Middle Ages
Imperial Examination System: China's Civil Service Exams (605)
Written examinations became the main route into the Chinese civil service for some 1,300 years and influenced Korea, Vietnam and Western civil service reform.
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
Grand Canal of China: Emperor Yang's Great Waterway (605)
A connected inland waterway of roughly 2,000 to 2,700 km linked the Yangtze and Yellow River basins, carrying southern grain north for the next thousand years.
Middle Ages
Harsha's Empire (606–647): Kanauj and the Last Northern Kingdom
Harsha built a loose but extensive overlordship across northern India, which broke apart after his death without an heir in 647.
Middle Ages
Horyu-ji: The World's Oldest Wooden Buildings in Nara (607)
A Buddhist temple whose Golden Hall and five-storey pagoda are the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world, listed by UNESCO in 1993.
Middle Ages
Rise of Islam (610): Muhammad and the First Revelations
Muhammad began preaching a strict monotheism in Mecca, forming a small, persecuted community that would leave for Medina in 622.
Middle Ages
Battle of Salsu (612): Eulji Mundeok Defeats the Sui Army
Decisive Goguryeo victory; according to the Book of Sui only 2,700 of a 305,000-strong Sui expeditionary force returned, and the 612 invasion was abandoned.
Middle Ages
Execution of Queen Brunhilda (613): End of a Merovingian Feud
Brunhilda and her great-grandsons were killed, and Chlothar II became sole king of all the Frankish kingdoms.
Middle Ages
Pakal the Great of Palenque: The Maya King and His Tomb
Pakal restored Palenque after foreign defeats and made it one of the great Maya cities; his tomb became one of the most famous finds in American archaeology.
Middle Ages
Tang Dynasty (618–907): China's Golden Age of Empire and Culture
The Tang built one of the largest and most cosmopolitan empires of the medieval world, then declined after the An Lushan Rebellion and fell in 907.
Middle Ages
Hijra (622): Muhammad's Migration from Mecca to Medina
Muhammad settled in Medina as leader of a new community; the year of the Hijra later became year one of the Islamic calendar.
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.
Middle Ages
Battle of Badr (624): First Victory of the Early Muslims
Decisive Muslim victory; several leading men of the Quraysh, including Abu Jahl, were killed and Muhammad's standing in Arabia rose sharply.