Our Earth's History

Timeline: Medieval world

500 – 1500 · 45 articles, earliest first. Browse this era by continent.

  1. AD 350 · AfricaWhich African kingdom minted gold coins and raised 23-meter stelae?
  2. AD 600 · Central AsiaWho actually carried goods along the Silk Road?
  3. AD 625 · EuropeA ship in a mound, 1939: Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo
  4. AD 751 · Central AsiaDid one battle in 751 carry papermaking to the West?
  5. AD 800 · EuropeWas Charlemagne surprised by his coronation in 800?
  6. AD 830 · West AsiaWhat was the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, and what did it translate?
  7. AD 900 · The AmericasHow Did the Maya Track the Cycle of Venus — Without a Telescope?
  8. 1000 · Central AsiaA sealed room at Mogao, opened in 1900: the Dunhuang Library Cave
  9. 1021 · EuropeWhen were Vikings in North America? A solar storm says AD 1021
  10. 1025 · South AsiaWhy did Rajendra Chola send a fleet against Srivijaya in about 1025?
  11. 1050 · The AmericasWho carried 200,000 trees into Chaco Canyon, and why did they leave?
  12. 1100 · The AmericasMonks Mound and 120 others: Cahokia on the Mississippi, 1050 to 1350
  13. 1100 · West AsiaOne Cairo storeroom, 193,000 fragments: the Geniza goes to Cambridge
  14. 1127 · Central AsiaA minaret rebuilt in 1127: the Kalyan tower of Bukhara
  15. 1199 · South AsiaAn iron pillar older than its mosque: the Qutb Minar complex, Delhi
  16. 1200 · OceaniaBasalt logs on a reef: Nan Madol, Pohnpei, built from about AD 1180
  17. 1200 · AfricaChurches cut from rock: Francisco Álvares at Lalibela in the 1520s
  18. 1200 · OceaniaHow did Polynesians find Hawaii and New Zealand without a compass?
  19. 1200 · OceaniaThree stones at Heketa, the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon of Tongatapu
  20. 1206 · East AsiaHow Did the Nomads of the Steppe Swallow the World?
  21. 1206 · East AsiaWhat Pulled the Trigger on History's Largest Empire — the Mongol Empire?
  22. 1236 · South AsiaIltutmish's written heir: Razia, sultan of Delhi, 1236–1240
  23. 1250 · AfricaA gold rhinoceros from Mapungubwe Hill, found in the 1930s
  24. 1250 · The AmericasCliff Palace, 150 rooms and 23 kivas: Mesa Verde, 1888 to 1906
  25. 1250 · South AsiaKonark's Sun Temple: a stone chariot, and a hall filled with sand
  26. 1254 · Central AsiaNot as big as Saint Denis: William of Rubruck measures Karakorum, 1254
  27. 1258 · West AsiaFrom 800,000 to two million: the dead of Baghdad, February 1258
  28. 1271 · West AsiaA letter that ended a siege: Baybars at Krak des Chevaliers, 1271
  29. 1279 · East AsiaWhich Empire Was the Largest in History — Was It Really Rome?
  30. 1281 · East AsiaA hull on the seabed off Takashima, the Mongol fleet of 1281
  31. 1300 · OceaniaA 13-year-old's find at Wairau Bar in 1939, and a return in 2009
  32. 1300 · AfricaWho built Great Zimbabwe, and why was the answer buried?
  33. 1324 · AfricaHow much gold did Mansa Musa bring to Cairo in 1324?
  34. 1325 · West AsiaIbn Battuta's 29 years: what the Rihla records, and what it invents
  35. 1334 · South AsiaFondest of making gifts and of shedding blood: Ibn Battuta's Delhi
  36. 1347 · EuropeWhere did the Black Death start? Tombstones near Issyk-Kul
  37. 1400 · OceaniaDid the moai of Rapa Nui walk? What the 2012 experiment showed
  38. 1405 · East AsiaWhy did Zheng He's treasure fleets sail seven times, then stop?
  39. 1429 · Central AsiaA forty-meter arc under a Samarkand hill: Ulugh Beg's observatory
  40. 1443 · South Asia'Never seen a place like it': Abdur Razzaq at Vijayanagara, 1443
  41. 1446 · East AsiaTwenty-eight letters, 1443: Sejong's alphabet in the Sillok
  42. 1450 · The AmericasRadiocarbon says 1420: Machu Picchu's age and its return from Yale
  43. 1453 · EuropeHow did a 21-year-old sultan take Constantinople in 1453?
  44. 1455 · Europe"I, Johan Fust, have borrowed 1,550 guilders": Gutenberg Bible, 1455
  45. 1591 · AfricaThirty-five libraries, 300,000 manuscripts: Timbuktu, 1591 to 2016