Middle Ages
Great Mosque of Kairouan: The Oldest Mosque of the Maghreb
Kairouan became the first Arab capital of the Maghreb, and its mosque, rebuilt by the Aghlabids, became a model for mosques across North Africa.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Middle Ages
Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: The Birth of Gothic Architecture
Suger's new west front and choir introduced pointed rib vaults, an open ambulatory and large stained-glass windows, the combination now regarded as the first Gothic architecture.
Middle Ages
Isidore of Seville's Etymologies (c. 625): Encyclopedia of an Age
An unfinished 20-book encyclopedia that became one of the most copied and consulted reference works of the Middle Ages.
Middle Ages
Empress Irene of Athens: Byzantium's First Woman Sole Ruler
Irene restored the veneration of icons and became the first woman to rule Byzantium alone, but was deposed in 802 and died in exile in 803.
Early Modern
Great Plague of Vienna (1679): Epidemic in the Habsburg Capital
A major bubonic plague epidemic devastated Vienna; Leopold I vowed a memorial that became the Plague Column on the Graben.
Early Modern
Fasil Ghebbi: The Royal Castles of Gondar, Ethiopia
Gondar became the permanent capital of the Ethiopian Solomonic emperors for about two centuries, and its fortified royal enclosure was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
Early Modern
Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637): Dissent in Puritan Boston
Hutchinson was convicted and sentenced to banishment from the colony; after a church trial in March 1638 she was excommunicated and left for Rhode Island.
Early Modern
Tensho Embassy (1582): Japanese Envoys Visit the Pope in Rome
The first official Japanese embassy to Europe was received by Philip II, Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, and returned to Japan with a European printing press.
Early Modern
Ardabil Carpet (1539-40): The Famous Safavid Carpet Pair
The two carpets left Iran in the 1880s; the larger one has been in the Victoria and Albert Museum since 1893 and the other in LACMA since 1953.
Early Modern
Descartes' Discourse on the Method (1637): Cogito, Ergo Sum
Descartes' method of doubt and his 'I think, therefore I am' became a founding text of modern philosophy, and the attached Géométrie launched analytic geometry.
Early Modern
Henry VIII and the English Reformation: The Break with Rome
England rejected papal authority and Parliament recognised the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England, opening the way to the English Reformation.
Early Modern
Casa de Contratación (1503): Spain's House of Trade in Seville
Seville became the sole legal port for trade with the Spanish Americas, regulated by a royal agency that lasted until 1790.