Middle Ages
Buyid Capture of Baghdad (945): The Caliphs Lose Power
The Buyids took control of Baghdad and Iraq; the Abbasid caliphs kept their title and religious role but lost real political power for about 110 years.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Middle Ages
Battle of Lincoln (1217): William Marshal Saves Henry III
Royalist victory; the rebel barons' army was destroyed, opening the way to the Treaty of Lambeth and Prince Louis's withdrawal from England.
Middle Ages
Offa's Dyke: King Offa's Great Earthwork on the Welsh Border
A long bank-and-ditch earthwork marked Mercia's western frontier with the Welsh kingdoms and survives as Britain's longest ancient monument.
Middle Ages
Battle of Manzikert (1071): Byzantium's Defeat by the Seljuks
Seljuk victory and capture of Romanos IV; the Byzantine civil war that followed opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement.
Early Modern
South Sea Bubble (1720): Britain's First Great Financial Crash
South Sea shares collapsed in autumn 1720, ruining many investors; a parliamentary inquiry punished directors and ministers and brought Robert Walpole to power.
Early Modern
Somerset v Stewart (1772): Lord Mansfield's Slavery Ruling
James Somerset was discharged; the court held that a master could not forcibly remove an enslaved person from England to be sold abroad.
Early Modern
Siege of Louisbourg (1758): Britain Takes France's Fortress
British victory; the French garrison surrendered and Louisbourg's fall opened the St. Lawrence to a British advance on Quebec.
Early Modern
Battle of Shanhai Pass (1644): Wu Sangui Lets the Qing In
Decisive victory for Wu Sangui and the Qing; Li Zicheng abandoned Beijing and the Manchus took the capital.
Early Modern
Capture of Ormuz (1622): Persia and England Oust Portugal
The Portuguese garrison surrendered Hormuz; Safavid Iran took the island and the English East India Company gained trading privileges at Bandar Abbas.
Early Modern
John Kay's Flying Shuttle (1733): Faster Weaving in Britain
The flying shuttle roughly doubled a weaver's output and helped create the yarn shortage that drove the mechanisation of spinning.
Early Modern
Murder of Lord Darnley (1567): The Kirk o' Field Explosion
Darnley was killed; suspicion fell on Bothwell, whose marriage to Mary three months later led to her overthrow and abdication.
Early Modern
Spanish Conquest of Yucatán (1527-1697): The Maya Resist
Northern Yucatán came under Spanish rule in the 1540s, but the independent Itza Maya kingdom of the Petén held out until 1697.