Middle Ages
Maimonides and the Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190)
Maimonides completed the Guide for the Perplexed around 1190, a landmark of medieval philosophy that shaped Jewish, Islamic and Christian thought.
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
Mesa Verde and Cliff Palace: Ancestral Puebloan Cliff Dwellings
Hundreds of cliff dwellings were built in the 1200s and then left by about 1300, when their people migrated south to the ancestral homes of today's Pueblo nations.
Middle Ages
Battle of Arsuf (1191): Richard I Defeats Saladin's Army
Crusader victory; Saladin's army failed to stop Richard's march and the crusaders reached Jaffa.
Middle Ages
Captivity of Richard the Lionheart (1192): A King for Ransom
Richard was released at Mainz on 4 February 1194 after England raised a ransom of 150,000 marks, one of the heaviest financial burdens of the medieval English state.
Middle Ages
Second Battle of Tarain (1192): Prithviraj Chauhan's Defeat
Decisive Ghurid victory; Prithviraj was captured and executed, opening northern India to Ghurid rule and leading to the Delhi Sultanate.
Middle Ages
Destruction of Nalanda (c. 1193): End of a Great University
Nalanda was sacked and largely abandoned, a severe blow to Indian Buddhist scholarship, though a small community survived for some decades.
Middle Ages
Chartres Cathedral: Stained Glass and High Gothic Design
The rebuilt cathedral, largely complete by about 1220–1230, set the pattern for High Gothic architecture and preserved one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass.
Middle Ages
Battle of Alarcos (1195): Almohad Victory Over Castile
Decisive Almohad victory; Castile lost its southern frontier fortresses, and the defeat later spurred the Christian coalition that won at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.
Middle Ages
Qutub Minar: Delhi's Medieval Victory Tower and Its History
The tower became the tallest minaret of medieval India and the symbol of the Delhi Sultanate; it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993.
Middle Ages
Tulum: The Walled Maya Port on the Caribbean Coast
A thriving coastal trading town until the Spanish conquest, Tulum declined in the 16th century and is now one of Mexico's most visited archaeological sites.
Middle Ages
Dresden Codex: The Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas
The best-preserved of the few surviving Maya books, it became the key to understanding the Maya calendar, astronomy and writing.
Middle Ages
Settlement of Rapa Nui: Hotu Matu'a and the First Islanders
Polynesian voyagers founded a lasting society on one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth, the people who later carved the moai.