History of The World: 354 - 1650 AD

Unit III

THE TWO WORLDS OF ST. AUGUSTINE (354 - 430 AD)
Click here for the introductory text.

Augustine born in North Africa (354)

A new wave of invasions into the Roman empire begins, ultimately bringing an end to the empire (376)

Augustine writes his Confessions, about ten years after his conversion (397)

Rome sacked by Alaric the Visigoth, shocking what's left of the Roman world (410)

Augustine dies just before Vandals seize the city of Hippo, where he served as bishop (430)

• Atilla the Hun invades Europe (451 )
• Venice founded ( 452 )
• Vandals sack Rome ( 455 )
• Mayan civilization flourishes in Mexico ( c. 470 )
• Last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, deposed (476 )
• founding of Sussex ( 477 )
• Clovis, king of the Franks, converts to Catholic Christianity, helping ensure that Western Europe will become a Catholic region (480 )
• birth of Justinian the Great ( 483 )
• kingdom of Wessex founded ( 495 )

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500
• foundation of the Huari empire in Peru ( c. 500 )
• St. Benedict establishes a "rule" regulating monastic life (530 )
• war between Persia and the Byzantine Empire ( 539 )
• Nubia in Africa converted to Christianity ( c. 540 )
• plague begins in Constantinople and spreads over Europe ( 542 )
• chess develops in India ( 550 )
• Tibetan kingdom founded ( c. 570 )
• Catholic Christianity becomes the official religion in large portions of England, Germany and the Low Countries (597 - 768 )
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600
• Persians capture Damascus and Jerusalem ( 614 )
• earliest records of Mohammed's teachings ( 615 )
• T'ang Dynasty in China ( 618 - 907 )
• Arabic converts to Islam seize Palestine, Egypt, and later large parts of Persia and North Africa (632 - 711 )
• rise of feudal nobility in Japan ( 636 )
• founding of Cairo ( 641 )
• forebearer of the Korean civilization flourishes ( 668 )
• Greek fire invented by Kallinikos ( 671 )

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700
• Berbers in north Africa convert to Islam ( 702 )
• Charles Martel becomes mayor of the Frankish court ( 715 )
• birth of Charlemagne ( 742 )
• first printed newspaper appears in Peking ( 748 )
• Baghdad founded, ushering in a long period of flourishing Arabic culture, both in the arts and sciences (756 )
• Charlemagne becomes the sole ruler of the Frankish kingdom ( 771 )

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800
• Charlemagne crowned first Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III ( 800 )
• Northmen invade Germany ( 800 )
• Vikings control Ireland ( 802 )
• Charlemagne dies, precipitating the fragmentation of his empire in the next two centuries (814 )
• earliest use of gunpowder ( c. 850 )
• Golden Age of Islamic learning ( 850 - 1100 )
• crossbow in use in France ( 851 )
• Iceland discovered by the Northmen ( 861 )
• Treaty of Mersen establishes boundaries of what are now roughly France and Germany (870 )
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900
• Toltec civilization in Mexico ( c. 900 )
• Rule of Abd al-Rahman III, most celebrated ruler of the Arab Umayyad Dynasty (912-961 )
• Polish kingdom established (960 )
• Sung Dynasty in China ( 960 - 1279 )
• Fatimid Dynasty seizes Egypt (969 )
• Otto the Great becomes king of Germany, establishing a strong dynasty in that country (962 )
• Norse reach Greenland and North America ( 986 )
• Hugh Capet establishes royal house in France which will last several centuries (987 )

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1000
• "Great Zimbabwe" civilization emerges in East Africa ( 1000 )
• Empire of Ghana in West Africa at its height ( 1000 )
• Inca Empire in South America established ( 1000 )
• The legendary Genghis Khan creates his huge Asian empire ( 1165 - 1227 )
• William the Conqueror and his Norman army seize England; beginning of centralized English state (1066 )
• Origins of the University of Bologna in northern Italy, Europe's first (1088 )
• Christian crusades launched to take Palestine from the Turks (1096 - 1270 )
• First Gothic cathedrals appear in France and Belgium, the symbols of medieval Christian culture (c. 1180 )
• Life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226 )

Unit IV

LATE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE FLORENCE, 1200 - 1512

Click here for the introductory text, and here for some background on Florence.

Rule of Pope Innocent III; medieval papacy at summit of influence and power (1198 -1216 )
St. Thomas Aquinas born in Northern Italy (1225 )
Dante Alighieri born in Florence (1265 )
Aquinas finishes the Summa theologica (1273 )
Aquinas dies (1274 )
The Year of the Four Popes: Gregory X, Innocent V, Hadrian V and John XXI (1276 )
Rule of Boniface VIII, ending in stunning reversal for papal power (1294 - 1303 )
Petrarch born (1304 )
Dante Alighieri begins writing The Divine Comedy (1307 ) Click here for more resources on Dante.
Papacy forced to move from Rome to Avignon in the "Babylonian Captivity" (1309 - 1377 )
Giovanni Boccaccio born in Florence (1313 )
Dante dies in exile at Ravenna (1321 )
Thomas Aquinas is canonized as a saint (1323 )
Black Death kills roughly a third of the population of Europe (1347 - 1351 )
Boccaccio writes the Decameron (1353 )
Petrarch dies (1374 )
Boccaccio dies (1375 )
Great Schism, during which there were two, even three, popes at the same time (1378 - 1417 )
Pico de Mirandola, the Italian humanist, born (1463 )
Rule of Lorenzo d'Medici in Florence (1478-1492 )
Leonardo da Vinci flourishing (1485 )
Pico dies shortly after having written "Oration on the Dignity of Man" (1494 )
French invade Italy, plunging it into decades of war (1494 )
Florentine Republic (1498-1512 )
Michelangelo's David completed (1504 )
Niccolo Machiavelli writes The Prince (1513; not published until 1532 )

• Reformation begins in Germany with the activity of Martin Luther (1517 )
• Spanish and Portuguese "discovery" of the West and East Indies; Spanish amass huge empire in Western Hemisphere (1492 - 1600 )
• Protestants seize political and religious control in many parts of Northern Europe, dividing Western Europe into different religious camps (1520-1600 )
• Troops of Emperor Charles V sack Rome; some see this unhappy event as symbolic "end" of the Italian Renaissance (1527 )
• John Calvin writes the Institutes of the Christian Religion, the single greatest theological work of this millennium (1536 )
• Counter-Reformation inspires the partial re-Catholicization of Europe (1563-1650 )

This site was created by Jeffrey Bates, and any and all comments should be directed here. Thanks to Mr. Love for his original inspiration, and some of the data.