Middle Ages
Tang Code (624): The Legal Code That Shaped East Asian Law
The Tang Code became the standard of Chinese criminal law for centuries and the model for legal codes in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Middle Ages
Battle of al-Qadisiyyah (636): The Fall of Sasanian Iraq
Decisive Arab Muslim victory; the Sasanian army in Iraq was broken and the capital Ctesiphon fell soon afterwards.
Middle Ages
University of Oxford: How England's Oldest University Began
Oxford became England's first university, a self-governing guild of masters and students whose colleges and privileges shaped higher education in the English-speaking world.
Middle Ages
Third Council of Toledo (589): Visigothic Spain Turns Catholic
The Visigothic monarchy and most Arian bishops formally adopted Catholic Christianity, ending the religious divide between Goths and Hispano-Romans.
Middle Ages
Silkworm Smuggling (c. 552): How Byzantium Got the Secret of Silk
Silkworms reached the Byzantine Empire, allowing local silk production that slowly reduced dependence on imports through Persia.
Early Modern
Battle of Worcester (1651): Charles II's Defeat and Escape
Decisive Parliamentarian victory; the Scottish-Royalist army was destroyed and Charles II fled into exile.
Early Modern
Idris Alooma: Bornu's Warrior King and His Musketeers
Idris Alooma expanded and centralised the Bornu kingdom, defeated the Bulala in Kanem and made Bornu the dominant state of the central Sudan for the next century.
Early Modern
Pocahontas (1613–1617): Captivity, Marriage and Death in England
Her capture and marriage brought a truce between the Powhatan and the English colonists; she died at Gravesend in March 1617, aged about 21.
Early Modern
Wanli Emperor (1572-1620): The Longest Ming Reign and Its Decline
The longest reign of the Ming dynasty began with fiscal recovery but ended with a paralysed government, an empty treasury and a new threat from the Manchus.
Early Modern
Battle of Mohács (1526): The Fall of Medieval Hungary
Decisive Ottoman victory; Louis II died and Hungary split between rival kings, leading to Ottoman-Habsburg partition.
Early Modern
Execution of Giordano Bruno (1600): Infinite Worlds and Heresy
Bruno was condemned as an impenitent heretic and burned alive; his works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1603.
Early Modern
German Peasants' War (1524–1525): Europe's Great Revolt
The princes and the Swabian League crushed the rebel armies; an estimated 70,000–100,000 people died and most demands went unmet.