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The Frankish Kingdom was established by Clovis, a strong military leader who was the first Germanic ruler to covert to Christianity. By 510, Clovis had established a powerful Frankish kingdom that streched from modern day France to Western Germany.
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By the end of the 4th century, Christianity had become a supreme religion of the Roman Empire. The Christian Church played an increasingly important role in the growth of the new European civilization.
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Justinian became Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 527. He was determined to reestablish the Roman Empire in the entire Mediterranean world. Justinian's most important contribution was his codification of Roman law. This code of Roman law was also used in the West and became the basis for much of the legal system of Europe.
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The region of Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 600's.
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According to the Islamic teachings, Muhammad was visited by the angel Gabriel with messages from God. These revelations eventually became the Quran; the ethical guidelines and laws by which the follower of Allah are to abide by.
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Muhammad slowly gained followers after preachingfor 3 years and quickly became discouraged. After no luck in Makkah, he and some of his closest supporters moved North to Yathrib (Madinah). The journey of Muhammad and his followers is known as the Hijah. They recieved much more support in Madinah as well as from the Bedouin tribes in the surrounding countryside. They eventually return to Makkah after their success.
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Abu Bakr was a wealthy merchant, Muhammad's father-in-law and chosen by Muhammad's followers to succeed him. After Muhammad's death the Islamic movement began to grow along with the creation of the Arab Empire.
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At Yarmuk, the Arabs unified under Abu Bakr, defeated the Byzantine army in the midst of a dust storm that enabled the Arabs to take their enemy by suprise.
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Abu Bakr dies. The governor of Syria, Mu'awiyah became caliph and moves the capital of the Arab Empire from Madinah to Damascus.
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A Muslim force launched an attack on Constantinople with the hope of defeating the Byzantine Empire but failed.
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Abu al-Abbas, a descendant of Muhammad's uncle, overthrew the Umayyad Dynasty and established the Abbasid Dynasty.
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The Abbasid's built a new capital city in Baghdad, on the Tigris River, far to the east of the Umayyad capital at Damascus.
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From the 11th to 13th Centuries, European Christians carried out a series of military expeditions; Crusades. The push for the crusades came when the Byzantine emperor Alexius I asked the Europeans for help against the Seljuk Turks, who were Muslims. Pope Urban II, who responded to the request, saw an opportunity to provide papal leadership for a great cause. That cause was rallying the warriors of Europe for the liberation of Jerusalem & the Holy Land (Palestine) from the unbelievers- Muslims.
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On October 14th, 1066, an army of heavily armed knights under William of Normandy landed on the coast of England and defeated King Harold and his soilders at the Battle of Hastings. William was then crowned king of England. He began combining Anglo-Saxon and Norman insititutions to create a new England.
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At Runnymefe in 1215, John was forced to put his seal on a document ogf rights called the Magna Carta, or the Great Charter. The Magna Carta said that King John would govern England and deal with its people according to the feudal system
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Genghis Khan led advances in North China. Mongol armies spread across central Asia. In 1258, under the leadership of Hülegü,seized Persia and Mesopotamia. After that he captured Baghdad and decided to destroy the city.
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In the 6th and 7th century, there wasn't much personal hygiene. Waste was thrown into streets and baths were very rare. Rats who immigrated from ships to the city had fleas that carried the bubonic plague or black death. As a result, these fleas bit people and those people got the fatal disease.
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The Spanish Inquisition was a tribunal made in 1480. It was made to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control.
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A new dynasty under the Fatimids was established in Eygpt with its capital at Cario. The Fatimid Dynasty soon became the center of the Islamic civilization.
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In 800, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Pope. Charlemagne's coronation as Roman Emperor symbolized the coming together of Roman, Christian and Germanic elements.
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After Charlemagne's death in 814, the Carolingian Empire began to fall apart. Rulers found it more and more difficult to defend their subjects from invaders such as Vikings. Thus, people began to turn to local landed arisocrats or nobles to protect them. This lead to the new political and social system called Feudalism.
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In the 10th Century, the powerful dukes of the Saxons became kings of the eastern Frankish kingdom (a section of the Carolingian Empire), which came to be known as Germany. The best-known Saxon king of Germany was Otto I. In return for protecting the pope, Otto I was crowned emperor of the Romans in 962.
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In 768, Charlemagne came to the thrown of the Frankinsh Kingdom. He was determined and a decive man who was highly intellegent and curious. From 768-814 he greatly expanded the territory of the Frankish Kingdom and created the Carolingian Empire.
