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330 - 1453
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While the west was falling to the Germanic invasions in the 4th and 5th centuries C.E., the eastern empire remained intact, partly because it withstood fewer attacks. This Byzantine Empire survived for almost a millennium after the western
empire collapsed. For a time, it was a powerful Christian Empire, but it came under pressure from Islamic Turkish people by the 11th century, and finally fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
600 - 1450
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Slaves, ivory, gold, and iron from Africa; porcelain from China; pottery from Burma; cloth from India. Major route between East Africa and Asia; made possible by the monsoons; traded with China through Arabs, Indians, Malayans, and Indonesians; lasted until 1400s when direct trade began. Brought prosperity to East Africa through the development of trading networks into the interior of the continent; set stage for the rise of African trading cities such as Sofala and Kilwa; Swahili, mix of Arabic and Bantu languages; brought Islam to coastal Bantu speakers
600 - 1450
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The Mongol conquests have been depicted as assaults by savage and barbarian people who brought nothing but death and destruction to the areas they attacked. Whereas no one can deny the brutality of the Mongols, their conquests had a much more varied impact on world history than has been acknowledged by many historians in the past. At the peak of their power, the Pax Mongolica meant that once-hostile people lived together in peace in areas where most religions were tolerated. From the Il-Khan in the Middle East to the Yuan Dynasty in China, Mongol rulers established order, and most importantly, provided the stage for intensified international contact. Protected by Mongol might, the trade routes carried new foods, inventions, and ideas from one civilization to ther others, with nomadic people acting as intermediaries.
610
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Muhammad was visited by the archangel Gabriel in 610 CE, who revealed to him a verse from the Koran.Perplexed by this new experience, Muhammad made his way to home where he was consoled by his wife.
618 - 907
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Before this era, Chinese agriculture had been based on the production of wheat and barley raised in the north. The Tang conquest of southern China and Vietnam added a whole new capability for agriculture; the cultivation of rice. In Vietnam they made use of a new strain of fast-ripening rice that allowed the production of two crops per year. Agricultural techniques improved as well, with the use of the heavy iron plow in the north and water buffaloes in the south. The Tang also organized extensive irrigation systems, so that agricultural production was able to move outward from the rivers.
661 CE - 750 CE
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The Umayyad caliphate was marked both by territorial expansion and by the administrative and cultural problems that such expansion created. Despite some notable exceptions, the Umayyads tended to favor the rights of the old Arab families, and in particular their own, over those of newly converted Muslims (mawali). Therefore they held to a less universalist conception of Islam than did many of their rivals.
742 - 814
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Charlemagne waged a bloody, three-decades-long series of battles against the Saxons, a Germanic tribe of pagan worshippers, and earned a reputation for ruthlessness. In 782 at the Massacre of Verden, Charlemagne reportedly ordered the slaughter of some 4,500 Saxons. He eventually forced the Saxons to convert to Christianity, and declared that anyone who didn’t get baptized or follow other Christian traditions be put to death.
900 CE - 1100 CE
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The Toltec name carried a certain prestige and they were very highly regarded by the Maya and the Aztecs, in particular, who seem to have copied many aspects of Toltec religious practices and art and looked on the Toltec period as a golden era when such wonders as writing, medicine, and metallurgy were invented.
960 - 1279
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China's population about 600 C.E. was about 45 million, but by 1200 (the Song Dynasty) it had risen to about 115 million. This growth occurred partly because of the agricultural revolution, but also because distribution of food improved with better transportation systems, such as the Grand Canal and the network of roads throughout the empire.
1054
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The eastern church was allowed to marry, Greek was the language of the eastern church and they believed that the patriarch is a leader only of an area. The west says the pope is the leader of all Christians. These differences led to the great schism. The Byzantine church became the Eastern Orthodox church and the western church became the Roman Catholic Church.
1096 - 1099
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The cause of the first Christian Crusade was mainly because of the Muslim Turks invading and taking over the Holy Land. Christians within Europe couldn't enter the Holy Land anymore, so they started to support the Crusades. Another reason the First Crusade was started was because Merchants wanted to establish trade routes in the East.
The effect of the First Crusade was that the Christians captured Jerusalem and other key cities. They divided the Holy Land into four states.
1100 AD - 1520 AD
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mercenaries, war provided slaves, human sacrifice, patriarchy, rigid class system, tributary states, lack of immunity to AfroEurasian diseases like smallpox, tributary states allied with Spanish
1271 - 1295
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In the late 13th century, Marco Polo left his home in Venice, and eventually traveled for many years
in China. He was accompanied by his father and uncle, who were merchants anxious to stimulate trade between Venice along the trade routes east. Polo met the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan (Genghis Khan's grandson), who was interested in his travel stories and convinced him to stay as an envoy to represent him in different parts of China. He served the khan for 17 years before returning home, where he was captured by Genoans at war with Venice. While in prison, he entertained his cellmates with stories about China. One prisoner compiled the stories into a book that became wildly popular in Europe, even though many did not believe that Polo's stories were true. Europeans could not believe that the fabulous places that Polo described could ever exist.
1299 - 1923
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Documentation of the early history of the Ottomans is scarce. the Ottoman Empire inherited many Byzantine institutions that came to be overlaid with Islamic ideology and Turkish customs. It was an Islamic empire--as the Byzantine had been a Christian empire--that was literally the private holding of the Osmanli family from whom the concept of the Ottoman state could not be separated. The ruling house and the empire's civil and military ruling class were considered Ottomans. For generation after generation, heirs to the throne were the product of mixed parentage, born to wives or concubines of the sultan who came from many different ethnic groups, while the ruling class was recruited from subject peoples.
1347
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By the 1340s it had spread to Black Sea ports and to Italian cities on the Mediterranean. From there, the plague spread rapidly throughout Europe as far as the British Isles. Europe's population dropped by about
25% during the 14th century. The plague was no respecter of social class, and the affected areas lost craftsmen, artisans, merchants, religious officials, farmers, bureaucrats and rulers. In many areas farms fell into ruin, towns deteriorated, and trade almost came to a standstill. Labor shortages turned into social unrest, and rebellions popped up in many areas.
1400 - 1500
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agricultural, inherited array of domesticated plants and animals (like potatoes, quinoa, guinea pigs), trade, tribute, roads, quipu for record keeping, textiles important for religious ceremonies, patriarchy, dynastic emporer, rigid class system, lack of immuntity to AfroEurasian diseases like smallpox, tributary states allied with spanish too.