Timeline 300AD-599AD
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300 About this time Tiridates III, king of Armenia, adopted Christianity as the religion of his kingdom, making Armenia the first Christian state.
(CO Enc. / Armenia)
300 About this time Berbers from North Africa began to rule Ghana and continued for about the next 400 years. They are thought to have originated as nomads from the Middle East.
(ATC, p.113)
300 The Mayan city of Cancuen was already established by this time. Ruins of the city were discovered in 1999 in Guatemala.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A2)
300 Mayans began building on Cozumel Island off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula about this time. The town of San Gervasio was built and inhabited through 1650. Cozumel covers 189 square miles, about the size of Lake Tahoe.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E4)
300 In India about this time Vatsayana wrote the philosophical treatise "Kama Sutra" during the classical age of the Gupta period. One of its 35 chapters dealt with various sexual positions.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.32)
300 Iron-using people settled at Zimbabwe in central Africa about this time.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
300-400 See the reference for this period.
(www.scholiast.org/history/timetables/300s.html)
300-400 Historian Egami Namio in 1948 proposed the "horserider" thesis that cited equestrian goods and foreign culture elements as evidence that the ancestors of the Japanese imperial line had migrated from Korea about this time and conquered the northern part of Kyushu.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.36)
300-400 The book "Deipnosophistae," The Dinner Table Philosophers, described the use of "happy baskets" for leftovers.
(SFC, 9/10/97, Z1 p.5)
300-400 The Circus Maximus in ancient Rome, expanded under Constantine in the 4th century CE, had an estimated seating capacity of 250,000. The largest of hippodrome in Rome, a U-shaped stadium with a low wall running in the middle around which chariots raced, it seated an estimated 150,000 spectators at the time of Julius Caesar in the 1st century B.C.
(HNQ, 8/29/99)
300-400 As long ago as the 4th century, an Egyptian scientist named Papp suggested there should be a science called heuristics to solve inventive problems.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
300-400 During this time the 1st French church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built in the 4th century on the hill site of the later Chartres cathedral.
(Hem., 10/97, p.83)
300-400 Saint Nectarius of Auvergne (also known as Nectarius of St-Nectaire, Nectarius of Limagne, Necterius of Senneterre), venerated as a 4th century martyr and Christian missionary, was one of the seven missionaries sent by Pope Fabian from Rome to Gaul to spread Christianity there. Nectarius was accompanied by the priests Baudimius (Baudenius, Baudime) and Auditor (Auditeur); tradition states that they were all brothers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nectarius_of_Auvergne)
300-400 During this time Ammon Scholasticus, Greek lawyer, worked in Panopolis, Egypt. In 1997 Prof. William H. Willis (d.2000) of Duke Univ. completed an archive of his papers: "The Archives of Ammon Scholasticus."
(SFC, 7/19/00, p.B2)
300-400 During this period Kuqa on the silk road in western China was a Buddhist center of learning.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.T5)
300-400 In Ireland the Staigue Fort with circular drystone walls was built about this time on the Iveragh peninsula.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staigue_stone_fort)
300-400 By the 4th century El Mirador, the most powerful city in the Preclassic Maya world, had become a ghost town.
(Arch, 9/00, p.28)
300-400 The Syriac monastery of Mar Mattai was established near Mosul.
(Econ, 5/14/16, SR p.3)
300-467 The well-run government of the Gupta Dynasty existed during this period.
(ATC, p.35)
300-525 During the Gupta Dynasty, India trades with the Eastern Roman Empire, Persia, and China.
(ATC, p.24)
300-645 Yamato Period of Japan. The Yamato clan had taken root in the Nara basin and gave rise to the people called “Japanese."
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(Hem, 9/04, p.41)
300-700 Goths, Huns, Avars, Serbs, Croats, and Bulgars successively invade Illyrian lands.
(www, Albania, 1998)
c300-1000 During the 4th-10th century, Orhon Turks were prominent in Mongolia.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
300-1300 During this period the Anasazis inhabited the Canyon de Chelly and the Canyon del Muerto in northeast Arizona.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.T8)
301 King Trdat III declared Christianity to be the state religion. Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity. Not long after the Armenians adopted Christianity in their homeland around the biblical Mt. Ararat, on the eastern border of modern-day Turkey, they dispatched priests to Jerusalem.
(MH, 12/96)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A25)(AP, 5/12/11)
301 San Marino traced its roots to this time and later claimed to be the world’s oldest republic. It was founded by stonecutter Marinus of Arbe.
(WSJ, 1/16/06, p.A1)(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.M2)
303 Feb 23, Emperor Diocletian ordered the general persecution of Christians in Rome.
(HN, 2/23/98)
303 Apr 23, St. George, dragon-slaying knight, died. He was made the patron saint of England in the 14th century. George, later fired by the Pope as mythical, was tortured and beheaded at Nicomedia. He was a soldier who was reported to have risen to a high rank under Diocletian.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(AHD, p.552)(MC, 4/23/02)
303 St. Devota (b.~2893), a Corsican martyr, died. Sainte-Devote was killed during the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximian. Monaco celebrates her feast day on Jan 27. In 1820 she was named a principal patron saint of Corsica.
(SSFC, 1/27/13, p.N3)
303 Lactantius, an early Christian writer, said that Romula, mother of Roman emperor Galerius, encouraged her son to persecute Christians in this year.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.29)
304-305 Massive persecution of the Christians under Diocletian.
(V.D.-H.K.p.91)
305 May 1, Emperor Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Jovius of Rome abdicated. Constantius I Chlorus (Flavius Valerius Constantius) became Western emperor. Galerius (Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus) became Eastern emperor.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
305 San Gennaro, a pious bishop, was beheaded by Roman Emp. Diocletian. In the 14th century Naples began celebrating the miracle of San Gennaro, whereby the city’s archbishop shakes a vial allegedly containing blood from Gennaro.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A2)
306 Jul 23, Constantine was proclaimed Caesar of the west by the army, while Severus, the former Caesar, was proclaimed Augusta of the west by Galerius.
(HN, 7/23/98)
306 Oct 28, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius was proclaimed emperor of Rome.
(MC, 10/28/01)
307 Nov 11, Flavius Valerius Severus, compassionate emperor of Rome (306-07), died.
(MC, 11/11/01)
309 Feb 16, Pamphilus Caesarea, Palestinian scholar, martyr, was beheaded.
(MC, 2/16/02)
309-310 Apr 18, St. Eusebius began his reign as Catholic Pope. He ruled for just 4 months in either 309 or 310.
(PTA, 1980, p.62)(WUD, 1994 p.492)(HN, 4/18/98)
310 Roman Emperor Constantine built a defense tower at Eboracum on the banks of the River Ouse in what later became the English city of York.
(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.Q1)
311 Apr 30, Emperor Galerius recognized Christians legally in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 4/30/02)
311 May 5, Gaius VM Galerius (~50), emperor of Rome, died in Dardania.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.29)(MC, 5/5/02)
311 Jul 2, St. Miltiades began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 7/2/02)
311 In Austria a Roman gladiator school flourished at Carnuntum 28 miles (45 km) east of Vienna. This was a major military and trade outpost linking the far-flung Roman empire's Asian boundaries to its central and northern European lands. Archeological digging at the site began around 1870 and by 2011 only 0.5 percent of the settlement was excavated.
(AP, 9/5/11)
311 At the consecration of bishop Caecilian of Carthage, one of the three bishops, Felix, bishop of Aptunga, who consecrated Caecilian, had given copies of the Bible to the Roman persecutors. A group of about 70 bishops formed a synod and declared the consecration of the bishop to be invalid. Great debate arose concerning the validity of the sacraments (baptism, the Lord's Supper, etc.) by one who had sinned so greatly against other Christians.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)
311 The Donatists were a Christian sect that developed in northern Africa [Numidia] and maintained that it alone constituted the whole and only true church and that baptisms and ordinations of the orthodox clergy were invalid. The Donatists insisted that sinners must be re-baptized.
(WUD, 1994, p.425)(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C1)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.87)
311 Licinius (Valerius Licianus Licinius) became Eastern emperor. He was deposed and executed by Constantine in 325.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
312 cOct 27, Prior to a battle between Constantine and Maxentius, Constantine experienced a vision of Christ that ordered him to ornament the shields of his soldiers with the Greek letters chi and rho, the monogram for Christ. Constantine won the battle and attributed his success to Christ. He became emperor of the West and an advocate of Christianity. [see Oct 28]
(MH, 12/96)(CU, 6/87)
312 Oct 28, Constantine the Great defeated Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius at the Mulvian Bridge. Constantine’s smaller army (about 50,000 strong) won a decisive victory there; while fleeing, Maxentius drowned in the river. Constantine was instantly converted when he saw a cross in the sky, with the inscription "In hoc signo vincit" ("In this sign you shall conquer"). [see Oct 27]
(HN, 10/28/98)(DoW, 1999, P.398)
312 Appius Claudius began construction of the Appian Way as a military highway.
(SFC, 8/2/07, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Appia)
313 Jan 1, A 15 year cycle used in reckoning ecclesiastical calendars was established as a fiscal term to regulate taxes. It is called the Roman Indiction.
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.23)
313 Apr 30, Co-emperor Licinius unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.
(HN, 4/30/98)
313 Constantine met with the eastern emperor at Milan, capital of the late Roman Empire. They agreed on a policy of religious tolerance. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, but also allowed Romans religious choice.
(CU, 6/87)(ITV, 1/96, p.58)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T13)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
313 Constantine wrote a letter to the proconsul of Africa in which he explained why the Christian clergy should not be distracted by secular offices or financial obligations. "When they are free to render supreme service to the Divinity, it is evident that they confer great benefits upon the affairs of the state."
(V.D.-H.K.p.91)
313 Nanai-vandak, a Sogdian agent, wrote that "The last emperor fled from Louyang [the eastern capital of China] because of famine and fire" due to nomadic invasions.
(AM, 9/01, p.50)
313 Maximinus II Daia, Eastern emperor, was killed at Tarsus.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
314 Licinius declared Valens (d.314) as co-emperor during the war with Constantine. Licinius was deposed and executed by Valens.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
314-335 Pope Sylvester I. A document from the 9th or 10th century called the "Donation of Constantine" was forged to show Constantine granting to Sylvester and his successors spiritual supremacy over all matters of faith and worship and temporal dominion over Rome and the entire Western empire.
(V.D.-H.K.p.104)
316 Diocletian, former emperor of Rome, died. By this time there were about 30,000 converts to Christianity and some 33 popes had followed in the footsteps of St. Peter.
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)
317 Aug 7, Flavius Julius Constantius II, Emperor Egypt, Byzantium, Rome (337-61), was born.
(MC, 8/7/02)
320 In India the Gupta state began with the accession of Chandragupta I. His son and grandson were successful conquerors and extended the state across Northern India from sea to sea. The journal of the Buddhist monk Fa-hsien provides most of our knowledge of Gupta society.
(MWH, 1994)
324 Constantine chose Byzantium as his new capital. He moved his court to Byzantium and chiseled his name on the portal.
(ATC, p.24)(WSJ, 3/28/97, p.A1)
324 Licinius proclaimed Martinian (Marcus Martinianus) as co-emperor. Martinian (d.325) was soon deposed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
325 May 20, An ecumenical council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor. The Church Council of Nicaea (aka Iznik) in Asia Minor condemned the teaching of Arius, a Christian priest at Alexandria (d.336), who held that Christ was not divine in the same sense as God the Father. The council fixed Orthodox Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox unless the date falls on the 1st day of Passover, in which case it moves to the next Sunday.
(WUD, 1994, p.80,81)(Sky, 4/97, p.56)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A21)(HN, 5/20/98)
325 Aug 25, Council of Nicaea ended with adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council also decreed that priests cannot marry after their ordination.
(MC, 8/25/02)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
325 Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena reportedly announced the discovery of Christ’s tomb. The site became the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.81)
325 Licinius (Valerius Licianus Licinius), Eastern emperor, was deposed and executed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
325 Martinian (Marcus Martinianus) was executed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
326 Jul 25, Constantine refused to carry out the traditional pagan sacrifices.
(HN, 7/25/98)
326 Constantine executed his son Flavius Julius Crispus, born to his 1st wife, under the persuasion of his 2nd wife Fausta.
(PCh, 1992, p.48)
326-330 The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built by the Roman emperor Constantine. The church was rebuilt under Justinian (527-565).
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 4/5/02, p.A1)
330 May 11, Constantine renamed the town of Byzantium to: "New Rome which is Constantine’s City." It became know as Constantinople.
(ATC, p.31)(HN, 5/11/98)
330 Constantine began the building of the Great Palace in Constantinople.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
330 Ezana (Aezianas), ruler of Aksum (northeast Ethiopia), converted much of his realm to Christianity. During his rule he constructed much of the monumental architecture of Aksum, including a reported 100 stone obelisks, the tallest of which loomed 98 ft over the cemetery in which it stood and weighed 517 tons. Most of the obelisks were later destroyed, but one was hauled off by Italian forces after their 1937 invasion. It was returned in 2003.
(http://archaeology.about.com/cs/africa/a/aksum.htm)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A2)
330-379 Saint Basil of Caesarea. His followers erected monastic communities in Turkey.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.30)
330-1025 This is the period covered by John Julius Norwich, historian, in his Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.
(WSJ, 10/14/95, p.A-12)
331 Nov 17, Flavius Claudius Julianus, [Julian the Apostate], emperor (361-363), was born.
(MC, 11/17/01)
335 Oct 21, Constantinople emperor (Constantine the Great) enacted rules against Jews.
(MC, 10/21/01)
335 Byzantine Emperor Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on the hill of Golgotha, where his mother claimed to have found the remains of the True Cross. It was raised by the Persians in 614, reconstructed and again destroyed by Caliph Hakim of Egypt in 1009. It was rebuilt by the Crusaders.
(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.W13)
336 Dec 25, The first recorded celebration of Christmas on this day took place in Rome. By this year Dec 25 was established in the Liturgy of the Roman Church as the birthday of Jesus. [see 354] The Basilica of St. Anastasia was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council. It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25, part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to Christian celebrations in the early days of the new religion. In 2007 Italian archaeologists unveiled an underground grotto, near St. Anastasia, that they believe ancient Romans revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)(AP, 12/25/99)(AP, 12/22/07)
336 Arius, Christian priest from Alexandria and teacher of the doctrine of Arianism, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.80,81)
337 May 22, Constantine (47), convert to Christianity and Emperor of Rome (306-37), died. He had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and had the Chapel of the Burning Bush built in the Sinai Desert at the site where Moses was believed to have witnessed the Miracle of the Burning Bush. He was baptized just before death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.92)(PCh, 1992, p.48)(MC, 5/22/02)
337 Sep 9, Constantine's three sons, already Caesars, each took the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans shared the west while Constantius II took control of the east.
(HN, 9/9/98)
340 Ambrose (d.397), later Bishop of Milan (374-397), was born about this time. He set to music the principal prayer of the Mass and, according to St. Augustine, set the fashion for silent reading.
(WUD, 1994, p.46)(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)
340 St. Jerome (d.420), Christian ascetic and biblical scholar, was born about this time. He was the chief preparer of the Vulgate version of the Bible. Jerome condemned the use of potions that caused sterility and murder of those not yet conceived. [Wired dates him 321-420]
(WUD, 1994, p.524)(Wired, 8/96, p.98)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.13)
340-360 The Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible, was written in the middle of the fourth century and contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. For most of its history it resided at St. Catherine’s Monastery built (527-565) on Egypt Mt. Sinai. It left the monastery in the 19th century for Russia, in circumstances that were later disputed.
(Econ, 7/18/09, p.82)(www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/default.aspx)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.80)
345 Dec 6, Nicholas of Myra (later Demre) died on this day in either 345 or 352. He reported as bishop to the Byzantine church in Constantinople. In 2005 Jeremy Seal authored “Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus."
(WSJ, 8/31/98, p.B1)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.115)
346 Theodosius was born in Spain. He served as emperor East Roman Republic 379-395.
(WUD, 1994 p.1471)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
347 May 14, Pachomius, Egyptian monastery founder, abbot (Coenobieten), died.
(MC, 5/14/02)
347 St. John Chrysostom (d.407), was born about this time. He was the ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
(WUD, 1994 p.264)
350 In Teotihuacan 3 men were buried amid lavish goods about this time. Their graves were discovered in 2002 in a tomb at the top of the 5th of 7 layers of the Pyramid of the Moon near Mexico City.
(SFC, 11/22/02, p.J2)
350 A new state with its capital at Axum in the Ethiopian mountains grew and controlled the coast of Eritrea and the sea trade route to southern Arabia. The rulers spoke a Semitic language and about this time conquered Kush, which broke in two, the kingdom of Dongola and the kingdom of Alwa. By the mid 500s, Alwa, Axum and Dongola had become Christian.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
350 The Huns invaded Persia.
(ATC, p.33)
350 In Sudan the last pyramid in the Egyptian tradition was built at Meroe about this time. The Meroe dynasty ruled Kush for more than 1,000 years until the kingdom's demise in 350 AD.
(Arch, 9/02, p.55)(AP, 3/3/10)
352 May 17, Liberius began his reign as Catholic Pope replacing Julius I.
(MC, 5/17/02)
352 Sep 12, Maximinus van Trier, bishop of Trier, saint, died.
(MC, 9/12/01)
353-431 St. Paulinus, poet and Bishop of Mola: "For it is after the Solstice, when Christ born in the flesh with the new sun transformed the season of cold winter, and giving to mortal men a healing dawn, commanded the nights to decrease at his coming with advancing day."
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)
354 Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus, d.430) was born in Tagaste, North Africa (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria). Augustine of Hippo, Church Father and philosopher, held that as long as the fetus was "shapeless" homicide laws did not apply because it had no senses and no soul. "Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." He fused the New Testament with Greek philosophy. "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman."
(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.13)(HN, 11/13/98) (SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
354 Winter, Emperor Julian the Apostate came ashore at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy, and found a fire still burning on an altar to the Trojan hero, Hector.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.50)
354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the Church calendar and selected December 25 to celebrate it. [see 336]
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A19)
355 Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae in North Africa, died. He taught that the effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minister. In other words, if a minister who was involved in a serious enough sin were to baptize a person, that baptism would be considered invalid.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)
356 Feb 19, Emperor Constantius II shut all heathen (non-Christian) temples.
(MC, 2/19/02)
357 Apr 28, Constantius II visited Rome for the first time.
(HN, 4/28/98)
357 Aug 25, Flavius Claudius Julianus, the cousin of Constantius, beat the Alamanni in a Battle at Strasbourg. Chonodomarius was caught.
(PCh, 1992, p.48)(HN, 8/25/99)
359 Christians allegedly established a camp in Skythopolis, Syria, to torture and execute pagans from around Europe. This can only be a reference to the Arian Bishop of Scythopolis, Patrophilus, who cruelly abused Christian bishops exiled to his see under Constantius. These included Eusebius of Vercelli. It was not a death-camp, nor did it last 30 years, nor were pagans the victims.
(Arch, 1/05, p.70)(www.tektonics.org/af/crimeline.htm)
360 Feb 15, The first Hagia Sophia was inaugurated by Constantius II. It was built next to the smaller church Hagia Eirene in Constantinople. Both churches acted together as the principal churches of the Byzantine Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
361 Nov 3, Flavius Julius Constantius II (44), the 1st Byzantine Emperor, died. Flavius Claudius Julianus, Julian the Apostate, succeeded Constantius and tried to make paganism the official religion of the empire.
(V.D.-H.K.p.92)(PCh, 1992, p.48)(MC, 11/3/01)
362 Jun 17, Emperor Julian issued an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.
(HN, 6/17/98)
363 May 18, The Ashkelon basilica, dating to the reign of Herod the Great, was abandoned following a devastating earthquake. Marble from the building was later reused in new buildings under the Abbasid (750–1258 A.D.) and Fatimid (909–1171 A.D.) caliphates. British archaeologist John Garstang originally discovered the basilica during an expedition with the Palestinian Exploration Fund in the 1920s, but the site was then reburied.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/363_Galilee_earthquake)(https://tinyurl.com/yxm4asew)
363 May 18, A devastating earthquake leveled half the city of Petra, the principal city of Nabatea.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/363_Galilee_earthquake)(AP, 6/21/03)
363 Jun 27, The death of Roman Emperor Julian brought an end to the Pagan Revival. Julian received a mortal wound in battle with the Sassanian Persians, whom he tried to conquer.
(HN, 6/27/98)(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A27)
364 Feb 17, Flavius Jovianus (~32), Christian emperor of Rome (363-64), died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
364 Feb 26, On the death of Jovian, a conference at Nicaea chose Valentinian, an army officer who was born in the central European region of Pannania, to succeed him in Asia Minor.
(HN, 2/26/99)
365 Jul 21, An earthquake, whose epicenter was in Crete, leveled the Egyptian Port of Alexandria as well as the Roman outpost of Leptis Magna in Libya. Some 50,000 people died. The ancient Egyptian city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by the tsunami. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for a new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of the town founded in the second century B.C.
(www.earthscape.org/r2/jos/vol1-1june1997/pg55.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.18)(AP, 9/8/10)
366-384 Pope St. Damasus I located martyr’s graves and had verse inscriptions composed for their tombs. He transformed the catacombs into popular and venerated shrines.
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)
367 Much of Gortyn, the Roman capital of Crete, was destroyed be an earthquake. It was 1st inhabited around 3,000 BC and was destroyed by an Arab invasion in 824.
(AP, 9/30/05)
370-415 Hypatia, female mathematician born in Alexandria, Egypt. She was a professor of mathematics and philosophy at the Univ. of Alexandria. She lectured on Plato, Aristotle, astronomy, geometry, Diophantine algebra, and the conics of Apollonius.
(Alg, 1990, p.145)
374 Emperor Valentinian ended the parental right to kill their infants.
(SFEC, 2/13/00, Z1 p.2)
374-397 Ambrose served as the Bishop of Milan. Later proclaimed St. Ambrose.
(WUD, 1994, p.46)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T13)
375 Nov 17, Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian I, the Emperor of the West, died of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe. Pannonia was located in the territory of present-day western Hungary, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_I)
376 Dec 25, In Milan, Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, forced the emperor Theodosius to perform public penance for his massacre.
(HN, 12/25/98)
377 Niall of the Nine Hostages, warlord and head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland, was crowned king. He reportedly had 12 sons, many of whom became powerful Irish kings themselves. In 2006 scientists in Ireland presented evidence that he was the country's most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring.
(Reuters, 1/17/06)(www.irishclans.com/articles/famirish/niall9hostages.html)
378 Aug 9, In the Battle of Adrianople the Visigoth Calvary defeated Roman Army.
(MC, 8/9/02)
378 Tikal saw the establishment of a new line of kings following its military victory over many cities of the Maya Lowlands. The 1st king was Nuun Yax Ain (Green Crocodile) and he claimed descent from a Teotihuacan lord that scholars later dubbed Spear-thrower Owl.
(Arch, 9/00, p.27)
379 In Milan the brick Basilica of St. Ambrose was begun.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T3)
379-395 Theodosius I (c.346-395) served as emperor East Roman Republic.
(WUD, 1994 p.1471)
380 Theodosius I ordered that all people under his rule embrace Christianity.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
383 Aug 25, Flavius Gratianus (25), Emperor of Rome (375-383), was murdered.
(MC, 8/25/02)
384 May 13, Servatius (Aravatius), bishop of Tongeren, died at age 65.
(MC, 5/13/02)
384 Sep 9, Flavius Honorius, emperor East Roman Republic (395-423), was born.
(MC, 9/9/01)
385 Pope Siricius left his wife to become pope and told priests to stop sleeping with their wives.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
385 Priscillian, bishop of Avila in Spain, was convicted of sorcery and executed by the Roman emperor Maximus.
(NH, 9/96, p.20)
386 Augustine (354-430) became a priest and soon after bishop of Hippo, a Roman city in what is now Algeria. He wrote "The City of God," in which he laid out a plan of world history, showing how two cities vied with each other for dominance and would continue to do so until the end of time. One city was human- material, fleshly, downward-turning. The other city was divine- spiritual, turning upward toward the Creator of all things... An individual thinking being, Augustine said, does not make the truth, he finds it. He discovers it within himself as he listens to the teachings of the magister interiore, the "inward teacher," who is Christ, the revealing Word of God. According to Augustine, St. Ambrose set the fashion for silent reading and marveled at the innovation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.94)(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)
386-535 The Northern Wei Dynasty is associated with the spread of Buddhism from India to China.
(AM, 9/01, p.49)
387 Apr 24, Bishop Ambrose baptized St. Augustine in Milan at the Baptistry of San Giovanni alle Fonti, later the site of the Duomo Cathedral.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T12)
387 The Parthians and Romans agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition. The Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbakir for their frontier fortresses.
(http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/docs/bryce2.htm)
388 Aug 28, Magnus Maximus, Spanish West Roman Emperor (383-88), was executed. His ambitions led him to invade Italy, resulting in his defeat by Theodosius I at the Battle of the Save in 388.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Maximus)
c389 Mar 17, St. Patrick (d.461), the patron saint of Ireland, was born. Calpurnius, his father, was a deacon and local official who lost his son to Irish raiders when Patrick was 16. Patrick allegedly drove all the snakes (i.e. pagans) out of Ireland.
(HN, 3/17/99)(HNQ, 3/17/01)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)
c389-461 St. Patrick, an English missionary and bishop of Ireland. March 17 is celebrated in his honor. He was a Celt born in Romanized Britain and was kidnapped by Irish pirates at 16, sold into slavery, and served for 6 years as a shepherd until he escaped.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A16)(WUD, 1994, p.1057)(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A20)
390 Jul 16, Brennus and Gauls defeated the Romans at Allia.
(MC, 7/16/02)
392 May 15, Valentinianus II (21), emperor of Rome (375-392), was murdered.
(MC, 5/15/02)
392 Nov 8, Theodosius of Rome passed legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire and declared Christianity the state religion.
(HN, 11/6/98)(MC, 11/8/01)
393 The ancient Olympic Games were held at intervals beginning in 776 BC until about 393 CE when they were abolished by Roman emperor Theodosius I after Greece lost its independence. The modern Olympic Games were started in 1896. [see 396CE]
(HNQ, 11/23/98)
394 Sep 6, Theodosius became sole ruler of Italy after defeating Eugenius at the Battle of the River Frigidus.
(HN, 9/6/98)
394 Sep 8, Arbogast, French general, committed suicide.
(MC, 9/8/01)
395 Jan 17, Emperor Theodosius I (49), the Great, Spanish head of Rome, died. Theodosius I wrote into his will that upon his death the eastern and western sections of the empire should be declared separate empires. His death in this year marks the split of the Roman and Byzantine Empire.
(ATC, p.24)(MC, 1/17/02)
396 The last Olympic Games were held under Emp. Theodosius I, who halted them due to increasing professionalism and corruption. [see 393CE] In 2004 Nigel Spivey authored “The Ancient Olympics."
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.T1)(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.W8)
397 Nov 8, Martin of Tours, [St Martin], bishop of Tours, died. [see Nov 11]
(MC, 11/8/01)
397 Nov 11, Martinus (81), (St Martin), Roman bishop of Tours, died. [see Nov 8]
(MC, 11/11/01)
397 In southeastern Turkey the Mor Gabriel monastery was founded by Syriac Christians. In 2009 it had just 3 monks and 14 nuns and faced the loss to the state of some 100 acres representing 60% of its core property.
(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.A8)
400 A stable form of ink was developed with iron-salts, nutgalls and gum.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
400 The Barbarians, Hsiung-nu nomads, moved West. These "Huns" displaced the Goths and the Vandals, who moved west. The displaced Goths broke into two groups, one moving west into Gaul forcing the native Germanic peoples south, the other branch, called the Visigoths, headed south into Italy. The Vandals continues to move west, and turned south through Gaul and into Spain. They ravaged Spain and crossed into Africa and later recrossed the Mediterranean into Italy.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)
400 Afghanistan was invaded by the White Huns. They destroyed the Buddhist culture, and left most of the country in ruins.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/-web.com/history/)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
400 By this time the Chinese had developed rigid metal stirrups which gave the rider more security in the saddle.
(ATC, p.11)
400 In Ireland the Celtic ruler Niall of the Nine Hostages lived around this time.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E1)
400 About this time Kalidassa wrote the great Indian literature: "Kumara’s Fight Against the Demon Taraka."
(ATC, p.33)
400 About this time Nubia faded as a independent civilization.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)
400 About this time people from the chiefdom Dal Riata in northern Ireland crossed the Irish Sea and settled along the Scottish coast of County Argyll.
(AM, 7/01, p.46)
400-500 The Angles and Saxons crossed the North Sea to England bringing with them the 5 day week: Tiwsday - of the god Tiw; Wodensday - of the god Woden; Thorsday - of the god Thor; Frigsday - of the goddess Frig; and Seternesday - of the god Seterne. The Anglo-Saxons, a group of Germanic tribes, gradually invaded England by sea starting in the 5th century in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire.
(K.I.-365D, p.107)(AP, 9/24/09)
400-500 About this time Apicius, a Roman gourmand, authored “De re coquinara" (concerning cookery). It is considered to be the first Western cookbook. The first printed edition came out in 1483.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.140)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius)
400-500 The Quraysh tribe of west-central Arabia makes treaties with neighboring areas to ensure the safe passage of trade caravans through the desert around Mecca.
(ATC, p.56)
400-500 During this period the Jutes of Jutland, at the northern tip of the Danish peninsula, migrated to Britain as part of a Germanic invasion. The notion that they settled in what is now Kent and the Isle of Wight, as is recorded by Anglo-Saxon chronicler Bede the Venerable, has been confirmed by archaeological evidence.
(HNQ, 10/7/00)
400-500 A tomb in 1996 was found in the ruins of the Maya city of La Milpa in Belize near the Mexican border. It contained the skeleton of a man adorned with a pendant depicting the head of a vulture, signifying lord or ruler. Archeologist Norman Hammond speculated that it could be the burial place of the king known as Bird Jaguar, who lived around 450, or his successor.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.A10)
400-500 Yax K’uk Mo (Blue-Green Quetzal Macaw) was the 5th century founder of Copan in Honduras, although the site was occupied from early preclassic to late classic times.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.F)
400-500 In Ashkalon, Israel, bones from this period of some 100 infants were discovered in 1988 in the debris of a sewer adjacent to a bath house of this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.12)
400-500 The 63-volume, 2,711-page compendium of Jewish law was compiled in Mesopotamia during this time. In 1923 the custom, known as “Daf Yomi," Hebrew for “daily page," began, when Polish Rabbi Meir Shapiro conceived of the idea of reading the Talmud with the aim of uniting Jews globally in a daily regimen of Talmud study. It takes seven years and five months to finish at a rate of a single page per day.
(AP, 1/7/20)
400-500 The Aymara people lived on the shores of Lake Titicaca between Bolivia and Peru since the 5th century. Their ancient capital was Tiahuanaco. Their world is described in "Valley of the Spirits" (1996) by Alan L. Kolata.
(NH, 8/96, p.14)
400-500 St. Ursula, a legendary British princess, and her 11,000 martyr virgins were said to have been slaughtered by the Huns at Cologne in the 5th century.
(WUD, 1994, p.1573)(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.T8)
400-500 During this period the Indian philosopher Yashomitra made commentaries on Buddhism and described it as "awakened" (vibuddha) and "full-bloomed" or "perfected" (prabuddha).
(SFEM,12/14/97, p.46)
400-500 In Japan two imperial tombs of this time in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, are held by legend to belong to Ninigi, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu and his wife.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.12)
400-500 The leap year tradition of women proposing marriage to men began in 5th century Ireland.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, Z1 p.6)
400-600 The large Buddha at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 170 feet tall, was constructed during this period. It was an enlargement of an Indian Buddha of the Gupta period.
(WSJ, 3/5/00, p.A22)
401 Apr 10, Theodosius II, the Younger, Eastern Roman emperor, was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
401 Dec, St. Innocent, born in Albano, Italy, became pope. He was the pope nine years later when the Visigoths captured and sacked Rome.
(AP, 3/21/09)
402 Apr 6, Battle at Pollentia: Roman army under Stilicho beat the Visigoths.
(MC, 4/6/02)
402 The capital of the Roman empire was moved from Rome to Ravenna on the Adriatic.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)
404 Jan 1, The last known gladiatorial contest was held in Rome.
(http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170101/)
405 In Northern Ireland St. Patrick (16) was sold about this time as a slave by King Niall’s men.
(WSJ, 3/15/02, p.W15)
405 The Armenian alphabet was invented.
(MH, 12/96)
406 Aug 23, At the Battle at Florence the Roman army under Stilicho beat the Barbarians under Radagaisus.
(PC, 1992, p.50)
406 Dec 31, Godagisel, king of the Vandals, died in battle as some 80,000 Vandals attacked over the Rhine at Mainz.
(MC, 12/31/01)
406 Some of the inscriptions from a stone monument from the Maya city of La Milpa have been deciphered to give this date.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.A10)
407 Sep 14, Johannes Chrysostomus (b.c347), patriarch of Constantinople (398) and exiled in 404, died in Pontus (later northeast Turkey). He is generally considered the most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm)
408 May 1, Theodosius II succeeded to the throne of Constantinople.
(HN, 5/1/98)
408 Aug 22, Flavius Stilicho (48), West Roman field leader (395-408), died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
408-450 Theodosius II was emperor of Rome.
(MH, 12/96)
410 Aug 24, Rome was overrun by the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire. German barbarians sacked Rome. In 2020 Douglas Boin authored "Alaric the Goth".
(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)(Econ., 6/20/20, p.72)
410 Rome abandoned its British provinces.
(AM, 11/04, p.41)
410 Flavius Aetius (12), the son of a Roman general, was sent to live as a hostage of the Huns, who hd captured what later became Hungary and Romania.
(ON, 4/12, p.1)(Old News, 4/2022, p.1)
410 St. Maroun, founder of the Maronite Christians, died in Cyrrhus region of Syria. The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when St Maroun's first disciple Abraham of Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that paganism was thriving in Lebanon, so he set out to convert the pagans to Christians by introducing them to the way of St Maroun.
(http://www.maroun.org/saint/maroun/life/)
411 Proclus (d.485), Greek mathematician and theologian, was born. [see 412]
(WUD, 1994 p.1147)(MC, 4/17/02)
412 Feb 8, St. Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople, was born. [see 411]
(HN, 2/8/98)
413 Oct 10, Nicias, Athens politician (Peace of Nicias), killed at about age 57.
(MC, 10/10/01)
415 Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria sent a mob of religious police to stop Hypatia, an eccentric pagan ascetic and scholar. The mob kidnapped her, dragged her to a church, stripped and tortured her with broken shards of pottery. Her body parts were then butchered, put on public display and burnt to a crisp. In 2004 Jonathan Kirsch authored "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism."
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M1)
418 Mar 10, Jews were excluded from public office in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 3/10/02)
418 Dec 27, Zosimus, Greek Pope (417-8), died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
419 Jul 2, Valentinian III, Roman emperor (425-55), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
420 Sep 30, Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, died in Bethlehem. He was a Latin priest, confessor, theologian, and historian and is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome focused his attention on the lives of women and identified how a woman devoted to Jesus should live her life.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome)
420 Pelagius (b.~354-360), a theologian who advocated free will and asceticism, died about this time. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418. Saint Cyril of Alexandria allowed him to settle in Egypt. He is not heard of thereafter.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius)
420 Padua, Italy, was founded on the edge of the Adriatic.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.F3)
421 Feb 8, Flavius Constantine became emperor Constantine III of Roman Empire West.
(MC, 2/8/02)
421 Mar 25, Venice was founded on a Friday at 12 PM.
(MC, 3/25/02)
421-438 King Bahram V ruled Persia.
(MH, 12/96)
422-432 The Bible and the works of the church fathers were translated into Armenian.
(MH, 12/96)
425 Feb 27, Theodosius effectively founded a university in Constantinople.
(HN, 2/27/99)
425-550 The independent Yaftalee ruled in Afghanistan.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
426 Yax K’uk Mo’ founded Copan in what is now western Honduras.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.A)
427 Dec, The Patriarch of Constantinople died.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
427 The Nalanda Buddhist center of learning was established in Bihar state, India, and continued to 1197. It has been called one of the first great universities in recorded history.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)
428 Apr 10, John Nestorius from Antioch was consecrated as the new Patriarch of Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
428 The Arsacid (Arshakuni) monarchy of Armenia ended and control fell under the rule of the Persian Sassanids.
(MH, 12/96)
429 Roman Africa was invaded by the Vandals, barbarians who had fought and conquered their way across Germany, France, Spain and across the Strait of Gibraltar.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.168)
430 Aug 28, Augustine (b.354) died in Hippo (Annaba, Algeria) with a Vandal army outside the gates of the city. His writings included "The Confessions." In 1999 Garry Wills authored the biography "St. Augustine." Augustine had developed the theory of a "just war" and said a nation’s leaders must consider among other things, anticipated loss of civilian life and whether all peaceful options have been exhausted before war starts. In 2003 Garry Wills authored "Saint Augustine's Sin." In 2005 James J. O’Donnell authored “Augustine: A New Biography." Augustine turned against the spirit of intellectual inquiry once he found salvation. His dogmatic invective laid the foundations for centuries of intellectual tyranny by the Catholic church. In 2015 Robin Lane Fox authored “Augustine: Conversions and Confessions."
(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.M6)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.86)(www.connect.net/ron/august.html)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.82)(Econ, 11/28/15, p.77)
431 The Council of Ephesus was held to deal with the heretics and heresies of the day such as Arianism and Apollinarianism. The council condemned Nestorianism, which taught that there were 2 person in Christ and that Mary was the mother of the human Christ but not of God. In 2009 Miri Rubin authored “Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary."
(Usenet, 3/4/97)(PTA, 1980, p.86)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.84)
431 The Assyrians and Chaldeans broke from what was to become the Roman Catholic Church over a theological dispute.
(WSJ, 3/12/00, p.A10)
431 A great Mayan dynasty arose at Palenque and soon began trading with communities hundreds of miles away.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)
432 About this time St. Patrick was consecrated a bishop and returned to Ireland as missionary. He established Ireland’s first monasteries and Irish monks made it their mission to copy all literature, sacred and secular, while barbarism swept the continent. This period is covered in the 1995 book "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W12)
432 Flavius Aetius was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Western Roman Empire.
(ON, 4/12, p.1)
434-453 Attila the Hun was known in western Europe as the "Scourge of God." Attila was the king of the Huns from 434 to 453 and one of the greatest of the barbarian rulers to assail the Roman Empire.
(HNQ, 12/19/98)
435 John Nestorius was banished from his monastery in Antioch by Emperor Theodosius II.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
435-808 In Mexico Yaxchilan on the bank of the Usumacinta was occupied at least over this period. King Mah K’ina Skull III was one of the rulers during the construction of some 90 stone structures.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.G)
437 Nov 30, A glyph in Copan [in later Honduras] records this date and mentions the 1st and 2nd rulers of the city-state.
(NG, 12/97, p.81)
438 Easter, In Ireland St. Patrick used the 3-leaf clover to illustrate the Trinity.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.D7)
438-457 The Persian King Yazdegird II ruled. He pressured the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism and worship the supreme god Ahura Mazda. Mihr-Nerseh, the Persian grand vizier, promulgated an edict that enjoined the Armenians to convert.
(MH, 12/96)
439 Oct 9, Ancient city of Carthage was captured by Genseric the Vandal. [see Oct 19,24]
(MC, 10/9/01)
439 Oct 19, The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, took Carthage and quickly conquered all the coastal lands of Algeria and Tunisia. Egypt and the Libyan coast remained in Roman hands. [see Oct 24]
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.168)(HN, 10/19/98)
439 Oct 24, Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, fell to Genseric and the Vandals. [see Oct 19]
(HN, 10/24/98)
439 Oct 29, Vandals under Genseric occupied Carthage. [see Oct 24]
(MC, 10/29/01)
439 In Mauretania (now northern Morocco and Algeria) Roman rule ceased about this time when barbarian incursions forced the legions to withdraw.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.)
440 Aug 19, Pope Sixtus III (432-440) died.
(PTA, 1980, p.88)
440-790 The Mayan city of Palenque flourished.
(AM, 5/01, p.49)
441 Bishop Patrick allegedly fasted for 40 days on a 2,500-foot peak later named Croagh Patrick in county Mayo. He allegedly banished snakes from Ireland during this time.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.23)
444 In Ireland St. Patrick selected the site for the Cathedral of Armagh. It later became Ireland’s ecclesiastical center and preceded the 360 churches that he established.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.D7)
449 The Armenians held a General Assembly to ponder the Persian edict that demanded conversion to Zoroastrianism. They chose to remain Christian and their leaders were summoned to Persia to answer to the king. The leaders opted to yield under heavy pressure but were renounced on their return home.
(MH, 12/96)
450 St. Benedict (d.547) was born in Norcia, Italy, about this time.
(V.D.-H.K.p.106)
450 The Hun invasions of India began.
(ATC, p.33)
450 In Peru a tattooed Moche woman was entombed about this time, at a site later called El Brujo, with a sacrificed teenage slave and a collection of weapons and jewelry. In 2006 her mummy was discovered in a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A2)
450-470 The Vakataka emperor Harisena, ruled over central India. He is recognized as bringing India's Golden Age to its apogee. He oversaw the greatest building phase at the monasteries of Ajanta, where monks lived in rock-cut cells.
(LSA., pp. 10-16)
451 Apr 8, Attila's Huns plundered Metz, following their sacking of Rheims and Trier, and continued moving south along the Moselle River.
(ON, 4/12, p.2)(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Apr 13, A Persian Army of 300,000 men under Mushkan Nusalavurd arrived at a place between her and Zarevand (now Khoy and Salmast in Iran) to face the Armenian forces.
(MH, 12/96)
451 May 26, The Battle of Avarair. Vardan Mamikonian, son of Sparapet (general) Hamazasp Mamikonian and Sahakanush, daughter of the Catholicos Sahak Bartev, led a force of 66,000 Armenians to face the Persians. Prior to battle Vardan read aloud the story of the Jewish Maccabees. Persian losses tripled the Armenian dead, but Mushkan won and Vardan was killed.
(MH, 12/96)
451 Apr 8, Attila's Huns plundered Metz and continued moving south along the Moselle River.
(ON, 4/12, p.2)
451 Apr, Roman Emperor Valentinian ordered Aetius, commander of the armies of the Western Roman Empire, to take his army and wait at Arles, the capital of Gaul, and to judge where and when to berst engage Attila, the commander of the Huns.
(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Jun 14, Aetius, commander of the armies of the Western Roman Empire, reached Aurelianum (Orleans) about this time, along with Theodoric, king of the Visigoths., to face the Hun forces of Attila.
(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Jun 20, Roman and Barbarian warriors halted Attila’s army at the Catalaunian Plains (Catalarinische Fields) in eastern France. Attila the Hun was defeated by a combined Roman and Visigoth army. Theodoric I, the Visigothic king, was killed. The Huns moved south into Italy but were defeated again. Some sources date this on Sep 20. Attila and his brother Bleda jointly inherited the Hunnish Kingdom, headquartered in what later became Hungary. Attila later murdered Bleda to gain full control.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Catalaunian_Plains)(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(ON, 4/12, p.3)
451 Jun 20, Theodoric I (b.390), King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451, died while defeat Attila (the Hun) at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoric_I)
451 Oct 8, Council of Chalcedon (4th ecumenical council) opened. The Council declared that the two natures of Christ, divine and human, were united without change, division or confusion in Christ. This led to the formation of the Coptic Monophysite Church which continued to hold that Jesus had but one divine nature. Copt comes from the Arabic word for Egyptian.
(CU, 6/87)(SFC, 3/31/97, p.A9)(MC, 10/8/01)
451 The Armenians were the first Christians to take up arms in defending their right to worship.
(HN, 7/25/98)
451 Clan leaders of Armenia united to defeat the Sassanians at Avarair.
(CO Enc. / Armenia)
451 John Nestorius, former Patriarch of Constantinople, died about this time. Prior to his death he wrote his book "Bazar of Heracleids."
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
451-484 Vahan Mamikonian led the Armenians in a 33-year guerrilla war. The Persian Sassanids underwent 3 rulers and pressure from the Ephthalites, White Huns, and when King Peroz was killed by the White Huns, his successor, Balash, sued for peace. Vahan demanded and was granted religious freedom.
(MH, 12/96)
452 Feb 4, The Mayan city of Tikal has a monolith in hieroglyphics that reports an inferior conjunction of Venus".
(K.I.-365D, p.164)
452 Jun 8, Italy was invaded by Attila the Hun.
(HN, 6/8/98)
452 Pope Leo I met Attila the Hun on the banks of the Mincio and Attila agreed to make peace and spare Rome.
(PTA, 1980, p.90)
453 Mar, Attila, ruler of the Huns from 434, died. He had led a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila)
454 Sep 21, In Italy, Aetius, the supreme army commander, was murdered in Ravenna by Valentinian III, the emperor of the West.
(HN, 9/21/98)
455 Mar 16, Valentinian III, Roman emperor in the West from 425, was assassinated in Rome by two Scythian followers of Aetius: Optelas and Thraustelas.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_III)
455 May 31, Petronius Maximus, senator, Emperor of Rome, was lynched.
(MC, 5/31/02)
455 Jul 9, Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, became Emperor of the West.
(HN, 7/9/98)
455 Jun 16, Rome was sacked by the Vandal army. Gaiseric looted and burned Rome for 14 days. He took the looted treasure, which likely included the 70AD plunder from Jerusalem, by ship to the temple of Carthage.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(HN, 6/16/98)(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
455 Genseric, at the invitation of Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, sailed to Italy, and took Rome without a blow. At the intercession of Leo the Great, he abstained from torturing or massacring the inhabitants and burning the city, but gave it up to systematic plunder. For 14 days and nights the work of pillage continued. Genseric then returned unmolested to Africa, carrying much booty and many thousand captives, including the empress Eudoxia and her two daughters. The elder became the wife of his son Hunneric; the younger, with her mother, was eventually surrendered to the emperor Leo.
(www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/galen-wace.html)
457 Feb 7, A Thracian officer by the name of Leo was proclaimed as emperor of the East by the army general, Aspar, on the death of the Emperor Marcian.
(HN, 2/7/99)
457 A Monophysite was named patriarch of Alexandria.
(SFC, 3/31/97, p.A9)
459 Sep 2, St. Simeon (b.~390), Syriac ascetic saint, died in Syria, He achieved notability for living 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites)
461 Mar 17, According to tradition, St. Patrick (b.c389), the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul, County Down. Some sources say he died in 493AD. He was an English missionary and bishop of Ireland. In 2004 Philip Freeman authored "St. Patrick: A Biography."
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)(AP, 3/17/08)
461 Nov 10, Leo I the Great, Pope (440-61), died.
(MC, 11/10/01)
468 Mar 3, St. Simplicius was elected to succeed Catholic Pope Hilarius.
(SC, 3/3/02)
470 Chinese philosopher Mozi (b.391) died about this time. Mohism or Moism was an ancient Chinese philosophy of logic, rational thought and science developed by the academic scholars who studied under Mozi and embodied in an eponymous book: the Mozi. Mozi taught that everyone is equal in the eyes of heaven. For those in power he believed that it should be based on meritocracy, or those who are worthy of power receive power.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi)
472 Aug 18, Flavius Ricimer, general of the Western Roman Empire, kingmaker, was born.
(MC, 8/18/02)
473 An ancient king in Sri Lanka constructs an impenetrable fortress atop a giant rock that rises 200 yards above the plains. The site is called Sigiriya.
(WSJ, 8/3/95, p.A-8)
474 Jan 18, Leo I, Roman Byzantine Emperor (457-74), died. He was succeeded by his grandson Leo II.
(www.roman-emperors.org/leo1.htm)
474 Nov 17, Leo II (b.467), Roman Byzantine Emperor, died.
(www.roman-emperors.org/leo2.htm)
476 Aug 28, The western Roman Empire formally ended at Ravenna as the barbarian general Odoacer deposed the last of the Roman emperors, the young boy Romulus Augustus.
(ATC, p.32)(PC, 1992, p.52)
477 The Shaolin Monastery, the cradle of kung fu and Zen Buddhism was founded in Dengfeng County, Henan province, China. In 495 the Shaolin Temple was built in the foothills of Mount Songshan, Henan province. It was later considered as the birthplace for Shaolin boxing, a combination of Buddhism and Chinese martial arts that evolved into kung fu (gongfu). In 1998 it established the Henan Shaolin Industrial Development Co as a vehicle to file for trademarks.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Monastery)(SFC, 9/26/02, p.B3)(Econ., 12/19/20, p.107)
477 In Sri Lanka the usurper King Kasyapa I founded Sigiriya and built his castle atop a 550-foot outcrop. He had murdered his father Dhatusena.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.D)(Arch, 7/02, p.32)
477 Harisena, emperor of Central India died.
(LSA., p. 12)
480 Boethius (d.524) was born in Rome about this time. He acquired an important post under the Ostrogoth King Theodoric, but later fell into disfavor and was imprisoned. In prison he wrote his famous "The Consolation of Philosophy."
(V.D.-H.K p.113)
480 Hun invasions began to weaken the Gupta Dynasty in India.
(ATC, p.33)
483 Mar 13, St. Felix began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 3/13/98)
484 The Church of Mary Theotokos was built over the presumed site of a Samaritan Temple that is believed to be a copy of the Second Temple of Jerusalem at Mt. Gerizim in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
(SFC, 5/23/95, p.A-10)
484 The Armenians signed a treaty in the village of Nuwarsak with the Persians and Vahan Mamikonian was appointed marzban of Armenia.
(MH, 12/96)
485 Apr 17, Proclus (b.411), Greek mathematician, died in Athens.
(WUD, 1994 p.1147)(MC, 4/17/02)
485-505 In Armenia Vahan Mamikonian began his rule with services at the Cathedral of Dvin with the Catholicos Hovhan I Mandakuni presiding.
(MH, 12/96)
490 Oct 29, Petrus Mongus, patriarch of Alexandria, died.
(MC, 10/29/01)
492 Mar 1, St. Felix III ended his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 3/1/02)
492 Mar 1, St Gelasius I began his reign as Catholic Pope (492-496).
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(SC, 3/1/02)
493 Mar 3, Odovacar, the Herulian leader, surrendered Ravenna to Theodorik, king of the Ostrogoths. Theodorik invited Odovacar to dinner and had him murdered. Theodorik united Italy as an Ostrogoth kingdom until 554. [see Mar 15]
(PCh, 1992, p.52)(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(SC, 3/3/02)
493 Mar 15, Theodoric the Great beat Odoacer of Italy. Odoacer, German army leader, King of Italy (476-93), died. [see Mar 3]
(MC, 3/15/02)
495 May 3, Pope Gelasius asserted that his authority was superior to Emperor Anastasius.
PTA, 1980, p.98)(HN, 5/3/98)
496 Nov 21, Pope Gelasius, an African by birth or descent, died. He changed the mid-February lottery rules for young Roman men so that they drew names of Catholic Saints to emulate instead of young girls for play. The Lupercalia pagan rite had been revived to bring good luck to the city following a plague. He named Feb 14 as St. Valentine’s Day.
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(SFEM, 2/9/97, p.11)(SSFC, 2/11/01, DB p.40)
496 Clovis, king of the Salian or Merovingian Franks, became the first of the pagan barbarians to adopt Catholicism.
(www.patmospapers.com/daniel/in508.htm)
498 Nov 19, Anastasius II, Pope (496-98), (Dante Inferno XI, 8-9), died.
(MC, 11/19/01)
500 The northern California Emeryville Shellmound, CA-Ala 309, dates to about this time.
(Buckeye, Winter 04/05)
500 China’s Grand Canal between Beijing and Hangzhou was finished about this time.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.16)
500 In England, the Anglo-Saxons brought Futhark from continental Europe in the 5th century and modified it into the 33-letter "Futhorc" to accommodate sound changes that were occurring in Old English, the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. An early offshoot of Futhark was employed by Goths, and so it is known as Gothic Runes. It was used until 500 CE when it was replaced by the Greek-based Gothic alphabet.
(www.ancientscripts.com/futhark.html)
500 About this time the Ridgeway, the oldest road in Europe, wandered along empty, open ridges over Wiltshire’s Marlborough Downs in England. Invading Saxons gave this ancient track its present name: “The Ridgeway," but even then it was already old beyond all memory. Fifty centuries earlier, Stone Age traders probably followed this track to barter stone axe heads with farmer folk in the valleys. These Neolithic merchants picked up The Ridgeway at the Thames River ford at Goring, then followed it westward and southward along the crest of the Downs, into what would become the counties of Berkshire and Wiltshire in the times of the Wessex kings. Since those first Neolithic peddlers, 200 generations have found their own good reasons to tramp along the Ridgeway track.
(HNQ, 7/29/01)
500 By this time the Chalchihuites culture (New Mexico) engaged in extensive turquoise mining and exporting raw turquoise to West Mexican centers like Alta Vista.
(Arch, 1/05, p.28)
500 By this time the Kaaba at Mecca housed more than 360 idols of the gods of various tribes. Protection of the Kaaba was organized by the Quraysh tribe, who encouraged other tribes to deposit their idols their for protection and a fee. During four months of each year the Quraysh forbade fighting and raiding along the trade routes and this allowed both merchants and travelers make their pilgrimages in peace for a fee.
(ATC, p.57)
500 The Manteno people inhabited the area of northern Ecuador about this time. It was believed that they ran a vast maritime empire and traded with the Aztecs in Mexico and made voyages of 3,000-4,000 miles. In 1998-99 a team led by John Haslett (34) attempted to duplicate their maritime voyages with a 20-ton, 60-foot balsa raft.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A8
500 About this time Nubians turned from their Egyptian-influenced religion to Christianity. A thousand years later the people of their region will convert heavily to Islam.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)
500 About this time the Indian monk Bodhidharma hit on the idea of Zen after staring at a wall for nine years.
(WSJ, 10/23/96, p.A1)
c500 The first settlers of Madagascar began arriving from the Malay Archipelago in the middle of the first millennium. DNA studies in 2012 indicated that the number of women in the first group of settlers numbered about 30.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.84)
500 Teotihuacan people built a 60-foot pyramid about this time in what later became known as Iztapalapa, Mexico. It was abandoned after about 300 years, when the Teotihuacan culture collapsed. Archeologists began to unveil the site in 2004.
(AP, 4/6/06)
500 In Nigeria evidence of urbanization at the Yoruba city of Ife dated back to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ife)
500 In Peru a Moche pyramid from about this time at Dos Cabezas contained tombs that archeologists found in 1997. The tombs revealed people of unusual height along with miniatures of the deceased and the tomb’s contents.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A7)
500 Ancient Turks are believed to have originated in Mongolia about this time.
(Arch, 1/06, p.17)
500 The Catholic Church amended its calculation for the birth year of Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church did not. This put the Ethiopian calendar seven years and eight months behind the Western calendar.
(BBC, 9/10/21)
500-600 Arabs about this time brought back home from India the numerals we refer to as Arabic numbers.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
500-600 The Arabian city of Ubar, disappeared in the early 6th century. The event was later cited by Muhammad in the Quran. In 1992 a team of investigators announced the discovery of the long lost Arabian city of Ubar. George Hedges (1952-2009), a Hollywood litigator, and filmmaker Nicholas Clapp, participated in the find. Clapp later authored “The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands" (1999).
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A12)
500-600 In England the 6th century Gildas was the only historian whose work survived. He made no mention of King Arthur. He described the Picts as “Loathsome hordes, dark swarms of worms that emerge from the narrow crevices of their holes when the sun is high, preferring to cover their villainous faces with hair rather than their private parts and surrounding areas with clothes.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)(AM, 11/04, p.41)
500-600 The monastic complex of David Gareja was founded in the 6th century by David (St. David Garejeli), one of the thirteen Assyrian monks who arrived in Georgia at the same time. His disciples Dodo and Luciane expanded the original lavra and founded two other monasteries known as Dodo's Rka (literally, "the horn of Dodo") and Natlismtsemeli ("the Baptist"). Part of the complex is also located in the Agstafa rayon of Azerbaijan and thus became subject to a border dispute between Georgian and Azerbaijani authorities.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gareja_monastery_complex)
500-600 The historical Bodhidharma (known as Daruma in Japan) was an Indian sage who lived sometime in the fifth or sixth century AD. He is commonly considered the founder of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, and credited with Chan's introduction to China. Daruma’s philosophy arrived first in China, where it flowered and was called Chan Buddhism. Only centuries later did it bloom in Japan, where it is called Zen.
(www.onmarkproductions.com/html/daruma.shtml)
500-600 The rulers of Ghana stored grain in mud huts on high, steep land.
(ATC, p.106)
500-600 About this time Irish monks brought an alembic from the Middle East that was initially used to distill perfumes. They soon applied it to spirits and produced Uisce Beatha (water of life), better known as whiskey.
(WSJ, 8/14/02, p.D8)
500-600 In Laos a local legend describes a military celebration for which the stone jars of the Plain of Jars were created to ferment and store alcohol.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.E)
500-600 El Pital, a Maya regional hub on the gulf coast since c300 BC, suddenly became inactive. It was later suspected that a catastrophic flood hit the area.
(SFC, 9/14/00, p.C8)
500-600 The Picts of Scotland developed a script about this time made up of 30 symbols. In 2005 it still defied interpretation.
(AM, 11/04, p.43)
500-700 A Babylonian earthenware demon bowl from Seleucia-on-Tigris dated to this period.
(MT, 3/96, p.5)
500-700 The clay Lydenburg Heads from southern Africa, dated to this period. These earliest know South African sculptures were later exhibited at the Guggenheim.
(NYT, 6/7/96, p.B9)
500-700 Chronicles of the 8th century record the peaceful arrival of immigrants from Korea in the 6th and 7th centuries.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.38)
500-700 Evidence in 2005 suggested that Polynesians visited California during this period and transferred their canoe building technology to the local Chumash and Gabrielino Indians.
(SFC, 6/20/05, p.A5)
500-800 Curse tablets are widely used in this era. "Lead scrolls, used to place curses against lawyers, lovers, and horses, have been discovered in a Roman-era well at King Herod’s palace in Israel."
(USAT, 10/28/94, 1A)
c500-1100 The Sinagua people lived in the area of Sunset Crater, Az.
(AM, 3/04, p.48)
500-1315 The Fremont Indians lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon during this period and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)
502-557 In China the Liang stele dates to this time.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
508 The Franks, led by Clovis, took Paris and made it their capital. Under Charlemagne, the capital was moved to Aachen and Paris waned, raided repeatedly by Norsemen during the 9th and 10th centuries.
(HNQ, 4/18/02)
508 Clovis, king of the Franks (later France), defeated the Visigoths and pushed into Spain.
(www.patmospapers.com/daniel/in508.htm)
510 Boethius began the translation of the works of Aristotle from Greek into Latin. He only completed the "Organon," or works on logic.
(V.D.-H.K.p.113)
511 Nov 11, Clovis (45), king of Salische France and founder of Merovingians, died. [see Nov 27]
(MC, 11/11/01)
511 Nov 27, Clovis, king of the Franks, died and his kingdom was divided between his four sons. [see Nov 11]
(HN, 11/27/98)
515 Boethius in his treatise on the Trinity writes "As far as you are able, join faith to reason."
(V.D.-H.K.p.113)
520 St. Benedict founded the Benedictine Order at Monte Cassino. From there monks went forth and created a network of monasteries all over Europe. The monks taught the values of agricultural living to the nomadic barbarians.
(CU, 6/87)
520 Guptas invent the decimal system in India.
(ATC, p.69)
521-597 St. Columba, Irish missionary in Scotland. The Irish monks of Columba preceded the Benedictines in Northern Europe, but their ascetic otherworldliness did not meet the needs of the practical barbarian people.
(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.292)
523 May 6, Thrasamunde, king of Vandals (496-523), died.
(MC, 5/6/02)(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15268b.htm)
524 Jun 21, Battle at Vezerone: Burgundy beat France.
(MC, 6/21/02)
524 Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (b.~477), Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century, died in Pavia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius)
525 By this time the Hun invaders have conquered India. The Gupta Dynasty ends.
(ATC, p.35)
526 May 18, St. John I, Catholic Pope (523-526), died.
(HN, 5/18/98)(SC, 5/18/02)
526 May 20, An earthquake killed 250,000 in Antioch, Turkey. This was the capital of Syria from 300-64BCE. [see May 29]
(MC, 5/20/02)
526 May 29, Antioch, Turkey, was struck by an earthquake and about 250,000 died. [see May 20]
(AM, 11/00, p.69)(SC, 5/29/02)
526 Aug 30, Theodorik the Great (72), King of Ostrogoths, died of dysentery. He was succeeded by his grandson Athalaric (10), who reigned until 534 with his mother Amalasuntha as regent.
(PC, 1992, p.54)
527 Apr 1, Emp. Justin named Justinianus co-emperor of Byzantium. [see Apr 4]
(OTD)(PC, 1992 ed, p.54)
527 Apr 4, In Constantinople, Justin, seriously ill, crowned his nephew Justinian as his co-emperor. [see Apr 1]
(HN, 4/4/99)
527 Aug 1, Justinus I, Byzantine emperor (518-27), died.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.54)
527-548 Empress Theodora, considered the most powerful woman in Byzantine history, ruled with her husband Justinian.
(ATC, p.24)
527-565 Justinian ruled the Byzantine Empire.
(WSJ, 4/5/02, p.W12)
527-565 Emperor Justinian built the St. Catherine monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Desert to house the bones of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was tortured to death for converting to Christianity. The site was thought to be the place where Moses saw the Miracle of the Burning Bush.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.T6)(http://interoz.com/egypt/Catherines.htm)
528 Justinian assigned 10 men the task of condensing the 1,600 books of classic Roman law.
(ATC, p.43)
529 Justinian, ruling from Constantinople (517-565), promulgated the Codex Constitutionum, the chief source and authority of Roman law.
(V.D.-H.K.p.68)
529 The new Justinian Code was composed of 4,652 laws. It extended the rights of women, children and slaves, and also called for harsher penalties for crime.
(ATC, p.43)
529 Justinian closed the Platonic academy at Athens.
(V.D.-H.K.p.107)
529 The Monte Cassino monastery in Italy was founded by St. Benedict (450-547).
(V.D.-H.K.p.107)(NW, 10/28/02, p.16)
530 Oct 14, Dioscurus, anti-Pope (530), died.
(MC, 10/14/01)
532 Jan 13-532 Jan 14, The 2nd Hagia Sophia cathedral burned down in Constantinople during the Nika uprising, which failed leaving some 30-40,000 people dead. Justinian and his wife Theodora had attended festivities at the Hippodrome, a stadium for athletic competition. Team support escalated from insults to mob riots and in the end Constantinople lay in ruins. Justinian proceeded to rebuild the city with extensive commissions for religious art and architecture, including the new Hagia Sophia.
(ATC, p.33)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
532 Oct 17, Boniface II, 1st "German" Pope, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
533-565 Justinian’s armies regained parts of Spain, all of Italy and North Africa.
(ATC, p.45)
534 Justinian brought the Vandal king into Constantinople and resurrected the triumphal procession of 71AD.
(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
535 Feb, In Southern China the Nan Shi Ancient Chronicle reported that "yellow dust rained down like snow."
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)
535 Apr 30, Amalaswintha, queen of Ostrogoten, was murdered.
(MC, 4/30/02)
535 May 13, St Agapitus I began his reign as Catholic Pope
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
535 Feb, There is evidence that the Krakatoa volcano had a major eruption about this time. In 1869 Rangawarsita, a Javanese royal courtier, compiled the Books of Kings, which mentioned an event from the middle of the first millennium that sounded like a major eruption.
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)(Disc., 7/4/03)
535-536 John of Ephesus, a Syrian bishop, reported that the sun darkened for a period of 18 months with feeble light for only about 4 hours a day.
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)
536 Apr 22, St. Agapitus I ended his reign as Catholic Pope (535-36).
(HN, 4/22/98)(MC, 4/22/02)
536 Dec 9, Byzantine Count Belisarius entered Rome through the Asinarian Gate at the head of 5,000 troops. At the same time, 4,000 Ostrogoths left the city through the Flaminian Gate and headed north to Ravenna, the capital of their Italian kingdom. For the first time since 476, when the Germanic king, Odoacer, had deposed the last Western Roman emperor and crowned himself "King of the Romans," the city of Rome was once more part of the Roman empire—albeit an empire whose capital had shifted east to Constantinople. Belisarius had taken the city back as part of Emperor Justinian’s grand plan to recover the western provinces from their barbarian rulers. The plan was meant to be carried out with an almost ridiculously small expeditionary force. The 5,000 soldiers that General Belisarius led included Hunnish and Moorish auxiliaries, and they were expected to defend circuit walls 12 miles in diameter against an enemy who would soon be back, and who would outnumber them at least 10-to-1.
(HN, 12/9/98)(HNC, 10/1/99)
537 Mar 11, The Goths laid siege to Rome. The Goths cut the aqueducts to Rome in the 6th century.
(HN, 3/11/98)(SFEC, 7/2/00, p.T4)
537 Dec 27, The Hagia Sophia Byzantine cathedral in Constantinople was consecrated. St. Sophia (meaning "the holy wisdom" in Greek) was built by Emperor Justinian. It remained a symbol of Byzantine grandeur until Istanbul was conquered by Muslim armies.
(Sky, 4/97, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
538 Nov 30, St. Gregory of Tours, chronicler and bishop, was born.
(MC, 11/30/01)
538-552 Introduction of Buddhism to Japan from Korea. Obon, an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's ancestors, came to Japan via China along with Buddhism. It is believed that each year during Obon, the ancestors' spirits return to this world in order to visit their relatives.
(https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2286.html)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(Econ., 8/22/20, p.32)
538-600 Buddhist missionaries introduced the art of flower arranging to Japan. The 1st school of flower arranging, ikenobo, was founded by Ono no Imoko in the early 7th century. Ikebana became the umbrella name for the schools of flower arranging.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, Z1 p.2)
540-560 In Syria the monastery of St. Moses the Abyssinian (Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi) was built in the middle of the sixth century, and belonged to the Syrian Antiochian Rite. The site was abandoned after several hundred years, but was revived in the late 1980s by Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall’Oglio.
(http://tinyurl.com/kudtzxa)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.42)
541-543 Plague swept Asia Minor.
(AM, 11/04, p.38)
541-542 The Plague of Justinian swirled around the Mediterranean and recurred over the next two centuries. It killed as many as 40 million people and weakened the Byzantine Empire. "The bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules... the symptoms of immediate death," wrote Procopius, historian of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. At its peak in Constantinople, he reported, the plague killed 10,000 people a day.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian)(NG, 5/88, p.678)
542 The St. Columbas monastery was founded on Iona. [see 563]
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.T8)
543 Mar 21, Benedict of Nursia died. Some sources put his death on March 21, 547. He had founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Lazio, Italy (about 40 miles (64 km) to the east of Rome), before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia)
544 In northern Guatemala a Mayan altar dated to this year depicts La Corona ruler Chak Took Ich'aak conjuring two local gods from a shaft in the form of a double-headed snake. In 2017 the altar was found encased in the roots of a tree in a collapsed temple. Archaeologists said the altar suggests the Mayan dynasty of Kaanul, known as the Snake Kings, acted like its namesake in slowly squeezing the rival kingdom of Tikal.
(AP, 9/15/18)(AP, 9/18/18)
544 In India about this time Pulakeshin I instituted the Chalukyan kingdom and his son established Vatapi, identified as Badami, as the capital.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdkhf)
546 Colmcille, an Irish saint, founded a monastery at Derry.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
546 Totila the Goth besieged Rome.
(PTA, 1980, p.120)
547 Mar 21, St. Benedict (b.450), Italian monk, died (see March 21, 543). He lived for years as a hermit near the ruins of Nero's palace above Subiaco, 40 miles east of Rome. He established the monastery of Monte Cassino, the founding house of the Benedictine order. His rules and standards of communal life are known as the rules of St. Benedict.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia)(V.D.-H.K.p.68)
548 In Ireland St. Kieran founded a monastery at Clonmacnoise, an Irish phrase meaning "the meadow of the sons of Nos."
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.T8)
549 Jerusalem held to a Jan 6 date for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus until this year. In the end the West added the Epiphany and the East added the Dec 25 nativity to their liturgical calendars.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)
550 Native peoples in southwest Colorado began building pit houses. Found the world over, these are rooms dug in the ground with roofs of mud and logs. To get in or out, people used a ladder through a hole in the roof that doubled as a smoke vent-unpleasant for humans but a good way to keep animals out. You can see several excavated pit houses at the National Park.
(HN, 2/11/97)
550 Aryabhata (b.476), Indian astronomer and mathematician, died. The Aryabhatiya, an astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only extant work of Aryabhata.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata)
c550 Japanese rulers allow their subjects to practice the Buddhist faith.
(ATC, p.50)
550 Persians reasserted control over all of what is now Afghanistan. Revolts by various Afghan tribes followed.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
550-577 The Northern Qi dynasty ruled in China. A wall parallel to the Great Wall in the Jinshanling area is attributed to their rule.
(SFC, 2/9/06, p.E4)
550-730 Ancient Turkic people flourished in Mongolia during this period.
(Arch, 1/06, p.19)
550-1200 The period of Irish Monasticism.
(NGM, 5/77)
552 Jul 10, Origin of Armenian calendar.
(MC, 7/10/02)
552 Aug 5, In Italy snow fell in the town of Panicale in Umbria. The Church of the Virgin of Snows commemorated the rare event.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.49)
552 Agents from Byzantium impersonating monks smuggled silkworms and mulberry leaves out of China in hollow canes.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.51)
553-578 Moon-Jaguar, the tenth Mayan ruler of Copan, reigned over this period.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.28)
554 Aug 14, Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine military governor in Italy.
(MC, 8/14/02)
555 Jun 7, Vigilius ended his reign as Catholic Pope (537-555).
(PTA, 1980, p.118)(SC, 6/7/02)
556 Feb 21, Maximianus van Ravenna, bishop (Basilica S Stefano), died.
(MC, 2/21/02)
556 Apr 16, Pelagius I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 4/16/98)
c556 Dionysius Exiguus, Scythian monk, died. He devised the current system of reckoning the Christian era.
(WUD, 1994, p.405)
558 May 7, The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapsed. Its immediate rebuilding was ordered by Justinian.
(HN, 5/7/99)
560 Emperor Justinian about this time returned the treasure of Jerusalem, plundered by the Romans in 70AD, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
561 Mar 4, Pelagius I, Italian Catholic Pope (556-61), died.
(PTA, 1980, p.120)
561 Jul, John III was consecrated Pope.
(PTA, 1980, p.122)
562 Belisarius stood trial in Constantinople on a charge of corruption. The charge is presumed to have been trumped-up and modern research suggests that his former secretary Procopius of Caesarea may have judged his case. Belisarius was found guilty and imprisoned but not long after, Justinian pardoned him, ordered his release, and restored him to favor at the imperial court. Belisarius and Justinian, whose partnership had increased the size of the empire by 45 percent died within a few months of each other in 565.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius)
562 Tikal in Guatemala was conquered possibly by the Mayans of Calakmul city in Mexico. Calakmul is one of the largest of Mayan cities with more than 6,000 structures. It was the capital of a widespread hegemony of Lowland Maya kingdoms during the Late Classic (600-900).
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.G)(Arch, 9/00, p.27)
562 Mayans from the city of Ah Witz Na, in what is now Belize, conquered Tikal.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.T3)
563 The Irish Catholic monk Columba (Colum Cille) arrived on the Scottish island of Iona. [see 542]
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)(AM, 7/01, p.51)
563 A tsunami devastated Geneva. It was generated by a massive rockfall on what was called Mount Tauredunum.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.79)
563-594 In northern Peru a 30-year mega el nino weather period began that caused major flooding in areas populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
565 Mar, Flavius Belisarius (b.c500), military commander of the Byzantine Empire, died. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century before.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius)
565 Aug 22, St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness.
(MC, 8/22/02)
565 Nov 14, Justinian I, [Petrus Sabbatius], Byzantine emperor (527-565), died at age 83.
(Baker, 2002)
570 Jan 19, Mohammed (d.632), "The Prophet", founder of Islam and speaker in the “Koran," was born into the Quraysh tribe in Makkah. He was orphaned at an early age and found work in a trade caravan. He married a wealthy widow and this gave him the freedom to visit Mount Hira each year to think. His birthday is observed on the 12th day of Rabi ul'Awwal, the 3rd month of the lunar calendar, in a festival known as Mawlid-al-Nabi. The Koran was probably not fixed for the 1st two centuries after the emergence of Islam.
(ATC, p.59)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/15/01, p.A16)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.97)
570 John Philoponus (b.490), a Christian and Aristotelian commentator (aka John of Alexandria or John the Grammarian), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philoponus)
573 Aug 20, Gregory of Tours was selected as the bishop of Tours.
(MC, 8/20/02)
573 In Copan the Rosalila structure on the Acropolis culminated a period of intense construction
(NG, 12/97, p.92)
574 Jul 13, Pope John III died.
(PTA, 1980, p.122)
574 Prince Shotoku was born in Japan. He later brought the Kongo family from Korea to Osaka and had them build a Buddhist temple. The temple took 15 years to build and the Kongo family became established as the premier temple builders in Japan.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
575 Jun 2, Benedict I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 6/2/02)
578 Oct 5, Justinus II, Byzantine emperor (565-78), died.
(MC, 10/5/01)
578 The family business Kongo Gumi was founded in Japan by a Korean in Osaka to build Buddhist temples. The company continued to flourish in 2010 as general builder.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.104)(Econ, 11/20/10, SR p.9)
579 Jul 30, Pope Benedict I died.
(PTA, 1980, p.124)
580 Pope Pelagius left married priests alone if they kept their wives and children from inheriting church property.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
580-728 Pallava kings ruled in southern India, later Tamil Nadu state. The port town of Mahabalipuram was the capital of their ancient kingdom.
(AP, 9/21/05)
581-618 The Sui Dynasty ruled in China. The "Sui Shu" are the annals of the Sui Dynasty and mention of cormorant fishing in Japan is made.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(SFEC, 8/11/96, Z1, p.6)(NH, 10/98, p.69)
587 Nov 28, Treaty of Andelot: King Guntram took cousin Childebert II as heir.
(MC, 11/28/01)
589 Mar 1, Saint David (b.~500), Welsh Bishop, died about this time. He was later regarded as a saint and as the patron saint of Wales. The Annales Cambriae has his death at 601, which would move his birth date forward. His mother was Non (also Nonna or Nonnita), according to Christian tradition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Non)
589 Japanese official diplomatic delegations were sent to China (during the Sui dynasty) to learn Chinese culture, including Chinese court music, Gagaku (elegant music).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagaku)
590 Feb 7, Pelagius II, Gothic Pope (579-90), died from plague.
(MC, 2/7/02)
590 Sep 3, St. Gregory I began his reign as Pope. Gregory the Great reigned until 604 and established the popes as the de facto rulers of central Italy, and strengthened the papal primacy over the Churches of the West.
(CU, 6/87)(MC, 9/3/01)
590 St. Elijah's Monastery, aka Dair Mar Elia, was completed in Mosul. It was named after Assyrian Christian monk St. Elijah, who began the construction in 582. In 2014 the Christian monastery was destroyed by the Islamic State.
(AP, 1/20/16)(SFC, 1/21/16, p.A4)
590 Pope Gregory said he spotted an angel atop Hadrian’s Mausoleum. The site was then reconfigured as a fortress called Castel Sant’Angelo. In 1925 it became a national museum.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F8)
590 Pope Gregory I revised an earlier list to form the more common Seven Deadly Sins, by folding sorrow/despair into acedia, vainglory into pride, and adding extravagance and envy, while removing fornication from the list (Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth). In the order used by both Pope Gregory and by Dante Alighieri in his epic poem The Divine Comedy, the seven deadly sins are as follows: 1. luxuria (extravagance/lust) 2. gula (gluttony) 3. avaritia (avarice/greed) 4. acedia (acedia/discouragement/sloth) 5. ira (anger/wrath) 6. invidia (envy) 7. superbia (pride).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins)
592-710 The Asuka Period of Japanese history.
(www.japan-101.com)
593-622 The Regency of Prince Shotoku on Japan.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)
594 In Japan wood for the five-storey pagoda of the Temple of the Flourishing Law in Nara prefecture was felled about this time. Construction of the temple is believed to have begun soon after. In 2016 it was one of the world’s oldest wooden buildings.
(Econ, 9/10/16, p.66)
594 In Peru a 30-year drought began about this time that followed years of flooding in areas populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
598-658 Chu Suilang: Tang Dynasty calligrapher.
(SFC, 5/14/03, p.D1)
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300 About this time Tiridates III, king of Armenia, adopted Christianity as the religion of his kingdom, making Armenia the first Christian state.
(CO Enc. / Armenia)
300 About this time Berbers from North Africa began to rule Ghana and continued for about the next 400 years. They are thought to have originated as nomads from the Middle East.
(ATC, p.113)
300 The Mayan city of Cancuen was already established by this time. Ruins of the city were discovered in 1999 in Guatemala.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A2)
300 Mayans began building on Cozumel Island off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula about this time. The town of San Gervasio was built and inhabited through 1650. Cozumel covers 189 square miles, about the size of Lake Tahoe.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E4)
300 In India about this time Vatsayana wrote the philosophical treatise "Kama Sutra" during the classical age of the Gupta period. One of its 35 chapters dealt with various sexual positions.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, DB p.32)
300 Iron-using people settled at Zimbabwe in central Africa about this time.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
300-400 See the reference for this period.
(www.scholiast.org/history/timetables/300s.html)
300-400 Historian Egami Namio in 1948 proposed the "horserider" thesis that cited equestrian goods and foreign culture elements as evidence that the ancestors of the Japanese imperial line had migrated from Korea about this time and conquered the northern part of Kyushu.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.36)
300-400 The book "Deipnosophistae," The Dinner Table Philosophers, described the use of "happy baskets" for leftovers.
(SFC, 9/10/97, Z1 p.5)
300-400 The Circus Maximus in ancient Rome, expanded under Constantine in the 4th century CE, had an estimated seating capacity of 250,000. The largest of hippodrome in Rome, a U-shaped stadium with a low wall running in the middle around which chariots raced, it seated an estimated 150,000 spectators at the time of Julius Caesar in the 1st century B.C.
(HNQ, 8/29/99)
300-400 As long ago as the 4th century, an Egyptian scientist named Papp suggested there should be a science called heuristics to solve inventive problems.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
300-400 During this time the 1st French church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built in the 4th century on the hill site of the later Chartres cathedral.
(Hem., 10/97, p.83)
300-400 Saint Nectarius of Auvergne (also known as Nectarius of St-Nectaire, Nectarius of Limagne, Necterius of Senneterre), venerated as a 4th century martyr and Christian missionary, was one of the seven missionaries sent by Pope Fabian from Rome to Gaul to spread Christianity there. Nectarius was accompanied by the priests Baudimius (Baudenius, Baudime) and Auditor (Auditeur); tradition states that they were all brothers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nectarius_of_Auvergne)
300-400 During this time Ammon Scholasticus, Greek lawyer, worked in Panopolis, Egypt. In 1997 Prof. William H. Willis (d.2000) of Duke Univ. completed an archive of his papers: "The Archives of Ammon Scholasticus."
(SFC, 7/19/00, p.B2)
300-400 During this period Kuqa on the silk road in western China was a Buddhist center of learning.
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.T5)
300-400 In Ireland the Staigue Fort with circular drystone walls was built about this time on the Iveragh peninsula.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staigue_stone_fort)
300-400 By the 4th century El Mirador, the most powerful city in the Preclassic Maya world, had become a ghost town.
(Arch, 9/00, p.28)
300-400 The Syriac monastery of Mar Mattai was established near Mosul.
(Econ, 5/14/16, SR p.3)
300-467 The well-run government of the Gupta Dynasty existed during this period.
(ATC, p.35)
300-525 During the Gupta Dynasty, India trades with the Eastern Roman Empire, Persia, and China.
(ATC, p.24)
300-645 Yamato Period of Japan. The Yamato clan had taken root in the Nara basin and gave rise to the people called “Japanese."
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(Hem, 9/04, p.41)
300-700 Goths, Huns, Avars, Serbs, Croats, and Bulgars successively invade Illyrian lands.
(www, Albania, 1998)
c300-1000 During the 4th-10th century, Orhon Turks were prominent in Mongolia.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
300-1300 During this period the Anasazis inhabited the Canyon de Chelly and the Canyon del Muerto in northeast Arizona.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.T8)
301 King Trdat III declared Christianity to be the state religion. Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity. Not long after the Armenians adopted Christianity in their homeland around the biblical Mt. Ararat, on the eastern border of modern-day Turkey, they dispatched priests to Jerusalem.
(MH, 12/96)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A25)(AP, 5/12/11)
301 San Marino traced its roots to this time and later claimed to be the world’s oldest republic. It was founded by stonecutter Marinus of Arbe.
(WSJ, 1/16/06, p.A1)(SSFC, 12/19/10, p.M2)
303 Feb 23, Emperor Diocletian ordered the general persecution of Christians in Rome.
(HN, 2/23/98)
303 Apr 23, St. George, dragon-slaying knight, died. He was made the patron saint of England in the 14th century. George, later fired by the Pope as mythical, was tortured and beheaded at Nicomedia. He was a soldier who was reported to have risen to a high rank under Diocletian.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(AHD, p.552)(MC, 4/23/02)
303 St. Devota (b.~2893), a Corsican martyr, died. Sainte-Devote was killed during the persecutions of Diocletian and Maximian. Monaco celebrates her feast day on Jan 27. In 1820 she was named a principal patron saint of Corsica.
(SSFC, 1/27/13, p.N3)
303 Lactantius, an early Christian writer, said that Romula, mother of Roman emperor Galerius, encouraged her son to persecute Christians in this year.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.29)
304-305 Massive persecution of the Christians under Diocletian.
(V.D.-H.K.p.91)
305 May 1, Emperor Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Jovius of Rome abdicated. Constantius I Chlorus (Flavius Valerius Constantius) became Western emperor. Galerius (Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus) became Eastern emperor.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
305 San Gennaro, a pious bishop, was beheaded by Roman Emp. Diocletian. In the 14th century Naples began celebrating the miracle of San Gennaro, whereby the city’s archbishop shakes a vial allegedly containing blood from Gennaro.
(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.A2)
306 Jul 23, Constantine was proclaimed Caesar of the west by the army, while Severus, the former Caesar, was proclaimed Augusta of the west by Galerius.
(HN, 7/23/98)
306 Oct 28, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius was proclaimed emperor of Rome.
(MC, 10/28/01)
307 Nov 11, Flavius Valerius Severus, compassionate emperor of Rome (306-07), died.
(MC, 11/11/01)
309 Feb 16, Pamphilus Caesarea, Palestinian scholar, martyr, was beheaded.
(MC, 2/16/02)
309-310 Apr 18, St. Eusebius began his reign as Catholic Pope. He ruled for just 4 months in either 309 or 310.
(PTA, 1980, p.62)(WUD, 1994 p.492)(HN, 4/18/98)
310 Roman Emperor Constantine built a defense tower at Eboracum on the banks of the River Ouse in what later became the English city of York.
(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.Q1)
311 Apr 30, Emperor Galerius recognized Christians legally in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 4/30/02)
311 May 5, Gaius VM Galerius (~50), emperor of Rome, died in Dardania.
(SFC, 6/23/97, p.29)(MC, 5/5/02)
311 Jul 2, St. Miltiades began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 7/2/02)
311 In Austria a Roman gladiator school flourished at Carnuntum 28 miles (45 km) east of Vienna. This was a major military and trade outpost linking the far-flung Roman empire's Asian boundaries to its central and northern European lands. Archeological digging at the site began around 1870 and by 2011 only 0.5 percent of the settlement was excavated.
(AP, 9/5/11)
311 At the consecration of bishop Caecilian of Carthage, one of the three bishops, Felix, bishop of Aptunga, who consecrated Caecilian, had given copies of the Bible to the Roman persecutors. A group of about 70 bishops formed a synod and declared the consecration of the bishop to be invalid. Great debate arose concerning the validity of the sacraments (baptism, the Lord's Supper, etc.) by one who had sinned so greatly against other Christians.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)
311 The Donatists were a Christian sect that developed in northern Africa [Numidia] and maintained that it alone constituted the whole and only true church and that baptisms and ordinations of the orthodox clergy were invalid. The Donatists insisted that sinners must be re-baptized.
(WUD, 1994, p.425)(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C1)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.87)
311 Licinius (Valerius Licianus Licinius) became Eastern emperor. He was deposed and executed by Constantine in 325.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
312 cOct 27, Prior to a battle between Constantine and Maxentius, Constantine experienced a vision of Christ that ordered him to ornament the shields of his soldiers with the Greek letters chi and rho, the monogram for Christ. Constantine won the battle and attributed his success to Christ. He became emperor of the West and an advocate of Christianity. [see Oct 28]
(MH, 12/96)(CU, 6/87)
312 Oct 28, Constantine the Great defeated Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius at the Mulvian Bridge. Constantine’s smaller army (about 50,000 strong) won a decisive victory there; while fleeing, Maxentius drowned in the river. Constantine was instantly converted when he saw a cross in the sky, with the inscription "In hoc signo vincit" ("In this sign you shall conquer"). [see Oct 27]
(HN, 10/28/98)(DoW, 1999, P.398)
312 Appius Claudius began construction of the Appian Way as a military highway.
(SFC, 8/2/07, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Appia)
313 Jan 1, A 15 year cycle used in reckoning ecclesiastical calendars was established as a fiscal term to regulate taxes. It is called the Roman Indiction.
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.23)
313 Apr 30, Co-emperor Licinius unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.
(HN, 4/30/98)
313 Constantine met with the eastern emperor at Milan, capital of the late Roman Empire. They agreed on a policy of religious tolerance. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, but also allowed Romans religious choice.
(CU, 6/87)(ITV, 1/96, p.58)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T13)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
313 Constantine wrote a letter to the proconsul of Africa in which he explained why the Christian clergy should not be distracted by secular offices or financial obligations. "When they are free to render supreme service to the Divinity, it is evident that they confer great benefits upon the affairs of the state."
(V.D.-H.K.p.91)
313 Nanai-vandak, a Sogdian agent, wrote that "The last emperor fled from Louyang [the eastern capital of China] because of famine and fire" due to nomadic invasions.
(AM, 9/01, p.50)
313 Maximinus II Daia, Eastern emperor, was killed at Tarsus.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
314 Licinius declared Valens (d.314) as co-emperor during the war with Constantine. Licinius was deposed and executed by Valens.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
314-335 Pope Sylvester I. A document from the 9th or 10th century called the "Donation of Constantine" was forged to show Constantine granting to Sylvester and his successors spiritual supremacy over all matters of faith and worship and temporal dominion over Rome and the entire Western empire.
(V.D.-H.K.p.104)
316 Diocletian, former emperor of Rome, died. By this time there were about 30,000 converts to Christianity and some 33 popes had followed in the footsteps of St. Peter.
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)
317 Aug 7, Flavius Julius Constantius II, Emperor Egypt, Byzantium, Rome (337-61), was born.
(MC, 8/7/02)
320 In India the Gupta state began with the accession of Chandragupta I. His son and grandson were successful conquerors and extended the state across Northern India from sea to sea. The journal of the Buddhist monk Fa-hsien provides most of our knowledge of Gupta society.
(MWH, 1994)
324 Constantine chose Byzantium as his new capital. He moved his court to Byzantium and chiseled his name on the portal.
(ATC, p.24)(WSJ, 3/28/97, p.A1)
324 Licinius proclaimed Martinian (Marcus Martinianus) as co-emperor. Martinian (d.325) was soon deposed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
325 May 20, An ecumenical council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor. The Church Council of Nicaea (aka Iznik) in Asia Minor condemned the teaching of Arius, a Christian priest at Alexandria (d.336), who held that Christ was not divine in the same sense as God the Father. The council fixed Orthodox Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox unless the date falls on the 1st day of Passover, in which case it moves to the next Sunday.
(WUD, 1994, p.80,81)(Sky, 4/97, p.56)(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A21)(HN, 5/20/98)
325 Aug 25, Council of Nicaea ended with adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council also decreed that priests cannot marry after their ordination.
(MC, 8/25/02)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
325 Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena reportedly announced the discovery of Christ’s tomb. The site became the Shrine of the Holy Sepulchre.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.81)
325 Licinius (Valerius Licianus Licinius), Eastern emperor, was deposed and executed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
325 Martinian (Marcus Martinianus) was executed by Constantine.
(www.ancienthistory.about.com)
326 Jul 25, Constantine refused to carry out the traditional pagan sacrifices.
(HN, 7/25/98)
326 Constantine executed his son Flavius Julius Crispus, born to his 1st wife, under the persuasion of his 2nd wife Fausta.
(PCh, 1992, p.48)
326-330 The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built by the Roman emperor Constantine. The church was rebuilt under Justinian (527-565).
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B2)(WSJ, 4/5/02, p.A1)
330 May 11, Constantine renamed the town of Byzantium to: "New Rome which is Constantine’s City." It became know as Constantinople.
(ATC, p.31)(HN, 5/11/98)
330 Constantine began the building of the Great Palace in Constantinople.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
330 Ezana (Aezianas), ruler of Aksum (northeast Ethiopia), converted much of his realm to Christianity. During his rule he constructed much of the monumental architecture of Aksum, including a reported 100 stone obelisks, the tallest of which loomed 98 ft over the cemetery in which it stood and weighed 517 tons. Most of the obelisks were later destroyed, but one was hauled off by Italian forces after their 1937 invasion. It was returned in 2003.
(http://archaeology.about.com/cs/africa/a/aksum.htm)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A2)
330-379 Saint Basil of Caesarea. His followers erected monastic communities in Turkey.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.30)
330-1025 This is the period covered by John Julius Norwich, historian, in his Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.
(WSJ, 10/14/95, p.A-12)
331 Nov 17, Flavius Claudius Julianus, [Julian the Apostate], emperor (361-363), was born.
(MC, 11/17/01)
335 Oct 21, Constantinople emperor (Constantine the Great) enacted rules against Jews.
(MC, 10/21/01)
335 Byzantine Emperor Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on the hill of Golgotha, where his mother claimed to have found the remains of the True Cross. It was raised by the Persians in 614, reconstructed and again destroyed by Caliph Hakim of Egypt in 1009. It was rebuilt by the Crusaders.
(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.W13)
336 Dec 25, The first recorded celebration of Christmas on this day took place in Rome. By this year Dec 25 was established in the Liturgy of the Roman Church as the birthday of Jesus. [see 354] The Basilica of St. Anastasia was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council. It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25, part of broader efforts to link pagan practices to Christian celebrations in the early days of the new religion. In 2007 Italian archaeologists unveiled an underground grotto, near St. Anastasia, that they believe ancient Romans revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)(AP, 12/25/99)(AP, 12/22/07)
336 Arius, Christian priest from Alexandria and teacher of the doctrine of Arianism, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.80,81)
337 May 22, Constantine (47), convert to Christianity and Emperor of Rome (306-37), died. He had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and had the Chapel of the Burning Bush built in the Sinai Desert at the site where Moses was believed to have witnessed the Miracle of the Burning Bush. He was baptized just before death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.92)(PCh, 1992, p.48)(MC, 5/22/02)
337 Sep 9, Constantine's three sons, already Caesars, each took the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans shared the west while Constantius II took control of the east.
(HN, 9/9/98)
340 Ambrose (d.397), later Bishop of Milan (374-397), was born about this time. He set to music the principal prayer of the Mass and, according to St. Augustine, set the fashion for silent reading.
(WUD, 1994, p.46)(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)
340 St. Jerome (d.420), Christian ascetic and biblical scholar, was born about this time. He was the chief preparer of the Vulgate version of the Bible. Jerome condemned the use of potions that caused sterility and murder of those not yet conceived. [Wired dates him 321-420]
(WUD, 1994, p.524)(Wired, 8/96, p.98)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.13)
340-360 The Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible, was written in the middle of the fourth century and contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. For most of its history it resided at St. Catherine’s Monastery built (527-565) on Egypt Mt. Sinai. It left the monastery in the 19th century for Russia, in circumstances that were later disputed.
(Econ, 7/18/09, p.82)(www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/default.aspx)(Econ, 3/26/05, p.80)
345 Dec 6, Nicholas of Myra (later Demre) died on this day in either 345 or 352. He reported as bishop to the Byzantine church in Constantinople. In 2005 Jeremy Seal authored “Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus."
(WSJ, 8/31/98, p.B1)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.115)
346 Theodosius was born in Spain. He served as emperor East Roman Republic 379-395.
(WUD, 1994 p.1471)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
347 May 14, Pachomius, Egyptian monastery founder, abbot (Coenobieten), died.
(MC, 5/14/02)
347 St. John Chrysostom (d.407), was born about this time. He was the ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
(WUD, 1994 p.264)
350 In Teotihuacan 3 men were buried amid lavish goods about this time. Their graves were discovered in 2002 in a tomb at the top of the 5th of 7 layers of the Pyramid of the Moon near Mexico City.
(SFC, 11/22/02, p.J2)
350 A new state with its capital at Axum in the Ethiopian mountains grew and controlled the coast of Eritrea and the sea trade route to southern Arabia. The rulers spoke a Semitic language and about this time conquered Kush, which broke in two, the kingdom of Dongola and the kingdom of Alwa. By the mid 500s, Alwa, Axum and Dongola had become Christian.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
350 The Huns invaded Persia.
(ATC, p.33)
350 In Sudan the last pyramid in the Egyptian tradition was built at Meroe about this time. The Meroe dynasty ruled Kush for more than 1,000 years until the kingdom's demise in 350 AD.
(Arch, 9/02, p.55)(AP, 3/3/10)
352 May 17, Liberius began his reign as Catholic Pope replacing Julius I.
(MC, 5/17/02)
352 Sep 12, Maximinus van Trier, bishop of Trier, saint, died.
(MC, 9/12/01)
353-431 St. Paulinus, poet and Bishop of Mola: "For it is after the Solstice, when Christ born in the flesh with the new sun transformed the season of cold winter, and giving to mortal men a healing dawn, commanded the nights to decrease at his coming with advancing day."
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)
354 Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus, d.430) was born in Tagaste, North Africa (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria). Augustine of Hippo, Church Father and philosopher, held that as long as the fetus was "shapeless" homicide laws did not apply because it had no senses and no soul. "Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." He fused the New Testament with Greek philosophy. "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman."
(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.13)(HN, 11/13/98) (SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
354 Winter, Emperor Julian the Apostate came ashore at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy, and found a fire still burning on an altar to the Trojan hero, Hector.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.50)
354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the Church calendar and selected December 25 to celebrate it. [see 336]
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A19)
355 Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae in North Africa, died. He taught that the effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minister. In other words, if a minister who was involved in a serious enough sin were to baptize a person, that baptism would be considered invalid.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)
356 Feb 19, Emperor Constantius II shut all heathen (non-Christian) temples.
(MC, 2/19/02)
357 Apr 28, Constantius II visited Rome for the first time.
(HN, 4/28/98)
357 Aug 25, Flavius Claudius Julianus, the cousin of Constantius, beat the Alamanni in a Battle at Strasbourg. Chonodomarius was caught.
(PCh, 1992, p.48)(HN, 8/25/99)
359 Christians allegedly established a camp in Skythopolis, Syria, to torture and execute pagans from around Europe. This can only be a reference to the Arian Bishop of Scythopolis, Patrophilus, who cruelly abused Christian bishops exiled to his see under Constantius. These included Eusebius of Vercelli. It was not a death-camp, nor did it last 30 years, nor were pagans the victims.
(Arch, 1/05, p.70)(www.tektonics.org/af/crimeline.htm)
360 Feb 15, The first Hagia Sophia was inaugurated by Constantius II. It was built next to the smaller church Hagia Eirene in Constantinople. Both churches acted together as the principal churches of the Byzantine Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
361 Nov 3, Flavius Julius Constantius II (44), the 1st Byzantine Emperor, died. Flavius Claudius Julianus, Julian the Apostate, succeeded Constantius and tried to make paganism the official religion of the empire.
(V.D.-H.K.p.92)(PCh, 1992, p.48)(MC, 11/3/01)
362 Jun 17, Emperor Julian issued an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.
(HN, 6/17/98)
363 May 18, The Ashkelon basilica, dating to the reign of Herod the Great, was abandoned following a devastating earthquake. Marble from the building was later reused in new buildings under the Abbasid (750–1258 A.D.) and Fatimid (909–1171 A.D.) caliphates. British archaeologist John Garstang originally discovered the basilica during an expedition with the Palestinian Exploration Fund in the 1920s, but the site was then reburied.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/363_Galilee_earthquake)(https://tinyurl.com/yxm4asew)
363 May 18, A devastating earthquake leveled half the city of Petra, the principal city of Nabatea.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/363_Galilee_earthquake)(AP, 6/21/03)
363 Jun 27, The death of Roman Emperor Julian brought an end to the Pagan Revival. Julian received a mortal wound in battle with the Sassanian Persians, whom he tried to conquer.
(HN, 6/27/98)(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A27)
364 Feb 17, Flavius Jovianus (~32), Christian emperor of Rome (363-64), died.
(MC, 2/17/02)
364 Feb 26, On the death of Jovian, a conference at Nicaea chose Valentinian, an army officer who was born in the central European region of Pannania, to succeed him in Asia Minor.
(HN, 2/26/99)
365 Jul 21, An earthquake, whose epicenter was in Crete, leveled the Egyptian Port of Alexandria as well as the Roman outpost of Leptis Magna in Libya. Some 50,000 people died. The ancient Egyptian city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by the tsunami. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for a new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of the town founded in the second century B.C.
(www.earthscape.org/r2/jos/vol1-1june1997/pg55.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.18)(AP, 9/8/10)
366-384 Pope St. Damasus I located martyr’s graves and had verse inscriptions composed for their tombs. He transformed the catacombs into popular and venerated shrines.
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)
367 Much of Gortyn, the Roman capital of Crete, was destroyed be an earthquake. It was 1st inhabited around 3,000 BC and was destroyed by an Arab invasion in 824.
(AP, 9/30/05)
370-415 Hypatia, female mathematician born in Alexandria, Egypt. She was a professor of mathematics and philosophy at the Univ. of Alexandria. She lectured on Plato, Aristotle, astronomy, geometry, Diophantine algebra, and the conics of Apollonius.
(Alg, 1990, p.145)
374 Emperor Valentinian ended the parental right to kill their infants.
(SFEC, 2/13/00, Z1 p.2)
374-397 Ambrose served as the Bishop of Milan. Later proclaimed St. Ambrose.
(WUD, 1994, p.46)(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T13)
375 Nov 17, Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian I, the Emperor of the West, died of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe. Pannonia was located in the territory of present-day western Hungary, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_I)
376 Dec 25, In Milan, Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, forced the emperor Theodosius to perform public penance for his massacre.
(HN, 12/25/98)
377 Niall of the Nine Hostages, warlord and head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland, was crowned king. He reportedly had 12 sons, many of whom became powerful Irish kings themselves. In 2006 scientists in Ireland presented evidence that he was the country's most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring.
(Reuters, 1/17/06)(www.irishclans.com/articles/famirish/niall9hostages.html)
378 Aug 9, In the Battle of Adrianople the Visigoth Calvary defeated Roman Army.
(MC, 8/9/02)
378 Tikal saw the establishment of a new line of kings following its military victory over many cities of the Maya Lowlands. The 1st king was Nuun Yax Ain (Green Crocodile) and he claimed descent from a Teotihuacan lord that scholars later dubbed Spear-thrower Owl.
(Arch, 9/00, p.27)
379 In Milan the brick Basilica of St. Ambrose was begun.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T3)
379-395 Theodosius I (c.346-395) served as emperor East Roman Republic.
(WUD, 1994 p.1471)
380 Theodosius I ordered that all people under his rule embrace Christianity.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)
383 Aug 25, Flavius Gratianus (25), Emperor of Rome (375-383), was murdered.
(MC, 8/25/02)
384 May 13, Servatius (Aravatius), bishop of Tongeren, died at age 65.
(MC, 5/13/02)
384 Sep 9, Flavius Honorius, emperor East Roman Republic (395-423), was born.
(MC, 9/9/01)
385 Pope Siricius left his wife to become pope and told priests to stop sleeping with their wives.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
385 Priscillian, bishop of Avila in Spain, was convicted of sorcery and executed by the Roman emperor Maximus.
(NH, 9/96, p.20)
386 Augustine (354-430) became a priest and soon after bishop of Hippo, a Roman city in what is now Algeria. He wrote "The City of God," in which he laid out a plan of world history, showing how two cities vied with each other for dominance and would continue to do so until the end of time. One city was human- material, fleshly, downward-turning. The other city was divine- spiritual, turning upward toward the Creator of all things... An individual thinking being, Augustine said, does not make the truth, he finds it. He discovers it within himself as he listens to the teachings of the magister interiore, the "inward teacher," who is Christ, the revealing Word of God. According to Augustine, St. Ambrose set the fashion for silent reading and marveled at the innovation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.94)(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)
386-535 The Northern Wei Dynasty is associated with the spread of Buddhism from India to China.
(AM, 9/01, p.49)
387 Apr 24, Bishop Ambrose baptized St. Augustine in Milan at the Baptistry of San Giovanni alle Fonti, later the site of the Duomo Cathedral.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T12)
387 The Parthians and Romans agreed to settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition. The Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in the Empire of Iran) secured the lion's share of the spoils, while the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbakir for their frontier fortresses.
(http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/docs/bryce2.htm)
388 Aug 28, Magnus Maximus, Spanish West Roman Emperor (383-88), was executed. His ambitions led him to invade Italy, resulting in his defeat by Theodosius I at the Battle of the Save in 388.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Maximus)
c389 Mar 17, St. Patrick (d.461), the patron saint of Ireland, was born. Calpurnius, his father, was a deacon and local official who lost his son to Irish raiders when Patrick was 16. Patrick allegedly drove all the snakes (i.e. pagans) out of Ireland.
(HN, 3/17/99)(HNQ, 3/17/01)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)
c389-461 St. Patrick, an English missionary and bishop of Ireland. March 17 is celebrated in his honor. He was a Celt born in Romanized Britain and was kidnapped by Irish pirates at 16, sold into slavery, and served for 6 years as a shepherd until he escaped.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A16)(WUD, 1994, p.1057)(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A20)
390 Jul 16, Brennus and Gauls defeated the Romans at Allia.
(MC, 7/16/02)
392 May 15, Valentinianus II (21), emperor of Rome (375-392), was murdered.
(MC, 5/15/02)
392 Nov 8, Theodosius of Rome passed legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire and declared Christianity the state religion.
(HN, 11/6/98)(MC, 11/8/01)
393 The ancient Olympic Games were held at intervals beginning in 776 BC until about 393 CE when they were abolished by Roman emperor Theodosius I after Greece lost its independence. The modern Olympic Games were started in 1896. [see 396CE]
(HNQ, 11/23/98)
394 Sep 6, Theodosius became sole ruler of Italy after defeating Eugenius at the Battle of the River Frigidus.
(HN, 9/6/98)
394 Sep 8, Arbogast, French general, committed suicide.
(MC, 9/8/01)
395 Jan 17, Emperor Theodosius I (49), the Great, Spanish head of Rome, died. Theodosius I wrote into his will that upon his death the eastern and western sections of the empire should be declared separate empires. His death in this year marks the split of the Roman and Byzantine Empire.
(ATC, p.24)(MC, 1/17/02)
396 The last Olympic Games were held under Emp. Theodosius I, who halted them due to increasing professionalism and corruption. [see 393CE] In 2004 Nigel Spivey authored “The Ancient Olympics."
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.T1)(WSJ, 8/13/04, p.W8)
397 Nov 8, Martin of Tours, [St Martin], bishop of Tours, died. [see Nov 11]
(MC, 11/8/01)
397 Nov 11, Martinus (81), (St Martin), Roman bishop of Tours, died. [see Nov 8]
(MC, 11/11/01)
397 In southeastern Turkey the Mor Gabriel monastery was founded by Syriac Christians. In 2009 it had just 3 monks and 14 nuns and faced the loss to the state of some 100 acres representing 60% of its core property.
(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.A8)
400 A stable form of ink was developed with iron-salts, nutgalls and gum.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
400 The Barbarians, Hsiung-nu nomads, moved West. These "Huns" displaced the Goths and the Vandals, who moved west. The displaced Goths broke into two groups, one moving west into Gaul forcing the native Germanic peoples south, the other branch, called the Visigoths, headed south into Italy. The Vandals continues to move west, and turned south through Gaul and into Spain. They ravaged Spain and crossed into Africa and later recrossed the Mediterranean into Italy.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)
400 Afghanistan was invaded by the White Huns. They destroyed the Buddhist culture, and left most of the country in ruins.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/-web.com/history/)
400 About this time sage-prince Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage, appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa, which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
400 By this time the Chinese had developed rigid metal stirrups which gave the rider more security in the saddle.
(ATC, p.11)
400 In Ireland the Celtic ruler Niall of the Nine Hostages lived around this time.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E1)
400 About this time Kalidassa wrote the great Indian literature: "Kumara’s Fight Against the Demon Taraka."
(ATC, p.33)
400 About this time Nubia faded as a independent civilization.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)
400 About this time people from the chiefdom Dal Riata in northern Ireland crossed the Irish Sea and settled along the Scottish coast of County Argyll.
(AM, 7/01, p.46)
400-500 The Angles and Saxons crossed the North Sea to England bringing with them the 5 day week: Tiwsday - of the god Tiw; Wodensday - of the god Woden; Thorsday - of the god Thor; Frigsday - of the goddess Frig; and Seternesday - of the god Seterne. The Anglo-Saxons, a group of Germanic tribes, gradually invaded England by sea starting in the 5th century in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire.
(K.I.-365D, p.107)(AP, 9/24/09)
400-500 About this time Apicius, a Roman gourmand, authored “De re coquinara" (concerning cookery). It is considered to be the first Western cookbook. The first printed edition came out in 1483.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.140)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius)
400-500 The Quraysh tribe of west-central Arabia makes treaties with neighboring areas to ensure the safe passage of trade caravans through the desert around Mecca.
(ATC, p.56)
400-500 During this period the Jutes of Jutland, at the northern tip of the Danish peninsula, migrated to Britain as part of a Germanic invasion. The notion that they settled in what is now Kent and the Isle of Wight, as is recorded by Anglo-Saxon chronicler Bede the Venerable, has been confirmed by archaeological evidence.
(HNQ, 10/7/00)
400-500 A tomb in 1996 was found in the ruins of the Maya city of La Milpa in Belize near the Mexican border. It contained the skeleton of a man adorned with a pendant depicting the head of a vulture, signifying lord or ruler. Archeologist Norman Hammond speculated that it could be the burial place of the king known as Bird Jaguar, who lived around 450, or his successor.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.A10)
400-500 Yax K’uk Mo (Blue-Green Quetzal Macaw) was the 5th century founder of Copan in Honduras, although the site was occupied from early preclassic to late classic times.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.F)
400-500 In Ashkalon, Israel, bones from this period of some 100 infants were discovered in 1988 in the debris of a sewer adjacent to a bath house of this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.12)
400-500 The 63-volume, 2,711-page compendium of Jewish law was compiled in Mesopotamia during this time. In 1923 the custom, known as “Daf Yomi," Hebrew for “daily page," began, when Polish Rabbi Meir Shapiro conceived of the idea of reading the Talmud with the aim of uniting Jews globally in a daily regimen of Talmud study. It takes seven years and five months to finish at a rate of a single page per day.
(AP, 1/7/20)
400-500 The Aymara people lived on the shores of Lake Titicaca between Bolivia and Peru since the 5th century. Their ancient capital was Tiahuanaco. Their world is described in "Valley of the Spirits" (1996) by Alan L. Kolata.
(NH, 8/96, p.14)
400-500 St. Ursula, a legendary British princess, and her 11,000 martyr virgins were said to have been slaughtered by the Huns at Cologne in the 5th century.
(WUD, 1994, p.1573)(SFEC, 2/15/98, p.T8)
400-500 During this period the Indian philosopher Yashomitra made commentaries on Buddhism and described it as "awakened" (vibuddha) and "full-bloomed" or "perfected" (prabuddha).
(SFEM,12/14/97, p.46)
400-500 In Japan two imperial tombs of this time in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, are held by legend to belong to Ninigi, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu and his wife.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.12)
400-500 The leap year tradition of women proposing marriage to men began in 5th century Ireland.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, Z1 p.6)
400-600 The large Buddha at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 170 feet tall, was constructed during this period. It was an enlargement of an Indian Buddha of the Gupta period.
(WSJ, 3/5/00, p.A22)
401 Apr 10, Theodosius II, the Younger, Eastern Roman emperor, was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
401 Dec, St. Innocent, born in Albano, Italy, became pope. He was the pope nine years later when the Visigoths captured and sacked Rome.
(AP, 3/21/09)
402 Apr 6, Battle at Pollentia: Roman army under Stilicho beat the Visigoths.
(MC, 4/6/02)
402 The capital of the Roman empire was moved from Rome to Ravenna on the Adriatic.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)
404 Jan 1, The last known gladiatorial contest was held in Rome.
(http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170101/)
405 In Northern Ireland St. Patrick (16) was sold about this time as a slave by King Niall’s men.
(WSJ, 3/15/02, p.W15)
405 The Armenian alphabet was invented.
(MH, 12/96)
406 Aug 23, At the Battle at Florence the Roman army under Stilicho beat the Barbarians under Radagaisus.
(PC, 1992, p.50)
406 Dec 31, Godagisel, king of the Vandals, died in battle as some 80,000 Vandals attacked over the Rhine at Mainz.
(MC, 12/31/01)
406 Some of the inscriptions from a stone monument from the Maya city of La Milpa have been deciphered to give this date.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.A10)
407 Sep 14, Johannes Chrysostomus (b.c347), patriarch of Constantinople (398) and exiled in 404, died in Pontus (later northeast Turkey). He is generally considered the most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm)
408 May 1, Theodosius II succeeded to the throne of Constantinople.
(HN, 5/1/98)
408 Aug 22, Flavius Stilicho (48), West Roman field leader (395-408), died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
408-450 Theodosius II was emperor of Rome.
(MH, 12/96)
410 Aug 24, Rome was overrun by the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire. German barbarians sacked Rome. In 2020 Douglas Boin authored "Alaric the Goth".
(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)(Econ., 6/20/20, p.72)
410 Rome abandoned its British provinces.
(AM, 11/04, p.41)
410 Flavius Aetius (12), the son of a Roman general, was sent to live as a hostage of the Huns, who hd captured what later became Hungary and Romania.
(ON, 4/12, p.1)(Old News, 4/2022, p.1)
410 St. Maroun, founder of the Maronite Christians, died in Cyrrhus region of Syria. The Maronite movement reached Lebanon when St Maroun's first disciple Abraham of Cyrrhus, who was called the Apostle of Lebanon, realized that paganism was thriving in Lebanon, so he set out to convert the pagans to Christians by introducing them to the way of St Maroun.
(http://www.maroun.org/saint/maroun/life/)
411 Proclus (d.485), Greek mathematician and theologian, was born. [see 412]
(WUD, 1994 p.1147)(MC, 4/17/02)
412 Feb 8, St. Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople, was born. [see 411]
(HN, 2/8/98)
413 Oct 10, Nicias, Athens politician (Peace of Nicias), killed at about age 57.
(MC, 10/10/01)
415 Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria sent a mob of religious police to stop Hypatia, an eccentric pagan ascetic and scholar. The mob kidnapped her, dragged her to a church, stripped and tortured her with broken shards of pottery. Her body parts were then butchered, put on public display and burnt to a crisp. In 2004 Jonathan Kirsch authored "God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism."
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M1)
418 Mar 10, Jews were excluded from public office in the Roman Empire.
(MC, 3/10/02)
418 Dec 27, Zosimus, Greek Pope (417-8), died.
(MC, 12/27/01)
419 Jul 2, Valentinian III, Roman emperor (425-55), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
420 Sep 30, Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, died in Bethlehem. He was a Latin priest, confessor, theologian, and historian and is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome focused his attention on the lives of women and identified how a woman devoted to Jesus should live her life.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome)
420 Pelagius (b.~354-360), a theologian who advocated free will and asceticism, died about this time. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418. Saint Cyril of Alexandria allowed him to settle in Egypt. He is not heard of thereafter.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius)
420 Padua, Italy, was founded on the edge of the Adriatic.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.F3)
421 Feb 8, Flavius Constantine became emperor Constantine III of Roman Empire West.
(MC, 2/8/02)
421 Mar 25, Venice was founded on a Friday at 12 PM.
(MC, 3/25/02)
421-438 King Bahram V ruled Persia.
(MH, 12/96)
422-432 The Bible and the works of the church fathers were translated into Armenian.
(MH, 12/96)
425 Feb 27, Theodosius effectively founded a university in Constantinople.
(HN, 2/27/99)
425-550 The independent Yaftalee ruled in Afghanistan.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
426 Yax K’uk Mo’ founded Copan in what is now western Honduras.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.A)
427 Dec, The Patriarch of Constantinople died.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
427 The Nalanda Buddhist center of learning was established in Bihar state, India, and continued to 1197. It has been called one of the first great universities in recorded history.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda)
428 Apr 10, John Nestorius from Antioch was consecrated as the new Patriarch of Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
428 The Arsacid (Arshakuni) monarchy of Armenia ended and control fell under the rule of the Persian Sassanids.
(MH, 12/96)
429 Roman Africa was invaded by the Vandals, barbarians who had fought and conquered their way across Germany, France, Spain and across the Strait of Gibraltar.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.168)
430 Aug 28, Augustine (b.354) died in Hippo (Annaba, Algeria) with a Vandal army outside the gates of the city. His writings included "The Confessions." In 1999 Garry Wills authored the biography "St. Augustine." Augustine had developed the theory of a "just war" and said a nation’s leaders must consider among other things, anticipated loss of civilian life and whether all peaceful options have been exhausted before war starts. In 2003 Garry Wills authored "Saint Augustine's Sin." In 2005 James J. O’Donnell authored “Augustine: A New Biography." Augustine turned against the spirit of intellectual inquiry once he found salvation. His dogmatic invective laid the foundations for centuries of intellectual tyranny by the Catholic church. In 2015 Robin Lane Fox authored “Augustine: Conversions and Confessions."
(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.M6)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.86)(www.connect.net/ron/august.html)(Econ, 1/29/11, p.82)(Econ, 11/28/15, p.77)
431 The Council of Ephesus was held to deal with the heretics and heresies of the day such as Arianism and Apollinarianism. The council condemned Nestorianism, which taught that there were 2 person in Christ and that Mary was the mother of the human Christ but not of God. In 2009 Miri Rubin authored “Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary."
(Usenet, 3/4/97)(PTA, 1980, p.86)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.84)
431 The Assyrians and Chaldeans broke from what was to become the Roman Catholic Church over a theological dispute.
(WSJ, 3/12/00, p.A10)
431 A great Mayan dynasty arose at Palenque and soon began trading with communities hundreds of miles away.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)
432 About this time St. Patrick was consecrated a bishop and returned to Ireland as missionary. He established Ireland’s first monasteries and Irish monks made it their mission to copy all literature, sacred and secular, while barbarism swept the continent. This period is covered in the 1995 book "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.W12)
432 Flavius Aetius was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies of the Western Roman Empire.
(ON, 4/12, p.1)
434-453 Attila the Hun was known in western Europe as the "Scourge of God." Attila was the king of the Huns from 434 to 453 and one of the greatest of the barbarian rulers to assail the Roman Empire.
(HNQ, 12/19/98)
435 John Nestorius was banished from his monastery in Antioch by Emperor Theodosius II.
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
435-808 In Mexico Yaxchilan on the bank of the Usumacinta was occupied at least over this period. King Mah K’ina Skull III was one of the rulers during the construction of some 90 stone structures.
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.G)
437 Nov 30, A glyph in Copan [in later Honduras] records this date and mentions the 1st and 2nd rulers of the city-state.
(NG, 12/97, p.81)
438 Easter, In Ireland St. Patrick used the 3-leaf clover to illustrate the Trinity.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.D7)
438-457 The Persian King Yazdegird II ruled. He pressured the Armenians to accept Zoroastrianism and worship the supreme god Ahura Mazda. Mihr-Nerseh, the Persian grand vizier, promulgated an edict that enjoined the Armenians to convert.
(MH, 12/96)
439 Oct 9, Ancient city of Carthage was captured by Genseric the Vandal. [see Oct 19,24]
(MC, 10/9/01)
439 Oct 19, The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, took Carthage and quickly conquered all the coastal lands of Algeria and Tunisia. Egypt and the Libyan coast remained in Roman hands. [see Oct 24]
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.168)(HN, 10/19/98)
439 Oct 24, Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, fell to Genseric and the Vandals. [see Oct 19]
(HN, 10/24/98)
439 Oct 29, Vandals under Genseric occupied Carthage. [see Oct 24]
(MC, 10/29/01)
439 In Mauretania (now northern Morocco and Algeria) Roman rule ceased about this time when barbarian incursions forced the legions to withdraw.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.)
440 Aug 19, Pope Sixtus III (432-440) died.
(PTA, 1980, p.88)
440-790 The Mayan city of Palenque flourished.
(AM, 5/01, p.49)
441 Bishop Patrick allegedly fasted for 40 days on a 2,500-foot peak later named Croagh Patrick in county Mayo. He allegedly banished snakes from Ireland during this time.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.23)
444 In Ireland St. Patrick selected the site for the Cathedral of Armagh. It later became Ireland’s ecclesiastical center and preceded the 360 churches that he established.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.D7)
449 The Armenians held a General Assembly to ponder the Persian edict that demanded conversion to Zoroastrianism. They chose to remain Christian and their leaders were summoned to Persia to answer to the king. The leaders opted to yield under heavy pressure but were renounced on their return home.
(MH, 12/96)
450 St. Benedict (d.547) was born in Norcia, Italy, about this time.
(V.D.-H.K.p.106)
450 The Hun invasions of India began.
(ATC, p.33)
450 In Peru a tattooed Moche woman was entombed about this time, at a site later called El Brujo, with a sacrificed teenage slave and a collection of weapons and jewelry. In 2006 her mummy was discovered in a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo.
(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A2)
450-470 The Vakataka emperor Harisena, ruled over central India. He is recognized as bringing India's Golden Age to its apogee. He oversaw the greatest building phase at the monasteries of Ajanta, where monks lived in rock-cut cells.
(LSA., pp. 10-16)
451 Apr 8, Attila's Huns plundered Metz, following their sacking of Rheims and Trier, and continued moving south along the Moselle River.
(ON, 4/12, p.2)(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Apr 13, A Persian Army of 300,000 men under Mushkan Nusalavurd arrived at a place between her and Zarevand (now Khoy and Salmast in Iran) to face the Armenian forces.
(MH, 12/96)
451 May 26, The Battle of Avarair. Vardan Mamikonian, son of Sparapet (general) Hamazasp Mamikonian and Sahakanush, daughter of the Catholicos Sahak Bartev, led a force of 66,000 Armenians to face the Persians. Prior to battle Vardan read aloud the story of the Jewish Maccabees. Persian losses tripled the Armenian dead, but Mushkan won and Vardan was killed.
(MH, 12/96)
451 Apr 8, Attila's Huns plundered Metz and continued moving south along the Moselle River.
(ON, 4/12, p.2)
451 Apr, Roman Emperor Valentinian ordered Aetius, commander of the armies of the Western Roman Empire, to take his army and wait at Arles, the capital of Gaul, and to judge where and when to berst engage Attila, the commander of the Huns.
(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Jun 14, Aetius, commander of the armies of the Western Roman Empire, reached Aurelianum (Orleans) about this time, along with Theodoric, king of the Visigoths., to face the Hun forces of Attila.
(Old News, 4/2022, p.2)
451 Jun 20, Roman and Barbarian warriors halted Attila’s army at the Catalaunian Plains (Catalarinische Fields) in eastern France. Attila the Hun was defeated by a combined Roman and Visigoth army. Theodoric I, the Visigothic king, was killed. The Huns moved south into Italy but were defeated again. Some sources date this on Sep 20. Attila and his brother Bleda jointly inherited the Hunnish Kingdom, headquartered in what later became Hungary. Attila later murdered Bleda to gain full control.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Catalaunian_Plains)(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(ON, 4/12, p.3)
451 Jun 20, Theodoric I (b.390), King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451, died while defeat Attila (the Hun) at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoric_I)
451 Oct 8, Council of Chalcedon (4th ecumenical council) opened. The Council declared that the two natures of Christ, divine and human, were united without change, division or confusion in Christ. This led to the formation of the Coptic Monophysite Church which continued to hold that Jesus had but one divine nature. Copt comes from the Arabic word for Egyptian.
(CU, 6/87)(SFC, 3/31/97, p.A9)(MC, 10/8/01)
451 The Armenians were the first Christians to take up arms in defending their right to worship.
(HN, 7/25/98)
451 Clan leaders of Armenia united to defeat the Sassanians at Avarair.
(CO Enc. / Armenia)
451 John Nestorius, former Patriarch of Constantinople, died about this time. Prior to his death he wrote his book "Bazar of Heracleids."
(Usenet, 3/4/97)
451-484 Vahan Mamikonian led the Armenians in a 33-year guerrilla war. The Persian Sassanids underwent 3 rulers and pressure from the Ephthalites, White Huns, and when King Peroz was killed by the White Huns, his successor, Balash, sued for peace. Vahan demanded and was granted religious freedom.
(MH, 12/96)
452 Feb 4, The Mayan city of Tikal has a monolith in hieroglyphics that reports an inferior conjunction of Venus".
(K.I.-365D, p.164)
452 Jun 8, Italy was invaded by Attila the Hun.
(HN, 6/8/98)
452 Pope Leo I met Attila the Hun on the banks of the Mincio and Attila agreed to make peace and spare Rome.
(PTA, 1980, p.90)
453 Mar, Attila, ruler of the Huns from 434, died. He had led a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila)
454 Sep 21, In Italy, Aetius, the supreme army commander, was murdered in Ravenna by Valentinian III, the emperor of the West.
(HN, 9/21/98)
455 Mar 16, Valentinian III, Roman emperor in the West from 425, was assassinated in Rome by two Scythian followers of Aetius: Optelas and Thraustelas.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinian_III)
455 May 31, Petronius Maximus, senator, Emperor of Rome, was lynched.
(MC, 5/31/02)
455 Jul 9, Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, became Emperor of the West.
(HN, 7/9/98)
455 Jun 16, Rome was sacked by the Vandal army. Gaiseric looted and burned Rome for 14 days. He took the looted treasure, which likely included the 70AD plunder from Jerusalem, by ship to the temple of Carthage.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(HN, 6/16/98)(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
455 Genseric, at the invitation of Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, sailed to Italy, and took Rome without a blow. At the intercession of Leo the Great, he abstained from torturing or massacring the inhabitants and burning the city, but gave it up to systematic plunder. For 14 days and nights the work of pillage continued. Genseric then returned unmolested to Africa, carrying much booty and many thousand captives, including the empress Eudoxia and her two daughters. The elder became the wife of his son Hunneric; the younger, with her mother, was eventually surrendered to the emperor Leo.
(www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/galen-wace.html)
457 Feb 7, A Thracian officer by the name of Leo was proclaimed as emperor of the East by the army general, Aspar, on the death of the Emperor Marcian.
(HN, 2/7/99)
457 A Monophysite was named patriarch of Alexandria.
(SFC, 3/31/97, p.A9)
459 Sep 2, St. Simeon (b.~390), Syriac ascetic saint, died in Syria, He achieved notability for living 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites)
461 Mar 17, According to tradition, St. Patrick (b.c389), the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul, County Down. Some sources say he died in 493AD. He was an English missionary and bishop of Ireland. In 2004 Philip Freeman authored "St. Patrick: A Biography."
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.W13)(AP, 3/17/08)
461 Nov 10, Leo I the Great, Pope (440-61), died.
(MC, 11/10/01)
468 Mar 3, St. Simplicius was elected to succeed Catholic Pope Hilarius.
(SC, 3/3/02)
470 Chinese philosopher Mozi (b.391) died about this time. Mohism or Moism was an ancient Chinese philosophy of logic, rational thought and science developed by the academic scholars who studied under Mozi and embodied in an eponymous book: the Mozi. Mozi taught that everyone is equal in the eyes of heaven. For those in power he believed that it should be based on meritocracy, or those who are worthy of power receive power.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi)
472 Aug 18, Flavius Ricimer, general of the Western Roman Empire, kingmaker, was born.
(MC, 8/18/02)
473 An ancient king in Sri Lanka constructs an impenetrable fortress atop a giant rock that rises 200 yards above the plains. The site is called Sigiriya.
(WSJ, 8/3/95, p.A-8)
474 Jan 18, Leo I, Roman Byzantine Emperor (457-74), died. He was succeeded by his grandson Leo II.
(www.roman-emperors.org/leo1.htm)
474 Nov 17, Leo II (b.467), Roman Byzantine Emperor, died.
(www.roman-emperors.org/leo2.htm)
476 Aug 28, The western Roman Empire formally ended at Ravenna as the barbarian general Odoacer deposed the last of the Roman emperors, the young boy Romulus Augustus.
(ATC, p.32)(PC, 1992, p.52)
477 The Shaolin Monastery, the cradle of kung fu and Zen Buddhism was founded in Dengfeng County, Henan province, China. In 495 the Shaolin Temple was built in the foothills of Mount Songshan, Henan province. It was later considered as the birthplace for Shaolin boxing, a combination of Buddhism and Chinese martial arts that evolved into kung fu (gongfu). In 1998 it established the Henan Shaolin Industrial Development Co as a vehicle to file for trademarks.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Monastery)(SFC, 9/26/02, p.B3)(Econ., 12/19/20, p.107)
477 In Sri Lanka the usurper King Kasyapa I founded Sigiriya and built his castle atop a 550-foot outcrop. He had murdered his father Dhatusena.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.D)(Arch, 7/02, p.32)
477 Harisena, emperor of Central India died.
(LSA., p. 12)
480 Boethius (d.524) was born in Rome about this time. He acquired an important post under the Ostrogoth King Theodoric, but later fell into disfavor and was imprisoned. In prison he wrote his famous "The Consolation of Philosophy."
(V.D.-H.K p.113)
480 Hun invasions began to weaken the Gupta Dynasty in India.
(ATC, p.33)
483 Mar 13, St. Felix began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 3/13/98)
484 The Church of Mary Theotokos was built over the presumed site of a Samaritan Temple that is believed to be a copy of the Second Temple of Jerusalem at Mt. Gerizim in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
(SFC, 5/23/95, p.A-10)
484 The Armenians signed a treaty in the village of Nuwarsak with the Persians and Vahan Mamikonian was appointed marzban of Armenia.
(MH, 12/96)
485 Apr 17, Proclus (b.411), Greek mathematician, died in Athens.
(WUD, 1994 p.1147)(MC, 4/17/02)
485-505 In Armenia Vahan Mamikonian began his rule with services at the Cathedral of Dvin with the Catholicos Hovhan I Mandakuni presiding.
(MH, 12/96)
490 Oct 29, Petrus Mongus, patriarch of Alexandria, died.
(MC, 10/29/01)
492 Mar 1, St. Felix III ended his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 3/1/02)
492 Mar 1, St Gelasius I began his reign as Catholic Pope (492-496).
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(SC, 3/1/02)
493 Mar 3, Odovacar, the Herulian leader, surrendered Ravenna to Theodorik, king of the Ostrogoths. Theodorik invited Odovacar to dinner and had him murdered. Theodorik united Italy as an Ostrogoth kingdom until 554. [see Mar 15]
(PCh, 1992, p.52)(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(SC, 3/3/02)
493 Mar 15, Theodoric the Great beat Odoacer of Italy. Odoacer, German army leader, King of Italy (476-93), died. [see Mar 3]
(MC, 3/15/02)
495 May 3, Pope Gelasius asserted that his authority was superior to Emperor Anastasius.
PTA, 1980, p.98)(HN, 5/3/98)
496 Nov 21, Pope Gelasius, an African by birth or descent, died. He changed the mid-February lottery rules for young Roman men so that they drew names of Catholic Saints to emulate instead of young girls for play. The Lupercalia pagan rite had been revived to bring good luck to the city following a plague. He named Feb 14 as St. Valentine’s Day.
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(SFEM, 2/9/97, p.11)(SSFC, 2/11/01, DB p.40)
496 Clovis, king of the Salian or Merovingian Franks, became the first of the pagan barbarians to adopt Catholicism.
(www.patmospapers.com/daniel/in508.htm)
498 Nov 19, Anastasius II, Pope (496-98), (Dante Inferno XI, 8-9), died.
(MC, 11/19/01)
500 The northern California Emeryville Shellmound, CA-Ala 309, dates to about this time.
(Buckeye, Winter 04/05)
500 China’s Grand Canal between Beijing and Hangzhou was finished about this time.
(Econ, 10/12/13, p.16)
500 In England, the Anglo-Saxons brought Futhark from continental Europe in the 5th century and modified it into the 33-letter "Futhorc" to accommodate sound changes that were occurring in Old English, the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. An early offshoot of Futhark was employed by Goths, and so it is known as Gothic Runes. It was used until 500 CE when it was replaced by the Greek-based Gothic alphabet.
(www.ancientscripts.com/futhark.html)
500 About this time the Ridgeway, the oldest road in Europe, wandered along empty, open ridges over Wiltshire’s Marlborough Downs in England. Invading Saxons gave this ancient track its present name: “The Ridgeway," but even then it was already old beyond all memory. Fifty centuries earlier, Stone Age traders probably followed this track to barter stone axe heads with farmer folk in the valleys. These Neolithic merchants picked up The Ridgeway at the Thames River ford at Goring, then followed it westward and southward along the crest of the Downs, into what would become the counties of Berkshire and Wiltshire in the times of the Wessex kings. Since those first Neolithic peddlers, 200 generations have found their own good reasons to tramp along the Ridgeway track.
(HNQ, 7/29/01)
500 By this time the Chalchihuites culture (New Mexico) engaged in extensive turquoise mining and exporting raw turquoise to West Mexican centers like Alta Vista.
(Arch, 1/05, p.28)
500 By this time the Kaaba at Mecca housed more than 360 idols of the gods of various tribes. Protection of the Kaaba was organized by the Quraysh tribe, who encouraged other tribes to deposit their idols their for protection and a fee. During four months of each year the Quraysh forbade fighting and raiding along the trade routes and this allowed both merchants and travelers make their pilgrimages in peace for a fee.
(ATC, p.57)
500 The Manteno people inhabited the area of northern Ecuador about this time. It was believed that they ran a vast maritime empire and traded with the Aztecs in Mexico and made voyages of 3,000-4,000 miles. In 1998-99 a team led by John Haslett (34) attempted to duplicate their maritime voyages with a 20-ton, 60-foot balsa raft.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A8
500 About this time Nubians turned from their Egyptian-influenced religion to Christianity. A thousand years later the people of their region will convert heavily to Islam.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)
500 About this time the Indian monk Bodhidharma hit on the idea of Zen after staring at a wall for nine years.
(WSJ, 10/23/96, p.A1)
c500 The first settlers of Madagascar began arriving from the Malay Archipelago in the middle of the first millennium. DNA studies in 2012 indicated that the number of women in the first group of settlers numbered about 30.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.84)
500 Teotihuacan people built a 60-foot pyramid about this time in what later became known as Iztapalapa, Mexico. It was abandoned after about 300 years, when the Teotihuacan culture collapsed. Archeologists began to unveil the site in 2004.
(AP, 4/6/06)
500 In Nigeria evidence of urbanization at the Yoruba city of Ife dated back to about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ife)
500 In Peru a Moche pyramid from about this time at Dos Cabezas contained tombs that archeologists found in 1997. The tombs revealed people of unusual height along with miniatures of the deceased and the tomb’s contents.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A7)
500 Ancient Turks are believed to have originated in Mongolia about this time.
(Arch, 1/06, p.17)
500 The Catholic Church amended its calculation for the birth year of Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church did not. This put the Ethiopian calendar seven years and eight months behind the Western calendar.
(BBC, 9/10/21)
500-600 Arabs about this time brought back home from India the numerals we refer to as Arabic numbers.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
500-600 The Arabian city of Ubar, disappeared in the early 6th century. The event was later cited by Muhammad in the Quran. In 1992 a team of investigators announced the discovery of the long lost Arabian city of Ubar. George Hedges (1952-2009), a Hollywood litigator, and filmmaker Nicholas Clapp, participated in the find. Clapp later authored “The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands" (1999).
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A12)
500-600 In England the 6th century Gildas was the only historian whose work survived. He made no mention of King Arthur. He described the Picts as “Loathsome hordes, dark swarms of worms that emerge from the narrow crevices of their holes when the sun is high, preferring to cover their villainous faces with hair rather than their private parts and surrounding areas with clothes.
(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)(AM, 11/04, p.41)
500-600 The monastic complex of David Gareja was founded in the 6th century by David (St. David Garejeli), one of the thirteen Assyrian monks who arrived in Georgia at the same time. His disciples Dodo and Luciane expanded the original lavra and founded two other monasteries known as Dodo's Rka (literally, "the horn of Dodo") and Natlismtsemeli ("the Baptist"). Part of the complex is also located in the Agstafa rayon of Azerbaijan and thus became subject to a border dispute between Georgian and Azerbaijani authorities.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gareja_monastery_complex)
500-600 The historical Bodhidharma (known as Daruma in Japan) was an Indian sage who lived sometime in the fifth or sixth century AD. He is commonly considered the founder of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, and credited with Chan's introduction to China. Daruma’s philosophy arrived first in China, where it flowered and was called Chan Buddhism. Only centuries later did it bloom in Japan, where it is called Zen.
(www.onmarkproductions.com/html/daruma.shtml)
500-600 The rulers of Ghana stored grain in mud huts on high, steep land.
(ATC, p.106)
500-600 About this time Irish monks brought an alembic from the Middle East that was initially used to distill perfumes. They soon applied it to spirits and produced Uisce Beatha (water of life), better known as whiskey.
(WSJ, 8/14/02, p.D8)
500-600 In Laos a local legend describes a military celebration for which the stone jars of the Plain of Jars were created to ferment and store alcohol.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.E)
500-600 El Pital, a Maya regional hub on the gulf coast since c300 BC, suddenly became inactive. It was later suspected that a catastrophic flood hit the area.
(SFC, 9/14/00, p.C8)
500-600 The Picts of Scotland developed a script about this time made up of 30 symbols. In 2005 it still defied interpretation.
(AM, 11/04, p.43)
500-700 A Babylonian earthenware demon bowl from Seleucia-on-Tigris dated to this period.
(MT, 3/96, p.5)
500-700 The clay Lydenburg Heads from southern Africa, dated to this period. These earliest know South African sculptures were later exhibited at the Guggenheim.
(NYT, 6/7/96, p.B9)
500-700 Chronicles of the 8th century record the peaceful arrival of immigrants from Korea in the 6th and 7th centuries.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.38)
500-700 Evidence in 2005 suggested that Polynesians visited California during this period and transferred their canoe building technology to the local Chumash and Gabrielino Indians.
(SFC, 6/20/05, p.A5)
500-800 Curse tablets are widely used in this era. "Lead scrolls, used to place curses against lawyers, lovers, and horses, have been discovered in a Roman-era well at King Herod’s palace in Israel."
(USAT, 10/28/94, 1A)
c500-1100 The Sinagua people lived in the area of Sunset Crater, Az.
(AM, 3/04, p.48)
500-1315 The Fremont Indians lived in Utah’s Range Creek Canyon during this period and etched into rock designs of animals and people.
(WSJ, 1/31/06, p.B6)
502-557 In China the Liang stele dates to this time.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
508 The Franks, led by Clovis, took Paris and made it their capital. Under Charlemagne, the capital was moved to Aachen and Paris waned, raided repeatedly by Norsemen during the 9th and 10th centuries.
(HNQ, 4/18/02)
508 Clovis, king of the Franks (later France), defeated the Visigoths and pushed into Spain.
(www.patmospapers.com/daniel/in508.htm)
510 Boethius began the translation of the works of Aristotle from Greek into Latin. He only completed the "Organon," or works on logic.
(V.D.-H.K.p.113)
511 Nov 11, Clovis (45), king of Salische France and founder of Merovingians, died. [see Nov 27]
(MC, 11/11/01)
511 Nov 27, Clovis, king of the Franks, died and his kingdom was divided between his four sons. [see Nov 11]
(HN, 11/27/98)
515 Boethius in his treatise on the Trinity writes "As far as you are able, join faith to reason."
(V.D.-H.K.p.113)
520 St. Benedict founded the Benedictine Order at Monte Cassino. From there monks went forth and created a network of monasteries all over Europe. The monks taught the values of agricultural living to the nomadic barbarians.
(CU, 6/87)
520 Guptas invent the decimal system in India.
(ATC, p.69)
521-597 St. Columba, Irish missionary in Scotland. The Irish monks of Columba preceded the Benedictines in Northern Europe, but their ascetic otherworldliness did not meet the needs of the practical barbarian people.
(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.292)
523 May 6, Thrasamunde, king of Vandals (496-523), died.
(MC, 5/6/02)(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15268b.htm)
524 Jun 21, Battle at Vezerone: Burgundy beat France.
(MC, 6/21/02)
524 Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (b.~477), Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century, died in Pavia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius)
525 By this time the Hun invaders have conquered India. The Gupta Dynasty ends.
(ATC, p.35)
526 May 18, St. John I, Catholic Pope (523-526), died.
(HN, 5/18/98)(SC, 5/18/02)
526 May 20, An earthquake killed 250,000 in Antioch, Turkey. This was the capital of Syria from 300-64BCE. [see May 29]
(MC, 5/20/02)
526 May 29, Antioch, Turkey, was struck by an earthquake and about 250,000 died. [see May 20]
(AM, 11/00, p.69)(SC, 5/29/02)
526 Aug 30, Theodorik the Great (72), King of Ostrogoths, died of dysentery. He was succeeded by his grandson Athalaric (10), who reigned until 534 with his mother Amalasuntha as regent.
(PC, 1992, p.54)
527 Apr 1, Emp. Justin named Justinianus co-emperor of Byzantium. [see Apr 4]
(OTD)(PC, 1992 ed, p.54)
527 Apr 4, In Constantinople, Justin, seriously ill, crowned his nephew Justinian as his co-emperor. [see Apr 1]
(HN, 4/4/99)
527 Aug 1, Justinus I, Byzantine emperor (518-27), died.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.54)
527-548 Empress Theodora, considered the most powerful woman in Byzantine history, ruled with her husband Justinian.
(ATC, p.24)
527-565 Justinian ruled the Byzantine Empire.
(WSJ, 4/5/02, p.W12)
527-565 Emperor Justinian built the St. Catherine monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Desert to house the bones of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was tortured to death for converting to Christianity. The site was thought to be the place where Moses saw the Miracle of the Burning Bush.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.T6)(http://interoz.com/egypt/Catherines.htm)
528 Justinian assigned 10 men the task of condensing the 1,600 books of classic Roman law.
(ATC, p.43)
529 Justinian, ruling from Constantinople (517-565), promulgated the Codex Constitutionum, the chief source and authority of Roman law.
(V.D.-H.K.p.68)
529 The new Justinian Code was composed of 4,652 laws. It extended the rights of women, children and slaves, and also called for harsher penalties for crime.
(ATC, p.43)
529 Justinian closed the Platonic academy at Athens.
(V.D.-H.K.p.107)
529 The Monte Cassino monastery in Italy was founded by St. Benedict (450-547).
(V.D.-H.K.p.107)(NW, 10/28/02, p.16)
530 Oct 14, Dioscurus, anti-Pope (530), died.
(MC, 10/14/01)
532 Jan 13-532 Jan 14, The 2nd Hagia Sophia cathedral burned down in Constantinople during the Nika uprising, which failed leaving some 30-40,000 people dead. Justinian and his wife Theodora had attended festivities at the Hippodrome, a stadium for athletic competition. Team support escalated from insults to mob riots and in the end Constantinople lay in ruins. Justinian proceeded to rebuild the city with extensive commissions for religious art and architecture, including the new Hagia Sophia.
(ATC, p.33)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
532 Oct 17, Boniface II, 1st "German" Pope, died.
(MC, 10/17/01)
533-565 Justinian’s armies regained parts of Spain, all of Italy and North Africa.
(ATC, p.45)
534 Justinian brought the Vandal king into Constantinople and resurrected the triumphal procession of 71AD.
(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
535 Feb, In Southern China the Nan Shi Ancient Chronicle reported that "yellow dust rained down like snow."
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)
535 Apr 30, Amalaswintha, queen of Ostrogoten, was murdered.
(MC, 4/30/02)
535 May 13, St Agapitus I began his reign as Catholic Pope
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
535 Feb, There is evidence that the Krakatoa volcano had a major eruption about this time. In 1869 Rangawarsita, a Javanese royal courtier, compiled the Books of Kings, which mentioned an event from the middle of the first millennium that sounded like a major eruption.
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)(Disc., 7/4/03)
535-536 John of Ephesus, a Syrian bishop, reported that the sun darkened for a period of 18 months with feeble light for only about 4 hours a day.
(WSJ, 5/15/00, p.A46)
536 Apr 22, St. Agapitus I ended his reign as Catholic Pope (535-36).
(HN, 4/22/98)(MC, 4/22/02)
536 Dec 9, Byzantine Count Belisarius entered Rome through the Asinarian Gate at the head of 5,000 troops. At the same time, 4,000 Ostrogoths left the city through the Flaminian Gate and headed north to Ravenna, the capital of their Italian kingdom. For the first time since 476, when the Germanic king, Odoacer, had deposed the last Western Roman emperor and crowned himself "King of the Romans," the city of Rome was once more part of the Roman empire—albeit an empire whose capital had shifted east to Constantinople. Belisarius had taken the city back as part of Emperor Justinian’s grand plan to recover the western provinces from their barbarian rulers. The plan was meant to be carried out with an almost ridiculously small expeditionary force. The 5,000 soldiers that General Belisarius led included Hunnish and Moorish auxiliaries, and they were expected to defend circuit walls 12 miles in diameter against an enemy who would soon be back, and who would outnumber them at least 10-to-1.
(HN, 12/9/98)(HNC, 10/1/99)
537 Mar 11, The Goths laid siege to Rome. The Goths cut the aqueducts to Rome in the 6th century.
(HN, 3/11/98)(SFEC, 7/2/00, p.T4)
537 Dec 27, The Hagia Sophia Byzantine cathedral in Constantinople was consecrated. St. Sophia (meaning "the holy wisdom" in Greek) was built by Emperor Justinian. It remained a symbol of Byzantine grandeur until Istanbul was conquered by Muslim armies.
(Sky, 4/97, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)
538 Nov 30, St. Gregory of Tours, chronicler and bishop, was born.
(MC, 11/30/01)
538-552 Introduction of Buddhism to Japan from Korea. Obon, an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's ancestors, came to Japan via China along with Buddhism. It is believed that each year during Obon, the ancestors' spirits return to this world in order to visit their relatives.
(https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2286.html)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(Econ., 8/22/20, p.32)
538-600 Buddhist missionaries introduced the art of flower arranging to Japan. The 1st school of flower arranging, ikenobo, was founded by Ono no Imoko in the early 7th century. Ikebana became the umbrella name for the schools of flower arranging.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, Z1 p.2)
540-560 In Syria the monastery of St. Moses the Abyssinian (Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi) was built in the middle of the sixth century, and belonged to the Syrian Antiochian Rite. The site was abandoned after several hundred years, but was revived in the late 1980s by Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall’Oglio.
(http://tinyurl.com/kudtzxa)(Econ, 8/10/13, p.42)
541-543 Plague swept Asia Minor.
(AM, 11/04, p.38)
541-542 The Plague of Justinian swirled around the Mediterranean and recurred over the next two centuries. It killed as many as 40 million people and weakened the Byzantine Empire. "The bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules... the symptoms of immediate death," wrote Procopius, historian of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. At its peak in Constantinople, he reported, the plague killed 10,000 people a day.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian)(NG, 5/88, p.678)
542 The St. Columbas monastery was founded on Iona. [see 563]
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.T8)
543 Mar 21, Benedict of Nursia died. Some sources put his death on March 21, 547. He had founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Lazio, Italy (about 40 miles (64 km) to the east of Rome), before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia)
544 In northern Guatemala a Mayan altar dated to this year depicts La Corona ruler Chak Took Ich'aak conjuring two local gods from a shaft in the form of a double-headed snake. In 2017 the altar was found encased in the roots of a tree in a collapsed temple. Archaeologists said the altar suggests the Mayan dynasty of Kaanul, known as the Snake Kings, acted like its namesake in slowly squeezing the rival kingdom of Tikal.
(AP, 9/15/18)(AP, 9/18/18)
544 In India about this time Pulakeshin I instituted the Chalukyan kingdom and his son established Vatapi, identified as Badami, as the capital.
(http://tinyurl.com/mdkhf)
546 Colmcille, an Irish saint, founded a monastery at Derry.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A14)
546 Totila the Goth besieged Rome.
(PTA, 1980, p.120)
547 Mar 21, St. Benedict (b.450), Italian monk, died (see March 21, 543). He lived for years as a hermit near the ruins of Nero's palace above Subiaco, 40 miles east of Rome. He established the monastery of Monte Cassino, the founding house of the Benedictine order. His rules and standards of communal life are known as the rules of St. Benedict.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia)(V.D.-H.K.p.68)
548 In Ireland St. Kieran founded a monastery at Clonmacnoise, an Irish phrase meaning "the meadow of the sons of Nos."
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.T8)
549 Jerusalem held to a Jan 6 date for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus until this year. In the end the West added the Epiphany and the East added the Dec 25 nativity to their liturgical calendars.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)
550 Native peoples in southwest Colorado began building pit houses. Found the world over, these are rooms dug in the ground with roofs of mud and logs. To get in or out, people used a ladder through a hole in the roof that doubled as a smoke vent-unpleasant for humans but a good way to keep animals out. You can see several excavated pit houses at the National Park.
(HN, 2/11/97)
550 Aryabhata (b.476), Indian astronomer and mathematician, died. The Aryabhatiya, an astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only extant work of Aryabhata.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata)
c550 Japanese rulers allow their subjects to practice the Buddhist faith.
(ATC, p.50)
550 Persians reasserted control over all of what is now Afghanistan. Revolts by various Afghan tribes followed.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
550-577 The Northern Qi dynasty ruled in China. A wall parallel to the Great Wall in the Jinshanling area is attributed to their rule.
(SFC, 2/9/06, p.E4)
550-730 Ancient Turkic people flourished in Mongolia during this period.
(Arch, 1/06, p.19)
550-1200 The period of Irish Monasticism.
(NGM, 5/77)
552 Jul 10, Origin of Armenian calendar.
(MC, 7/10/02)
552 Aug 5, In Italy snow fell in the town of Panicale in Umbria. The Church of the Virgin of Snows commemorated the rare event.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.49)
552 Agents from Byzantium impersonating monks smuggled silkworms and mulberry leaves out of China in hollow canes.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.51)
553-578 Moon-Jaguar, the tenth Mayan ruler of Copan, reigned over this period.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.28)
554 Aug 14, Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine military governor in Italy.
(MC, 8/14/02)
555 Jun 7, Vigilius ended his reign as Catholic Pope (537-555).
(PTA, 1980, p.118)(SC, 6/7/02)
556 Feb 21, Maximianus van Ravenna, bishop (Basilica S Stefano), died.
(MC, 2/21/02)
556 Apr 16, Pelagius I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 4/16/98)
c556 Dionysius Exiguus, Scythian monk, died. He devised the current system of reckoning the Christian era.
(WUD, 1994, p.405)
558 May 7, The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapsed. Its immediate rebuilding was ordered by Justinian.
(HN, 5/7/99)
560 Emperor Justinian about this time returned the treasure of Jerusalem, plundered by the Romans in 70AD, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
(SFC, 10/23/06, p.A15)
561 Mar 4, Pelagius I, Italian Catholic Pope (556-61), died.
(PTA, 1980, p.120)
561 Jul, John III was consecrated Pope.
(PTA, 1980, p.122)
562 Belisarius stood trial in Constantinople on a charge of corruption. The charge is presumed to have been trumped-up and modern research suggests that his former secretary Procopius of Caesarea may have judged his case. Belisarius was found guilty and imprisoned but not long after, Justinian pardoned him, ordered his release, and restored him to favor at the imperial court. Belisarius and Justinian, whose partnership had increased the size of the empire by 45 percent died within a few months of each other in 565.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius)
562 Tikal in Guatemala was conquered possibly by the Mayans of Calakmul city in Mexico. Calakmul is one of the largest of Mayan cities with more than 6,000 structures. It was the capital of a widespread hegemony of Lowland Maya kingdoms during the Late Classic (600-900).
(AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.G)(Arch, 9/00, p.27)
562 Mayans from the city of Ah Witz Na, in what is now Belize, conquered Tikal.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.T3)
563 The Irish Catholic monk Columba (Colum Cille) arrived on the Scottish island of Iona. [see 542]
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)(AM, 7/01, p.51)
563 A tsunami devastated Geneva. It was generated by a massive rockfall on what was called Mount Tauredunum.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.79)
563-594 In northern Peru a 30-year mega el nino weather period began that caused major flooding in areas populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
565 Mar, Flavius Belisarius (b.c500), military commander of the Byzantine Empire, died. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century before.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius)
565 Aug 22, St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness.
(MC, 8/22/02)
565 Nov 14, Justinian I, [Petrus Sabbatius], Byzantine emperor (527-565), died at age 83.
(Baker, 2002)
570 Jan 19, Mohammed (d.632), "The Prophet", founder of Islam and speaker in the “Koran," was born into the Quraysh tribe in Makkah. He was orphaned at an early age and found work in a trade caravan. He married a wealthy widow and this gave him the freedom to visit Mount Hira each year to think. His birthday is observed on the 12th day of Rabi ul'Awwal, the 3rd month of the lunar calendar, in a festival known as Mawlid-al-Nabi. The Koran was probably not fixed for the 1st two centuries after the emergence of Islam.
(ATC, p.59)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/15/01, p.A16)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.97)
570 John Philoponus (b.490), a Christian and Aristotelian commentator (aka John of Alexandria or John the Grammarian), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philoponus)
573 Aug 20, Gregory of Tours was selected as the bishop of Tours.
(MC, 8/20/02)
573 In Copan the Rosalila structure on the Acropolis culminated a period of intense construction
(NG, 12/97, p.92)
574 Jul 13, Pope John III died.
(PTA, 1980, p.122)
574 Prince Shotoku was born in Japan. He later brought the Kongo family from Korea to Osaka and had them build a Buddhist temple. The temple took 15 years to build and the Kongo family became established as the premier temple builders in Japan.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R46)
575 Jun 2, Benedict I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 6/2/02)
578 Oct 5, Justinus II, Byzantine emperor (565-78), died.
(MC, 10/5/01)
578 The family business Kongo Gumi was founded in Japan by a Korean in Osaka to build Buddhist temples. The company continued to flourish in 2010 as general builder.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.104)(Econ, 11/20/10, SR p.9)
579 Jul 30, Pope Benedict I died.
(PTA, 1980, p.124)
580 Pope Pelagius left married priests alone if they kept their wives and children from inheriting church property.
(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)
580-728 Pallava kings ruled in southern India, later Tamil Nadu state. The port town of Mahabalipuram was the capital of their ancient kingdom.
(AP, 9/21/05)
581-618 The Sui Dynasty ruled in China. The "Sui Shu" are the annals of the Sui Dynasty and mention of cormorant fishing in Japan is made.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)(SFEC, 8/11/96, Z1, p.6)(NH, 10/98, p.69)
587 Nov 28, Treaty of Andelot: King Guntram took cousin Childebert II as heir.
(MC, 11/28/01)
589 Mar 1, Saint David (b.~500), Welsh Bishop, died about this time. He was later regarded as a saint and as the patron saint of Wales. The Annales Cambriae has his death at 601, which would move his birth date forward. His mother was Non (also Nonna or Nonnita), according to Christian tradition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Non)
589 Japanese official diplomatic delegations were sent to China (during the Sui dynasty) to learn Chinese culture, including Chinese court music, Gagaku (elegant music).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagaku)
590 Feb 7, Pelagius II, Gothic Pope (579-90), died from plague.
(MC, 2/7/02)
590 Sep 3, St. Gregory I began his reign as Pope. Gregory the Great reigned until 604 and established the popes as the de facto rulers of central Italy, and strengthened the papal primacy over the Churches of the West.
(CU, 6/87)(MC, 9/3/01)
590 St. Elijah's Monastery, aka Dair Mar Elia, was completed in Mosul. It was named after Assyrian Christian monk St. Elijah, who began the construction in 582. In 2014 the Christian monastery was destroyed by the Islamic State.
(AP, 1/20/16)(SFC, 1/21/16, p.A4)
590 Pope Gregory said he spotted an angel atop Hadrian’s Mausoleum. The site was then reconfigured as a fortress called Castel Sant’Angelo. In 1925 it became a national museum.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F8)
590 Pope Gregory I revised an earlier list to form the more common Seven Deadly Sins, by folding sorrow/despair into acedia, vainglory into pride, and adding extravagance and envy, while removing fornication from the list (Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth). In the order used by both Pope Gregory and by Dante Alighieri in his epic poem The Divine Comedy, the seven deadly sins are as follows: 1. luxuria (extravagance/lust) 2. gula (gluttony) 3. avaritia (avarice/greed) 4. acedia (acedia/discouragement/sloth) 5. ira (anger/wrath) 6. invidia (envy) 7. superbia (pride).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins)
592-710 The Asuka Period of Japanese history.
(www.japan-101.com)
593-622 The Regency of Prince Shotoku on Japan.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 214)
594 In Japan wood for the five-storey pagoda of the Temple of the Flourishing Law in Nara prefecture was felled about this time. Construction of the temple is believed to have begun soon after. In 2016 it was one of the world’s oldest wooden buildings.
(Econ, 9/10/16, p.66)
594 In Peru a 30-year drought began about this time that followed years of flooding in areas populated by the Moche people.
(PBS, 10/1/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche)
598-658 Chu Suilang: Tang Dynasty calligrapher.
(SFC, 5/14/03, p.D1)
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