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the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE was the end of the ancient world. Unlike the fall of earlier empires such as the Assyrian and Persian, Rome did not collapse to either war or revolution. On the last day of the empire, a barbarian member of the Germanic tribe Siri and former commander in the Roman army entered the city unobstructed. -
Charlemagne spent the early part of his reign on several military campaigns to expand his kingdom. He invaded Saxony in 772 and eventually achieved its total conquest and growth to Christianity. He also extended his dominance to the south, winning the kingdom of the Lombards in northern Italy. In 778, he invaded northern Spain, then controlled by the Moors. -
In 1094 or 1095, Alexios I Komnenos, the Byzantine emperor, sent to the pope, Urban II, and asked for aid from the west against the Seljuq Turks, who had taken nearly all of Asia Minor from him. At the council of Clermont Urban addressed a great crowd and urged all to go to the aid of the Greeks and to recover Palestine from the rule of the Muslims. The acts of the council have not been preserved, but we have five accounts of the speech of Urban which were written by men who were present. -
The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) is a document guaranteeing English political liberties that was drafted at Runnymede, a meadow by the River Thames, and signed by King John on June 15, 1215, under pressure from his rebellious barons.