Middle Ages
Khajuraho Temples: Chandela Art and Architecture
The Chandelas created a group of Hindu and Jain temples, about 25 of which survive, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Era · c. 500 – 1500
Middle Ages
Kingdoms, crusades and plagues: the medieval world from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople.
Middle Ages
Battle of Lechfeld (955): Otto I Ends the Magyar Raids
Decisive East Frankish victory; the Magyar raids on western Europe ended and the Hungarians turned to settled statehood.
Middle Ages
Song Dynasty (960-1279): Commerce, Science and Culture in China
The Song reunified China proper by 979 and presided over an economic and cultural flowering before losing the north to the Jurchens in 1127 and the south to the Mongols in 1279.
Middle Ages
Queen Gudit and the Decline of Aksum (c. 960): Legend and History
A hostile queen devastated the Christian kingdom in the late 10th century, hastening the long decline of the Aksumite state.
Middle Ages
Otto I Crowned Emperor (962): Birth of the Holy Roman Empire
Otto I became emperor, linking the German kingship with the imperial title and with Italy in what later became known as the Holy Roman Empire.
Middle Ages
Mount Athos: The Monastic Republic Founded in 963
Athos became the leading centre of Orthodox monasticism, a self-governing community of 20 monasteries that survives today.
Middle Ages
Jelling Stones (c. 965): Harald Bluetooth and Christian Denmark
The Jelling monuments became a royal statement of Denmark's unification and conversion to Christianity, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.
Middle Ages
Baptism of Poland (966): Mieszko I and the Birth of a Nation
Mieszko I accepted Latin Christianity, bringing his Piast state into Christian Europe and laying the foundations of Poland.
Middle Ages
Founding of Cairo (969): The Fatimid City of al-Qahira
The Fatimids conquered Egypt and founded al-Qahira as their walled royal city; from 973 it was the capital of the Fatimid caliphate.
Middle Ages
Al-Azhar Mosque (970): Cairo's Mosque and University
Founded as the Fatimid congregational mosque of Cairo, al-Azhar became the most influential Sunni centre of religious learning and, in 1961, a modern state university.
Middle Ages
Erik the Red and the Norse Settlement of Greenland (985)
Norse farming communities were established in south-west Greenland and survived for more than four centuries before being abandoned.
Middle Ages
Election of Hugh Capet (987): The Capetian Dynasty Begins
Hugh Capet became king of the West Franks, ending Carolingian rule and founding a dynasty whose branches ruled France until 1848.