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The fall of Rome began in about 410 when one of the Germanic tribes attacked and looted Rome itself. In 476 the last emperor in the west was driven from his throne.
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The Byzantine Empire started as a continuation of the Roman Empire. When Rome fell the Byzantine Empire began.
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Muhammad was living in Makkah when he experienced his own call to prophethood. Like Abraham, he proclaimed belief in a single God. At first the faith he taught, Islam, met with resistance in Makkah. But Muhammad and his followers, called Muslims, eventually triumphed.
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In about 651c.e.,Caliph Uthman established an official edition of the Qur' an. He destroyed other versions. The Qur'an used today has not changed since then.
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Books become a big buisiness in the Muslim world. In Banghdad, more than 100 bookshops lined Papersellers' street. In those bookstores there were copies of the Qur'an.
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By the high middle ages, Europeans had developed a system of feudalism. A feudal system provided people with protection and safety, by establishing a stable social order.
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The Matters between the east and west came to a head in 1054. The patriarch of Constantinople wanted to reassert Byzantine control of the church. He close all churches that worshiped with western rites. Pope Leo was Furious. Despite future attempts to heal the division, the Eastern Orthodox church and the Roman Ctholic church were now split.
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The Umayyads established a Muslim Dynasty in Spain in the eighth century. A unique culture flourished in cities like Cordoba and Toledo, where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in Peace.
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Four nobles led the First Crusade. Close to 30,000 crusaders faught their way through Anatolia and headed south toward Palestine.
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The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa.
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Over the next few decades, Muslims in the Middle east increasingly cam came under common leadership. By the 1180s, the great sultan Salah al-Din united Egypt, Syria, and lands to the east. He led a renewed fight against the crusaders in the Holy Land.
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Angry Barons forced a meeting with King John in a meadow called Runny Mede beside the river Thames. There they insisted that John put a seal to the Magna Carta, or "Great Charter". The charter was an agreement between the Barons and the King. The Barons agreed that the king could continue to rule. For his part King John agreed to observe the common law and the traditional rights of Barons and the church.
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By the mid 1200s, Muslims faced a greater threat than European crusaders-the Mongols. The Mongols were a nomadic people whose homeland was to the north of China. The Mongols swept across central Asia, destroying cities and farmland. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were slaughtered. Many were carried off to Mongolia as slaves.
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The mongol Empire was one of the largest the world had ever seen. It suffered, however, from fighting among rivals. By the mid 1300s, the empire was badly weakened.
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England and France fought a series of wars over the control of land in France. This was known as the Hundred Year's War. This long conflict helped to weaken feudalism in England and France. English kings had long claimed lands in France as their own fief. When Philip VI of France declared that the French fiefs of English King Edward III were part of his own realm, war broke out in France.
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The Bubonic Plague lasted for a very large amount of time and killed off an estamate of 24 million Europeans at the time. The large amount of deaths changed the economic and social structure of Europe.
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Many Jews and Muslims remained in areas ruled by Christians. In the late 1400s, Queen Isabella and King Feerdinand wated to unite Spain as a Catholic country. The used the Inquisition, a church court, against Muslims and Jews who had converted to Christianity.
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Over time Byzantine Emperors and church officials came into conflict with the pope in Rome. Eventually the conflict got out of hand and the empire fell.
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The French slowly chipped away at the territory England had won in the early years of the war. In 1415, after a long truce, King Henry V invaded France. This time the English met with stronger resistance. This time the French were using more modern tactics. In 1429, Joan lead a French army to victory in the battle of Orleans. The Hundred Years War contributed to the decline of feudalism by helping to shift power from feudal lords to monarchs.
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Isabella and Ferdinand also sent armies against Granada. In 1492 the city fell, and Muslims lost their last stronghold in Spain.
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One powerful group during this time was the Franks. The most important leader of the Franks was Charlemagne. He ruled for over 40 years. He was always stately and dignified. He encouraged education and scholarship making his court a center of culture. Most importantly he unified nearly all the Christian lands of Europe into a single empire. He built his empire with the help of a Pope, Leo III.
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