Top Ten Events of the Middle Ages

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

476

476 AD
Freed Europe from a single power ended the ancient world and the middle ages were born. These Dark Ages brought the end to much that was Roman.

Treaty of Verdun

483

483
Treaty partitioning the Carolingian empire among the three surviving sons of the emperor Louis I (The Pious). The treaty was the first stage in the dissolution of the empire of Charlemagne and foreshadowed the formation of the modern countries of Western Europe.

The Formation of Islam

700

7th Century 601 AD-700 AD
Islam started in Mecca, in modern day Saudi Arabia, during the time of the prophet Muhammed's life.

Battle of Tours

732

732 (One Day)
Helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire and Frankish domination of Western Europe for the next century.

Chalermagne became an Emperor

800

800 CE
Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the romans in 800 CE thus restoring the Roman Empire in the west for the first time since its dissolution in the 5th century. He was selected for a variety of reasons as well one of them being his long standing protectorate over the papacy.

The First Crusade

1096

1096-1099
The first crusade was the first of a series of religious wars.
The point of the war was to recover the Holy Land from Islamic rule.

Magna Carta Libertatum

1215

1215
Issued as the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. It sought to prevent the king from exploiting his power, and placed limits of royal authority by by establishing law as power itself.

The 100 Years War

1337

1337-1453
A struggle between two kings of England and France.
It was a series of intermittent battles on land and sea, raids, and sieges.

The Black Death

1347

1347-1351
A pandemic that ravaged Europe, taking a proportionately greater toll of life than any other known epidemic or war up to that time. The black death is believed to be caused by an infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Columbus discovers America

1492

1492
Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships an made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in the Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani.