Chronology of Expansion

CHRONOLOGY OF EXPANSION

901 A.D. to 1300 A.D.

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901 A.D. to 1300 A.D.	Christian Europe Regroups and Expands
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Arts	Romanesque architecture (11th-12th century) expanded on late Roman models, using the rounded arch and massed stone to support enlarged basilicas. Painting and sculpture followed Byzantine models. The literature of chivalry was exemplified by the epic (Chanson de Roland, c 1100) and by courtly love poems of the troubadours of Provence and minnesingers of Germany. Gothic architecture emerged in France (choir of St. Denis, c 1040) and spread as French cultural influence predominated in Europe. Rib vaulting and pointed arches were used to combine soaring heights with delicacy, and they freed walls for display of stained glass. Exteriors were covered with painted relief sculpture and elaborate architectural detail.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Central and East Europe	Slavs began to expand from about 150 A.D. in all directions in Europe, and by the 7th century they reached as far South as the Adriatic and Aegean seas. In the Balkan Peninsula they dislocated Romanized local populations or assimilated newcomers (Bulgarians, a Turkic people). The first Slavic states were Moravia (628) in Central Europe and the Bulgarian state (680) in the Balkans. Missions of St. Methodius and Cyril (whose Greek-based cyrillic alphabet is still used by some Southern and Eastern Slavs) converted (863) Moravia. The Eastern Slavs, part-civilized under the overlordship of the Turkish-Jewish Khazar trading empire (7th-10th century), gravitated toward Constantinople by the 9th century. The Kievan state adopted (989) Eastern Christianity under Prince Vladimir. King Boleslav I (992-1025) began Poland's long history of eastern conquest. The Magyars (Hungarians), in present-day Hungary since 896, accepted (1001) Latin Christianity.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Christian Spain	From its N mountain redoubts, Christian rule slowly migrated S through the 11th century, when Muslim unity collapsed. After the capture (1085) of Toledo, the kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon undertook repeated crusades of reconquest, finally completed in 1492. Elements of Islamic civilization persisted in recaptured areas, influencing all Western Europe.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Crusades	Pope Urban II called (1095) for a crusade to restore Asia Minor to Byzantium and to regain the Holy Land from the Turks. Some 10 crusades (to 1291) succeeded only in founding 4 temporary Frankish states in the Levant. The 4th crusade sacked (1204) Constantinople. In Rhineland (1096), England (1290), and France (1306), Jews were massacred or expelled, and wars were launched against Christian heretics (Albigensian crusade in France, 1229). Trade in eastern luxuries expanded, led by the Venetian naval empire.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Economy	The agricultural base of European life benefited from improvements in plow design (c 1000) and by draining of lowlands and clearing of forests, leading to a rural population increase. Towns grew in N Italy, Flanders, and N Germany (Hanseatic League). Improvements in loom design permitted factory textile production. Guilds dominated urban trades from the 12th century. Banking (centered in Italy, 12th-15th century) facilitated long-distance trade.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Germany	The German kingdom that emerged after the breakup of Charlemagne's W Empire remained a confederation of largely autonomous states. Otto I, a Saxon who was king from 936, established the Holy Roman Empire-a union of Germany and N Italy-in alliance with Pope John XII, who crowned (962) him emperor; he defeated (955) the Magyars. Imperial power was greatest under the Hohenstaufens (1138-1254), despite the growing opposition of the papacy, which ruled central Italy, and the Lombard League cities. Frederick II (1194-1250) improved administration and patronized the arts; after his death, German influence was removed from Italy.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Learning	Law, medicine, and philosophy were advanced at independent universities (Bologna, late 11th century), originally corporations of students and masters. Twelfth-century translations of Greek classics, especially Aristotle, encouraged an analytic approach. Scholastic philosophy, from Anselm (1033-1109) to Aquinas (1225-74) attempted to reconcile reason and revelation.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. Scandinavians	Pagan Danish and Norse (Viking) adventurers, traders, and pirates raided the coasts of the British Isles (Dublin, founded c 831), France, and even the Mediterranean for more than 200 years beginning in the late 8th century. Inland settlement in the W was limited to Great Britain (King Canute, 994-1035) and Normandy, settled (911) under Rollo, as a fief of France. Other Vikings reached Iceland (874), Greenland (c 986), and North America (Leif Eriksson, c 1000). Norse traders (Varangians) developed Russian river commerce from the 8th to the 11th century and helped set up a state at Kiev in the late 9th century. Conversion to Christianity occurred during the 10th century, reaching Sweden 100 years later. Eleventh-century Norman bands conquered S Italy and Sicily. Duke William of Normandy conquered (1066) England, bringing continental feudalism and the French language, essential elements in later English civilization.
901 A.D. to 1300 A.D. The Church	The split between the Eastern and Western churches was formalized in 1054. Western and Central Europe was divided into 500 bishoprics under one united hierarchy, but conflicts between secular and church authorities were frequent (German Investiture Controversy, 1075-1122). Clerical power was first strengthened through the international monastic reform begun at Cluny in 910. Popular religious enthusiasm often expressed itself in heretical movements (Waldensians from 1173), but was channelled by the Dominican (1215) and Franciscan (1223) friars into the religious mainstream.
10^th Century 1 Jan 901 A.D.	10^th Century Begins
901 A.D.	Horses will come into wider use in those parts of Europe where the three-field system produces grain surpluses for feed, but hay-fed oxen will be more economical, if less efficient, in terms of time and labor and will remain almost the sole source of animal power in southern Europe, where most farmers will continue to use the two-field system.
901 A.D.	The work collar, or broad-breast collar, for draft animals will come into general use in this century, allowing a horse to draw from its shoulders without pressing upon its windpipe and quadrupling a horse's efficiency as compared with horsepower derived from animals harnessed with neck yokes of the kind employed on oxen.
901 A.D.	Europe will suffer 20 severe famines in this century, some of them lasting for 3 to 4 years. An alimentary crisis will occur every few years for the next 3 centuries, in fact, and as populations grow and become more urbanized, the famines will strike more cruelly, although they may be fewer in number than in some earlier centuries.
901 A.D.	The century will be marked by struggles between Muslims and Christians, Greeks and Russians, and Lombards, Bulgarians, Arabs, and Byzantines.
901 A.D.	The son of the late king of Provence (or Lower Burgundy) Boso, 21, is chosen king of the Lombards at Pavia, crowned at Rome in February by Pope Benedict IV, and will reign until 905 as the Holy Roman Emperor Louis III.
901 A.D.	Edward the Elder of Wessex takes the title "King of the Angles and Saxons."
904 A.D.	Thessalonica is stormed July 31 by the Saracen corsair Leo of Tripoli, who plunders the town and carries off some 20,000 inhabitants as slaves.
905 A.D.	The Holy Roman Emperor Louis III is surprised July 21 after having subdued the Lombards. He is blinded and sent back to Arles.
905 A.D.	Navarre is made a kingdom as the Christian reconquest of Spain begins under Alfonso III, 57, of León and the Asturias.
906 A.D.	Annam in Southeast Asia obtains independence after more than 1,000 years of Chinese domination.
906 A.D.	The Chola king Aditya dies after a 35-year reign in which he has expanded his empire to cover all of southeast India.
907 A.D.	China's Tang dynasty comes to an end after 289 years as the Khitan Mongols under Ye-lu A-pao-chi begin to conquer much of the country. Five different dynasties will assert imperial authority in the next 52 years, but none will exercise much power beyond the Yellow River Basin (see Song, 960).
907 A.D.	Hungary's Magyar chief Arpád dies after having founded a dynasty that will reign until 1301 (although its first king will not be crowned as such until 997). The Magyars destroy the Moravian Empire and make raids into German and Italian territory.
907 A.D.	Oleg, Prince of Kiev, besieges Constantinople with 2,000 ships and secures trading rights from the world's leading center of commerce and culture.
909 A.D.	Edward the Elder defeats an army of invading Danes.
910 A.D.	Edward the Elder gains fresh victories over the Danes and takes possession of London and Oxford on the death of his brother-in-law Ethelred of Mercia.
910 A.D.	The kingdom of Asturias is renamed the kingdom of León with Alfonso III as its king.
910 A.D.	The Byzantine emperor Leo VI (the Wise) is forced to pay tribute to the Magyars.
910 A.D.	The Benedictine Abbey of Cluny is founded.
911 A.D.	The Treaty of St. Clair-sur-Epte establishes the dukedom of Normandy, and Rollo the Viking (Hrolf the Ganger) becomes France's first duc d'Orléans as the Scandinavian Norsemen extend their domination over the Franks. Rollo will be baptized next year, taking the name Robert, and will acquire large parts of what will later be called Normandy.
911 A.D.	The German king Louis the Child dies in early November at age 18, and the son of Conrad, count of Lahngau, is chosen German king November 8 at Forchheim. Lorraine transfers her allegiance to France.
912 A.D.	The Byzantine emperor Leo VI dies after a 26-year reign in which he has completed the Basilian code of laws begun by his predecessor. He is succeeded by his brother, who will reign for less than a year.
913 A.D.	The Byzantine emperor Alexander II dies and is succeeded by his 8-year-old nephew, son of the late Leo VI, who will reign until 959 as Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus ("born to the purple"). The government is administered by a regency composed of Constantine's mother Zoë Carbonopsina, the patriarch Nikolas, and John Eladas.
913 A.D.	Bulgarian forces menace Constantinople. Their czar Symeon calls himself emperor of the Romans.
914 A.D.	Adrianople falls to the Bulgarian czar Symeon, but Byzantine forces soon retake it.
914 A.D.	England's Warwick Castle near Stratford-upon-Avon is fortified by a daughter of the late Alfred the Great.
915 A.D.	Famine strikes the Iberian Peninsula, possibly as a result of a wheat crop failure due to rust.
917 A.D.	The Bulgarian czar Symeon overruns Thrace in violation of a 913 agreement with Constantinople. The Byzantines launch a counterattack but are routed August 20 at Anchialus. Symeon gains control of the Balkans.
918 A.D.	The German king Conrad I dies September 23 after a 7-year reign in which he has warred with the Danes, the Slavs, the Magyars, and the duke of Saxony, 42. The Lombard king Berengar, a grandson of Louis the Pious, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 915 and will continue as such until his death in 924, but Conrad has advised his nobles to make the duke of Saxony the next German king. They will elect the duke king at Fritzlar next May, and he will reign until 936 as Henry the Fowler.
919 A.D.	Famine returns to the Iberian Peninsula, which is ruled in the south by the Amayyad caliph Abd ar-Rahman III and in the Christian north by princes who are establishing the beginnings of León, Castile, and Navarre.
922 A.D.	The Persian mystic Al-Hallaj (abu al-Mughith-al-Hsayn ibn Mansur), 64, is sentenced to death for heresy after a long trial and is flogged, mutilated, and beheaded March 27 at Baghdad. He has supported reform of the caliphate and been seen as a rabble-rouser.
922 A.D.	France's Charles III (the Simple) is deposed by rebellious barons and replaced with Robert, brother of King Odo, who is crowned king of the Franks at Reims June 29 while Charles gathers an army to march against the usurper.
923 A.D.	The Battle of Soissons June 15 ends with the death of Robert at the hands of Charles III, but Charles is defeated and the barons elect Rudolf, duke of Burgundy, to succeed Robert. They imprison Charles, who will die at Peronne in 929.
924 A.D.	Edward the Elder of Wessex and Mercia dies July 17 and is succeeded by his son Athelstan, 29, who will reign until 940, continuing his father's conquest of the Danelaw north of the Thames-Lea line from the Vikings who have been in Britain since 787.
924 A.D.	Bulgaria's czar Symeon attacks Constantinople but is repelled at the city walls.
925 A.D.	Henry the Fowler annexes Lotharingia (Lorraine) as the French fight among themselves.
926 A.D.	The Bulgarian czar Symeon attacks Croat forces who have allied themselves with the Byzantines and is repulsed, meeting with his first defeat.
927 A.D.	Famine devastates the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople's Constantine VII and his co-emperor father-in-law Romanus Lecapenus push through stringent laws to prevent great landed magnates from buying up the small holdings of poor farmers.
927 A.D.	Bulgaria's Symeon dies of a heart attack May 27 after building an empire that stretches from the Ionian to the Black Sea. He is succeeded by his son Peter, who signs a peace treaty with the Byzantines in October.
928 A.D.	France's Louis III (the Blind) dies at Arles in September at age 48 after a 27-year reign, of which 23 were sightless. His son Charles Constantine succeeds only to the county of Vienne.
929 A.D.	Wenceslas, king of Christian Bohemia, is murdered at Prague by his pagan brother Boleslav.
929 A.D.	Cordova's emir Abd ar-Rahman III proclaims himself caliph, establishing Spain as a Muslim power and a rival to the Fatimids of Ifriqiyah (Tunisia).
930 A.D.	The Japanese emperor Daigo dies at age 45 after a 33-year reign and is succeeded by his son of 7, who will reign until 946 as the emperor Suzaku. The boy was kept indoors until age 3 by his mother, who will dominate him, but the ex-emperor Uda remains the power behind the throne and will retain power until his death next year at age 65.
932 A.D.	Printing is used for the first time to reproduce Confucian classics of the 5th century B.C.
933 A.D.	Henry the Fowler routs Magyar raiders March 15 at Merseburg.
936 A.D.	The duke of Burgundy Rudolf dies and is succeeded as king of France by the son of the late Charles III. His mother is the sister of Athelstan and fled with him to Wessex after the imprisonment of Charles in 922. Now 15, the boy is chosen king by the count of Paris, Hugh the Great, whose father Robert was killed at Soissons in 923. He is consecrated at Laon June 19 and will reign until 954 as Louis IV d'Outremer.
936 A.D.	The German king Henry the Fowler dies at Memleben July 2 at age 60 after a 17-year reign in which he has created the Saxon army and founded Saxon town life. He is succeeded by his son, 23, who will be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962 and reign until 973 as Otto I.
936 A.D.	Tatars attack Beijing and capture the town (see 1151).
939 A.D.	Otto I gains victory in the Battle of Andernach over Eberhard of Franconia and other rebellious dukes, asserting Saxon power over all Germany after years of anarchy, internal rivalries, and foreign invasions since the breakup of the Frankish Empire.
939 A.D.	Vietnam gains independence after nearly 1,000 years of Chinese rule (see Annam, 906).
939 A.D.	Japan's Taira and Minamoto clans challenge the imperial court at Kyoto, causing chaos in the provinces.
940 A.D.	Athelstan dies after a 16-year reign and is succeeded as king of the English by his half-brother, who will reign until 946 as Edmund.
940 A.D.	Irish-Norse Vikings led by Olaf conquer York and force the Anglo-Saxon king Edmund to cede lands (see 944).
941 A.D.	Igor, Prince of Kiev, crosses the Black Sea while the Byzantine fleet is in the Aegean, plunders Bithynia, and reaches the gates of Constantinople, but the Greek navy drives off the Russians and nearly annihilates their fleet with the help of "Greek fire," an incendiary liquid that burns atop water.
943 A.D.	Ergotism strikes Limoges in France, killing an estimated 40,000 who have eaten bread made from diseased rye (see 857; 1039).
944 A.D.	Danish settlers help Edmund regain the territory he ceded to Olaf in 940.
945 A.D.	Kyoto is invaded by several thousand farmers who demonstrate against requisition of their rice and other crops.
945 A.D.	Igor, Prince of Kiev, is killed in battle with Drevlianian tribesmen and is succeeded by his widow, Olga, who will reign until 962. She will be the first Slavic ruler to embrace Christianity.
945 A.D.	Baghdad falls in December to Shiite forces under Imad ibn Buwayhid, who takes the capital of the once-powerful Abbasid caliphate but keeps the caliph as a figurehead while he tries to restore peace (see 946).
946 A.D.	The Abbasid caliph al-Mustaqfi is blinded and deposed in January. His realm is being taken over by the three Buwayhid brothers (Imad al-Dawla, Runk al-Dawla, and Mu'izz al-Dawla) whose descendants will, in turn, lose their dominions to the Ghaznavids, Kurdish Kakwayhids, and Seljuk Turks (see 1055).
946 A.D.	Edmund I is killed by an outlawed robber in Gloucestershire after a 6-year reign and is succeeded as king of England by his brother, who will reign until 955 as Edred.
946 A.D.	The Japanese emperor Suzaku dies at age 23 after a 16-year reign and is succeeded by his brother Murakami, 2, who will reign until 967.
950 A.D.	Europe's intellectual center is Cordova in Muslim Spain. The city of 500,000 has libraries, medical schools, and a large paper trade.
954 A.D.	France's Louis IV dies September 10 at age 33 and is succeeded by his son Lothair, 13, who will reign until 986, initially under the guardianship of Hugh the Great, count of Paris, and later under his maternal uncle Bruno, archbishop of Cologne.
955 A.D.	The Battle of the Lechfeld August 10 ends 50 years of Magyar invasion of the West. Otto the Great of Saxony defeats the Magyars with an army recruited from all the duchies. He will go on to defeat the Wends on the Recknitz, reestablish Charlemagne's East Mark (Austria) with Bavarian colonists, and begin what Germans will call the First Reich.
955 A.D.	Edred dies after a 9-year reign and is succeeded as king of England by his nephew, who will reign until 959 as Edwig.
956 A.D.	Hugh the Great dies June 17, 2 months after becoming effective master of Burgundy. He is succeeded by his son Hugh Capet, 18, who is recognized with some reluctance as duke of the Franks by his cousin Lothair IV, king of the Franks.
959 A.D.	The first king of England is recognized as such in the person of Edgar, who ascends the throne at age 15 following the death of his elder brother Edwig in October. A son of Edmund I, a great-grandson of Edward the Elder, and a great-great-grandson of Alfred the Great, Edgar will regin until 978.
959 A.D.	The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII dies after a reign of 47 years. His young son Romanus II will begin a 4-year reign of dissipation.
959 A.D.	Edgar (see 959) recalls the monk Dunstan, 50, from exile in Flanders, makes him bishop of Worcester, and will make him bishop of London.
960 A.D.	The Northern Song dynasty that will rule China until 1279 is established at Kaifeng by Zhao Kuangyin, who begins to restore China's unity. He will rule until 976 as (Song) Tai Zu to begin the dynasty that will overlap the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which will begin in 1260 (see 618).
960 A.D.	The first ruler of Poland establishes himself in the person of Mieszko, who has conquered territory between the Oder and the Warthe rivers. He will be converted to Christianity in 966. He will reign until 992 but will be defeated by the margrave Gero and be forced to recognize German suzerainty.
961 A.D.	Crete is reconquered from Saracen pirates by a great Byzantine armada commanded by Nicephorus Phocas, who storms Candia, expels the Muslims, and converts the people to Christianity.
961 A.D.	Bishop Dunstan is made archbishop of Canterbury by Edgar, whose coronation will not take place until 963 but whose chief adviser will be the archbishop.
962 A.D.	The Saxon Otto I is crowned Holy Roman Emperor February 2 by Pope John XII, ending Rome's feudal anarchy. Otto revives the Western Empire, beginning a period of friction with Constantinople.
963 A.D.	The dissolute Byzantine emperor Romanus II dies at age 25, probably of poison administered by his wife Theophano. He is succeeded by his infant son, who will reign until 1025 as Basil II. The great general Nicephorus Phocas, now 41, will be co-emperor until 969.
967 A.D.	The Japanese emperor Murakami dies at age 41 after a 21-year reign and is succeeded by his son of 17, who is insane but will nonetheless reign until 969 as the emperor Reizei.
969 A.D.	Cairo is founded by the Fatimids, Shiite Muslims from Ifriqiyah, who have conquered much of Egypt. They impose their will on the local Sunni.
969 A.D.	The Byzantine co-emperor Nicephorus is murdered by his wife's lover, the Armenian general John Tzimiskes, 45, who will himself reign as co-emperor until 976.
969 A.D.	Kiev's Prince Sviatoslav invades Bulgaria and captures her czar (see 971).
969 A.D.	Antioch falls to Byzantine forces October 28 after a long siege, ending 300 years of Arab rule in the Syrian city.
969 A.D.	The mad Japanese emperor Reizei is removed by the Fujiwara family after a reign of nearly 2 years and replaced by his brother, 10, who will reign until 984 as the emperor Enyu.
970 A.D.	A great hospital is founded at Baghdad by the vizier Abud al-Daula. Physicians are divided into the equivalent of interns and externs, a primitive nursing system is developed, and the hospital's pharmacy is stocked with drugs from all parts of the known world, including spices thought to have medicinal value.
971 A.D.	The Bulgarian czar John drives out Sviatoslav, annexes much of the country, and restores trade with the Russians.
972 A.D.	Kyoto's 5-story Daigo pagoda is completed after 29 years of construction.
973 A.D.	Cloves, ginger, pepper, and other Eastern spices are available for purchase in the marketplace at Mainz reports the Moorish physician-merchant lbrahim ibn Yaacub, who has visited that city. The spices have been brought to Mainz by Jewish traveling merchants known as "Radanites," who have kept some international trade channels open in the 3 centuries of conflict between the Christian and Islamic worlds. In addition to spices, the Radanites have traded in numerous other commodities, transporting furs, woolen cloth, Frankish swords, eunuchs, and white female slaves to Asia, while returning to Christian Europe with musk, pearls, precious stones, aloes, and spices that include cinnamon.
973 A.D.	Direct trade between Egypt and Italy begins.
973 A.D.	The Holy Roman Emperor Otto I dies May 7 at age 60 after an 11-year reign. He is succeeded by his son, 18, who has been joint emperor since Christmas 967 and last year took as his wife the Byzantine princess Theophano, daughter of Romanus II. The new emperor will reign until late 983 as Otto II.
975 A.D.	England's Edgar the Peaceful dies at age 31 after a 16-year reign in which he has ceded Lothian (northern Bernicia) to Scotland's Kenneth for the sake of good will and organized a fleet to resist northern pirates. He is succeeded by his son Edward, 12, who will reign until 978.
975 A.D.	William, count of Arles, takes Garde-Freinet from the Arabs.
975 A.D.	Arabs introduce modern arithmetical notation, originally from India, into Europe making calculations much easier than with Roman numerals.
976 A.D.	The Byzantine co-emperor John I Tzimisces dies January 10 at age 51 after returning from a second campaign against the Saracens. The emperor Basil II, now 20, will reign alone until 1025.
976 A.D.	The Bulgarian Samuel sets himself up as czar to begin a 38-year reign in which he will challenge the power of the Byzantine emperor Basil II (see 976; 996).
976 A.D.	Modern Austria has her beginnings in a margraviate on the Danube granted by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II to the Franconian count Leopold (Luitpold), whose family will rule the country until 1246 (see 1156).
976 A.D.	Cordova's caliph Hakam II dies at age 63 after a 15-year reign in which he has ended the Fatimid dynasty in Morocco and made the University of Cordova the greatest institution of learning in the world. He is succeeded by his son Hisham, 12, who will be caliph until 1009 and then again from 1010 to 1013 but will never have any real power (see 978).
978 A.D.	England's King Edward is assassinated March 18 at Corfe Castle in Dorset at age 15 in a conspiracy engineered by his stepmother Elfthryth, who wants the crown for her son of 10. The boy will reign until 1016 as Ethelred (Aethelred) II.
978 A.D.	Aix-la-Chapelle is sacked by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, who is at war with the French king Lothair.
978 A.D.	Cordova's regent al-Mansur (Mohammad ibn-abi'Amir), 39, seizes power from the caliph Hisham II, now 14. Finance minister under Hisham's late father, Hakam II, al-Mansur will wage successful campaigns against the Christian kingdoms to the north, check separatist religious movements, and extend the power of the Umayyad caliphate in the next 24 years.
980 A.D.	Kiev falls to Viking warriors called in by Vladimir of Great Novgorod, 24, who makes himself grand duke of Kiev and will reign until 1003, extending his Russian dominions (see 987).
980 A.D.	English ports including Chester and Southampton come under attack in a renewal of Danish raids.
981 A.D.	Norse Icelanders sail for Greenland in 25 ships that carry 700 people with cattle, horses, and other necessities for starting a colony (see 900). The expedition is led by Eric the Red, an exiled murderer whose family came to Iceland more than 20 years ago from Joeder. Only 14 of the 25 ships will reach their destination (see 982).
981 A.D.	The Holy Roman Emperor Otto II marches into Apulia to punish the Saracens who have invaded the Italian mainland.
982 A.D.	Eric the Red establishes the first Viking colonies in Greenland (see 981).
982 A.D.	Last year's invasion of Apulia by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II provokes the Byzantine emperor Basil II, who sends troops to support the Arabs. Otto sustains a devastating defeat in July and escapes on a Greek vessel to Rossano without revealing his identity.
982 A.D.	Viking raiders attack Dorset, Portland, and South Wales.
983 A.D.	The Holy Roman Emperor Otto II raises German and Italian princes for a new campaign against the Saracens, but he hears of a general rising by the Slavs east of the Elbe River and dies suddenly in his palace at Rome December 7 at age 28. He is succeeded by his son of 3, who is crowned German king Christmas Day at Aix-la-Chapelle by Germans unaware of the emperor's death and will reign until 1002 as Otto III with his mother Theophano exercising power until 991 and his grandmother Adelheid and Archbishop Willigis of Mainz taking over until 996.
984 A.D.	The German boy-king Otto III is seized early in the year by the deposed duke of Bavaria, Henry the Quarrelsome, 33, who was defeated and dethroned by Otto II in 976 and forced to give up Carinthia and Verona. Henry (Heinrich der Zanker) has recovered his duchy and claims the regency as a member of the reigning house but is forced to hand over the boy to his mother Theophano, who arrives with the boy's grandmother Adelheid.
984 A.D.	The Japanese emperor Enyu abdicates in favor of his son, 16, who will reign until 986 as Kazan.
985 A.D.	The Danish king Harald II (Bluetooth) dies after a 35-year reign and is succeeded by his son Sweyn (Forkbeard), who will defeat the Norwegians, Swedes, and Wends, conquer England, and reign until 1014.
986 A.D.	al-Tasrif is compiled at Cordova and will serve for centuries as a manual of surgery. The surgeon Albucasis (Abul Kasim), who served as court physician to the late caliph Hakam II, illustrates the résumé of Arabian medical knowledge in which he describes the position for lithotomy (cutting a stone out of the urinary bladder), differentiates between goiter and cancer of the thyroid gland, and instructs surgeons in the delivery of infants in abnormal positions, use of iron cautery, amputation of limbs, transverse tracheotomies, removal of goiters, tying of arteries, repair of fistulas, healing of aneurisms and arrow wounds, and other matters.
986 A.D.	Lothair IV of the Franks dies March 2 at age 44 and is succeeded by his son, 19, who will reign briefly as Louis V (le Fainéant), embroiling the Carolingians with Adalberon, archbishop of Reims, and Hugh Capet.
986 A.D.	India is invaded by Subuktigan, Muslim sultan of Ghazni, a former Turkish slave who has obtained the sultanate by marriage and who founds the Ghaznevid dynasty that will rule Afghanistan and much of India.
986 A.D.	The Japanese emperor Kazan is tricked into abdicating at age 18 and becomes a Buddhist priest one year after the death of his wife in childbirth. He is succeeded by his half brother, 6, who will reign until 1011 as Ichijo.
987 A.D.	France's Louis V dies in May, and it is alleged that his mother Emma poisoned him. His death at age 20 ends the Carolingian dynasty founded by Charlemagne in 800, and the Capetian dynasty that will rule until 1328 comes to power in the person of Hugh Capet, now 49. The archbishop of Reims declares that the Frankish monarchy is elective rather than hereditary, denies the claims of the late king's uncle Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, and engineers the election of his friend Hugh Capet, who is crowned in July and will reign until 996.
987 A.D.	Anatolia is overrun by the great feudal barons Bardas Phocas and Bardas Skleros, who ris