507 CE to 1100 CE
CE = Common Era, also known as AD

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507 CE: The Franks, who are Catholic, use the Arian Christianity of the Visigoths as an excuse to expand against them -- Catholics seeing Arianism as a heresy. The Franks defeat the Visigoths, kill their king, Alaric II,  and drive them into Spain.

511 CE: Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and, as is custom among the Franks, the lands of Clovis are divided among his four sons, beginning the sordid rule of Europe's "Merovingian" kings.

523 CE: In northern China, power within the Tuoba Wei family (a Xiongnu family rather than Chinese) has passed to a dowager queen who is a devout Buddhist -- Queen Hu.

524 CE: One of the four sons of Clovis, Clodomer, dies, and two of the other sons of Clovis, Clotaire and Childebert, seize Clodomer's lands for themselves and murder his children.

525 CE: Living in Italy under the rule of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, Boethius has been accused of treason and imprisoned. He has written his work On the Consolation of Philosophy while in captivity, and in a year he is executed.

528 CE: Hephthalites (White Huns) have moved from the Hindu Kush into the Punjab and eastward across the Ganges Valley, ravaging cities, towns and Buddhist monasteries, and now they are driven back, out of the Ganges Valley.

528 CE: Despite her Buddhism, Queen Hu has resorted to an old monarchist tool: killing people. She has executed lovers who have displeased her. She has forced a rival into a convent and has had her executed, and in 528 she executes her son, who was growing restless under the tutelage of her lovers.

529 CE: Justinian, Catholic Roman emperor at Constantinople since 518, closes down Plato's old academy in Athens as part of a move to stamp out paganism.

531 CE: Khosru I, of the Sassanian dynasty,  comes to power in Persia. He has crushed the communistic Mazdakite movement and has ended decades of disorder. He is to support Zoroastrianism and to reform and improve Persia's economy, making taxes more equitable and curbing the power of aristocrats.

533 CE: Getting the world ready for the Second Coming of Christ, Emperor Justinian sends his army to reconquer what had been parts of the Roman Empire. In North Africa he defeats the Vandals, who are Arian Christians, and he conquers territory and souls for the Church.

534 CE: Continuing the Frankish tradition of making war for the sake of plunder, Clotaire and Childebert have overrun the kingdom of Burgundy -- including the cities of Lyons and Geneva. The royal dynasty in Burgundy ends with the death of Gundimar. An independent Kingdom of Burgundy is no more.

534 CE: Toledo becomes the capital of the Visigoth kingdom in Spain.

534 CE: Outraged court officials rebel against Queen Hu. She cuts her hair and seeks refuge in a Buddhist nunnery, but the officials drag her out and assassinate her. Also, two thousands courtiers are killed. Northern China divides between western and eastern halves of the Wei dynasty.

536 CE:.Justinian's army invades Italy at Naples.

550 CE: What had been Roman-ruled Britain is largely divided among illiterate Anglo-Saxon warlords, surrounded by men who are preoccupied with fighting, valor and loyalty. They look with contempt upon the what they see as the defeated God of the defeated Christians.

550 CE: Rule in India is again divided among numerous kingdoms. Profitable trade with the Roman Empire has ended, and trade with Persia had also declined, which brings decline to some of India's cities. In India a movement called Bhakti has begun and is growing. They practice humility and sing of their adoration and love for a generous, merciful, supreme God.

554 CE: Justinian's' army defeats the Ostrogoths of Italy.  Rome and much of Italy is in ruin.  The Pope and Catholicism now reign supreme in Rome and central Italy. The Trinity version of Christianity has won against Arianism, violence again deciding a matter of theology.

560 CE: The Hephthalites have returned to their power center near Samarkand. They are attacked, defeated by a Persian-Turkish alliance, the Persians taking revenge for the defeat that the Hephthalites had given their forefathers the previous century. The Hephthalites vanish as an identifiable people.

560 CE: Aethelbert I succeeds his warlord father, Eormenric, in a kingdom in southern England called Kent -- one of the older if not oldest Anglo-Saxon settlements in England, dating from the mid-400s or a couple of decades earlier. The young Aethelbert is soon to marry the Catholic daughter of the king of Paris, Charibert, a grandson of Clovis.

568 CE: Constantinople has been weakened by it prolonged wars and by warring tribes into its empire.  The Lombards invade Italy, reaching Milan.

577 CE: A Xiongnu chieftain, Yan Ch'ien, unifies northern China by force.

581 CE: Diffusion brings Chinese rule in northern China back to the Chinese. The Xiongnu chieftain, Yan Ch'ien dies in 580 under mysterious circumstances. Replacing him in his son-in-law, Yang Jian, a tough Buddhist soldier from an aristocratic Chinese family, who has had the title Duke of Sui. Yang Jian proclaims that heaven and earthly signs indicate that he, being virtuous and wise, has been designated by heaven as the rightful successor. He takes the name Emperor Wen, and to eliminate rivalry he has fifty-nine people murdered. The Sui Dynasty has begun.

587 CE: In Japan, the Soga clan,  which has intermarried with the royal Yamato family, fights the Mononobe and Nakatomi clans over influence in selecting a successor to the Emperor Yomei has taken place. The Soga favor importing Buddhism from the Asian mainland, described there as the religion of the most civilized. The Mononobe and Nakatomi hold that Buddhism would be an affront to the gods of the emperor. The Soga win the civil war. The head of the Soga family, Umako, makes his nephew, Sujun, emperor.

588 CE: In Spain, the king of the Visigoths, Recared I, has discarded Arian Christian and converts to Catholicism. And as the king goes, so goes his nation.

589 CE: From northern China, Emperor Wen has gained power through the south. After 271 years of division, China is again united.

592 CE: Emperor Sujun wants to be rid of his benefactor, Umako, but Umako strikes first and has Sujun murdered. Umako places his places his thirty-nine year-old daughter, Suiko, on the throne and makes her twenty-nine year-old nephew, Shotoku, regent.

594 CE: Shotoku  converts Suiko to Buddhism. Buddhism becomes the state religion and is called upon to protect the Japanese nation.

600 CE: Monotheistic religion has spread to Arabia. Jews have been in Arabia for centuries. Christian missionaries have been in Arabia for more than a century. The entire Arabian province of Najran is Christian. Christianity has been established superficially in various other centers of trade, and  Arabs living on the borders of Constantinople's empire and Persia's empire have been influenced by those empires.

602 CE: Constantinople's army mutinies against the Emperor Maurice and the masses join in against anyone who is wealthy -- Christians against Christians. Maurice and his family are butchered as Maurice prays. Their heads are put on display and their bodies cast into the sea. A non-commissioned army officer, Phocas, becomes emperor. Pope Gregory  joyfully applauds Maurice's demise, and he describes the coming to power of Phocas as the work of Providence. He asks Catholics to pray that Phocas might be strengthened against all his enemies.

603 CE: Khosru II of Persia, who had had a good relationship with Maurice and his family, is disturbed by their deaths and declares war against Phocas and Constantinople. The Zoroastrian priesthood in Persia is pleased. As they see it, their king is responsible for conquering the world in order to spread peace, the Zoroastrian faith, individual salvation and to prepare all humankind for the great, worldwide battle against Satan at Armageddon.

610 CE: The army of Phocas has been occupied by war with Persia, and Avars and Slavs have been advancing through Constantinople's empire in Europe. Constantinople's governor in Egypt, Heraclius, sails with a small army to Constantinople, and with Phocas having lost much of his support, Heraclius easily defeats him. Phocas is executed and Heraclius became emperor.

613 CE: Muhammad has begun preaching publicly in his hometown, Mecca, and he is being ignored or is thought to be crazy.

618 CE: In China, the Sui Dynasty has worked people too hard on public works projects and has lost economic prosperity in its wars against Korea. With flooding and famine has come rebellion and civil war. The victor, the Duke of Tang, becomes Emperor Gao-zu. The Sui Dynasty has ended and the Tang Dynasty has begun.

622 CE: Pilgrims from Yathrib visiting Mecca (a holy city before the existence of Islam) are favorably impressed by Muhammad and invite him to return with them to their town. The town has no unifying governmental authority. Muhammad is fifty-two and becomes recognized in Yathrib as a religious leader and someone to go to for settling disputes.

623 CE: Yathrib has a large Jewish community, and its leaders reject Muhammad's claim to be a leader of Judaism. Muhammad and his followers stop bowing toward Jerusalem and begin bowing toward Mecca, and Muhammad abandons Saturday as the Sabbath and makes Friday his special day of the week.

624 CE: Mohammad has responded to economic hardship in Yathrib by organizing raids on merchant's caravans. He has his greatest success so far, at Bedr, where the raiders kill an estimated fifty to seventy persons from Mecca. Muhammad and Mecca are hostile, Muhammad claiming God to be on his side and blaming Mecca for having rejected him.

626 CE: Avars, helped by Slavs, attack the walls of Constantinople. The Persians also assault the city. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius, leads a defense of Constantinople and defeats the Avars.

630 CE: Muhammad's military has grown stronger, and in his war with Mecca he emerges victorious. Mecca's wealthy are obliged to donate to the well being of its poor. People in Mecca see Muhammad's strength as the power of his god, and they see the other gods as having become powerless. There is a mass conversion to Islam, and Muhammad adds Mecca's army to his own. Muhammad conquers the rest of  Arabia, puts down others claiming to be prophets.

630 CE: Constantinople's army pushed through Mesopotamia, destroying as they went. The great canal works in Mesopotamia have been destroyed. The Persian army has overthrown Khosru. His son is crowned Khavad II and signs a peace treaty with Constantinople and returns Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and western Mesopotamia to Constantinople's empire.

632 CE: Muhammad dies.

634 CE: The momentum generated by victories against dissidents and breakaway regions left Islamic warriors restless and feeling aggressive, and Arabia has been in an economic recession, trade having come to a standstill after ten years of war. War for booty is a tradition, and as an alternative to making raids against "the faithful" in Arabia, Muslim warriors are making raids into Mesopotamia. They meet little resistance and are encouraged to make more war. Islam's first caliph to succeed Muhammad,  Abu Bakr, declares a holy war in support of the raiders, and one of the greatest imperialism of all time begins.

640 CE: Buddhist doctrine and Shinto have been influencing each other. The Buddha, represented by the statue at Nara, has become identified with the Sun Goddess of Shinto worship, and Buddhist ceremonies have been weaved into traditional court ritual.

645 CE: The Soga clan has been oppressive and arrogant and its leaders are overthrown and put to the sword by the Nakatomi clan -- whose leader had been serving as Japan's Shinto high priest. The Nakatomi would now select who among the Yamato family would be emperor and continue to run daily court ceremonies.

646 CE: Muslim warriors have attacked wealthy but not common people, and they have not raped as some Christian armies have. In some areas they are seen as at least as no worse than the rule they are replacing. The empires of Constantinople and Persia have been weakened by war and lack of support, and Muslim warriors have conquered as far north as Syria, much of Mesopotamia and all of  Egypt.

650 CE: A mid-eastern people of mixed race, the Khazars, expand westward along the north shore of the Black Sea and push Bulgars from east of the Dniester River. The Bulgars migrate south, across the Danube River, and found the kingdom that in modern times is called Bulgaria. The Khazars sell captured people, mainly Slavs -- the origin of the modern English word, slave.

651 CE: Almost thirty years have passed since Muhammad's death. The third caliph since Muhammad tries to put an end to quarreling over Muhammad's legacy and orders a committee to collect Muhammad's messages into a standard word, to be called the Quran, drawing from the memories and the tradition of passing history on orally. The result produces the wrath of various people and communities across Arabia who had become wedded to these rival interpretations.

652 CE: The Muslims have conquered Persia, where people and the Zoroastrian religion were a greater barrier to conquest than were the people of previous territories. Muslims see Zoroastrianism as evil, and in Persia, its homeland, Zoroastrianism is doomed.

654 CE: Christian missionaries from Ireland are beginning to evangelize across England. The king of Essex, Sigebert, has been  influenced by Northumbria and has just converted to Christianity. Northumbria defeats the pagan king of Mercia, gains possession of Mercia and its king becomes overlord of England's southern kingdoms. With pagans, Catholicism has won prestige with the military victory -- a look of the Christian god's superiorr power. Mercia converts to Christianity.

656 CE: In Medina (Yathrib) Uthman is assassinated. The leaders of the sect that assassinated Uthman proclaims Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, caliph. Civil war erupts.

660 CE: The Quran, as an arranged book and considered complete, is published for the first time. Muhammad's main concern after his conquest of Mecca was resistance by recalcitrant tribes in Arabia and claims by rival prophets among the resisters. Reflecting this struggle, the Quran describes non-believers as evil and people who can expect war from God (3.151). But the Quran also advocates peace with enemies who are inclined toward it (8.61). Muhammad wanted people within his realm, including Christians and Jews, to get along. He wanted to tax Christians and Jews, and in the Quran are verses about Christians and Jews not fearing or grieving (2.62). Drawing as Muhammad did from the biblical tradition that had entered Arabia, the Quran mentions biblical figures and repeats the biblical message of God's love and grace. (5.54).

661 CE: An assassination attempt has been made on Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, and he dies of his wounds, aggravating a split between his supporters, called Shi'a Muslims. Their rivals, Sunni Muslims, are establishing a new caliphate at Damascus, in Syria.

664 CE: The civil war among the Muslims ends. Led by caliph Mu'awiyah in Damascus, Islam renews military expansion.

680 CE: CaliphMu'awiyah dies. He had nominated the son, Yazid, to be his successor. Yazid is not only a military hero but the son of  Mu'awiyah's favorite wife, a Christian. Those who do not approve of this succession and dislike rule by the clan to which the caliphs belong, Umayyads, and who dislike rule from Damascus rather than the holy city of Medina, rebel. Civil war returns.

690 CE: In China, Wu Zetian has worked her way from the emperor's favorite concubine to replacing his wife and dominating the court, and now she officially becomes Empress Wu -- the only Chinese woman emperor in history. Murder and terror have been her methods. Challenging Confucian opposition to rule by a woman, she has champions feminism, and she champions Buddhism.

692 CE: The twelve-year civil war ends when the Syrian army overruns Mecca. The new Umayyad caliph since 685 has been Abd al-Malik.

700 CE: Non-Arab Muslims outnumber Arab Muslims. Despite resistance from Arab leaders, integration between Arabs and non-Arab Muslims in rising. An Islamic empire by Arabs is on its way toward being swallowed by its conquests.

702 CE: Drawing from the Chinese and Confucianism, the Japanese have established new laws -- the Taiho Code. The emperor is seen ass having supreme moral authority, a benevolent ruler, with moral ministers and bureaucrats, to whose authority otherwise feuding local lords should submit for the sake of peace. And, accompanying this centralized authority, a national tax system is devised.

705 CE: Empress Wu has proclaimed a new dynasty of her own family line. She has lowered taxes for farmers, and agricultural production has risen. She has strengthened public works. But by 705 she is in her old age and has lost control at court. Officicals at court force her to reisgn in favor of a member of the Tang family -- the return of the Tang Dynasty.

708 CE: In China, boiled war is safer to drink than untreated water, and tea becomes popular accompanied by the belief that tea has medicinal properties.

710 CE: Japan's emperor moves the capital from Osaka to the city of Nara in order to avoid the pollution of his predecessor's death.

711 CE: A Muslim army crosses the Strait of Gibraltar and begins a conquest of Spain. Jews welcome them as liberators. An Arab ship is plundered by pirates near the mouth of the Indus River, and the Arab governor in Mesopotamia retaliates, sending an expedition, said to include 6,000 horses and 6,000 camels, to conquer the rajas of Sind.

712 CE: The new Tang emperor, Zhongzong, has died and his wife, Empress Wei, is suspected of having poisoned him. She has tried to rule as had Empress Wu. She has sold offices and Buddhist monkhoods. She has created enemies whom she has failed to exterminate, and they oust her from power.

717 CE: Arabs have conquered eastward across land to the western border of China. They have conquered Lisbon and in the Caucasus, including Armenia. Caliph Omar II grants tax exemption to all believers. Wealth has been gathered from looting the wealthy during conquests and by taxing non-Muslims.

718 CE: Constantinople, ably led by a general called Leo the Isaurian, has held off Muslim attacks by land and sea for more than a year. Leo is now Emperor Leo III. South-Central Europe is to remain Christian.

722 CE: Emperor Leo III forces conversion of Constantinople's Jews.

726 CE: Emperor Leo III issues an edict against the worship of icons, seeing it as the main reason Jews and Muslims cannot be won to Christ. The cross is to be maintained as the symbol for Christianity, but worship with other images, including those of Jesus, are not permitted.

731 CE: English histriorian and theologian, Bede, writes and Ecclesiastical History. He beings numbering the years from the time of
Christ rather than from the reign of kings -- his numbering to be divided between BC and AD (or BCE and CE).

732 CE: Muslims were making piratical raids from Spain northward across the Pyrenees into territory of the Franks. Charles Martel leads an army that defeats a Muslim army led by Abd-er-Rahman -- who was not on a mission to conquer all of Christendom.

737 CE: For two years Japan has been suffering from a small pox epidemic. Perhaps as much as one-third of the population has perishes.

745 CE: China has accomplishments in poetry, painting, printing and is a vast empire, but its monarchical system tends toward failure. The Tang emperor since 712, Xuanzong, has fallen under the spell of his son's wife, Yang Guifei, a Daoist priestess. Emperor Xuanzong is ignoring the economy and China is again declining.

750 CE: Sometime around this year Mexico's great city of Teotihuacan (Teotihuacán) is among those cities destroyed and left in ruins, its great palaces burned to the ground. The city's population is reduced to a few people living in hovels in a few sections of the city.

750 CE:.The Umayyad caliphs have lost people willing to fight for them. They have been overthrown by an army of mixed nationalities from Khurasan (east of Persia). The last Umayyad, Marwan II, is beheaded and his relatives are murdered. The new caliph is Abu-Abbas al-Sarah. Rule by the Abbasid caliphs has begun. The Abbasids begin ruling with a show of Islamic piety, and they talk of reforms. They give prominence in state affairs to Islamic theologians and experts in Islamic law.

750 CE: Arabian mathematicians begin using numbers that originated in India, are an advance of Roman numerals and that Muslims will pass to Europeans. 

751 CE: An Islamic army in Central Asia defeats the Chinese (at the Battle of Atlakh). Muslims replace the Chinese as the dominate influence along the Silk Road.

751 CE: The last Merovingian king of the Franks, Childeric III, is deposed. The Merovingians had ruled as they pleased, including enforcing what they thought was their right to deflower a commoner's bride before he was allowed to consummate his marriage. A new dynasty, the Carolingians, is begun by Pepin the Short, the son of Charles Martel.

756 CE: An Umayyad prince, Abd Ar-Rahman, has escaped slaughter by the Abbasids and establishes himself as caliph at Cordoba, Spain, in rivalry with the Abbasid caliph, Mansur, at Damascus.

763 CE: Mansur moves the Abbasid capital to Baghdad.

767 CE: In Persia, Muqanna leads thousands against the Abbasids, robbing caravans and destroying Mosques.

768 CE: Charles, eldest son of Pepin III (Pepin the Short), inherits half of his father's Frankish empire.

770 CE: The Fujiwara family removes Empress Shotoku from power. She had fallen in love with a Buddhist monk, Kokyo, whom she  had promoted as her chief minister. Nara Society was shocked. Henceforth women are exempted from imperial succession.

771 CE: Charles becomes king of all of his father's empire. He is a devout Christian and to have four wives and children by five mistresses.

772 CE: Charles, eventually to be known as Charles the Great (Charlemagne in French) begins thirty years of conquest and the rebuilding the empire of the Franks, with an infantry carrying axes, spears and shields of wood and leather.

774 CE: Charlemagne overruns the Lombards in northern Italy. He divides Lombard territory with the Pope, creating the Papal States.

775 CE: Charlemagne begins his war against the Saxons in Germany, with slaughter and forced conversions to Christianity.

780 CE: At Constantinople, Byzantium's Emperor Leo IV dies, and his wife, Irene, becomes regent for his son, who is ten. Leo's brothers, called Caesars, begin to plot for power, but Irene has them whipped, their heads shaved and banished.

784 CE: The Japanese begin a war against the Ainu -- in the north on the main island of Honshu. The new emperor, Kammu, wishes to be free of influence from the Buddhist monasteries around Nara, and he moves his court thirty-five miles from Nara, to Nagaoka,

787 CE: Empress Irene convenes the 7th Ecumenical Council, which refutes the iconoclasm begun by Constantinople's Emperor Leo III in 726. Among the masses and many clerics the worship of relics has persisted. The tortured, blinding and banishment of relic worshippers has ended. It is widely believed that the previously outlawed images work miraculous cures.

787 CE: Charlemagne, king of the Franks, is learning to read, and he reproaches ecclesiastics for their uncouth language and "unlettered tongues." In hope of creating an educated clergy he orders every cathedral and monastery to establish a school where clergy and laity can learn to read. His rule includes land for nobles who provide him with military service. He depends on the allegiance of distant counts, dukes and bishops within his realm, men with some independence because of the distance and slowness of communications.

788 CE:  Indian philosopher Shankara develops a system of philosophical that equates soul with God.

789 CE: A Shi'a kingdom is established in Morocco independent of the caliph in Baghdad.

791CE: Buddhism becomes Tiber's official religion.

793 CE: By boat, Scandinavians reach the island of Lindisfarne, Scotland. They kill monks and loot the monastery there. It is the first recorded raid by those called to be called Vikings.

794 CE: In Japan, disease and death of an heir apparent are perceived as bad omens. They royal family believes that the spirit of the dead needs to be placated. The emperor, Kammu, moves his family from a palace considered contaminated to a new capital, Heian-kyo, to be renamed Kyoto.

797 CE: At Constantinople, the Mother Empress, Irene (now between 42 and 47), and her emperor son, Constantine IV (now 27), have been competing for power. Irene has won. She has her son blinded and exiled.

800 CE: Charlemagne is crowned by Pope Leo III, who hails him as "Augustus, crowned of God …emperor of the Romans."

803 CE: The war against the Ainu ends. The emperor, Kammu, has left court-appointed aristocrats as leaders of his army, and an aristocrat, Sakanoue Tamuramaro, has emerged as a war hero and the first person with the title of Shogun.

807 CE: The Abbasid caliph, Harun al Rashid, decress that Baghdad Jews are wear a yellow badge and Christians are to wear a blue badge.

813 CE: The new Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, son of al Rashid, Abdallah al-Mamun, sends people to Constantinople's empire to collect scientific works by ancient Greeks.

825 CE: The kingdom of Wessex  wins in war and becomes the dominate power in England.

826 CE: In China, the Tang Dynasty limps along politically. A reckless teenager, Jingzong, has inherited the throne -- the second emperor in five years. In the eyes of court eunuchs he has filled the court with incompetent persons, and they have him assassinated.

840 CE: Eunichs in China have chosen Wuzong (age 36) as emperor, and while doing so they murder two rivals to the throne and the mothers of these contenders.

841 CE: In Scandinavia and increase in population has inspired people called Vikings or Norsemen to venture out in longboats. This year, give or take a year or so, Vikings land and build a settlement on the south bank of the River Liffey, founding what will eventually be the city of Dublin.

843 CE: Buddhism, imported from India, has grown in China. Wuzong is an ardent Daoist, and he begins a campaign that will close Buddhist shrines and temples, return Buddhist monks and nuns to lay life and confiscate millions of acres of Buddhist land. Buddhism in China is to survive but never fully recover, while its rival, Confucianism, enjoys a renewed intellectual life.

845 CE: Vikings journeying up the Seine River and arriving at Paris in search of loot are bribed not to attack.

850 CE: A Muslim scholar in Baghdad, al Kindi, is using translations of Aristotle -- unavailable in Western Europe -- to crreate a neoplatonic school of Islamic thought.

858 CE: In Japan, the Nakatomi family has changed its name to Fujiwara. Fujiwara women have married into the royal Yamato family and they have given birth to Yamato emperors. The Fujiwara family runs the government and their taking power is described as having begun -- a power that the Fujiwara family is too keep for three centuries. 

858 CE: Christian missionaries develop the Cyrillic alphabet from written Greek -- an alphabet that in modern times is used in Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and other languages. 

860 CE: Vikings have attacked at Constantinople. A new phase in Scandinavian (Viking) aggression has begun. Encouraged be former successes, the Scandinavians are beginning to attack in greater number. 

861 CE: Vikings voyage up the river Seine and attack at Paris, up the Rhine to Cologne, and they attack at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

862 CE: Vikings have reported that land is more available abroad, and with the growth in population having eliminated the availability of land at home. Moving from more densely populated areas, Scandinavian have begun moving to less densely populated areas and settling down. Rurik of Scandinavia has established a dynasty at Novgorod. 

865 CE:.In England, an Army of Danes has overthrown the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia.

870 CE:.A Sufi, Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bistami (Bayazid), has been spreading his wisdom. A change has been taking place in Islam, as religion had when the Roman Empire was disintegrating. Muslims are no longer looking with hope to a god that is a glorious conqueror. Instead they are looking for a sense of well-being through a personal relationship with Allah. The Sufi movement is bringing Allah down from his heights and sees Him as a loving friend -- the way Christians saw Jesus.

868 CE:.Someone in China produces a book of pages and paper. 

874 CE:.Vikings settle in Iceland.

899 CE:.King Alfred the Great of Wessex has rallied England against Viking attacks. Vikings are settled and remain in Northumbria and East Anglia while a Viking army has sailed back to the continent.  

900 CE:.For sometime the horse collar has been spreading in Europe, invented more than 1000 years earlier in China. The collar prevents choking a horse, ignored by Roman farmers. The collar allows a horse to pull heavier loads, needed for pulling plows in Europe's heavy soils. 

904 CE: Recent emperors in China have been incompetent and the puppets of palace eunuchs. Many in China believe that these emperors have lost the Mandate of Heaven. 

905 CE: China's emperor looses control over Annam (northern Vietnam). There a village notable, Khuc Thua Du, has led a rebellion. The Chinese garrison at Tong Binh (Hanoi) is vanquished. Khuc Thua Du declares Annam autonomous. 

911 CE: The King of France, Charles III, gives part of the territory to be known later as Normandy to Vikings in return for the  Viking leader, a Norwegian, Rollo pledging his allegiance to him -- the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. Rollo and his Vikings (mostly Danes) are to defend his part of the coast of France from attacks by other Vikings. 

912 CE: Rollo and his Vikings become Christian.

950 CE: Women in a Chinese harem invent playing cards.

960 CE: In China, palace guards surround their commander and demand that he become emperor. The commander agrees but only if they vow to obey him and not plunder, not harm citizens and not harm the ruling family they are overthrowing. The troops agree. The new emperor is Taizu, who will begin the Song Dynasty. 

970 CE: Córdoba, on the Iberian Peninsula, is Europe's intellectual center and the world's most populous city. Constantinople is the only other European city in the top ten of the world's most populous cities. Córdoba is a Muslim city. Caliph al Hakam II has been in power since 961 and is contributing to the building of Cordoba's libraries. Córdoba has Europe's best university, with a spirit of free inquiry. It has medical schools. Work is being done also in math and astronomy. The city is tolerant toward its Jewish and Christian minority. 

980 CE: Wealthy landowners in Japan have freed themselves from paying taxes. The government has little in revenues and has stopped supporting a national army. The wealthy landowners have been consolidating their various lands into single administrative units and creating their own armies. The men hired for these armies are to be known as samurai (men who serve), or bushi (warriors). 

982 CE: Erik the Red has been expelled from Iceland. He leads a group in the exploration of Greenland. 

985 CE: Erik the Red has returned to Iceland. With 25  ships filled with people and their belongings he heads back to Greenland. Many are lost at sea. With the 350 persons who arrive in Greenland, he establishes a settlement. 

990 CE: Between Timbuktu and the Atlantic coast, authoritarian kings have enriched themselves by forcing tradesmen to give them a cut in the gold that has been passing through their territory from mines to their south on their way northward. Their kingdom is called Ghana. Ghana extends its empire by conquering the Berber-dominated town of Awdaghost, to the northwest of Ghana, and Ghana is now at the peak of its power.  

1000 CE: For centuries Christians have been expecting the Second Coming of Jesus -- the Day of Judgment -- and many believe this is the year that it will happen. 

1001 CE: Mahmud, an Afghani and militant Muslim, has secured his rule. He vows to take the word of Allah to the Hindu kingdoms of India every year, by sword and fire.

1002 CE: From Greenland, Leif Ericson, son of the Eric the Red, has led an expedition with a crew of 34 men to the coast of North America. 

1004 CE: Confident of his moral superiority, China's emperor responds with pacifism: he does not assert himself militarily against Khitan incursions. He appeases the aggressions of the Khitan by ceding permanently to the Khitan that part of China which they occupy, including Beijing, and he agrees to pay the Khitan annual tribute (taxes).

1008 CE: Sweden's king, Olof Skötonung, converts to Christianity, and when a king converts to Christianity, his subjects also convert.   

1010 CE: Division has weakened India. Through the Kyber Pass, Muslims on horseback have been raiding temple towns in northwest India and carrying back to Ghazni as much booty as they can -- much of it wealth stolen from temples. The raiding stops after the Indians agree to pay tribute to the Afghani ruler, Mahmud. The Indians begin sending to Ghazni annual trains of elephants laden with gifts.

1015 CE: A 21-year-old Dane, to be known as Canute the Great (Cnut I), has invaded England with a powerful fleet.  

1017 CE: Canute has conquered much of England. He marries the widow of the king of Wessex, Ethelred (Aethelred II) -- a devout Christian. Canute converts to Christianity and proclaims his intention to rule in a Christian fashion, and he strengthens political and commercial ties between England and Normandy.  

1019 CE: Canute's brother Harald, king of Denmark, dies, and Canute becomes king of Denmark

1028 CE: Canute occupies Norway with a fleet of fifty ships from England, with the help of Norweigan nobles he drives the Norwegian king since 1016, Olaf II Haraldssön, into exile. 

1029 CE:1029 Olaf II Haraldssön returns to Norway and falls in battle.  

1040 CE: The Chola dynasty, now led by Rajendra I (1014-44), ruling from southeast India, has conquered the island of Lanka is the south to Bengal in the northeast. In Hindu society in general, wealth has been accumulating at the top. A few princes have thousands of servants and hangers-on. A greater percentage of agriculture is being taken from free peasants, and more of those who work the land are laborers bound to the land, locked in place by their caste -- the  Sudras.

1044 CE: Tangut (Tibetan) warriors have been making incursions into China, and China buys peace by agreeing to make tribute payments to them as well as to the Khitan.

1054 CE: In a doctrinal dispute, the Church in Rome accuses the Christians in Constantinople of allowing priests to marry,  re-baptizing Roman Christians and deleting "and the Son" from the Nicene Creed." The last of these accusations was untrue. The Church in Rome excommunicates the Church in Constantinople, and the Church of Constantinople excommunicates the Church in Rome. The schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy has become final. 

1055 CE: Turks have been moving westward through Transoxiana and into Persia. Islam has been fragmented and unable or unwilling to rally to defend its frontier. The Turks have conquered much of Persia and now from the Fatimid Dynasty they conquer Baghdad. 

1066 CE: William I of Normandy ends Anglo-Saxon rule in England and becomes its first Norman king of England. Many French words are to become English words. 

1073 CE: Previously Hildebrand had thwarted attempts to make him Pope, and he had proposed what became the choosing of Popes by the College of Cardinals. Now Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII.  

1075 CE: Berbers of Morocco, fervent Muslims, declare war on the non-Muslim kingdom and empire of Ghana centered at city of Kumbi.  

1077 CE: An historical high point of papal supremacy has been reached. Pope Gregory VII is in conflict with the "Roman Emperor" in Germanic lands, Henry IV (a descendant of Charlemagne's rule). Henry's fitness to rule is to be decided at a diet under the chairmanship of the Pope Gregory. To forestall action by this diet, during the winter Henry crosses the Alps southward to see the Pope, and, responding to Henry's humiliation and penitence, Gregory grants him absolution -- forgiveness.

1085 CE: Christianity has been expanding against Muslims since Charlemagne took Barcelona in 801. The Christian king of Castile and Galicia, Alfonso VI, has been inviting Christians in Islamic Spain to his kingdom. Now he expands militarily to Toledo, in central Spain. The Christian reconquest of Spain is underway.

1091 CE: Normans conquer Sicily, ending two centuries of Muslim rule there. Arabs are allowed to continue working in public administration. 

1094 CE: The kingdom of Aragon expands southward to Valencia.

1095 CE: The Seljuk Turks have been expanding against the empire centered at Constantinople. They have conquered Jerusalem. The Turks were also Muslims, however they did not allow Christians to visit their holy sites. Pope Urban II responds to a call for help from the emperor at Constantinople and organizes what was to become known as the First Crusade. Urban II announces that Christ will lead any army that goes to rescue the Holy Land.

1097 CE: Well-trained knights defeat Muslims near Nicaea, and later in the year the Crusaders reach Antioch.

1099 CE: Jerusalem falls to the Crusaders, who slaughter the city's Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. 
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