Pyrrhus left Italy.

  264

  First Punic War. (Asoka began to reign in Behar – to 227).

  260

  Battle of Mylae.

  256

  Battle of Ecnomus.

  246

  Shi Hwang-ti became King of Ts’in.

  220

  Shi Hwang-ti became Emperor of China.

  214

  Great Wall of China begun.

  210

  Death of Shi Hwang-ti.

  202

  Battle of Zama.

  146

  Carthage destroyed.

  133

  Attalus bequeathed Pergamum to Rome.

  102

  Marius drove back Germans.

  100

  Triumph of Marius. (Chinese conquering the Tarim valley.)

  89

  All Italians became Roman citizens.

  73

  The revolt of the slaves under Spartacus.

  71

  Defeat and end of Spartacus.

  66

  Pompey led Roman troops to the Caspian and Euphrates. He encountered the Alani.

  48

  Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at Pharsalos.

  44

  Julius Caesar assassinated.

  27

  Augustus Caesar princeps (until AD 14).

  4

  True date of birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

  AD

  Christian Era began.

  14

  Augustus died. Tiberius Emperor.

  30

  Jesus of Nazareth crucified.

  41

  Claudius (the first Emperor of the legions) made Emperor by pretorian guard after murder of Caligula.

  68

  Suicide of Nero. (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Emperors in succession.)

  69

  Vespasian.

  102

  Pan Chau on the Caspian Sea.

  117

  Hadrian succeeded Trajan. Roman Empire at its greatest extent.

  138

  (The Indo-Scythians at this time were destroying the last traces of Hellenic rule in India.)

  161

  Marcus Aurelius succeeded Antoninus Pius.

  164

  Great plague began, and lasted to the death of M. Aurelius (180). This also devastated all Asia.

  (Nearly a century of war and disorder began in the Roman Empire.)

  220

  End of the Han Dynasty. Beginning of four hundred years of division in China.

  227

  Ardashir I (first Sassanid shah) put an end to Arsacid line in Persia.

  242

  Mani began his teaching.

  247

  Goths crossed Danube in a great raid.

  251

  Great victory of Goths. Emperor Decius killed.

  260

  Sapor I, the second Sassanid shah, took Antioch, captured the Emperor Valerian, and was cut up on his return from Asia Minor by Odenathus of Palmyra.

  277

  Mani crucified in Persia.

  284

  Diocletian became Emperor.

  303

  Diocletian persecuted the Christians.

  311

  Galerius abandoned the persecution of the Christians.

  312

  Constantine the Great became Emperor.

  323

  Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea.

  337

  Constantine baptized on his death-bed.

  361–3

  Julian the Apostate attempted to substitute Mithraism for Christianity.

  392

  Theodosius the Great Emperor of East and West.

  395

  Theodosius the Great died. Honorius and Arcadius redivided the empire with Stilicho and Alaric as their masters and protectors.

  410

  The Visigoths under Alaric captured Rome.

  425

  Vandals settling in south of Spain. Huns in Pannonia. Goths in Dalmatia. Visigoths and Suevi in Portugal and north Spain. English invading Britain.

  439

  Vandals took Carthage.

  451

  Attila raided Gaul and was defeated by Franks, Visigoths, and Romans at Troyes.

  453

  Death of Attila.

  455

  Vandals sacked Rome.

  476

  Odoacer, king of a medley of Teutonic tribes, informed Constantinople that there was no emperor in the West. End of the Western Empire.

  493

  Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, conquered Italy and became King of Italy, but was nominally subject to Constantinople.

  (Gothic kings in Italy. Goths settled on special confiscated lands as a garrison.)

  527

  Justinian Emperor.

  529

  Justinian closed the schools at Athens, which had flourished nearly a thousand years. Belisarius (Justinian’s general) took Naples.

  531

  Chosroes I began to reign.

  543

  Great plague in Constantinople.

  553

  Goths expelled from Italy by Justinian.

  565

  Justinian died. The Lombards conquered most of north Italy (leaving Ravenna and Rome Byzantine).

  570

  Muhammad born.

  579

  Chosroes I died. (The Lombards dominant in Italy.)

  590

  Plague raged in Rome. Chosroes II began to reign.

  610

  Heraclius began to reign.

  619

  Chosroes II held Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, and had armies on Hellespont. Tang Dynasty began in China.

  622

  The Hegira.

  627

  Great Persian defeat at Nineveh by Heraclius. Tai-tsung became Emperor of China.

  628

  Kavadh II murdered and succeeded his father, Chosroes II.

  Muhammad wrote letters to all the rulers of the Earth.

  629

  Muhammad returned to Mecca.

  632

  Muhammad died. Abu Bekr Caliph.

  634

  Battle of the Yarmuk. Moslems took Syria. Omar second Caliph.

  635

  Tai-tsung received Nestorian missionaries.

  637

  Battle of Kadessia.

  638

  Jerusalem surrendered to the Caliph Omar.

  642

  Heraclius died.

  643

  Othman third Caliph.

  655

  Defeat of the Byzantine fleet by the Moslems.

  668

  The Caliph Moawija attacked Constantinople by sea.

  687

  Pepin of Hersthal, mayor of the palace, reunited Austrasia and Neustria.

  711

  Moslem army invaded Spain from Africa.

  715

  The domains of the Caliph Walid I extended from the Pyrenees to China.

  717–18

  Suleiman, son and successor of Walid, failed to take Constantinople.

  732

  Charles Martel defeated the Moslems near Poitiers.

  751

  Pepin crowned King of the French.

  768

  Pepin died.

  771

  Charlemagne sole King.

  774

  Charlemagne conquered Lombardy.

  786

  Haroun al Raschid Abbasid Caliph in Bagdad (to 809).

  795

  Leo III became Pope (to 816).

  800

  Leo crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the West.

  802

  Egbert, formerly an English refugee at the court of Charlemagne, established himself as King of Wessex.

  810

  Krum of Bulgaria defeated and killed the Emperor Nicephorus.

  814

  Charlemagne died.

  828

  Egbert became first King of England.

  843

  Louis the Pious died, and the Carlovingian Empire went to pieces. Until 962 there was no regular succession of Holy Roman Emperors, though the title appeared intermittently.

  850

  About this time Rurik (a Northman) became ruler of Novgorod and Kieff.

  852

  Boris first Christian King of Bulgaria (to 884).

  865

  The fleet of the Russians (Northmen) threatened Constantinople.

  904

  Russian (Northmen) fleet off Constantinople.

  912

  Rolf the Ganger established himself in Normandy.

  919

  Henry the Fowler elected King of Germany.

  936

  Otto I became King of Germany in succession to his father, Henry the Fowler.

  941

  Russian fleet again threatened Constantinople.

  962

  Otto I, King of Germany, crowned Emperor (first Saxon Emperor) by John XII.

  987

  Hugh Capet became King of France. End of the Carlovingian line of French kings.

  1016

  Canute became King of England, Denmark and Norway.

  1043

  Russian fleet threatened Constantinople.

  1066

  Conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy.

  1071

  Revival of Islam under the Seljuk Turks. Battle of Melasgird.

  1073

  Hildebrand became Pope (Gregory VII) to 1085.

  1084

  Robert Guiscard, the Norman, sacked Rome.

  1087–99

  Urban II Pope.

  1095

  Urban II at Clermont summoned the First Crusade.

  1096

  Massacre of the People’s Crusade.

  1099

  Godfrey of Bouillon captured Jerusalem.

  1147

  The Second Crusade.

  1169

  Saladin Sultan of Egypt.

  1176

  Frederick Barbarossa acknowledged supremacy of the Pope (Alexander III) at Venice.

  1187

  Saladin captured Jerusalem.

  1189

  The Third Crusade.

  1198

  Innocent III Pope (to 1216). Frederick II (aged four), King of Sicily, became his ward.

  1202

  The Fourth Crusade attacked the Eastern Empire.

  1204

  Capture of Constantinople by the Latins.

  1214

  Jengis Khan took Pekin.

  1226

  St Francis of Assisi died. (The Franciscans.)

  1227

  Jengis Khan died, Khan from Caspian to the Pacific, and was succeeded by Ogdai Khan.

  1228

  Frederick II embarked upon the Sixth Crusade, and acquired Jerusalem.

  1240

  Mongols destroyed Kieff. Russia tributary to the Mongols.

  1241

  Mongol victory at Liegnitz in Silesia.

  1250

  Frederick II, the last Hohenstaufen Emperor, died. German interregnum until 1273.

  1251

  Mangu Khan became Great Khan. Kublai Khan governor of China.

  1258

  Hulagu Khan took and destroyed Bagdad.

  1260

  Kublai Khan became Great Khan.

  1261

  The Greeks recaptured Constantinople from the Latins.

  1273

  Rudolf of Habsburg elected Emperor. The Swiss formed their Everlasting League.

  1280

  Kublai Khan founded the Yuan Dynasty in China.

  1292

  Death of Kublai Khan.

  1293

  Roger Bacon, the prophet of experimental science, died.

  1348

  The Great Plague, the Black Death.

  1368

  In China the Mongol (Yuan) Dynasty fell, and was succeeded by the Ming Dynasty (to 1644).

  1377

  Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome.

  1378

  The Great Schism. Urban VI in Rome. Clement VII at Avignon.

  1398

  Huss preached Wycliffism at Prague.

  1414–18

  The Council of Constance. Huss burned (1415).

  1417

  The Great Schism ended.

  1453

  Ottoman Turks under Muhammad II took Constantinople.

  1480

  Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, threw off the Mongol allegiance.

  1481

  Death of the Sultan Muhammad II while preparing for the conquest of Italy.

  1486

  Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

  1492

  Columbus crossed the Atlantic to America.

  1493

  Maximilian I became Emperor.

  1497

  Vasco da Gama sailed round the Cape to India.

  1499

  Switzerland became an independent republic.

  1500

  Charles V born.

  1509

  Henry VIII King of England.

  1513

  Leo X Pope.

  1515

  Francis I King of France.

  1520

  Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan (to 1566), who ruled from Bagdad to Hungary. Charles V Emperor.

  1525

  Baber won the battle of Panipat, captured Delhi, and founded the Mogul Empire.

  1527

  The German troops in Italy, under the Constable of Bourbon, took and pillaged Rome.

  1529

  Suleiman besieged Vienna.

  1530

  Charles V crowned by the Pope. Henry VIII began his quarrel with the Papacy.

  1539

  The Society of Jesus founded.

  1546

  Martin Luther died.

  1547

  Ivan IV (the Terrible) took the title of Tzar of Russia.

  1556

  Charles V abdicated. Akbar, Great Mogul (to 1605). Ignatius of Loyola died.

  1558

  Death of Charles V.

  1566

  Suleiman the Magnificent died.

  1603

  James I King of England and Scotland.

  1620

  Mayflower expedition founded New Plymouth. First negro slaves landed at Jamestown (Va.).

  1625

  Charles I of England.

  1626

  Sir Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) died.

  1643

  Louis XIV began his reign of seventy-two years.

  1644

  The Manchus ended the Ming Dynasty.

  1648

  Treaty of Westphalia. Thereby Holland and Switzerland were recognized as free republics and Prussia became important. The treaty gave a complete victory neither to the Imperial Crown nor to the Princes. War of the Fronde; it ended in the complete victory of the French crown.

  1649

  Execution of Charles I of England.

  1658

  Aurungzeb Great Mogul. Cromwell died.

  1660

  Charles II of England.

  1674

  Nieuw Amsterdam finally became British by treaty and was renamed New York.

  1682

  Peter the Great of Russia (to 1725).

  1683

  The last Turkish attack on Vienna defeated by John II of Poland.

  1701

  Frederick I first King of Prussia.

  1707

  Death of Aurungzeb. The empire of the Great Mogul disintegrated.

  1713

  Frederick the Great of Prussia born.

  1715

  Louis XV of France.

  1755–63

  Britain and France struggle for America and India. France in alliance with Austria and Russia against Prussia and Britain (1756–63); the Seven Years War.

  1759

  The British general, Wolfe, took Quebec.

  1760

  George III of Britain.

  1763

  Peace of Paris; Canada ceded to Britain. British dominant in India.

  1769

  Napoleon Bonaparte born.

  1774

  Louis XVI began his reign.

  1776

  Declaration of Independence by the United States of America.

  1783

  Treaty of Peace between Britain and the new United States of America.