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476
Ostrogoths
By 476 AD, the Roman Emperors no longer had any practical power in the West. In that year, the last Roman Emperor in the West, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed, and a Hun named Odoacer took charge of what was left of the Western Empire (mainly Italy). Odoacer sent a message to the Roman Emperor in the East, Zeno, telling him that it was no longer necessary to have a Western emperor, thank you very much.
Zeno was not totally happy with this arrangement, and wanted to take back control of Italy. B -
476
The Fall of the Roman Empire
When Theodosius died in 395 AD, he left the Roman Empire to his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius. Honorius took the West and Arcadius the East. But like other emperors who had been brought up at court, neither of them was very good at ruling, or even very interested. Most of the actual work was done by their advisors.Most of Honorius' work was done by a Vandal named Stilicho. He had joined the Roman army and risen through the ranks to become and important general. -
Period: 476 to May 15, 1450
The Middle Ages
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May 16, 700
Vikings
Vikings (from Old Norse víkingr) were Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who from their homelands in Scandinavia raided, traded, explored, and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia, and the North Atlantic islands, from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries.The Vikings employed wooden longships with wide, shallow-draft hulls, allowing navigation in rough seas or in shallow river waters. -
Period: May 16, 700 to May 16, 1000
Vikings
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May 16, 1025
Fall of Byzantium (the fall of Constantinople)
Paleologi were the last dynasty on the throne of the Roman Empire, from 1204 to 1453 AD. At first they did pretty well. They made a good alliance with the Italian city of Genoa, and together the Byzantines and Genoa dominated the Mediterranean Sea in the 1200s AD.But under the direction of the Paleologi, the Empire gradually lost its few remaining possessions: mainly Thrace and Greece. For the most part this was not the fault of the Emperors. The Ottomans were attacking the Byzantines much more -
Period: May 16, 1025 to May 16, 1453
The decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, much like the Roman Empire, faced a formidable array of external enemies. However, it was largely internal decay which destroyed both empires. The political and economic stability of the empire by 1000 A.D. led to two lines of development which combined to trigger a pair of interlocking feedback cycles that, in turn, eventually wrecked the empire. First of all, there was the free peasantry upon which the government depended for taxes and recruits. When the empire had be -
May 16, 1028
William the Conqueror
William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Robert's mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy that plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke and for their own ends. In 1047 William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority over the -
Period: May 16, 1028 to Sep 8, 1087
William the Conqueror
William I, usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. -
May 16, 1096
The first Crusade
After the Normans had settled in France and conquered England, both France and England, and also the Holy Roman Empire, were stronger than they had been since the time of Charlemagne. Their kings and queens began to think, as he had, of reconquering the whole Mediterranean and recreating the Roman Empire. In particular, they wanted to take Jerusalem, the city of Jesus Christ, away from the Islamic Fatimids who were ruling it. In 1095 AD Pope Urban made a great speech at Clermont (CLAIRE-mant) in -
Period: Nov 27, 1096 to May 16, 1099
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) started as a widespread pilgrimage (France and Germany) and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant (632–661), ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. It was launched on 27 November 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that western volunteers come to his aid and help to rep -
Jun 15, 1215
The Magna Carta
Magna Carta was the first document imposed upon a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their rights.The charter is widely known throughout the English speaking world as an important part of the protracted historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in England and beyond.The 1215 charter required King John to proclaim certain liberties and accept that his will was not arbitrary—for example by expl -
May 16, 1337
100 Year War
The war had its roots in a dynastic disagreement dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, who became King of England in 1066 while retaining possession of the Duchy of Normandy in France. As the rulers of Normandy and other lands on the continent, the English kings owed feudal homage to the King of France. In 1337. -
Period: May 16, 1337 to May 16, 1453
100 year war
The Hundred Years' War, a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453, pitted the rulers of the Kingdom of England against the House of Valois for control of the French throne. Each side drew many allies into the fighting. -
May 15, 1348
The Black Death (Bubonic Plague)
During the Hundred Years' War, a lot of people in Europe were very poor and hungry because the soldiers fighting the war had wrecked their farms. Then people began to catch a terrible sickness that was spreading along Mongol trade routes from China through Central Asia to Europe beginning in 1328 AD. -
Charlemagne
Charlemagne's name is really Charles le Magne, or Charles the Great. In German they call him Karl der Grosse, which also means Charles the Great. His father, Pippin, left Charlemagne his Frankish empire when he died in 768 AD. The Franks were already very powerful when Pippin died, but Charlemagne made them more powerful still.
To begin with, Charlemagne organized a centralized system of governors (counts) throughout his kingdom, sending out men he knew to keep order all over his kingdom.
