Middle Ages
Thule Migration: Ancestors of the Inuit Cross the Arctic
Within a few generations the Thule settled the whole North American Arctic and became the ancestors of all modern Inuit, while the Dorset culture disappeared.
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
University of Paris (1200): The Royal Charter and the Sorbonne
The masters and students of Paris became a self-governing corporation with royal and papal privileges, and Paris became the leading centre of theology in Latin Christendom.
Middle Ages
Great Mosque of Djenne: Origins of the Mud-Brick Mosque
Djenné's ruler converted to Islam and turned his palace into a mosque; the present building of 1907 on the same site became the most famous mud-brick structure in the world.
Middle Ages
Ife Bronze and Terracotta Heads: Masterpieces of Yoruba Art
Ife artists created some of the most naturalistic sculpture of the medieval world, closely tied to sacred kingship, and their work overturned European prejudices about African art.
Middle Ages
Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela: Ethiopia's New Jerusalem
Eleven monolithic and semi-monolithic churches were carved from living rock, creating a sacred landscape that is still a major Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrimage centre.
Middle Ages
Fibonacci's Liber Abaci (1202): Arabic Numerals Reach Europe
The book became the foundation of Italian commercial arithmetic and a key channel for the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe.
Middle Ages
Sack of Constantinople (1204): The Fourth Crusade's Betrayal
Crusaders and Venetians captured and plundered Constantinople, divided much of the Byzantine Empire and founded the Latin Empire, which lasted until 1261.
Middle Ages
Al-Jazari's Book of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206)
A richly illustrated treatise describing about 50 machines, the most detailed surviving record of medieval mechanical engineering in the Islamic world.
Middle Ages
Genghis Khan and the Rise of the Mongol Empire (1206)
The steppe tribes were united as a single Mongol nation under Genghis Khan, whose armies went on to conquer much of Eurasia.
Middle Ages
Founding of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206: Qutb al-Din Aibak
Aibak became the first independent Muslim ruler based in northern India; under Iltutmish the state was consolidated with Delhi as its capital.
Middle Ages
University of Cambridge (1209): Founded by Scholars From Oxford
Scholars leaving Oxford formed a lasting community of masters at Cambridge, which gained royal and papal privileges and became England's second university.
Middle Ages
Francis of Assisi and the Founding of the Franciscan Order
Francis's brotherhood of poor preachers became the Order of Friars Minor, one of the largest and most influential religious orders of the Middle Ages.