Timeline

(Note: most material below was sourced from A Short History of the World by H G Wells and thus is not entirely up to date given the great discoveries made by archaeologists and researchers over the past century, so expect more stuff to be added soon)

Preface

Not all events of all Warbirth mods are covered here, despite the fact that the timeline of Rise of the Ancients can be considered to begin before 7000BCE. In addition, while this timeline is meant specifically for the flavour aspect of Warbirth-based mods, it also covers historical periods which are explored by other mods, due to the four-century gap between Age of Chariots and Age of Empires.

List of mods
Warbirth	Rise of Kings	New World Empires	Kings and Conquerors
Age of Chariots (1300-621 BCE) Age of Empires (247 BCE-530 CE)	Bronze Dawn (430-202 BCE)	Alexander (c 500-323 BCE)	The Wolf Among Lions (278-113 BCE) Rise of the Barbarians (113-61 BCE) Imperivm Invictvm (60-45 BCE)

Introduction

Various authorities have speculated that the global human population on Earth had exceeded 100 million by the year 1000 BCE.

In that point in time, the Aryan peoples were establishing themselves in the peninsulas of Spain, Italy and the Balkans, and they were established in northern India; Knossos was already destroyed and the spacious times of Egypt - under the reigns of Thutmose III, Amenhotep III and Rameses II - had already long since passed. Instead, weak monarchs of the XXIst Dynasty were ruling in the Nile Valley.

Isræl was united under her early kings; Saul or David or possibly even Solomon may have been reigning. Sargon I (2750 BCE) of the Akkadian Sumerian Empire was a remote memory in Babylonian history, more remote than is Constantine the Great from the world of the present day. Hammurabi had been dead a thousand years. The Assyrians were already dominating the less military Babylonians - in 1100 BCE Tiglath Pileser I had taken Babylon, but there was no permanent conquest; Assyria and Babylonia were still separate empires.

In China the Zhou dynasty had been flourishing for two centuries, but still had to contend with the ancient state of Chu to the south, which controlled the Yangtze basin - Chu fought several wars against Zhou, with inconclusive results for both Chu and Zhou. South of Chu, the Red River basin (Vietnamese: Song Cai) was witnessing the emergence of the metallurgically advanced Dong Son culture in northern Vietnam — which would eventually spread its cultural and technological influence throughout the rest of Southeast Asia over many later centuries.

Stonehenge in England was already some hundreds of years old, while farther afield, the Olmec and Chavin cultures were at their zenith in the Americas. This too was the beginning of the so-called "Woodland Period" in what is today the southern territories of the United States, as people moved away from a hunter-gatherer culture to a more sedentary lifestyle.

8th century BCE

• c 800s BCE : Possible construction of the Ma'rib dam system by Arabs in Yemen.
• 800 BCE : Foundation of Carthage by Punic migrants.
• 790 BCE : Nubian conquest of Egypt (founding the XXVth Dynasty).
• 776 BCE : First Olympiad.
• 771 BCE : The Chinese king Zhou You slain by barbarians who then sacked the capital, Haojing, ushering in the Spring and Autumn Period (also known as the Eastern Zhou dynasty, because the Zhou court was forced to relocate east to Luoyang).
• c 766 BCE : The march (in Chinese, fuyong) of Qin in Western China elevated by royal decree of Ping of Zhou to the level of a duchy: King Ping promised the new duke of Qin, Xiang, that he could claim all land beyond his western frontiers as part of Qin.
• c 753 BCE : Foundation of Rome.
• 745 BCE : Tiglath Pileser III conquered Babylonia and founded the New Assyrian Empire.
• 722 BCE : Sargon II armed the Assyrians with iron weapons.
• 721 BCE : He deported the Isrælites.
• 717-713 BCE : Assyrians seized Carchemish and Tabal in Asia Minor, effectively wiping out the Hittites as a Middle Eastern power.
• 704 BCE : Viscount Xiong Che of Chu crowned himself as king Wu, formalising Chu's independence from Zhou China.

It was during this century that the kingdom of Da'mat was founded in East Africa, centred around the town of Yeha in northern Tigray, Ethiopia. In North America, native American cultures began to abandon widespread use of copper as tools for stone throughout the Woodland Period.

7th century BCE

• c 690s BCE : A nomadic group of tribes, the Cimmerians, attacked Assyria but were turned back, preying instead on the weaker kingdom of Phyrgia and leaving it susceptible to later Lydian domination in Asia Minor.
• 680 BCE : Esarhaddon took Thebes in Egypt (overthrowing the XXVth Dynasty).
• 664 BCE : Psammetichus I restored the freedom of Egypt and founded the XXVIth Dynasty (to 610 BCE).
• 646-640 BCE : Elam subjugated by Assyrian king Ashurbanipal following a war against his brother, Saulmugina of Babylon.
• 612 BCE : Foundation of the Chaldean Empire: The Chaldeans of Babylon, and their allies, including the Medes, sacked Nineveh.
• 610-609 BCE : Harran sieged and sacked by Medes and Babylonians, ending Assyrian rule in the Middle East: Assyrian survivors defected to Egypt.
• 608 BCE : Necho of Egypt defeated Josiah, king of Judah, at the battle of Megiddo.
• 604 BCE : Necho pushed to the Euphrates and was overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar II (he carried off the Jews to Babylon).

6th century BCE

• c 590s BCE : First coins in the Western world struck by Alyattes I of Lydia.
• 592 BCE : A Graeco-Egyptian force sent by Psammetichus II of Egypt reached and sacked the Nubian capital of Napata (near present-day Karima, Sudan). The Nubians were forced to relocate their capital farther south to Medewi (Meroë, near Shendi, Sudan).
• c 585 BCE : Lydia and Maedia prominent in the Middle East.
• c 580s BCE : Sino-Yue kingdom of Wu is established around present-day Jiangsu, China (but some sources stated the original territory was organised as early as the Shang dynasty).
• c 550s BCE : Buddha lived about this time. So also did Confucius and Laozi. The Sino-Yue kingdom of Yue was founded around this time, centred around present-day Zhejiang, China.
• 550 BCE : Cyrus the Persian succeeded Cyaxares the Mede, and defeated Crœsus of Lydia.
• 539 BCE : Cyrus took Babylon and founded the Persian Empire. He restored Isræl as a Persian client, designated as Yehud ("Judah"; "Judaea").
• 521 BCE : Darius I, the son of Hystaspes, ruled from the Hellespont to the Indus.
• c 520s BCE : Darius I sent an expedition to Scythia (southern Russia) but was repulsed. Chinese strategist Sun Wu of Qi, also known as Sun Zi, may have been alive around this time.
• 508 BCE : Rome fended off a siege by the Etrurian city-state of Clusium, preserving her republican system and her independence from other Italian polities.

In the Yucatan, the Olmec culture continued to flourish. This period also marked increasing urbanisation and stratification of Chavin society, and would last for at least a few more centuries. Archaeologists also speculate that Teotihuacan was first established during this century.

By this time, iron had begun to be used more frequently in place of bronze in most parts of Europe as well as the Himalayas.

5th century BCE

• 500 BCE : Possible beginning of Indianisation of the Malay archipelago (according to Indian sources).

(Start date of New World Empires: Alexander)

• 490 BCE : Battle of Marathon.
• 484 BCE : Kingdom of Wu prominent in southern China.
• 480-434 BCE : Greek settlers in the Crimean Peninsula founded the Bosporan kingdom as a means of common security against barbarian raiders.
• 480 BCE : Battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis between Greek forces and Persia.
• 479 BCE : The battles of Platea and Mycale completed the repulse of Persia.
• 474 BCE : Etruscan fleet destroyed by the Sicilian Greeks.
• 473 BCE : Yue conquered Wu in southern China.
• 470-430 BCE : Civil war erupted in the Chinese duchy of Jin, destabilising the already weakened Zhou dynasty of northern China further.
• 431 BCE : Peloponnesian War began (to 404 BCE).
• 429-426 BCE : Athenian Plague ravaged Athens, breaking the hegemony of the Athenian-led Delian League over Greece.
• 403 BCE : King Weilie of Zhou issued a decree recognising ducal Jin's marches — Han, Zhao and Wei — as separate Chinese kingdoms.
• 401 BCE : Retreat of the Ten Thousand — Xenophon of Athens led a group of stranded Greek mercenaries from war-ravaged Mesopotamia back to safety in Greece.

While the La Tène culture — with which the Celts and Gauls are associated — would emerge around the present-day Franco-Swiss border, this century also marked the emergence of the so-called Hopewell Tradition in the southern United States and saw greater social stratifiction, urbanisation and intensive trade which would last well until the 3rd century CE.

4th century BCE

• 359 BCE : Philip became king of Macedonia.
• c 330s BCE: Sun Bin of Qi, military stategist, general and alleged descendent of Sun Zi, lived around this time.
• 338 BCE : Battle of Chæronia.
• 336 BCE : Macedonian troops crossed into Asia. Philip murdered.
• 334 BCE : Battle of the Granicus — Alexander defeated Persian forces, initiating the Greek conquest of the Persian empire.
• 334-306 BCE : Chu and Qi partitioned the southern Chinese kingdom of Yue, but the Yue royal family managed to escape and reestablished themselves as rulers of Min (present-day Fujian, China).
• 333 BCE : Battle of Issus.
• 331 BCE : Battle of Arbela.
• 330 BCE : Darius III retreated from Persia and tried to reach Bactria, but was assassinated.
• 326 BCE : Battle of the Hydaspes — Alexander the Great's last military victory.
• 323 BCE : Death of Alexander the Great.
• 321 BCE : Rise of Chandragupta in the Punjab. Romans completely beaten by the Samnites at the battle of the Caudine Forks.

(Start date of Kings & Conquerors: The Wolf Among Lions)

• 309 BCE : Battle of the Thatis — Sarmatians and Scythians hired as mercenaries during a civil war in the Bosporan kingdom.
• 304 BCE : Birth of Ashoka the Great of Maurya.

Alexander's empire did not outlast his death. In time, it was dominated by two new kingdoms - the Ptolemaic kingdom, centred around Egypt and the Seleucid kingdom, centred around Babylon. Both kingdoms however would eventually be eclipsed and finally partitioned between the Romans and the Parthians of Persia.

The Sennones, a Celtic tribe, would launch raids across Italy, eventually reaching Rome as early as 390 BCE, beginning more than a century of Celtic dominance in Italy's northernmost regions.

In the meantime, from 379 BCE onward the duchies of Yan, Song, Qi and Qin declared their rulers as kings, ending the Spring and Autumn Period and initiating the Warring States Period of China (318 BCE).

3rd century BCE

• 282 BCE : Battle of Populonia — Etruscan hegemony in central Italy usurped by Romans.
• 281 BCE : Pyrrhus invaded Italy.
• 280 BCE : Romans crushed at battle of Heraclea by Pyrrhus, but subjugated the Volsinii further north, ending Etruscan independence once and for all.
• 279 BCE : Battle of Ausculum.
• 278 BCE : Gauls raided into Asia Minor and settled in Galatia. Climate change and subsequent food shortages in northern Europe may have resulted in southward migratory pressures from northern Europe toward the Mediterranea, resulting in these raids.
• 275 BCE : Pyrrhus left Italy.
• 268-232 BCE : Ashoka regnant in India — Maurya empire reached its zenith during this time.
• 264 BCE : First Punic War.
• 260 BCE : Battle of Mylæ — first Roman victory at sea against Carthage. Possible date of Ashoka's notorious campaign against Kalinga.
• 256 BCE : Battle of Ecnomus.
• 246 BCE : Yingzheng king of Qin.
• c 230s-220s BCE : Carthage expansion in Iberia.
• 222 BCE : Romans seized Mediolanum from the Insubres, breaking Celtic dominance of northern Italy. Qin kingdom of China ascendant after annexing Chu.
• 220 BCE : End of the Warring States Period in China — Yingzheng united China and assumed the title of Emperor Qin Shi.

(Start date of Age of Empires)

• 218 BCE : Hannibal invaded Roman territory, beginning the 2nd Punic War.
• 214 BCE : Great Wall of China begun.
• 210 BCE : Death of Emperor Qin Shi.
• c 209 BCE : Motun united several nomadic Xianyun clans in Central Asia to found the Xiongnü Empire.
• 208 BCE : A renegade Chinese warlord, Zhao Tuo (known locally as Qiuc Doz) established the Chinese state of Nanyue in the far south.
• 207 BCE : Battle and Massacre of Julu — Chu rebels under Xiang Yu defeated Qin at Xin'an (near Luoyang in Henan province), burying alive as many as 200,000 prisoners.
• 207-206 BCE : End of Qin dynasty — The last emperor was put to the sword and the capital razed by Chu forces. Liu Bang took possession of Hanzhong (not the same area as the kingdom of Han).
• 204 BCE : Han forces under Han Xin seized control of northeastern China for Liu Bang from rebel forces. Xiang Yu at bay. Hong Canal treaty signed, partitioning China into Han and Chu.
• 202 BCE : Battle of Zama ended 2nd Punic War. Suicide of Xiang Yu left Liu Bang sole ruler of China, crowned as emperor Gaozu of Han.

2nd century BCE

• c 200s BCE : Pyu migrants from western China settled in Irawaddy basin in present-day Myanmar.
• 200 BCE : Battle of Baideng — Han China invaded Xiongnü territory, but was repulsed.
• 195 BCE : Han Gaozu died. Although he had issue, his widow the Empress Dowager Lü Zhi was effectively in control of China.
• 194 BCE : A renegade Chinese warlord, Wei Man, usurped the throne of Korea.
• 184 BCE : Pushyamitra Shunga assassinated Maurya king Brihadratha, establishing the Shunga dynasty.
• 180 BCE : After Empress Dowager Lü Zhi died in China, her loyalists in the Chinese government were politically purged. First mention of a Sarmatian king, Gatalos, in a peace treaty involving Asia Minor.
• c 170s BCE : Xiongnü raided northern China.
• c 167-164 BCE : Maccabean Revolt in Palestine — Isræl gained independence from Greek rule as the Hasmonean kingdom with Roman support.
• 148-132 BCE: Mithridates I of Parthia fought several wars, effectively asserting Persian independence from Greek occupation.
• 146 BCE : Carthage destroyed.
• 141 BCE : Han Wu Emperor of China
• 139-113 BCE : Zhang Qian in Central Asia. First mention of the Alani in Central Asia during this time by Chinese sources.
• 133 BCE : Attalus III of Pergamon bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, sparking a civil war after his death (131-129 BCE). Emperor Wu of China began attacking the Xiongnü.
• 121-119 BCE : Han expeditions led by Wei Qing and Huo Qubing defeated Xiongnü in battle.
• 112 BCE : Han forces occupied Minyue. Emperor Wu deported the inhabitants, dispersing them across China.
• 108 BCE : Han China invaded Nanyue and northern Korea, eventually annexing their territories.
• 107 BCE : Gaius Marius consul of Rome. Scythians and Roxolani attempted to invade Chersonesus, but were defeated by Diophantes of Pontus.
• 104-102 BCE : "War of the Heavenly Horses" in Bactria — Han China subjugated several Greek city-states in Bactria, subjecting them to providing China with horses as tribute.
• 102 BCE : Cimbrian War — Marius drove back German invaders in Roman Gaul.

Outside of the Old World, the Olmec culture was on the decline and would eventually be supplanted by the Zapotec civilisation in Central America. The Chavin culture too was entering its final years, and would soon be succeeded by the more famous Moche culture farther to the west in littoral Perú.

In India, the Shunga successors of the Maurya dynasty would gradually lose control, and the Indian subcontinent would be effectively fractured into several smaller warring kingdoms until the end of the 2nd century CE.

1st century BCE

(Start date of Kings & Conquerors: Rise of the Barbarians)

• c 100s BCE : Chinese annexation of Tarim Basin. Greeks of Bactria pushed further into India, conquering what is today Pakistan.
• 100 BCE : Triumph of Marius.
• 89 BCE : All Italians became Roman citizens.
• 74 BCE : Nicomedes IV of Bithynia bequeathed his kingdom to Rome.
• 73 BCE : The revolt of the slaves under Spartacus.
• 71 BCE : Defeat and end of Spartacus.
• c 70-47 BCE : Civil war engulfed Isræl. The war saw the extermination of the Hasmoneans — and the emergence of the Herodian dynasty in Palestine.
• 69-60 BCE : Romans marched from Iberia into the Pyrenees, subjugating the Vascones.
• 66 BCE : Pompey led Roman troops to the Caspian and Euphrates. He encountered the Alani.
• 60-53 BCE : Decline and fall of Xiongnü Empire: the southern Xiongnü tribes seceded and sued for peace with China. They would later be assimilated by the advent of the Cao Wei dynasty (see next heading).

(Start date of Kings & Conquerors: Imperivm Invictvm)

• 50 BCE : Julius Cæsar annexed Gaul for Rome.
• 48 BCE : Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey at Pharsalos.
• 44 BCE : Julius Cæsar assassinated.
• 37 BCE : Emergence of Korean state of Goguryeo. Herod I king in Isræl, founding the Herodian dynasty.
• 27 BCE : Augustus Cæsar princeps (until 14 CE).
• 25 BCE : Rome annexed Galatia.
• 23 BCE : Taking advantage of the weakened state of Egypt, Kushite forces begin raids up north but are turned back in 22 BCE by Roman governor Publius Petronius.
• c 4 BCE : Birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
• 1 BCE : After Emperor Ai of Han died without issue, Wang Mang usurped the throne and became dictator of China, with help from his aunt, the Grand Empress Dowager.

1st century CE

During this century, the entire human population on Earth is estimated to have exceeded 0.2 billion.

• 1 : Christian Era (AD, otherwise known also as the Common Era, CE) began (there is no 0 AD because the Græco-Roman cultures did not use the number 0).
• c 13 : First Sarmatian invasion south of the Danube
• 14 : Augustus died. Tiberius emperor.
• c 17 : The Yellow River flooded, killing thousands in China and increasing resentment against Wang Mang.
• c 25 : Eastern Han dynasty — Chimei Rebellion put down Wang Mang and restored the Han dynasty, but devastated the capital of Chang'an. Liu Xiu transferred the Han capital to Luoyang, crowning himself Han Guangwu.
• c 30 : Jesus of Nazareth crucified.
• 35 : Sarmatian mercenaries hired by the Parthian king Pharasmanes during a civil war.
• 40-43 : Trung Rebellion against Chinese rule in Vietnam.
• 41 : Claudius (the first emperor of the legions) made emperor by Prætorian guard after murder of Caligula.
• c 49 : Siraces and Aorsi, two Sarmatian tribes, took part in the Pontid War of Succession.
• 50 : Iazyges, a Sarmatian tribe, recruited by the Germanic Quadi in defence against other Germanic tribes.
• 57 : The Japanese realm of Na (now present-day Shika Island off Fukuoka, Japan) sent an embassy to Han China.
• c 60 : Colonists from the Malay Archipelago settled in southern Indochina, founding the Funan civilization in present-day Cambodia and southern Vietnam.
• 66-135 : Jewish-Roman Wars — Isræl revolted against Herodian dynasts and their Roman supporters, intensifying Jewish migration out of Palestine.
• 68 : "Year of the Four Emperors" — Galba, Otho, Vitellus and Vespasian vied for the Roman imperial throne vacated by Nero - but Otho committed suicide, while Galba and Vitellius were murdered.
• 69 : Vespasian ascended as Emperor of Rome. Roxolani raided Roman Moesia, but were crushed.
• 73 : The Alani successfully invaded Parthia, conquering Maedia and subjugating Armenia.
• 73-90 : China renewed offensives against Xiongnü.
• 79 : Mount Vesuvius erupted in Central Italy, burying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands.
• c 80 : Foundation of Axum in East Africa — The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek atlas of Egyptian provenance, mentioned the town as a centre of trade in East Africa. Axum eclipsed Da'mat as the main regional power in Abyssinia.
• 89 : Battle of Ikh Bayan — Xiongnü crushed and driven west by China.
• 92 : A Germanic invasion in Pannonia supported by Iazyx cavalrymen crushed a Roman legio.

Following their defeat at Ikh Bayan, surviving Xiongnü were said to have migrated westward toward Europe and Iran, possibly becoming the ancestors of the Xionites or Huns.

2nd century CE

• c 100 : Foundation of the kingdoms of Langkasuka and Raktamaritika (also known as Chi-Tu in mediaeval Chinese sources) on the Malay Peninsula. It was considered by the Chinese as one of the colonial dependents of Funan.
• 101-6 : Rome conquered the Dacians. The Dacians were assisted by various allies, including an offshoot of the Sarmatians, the Roxolani, but to no avail.
• 102 : Chinese general Ban Chao on the Caspian Sea: he attempted to explore further west, but was persuaded by the Persians to go home.
• 108-111 : Qiang peoples raided Central Plains region of China.
• 117 : Hadrian succeeded Trajan. Roman Empire at its greatest extent.
• 132-5 : End of Third Jewish Revolt — Romans annexed Isræl, reorganising the territory as a province of the Empire. Jews banned by Roman law from setting foot within the city limits of Jerusalem.
• 138 : Sakas colonised India, eventually assimilating the Greek kingdoms of India.
• 161 : Marcus Aurelius succeeded Antoninus Pius.
• 164-180 : Antonine Plague (also called the "great plague") spread to Europe and the Middle East from China, devastating both the Han and Roman Empires, claiming an estimated 15 million lives in the latter.
• 184 : Huangchao Rebellion weakened Han dynasty in China.
• 189 : Dong Zhuo seized power in China, effectively ending Han rule.

During this century, two obscure cults — Mithraism and Christianity (the latter centred around deification of Jesus of Nazareth) — would emerge in Europe and the Middle East and eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire. But while Christianity would overcome much political and cultural resistance to become the official religion of Rome (and much later the entirety of Europe as a whole) Mithraism would eventually lapse into obscurity as it suffered persecution — first by the Roman imperial government, and then much later by the Christian authorities of the Eastern empire and the Western empire's successors.

3rd century CE

• c 210 : Funan sent an embassy to China.
• c 217 : Jian'an Plague ravaged China.
• 220 : End of the Han dynasty — Cao Pi deposed the last Han emperor, becoming ruler of the northern Chinese state of Cao Wei (not to be confused with the earlier Wei kingdom destroyed by Emperor Qin Shi).
• 227 : Ardashir I (first Sassanid shah) put an end to Arsacid line in Persia.
• 242 : Mani began his teaching.
• 247 : German Goths crossed Danube in a great raid.
• 249-262 : Plague of Cyprian spread from Africa to Europe, ravaging the Roman Empire.
• 251 : Great victory of Goths. Emperor Decius killed.
• 260 : Shapor I, the second Sassanid shah, took Antioch, captured the Emperor Valerian. But he was captured and subsequently quartered by Odenathus of Palmyra.
• 266 : Sima Yan overthrew Cao Wei, establishing the Jin dynasty.
• 277 : Mani crucified in Persia.
• 281 : Jin reunited China.
• 284 : Diocletian became emperor.
• 290 : War of the Eight Princes devasted Jin China.

In the years that followed, northern India would soon be reunited under the Guptas, while the kingdom of Dunsun (as recorded by the Book of Liang in mediaeval China) was said to have emerged as an outpost of Funan somewhere on the Malay Peninsula.

In contrast, Diocletian would decentralise the Roman empire, dividing it into eastern and western spheres in an attempt to restore order and effectiveness to its armies. But this arrangement would result in a permanent state of civil war and chaos that could not abate until the days of Constantine the Great.

At the same time, different prehistoric cultures throughout the eastern United States began to concentrate less on trade, and become more parochial and self-sufficient. The reasons for this are still unknown.

Towards the end of this century, the kingdom of Langkasuka went into decline. It is still unclear if Funan was involved in its weakening or not, and why.

4th century CE

• c 300s : Huns raided and subjugated the Alani. Emergence of the kingdom of Pan-pan, another Funanese dependency on the shores of the present-day Malaysian states of Kelantan and Terengganu.
• 303 : Diocletian persecuted the Christians.
• 311 : Galerius abandoned the persecution of the Christians. Disaster of Yongjia — Jin China permanently lost control of northern China to Turkic invaders.
• 312 : Constantine the Great became emperor.
• 320-360 : Axum embraced Christianity.
• 323 : Constantine presided over the Council of Nicæa.
• 330-360 : Axum prominent in both East Africa and southern Arabia — Medewi sacked by Axumite forces under king Ezzana, who then erected a stele proclaiming himself as king of both Axum and Himyar (an Arabian kingdom in Yemen).
• 337 : Constantine baptized on his deathbed.
• c 358 : Foundation of Taruma, a small Indianised state in western Java, Indonesia.
• 361-3 : Julian the Apostate attempted to substitute Mithraism for Christianity.
• c 380 : War between Rome and the Goths — the Huns made their début in Roman Europe.
• 383 : Battle of Fei River: An alliance of northern kingdoms attempted to conquer the Jin rump state in southern China, but was successfully repulsed.
• 387 : Rise of the Tuoba dynasty in northwest China.
• 392 : Theodosius the Great emperor of east and west.
• 395 : Theodosius the Great died. Honorius and Arcadius redivided the empire with Stilicho and Alaric as their masters and protectors.

Following the Disaster of Yongjia, Northern China would continue to be ruled by kings of Turkic ancestry but who over time would adopt Chinese culture. This state of affairs would continue until the eventual reunification of China by Emperor Wen of Sui in 588 CE. Of these Turkic dynasties, the most long-lived and illustrious would prove to be the Tuoba dynasty, which managed to hold out for as long as two centuries.

According to the Lis, a family of scholars in Tang China, it was during this century that Funan eventually became Indianised.

5th century CE

• c 400s : Pyu converted to Buddhism.
• 410 : The Visigoths under Alaric captured Rome. Collapse of Roman rule in Britain.
• 425 : Vandals settling in south of Spain. Huns in Pannonia, Goths in Dalmatia. Visigoths and Suevi in Portugal and North Spain. English invading Britain.
• 420 : Foundation of Liu Song dynasty in China — Liu Yu, a descendent of Liu Bang, forced Emperor Gong to abdicate, replacing Jin. Gong was subsequently murdered by Liu's men.
• c 431 : A volcano erupted in the Yucatan, affecting the livelihoods of the local natives for decades.
• 439 : Vandals took Carthage.
• c 450s : Zenith of Gupta rule in northern India.
• 451 : Attila raided Gaul and was defeated by Franks, Alemanni and Romans at Troyes.
• 453 : Death of Attila.
• 455 : Vandals sacked Rome.
• 470 : Odoacer, king of a medley of Teutonic tribes, informed Constantinople that there was no emperor in the West. End of the Western Empire.
• 479 : Foundation of Southern Qi dynasty in China — Xiao Daocheng usurped control of Liu Song from Emperor Shun and later had him put to death.
• 493 : Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, conquered Italy and became King of Italy, but was nominally subject to Constantinople. (Gothic kings in Italy. Goths settled on special confiscated lands as a garrison.)

Although the Black Huns, the host of Attila, would eventually be exterminated by the Goths in the years after Attila's passing, in India it was a wholly different story. There, the White Huns would prove far more resilient — and from their base in present-day Afghanistan, eventually hold sway over vast parts of Central Asia and Western India for decades. The White Huns would prove so powerful that they could exact tribute from the Persian Sassanids, and even interfere in the politics of the same for at least one generation.

The Shaivite sect of Hinduism, placing greater emphasis of the worship of Shiva and his sons Murugan and Ganesha (as opposed to Vaishnite Hinduism which places emphasis on Vishnu and his avatars) was heavily popular with the White Huns who sought to propagate their Hindu faith across the rest of India and Central Asia.

6th century CE

• 502 : Emperor He of Southern Qi forced to abdicated and was later murdered by Xiao Yan, who then established the so-called Liang dynasty.
• 527 : Justinian emperor.
• 529 : Justinian closed the schools at Athens, which had flourished nearly a thousand years. Belisarius (Justinian’s general) took Naples.
• c 530 : Gupta dynasty extinguished in India, ushering in more than a millenium of armed conflict and anarchy in India.

Aftermath: Into the Middle Ages

From 535 to 540 CE, a series of volcanic eruptions across the world resulted in a so-called "volcanic winter", changing the climate and causing widespread starvation and disorder across the entire planet, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

While China would escape relatively unscathed and reunite under the banner of Emperor Sui Wen, there was a prolonged drought in Central America, resulting in the abandonment and possibly violent destruction of Teotihuacan.

South Asia must have been affected too — in 2019, archaeologists from the Republic of India have noted that the regions of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the core of the Gupta dynasty, experienced severe flooding around the same time as this volcanic winter.

Volcanic winter also left the major powers of the Middle East — Rome and Persia — critically weakened by disease and famine: the Roman writer Procopius noted that the sun was dimmed for many years over Southern Europe after 535 CE. The Celtic, Slavic and German peoples of Europe were also affected with lower food yields and colder conditions - as attested by analysis of logs excavated from hill forts in Ireland - even as the Plague of Justinian spread first from Roman Egypt to Constantinople, and then moved south into northern Arabia and then northwest to infect all of Europe. In such a debilitated condition, Justinian's attempts to revive the Roman empire collapsed, while the Balkan region was now open for colonisation by a new host of equestrian nomads from Asia: the Avars.

This catastrophe must have provoked harsh conditions in Arabia too, leading to the penultimate breaching of the Ma'rib dam system by unusually inclement weather, further retarding agricultural production and forcing Arab tribes to migrate northward.

According to the mediaeval chronicler al-Mubarrid of Basra (this source however was disputed) one of these refugee tribes may have been the ancestors of Banu Khuza'ah, who eventually became lords of the city of Yathrib (now the holy city of Madinah in Saudi Arabia). It was the clans of Banu Khuza'ah there which aligned themselves with the Prophet Muhammad (c 530-632 CE), becoming the very first polity in the world to convert to Islam. The Ansariyun who spearheaded the conquests under the early caliphs were themselves Khuza'ah clansmen.