Middle Ages
Varangian Guard: Norse and English Warriors of Byzantium
A Scandinavian, Rus and later largely English unit became the emperors' most trusted bodyguard for more than two centuries.
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
Christianization of Kievan Rus (988): Vladimir's Baptism
Vladimir adopted Byzantine Orthodox Christianity as the faith of Kievan Rus, binding it to Byzantium's religious and cultural world.
Middle Ages
Battle of Maldon (991): Byrhtnoth Against the Vikings
Viking victory; Byrhtnoth was killed and the English paid 10,000 pounds of silver for peace.
Middle Ages
Beowulf and the Nowell Codex (c. 1000): Old English Epic
The single copy of Beowulf survived the Cotton Library fire of 1731 and became the foundation text of Old English literature.
Middle Ages
Stephen I of Hungary (1000): The First King and His Crown
Stephen became the first crowned King of Hungary, founding a Christian kingdom that lasted for more than nine centuries.
Middle Ages
Polynesian Settlement of Hawaii: First Arrivals in the Islands
Polynesian settlers founded a society that grew into some of the most complex chiefdoms in the Pacific by the time of European contact in 1778.
Middle Ages
L'Anse aux Meadows: The Norse Site in Newfoundland
The site proved that Norse Greenlanders reached North America about 500 years before Columbus; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
Middle Ages
Polynesian Voyaging: How Navigators Settled East Polynesia
Within roughly three centuries, Polynesians settled almost every habitable island in a triangle of ocean larger than Europe and North America combined.
Middle Ages
Leif Erikson and the Norse in Vinland (c. 1000)
Norse Greenlanders explored and briefly settled parts of North America about five centuries before Columbus, but did not establish a lasting colony.
Middle Ages
Kilwa Kisiwani: Medieval Swahili Sultanate and Gold Port
Kilwa dominated the East African gold trade in the 13th-14th centuries before Portuguese attack in 1505 and changing trade led to its decline.
Middle Ages
St Brice's Day Massacre (1002): Æthelred Orders Danes Killed
An unknown number of Danes in English towns were killed; Danish raids intensified and Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England in 1013.
Middle Ages
Brihadisvara Temple: Rajaraja Chola I's Great Temple at Thanjavur
Rajaraja I completed the largest temple in India of its time, a symbol of Chola imperial power that is still in worship and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.