a Tang Chinese army at Battle of Talas.

692AD: Islam: Death of Ibn Zobair. The Omayyad rule is recognised without dispute. In 692-693 the Mohammedans ravage Asia Minor and Armenia, but are compelled to accept peace. The fall of Mecca. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) Death of ibn Zubayr. Abdul Malik becomes the sole Caliph.

691AD: As currency, the first dinar is struck at Damascus as part of the Middle East. The word dinar is derived from the Byzantine denarion, while the Islamic silver coin, the dirham, was based on the Byzantine drachme. Thus the Islamic world of trade used a bimetallic currency. The system of the circulation of currency was known as rawaj and regarded as a social and religious duty, while the hoarding of gold and silver was forbidden by The Koran. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

691AD: Islam, In Jerusalem, The Dome of the Rock is completed for Caliph Abdul-Malik.

689AD: Abdul-Malik has Amru put to death. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

688-725AD: King Ine reigns over the Saxons of England/Devon.

685-687AD: Islam: Rebellion of Mukhtar, who is defeated and slain. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

685AD: Islam: Death of Merwan, his son Abdul-Malik, succeeds. Peace is made with the emperor Justinian II. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

C7thAD, approx, The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has a population of 200,000 foreign residents, including Arabs, Persians, Malays, Indians, Africans and Turks.

In C7th-8th, population of Europe shrinks to about 14-17 million people.
In C7th-8th, is underpopulation in Europe, and undercultivated lands lead to undernourishment. There are maybe 22 million Europeans in 950AD, or 42 million in 1000AD?
684AD: Vikings are active about 684 in Scotland, becoming the Earls - Jarls of Orkney and later dealing with the Canmore/Stuarts, by 1152; and dealing with some of the early Earls Caithness of Scotland.

684AD: Islam: Death of Yazid, his weak son, Moawiyah II, reigns but a few months. Merwan is elected to succeed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

683AD, Islam: Rebellion and sack of Medina. The cause of Ibn Zobair grows. He has a rival court at Medina and rebuilds the Kaaba. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

680AD: Islam: Death of Moawiyah, Yazid I succeeds, the Ali faction refuses recognition. Hosein, son of Ali and his company are slain. In 681, Abdallah ben Zobair proclaims himself Caliph. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

678AD: Islam: 30 years' peace is made with Constantinople. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

677AD: Islamic world: Siege of Constantinople.

676AD: By 676 the Bulgars are extorting tribute from Constantine IV. The Avars were also moving west, defeated the Bulgarian Utiguri tribe and by middle of C6th have areas between Volga and Elbe rivers.
See Patrick Howarth, Atilla, King of the Huns: The Man and the Myth. London, Robinson, 2001.

676AD: Islam: Yazid, son of Moawiyah, is appointed heir-apparent. Hereditary nomination becomes a precedent in Islam. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

673-677AD: Islam: Mohammedans besiege Constantinople but are driven off by Greek fire. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

671AD: England: From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles - “In this year was a great mortality of birds”... (Could this have been a case of widespread avian flu? – Ed)

670AD: Moslem conquest of Kabul (Afghanistan).

669AD: Islam: Great invasion of Sicily. In 670, foundation of Kairwan. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

668AD: Islam: Islam advances to Chalcedon and holds Amorium for a time. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

663AD: Whitby, England, Synod, a decision that re dating of Easter, baptism, Roman practice and not indigenous Celtic practice will prevail.

662-663AD: Islam: Great invasion of Asia Minor. Death of Amru. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

661-750AD: The Moslem Omayyads rule in Damascus, Syria.

Update re The Dark Ages

For an entertainingly controversial depiction of The Dark Ages not as dark but as an Age of Light, albeit populated by demonized sets of people known as Huns, Vikings, Goths (Visigoths in Spain/Ostrogoths to their east), Vandals, see a c.2012 documentary The Dark Ages - Age of Light narrated by British art critic Waldemar Jarusczek. The Dark Ages are dated roughly C4thAD (fall of Roman Empire) to tempe William Conqueror of England, 1066 and all that. Jarusczek in four episodes treats the early Christians, the so called Barbarians, the Islamic World and then the Vikings or The Northmen. Jarusczek's views have not escaped illuminating criticisms by other British critics, including Mary Beard (author of SPQR), especially concerning early Christians. Notes include: ... The Ostrogoths (who in Christian religion were Arians) had located in Italy based at Ravenna and enjoyed about two centuries of hegemony. In Spain, the Visigoths (also Arians) appeared from the East, the western brothers of the Ostrogoths, about 500AD-700AD, and were Arians surrounded by Roman Catholics. About 661AD they were fighting the Basques, seemingly to the north of the Visigoths, matters to be further investigated in other 2016 writings by Dan Byrnes. The "Dark Ages" stretched from the end of the Roman Empire C4th C5th, to 1066 re William the Conqueror, but it's all underestimated, art-evidence gives an age of light not darkness, Christian art had magic, mystery and transcendance, its greatest achievement was the search for the face of Jesus (since no one had any idea what he had looked like) ... the said search was "finally successful", see a happy-go-lucky Jesus of the period, a product arising before the long reign of the guilt trips of the Middle Ages, The Turin Shroud is a hoax of the guilty Middle Ages. Episode 2 of this documentary The Huns were active by 376AD, harried the Goths and the Huns also ran a protection racket, Not unlike the later Vikings in behvaiour, the Ostrogoths were also Arians, when Arianism was a heresy, eg in Ravenna Italy, the Ostrogoths were led by Theodoric, who grew up in Constantinople under the Byzantine Emperor Zeno. Theodoric was based in Ravenna and ruled all Italy, in early C6thAD, Theodoric died 526AD, at Ravenna. By 500AD in Spain the Visigoths acted, to 700AD, were Arians surrounded by Roman Catholics.

661AD: Islam: Kharejite conspiracy to murder Ali, Moawiyah and Amru. Only Ali falls. Alis' son Hassan succeeds, but abdicates in favour of Moawiyah, who then heads a united caliphate. Opposition to him slowly reduces. The Islamic capital is moved to Damascus. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

660AD: Islam: Truce between Ali and Moawiyah, the caliphate is divided into east and west, (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) David Keys writes however that the westward spread of Islam was prevented by the Khazar state, nominally Jewish, based about the Black Sea. Keys thinks this prevented the western spread of Islam into pagan Eastern Europe and even to Scandinavia. In the longer-term, the Khazars as non-Semitic Jews became the Jewry of north-eastern Europe (Lithuania, Poland, Russia), the Ashkenazim, who would have a genetic contribution from Turks, Slavs, or Magyars. The Khazars were either Cohens (descendants of Jewish chief priests) or Levites (assistant priests) but since they were not ethnically Jews they fabricated a national origin as a "lost tribe of Israel". Thus they saw themselves not as converts but returnees to Judaism, descendants of Simeon the brother of the founder of the tribe of Levy.

659: Islam: Moslem conquest of Egypt.

658AD: Islam: Decision of the Umpires, Ali and Moawiyah, the latter wins. Peace made with the Byzantine Empire. Egypt conquered for Moawiyah. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

657AD: Islam: Ali invades northern Syria. Battle of Siffin. The theocratic faction rebels against Ali. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

656AD: Islam: Murder of Othman by a party in opposition to growing worldliness of Islam. Leader of the opposition, and son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet, is Ali, who succeeds. Battle of the Camel. Moawiyah, governor of Syria, heads the opponents of Ali, and incites them to revenge. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

655AD: Defeat and death of the Mercian ruler, Penda, in England.

654AD: West Gothic king Reccesnwith issues new body of laws for his people.

653AD: An Islamic navy seizes Roman Cyprus and by 670, Constantinople. (David Keys).

652AD: Islamic empire reaches borders of India. (David Keys)

Circa 650AD: Revelations of Mohammed are written; they become The Koran.

650AD approx: Jakarta, Indonesia: Villagers have discovered remains of an ancient Hindu-Buddhist temple in West Java that may provide new clues on the origins of the Javanese people. The village is Cangkuang Rancaekek, 132km s/w of Jakarta. The temple may date to C7thAD, possibly older than Indonesia's famous Borobudur Buddhist temple in Yogyakarta, Java and a neighbouring Prambanan Hindu temple. (Islam did not spread through Indonesia till the 14th and 15th centuries. Indonesia's earliest Hindu temples are in Batujajar, West Java, dating from C2nd-C4thAD. (Reported 24 August 2002)

649AD: Islam: Invasion of Cyprus in 649, Conquest of Aradus in 650, Conquest of Armenia in 652, Conquest of Rhodes in 654, in 655 is defeat of emperor Constans by Mohammedans in naval battle off Mt Phoenix in Lycia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

647AD: Islam: Invasion of Africa by Abdallah, Arabs expel the Romans. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

617-618AD: Avar forces move further into Roman territory. In 623AD they attacked Heraclius in Thrace. By 626 the Avars threatened Constantinople. In 616 the Persians had threatened Constantinople. By 618 the Persians have the Levant, Syria, Egypt, Libya and most of Anatolia/Turkey. Thrace, Greece and Italy had been over-run by Avars, Slavs and Lombards. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

611AD: The Persians take Cappadocia and Antioch. In 613 they took Damascus and in 614 they took Jerusalem, killing Christians or sending them to Babylon. Roman areas suffered defeatism.

610-620AD: Arabia: Period when much of The Koran is written down following revelations to The Prophet Mohammad. This follows a period when Jews and Christians had lately had cause to see military and other problems in apocalyptic terms, a time of religious intensity. Arab forces by 612AD became ambitious enough to attack Roman forces in Syria but then withdrew. In general, Islamic forces were to take advantage of the growing weakness of both Persians and Romans. (David Keys.)

Wall Street Journal World News

Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Munster, Germany -- Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life.

So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.

Theology Without Muhammad

(See a translated excerpt from "Islamic Theology Without the Historic Muhammad -- Comments on the Challenges of the Historical-Critical Method for Islamic Thinking" by Professor Kalisch.)

Muslims, not surprisingly, are outraged. Even Danish cartoonists who triggered global protests a couple of years ago didn't portray the Prophet as fictional. German police, worried about a violent backlash, told the professor to move his religious-studies center to more-secure premises.

"We had no idea he would have ideas like this," says Thomas Bauer, a fellow academic at Munster University who sat on a committee that appointed Prof. Kalisch. "I'm a more orthodox Muslim than he is, and I'm not a Muslim."

When Prof. Kalisch took up his theology chair four years ago, he was seen as proof that modern Western scholarship and Islamic ways can mingle -- and counter the influence of radical preachers in Germany. He was put in charge of a new program at Munster, one of Germany's oldest and most respected universities, to train teachers in state schools to teach Muslim pupils about their faith.

Muslim leaders cheered and joined an advisory board at his Centre for Religious Studies. Politicians hailed the appointment as a sign of Germany's readiness to absorb some three million Muslims into mainstream society. But, says Andreas Pinkwart, a minister responsible for higher education in this north German region, "the results are disappointing."

Prof. Kalisch, who insists he's still a Muslim, says he knew he would get in trouble but wanted to subject Islam to the same scrutiny as Christianity and Judaism. German scholars of the 19th century, he notes, were among the first to raise questions about the historical accuracy of the Bible.

Many scholars of Islam question the accuracy of ancient sources on Muhammad's life. The earliest biography, of which no copies survive, dated from roughly a century after the generally accepted year of his death, 632, and is known only by references to it in much later texts. But only a few scholars have doubted Muhammad's existence. Most say Muhammad’s life is better documented than that of Jesus.

"Of course Muhammad existed," says Tilman Nagel, a scholar in Gouttingen and author of a new book, "Muhammad: Life and Legend." The Prophet differed from the flawless figure of Islamic tradition, Prof. Nagel says, but "it is quite astonishing to say that thousands and thousands of pages about him were all forged" and there was no such person.

All the same, Prof. Nagel has signed a petition in support of Prof. Kalisch, who has faced blistering criticism from Muslim groups and some secular German academics. "We are in Europe," Prof. Nagel says. "Education is about thinking, not just learning by heart."

Prof. Kalisch's religious studies centre recently removed a sign and erased its address from its Web site. The professor, a burly 42-year- old, says he has received no specific threats but has been denounced as apostate, a capital offense in some readings of Islam.

"Maybe people are speculating that some idiot will come and cut off my head," he said during an interview in his study.

A few minutes later, an assistant arrived in a panic to say a suspicious-looking digital clock had been found lying in the hallway. Police, called to the scene, declared the clock harmless.

A convert to Islam at age 15, Prof. Kalisch says he was drawn to the faith because it seemed more rational than others. He embraced a branch of Shiite Islam noted for its sceptical bent. After working briefly as a lawyer, he began work in 2001 on a postdoctoral thesis in Islamic law in Hamburg, to go through the elaborate process required to become a professor in Germany.

The Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. that year appalled Mr. Kalisch but didn't dent his devotion. Indeed, after he arrived at Munster University in 2004, he struck some as too conservative. Sami Alrabaa, a scholar at a nearby college, recalls attending a lecture by Prof. Kalisch and being upset by his doctrinaire defense of Islamic law, known as Sharia.

In private, he was moving in a different direction. He devoured works questioning the existence of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Then "I said to myself: You've dealt with Christianity and Judaism but what about your own religion? Can you take it for granted that Muhammad existed?"

He had no doubts at first, but slowly they emerged. He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins bearing Muhammad's name did not appear until the late 7th century -- six decades after the religion did.

He traded ideas with some scholars in Saarbrucken who in recent years have been pushing the idea of Muhammad's non-existence. They claim that "Muhammad" wasn't the name of a person but a title, and that Islam began as a Christian heresy.

Prof. Kalisch didn't buy all of this. Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds and called Muhammad's existence "more probable than not." By early this year, though, his thinking had shifted. "The more I read, the historical person at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable," he says.

He has doubts, too, about the Quran. "God doesn't write books," Prof. Kalisch says.

Some of his students voiced alarm at the direction of his teaching. "I began to wonder if he would one day say he doesn't exist himself," says one. A few boycotted his lectures. Others sang his praises.

Prof. Kalisch says he "never told students 'just believe what Kalisch thinks' " but seeks to teach them to think independently. Religions, he says, are "crutches" that help believers get to "the spiritual truth behind them." To him, what matters isn't whether Muhammad actually lived but the philosophy presented in his name.

This summer, the dispute hit the headlines. A Turkish-language German newspaper reported on it with gusto. Media in the Muslim world picked up on it.

Germany's Muslim Coordinating Council withdrew from the advisory board of Prof. Kalisch's centre. Some Council members refused to address him by his adopted Muslim name, Muhammad, saying that he should now be known as Sven.

German academics split. Michael Marx, a Quran scholar at the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, warned that Prof. Kalisch's views would discredit German scholarship and make it difficult for German scholars to work in Muslim lands. But Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, an Islamic studies scholar at the University of Marburg, set up a Web site called solidaritymuhammadkalisch.com and started an online petition of support.

Alarmed that a pioneering effort at Muslim outreach was only stoking antagonism, Munster University decided to douse the flames. Prof. Kalisch was told he could keep his professorship but must stop teaching Islam to future school teachers.

The professor says he's more determined than ever to keep probing his faith. He is finishing a book to explain his thoughts. It's in English instead of German because he wants to make a bigger impact. "I'm convinced that what I'm doing is necessary. There must be a free discussion of Islam," he says.

(Almut Schoenfeld in Berlin contributed to this article.)

610AD-641AD: Emperor Heraclius fails to stem the Arab threat and loses Africa, Spain and Northern Italy.

646-700AD: Political and social reforms (Taika) take place in Japan

To 640AD: Arab forces take Palestinian cities such as Dara, Caesarea, Antioch, the isthmus of Suez. Iraq was taken by 637AD. In 639, Egypt was invaded by Moslem Arabs. In 641, Babylon (Old Cairo) was taken. Alexandria was recaptured in 645. By 700AD, Roman Africa was under Moslem control.

645AD: Japan: The TAIKA REFORM (abolishes most private land ownership and aims for the central government like China, but gradually into the hands of private owners - hereditary privilege of certain families, tax-free estate - temples and shrines).

644AD: Islam: Death of Omar succeeded by Othman, a weak ruler who allows Islamic power to fall into the hands of the Koreish nobility. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

640AD: Due to climate problems the once-powerful Uighurs now resident in Western China suffer famine, civil strife and become subjugated by fierce Kyrgyz tribesmen from the hilly areas they once controlled. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

626AD: Constantinople is now surrounded by Avar and Slav vassals in the west and Persians in the East, though Constantinople beat back both enemies. Heraclius managed to re-take territory in western Asia and North Africa. By 630, both the Romans and Persians were exhausted. Abilities to muster armies of 100,000 men were reduced and armies were now 30,000-40,000 men. The rise of Islam would in years to come destroy the Persian Empire and reduce the Roman Empire by half. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

624AD: Islamic forces have their first great victory against the pagan forces of Mecca. (David Keys). 622AD: a near-bankrupt Roman administration at Constantinople begins to demand the Church grants some of its wealth to the remaining Roman empire. This only encourages the Avars to demand more from Constantinople. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

642AD: Moslem armies complete their conquest of Egypt. Rome loses its major supplier of grain. Moslems then take Libya (then Cyrenaica). (David Keys).)

642AD: Islamic invasion of Egypt.

641AD: Islam: Battle of Nehavend, great victory for Islam over Persians, and many Persian nobility come to terms with Islam. Yezdegerd the king flees to a remote corner and holds a vestige of power till about 651-652. Alexandria is captured. Holding Alexandria means Arabs are now masters of the Eastern Spice trade, and once they controlled the Persian Gulf they controlled all useful East-West trade.(Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

640AD: Islam, The Arabs invade Egypt and burn the library of Alexandria (a possible myth of blame, but see reports on problems for the Library of Alexandria caused by Christians). However, the Arabs preserve the use of engineering skills known in Egypt at the time, while Europe remains ignorant. (Source: James/Thorpe).

639AD: Invasion of Egypt by Moslem, Amru. David Keys writes that Moslems take more Roman towns, Caesarea and Ascalon. Moslems move into Egypt, Armenia and Persia itself. Persia falls at Battle of Nerhavend. In 638-639 are years of famine and plague in Arabia and the Levant, a website says.

638AD: Modern Iraq: Basra becomes a major port from now, begun as a military camp/garrison town. Its population explodes from nothing to 200,000 in sixty years. It becomes a centre for clearance of information on South-East Asia, especially Indonesia. Basra's most famous writer became the C9th polymath, al-Jahiz. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

638AD: Mesopotamia is conquered by Islam and also taken are Tarsus and Diar-Bekr. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

638AD: Edinburgh in Scotland is in the hands of the English.

637AD: Sasanid power in Iran is broken by Moslem Arabs.

637AD and later: Moslem missionary expansionism had meant that Moslems had intervened at Jerusalem from 637AD. Moslems, partly due to their existing maritime skills, were actually invited into Portugal to help with problems by 711. Later they occupied Toledo. They were on Crete by 826, taking the island from the Byzantines, another obviously maritime adventure. Moslems had intervened in Sind (India) by the early Eighth Century, but they did not dominate Northern India till the Eleventh Century. (As the Moghuls they established the Delhi Sultanate by 1206).

637AD: Arabia: Middle East, Battle of Cadesia, or Kadisiya, Moslem victory over the Persians. Omar captures Jerusalem, then Aleppo and Antioch. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

636AD: Traditional date for the introduction of Nestorian Christianity to China. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

630sAD: A group known as Khazars is probably related to the ruling clan of the Turks who had overthrown the Avars. The Khazars carved out an empire from Central Asia (or about the Crimea area of the Black Sea) to the borders of Poland and this became a buffer state between the late-Roman/Byzantine empire and the Moslem empire of the Arab Caliphate. Political and religious tensions finally meant the Khazars converted to Judaism. Jews did live in the Khazar territory, especially about the Crimea (the earliest Jew-Khazars of the Crimea were the Krimchaks). The first major Khazar conversion (King Bulan) to Judaism, which involved little acceptance of The Talmud, seems to be about the second quarter of C7th. (David Keys)

636AD: Kingdom of Ghassan (300-636AD): Founded about 300AD by Thalaba, the first to take the name of king. His successors rule until 636, when Djabala VI surrenders to the Mohammedans. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

635AD: Islam: Moslem capture of Damascus. By 636 are added conquests of Emesa, Heliopolis, Chalcis, Beroae, Edessa, Battle of Yermuk. Heraclius abandons Syria to the Moslems. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) David Keys writes that in 636 a 15-20,000-strong Roman army fights Moslems at Jabiaya-Yarmuk south of Damascus, Romans losing, which collapses Roman power in the Middle East such that much of Syria and Palestine including Jerusalem fall to Moslem control. By 637 the Moslems are ready to invade Persia.

634AD: Moslem conquest of Yemen. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

634AD: Beginning of the Arab empire.

633AD: Moslem forces fight more battles, fight Persians at Battle of River of Blood and the Romans at Battle of Dathin, Ajnadayn and Fahl, and temporarily capture Damascus and Hims. Rome retakes Damascus. (David Keys, Catastrophe).

632AD: Death of Mohammed the Prophet of God. The Prophet's successor is his father-in-law, Abu Bakr (Abu Bekr) who is chosen Caliph, or representative, and pursues an expansionist policy. Persians are expelled from Bahrein. An army under Khalid sets out against the Byzantine Empire. An Arab army moves up the south coast of Palestine and takes Gaza. Abu Bakr reduces a revolt in Nejd and Yemen, and defends Medina.
Omar later succeeds Abu Bakr who died 634AD. In 635 the Arabs take Damascus. In 636 is a decisive victory against Christians, partly due to discontent amongst Christian soldiers who adopt Islam. Emperor Heraclius fears it is a punishment from God for his incestuous marriage with his niece Martina. (Some items from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

On Mecca, or rather on its modest role as an Arabian trading centre, far more modest than Koranic tradition has it, see Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Crone is from Princeton University, USA. Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians created a culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. (2002) David Levering Lewis, God's Crucible, Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215AD. (2008) See also, Darid Fernandez-Moream, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslism, Christians and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain. ISI Books, 2016, reviewed by Paul Monk in The Weekend Australian, 9-10 July 2016. See also, Lesley Hazelton, The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad. "The First Muslim ... makes its subject vivid and immediate. " -- Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Book Review. One blurb for this book states: "The inner meaning of history ... involves speculation and an attempt to get at the truth, subtle explanation of the causes and origins of existing things, and deep knowledge of the how and why of events."-- Ibn-Khaldun.

Updates re Islam

By 21 July 2016, one of our Lost Worlds readers has alerted us to the outbreak (shall we call it) of what looks like a fresh history-and-cultures war between apologists for Christianity and for Islam on the very topic of the origins of Islam. It seems to Lost Worlds as a book reader (or rather in this case, a YouTube viewer), that the Christian apologists have lobbed a ball strongly into the Islamic court, and that the defenders of Islam will soon have to respond intelligently in order to retain credibility. (So Lost Worlds will continue measuring such outcomes from 21 July 2016. It seems important to notice that by 21 July 2016, one of the YouTube treatments on this had internationally had only 3373 views, so one can hardly imagine a controversy has blown up yet!) Now, to name some names on the Christian side of the argument.

We refer to YouTube material distributed in the name of the (Protestant) Christian-promoting www.trinitychannel.com of Michigan USA. This "trinity broadcast channel" is devoted to challenging those who challenge Christian beliefs in The Trinity. It is a "Christ-centred broadcast and training [channel interested in] Apologetics, Theology, Leadership and Missions. Under "Islam" (it apparently has no files re Buddhism) it offers files on Christianity in Islam, Muslim Ministry Outreach. Human Rights. Jihad. Life and Teachings of Muhammad. Refutations. Shariah. In particular, www.trinitychannel.com wishes to cast doubts on ideas that Mohammad ever existed. But are such claims well-based?

At trinitychannel.com we to find a group of well-organised Christian Evangelists who have gathered a seemingly impressive array of well-informed and well-read researchers (and self-confessed apologists for Christianity) who include Jay Smith, Sarah Foster and Beth Grove.

(See for example on YouTube, Jay Smith, An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings. There is a wikipedia page on Jay Smith (born 1954) as a "Christian Apologist" as well as a website on Muslim Responses to Jay Smith's Papers at: www.answering-islam.org/Responses/contrasmith.html). See also: www.debate.org.uk which carries some chronological material Smith has developed. Smith is a grandson of some Christian missionaries and himself has become a Christian missionary to the World of Islam.

Topics these researchers dwell on include: The similarities/differences between Isa/and Jesus in Koranic and non-Koranic treatments (they are not the same entity at all in the view of these Christians; Isa being one of the Koranic names for Jesus). The history/development of Petra in the Jordan Valley, in "the Levant" in an archaeological context. The history/development on the Arabian Peninsula of Medina and Mecca as trading centres in the context of ancient economic history as well as in archaeological contexts. The role of the contents of what is now in The Khaaba, Mecca (a meteorite known as The Black Rock?).

The discussions managed by these Christian apologists (as they call themselves) are all well-read and scholarly in a tidy way, and this website looks forward to hearing from interested parties on the Islamic side of the debate. More to come here

632AD: Death of Mohammed, Prophet of Allah and also death of his daughter Fatima. The Islamic Caliph elected by the Moslems is Abu Bakr. Battle of Zu Qissa, Battle of Zu Abraq. Battle of Buzakha. Battle of Zafar. Battle of Nagra. Moslems act against Bani Tamin and Mosailima. In 631-632 tribe of Thaqif adopts Islam.

Revisionism re the origins of Islam: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm

About Petra, population about 30,000: Today, Petra in Jordan is a well-liked archaeological site which probably will be worked on more intensively in the future. The website Smithsonian.com (article by Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2007) regards Petra as the capital of a trading empire 2000 years ago, home to a Nabatean people, a "rock city". (The mother of Herod the Great was a Nabatean and he spent his earliest years at Petra. He as Herod the Great took over the Petran aarea about 31BC. ) As a city Petra is surrounded by steep valleys and it has few entryways as it is in "a remote mountain valley surrounded by desert". Petra's heyday began about 100BC and lasted for four hundred years, till about 300AD. Archaeologists now view Petra as once a sprawling city of lush gardens, wealthy, eclectic, with fountains, irrigation for orchards, large temples and Roman-style villas. Its people were notable for their carving of buildings and/or facades into soft raw rock. It had an "ingenious" water supply based on captured winter rains used for bathing and other domestic use, wheat growing, fruit growing, winemaking. Petra was a destination for any roving traders from Egypt, Arabia and the wider Levant. Petra is now thought to have thrived for about 1000 years, it has yielded hundreds of thousands of artefacts, and today its archaeological feature is a Great Temple. Revealingly, today it is said that no one knows where the people of Petra, Nabateans, came from, although they are thought to have developed a script to render the Arabic language. Greek writers after the death of Alexander the Great (323AD) complained of Nabateans pillaging either ships or camel caravans. Later the Nabateans decided to make money out of guarding caravans instead of pillaging them, then they began to deal in incense from Southern Arabia. They had been nomads but were now settled, dealing with farming, architecture and sedentary pursuits such as pottery making.

Petra is thought to have been occupied by western-moving nomads from Western Arabia as early as 600BC. By 100BC Petra had a king and was becoming wealthy, and traded for frankincense and myrrh (tree resins) with Oman, spices from India and fabrics from Syria. Petrans were known for not resorting to slavery. Their location was protected by mountains, cliffs and odd geography, and one entryway was called The Siq, a 1000-yard canyon "just wide enough for two camels to pass" - or, between 5 to 200 metres wide. Rome began to covet Petra's trade, incense for religious purposes, spices for medicinal purposes and annexed Petra in 106AD, seemingly without a fight. Petran decorations were drawn from everywhere (eclectic) and various columns of the Great Temple were topped with Asian elephant heads, possibly a clue that the Petrans were not strangers to the trade in Indian elephants going west. Many Petran buildings were free-standing (later ruined by earthquakes) but the Petrans carved out soft stone cliffs for tombs (about 800), hollowed-out caves, facades.
By 300AD or later, Petra began to decline. Sea trade was expanding to the south. Rival caravan-trading cities rose to Petra's north. On 19 May 363AD Petra suffered an earthquake. snf it shuddered but was not shattered. One hundred years later, Christians built a basilica at Petra. A discovery of scrolls indicate Petra was still occupied till about the Seventh Century AD. Little however is known of the Nabatean religion. It is thought they had a chief god, Dushara, and a chief goddess, unnamed, deities who were perhaps equivalent to Zeus, or Hermes and Aphrodite (?). One deity was Allah (sky god, giver of rain, a world-creator deity), who had daughters Lat/Allat (goddess of sky. Moon goddess, possibly adopted from Syria, had much in common with other known mother goddesses), Al-Uzza (or, Venus, also seen as a goddess of fate, goddess of good fortune and so had a cult of sacrificialism) and Manat (goddess of fate, but see re Uzza, various scholars can seem to be confused here). Moslems did not move into Petra till the Seventh Century AD it is thought. In 747AD it suffered another earthquake and became insignificant, only noticed by a few Crusaders during the 12th-13th centuries.

Objections to Revisions on the Origins of Islam

The present webmaster feels that attempts made so far to make useful revisions about the Origins of Islam have not yet been made convincing, so they will be canvassed here.
(Objection 1) Objection I might be the extensive family that Mohammad is said to have come from, an orphan as he became. If Islam arose in Petra, presumably Mohammad as its Prophet had spent time in Petra, and perhaps, so had his relatives. Those who claim that Islam arose in Petra however make no effort to explain Mohammad's large extended family, do not mention them, and while either they or Mohammad himself might even be fabrications, it is not claimed that they are fictional.
General information: Directly north of Petra is a Sanctuary of Lot, fruther north is The Dead Sea, to the west of which is The West Bank. Petra, located in land controlled by the Edomites, confusingly was also known as Salah.
One of the non-Moslem writers cited by revisionists is Dan Gibson, a historian son of a historian, cited by the Christian Evangelists noted above and also cited on a website from Abdullah Sameer, My Journey from Islam. Sameer asks, was Muhammad from Petra or Makkah/Mecca? Then he cites a documentary, The Sacred City, and a book by Dan Gibson, Quranic Geography. Gibson theorizes that 100 years after Mohammad's death, Arabs had a civil war, the Kaaba in Petra was destroyed and its black rock was moved to Mecca. Petra at this time was the home of the Thamud (or, The Nabateans), who traded in spice and incense with the Persian, Greek and Roman empires (but is any proof of this trade offered?) The Nabateans also got bitumen from The Dead Sea area. Petra, north of the Gulf of Aqaba, was west of a hilly area and located in a flood-prone area (a wadi), its water supply would be a major topic for fresh research, but this seems not to be the way revisionist researchers are working. (It gets complicated, Petra is on the slopes of Mount Hor and is close to a town named Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses, where legends are that a brother and sister of Moses are buried.)

The Nabateans were Arabic (that is, Semitic), but allegedly (and confusingly), they wrote/spoke a dialect of Aramaic. The Nabatean area was taken into the Roman Province of Arabia in 106AD and lasted till its last mention about 356AD. It needs to be noted that the Roman province in due course became Byzantine. The historian Tom Holland is also mentioned along with his book, In the Shadow of the Sword. Holland suspects that Mohammad was not a Prophet as much as he was an Arab general and lawgiver. (One website says inside ten years, Mohammad fought 8 major battles, led 18 raids, planned 38 military operations, was twice wounded. This view of The Prophet sees him as a military theorist, reformer of organizations, strategic thinker, political-military leader, soldier and revolutionary, a major army-builder, a leader of jihad (holy war), one of the world's first fearsome masters of insurgency. Not bad for a man who began as illiterate, shocked by his revelations from deity.

Holland suggests that Mecca has no water supply (a claim this website will look into ... ) Mecca, Holland suggests, is not mentioned in texts till 741AD, about a century after Mohammad died. Holland argues that there was also a bubonic plague (a date for it not given) which weakened the Persian and Byzantine empires and allowed Arabs to expand with surprising speed, years before Mohammad was recognised as The Prophet. (Crone says, the name Mohammad does not appear till the 680s, or till about 50 years after his death.) ... This webpage will carry more on these issues as new material is worked on and also try to find dates about claims made ... for it is also said that about a century before Mohammad's time, Arabia had been lush, allowing agriculture, it suffered climate change and became arid, leading to an economic decline which demoralized the people of the Arabian Peninsula so much that they came to need the spiritual reforms proposed by Mohammad's preaching. So as we see, so far we have at least four separate areas of inquiry (1) a claim that the Arabian Peninsula underwent major climate change (2) the large extended family that surrounded Mohammad, where-ever some of them lived, in Mecca, Medina or Petra to the north (3) Claims about the non-significance of Mecca (4) Koranic Geography as discussed by Dan Gibson.
See a journal article: Robert Hoyland, 'Writing the biography of The Prophet Muhammad: Problems and Solutions', History Compass, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2 March 2007, pp. 581-602. See also, Richard A. Gabriel, an article online at www.historynet.com on Muhammad as a warrior-prophet, and Gabriel's various books including Muhammad: Islam's First Great General. Oklahoma University Press, 2007. Robert Spencer, Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins. Wilmington, Delaware, ISI Books, 2012. Robert Carrier (an atheist), website article, Cosmology and the Koran: A Response to Moslem Fundamentalists. (2001/2011) Carrier has a set of articles available on Islam and also on the origins of Christianity. See also a Richard Carrier article on Christianity Debunked using Science and History at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk5OXnQRr6M. For a US attempt to debunk the Origins of Islam, see Richard Hobbs, Why Islam is a Cult, New English Review. See also, books by Lesley Hazleton.

Early results of an inquiry into the family history of Mohammad The Prophet, died 632. The first Rashidun Caliph was Abu Bakr with wife unknown, their daughter Ai'shah was a wife of The Prophet, ... The Second Rashidun Caliph was Omar/Umar (Arabia), assassinated in 644, wife not known yet. Umar had a daughter Hafsah a wife of The Prophet. ie, He was Umar son of Al-Khattab (married to a woman of the Makhzum) son of Nufayl. ... The Third Rashidun Caliph was Uthman ibn Affan, the Fourth Rashidun Caliph was Ali, the husband of Mohammad's daughter, Fatimah, earlier passed over to be Caliph. The second set of Caliphs were Umayyads, one Umayyad Caliph was Muawiya I died 680 married to a Christian, Maysum: he was a son of fix name. The fourth Umayyad Caliph was Marwan I, wife not known yet, who has Abdshams in his lineage, the third Umayyad Caliph was Uthman ibn Affan died 656, married to two known wives, both of whom were Umm Kulthum a daughter of The Prophet, and from the same mother, fix name, her sister Ruqaiya, ... the second Umayyad Caliph was, the first Umayyad Caliph was ...

Arabia and Climate Change: See Vincent Kotwicki and Zaher Al Sulaimani, 'Climate of the Arabian Peninsula - past present and future', International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2009. Huffington Post blog/article, 20 April 2016, How Climatic Stress possibly shaped Early Islam and the history of the Middle East. Climate of Arabian Peninsula changed 300AD-700AD, though geological data is thin. But see historical records of Umayyad (a family from Mecca, of the Quraysh clan; one Umayyad moved the capital of Islam from Medina to Damascus, then the Islamic capital when the Umayyads fell was moved to Baghad), Abbasid and Mamluk eras. Mecca was not self-supplying of water, and its essential water source was the Well of Zemzem, a miraculous water source provided by God for Hagar, wife of the Prophet Abraham, when she was left in the desert with her son Ishmael. Meantime, the area known as Arabia Felix (Yemen) )was dominated by Ethiopia 525AD to 575AD. (In the 540s was the Justinian plague.) Arabia probably had climate problems including floods in the 540s and in 590AD. It is said that from about 550AD, Mohammad's great-grandfather helped to "internationalise" the trade of Mecca. It is also said that soon before the time of Mohammad, no rain fell for seven years, meaning many tribes to migrate to places including Tunis via Egypt. Idea that many cities large or small of the Mediterranean area faltered, groups of Arab horseman with no skills at siege yet found it easier to take cities. There is a suggestion here that "Islamic" military successes were in areas hollowed out by climate change. Semi-nomadic Arabs tended to use "haphazard" cereal growing and pastoral overgrazing, not using terraced/irrigated techniques. Suggestion is that the Arab conquests were followed by slow agricultural decline. Arabs took over Palestine in 635-639, and in 639, plaque crossed into Palestine. One academic who dwelt on climate-change views here was Henri Pirenne, who regarded Arab hegemony of the south Mediterranean coasts from Levant to the Pyrenees from 720AD, but a commentator is ambivalent about his works. A wikipedia page on Arabian Peninsula mentions existence of a large Arabian Aquifer System; areas where the water reaches the surface are called oases. Oman and Yemen do have influences from the Indian Monsoon. Arabia has been settled since about 106,000 to 130,000 years ago. The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the Peninsula to nearby areas.

631AD: End of the reign in West Gothic areas (Spain/France) of king Svinthala (621-631).

630AD: Arabia, Mohammed moves against Mecca and conquers it. War with the Hawazin. Rapid spread of Islam. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) The Ka'aba in Mecca, a repository of idols, is cleansed of idols and becomes a building deeply revered by Moslems. Conquest of Mecca. Battle of Hunayn. Battle of Autas. Siege of Ta'if.

630AD: Roman emperor Heraclius orders a massacre of Jews in area of Jerusalem and Galilee and also orders forced baptisms. Jewish areas are becoming either pro-Roman or pro-Moslem.

629AD: First recorded clash of Islamic and Roman forces (Battle of Mu'ta north of Aqaba and south of Damascus) after Persians withdraw in 628. Romans win, but later, four Roman-controlled towns defect to Islamic control. (David Keys, Catastrophe.)

629AD: Emperor Heraclius in Constantinople receives embassies from as far away as France and India, and surprisingly, also a letter (as an apocryphal legend) from an Arabian chieftain and a Prophet of God, Mohammed, suggesting that he join a new faith. The revolution of Islam is poised to change the world. Mohammed is a poor-relation member of a great clan of Mecca, the Qoraishites. Runciman in his first volume on the Crusades says that prior to Mohammed's arrival, there had existed a non-Jewish tradition of monotheism in the Middle East, the hanif tradition.

629AD: Arabia, Mohammedan war against the Greek subjects in Arabia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) Mohammad makes pilgrimage to Mecca. Battle of M'uta.

628AD: Mohammedan war against the Jews of Khaibar/Khaybar. Mohammad sends missionary letters to various of state. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

592-628AD: Reign of Empress Suiko with the support of the continental-looking Soga clan. Prince SHOOTOKU (593-622) - the regent for his aunt Empress SUIKO proved a great champion of the new religion and the continental civilization

627AD: Arabia, War of the Fosse. Invasion of Banu Qurayza. The Koreish/Quraish make terms with Mohammed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

626AD: T'ang court adopts Buddhism

626AD: Moslems treat the Jews of Medina badly. (David Keys)

625: Roman Empire loses its Spanish territories, province of Spania which included coastlines, which had had much Visigothic influence. (About the 550s, the Visigoths of Spain had decided to convert from Arianism to Catholicism.)

625AD: Arabia: Battle of Ohod/Uhud, victory of the Moslems. Expulsion of the Banu Nadir Jews from Medina. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

624AD: Arabia: First battle for the faith with the Meccans at Bedr/Badr. Victory of Mohammed, expulsion of the Bani Qainuqa Jews from Medina. The direction of prayer is switched from Jerusalem to Mecca. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

622-623AD: Mecca-Medina: Mohammed with followers flees opposition in Mecca and go to Medina. The first mosque is built there and Mohammad and family live nearby. Mohammed becomes a warrior, more like a general/lawgiver. Establishment of the first Islamic state. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

621AD: Beginning of the reign in West Gothic areas (Spain/France) of king Svinthala (621-631)

618AD-906AD: First Chinese emigrate to Taiwan, in time of Chinese T'ang dynasty.

618AD: T'ang dynasty begins in China.

618AD: China: Establishment of T'ang Dynasty, the capital (Sian of today), is then Changan. This capital grows to a population of one million, one of the largest cities in the world to date. Its city blocks are separately walled and gates are closed at night.

618AD-906AD, T'ang dynasty in China has a professor of acupuncture at Imperial Medical College. Possible use of acupuncture as early as 2600BC or more likely (?) 580BC.

619AD: Meccan Quraish lift boycott on Hashemites and Mohammad.

617AD: Quraish tribe in Mecca boycott Mohammad and the Hashemites.

616AD: A second party of Meccan Moslems emigrate to Abyssinia.

614AD: Quraish tribe of Mecca begin to persecute the followers of Mohammad. Emigration of the first party of Meccan Moslems to Chritian Abyssinia (Ethiopia/Eritrea).

613AD: Mohammad speaks on Mount Safa inviting the general public to become Moslems. He has few takers.

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610AD: For Mohammed, the Prophet, the year of his call, or, his first revelations from the Angel Gabriel, and his first believer is his wife Khadija. He begins to make converts. But opposition to his views increased amongst the Meccans/Quraish, till in 622 he fled with followers to Medina. (The Hegira.) This flight of 622 begins The Mohammedan Era. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

605AD-610AD: The years of deep meditation for Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah. The major principles of Islam are being developed. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.) 605 is birth year of The Prophet's daughter, Fatimah, the only one of his children to die after him and mother of his descendants producing the later Sunni-Shia divide in Islam. In 605 M helped to rebuilt the Kaaba in Mecca.

Circa 605AD-610AD: Chinese build Grand Canal to link Yangtze area with Chang'an.

604AD: Japan: Shootoku drafts Seventeen Article Constitution - ethical government - establishes a 200-year tradition of scholarly missions to China. Conscious effort of massive cultural borrowing (No parallel in western history except Peter the Great in C18th Russia) Adoption of Chinese calendar. Soga clan increases influence over the Imperial (Yamato clan) family. Chinese concept of all-powerful monarchy (Emperor - from a naive semisacred leader into a secular ruler of the Chinese type, but in reality by 7th century - largely symbols of authority rather than wielders of personal power - manipulated by other members of the extensive imperial clan or the broader court aristocracy - NOW "symbol of the State and the unity of the people") Centralized state - provinces administered by officials from the capital higher posts in the government - largely filled by bureaucrats who passed scholastic state-administered examinations, but didn't last long - determined by inherited family status rather than by individual merit)

607AD: Japan: Founding of Hooryuu-ji Temple (World's oldest wooden building, Chinese copy) - Hossoo Sect.

c.590AD: In terms of real political continuity, the unification of China dates from the late C6th. (David Keys, Catastrophe)

591AD: Maurice signs a peace treaty with Persia then moves against the Avars, which led the Avar vassals the Slavs by 600AD to move into Serbia and down the coast of Dalmatia to the Adriatic. By now the Roman Empire has military and economic trouble. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

590AD: The Yemeni Marib Dam System north-east of present-day Aden fails after more flooding and is abandoned. It has first failed by the 540s and partly due to silting up became less useful is later decades. It failed again in the 550s. Silting up probably meant deforestation of any high country and growing desertification. The Marib population from 535 falls from up to 50,000 to 5-10,000. Two tribes affected, the Banu Ghassan and the Azd are said to have moved north to the central Arabian oasis of Medina. Earlier, Mecca probably had a serious famine, in the lifetime of the great-grandfather Amr (or Hashim) of the Prophet, Mohammad. Amr was forced to get wheat from Syria and fed his people on meat broth made from “broken bread”.

590AD-615AD: Agilulf is pagan king of the Lombards, who are from Eastern Europe. The Lombards move into Northern and Central Italy from 60AD, and become one of the last hordes of German-speakers to help overwhelm the Roman Empire.

604-608AD: In parts of the Roman Empire, eg Egypt, anti-Phocas rebels have arisen. The Avar vassals the Slavs newly invaded Roman territory (Thessalonica) as Roman troops had been sent to Persia. In 605AD was more trouble in Constantinople and the Persians obtained Roman-run Mesopotamia. Phocas meantime seems to have been going mad, and was killing officialdom by 607-608. The Persians took Roman possessions such as Armenia and eastern Anatolia. Civil War breaks out in Roman territory. Jews of Antioch rebelled. In Carthage arose Heraclius who sailed for Constantinople to put down Phocas, successfully, although Rome in the East had lost 70 per cent of its territory. The Avars and Slavs had taken Eastern Europe (many Slav place names survived in Greece), the Slavs had taken to sea warfare, and the Persians had taken much of the Middle East. Many refugees went into Italy. Sea ports became more important as refuges against the Barbarians. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

602AD: Constantinople sees a bloody popular revolution. This led to a de-Romanisation of the Balkans which later in turn assisted the rise of Islam. The Roman army, underpaid by a tightwad Maurice, had mutinied under Phocas who became a short-time Emperor. Power had also been offered to Theodosius, son of Maurice, or to Germanus, the father-in-law of Theodosius, but Phocas prevailed and attacked the Imperial family. Constantinople had further riots. Maurice fled in a warship. The Persian ruler, Chosroes II, remained angry on Maurice's behalf. The Roman army under Phocas then split. In 603 the Persians attacked the now-unstable rebel Romans at places in south-eastern Turkey. Phocas re-established his control. Disorder arose however in Antioch in Syria, Palestine and Egypt. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

Update re The Dark Ages

For an entertainingly controversial depiction of The Dark Ages not as dark but as An Age of Light, albeit populated by demonized sets of people known as Huns, Vikings, Goths (Visigoths in Spain/Ostrogoths to their east), Vandals, see a c.2012 documentary The Dark Ages - Age of Light narrated by British art critic Waldemar Jarusczek. The Dark Ages are dated roughly C4thAD (fall of Roman Empire) to tempe William Conqueror of England, 1066 and all that. Jarusczek in four episodes treats the early Christians, the so called Barbarians, the Islamic World and then the Vikings or The Northmen. Jarusczek's views have not escaped illuminating criticisms by other British critics, especially concerning early Christians. Notes include: ... The Ostrogoths (who in Christian religion were Arians) had located in Italy based at Ravenna and enjoyed about two centuries of hegemony. In Spain, the Visigoth (also Arians) appeared from the East, the western brothers of the Ostrogoths, about 500AD-700AD, and were Arians surrounded by Roman Catholics. About 661AD they were fighting the Basques, seemingly to the north of the Visigoths, matters to be further investigated in other 2016 writings by Dan Byrnes.

601AD: Pope Gregory I writes to Abbott Mellitus, asking him to then advise the first Archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine, of a policy on the future of England's pagan temples, as follows:
"We have been giving careful thought to the affairs of the English, and have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols in that country should on no account be destroyed. He is to destroy the idols, but the temples themselves are to be aspersed with holy water, altars set up, and relics enclosed in them. For if these temples are well-built, they are to be purified from devil-worship, and dedicated to the service of the true God. In this way, we hope that the people, seeing that its temples are no destroyed, may abandon idolatry and resort to these places as before, and may come to know and adore the true God."

600AD: Approx: Date of Chinese invention of toilet paper.

600AD: Slavs settled a century earlier in "Bulgaria" are conquered by Bulgars, a Turkic-speaking people from beyond the Danube. The Bulgars remain largely independent till the Ottoman conquest of 1396.

600AD: The Mayans calculate the solar year more accurately than Europeans of the time.

597AD: St. Augustine arrives in southern Britain for missionary work.

C595AD: The Bulgars are assailed by the Avars (who are also similar to the Huns), but at end of C6th is emergence of a Bulgarian state. In 626 with aid of Persians, Bulgars threaten to destroy Constantinople, but are prevented by Heraclius.
See Patrick Howarth, Atilla, King of the Huns: The Man and the Myth. London, Robinson, 2001.

595AD: Indian mathematicians use decimal system.

594AD: Japan: Buddhism is proclaimed the state religion of Japan.

590AD-604AD: Pope Gregory the Great sends missionaries to England, France and Spain, St. Augustine with 40 monks goes to Kent and becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.

590AD?: October-November 1999: New book arises on The Legend of King Arthur, as author Alistair Moffatt publishes a book claiming that Arthur was a post-Roman figure (after 410AD), trained in Roman military tactics, operating somewhat south of Hadrian's Wall, "south of Scotland". Or, in the area around Roxburgh Castle, where four kingdoms were allegedly established. The new findings fall into a "gap" in history between 410 as the Romans left Britain and Christian missionaries arrived in 590. Perhaps, Arthur was a Scot? Goodbye to The Fisher King? Goodbye to Golden Age mythology?

590AD: South America: The Mayan villagers of Ceren, 1400 years ago, use cacao beans to make chocolate. Their village in 590AD is buried under volcanic ash. Regard chocolate as "food of the Gods", thus the botanical name, Theobroma cacao. Ceren was an outpost in the south-east area of a Mayan civilisation that 3000 years ago spread from Guatemala to Mexico, Belize and surrounding areas. The eating chocolate we know today was an invention of Victorian times. Mayan nobles took chocolate as a foaming drink, A researcher is Dr David Lentz of New York Botanical Garden, who is comparing the diets of the elites versus commoners. It seems likely that the predecessors of the Mayans, the Olmecs, also used chocolate. The Olmecs, the first complex society to arise in Mesoamerica, along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, about 1000BC, used to place huge stone heads (in places such as southern Veracruz and Tabasco). They have been examined in recent years by a team from Cornell University (Prof John Henderson) and University of California (Rosemary Joyce) at Berkeley. The best cacao was grown in Honduras (Ulua Valley). The Aztec emperor Montezuma evidently drank 50 cups of chocolate a day.

587AD: Visigothic Spain officially departs from Arianism and becomes Catholic in religion. David Keys sees this as the birth of modern Spain, as beforehand, Spain had in effect been bi-national, a mix of Visigothic Arianism and Roman Catholicism. Language uses and laws changed.

580sAD: Wen di, the first Sui emperor, reunites divided Chinese empire.

586AD: End of the reign of West Gothic King Leovigild (568-586). 586 is beginning of reign of his son, Reccared (586-601)

578AD: Avars under Kagan Baian again attack Sirmium, a Roman-controlled trade route city and demand extra protection money. At this time the Roman Emperor is Maurice, who rejected the Avar's money demands. The Avars retaliated by taking nearby Singidunum (Belgrade) at junction of the Sava and Danube rivers and moving on to the Roman territory on the shores of the Black Sea. Maurice gave in to them so the Avars moved back into Serbia and Hungary. But then the Avars began to attack newly west of Constantinople and into Greece. Athens and Corinth were sacked, and they also tried Thessalonica, which was already weakened by plague. In 587-588AD the Avars reached the Sea of Marmara, west of Constantinople when they withdrew as their demands were met. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

577AD: By now the Aavars have conquered parts of Eastern Europe, invading the Balkans including Greece and reducing Roman rule, They had travelled from their home territory about 300 miles west, by the Irtysh River, then across Northern Kazakhstan, the northern shores of the Caspian Seam, to the north of the Caucasus Mountains where the found a Hunnic group called the Kutrgurs who included the Hepthalites or White Huns. These Huns became vassals of the Avars, and their combined hordes moved on into the Ukraine where they conquered the Slavs (the Antes. Then they moved about the Carpathian Mountains into Hungary, where they subjugated the local Gepids. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books. 2000.

578-580AD: Visigothic Spain. King Leovigild of Toledo becomes the only Germanic ruler in Europe to start founding new cities. About 580AD, Visigothic Spain suffered a major revolt. Leovigild had intended to marry his oldest son Hermenegild to a daughter of Sigibert the Frankish king, Ingundis. Religion intervened, as Ingundis was Catholic, not Arian as Visigoths were. Ingundis, only 12 years old, refused to convert. The mariage went ahead, and Hermenegild and Ingundis were sent to live on the Visigoth-Roman border area of Baetica/Seville. Ingundis succeeded in having Hermenegild convert to Catholicism, a political affront to the Visigoths. Hermengild tried to retain the friendships of Roman Spain. Leovigild prepared to attack his son, but this obliged him to war with the Romans. Leovigild ended in murdering Hermenegild. Battles went on in the hierarchy between Arianism and Catholicism, which in turn led to the rise of anti-Jewish feeling. (David Keys)

Update re The Dark Ages

For an entertainingly controversial depiction of The Dark Ages not as dark but as An Age of Light, albeit populated by demonized sets of people known as Huns, Vikings, Goths (Visigoths in Spain/Ostrogoths to their east), Vandals, see a c.2012 documentary The Dark Ages - Age of Light narrated by British art critic Waldemar Jarusczek. The Dark Ages are dated roughly C4thAD (fall of Roman Empire) to tempe William Conqueror of England, 1066 and all that. Jarusczek in four episodes treats the early Christians, the so called Barbarians, the Islamic World and then the Vikings or The Northmen. Jarusczek's views have not escaped illuminating criticisms by other British critics, especially concerning early Christians. Notes include: ... The Ostrogoths (who in Christian religion were Arians) had located in Italy based at Ravenna and enjoyed about two centuries of hegemony. In Spain, the Visigoth (also Arians) appeared from the East, the western brothers of the Ostrogoths, about 500AD-700AD, and were Arians surrounded by Roman Catholics. About 661AD they were fighting the Basques, seemingly to the north of the Visigoths, matters to be further investigated in other 2016 writings by Dan Byrnes.

576AD: Re area of the Turkish people, on the steppe-lands of Mongolia west to the Ukraine. Their first Kagan (ruler) is Bumin (died 553 but succeeded by sons), who has a brother Ishtemi (who rules 552-576 as Yabghu or secondary king), a general who conquers from Mongolia to the Ukraine. The Turks will put down the White Huns and will occupy Iranaian city states such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Khwarzam. (David Keys)

572AD: The Avars begin their protection racket (for not invading Roman lands) by demanding 80,000 gold solidi per year for not invading.

571AD: Future emperor Tiberius is defeated by Avars in a battle in northern Serbia.

570AD: Birth of Mohammed, of a noble Koreish family, at Mecca. The Koreish tribe had become prominent since about 500AD, amongst the rival peoples of the Arab Mustareb Kingdoms. Traditions had it that the Koreish had their origin with Ishmael, of the line of Abraham. They became the custodians of the sacred Kaaba (a black stone, possibly meteorite, the origins of which are seldom noted, let alone described), which gave them pre-eminence amongst other tribes. By about 600+AD, the Koreish and their Mustareb allies were the most powerful confederacy in Arabia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.)

570AD: Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, is born in Mecca.

About 570AD: Arabian Peninsula: Christian Axumites of Africa (Axum of Arabia had earlier invaded Kush) re-invade Arabia to liberate Axum from conversion to Judaism.)

568AD: By now the new Avar territories have formed a new empire as impressive as what they formerly had in Mongolia. They have hegemony (says David Keys) over eastern Hungary, western Romania, Slovenia, Moravia, Bohemia, eastern Germany and Western Ukraine. Including the River Volga in the east and to the western Balkan frontiers of the Romans to the South.

568AD: Lombards invade the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. The Lombards based in Pavia, Spoleto and Benevento in Italy, and in this period, some Italian refugees found Venice as a lagoon-refuge.

568AD: Italy, Lombards invade Italy.

Venice: 568AD: The original "natives" of the area now called Venice are joined by city refugees from the time of the Lombard invasion of Italy (of the earlier Hunnish invasions?), about 568AD. This movement of people later gave rise to an exaggerated sense of the importance of genealogy amongst the Venetians, with the focus of family origin being Rome. Gradually, "Venice" congealed with a new site and a revised social structure. Rivals supported by the Lombards also attempted to influence the new social and working life of the "Venetians". The first Doge, after the area was nominally ruled from Ravenna, may have been dignified by the Byzantine Emperor. After the Lombards captured Ravenna in 751, Venice remained tied to the Byzantines. Venice opened the Levant to Europe generally, but it also faced the Moslem trading empire stretching from Syria to North Africa and Spain. Lombards were recognised in Venice, they could engage in mainland trade, but not overseas (seagoing) trades. Part of Venice's overseas trade (from the Ninth Century) was in slaves (pagans, Christian heretics, and infidels), and timber export. (Even by the Sixth Century, pagan Angles and Saxons were found in Italian slave markets; in the Ninth and Tenth centuries, the not-yet-converted Slavs, perhaps sold to the Saracens, made a supply of labour.) From before 1000AD, the fame of Venice was built partly on supplying slaves and timber. Naturally, the city's shipbuilding industry grew.

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560sAD: The Avars on the move cause more instability in Eastern Europe, begin to ally themselves with the Lombards (a Germanic people of today's Czech and Slovak republics). They destroy the Gepids of Eastern Hungary and led the Lombards also to move west into Roman Italy. Inside 25 the Lombards had taken most of Northern Italy, most of Tuscany and much of Southern Italy, writes David Keys. Slavs began to occupy vacant Gepid lands and with Avar help, Avars being nomadic pastoral warriors, moved into Moravia, Bohemia and Germany as far west as River Elbe. The Avar empire (now about a million square miles), began a giant protection racket lasting about 50 years, milking the Roman Empire.

565AD: In 565 the Avars ally with the Lombards and beat the Gepids. The Lombards move on to north Italy and the Avars occupy the Danube where Atilla's Huns had been. The Avars produced a leader Bayan, who once took 270,000 prisoners from Constantinople and otherwise ran basically an extortion racket.
See Patrick Howarth, Atilla, King of the Huns: The Man and the Myth. London, Robinson, 2001.

565AD": Death of Justinian.

565AD: By legend, date of first sighting of Loch Ness Monster by Irish missionary, St Columba. Other supposed sightings were in 1520, 1771, 1885...

562AD: Japanese power in Korea destroyed by Korean Kingdom of Silla.

557-558AD: The Avars originally from Eastern Mongolia/Western Manchuria arrive on the Eastern fringes of Europe. By 545AD they had been the ruling ethnic group of Mongolia but were challenged by the Turks, who had been their vassals. The Turks became dominant in Avar territory and moved the Avars west. The Turks were involved with hunting-gathering and also mining, metal working and animal husbandry, especially using cattle. Cattle are far better adapted to surviving drought conditions than horses as used by their enemies. The Avar economy was based on horses, sheep and raiding. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

558-559AD: The Slavs on the move once again invade Roman territories, this time with help from the Kutrigur Huns who had been moved by the Avars, in three groups moving into Greece. By the Dardanelles, then Constantinople. This possibly induced the Avars to want to move into Hungary. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

550AD approx: With Yemen being disturbed by bubonic plague and recurrent floods and other problems, a Yemeni army threatens Mecca to its north. David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

545AD: The Turks, now dominant over Avars, establish diplomatic links with Northern China. In 551AD the Turks save the Avars from destruction by other Avar enemies. Still, the Turks further destroyed or moved on the Avar population in about 552.

545AD: The Slavs moving west bother the Eastern Roman Empire even more. This continues to 550AD, into Illyria and Thrace. With Slav victims often impaled on stakes. The Slavs also attacked Topirus, now modern Corlu in Turkey. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

558AD: The Avars open diplomatic dealings with the Roman Empire. They had been on the move due to dry conditions and arrived to the north of the Black Sea by about 550AD. Finally the Avars drove Romans from their Danubian provinces and settled in today's Hungary until Charlemagne's Franks destroyed them, work continued on the Avars by the Bulgars in late C8thAD.

554AD: Rome reoccupies coast of Spain.

C6thAD: North Sweden: First known settlers of North of Sweden are Lapps, but the area is given its name by the later-arriving Svear tribesmen, from mainland Europe, who conflict with the Gothars of the South of Sweden. United into a state north-south by C6thAD, who later launched their Viking raids.

550AD from about 250AD: A three-hundred year period of unpredictable weather in area of Roman Empire, Remarked as correlative with historical events, not causative. There was however a good deal of upheaval in European economic and political life. See Michael McCormick et al, 'Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire: Reconstructing the Past from Scientific and Historical Evidence', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLIII:2, Autumn 2012, pp. 169-220. (This journal pioneered the study of history and climate in 1979 - Ed)

550AD approx: On Pontus/Portus of Rome

From The Guardian: Archaeologists uncover secrets of Portus, once gateway to Rome
University of Southampton team finds evidence explaining why opulent Roman empire port was dismantled in 6th century - by Tom Kington in Rome, Tuesday 12 November 2013
theguardian.com - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/archaeologists-secrets-portus-roman-empire-rome
British archeologists digging near Rome have built up an accurate picture of Portus, the once-mighty port that could host 350 ships at a time and kept the ravenous capital of the Roman empire supplied with grain, wine, oil, slaves and luxuries from around the world. The team says it has also unravelled the mystery of how the site's luxurious palace and huge warehouse vanished almost overnight, leaving no trace of the port's scale and wealth. Rather than being burned down by invading hordes as the empire declined, or left to disintegrate, a team lead by the University of Southampton has revealed that Portus was systematically demolished in the 6th century by the Byzantines – the eastern emperors who fought the invading Ostrogoths to regain control of Rome. Experts discovered that the magnificent, three-storey palace was flattened and 50ft walls pushed over. "By the 6th century the Byzantines felt the port could be a threat as it was vulnerable to being occupied by the Ostrogoths, so they took the decision to destroy it themselves, said Simon Keay from Southampton University, who heads the dig. Built by the emperor Trajan in the second century, Portus included a mile-wide main basinthat has now silted up, and an inner, hexagonal basin that still exists as a lake in woodland at the end of the runway of Rome's Fiumicino airport – its perfect hexagonal shape clearly visible from above. The remains of an amphitheatre and an enormous, 260-yard long warehouse have also been discovered.

Keay said Portus's importance to Rome was proven by the team's excavation of the 60-room imperial palace covering nine acres. It was fronted by a long colonnade and boasted a first floor courtyard with a pool fed by a cistern below – a level of grandeur that matched Hadrian's villa near Rome. "The palace shows how central Portus was to the city and to making sure Rome was fed," said Keay. But more impressive was evidence that the palace and the warehouse were torn down methodically by the Byzantines, who gained and lost control of Portus on various occasions during their struggles with the Ostrogoths. "These were solid structures, and you really must have wanted to pull them down," said Keay, who discovered walls flattened by the Byzantines as they sought to reduce the danger of the port being occupied and put to use by their foes.

"It will have needed a firm decision and the Byzantines will have really worked on it," he added. "Portus was a great hub, but as Rome wound down, Portus mirrored it."
theguardian.com Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2013 Registered in England and Wales No. 908396 Registered office: PO Box 68164, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1P 2AP.

550AD-577AD: China: Idea of kites strong enough to bear the weight of a man arises, in the Ch'i Dynasty (Emperor Kao Yang) ruling Northern China. (This emperor massacred many of the earlier-ruling families.) One test flight of 559 had a man "fly" for almost two miles. (Source: James/Thorpe).

552-646AD: Japan: ASUKA PERIOD.

550AD: The Avars: From 550 the Avars ravaged the Eastern Empire and then parts of Germany and Italy, and came into control of Carpathian region and much of the Central Europe, assimilating Germanics, Slaves and Huns. Charlemagne finally broke them. After the Avars had been broken in Hungary, then later to Hungary came the Magyars, who are also forced westward across the Carpathians. They centralized in Hungary, at times raided west to France and Italy. They had a Finno-Ugrian language, eg with some similarities to surviving Finnish or Estonian. They held on to become the kingdom of Hungary. (Transylvania became the destiny of the descendants of the Huns.)
See Patrick Howarth, Atilla, King of the Huns: The Man and the Myth. London, Robinson, 2001.

550AD: Buddhism is introduced to Japan from China, which derived it from Korea.

549AD: Bubonic plague as spread from North Africa hits England. There had been a major "mortality in 537AD" It was probably introduced at the ports of Tintagel (eastern Wales) and then Cadbury Congrebury on the River Yeo, Somerset. Perhaps also, north of Dublin in Ireland and at a fortress at Cork. The English experience here probably gave rise to the English literary tradition of The Wasteland. The Irish problems seem to have unleashed a period of political instability for Ireland, especially about Ulster and parts of Meath, with the O'Neills of the Irish North-West becoming ascendant (Ui Neills). (David Keys).

480AD-543AD: Monte Cassino in Italy, once site of a temple to Apollo, taken over before 543AD by St Benedict, at Nursia, or Norcia in the Umbria area north-east of Rome. Becomes a monastery, about 529AD with rise of the Benedictine Order.

542AD: Bubonic plague visits Visigothic Spain and causes political problems, partly by taking out notables at the top of the power-tree. Spain tipped into political chaos. Meanwhile the Romans now occupied the island of Ceuta, on the south shore of the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and wanted to retake Spain. In 551 the rebel Visigoths asked Roman Emperor Justinian in Constantinople for help, the Romans sent an army which in 552 at Battle of Seville decided matters, beating the Visigoths, who remained in disarray. Justinian pursued a policy of re-conquest and retook Southern Spain, North Africa, Italy, Mediterranean islands, and Bosnia and Croatia. In 30 years he increased the size of the Roman Empire by about 50 per cent. (David Keys).

542AD: Climate problems: Contributory information is found on a website on the Christianization of Ireland in the mid-Fifth Century. There had been a climate-catastrophe in Ireland, by 540AD, a disaster which also had effects across Northern Europe. Was the climatic problem one reason for the success of Christianity in Ireland? Part of the widespread catastrophe was plague appearing at Constantinople in 542AD.

AD542: AS Procopious reported, the Eastern Empire has plague, known as The Plague of Justinian, bubonic plague carried by fleas on rats, a plague which originated in North Eastern Africa and travelled north. There were also food shortages. See article, Colin Barras, The Year of Darkness, New Scientist, 18 January , 2014. pp. 34ff.

542-543AD: Justinian Plague in Constantinople, becoming Europe's first outbreak of bubonic plague. Kills one third of population of the eastern Mediterranean.

541-542AD: Plague visits Europe. The plague arose in North Africa and probably first hit Pelusium, the traditional maritime entry point to Egypt, on the Mediterranean cost of north-eastern Egypt, and probably via the Suez Canal area where a waterway connected to the Red Sea. Plague spread to Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch. At Constantinople, Emperor Justinian ordered the use of mass graves for the north of the city. On AD 536++: See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

539-540: Bubonic plague begins to devastate the Arab nation of Yemen, which gained much productivity from the Marib Dam, which in time would be destroyed. The Marib Dam system was 53 feet high, 2046 feet long and about 200 feet wide at its base. It held flood waters which when they reached a particular height were sluiced out into a myriad of irrigation channels, hundreds of miles of canals, irrigating 24,000 acres and feeding a population up to 50,000. Marib was the capital of the kingdom of Saba (Shebas in The Old Testament). Or, the unified kingdom of Saba and Himyar as the Hamyarites became ascendant. The Marib Dam System failed (abandoned by 590AD) due to floods and dam bursts taking place after the 535AD climate problems began. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

541AD: Various epidemics break out in areas of Roman Empire and there have also been famines.

540AD-570AD: Two events occurring in this period have a profound effect on Arab society. The great dam of Ma'rib in Yemen (which at this time gets the western edge of a monsoon) which has helped to support the kingdoms of Saba and Himyar, bursts due to neglect or some otherwise unrecorded natural disaster. So the area it has irrigated is laid barren, a huge disaster. Also occurs the Sasanian Persian invasion of Yemen, which at the time was a subsidiary of Ethiopia. The Sasanians exterminated the Ethiopians (in the area of modern Aden). The Christians of Ethiopia withdrew to their highlands, perhaps by this accidentally helping create the legend of “Prester John:” (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

540AD: Global appearance of ... catastrophic impact of comet?

Circa 540AD: With cooling and drought, commerce comes to a halt. Coincident with the fall of the Roman Empire, the climate deteriorates. As Lamb points out, some historians have attributed the invasion of barbarian tribes from central Asia to the pastures there drying.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World.)

ca. 300-552AD: Japan: Kofun (Tomb) Period - many large burial mounds (Kofun) are built throughout the western 2/3 of the islands - concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a military aristocracy - creation of giant key-hole tombs and Haniwa figure - aggression into Korea (Silla, Paekche, Koguryo), Mimana colony
This item is from a website History Lecture Note timeline on Japanese history by Mineharu Nakayama

540AD: In 540AD, Frankish invaders of Italy also suffer from a famine. Or did Atilla just decide to get back to Hungary before winter set in? Attila feels threatened by Emperor Marcian. Attila maybe plans to go by the Loire river to reduce the Alani settled there, to then menace the Visigoths (King Thorismund), but Thorismund got to Attila before Attila got to the Alani, and won. Attila is factually in Hungary in spring of 453, and has a new wife, Ildico. Unexpectedly, Attila dies, of a burst artery (or is he poisoned?). His eldest son Ellak is successor, the junior sons are Dengizik and Ernak, given control of some subordinate people who till the land, serve as soldiers, obey the Hun rulers. A division of rule. Faction fights grow backing either brother. Ellak is assailed by King of the Gepids, Ardaric, formerly the most reliable of Attila's allies, who now has aid of Emperor Marcian.
See Patrick Howarth, Atilla, King of the Huns: The Man and the Myth. London, Robinson, 2001.

540AD: Quite recent idea arises that about now a great catastrophe strikes Earth. Evidence includes narrowness of growth rings in bog oaks and archaeological timbers - in Northern Ireland, Britain, Northern Siberia, North and South America. (Citations here from a BBC magazine article, 8 September 2000, by Jonathan Amos citing Prof. Mike Baillie, paelaeo-ecologist, Queen's University, Belfast. Comet fragments flew into the atmosphere, a kind of nuclear winter results, resulting in crop failures, famine, even plague, peoples are weakened. Was this the date when the European Dark Ages began?
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html

539AD: England: Keys reports a variety of climate disturbances around 538-540AD. Especially by the English historian Bede, who felt driven to consult reports on total eclipses of the sun in widespread areas. It is possible Bede mistook the sun-darkening of the period 535-536 to be due to eclipses. Otherwise, "real blood" was said to have fallen from French and English clouds, accompanied by human mortality. In 538 was a famine in Ireland. Rains might have been heavy. Climatically, the period 535-555 was unhappy, and this would include a legendary death date for King Arthur, 537AD. Bubonic plague reached England by 549.

(David Keys, Catastrophe).

Circa 538AD: Buddhism reaches Japan, and slowly spreads throughout the country.

538AD: Arrival of BUDDHISM from China via Korea (Buddhism - an endless cycle of reincarnations, enlightenment - Nirvana, universal appeal) use of Chinese characters. A fight started in the Yamato court - Buddhist images and beliefs as a magical system of equal or greater power than Shinto - the supporters of Buddhism won.

537-538AD: Many North Chinese are killed due to climate problems and resulting strife. Mongolia and Siberia north of it seem also to suffer similar problems. Climatic problems also afflict the Slavs of Poland and the western Ukraine/Romania. Roman records indicate food supply problems for Roman provinces such as north-east Bulgaria and Scythia (south east Romania), so the Slaves moved over the Danube frontier, plundering and enslaving Romans. Slavs on the move also went west by the Danube into what is now Slovenia. (David Keys) 536AD: Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea arrives in Southern Italy to find odd things. The sun has dimmed, also the moon. Summer has frosts and snow, winter never quite ends. Today we find climate changes from Ireland to Italy, in China, in Central America. In China the Northern Wei Dynasty fell. In South America the state-city of Teotihuacan declined and by 550AD the people had lost faith, burned the temples on top of step-pyramids and rejected views on their rulers' abilities to act as intermediaries between them and their gods. 535-536AD begins a decade-long cold snap for the world. Religions lose believers. Cities collapse. Great plagues kills thousands. Problems world-wide are due either to a huge volcanic eruption. Or, dust storms from a close comet shroud the atmosphere. Or, an asteroid or a comet strike the earth and cause a “nuclear winter”. The world suffers bad weather, social disorder, death. Some evidence arose in the 1980s from NASA geologists Richard Stothers and Michael Rampino who examined series of volcanic eruptions. Meantime, UK scientist Michael Baillie examined tree rings of Ireland, and groups findings around 536AD. Problems for tree rings were found in Ireland, in Scandinavian pines, and trees of North and South America. But there were no associable clues (ash or sulphur deposits) about volcanic activity left in ice of the north or south pole, although later, Bo Vinther at University of Copenhagen Denmark found a subtle sulphur signal for about 534AD in ice cores, with an origin due to a tropical location. Perhaps an eruption in El Savador, the Ilopango volcano, which generated 84 cubic km of ash? Old Chinese records for Halley's Comet suggest the comet spread dust and debris in Earth's atmosphere. It is not possible the world could have had both comet-caused problems and a volcanic eruption about 536AD? See article, Colin Barras, The Year of Darkness, New Scientist, 18 January , 2014. pp. 34ff.

537AD: Italy, Venice, Cassiodorus' letter to the lagoon-dwellers.

The 530s in Peru/Andes. Keys feels that the Nasca Lines of Peru (1300 "drawings"), not discovered till the 1920s by pilots, derived from the drought problems (perhaps made worse by El Nino events) of climate change from the 530s. The Nasca Lines cover about 200 square miles and might have been shamanic flight lines used for a form of water-divining. The Nasca Lines involve six kinds of drawings made 400BC and 600AD. Figurative/biomorphic (animals, plants, humans). Spirals. Trapezoids. Parallel line systems. Ray systems. Single straight lines. Peru meantime had a massive drought 540AD-570AD. A ritual centre named Cahuachi was abandonded and religious practice was decentralised. Archaeological remains on hilltops date to the 6thAD, while religious practice changed, and seemed more threatening, perhaps associated with human sacrifice. There had been increased competition, warfare and political chaos. The Nasca people began to use wells to find water, most of them built during a drought-time. The north-Peruvian city of Moche also suffered, and mass human sacrifice was used there. Moche (where economy was based on copper, gold, silver and coca cropping) seems to have suffered various droughts and El Nino-based floods, apocalyptic-type problems to be appeased by human sacrifice. A major flood about 556AD may have destroyed irrigation systems. Both coastal and mountain-living people were affected. Moche ended supplanted by newly-rising settlements as the rival Huari people expanded in central and northern Peru. There arose two new super-states, the Huari and the Tiwanaku. The Huari empire covered about 130,000 square miles, about 900 miles long by 150 miles east-west, and became a prototype for the later Incan empire. The Huari used roads and large-scale terraced irrigation and helped the hilly areas to dominate the coast. Terraces may have been used as a response to droughts. And it seems that the Huari empire and the Killke system was supplanted by what became the high-Andean Incan empire by 1300AD, and what became the Inca capital Cusco had a role. The borders of the Inca empire via the Spanish vice-regal system became the borders of Ecuador, Peru and Chile. The Tiwanaku system (which recognised a sky-rain god, Thunupa) relied much on Lake Titicaca (largest lake in South America), and developed a population up to half-a-million people. The Tiwanaku system used raised-field agriculture, probably a novel response to drought conditions. Use of the raised-field means lose less soil nutrients, enhance nitrogen fixation and reduce soil salinity, aerate the soil and makes it non-compact, as well as retaining heat to resist frosts. (David Keys, Catastrophe)

The 530s around Arizona and New Mexico. The Pueblo Indian ancestors, the Anasazi, developed a remarkable 37-town-based civilisation from 1000AD with dams and water reservoirs, road systems, and a signal-based communications system. They used looms to eave cotton garments by 750AD. Their origins seems to have been from 535AD - and the evidence is largely from tree-rings. By 535, they had only been 50-agricultural, use spear-throwers for hunting, used little pottery and ground-stone tool technology was primitive. By the late c6th they had become 80 per cent agricultural, and adopted the bow and arrow for hunting. Settlement sizes increased, they used more pottery and better stone axes. Adoption of the bow and arrow was not uncommon for other North Indian people, but the fact they built more stockade might indicate increased warfare. It might have been that the Anasazi were pressured by other peoples who were more hit by climate change than they had been, as their pottery changes were imported from 700 miles east, from the Late Woodland people of the Mississippi. (David Keys, Catastrophe).

The 530s in South America. Teotihuacan (popn 125,000-200,000) was a major South American empire of Mexico, but it was ruled by views about a cyclical series of universes replacing each other. The site of Teotihuacan was the birth-place of the fifth universe, with a divine origin encouraged by self-sacrifice (probably human sacrifice). Human government was divinely sanctioned and woven into views on the agricultural basis of prosperity, all based on sufficient rain. But there are no tree-ring, lake-deposit or ice-core evidences of climate-induced problems for Teothuacan. However, archaeological evidence is that both North and South America suffered climatic problems after 535AD, in California, southern Mexico (Yucatan area and lake-deposits), Columbia (tree rings and river-level changes), Peru (tree rings plus glacier-ice data), Brazil, Chile (tree-rings) and Argentina. Teoihuacan suffered drought. Under-25s were dying earlier. Famine caused diseases. Death rates in the cities encouraged rural-depopulation and affected agriculture. Military instability increased and trade decreased. To 600AD, Teotihuacan ended in flames and murder. There was probably a popular insurrection. Major city buildings were attacked, about 147-178 palaces and temples were burned, meaning, buildings symbolizing religious authority were attacked. The major city of Tikal (up to 50-square miles of settlement) also suffered, and signs of Cosmic War surfaced there by 561-562. A rival to Tikal was the city of Calakmul, which attacked Tikal, possibly aided by rebels from Tikal, although these 562 revolutionary processes had been afoot since 511. Tikal was rent with internal conflict. Earlier, Teothuacan had survived well enough to retain hegemony over Mayans, including those of Tikal, but it declined rapidly. The Mayan cities of Calakmul, Caracol and Copan rose to fill the vacuum left by the demise of Teothuacan. (David Keys, Catastrophe)

536AD: Japan: Climate/weather problems hit Japan by 536 and led four factors to interact, climate, migration, disease and religion. Drought struck Japan, followed by famine. People movements in response led to outbreaks of disease (probably smallpox). Koreans had been migrating to Japan and they became a political problem. Buddhism and Chinese culture were noticeable. It is probable that problems out-of-Japan had inspired migrations to Japan, mostly from Korea. There arose some conflict between folk religion (kami, who helped inspire the Shinto religion) and imported Buddhism. King Senka of Japan was assassinated and his reign supplanted by a tight dynasty (Soga clan). But in the longer-run, the pro-Buddhists won royal Japanese battles while some Confucian attitudes were imported. Japan was somewhat transformed.

535AD: Korea. The only surviving pagan state in Korea, Kingdom of Silla, decides to convert to Buddhism (imported by a Chinese missionary/diplomat), moving away from animism/Shamanism. But Korea was to suffer the same weather-climate problems as China had. The years 535-542 were the worst weather years of the Korean C6th. China, Korea and Japan all suffered similarly-dated bouts of bad weather. Korea had drought and famine, disease, even drinking water was short. Korea also had an earthquake in late 535. Conversion to Buddhism might have enabled the invocation of a more powerful magic? The Silla dynasty eventually ruled the entire Korean peninsula. although two rival kingdoms had been Buddhist for some time. Korean Buddhism encouraged the use of absolute monarchies, not a mix of aristocratic/royal dynasties, but the Silla dynasty continued with a mix of royalty/aristocracy, encouraging stability (a rigidified society had eight basic ranks, with aristocrats unsurprisingly given the top military posts). Korean intentions to unify were also encouraged in the face of tendencies to unification in China. (David Keys, Catastrophe)

535AD: China: In late November or early December beings a terrible chain of weather/climate events in China, with yellow ash or dust falling from the sky or dust from uncommonly severe dust storms. In mid 537, China has frosts and rain or snow by August that ruined crops, especially in the south. Two years of famine resulted. Cannibalism was not unknown. By 536 in central Chinese Xi'an, 7-8 of each ten people died and the dead were cannibalised. The taxation system collapsed and tax amnesties were tried in 538 and 541, lasting till 551. Three sorts of revolts may have occurred, partly religious, political or ethnic (in Northern Vietnam, part of Southern China). In 547 General Hou Jing (or Turkic not Chinese origin) in the north defected to the South, and took territory with him, so the northern government took it back; the general rebelled in 548 and took up the cause of the poor and afflicted. He marched on Nanjing, and was not subdued till 552. Rebels had captured the emperor and an anti-aristocracy feeling reigned. All this de-stabilised southern China. Inside eight years, south China had ten emperors, puppets, children or megalomaniacs. The emperor's family resorted to blood and violence. South China broke into three power groupings, east, west and middle Yangtze (user of slavery), while the northern Qi and the western Wei (user of slavery) grabbed what southern territory they could. Parts of Northern China had drought troubles in 548. A messianic Buddhist tradition re-flourished. General Hou Jing was killed in 551. The warlord Xiao Yi and his family had to be put down. Two southern generals stepped in and enthroned a son of a ruling Southern family, a son of Xiao Yi, and a new mre decentralised imperial system began, to 557. But northern forces had carved up parts of the South. The northern state of Zhou tricked the south into allying with an anti-northern Qi state, then turned on them for their own purposes. The south was further weakened. In the north rose a new dynasty, the Sui, with emperor Wendi, who resolved to deal with the south; he built roads and canals. In 587 the north invaded south and took the Yangtze area. Two great fleets were built. one for sea, one for inland water. An invasion force of 518,000 was gathered, possibly the great military force the world had yet seen, and the south (Emperor Chen Shubao) was unprepared. The events are depicted somewhat romantically in the recent fine Chinese movie, Battle of Red Cliff, 2008, directed by John Woo.) The entire southern area became controlled by the north. It had taken the north 50 years to subdue the south but now China was unified. (David Keys, Catastrophe citing the Nan Shi - The History of the Southern Dynasties)

535-536AD: There were falls of snow and distress for people in Mesopotamia. In Arabia was flooding followed by famine. In China was drought and famine. Japn was afflicted by mass hunger. Also affected were Mongolia, Korea and Japan. Southern Africa. The Roman Empire morphed into the Byzantine Empire while Arian Christianity faded away as a heresy. There came the end of an ancient South Arabian Civilisation and later the rise of Islam. In South America came the fall of the Maya City of Tikal and the fall of the Nasca Civilization of South America. Tree growth in widespread regions was affected for about 20 years, till the 550s. All this in the view of David Keys resynchronised world history. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books. 2000.

530sAD: Eastern Emperor Justinian has a successful campaign against Vandals in North Africa and sends his army to retake Italy, which it does, though his empire is weakened.

On AD536: See David Keys, Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books. 2000. Keys suspects that there was a major volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 535AD, in the Krakatoa/Sunda Straits area. From 530 were perhaps a series of earthquakes about west Java and south Sumatra. Java and Sumatra were possibly one island at the time. Volcanic spewing driven by temperatures up to 1650 Fahrenheit may have reached an altitude of 30 miles, and the stratosphere carried problems (25,000 cubic miles of earth junk, 25,000 cubic miles of water vapour, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulphur gas all blocking sunlight) vast distances. Some of this was recorded in the Javanese Book of Ancient Kings. The Straits of Sunda are the result of a collapsed caldera resulting from the explosions. The later result re plague was that the Indian-African weakened monsoon hit Eastern Africa with drought and major bubonic plague developed when rains returned. The weakened Asian monsoons hit Mongolia with problems which set of concatenating problems of people-movements.

536AD: Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea arrives in Southern Italy to find odd things. The sun has dimmed, also the moon. Summer has frosts and snow, winter never quite ends. Today we find climate changes from Ireland to Italy, in China, in Central America. In China the Northern Wei Dynasty fell. In South America the state-city of Teotihuacan declined and by 550AD the people had lost faith, burned the temples on top of step-pyramids and rejected views on their rulers' abilities to act as intermediaries between them and their gods. 535-536AD begins a decade-long cold snap for the world. Religions lose believers. Cities collapse. Great plagues kills thousands. Problems world-wide are due either to a huge volcanic eruption. Or, dust storms from a close comet shroud the atmosphere. Or, an asteroid or a comet strike the earth and cause a “nuclear winter”. The world suffers bad weather, social disorder, death. Some evidence arose in the 1980s from NASA geologists Richard Stothers and Michael Rampino who examined series of volcanic eruptions. Meantime, UK scientist Michael Baillie examined tree rings of Ireland, and groups findings around 536AD. Problems for tree rings were found in Ireland, in Scandinavian pines, and trees of North and South America. But there were no associable clues (ash or sulphur deposits) about volcanic activity left in ice of the north or south pole, although later, Bo Vinther at University of Copenhagen Denmark found a subtle sulphur signal for about 534AD in ice cores, with an origin due to a tropical location. Perhaps an eruption in El Savador, the Ilopango volcano, which generated 84 cubic km of ash? Old Chinese records for Halley's Comet suggest the comet spread dust and debris in Earth's atmosphere. It is not possible the world could have had both comet-caused problems and a volcanic eruption about 536AD? See article, Colin Barras, The Year of Darkness, New Scientist, 18 January , 2014. pp. 34ff.

536AD: David Keys, Catastrophe. Arrow, 2000. ISBN: 0099409844. (In 536AD, a volcanic eruption meant our planet was enveloped by a cloak of lethal dust which changed the climate for decades. The sun's rays grew dim and total darkness reigned for days. It was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions. Tens of millions of people died around the globe as a bubonic plague epidemic broke out. There followed waves of migration and the military, political and religious changes which the disaster set in motion re-ordered society throughout the world: the collapse of the Roman Empire, the invasion of the barbarian hordes and the rise of apocalypse-inspired Islam. It was the nearest humankind has ever come to Doomsday and it marked the real beginning of the modern era. The author sets the record straight by placing the pivotal point in world history as the mid-6th-century Dark Ages and shows how a fragile civilisation almost ended.)

536-537AD: Veiling of solar radiation due to a major volcanic eruption causes crop failures in many areas. See Michael McCormick et al, 'Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire: Reconstructing the Past from Scientific and Historical Evidence', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLIII:2, Autumn 2012, pp. 169-220. (This journal pioneered the study of history and climate in 1979 - Ed)

536AD: Due to drought, Arab pastoralists emigrate into Roman Empire territory.

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535AD: Indonesia: First known major eruption of volcano Krakatoa, setting up a "nuclear winter". Demise of ancient super cities, and climate change havoc in civilizations of Southern Arabia, Old Persia, Indonesia, Nasca culture of South America, rebirth in China of ideas of rebirth of a United China. In Arabia, extra rains ruined a famous and valuable old dam, then came plague and famine. (See David Keys, Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World.)

535AD: Documentary screened by SBS TV in Australia on 14 January 2001.
Two-part documentary: A British researcher becomes fascinated by tree-ring evidence of dramatic climatic change between 535-542AD and tries to find explanations. He rejects scenarios such as comets or asteroid bombardment, and comes up with a view on a massive eruption that produces enough volcanic ash to pollute the entire globe's atmosphere for decades and from which natural systems took over a century to recover. Other interesting events are occurring worldwide, simultaneously, and he tries to find causal connections. They range from other climatic disasters (floods, droughts, the abandonment of a major city in the Central Mexican plains etc.), to the collapse of the remains of the Roman empire and the overrunning of Europe by barbarians. This also coincided with an outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe that was introduced to Britain via contact of Western Britons with merchant mariners. The eastern Anglo-Saxons (who were dealing mainly with Northern Europe and Scandinavia) were not as affected and were able to finally conquer the last of the Gaelic Britons. (Does the death of King Arthur stem from this time?) Also, literary evidence and legends refers to darkness, cold, winter, almost-apocalypse. This series of events (which could be closely linked) overturned the 'old-world', the ancient world, and provided a transition to the forerunner of the modern world we now have. The researcher's explanations did appear plausible. He threw some religion in here too - for instance, the ancestors of Mohammed moved from Yemen (then the richest, most fertile part of the Arabian peninsula) where the Marib Dam was fatally breached and not repaired again - hence drought and fleeing of the population - to the area around Mecca. Later with Mohammed came the emergence of Islam. The timing of this coincides with the other events. One conclusion: The ability of natural forces to change the courses of history needs more attention from historians.
Submitted by Brian Bailey in January 2001.
The material below is adapted from The Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 106ff of Volume 8. Ignoring the previous history of various kingdoms, we find that the sovereignty of the Yemenis, a long dynasty, was overthrown by an Abyssinian invasion in 529AD, but this lasted till only 603, when the area became a dependency of the Persian Empire. There is an unclear legend of a great flood ("flood of Arem"), which had disturbed rules and politics, in about the First Christian Century. We are concerned with the Koreish, who produced the Prophet, Mohammed. About the Fifth Christian Century arose a Mustareb tribal leader named Kolaib, from the tribe of Rabiah. He revolted against "tax gatherers", and made a general revolt in Nejd. There followed the Battle of Hazat in 500AD, and he broke Yemen from control of Northern Arabia. Kolaib inspired a general confederacy, but was assassinated. The Mustareb tribe later had many wars, and gained control of the kingdom of Kindeh, and then Yemen, Irak and Ghassan. There then arose a potent element, the Fihr or Koreish, of Mustareb descent, who established themselves in Hedjaz, near Mecca, which already was a religious and commercial centre. The Koreish contrived to become guardians of the Kaaba, a square stone shrine of unknown antiquity, at Mecca. Arabs would then bring yearly offerings to the Kaaba, or, make pilgrimages. The keys of this consecrated building were in the hands of the Koreish, and they fended off their pagan competitors and the invading Christian Abyssinians of 570AD who wished to seize the keys. Mecca was also close to sea-port trade. Also, a day's journey from Mecca was Okad, a yearly gathering place for Arabs of all varieties, for annual ceremonies, pilgrimage, horse races, athletic games, poetry recitals, all forms of amusements, a kind of national exhibition. Questions of peace and war, justice and revenge, were also settled. The Koreish were also powerful in this environment. The Koriesh believed they were descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham. (Yemenites appear to be descended from "the children of Joktan, the son of Eber of the Old Testament). Mohammed the later Prophet was born in 570AD. In 529, Aryat, an agent of the King of Abyssinia, landed at Aden with an army of 70,000 men to avenge Christians, co-religionists, who had been persecuted by the king of Yemen, Dhu-Nowas, who followed the Jewish code. Dhu-Nowas perished. (It is said that Mohammad was most familiar with Monophysite Christianity.) The Ethiopian conquerors remained in power, and by 570 were near Mecca, but were repulsed from Mecca. Mohammed's successes date from 622AD. The Jewish faith had penetrated into Arabian areas by about 225-310, and in 495AD. The Himyarites on the coast of the Persian Gulf practised Sabaism or Magianism. The Ghassanides preached Christianity from about 330 to some Arab tribes. Idolatry however remained the predominant religion, although it might be mixed with recognition of one supreme God, Allah. The Kaaba was regarded as the chief shrine, a gift from God to indicate that Arabs were privileged beyond other peoples. It was the oratory of Abraham and Ishmael, the house of Allah. Abdul-Muttalib, son of Hashim, born in 497, exercised supreme authority in Mecca, from 520-579. He fathered 18 children, and beat off the Abyssinians. Muttalib believed he needed to sacrifice one of his sons, in 569, before one of the idols of the Kaaba, son Abdallah. As the sacrifice was to be made, some Koreish chiefs rose in protest, and the boy was replaced by 100 camels as a price of blood. A few days later Abdallah married Amina, daughter of Wahb, chief of the Zohri family, and so was born Mohammed, about August, 570. (Historian's History of the World, Vol. 8, p. 113)

535AD-554AD: Wars for recovery of Italy.

530sAD and Plague: The East African port of Rhapta (coast of today's Kenya or Tanzania, home to Bantu people), noted for ivory, tortoisehell and rhinoceros horn exports, seems to be under Arab control by Yemeni merchants. Later, by the 530sAD, Rhapta is one of four major East African ports, the others being Opone (now Ras Hafun of Somalia, Essina and Toniki near modern Barawa of Somalia, with Rhapta to the south, all four ports becoming defunct due to an outbreak of plague and home to either Late Neolithic Cushites or early Iron Age Bantu. Opone was confined to an island , covered about five acres and seems to have become defunct in the mid-C6th. The ports were mostly areas for trans-shipment and seem to have escaped modern archaeological detective work. (Although 19 East African ports are known to have operated years after the 530s AD). Rhapta or somewhere north of it may have been the place of origin of the plague which would soon visit the Middle East. The plague probably originated with fleas on an explosion of rodent populations after a major drought, due to extra-heavy rains. The rodents involved were probably gerbils, the multi-mammate mouse, then to the rat (Arvicanthus then to Rattus rattus, the Black Rat). The Black Rat infested ships, grain stores, buildings. The plague travelled north on ships up the Red Sea, to Pelusium of Egypt, Alexandria, through Palestine to Antioch in Syria, to Constantinople and east of Constantinople, reaching China in 50 years. It travelled to mid-western North Africa, to Greece, Illyricum (North of Greece), into Italy and Spain, to France, then western England and Ireland. See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

530s and plague: From 40AD: The East African port of Rhapta (coast of today's Kenya or Tanzania), noted for ivory, tortoise shell and rhinoceros horn exports, seems to be under Arab control by Yemeni merchants. Later, by the 530sAD, Rhapta is one of four major East African ports, the others being Opone (now Ras Hafun of Somalia, Essina and Toniki near modern Barawa of Somalia, with Rhapta to the south, all four ports becoming defunct due to an outbreak of plague. Opone was confined to an island, covered about five acres and seems to have become defunct in the mid-C6th. The ports were mostly areas for trans-shipment and seem to have escaped modern archaeological detective work. (Although 19 East African ports are known to have operated years after the 530s AD). See David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. Arrow Books, 2000.

534: Franks overthrow the Burgundian Kingdom.

534AD: Issue of Body of Civil Law (Corpus Juris Civilis) by Justinian. Massive codifications of existing laws, etc.

533AD-534AD: Rome: Reconquest of Africa.

532AD: Rome: The "Nika" riot.

529AD: Arabia, The Abyssinians, under Aryat, invade Yemen, to avenge the Christians persecuted by the King, Dhu-Nowas. Dhu-Nowas is killed and the Abyssinians rule the kingdom until in 605, when Saif, with the assistance of Chosroes the Great, restores the Kahtanee dynasty, which then becomes dependent on Persia. (Item from Historians' History of the World, 1907., pp. 32ff.

526AD: Death of East Gothic king Theodoric I. (The Great) In the Western Gothic kingship (France/Spain), his title is succeeded by Amalric, son of Alaric II. The new East Gothic king Athalaric retains Provence in Spain.

520sAD: Constantinople suffers water shortages in summer, probably due to droughts, or, less rain.

523AD: Severe drought in Palestine area from 523AD to 538AD.

Circa 520AD: The Scandinavian warrior-king Hygelac raids into Frisia. He is King of the Geats, and is legendary uncle and patron of the hero Beowulf.

Circa 500-515AD: The Huns, a nomadic central Asian people, destroy the powerful Gupta Empire of India.

511AD: Death of Frankish King in France, Clovis, whose sons divide his kingdom, to ill-effect.

507AD: Conversion to Christianity of Clovis, King of the Franks. (From Tom Holland, Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom. London, Little Brown, 2008.)

507AD: West Gothic (Visigothic) King Alaric II falls before Frankish army (Clovis) at Campus Vogladensis, near Poitiers, France.

506AD: Appearance of Roman Law of the Visigoths.

Update re The Dark Ages

For an entertainingly controversial depiction of The Dark Ages not as dark but as An Age of Light, albeit populated by demonized sets of people known as Huns, Vikings, Goths (Visigoths in Spain/Ostrogoths to their east), Vandals, see a c.2012 documentary The Dark Ages - Age of Light narrated by British art critic Waldemar Jarusczek. The Dark Ages are dated roughly C4thAD (fall of Roman Empire) to tempe William Conqueror of England, 1066 and all that. Jarusczek in four episodes treats the early Christians, the so called Barbarians, the Islamic World and then the Vikings or The Northmen. Jarusczek's views have not escaped illuminating criticisms by other British critics, especially concerning early Christians. Notes include: ... The Ostrogoths (who in Christian religion were Arians) had located in Italy based at Ravenna and enjoyed about two centuries of hegemony. In Spain, the Visigoth (also Arians) appeared from the East, the western brothers of the Ostrogoths, about 500AD-700AD, and were Arians surrounded by Roman Catholics. About 661AD they were fighting the Basques, seemingly to the north of the Visigoths, matters to be further investigated in other 2016 writings by Dan Byrnes.

500AD: France. Frankish invaders (Germanic people) move into Roman Gaul from the C3rd. By 507AD they occupy Belgium as Gallo-Romans. Then as the Western Roman Empire was weakened by a variety of Germanic peoples they took parts of North Gaul and by 507 had most of France except Britanny, Burgundy and Provence. By 573AD they also had Burgundy and Provence, and saw themselves as inheritors of Roman-style government, but they did not occupy former seats of Roman power in the south of France. Why not? Because of the plague stemming from 537AD or so, affecting southern France. Whereas other Germanic peoples, taking over from Romans, had occupied former Roman control centres, as with the Visigoths in Spain, Ostrogoths in Italy and the Vandals of Tunisia/Carthage. As Roman power waned, this effect on the destiny of Southern France had the result of concentrating political power in France about Paris, on the Seine River, (albeit that France had three Frankish kingdoms) despite the risks the Northern French/Franks ran from aggressive neighbours such as England, Germany and Scandinavia. There was a related effect on religion. Emphasis with religion in Europe changed from prayer or pilgrimage to mass pilgrimages (rogations), so that pilgrimage became a corporate activity, as a response to problems of plague or other "divine acts". (David Keys)

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500AD-700AD: A Hindu civilisation is established by the Khmer people of Cambodia.

500AD: Slavic tribes first settle in Bulgaria.

500AD: Germanic tribes in Czech lands are displaced by nomadic Slavs, including Czechs. Some Slavic states are set up which are absorbed into Charlemagne's empire.

500AD: North American Indians begin to use the bow and arrow. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 101)

493AD: Defeat and death of Odovacar.

491AD-518AD: Anastasius is Eastern Roman Emperor.

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